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distorted by a steel hook. Its point was embedded deep in the stretched muscles, but its pad and the lacings that had once held it fast to Arkady Karmann's arm stump had been ripped free by an unbelievably strong, desperate force. Framed by floating black hair, the dead woman's face was a mask of terror. She had been slashed across one cheek. Her mouth gaped in a silent scream, her eyes were wide, protruding and dulled by immersion. Morgan pulled his hand away as though the dead woman's flesh had burned him with icy fire. The corpse, disturbed and dislodged, rolled free from beneath the missile and into the path of the gentle current on the sea bottom. The current caught the body and moved it along the length of the missile's flank. As it moved, buoyed by internal gases, it rose above the floor of the bay, steel hook still embedded in its neck. Morgan had seen death often, but not like this. The parka the corpse wore stood away from the torso, ripped where the steel hook had caught a fold before penetrating the throat. |
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Arkady Karmann had killed this woman, whoever she was. Could she be the Russian woman Harris had listed as missing, possibly killed when the plane crashed? Arkady had killed her; he must have died at the same time, since he'd not been seen since the first briefing for the press. Morgan stared, transfixed, as the woman's body slowly disappeared into the murk, her clothing billowing about her, showing dull flashes of white thighs and booted legs |
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The loud burring sound in his helmet phones startled Morgan. Had he missed any time signals while he sat, stunned by murder, on the sea bottom? He looked at his watch. No, thank God. He had to warn the team on the surface of the nine-minute discrepancy between the time originally estimated for detonation and the clock on the warhead. My watch says 0815, the missile computer says 0824, and Peters thinks I still have fifteen minutes. Ave needed to move the copter away, away from ground zero, as far as he could take it in six minutes. |
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Morgan kicked off from the bottom, reaching for the mis- |
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