All three observers were now craning forward, eyes huge and mouths agape; but while the faces of the two on the outside were fixed in a sort of involuntary rictus of denial – prepared to wince or even exclaim at what they now suspected was to come – that of their superior was shaped only of knowledge and morbid expectancy.
With a precision denying the seemingly eccentric or at best random movements of the rest of his limbs – which now fluttered and twitched like those of a dead frog, electrically coerced into a pseudo-life of their own – the arm and hand of the naked man swept down and sliced open the corpse from just below the rib-cage, through the navel and down to the mass of wiry grey pubic hair. Two more apparently random but absolutely exact slashes, following so rapidly as almost to be a part of the first movement, and the cadaver’s belly was marked with a great T with extended top and bottom bars.
Without pause, the hideously automatic author of this awful surgery now blindly tossed away his blade across the room, dug his hands into the central incision up to his wrists and laid back the flaps of the dead man’s abdomen like a pair of cupboard doors. Cold, the exposed guts did not smoke; no blood flowed as such; but when the naked man took away his hands they glistened a dull red, as if fresh painted.
To perform this opening of the body had required an effort of almost Herculean strength – visible in the sudden bulging of muscles across the naked man’s shoulders, at the sides of his rib-cage and in his upper arms – for all the tissues fastening down the protective outer layers of the stomach must be torn at once. Also, it had been done with a fierce snarl, clearly audible over the radio link, which had drawn back his lips from clenched teeth and caused the sinews of his neck to stand out in sharp relief.
But now, with his subject’s viscera entirely exposed, again a strange stillness came over him. Greyer than before, if that were at all possible, he once more straightened up, rocked back on his heels, let his red hands fall to his sides. And rocking forward again, his neutral blue eyes turned down and began a slow, minute examination of the corpse’s innards.
In the other room the man on the left sat gulping continuously, his hands clawing at the arms of his chair, his face gleaming with fine perspiration. The one on the right had turned the colour of slate, shaking from head to toe, rapidly panting to compensate for a heart which now raced in his chest. But between them ex-Army General Gregor Borowitz, now head of the highly secret Agency for the Development of Paranormal Espionage, was utterly engrossed, his leonine head forward, his heavily jowled face full of awe as he absorbed each and every detail and nuance of the performance, ignoring as best he might the discomfort of his juniors where they flanked him. On the rim of his consciousness a thought formed: he wondered if the others would be sick, and which one would throw up first. And where he would throw up.
On the floor under the table stood a metal waste bin containing a few crumpled scraps of paper and dead cigarette ends. Without taking his eyes from the one-way screen, Borowitz reached down, lifted the waste bin up between his knees and placed it centrally on the table before him. He thought: Let them fight it out between them. In any case, and whichever one let the down side, his vomiting would doubtless elicit a response in the other.
As if reading his mind, the man on the right panted, ‘Comrade General, I do not think that I -‘
‘Be still!’ Borowitz lashed out with his foot, catching the other’s ankle. ‘Watch – if you can. If you can’t, then be quiet and let me!’
The naked man’s back was bowed now, bringing his face to within inches of the corpse’s exposed organs and entrails. Left and right his eyes darted, up and down, as if they sought something hidden there. His nostrils were wide, sniffing suspiciously. His brow, hitherto smooth, was now furrowed in a fantastic frown. He resembled in his attitude nothing so much as a great naked bloodhound intent upon tracking its prey.