Operation Syria (S-Squad Book 6) by William Meikle

Author:William Meikle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Severed Press
Published: 2019-01-25T22:00:00+00:00

*

Banks was pondering some ideas when his thought processes were interrupted by a shout from out in the hall. It came from Wilkins.

“Sir, you need to see this.”

Banks followed the shout through to where Wilkins stood guard at the window.

The body of the dead man, White, had been propped, sitting in a corner of the smallest room several hours previously. Only now it wasn’t so much a body as a collapsed sack of skin that looked to be held together only by the clothing. His head had dropped forward onto his chest, which was a blessing; given what the rest of him looked like, his face would have been too terrible to behold. From a not-too-close inspection, Banks believed that every bone in the man’s body had turned liquid, remolding his internal structure to little more than an amorphous blob. He remembered the spider’s sucking mouth and realized what they were built to suck. He had to fight down a sudden gag reflex.

That wasn’t even the worst thing. The reason Banks didn’t get too close was the stench, a sickly odor of corruption he knew too well from the aftermath of old battles. The smell came, not so much from the body but from a spreading pool of gray and green fluid, a puddle into which what was left of the body was slowly sinking.

“How long has it been like this?” Banks asked.

“The smell’s been bad for a wee while, sir,” young Wilkins said. “But I’ve been standing by the window and didn’t pay that much attention until I turned round to see…that.”

“Aye, well, it can’t stay here, that’s for sure.”

He didn’t notice that Maggie had come in behind him and was at his shoulder, her eyes wide with horror as she looked down at the body.

“We should take him home,” she whispered. “His family…”

“…don’t want to see him in this state. Trust me on that.”

He looked down at the body again. The leaking fluids were definitely spreading and the smell was getting worse. He turned to Hynd.

“Sarge? We got any tarpaulin?”

“No can do, Cap.”

Maggie whispered again, “We’ve got the rucksacks. We could…”

She couldn’t finish the sentence. Banks could hardly blame her. The man had been her colleague, maybe even friend. Pouring his remains into a nylon rucksack wasn’t something worth thinking about.

He put a hand on Maggie’s shoulder.

“We’ll deal with it,” he said. “It comes with the job.”

He looked over her shoulder and met Hynd’s gaze. The sarge nodded and went to fetch the rucksacks.

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