“While you rinse out the intestine, I’m going to make sure there was no venous thrombosis in the deep leg veins,” Jack said, wanting to cover all the bases. Increasingly curious about the cause of death, he was now all business and trying to think out of the box. There was none of his signature black humor or teasing of Vinnie.

By the time Vinnie returned with the clean intestine, Jack was able to inform him that in addition to the other negatives there’d been no clotting problems with possible emboli to the brain. The cause of death of Keara Abelard was still a total mystery, whereas with most cases at that point there would have been a good idea.

After the abdominal and chest portions of the postmortem were completed, Jack returned his interest to the patient’s head. “This has got to be pay dirt!” he said, as he stepped back to give Vinnie room to use the bone saw to cut off the skullcap.

While Vinnie was busy sawing, several of the other day mortuary techs appeared and prepared to assist their assigned medical examiners. Jack didn’t even notice them. As Vinnie continued cutting with the noisy bone saw, Jack began to feel uncomfortable. With no theories as to the cause of death other than a burst aneurysm, which he doubted, he had the sense he was missing something, something important, perhaps even making a mistake.

The moment Vinnie put the calvarium aside and then freed up and lifted out the glistening, furrowed brain, Jack leaned forward and his heart skipped a beat. There was dark blood in the posterior fossa at the very back of the head, and enough such that it was spilling out onto the stainless-steel autopsy table.

“Damn!” Jack snapped with obvious regret while pounding his gloved hand on the corner of the table.

“What’s the matter?” Vinnie asked.

“I made a mistake!” Jack said angrily.

Taking a step down alongside the body, Jack peered into the depths of the chest cavity and up toward the head, lifting the anterior wall of the chest. “We’ve got to do an arteriogram X-ray of the vasculature to the brain,” Jack said out loud, more to himself than to Vinnie. He was clearly disappointed with himself.

“You know I can’t put the brain back,” Vinnie said hesitantly, worried that Jack was blaming him for something.

“Of course I know that,” Jack said. “We can’t reverse what we’ve already done. I’m talking about an arteriogram of the vasculature leading to the brain, not of the brain itself. Just get some contrast dye and a big syringe!”

4

2:36 P.M., MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2008
CAIRO, EGYPT
(7:36 A.M. NEW YORK CITY)

Through the shimmering heat, Sana Daughtry could see the Four Seasons Hotel from the taxi as it threaded through traffic. Staying there had been Shawn’s idea. Sana was supposed to have stayed at the Semiramis Intercontinental, where her conference was being held. In addition to being one of the principal speakers, she’d also been required to serve on multiple panels, and accordingly needed to be there all four days. It would have been far more convenient for her to have been at the Semiramis, to have had the option of occasionally popping up to her room.