“He’s gone,” Kevin said. “They’re not dangerous unless you’re in the water or they’re very hungry.”

“Who’s to say he’s not hungry?” Candace commented.

“There’s plenty for them to eat out here,” Kevin said as he picked up the rope and recommenced pulling. When the float reached the other side, he switched ropes and started pulling it back.

“Ah, it’s too late,” he said. “This isn’t going to work. The closest nesting area we saw on the computer graphic is over a mile away. We’ll have to try this in the daytime.”

No sooner had these words escaped from his mouth when the night was shattered by a number of fearsome screams. At the same time, there was wild commotion in the bushes on the island as if a stampeding elephant was about to appear.

Kevin dropped the rope. Both Candace and Melanie fled back along the path a few steps before stopping. With pulses pounding they froze, waiting for another scream. With a shaking hand, Melanie shined the flashlight at the area where the commotion had occurred. Everything was still. Not a leaf moved.

Ten tense seconds passed that seemed more like ten minutes. The group strained their ears to pick up the slightest sound. There was nothing but utter silence. All the night creatures had fallen silent. It was as if the entire jungle was waiting for a catastrophe.

“What in heaven’s name was that?” Melanie asked finally.

“I’m not sure I want to find out,” Candace said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“It must have been a couple of the bonobos,” Kevin said. He reached out and grabbed the rope. The float was being buffeted in midstream. He quickly hauled it in.

“I think Candace is right,” Melanie said. “It’s gotten too dark to see much even if they did appear. I’m spooked. Let’s go!”

“You’ll not get an argument from me,” Kevin said as he made his way over to the women. “I don’t know what we’re doing here at this hour. We’ll come back in the daylight.”

They hurried along the path to the clearing as best they could. Melanie led with the flashlight. Candace was behind her, holding on to her blouse. Kevin brought up the rear.

“It would be great to get a key for this bridge,” Kevin said as they passed the structure.

“And how do you propose to do that?” Melanie asked.

“Borrow Bertram’s,” Kevin said.

“But you told us he forbid anyone to go to the island,” Melanie said. “He’s certainly not going to lend the key.”

“We’ll have to borrow it without his knowledge,” Kevin said.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Melanie said sarcastically.

They entered the tunnel-like path leading up to the car. Halfway to the parking area Melanie said: “God, it’s dark. Am I holding the light okay for you guys?”

“It’s fine,” Candace said.

Melanie slowed then stopped.

“What’s the matter?” Kevin asked.

“There’s something strange,” she said. She cocked her head to the side, listening.

“Now don’t get me scared,” Candace warned.

“The frogs and crickets haven’t restarted their racket,” Melanie said.

In the next instant all hell broke loose. A loud, repetitive stuttering noise splintered the jungle stillness. Branches, twigs, and leaves rained down on the group. Kevin recognized the noise and reacted by reflex. Extending his arms, he literally tackled the women so that all three fell to the moist insect-infested earth.

The reason Kevin recognized the sound was because he once had inadvertently witnessed the Equatoguinean soldiers practicing. The noise was the sound of a machine gun.

MARCH 5, 1997

2:15 P.M.

NEW YORK CITY

“EXCUSE me, Laurie,” Cheryl Myers said, standing in the doorway to Laurie’s office. Cheryl was one of the forensic investigators. “We just received this overnight package, and I thought you might want it right away.”

Laurie stood up and took the parcel. She was curious about what it could be. She looked at the label to find out the sender. It was CNN.

“Thanks, Cheryl,” Laurie said. She was perplexed. She had no idea for the moment what CNN could have sent her.

“I see Dr. Mehta is not in,” Cheryl said. “I brought up a chart for her that came in from University Hospital. Should I put it on her desk?” Dr. Riva Mehta was Laurie’s office mate. They’d shared the space since both had started at the medical examiner’s office six and a half years previously.

“Sure,” Laurie said, preoccupied with her parcel. She got her finger under the flap and pulled it open. Inside was a videotape. Laurie looked at the label. It said: Carlo Franconi shooting, March 3,1997.

After having finished her final autopsy that morning, Laurie had been ensconced in her office, trying to complete some of the twenty-odd cases that she had pending. She’d been busy reviewing microscopic slides, laboratory results, hospital records, and police reports, and for several hours had not thought of the Franconi business. The arrival of the tape brought it all back. Unfortunately the video was meaningless without the body.

Laurie tossed the tape into her briefcase and tried to get back to work. But after fifteen minutes of wasted effort, she turned the light off under her microscope. She couldn’t concentrate. Her mind kept toying with the baffling question of how the body had disappeared. It was as if it had been an amazing magic trick. One minute the body was safely stored in compartment one eleven and viewed by three employees, then poof, it was gone. There had to be an explanation, but try as she might, Laurie could not fathom it.

Laurie decided to head down to the basement to visit the mortuary office. She’d expected at least one tech to be available, but when she arrived the room was unoccupied. Undaunted, Laurie went over to the large, leather-bound log. Flipping the page, she looked for the entries that Mike Passano had shown her the previous night. She found them without difficulty. Taking a pencil from a collection in a coffee mug and a sheet of scratch paper, Laurie wrote down the names and accession numbers of the two bodies that had come in during the night shift: Dorothy Kline #101455 and Frank Gleason #100385. She also wrote down the names of the two funeral homes: Spoletto in Ozone Park, New York, and the Dickson in Summit, New Jersey.

Laurie was about to leave when her eye caught the large Rolodex on the corner of the desk. She decided to call each home. After identifying herself, she asked to speak to the managers.

What had sparked her interest in telephoning was the outside chance that either one of the pickups could have been bogus. She thought the chances were slim, since the night tech, Mike Passano, had said the homes had called before coming and presumably he was familiar with the people.

As Laurie expected, the pickups indeed were legitimate, both managers attesting to the fact that the bodies had come in to their respective homes and were at that time on view.

Laurie went back to the logbook and looked again at the names of the two arrivals. To be complete, she copied them down along with their accession numbers. The names were familiar to her, since she’d assigned them as autopsies the following morning to Paul Plodgett. But she wasn’t as interested in the arrivals as the departures. The arrivals had come in with longtime ME employees, whereas the bodies that had gone out had done so with strangers.

Feeling frustrated, Laurie drummed her pencil on the desk surface. She was sure she had to be missing something. Once again, her eye caught the Rolodex which was open to the Spoletto Funeral Home. In the very back of Laurie’s mind, the name made a hazy association. For a moment, she struggled with her memory. Why was that name familiar? Then she remembered. It had been during the Cerino affair. A man had been murdered in the Spoletto Funeral Home on orders from Paul Cerino, Franconi’s predecessor.