Paris is a Bitch

whom she will become closely acquainted in the weeks to come. Deeper, the dead are more than likely mummified, possibly even fleshed depending on the water content of the grave. Beside the autopsy tent on the other side, tables have been erected in the grass, and at one of them, a woman she recognizes from a previous UN mission is at work reassembling a small skeleton on a black velvet cloth to be photographed.
    She realizes she’s crying. Tears are fine, even healthy in this line of work, just never on the clock, never in the grave. If you lose control down there, you might never get it back.
    Approaching footsteps snap her out of her reverie. She wipes her face and looks up, sees Sam coming toward her, the bald and scrawny Australian team leader who always wears a tie, especially in the field, his rubber boots swishing through the grass. He plops down beside her, reeking of decomp. Rips off the pair of filthy, elbow-length gloves and tosses them in the grass.
    “How many have you taken out so far?” she asks.
    “Twenty-nine. Mapping system shows a hundred fifty, hundred seventy-five still down in there.”
    “What’s the demographic?”
    “Men. Women. Children.”
    “High-velocity GSWs?”
    “Yeah, we’ve collected a ton of .223 Remington casings. But this is another weird one. Same thing we saw in that mass grave in Denver. Maybe you heard about it.”
    “I haven’t.”
    “Dismemberment.”
    “Have you determined what was used?”
    “In most instances, it’s not a clean break, like a machete or ax strike. These bones are splintered.”
    “A chainsaw would do that.”
    “Clever girl.”
    “Jesus.”
    “So I’m thinking they cut everyone down with AR-15s, and then went through with chainsaws. Making sure no one crawled out.”
    The blond hairs on the back of her neck stand erect, a rod of ice descending her spine. The sun burns down out of the bright June sky, more intense for the elevation. Brushstrokes of snow linger above timberline on the distant peaks.
    “You okay?” Sam asks.
    “Yeah. Just that this is my first mission out west. I’d been working New York City up until now.”
    “Look, take the day if you want. Get yourself acclimated. You’ll need your head right for this one.”
    “No.” She stands, hoisting the duffle bag out of the grass and engaging that compartment in her brain that functions solely as a cold, indifferent scientist. “Let’s go to work.”
    THE president had just finished addressing the nation, and the anchors and pundits were back on the airwaves, scrambling, as they had been for the last three days, to sort out the chaos.
    Dee Colclough lay watching it all on a flatscreen from a ninth-floor hotel room ten minutes from home, a sheet twisted between her legs, the air-conditioning cool against the film of sweat on her skin.
    She looked over at Kiernan, said, “Even the anchors look scared.”
    Kiernan stubbed out his cigarette and blew a river of smoke at the television.
    “I got called up,” he said.
    “Your Guard unit?”
    “I have to report tomorrow morning.” He lit another one. “What I hear, we’ll just be patrolling neighborhoods.”
    “Keeping the peace until it all blows over?”
    He glanced at her, head cocked with that boyish smirk she’d fallen for six months ago when he’d deposed her as an adverse expert witness in a medical malpractice case. “Does anything about this make you feel like it’s going to blow over?”
    A new banner scrolled across the bottom of the screen—45 dead in a mass shooting at a Southern Baptist church in Columbia, South Carolina.
    “Jesus Christ,” Dee said.
    Kiernan dragged heavily on his cigarette. “Something’s happening,” he said.
    “Obviously. The whole country—”
    “That’s not what I mean, love.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    He didn’t answer right away, just sat there for a while, smoking.
    “It’s been coming on now, little by little, for days,” he said finally.
    “I don’t understand.”
    “I barely do myself.”
    Through the cracked window of their hotel room—distant gunshots and sirens.
    “This was supposed to be our week,” she said. “You were going to tell Myra. I was—”
    “You should go home, be with your family.”
    “You’re my family.”
    “Your kids at least.”
    “What is this, Kiernan?” She could feel an angry knot bulging in her throat. “Are we not in this together? Are you having second thoughts about everything or what?”
    “It’s