“You didn’t go on many dates, did you?”

Mark ignored her jab. “We usually had to give a clue, like a theme to the sentence, otherwise it would be impossible to work it out. The clue here was the killings, the murder, okay.”

“Sure, but what does ‘Mime Goering for crow Nicole’ have to do with murder?”

“What do you call a group of crows?”

“I don’t know, a flock?”

“A murder,” Mark said with a triumphant gleam. For someone who was always the smartest person in the room, he still enjoyed showing off his intellect. “A group of crows is called a murder. In Gangle’s brain, the two words—‘murder’ and ‘crow’—were synonymous.”

“So then we’re looking for some Nazi other than Göring?”

“No. Aphasia doesn’t work like that. The connections in the brain are messed up. It could be words that sound alike or words that describe objects that go together or words that reminded Gangle of something out of his past.”

“Oh, so Mime Goering sort of sounds like ‘I’m going.’ ”

“Exactly. ‘I’m going to murder.’ Gangle wrote the word ‘I’m going “for” murder’ instead of ‘to.’ I’m thinking in his brain, two is half of four. Switch numbers with prepositions and you get ‘I’m going to murder’ instead of ‘I’m going for murder’.”

“Okay, smart guy, what’s up with Nicole?”

Mark threw her a cocky grin. “That was the easiest part of all. Nicole Kidman stared in a horror movie called The Others.”

“ ‘I’m going to kill the others,’ ” Linda said, stringing together the complete translation. “Wait, does aphasia make you go nuts?”

“Not usually. I think the underlying illness that caused his aphasia also caused him to turn against his crewmates.”

“Like what?”

“You’d have to ask Doc Huxley. I only know about the condition because of the word game I used to play.”

There was a sudden sharp bang that made both of them jump.

“Linda, Murph, we got company,” Linc’s baritone echoed throughout the entire base.

Both grabbed up their assault rifles from where they’d laid them on the bed and rushed out of Andy Gangle’s disturbing bedroom. They met Linc in the rec hall.

“What did you find?”

“Some weird stuff, but not now. There’s a snowcat heading our way from the south. That’s where the Argentines have their closest research base, right?”

“Yeah,” Linda replied. “Maybe thirty miles down the coast.”

“I saw it when I was on my way back. We’ve got less than a minute.”

“Everyone, outside.”

“No, Linda. There isn’t enough cover.” Concern etched Linc’s face. “They’d see us, no problem.”

“Okay, find a place to hide, and be quiet. Let’s just hope they’re doing a little recce and not planning on setting up housekeeping. If you’re discovered, come out with guns blazing.”