“I swiped it from the lab when no one was looking,” Nitchie sheepishly admits.
Anderson gives the doctor a surprised look.
“I know I probably shouldn’t have,” Nitchie explains, “but, well, there was a whole bin full of them, and no one appeared really interested in analyzing them.”
“A whole bin of them?” Anderson asks.
“Yes,” Nitchie confirms, “apparently a large number of them were found washed up on shore. But again, no one appeared too interested in looking at them, so I didn’t think anyone would notice.”
“I don’t get it, Doc,” Anderson admits. “If there was a whole bunch of these dead fish, and they all contained the same radiation burns, the blast radius must have been huge to affect all these fish-”
Anderson notices Nitchie staring at him with an ace-up-his-sleeve look and he stops in mid-sentence. “What is it?” he asks the doctor.
“You’re on the right track, Private Anderson,” Nitchie indicates. “I’ve got something else I need to show you.”
Nitchie leans down again and rummages inside the pouch for a moment before finding what he is looking for, bringing the object up for inspection under the moonlight. Anderson leans in closer, attempting to discern what Nitchie is holding, which appears to be wrapped in a solid, plastic container. Suddenly, Anderson realizes he is staring at a human arm, separated from the torso directly below the shoulder.
“Jesus Christ,” Anderson breathes.
He instinctively steps back in disgust, while at the same time he cannot look away from it. He brings his hand up to the container and instantly feels a ripple of cold radiate from it. He glances at Nitchie, who explains, “I put it on ice, to preserve it.”
“For what? You running away with it?” Anderson asks jokingly.
“I may have to,” Nitchie deadpans.
“Why?”
Without missing a beat, Nitchie earnestly says, “This is evidence, Private Anderson. Evidence that whatever these people,” he motions towards the lab constructed below, “have told General Parker or General Cozey or the press simply is not the truth. In fact, it’s pure and utter bullshit.”
It sounds funny to hear the straight-laced doctor cuss, but Anderson refrains from laughing.
“No radiation marks anywhere,” Nitchie explains as he turns the container over and over. “You see? No burns similar to our fish. That’s one thing. Second, look at the edges of the wound where supposedly the arm was ripped from the torso.”
Anderson leans in for a closer look, “Yeah, so?”
“If this arm was part of a body that was involved in an explosion from several bombs that were detonated here, as they claim, then the edges would be much more ragged, much more uneven. Look at the edges here,” the doctor notes, pointing with his index finger along the edges of the wound, “it’s practically even all around, almost like a perfect separation, a perfect slice if you will.”
“What are you getting at, Doc?” Anderson asks, the paranoia starting to take root in him, too.
“And third,” the doctor continues, “the heat and pressure from a bomb instantly cauterizes the flesh, creating a solid-like coat across the surface of the wound.”
Again, Nitchie points to the edges of the wound. “I see no evidence of cauterization here, and in fact, no marks whatsoever that would indicate this arm, and the body that was attached to it, met with a violent end, let alone that it came from a victim at this site.”
“So where did it come from?” Anderson wonders.
Nitchie sighs, a hint of despair in his voice, “I don’t know, Private Anderson, but if I had to guess, it looks like it came from a medical school cadaver.”
At first, Anderson thinks Nitchie is trying his hand at some morbid humor, but when he looks at the man’s face, he realizes he is serious as a heart attack.
“I stole a quick look in a few of the other bodybags they had stored in the morgue, and all the . . . ‘parts’ I saw were similar to this extremity: no radiation marks, no rough edges, no cauterization. They looked like they were all parts from bodies donated to . . science.”
Nitchie says this last word with a touch of regret, like he is ashamed to be associated with the scientific community at a time like this. Or maybe he finally realizes the magnitude and scope of what he is saying.
Anderson motions to the arm, “So if this isn’t from a victim of the attack, what happened to the real victims? Where are they?”
“Private Anderson, I don’t know where they are,” Nitchie acknowledges, “but I think the people I’m working with know something everybody else doesn’t. What I do know is you need to question everything you’ve been told with respect to what occurred here. Everything is suspect, and the first question you should ask is whether there was even an attack here last night.”
“Doc,” Anderson asks incredulously, “are you telling me that this is some kind of a hoax? Why go to the trouble of using bogus body parts if no one is going to see them?”
“The bodybags, Private Anderson,” Nitchie counters. “I’m sure ‘they’ did not plan on someone who is not even supposed to be here, someone like me, to start sifting through the bodybags looking for confirmation of what happened here. Those bodybags, though, regardless of what they contain, leave a powerful and lasting impression when those images are beamed around the world. Nobody questions what they contain because everybody knows what a bodybag is for. The nation only questions what is being done to find the people responsible.”
While Anderson remains hesitant to believe Nitchie, he has to admit the man does not fail to examine all the angles. Nevertheless, Anderson may be skeptical of the doctor because of the startling implications he, along with the rest of the world, would be forced to face if the doctor is telling the truth. Indeed, it is the doctor’s inferences that frighten Anderson the most. He shudders to think that the alleged attack was not an attack at all, but something else entirely, and he wonders what other things are not what they seem here.
Finally, Nitchie seems to realize he has been missing for too long and he urgently says, “Alright, Private, I need to get back before someone misses me, which is unlikely considering how much mind they’ve paid me so far, but no sense in setting off any alarms. I need you to explain to General Parker as soon as you can everything that I have told you. Tell him about the lackadaisical procedures, tell him about Bason and Stringer pulling the strings, tell him about the radiation, and for God’s sake, have him examine the bodybags before they ship them out of here for good. And tell him that nothing-”
“-is what it seems,” Anderson finishes. “Yeah, I know, I’ll tell him.”
The doctor appears to flash Anderson what would probably be called a smile, if it did not look so awkward on his face.
“Right,” Nitchie confirms.
He replaces the extremity in the pouch and slings the pouch over his shoulder.
“Thank you, Private Anderson,” Nitchie says, extending his hand.
Anderson hesitates for a moment, still wary of the doctor and looking rather shell-shocked.
“Thank you, Doc,” Anderson replies, grasping his hand, “I think.”
Nitchie turns and walks away when Anderson calls to him in a hushed whisper, “Hey, good luck, Doc. Come get me if you get caught in a jam.”
The doctor turns around and looks at him with an appreciative eye. Anderson adds, “You know where to find me.”
Nitchie nods and then disappears