Patient Zero_ A Joe Ledger Novel Part 20

"This is getting to be a long d.a.m.n day," he muttered as he checked the magazine. "It's out." He patted down the dead guard and found a fresh magazine.

"On my six!" I whispered and I could feel him come up behind me. Top flanked us. He'd picked up the dead guard's handgun and was fanning it to cover all the corners. Someone in the crowd must have had some authority because the alarm died, leaving its banshee echo bouncing off the walls.

"Check your targets," I said softly. "We don't know who is infected or how many hostiles we have."

We paused in a tight knot and listened. There were scuffling sounds from two directions: behind the trailer and inside.

"I'll take the inside," I whispered. "You two around the sides."

"This is messed up," said Bunny.

"No s.h.i.+t, farmboy," snarled Top. "Let's go." They faded off to my left, heading down the length of the trailer as I moved onto the bottom step of the double-wide. The door to Room 12 was open and I could see figures moving inside. I saw another weapon on the deck, a Glock nine, but the slide was locked back, so I ignored it as I leaped up onto the top step. I was in a hurry but the cop in me was always watching and I flicked a glance at the door. No visible signs of a forced entry or forced exit. Even though I had no time to worry about that it still bothered the h.e.l.l out of me.

I braced myself and stepped into the trailer. Inside it was a charnel house. Two lab-coated doctors lay in broken twists of limbs; beyond them three people dressed in hospital gowns were sprawled in pools of red. The prisoner we'd taken at the meatpacking plant had been in a surgical bay that was in a screened-off section of the trailer, but the screens had been torn down and the prisoner's throat had been completely torn away. The doctors who had been working to save his life were dead. The air smelled of cordite and the coppery stink of blood. Each of the corpses had been shot repeatedly in the head. In the very back of the trailer was a fourth patient and he had one of the soldiers down and was tearing at him with broken teeth. The soldier was screaming and flailing his arms to fend off the attack and I couldn't yet see if he'd been bitten, or if so how badly.

I went straight for the walker.

There wasn't time to shout orders or to fall back and wait for reinforcements. Maybe more help was coming, but I didn't know, and I had to trust that they'd handle things outside. I concentrated on the walker who was trying to kill this terrified young man.

The trailer was seventy feet long and I cleared the entire length in a couple of heartbeats. Gunfire erupted from outside and the walker froze in place, lifting its head, dead eyes casting around for the noise. While I was still twenty feet back I scooped up a heavy metal clipboard from a table and hurled it side-armed like a Frisbee. It was weighted with a thick sheaf of papers but I put a lot of shoulder into it. It whistled through the air and caught the walker on the side of the head, knocking him against the wall. He lost his grip on the soldier, who slumped down into a whimpering heap. The blow did no harm, though, and the creature instantly whipped its head around, lips peeling back from its teeth, dead eyes blazing. It lunged at me, but I was in full stride now, matching momentum and force with its angle of attack. As it reached for me I used my hands to slap both arms down and then grabbed its throat with my left and used my right to hit it with a palm shot to the temple. I knew I couldn't hurt it, but my rus.h.i.+ng ma.s.s slammed it back against the wall and I leaned into the throat grab, feeling the hyoid bone crunch. A normal man would have died right there, trying to suck wind through a throatful of broken junk; but this thing kept snarling. I hit it again, knocking its mouth away from me, and then slammed the side of its head a third time but this time I kept the heel of my palm pressed hard against its temple so that the walker was effectively pinned to the wall with that b.l.o.o.d.y mouth facing away from me. I wormed my fingers up the side of its head and knotted them in its lank and filthy hair.

I felt it tense all of its muscles to surge back against me, the way an animal will lunge to try and break free of another predator, but that's what I wanted it to do. As the walker lunged off the wall I dropped back a step and pulled with all my strength. The effect was that the walker flew forward toward me far faster than it intended, and I immediately pivoted my hips so that its ma.s.s was accelerated even faster. The creature hit the center point of my turn and then flew past me as if repelled by a force field. My grip on throat and hair created torque and my pivot-plus my full body turn-propelled the walker's body ma.s.s over and past me; but I still held on. There was a crucial point at which its flying ma.s.s sailed faster and farther than my grip on its head allowed, and at that precise moment I snapped down like a housewife shaking out a bed sheet. The zombie's neck snapped with a loud wet crack.

I let go and let it crash down onto an examination table then it toppled lifelessly to the floor.

Outside I heard another crackle of gunfire.

There was a moan behind me and I spun around to see the soldier getting to his knees, one hand clamped to his bleeding cheek. The bite wasn't big, but it was still a bite. Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I saw the moment when the realization blossomed in his eyes. He knew he was a dead man and we both knew that there was nothing I could do.

I pointed at him and put steel in my voice. "Stay here, soldier!" He nodded, but his eyes were bright with tears. I turned and ran to the door of the lab, jumped left, and sprinted to the end of the trailer. Two soldiers, both transformed into walkers, were down, sawed in half by Bunny's MP5. A second pair of walkers, both of whom looked like medical personnel, were slumped in the shadows by the wall, their heads showing wounds from small-arms fire. Top had his pistol in a two-hand grip as he moved past them.

"Watch!" Bunny yelled as a b.l.o.o.d.y-faced figure rose up from behind a stack of boxes and drove at me; but I'd already heard it. I turned into the rush and as it barreled toward me I suddenly s.h.i.+fted to one side and chopped him across the throat with a stiff forearm. His head and shoulders stopped right there but his feet ran all the way up into the air the way a tight end will after he's been clotheslined by a defensive tackle. The walker crashed down onto the concrete and I pivoted to hit it again when Bunny shoved me aside, stamped down on its chest to hold it in place, and put two rounds into its skull.

We both turned to see Top sidestep another walker and chop it down with a vicious side kick to the knee, and by the time its kneecaps cracked to the ground he had the barrel jammed against its temple and fired. The slide locked back after the shot, but the walker fell away into a rag-doll sprawl.

There was a sudden, harsh silence broken only by the fading echoes of the gunfire.

"Top?"

"Clear."

"Bunny?"

"Clear, boss," he said almost in my ear. "We got them all."

I turned and looked up at Bunny, whose face had transformed from its usual boyish humor into something harder and far more dangerous. He closed his eyes, took a breath, and then nodded to agree with his own a.s.sessment. "I'm good, boss," he said after a moment.

Top was looking from corner to corner, checking every shadow, with eyes as cold as a rattlesnake's. He met my glance and gave me a short nod.

Behind us I could hear the wounded soldier sobbing.

Chapter Fifty-Three.

The DMS Warehouse, Baltimore / Tuesday, June 30; 10:29 P.M.

THE DOOR BURST open and Sergeant Dietrich came in at a dead run, still in his skivvies but with a combat shotgun in his hands, with Grace Courtland at his heels. All of Alpha Team piled in behind them, and I saw Ollie and Skip, both of them looking scared and worried. Ollie had a bath towel wrapped around his hips and his hair was frothy with un-rinsed shampoo; Skip had a fire axe in his hands. They both looked terrified of what they might find. Dr. Hu trailed the pack, followed by a few lab coats with frightened faces and wide eyes. The doctors and techs faded over to the wall and stood there looking shocked.

"Stand down!" I yelled as the soldiers raced up. "All hostiles are down."

Dietrich slowed to a stop. "Those idiots locked the bay door," he said, clearly angry that he wasn't able to help.

I pointed at Dr. Hu, who was standing against a wall, tears in his eyes. "Doc, we have an injured man in here. See what you can do for him."

Hu didn't move. "Was he was he "

"Yes." I cut a glance at the people cl.u.s.tered in the doorway and lowered my voice. "He was bitten."

Hu pressed himself back against the wall. "We can't do anything for him!"

"You're a doctor, for Christ's sake he needs help."

He flicked a terrified glance at the trailer and shook his head, unwilling to move.

I walked over and took a fistful of the front of his Hawaiian s.h.i.+rt and lifted him onto his toes. "Listen to me, a.s.shole, that boy in there is hurt and he's scared and he's one of us, not some action figure. This is real stuff happening to real people. I want you to do whatever you can for him, and do it right now, or so help me G.o.d I'll lock you in there with him."

With a little push I let him go and Hu staggered back and then froze in place, legs bent as if deciding whether to run. He blinked a few times then he gave me a quick nod and went into the trailer, twisting by me so as not to make any contact.

I felt a light touch on my arm and turned sharply to see Grace standing right there. Her eyes searched my face and my body. "Are you hurt?"

"No," I snarled, then bit down on my rage and tried it again. "No, Major, my men and I are fine. But the soldiers detailed here and all the lab techs are dead. So is the prisoner that we nearly died getting for Mr. Church and the docs who were working on him. And all the walkers, too; but one of your soldiers, a young kid he's been bitten."

"Christ," Dietrich growled. He had murder in his eyes.

Grace was appalled. "How did this happen? I don't-?" She stopped, aware of the people around us, and gave me a significant look.

There had to be a hundred people in the bay now, some in fatigues, some in civilian clothes, all of them looking horrified and confused. We saw Church moving through the crowd toward us, with Rudy beside him looking frightened and out of place, so I went to meet them. I got right up in Church's face. "Your security sucks!"

He looked at me for a long moment, and for the first time I saw real emotion bubbling beneath the surface of his professional calm. It was a seething, ice-cold rage. His lip curled back for a moment and then I saw him slam his control back in place, one steel plate at a time.

"First things first," he said, and his voice was nearly calm. He took out his cell and hit a number. "This is Church. Security code Deacon One. Full lockdown." Instantly a different set of alarms rang and revolving red lights mounted high on the walls began flas.h.i.+ng. He disconnected and hit a second number. "Lock the surveillance office. Good, now I want all security logs and video feeds from the last twelve hours routed to my laptop immediately. The same goes for traffic cams in a twenty-block radius all directions. Code them eyes only. Stay in lockdown until you hear from me personally. And tell Colonel Hastings that I want two guns.h.i.+ps in the air right now to monitor the grounds."

He turned to Dietrich. "Gus, clear this room. Pick six men you trust and hand-lock everyone into their rooms. No electronics. Do it now."

Dietrich pivoted and yelled at the crowd in a leather-throated roar. The throng of agents, soldiers, scientists, and support staff melted back and pushed through the doorways. Ollie and Skip backed out as well, flicking glances at the bodies, at me, and at Church. Bunny and Top stayed put.

"You okay, cowboy?" Rudy's eyes were jumpy with shock.

"Ask me later."

Again Grace caught my eye. I could feel something move between us, some subliminal telepathy, but I couldn't translate it. Not then, not at that moment. With an effort I broke the eye contact and walked over to my guys. "Top, get the team together in one place and text me on my cell to let me know where." I gave him my number.

Top murmured, "This don't smell right, Cap'n."

"No, it doesn't. There's no damage to that door. Someone let those things out, and that means someone just murdered four soldiers and all those doctors. I figure Church is going to start a witch hunt. That's fine with me, but I'm going to start one of my own. You with me?"

Top's lip curled back. "I didn't sign on to get a.s.s-raped, Cap'n."

"d.a.m.n skippy," agreed Bunny. Muscles bunched and flexed in his jaw. "What do you want us to do?"

"For now, circle up the wagons and sit tight. Keep your eyes open and your mouths shut. You catch wind of anything-I don't care how small-I get to hear it before you take the next breath. Are we clear on this?"

"Sir," they both said tersely. Their faces had to be a mirror of my own: horror, fury, and something else, some dangerous and predatory light that should not s.h.i.+ne through the eyes of good people. I couldn't define it any more than I could interpret what Grace had tried to convey, but I understood the sense of it, and I felt it burning in my own eyes.

I took a half-step closer and they leaned forward so that we were almost touching head to head. "Be best if you boys found some black coffee and had a couple of cups."

"Christ, boss," said Bunny, "I'm already so wired I'll never get to sleep as it is " His voice trailed off as he got what I meant.

"I'll make sure everybody's wide awake, Cap'n," murmured Top. "You won't find n.o.body sleeping on this watch."

"Hooah," I said.

Top punched Bunny lightly on the shoulder and they left, both of them throwing angry looks around the room as if what had happened had been a personal attack made against them. I watched them go, reading their body language. I've been wrong a few times in my judgment of people but not often, and I found it hard to believe that they would have come running unarmed into the bay if either of them had bypa.s.sed the security and unlocked Room 12. Even so, I was going to be keeping both eyes open every second of the day and night. As of that moment I didn't trust anyone in the DMS-except Rudy, and he wouldn't even know how to bypa.s.s a security system let alone one as sophisticated as this.

Rejoining Church and Grace, I said, "So far, Mr. Church, I'm not entirely sold on your supersecret organization."

He didn't reply.

Dietrich came over. "Room's clear, sir. Building is in full lockdown. Gates are sealed and I deployed the entire security force in pairs. No one goes out of sight of his partner. We're locking people into their rooms." He paused for a moment, looking worriedly at the lab. "Sir, I checked on this guard team myself thirty minutes ago. I know those boys." Dietrich paused, and then with sadness in his voice corrected that comment. "I knew them all pretty well."

"Somebody opened that door," I said, pointing. "Do you see any signs of forced entry?"

Church said, "Let's not make decisions in the absence of information. The security video logs are being fed to my laptop. Let's meet in the conference room and take a look at them. Until then no one speaks to anyone."

The others headed toward the door, but I lingered with Church. "The DMS finally gets a prisoner to interrogate and then this happens. Funny timing, don't you think?"

"Yes, hilarious."

He left and I followed.

Chapter Fifty-Four.

Amirah / The Bunker / Tuesday, June 30 ABDUL, THE FIGHTER'S lieutenant, was a grim-faced man with humorless eyes and pocked skin that made him look like a smallpox survivor. He had first bonded with El Mujahid during a series of raids financed by one of the Iranian ayatollahs and together they'd blown up three police stations in Iraq, a.s.sa.s.sinated two members of the new government and planted bombs that killed or crippled over a dozen American and British troops-all of it in the days following the "liberation" of Baghdad. In the years since then they had cut a b.l.o.o.d.y path through five countries and the price on Abdul's head was nearly as large as that offered for El Mujahid.

Now that El Mujahid was out of the country it was up to Abdul to ensure that no one knew about the Fighter's absence. He made a series of small raids, including two more attacks on remote villages using the new and ferocious Generation Seven strain of the Seif al Din pathogen, and in each case he left behind a CD-ROM or videoca.s.sette on which were prerecorded messages from El Mujahid. As the Fighter mentioned specific incidents in the attacks it was that Abdul stage-manage those raids so that they precisely matched all references in the messages.

On the morning following El Mujahid's "rescue" by British troops, Abdul returned briefly to the Bunker to consult with Amirah after first making sure that Sebastian Gault had left. Now they sat in her study, he in a deep leather chair, she perched on the edge of a love seat. The second half of the love seat was piled high with medical test results and autopsy reports.

Abdul sipped from a bottle of spring water and nodded at the reports. "Is that information on the new strain?"

"Test results, yes," she said, nodding. She looked very tired and her eyes were red-rimmed.

"Has he said anything more about it?" Abdul never mentioned Gault's name. He hated the man and thought that even saying his name aloud was an affront to G.o.d, not to mention to El Mujahid. Gault and that man-loving scorpion of an a.s.sistant of his, Toys. When he thought of what Amirah did and was willing to do with Gault it was very difficult for Abdul to keep a sneer off his face as he confronted this woman. This wh.o.r.e. How could she sleep with that man? Even if it furthered the cause and even if El Mujahid had ordered it, it was so vile a thing to do. He wanted to spit on the rug between them.

If Amirah was aware of his contempt she hid it very well. She picked up one folder and weighed it in her hand. "This is a detailed schematic of the release device Sebastian has provided for my husband. It is waiting for El Mujahid in a hotel safe." She smiled, stood, and walked them over to him; Abdul was careful not to touch her hand as he accepted them.

When he finished reading he looked up in alarm. "I'm not sure I understand this. This device is b.o.o.by-trapped. It's set to release the plague according to a preset clock instead of an active trigger."

"Yes."

"Where did you get this? How did you get this? It must belong to " He waved a hand, still unwilling to say Gault's name.

"I downloaded it from his laptop," she said. "Or, rather, I arranged to have it downloaded while the laptop was out of his possession."

"He's never without it," Abdul said.

Amirah smiled. "He was distracted." She let it hang there in the air between them and Abdul turned his face away, not wanting this wh.o.r.e to see him blush. When he finally turned back to face her he saw that she was smiling a knowing smile. Witch!

"And you're sure that he does not know that this material was taken?"

"He doesn't know any more than he knows I disabled the program that would allow him to blow up this bunker. My computer experts are as good as any in the world. After all, Sebastian paid for the very best."

Abdul almost smiled at the irony of that. He offered her a grunt of a half laugh, though he was truly very impressed. But he was also troubled. "Does the Fighter know about this?"

Amirah chuckled. "You of all people should have more faith in El Mujahid than that. I sent him the schematic which will allow him to rewire the trigger so that it actually works as it was supposed to work." She paused, then with a sneer added, "As Gault promised it would work." His sneer softened to a sly smile. "And I have my own contribution to make to our cause."

When she told him what it was Abdul felt some of his dislike for this woman crumble away. He was almost smiling when she ushered him to the door.

Chapter Fifty-Five.

The DMS Warehouse, Baltimore / Tuesday, June 30; 11:01 P.M.