Patient Zero_ A Joe Ledger Novel Part 28

"You as well?" His gaze was penetrating.

"Absolutely. Physically and mentally. Who wouldn't be? I got the shakes and every muscle I own feels like it's been run through a Cuisinart. Hu shot me up with some kind of vitamin c.o.c.ktail, and I've had hot coffee, food, and a protein shake that tasted like a horse p.i.s.sed in it. I feel like c.r.a.p, but I'll live."

He gave a small nod. Mr. Warmth.

"What's your a.s.sessment of what happened in there this morning?" he asked.

A dozen smarta.s.s replies came to mind but I kept a leash on my tongue. I said, "It was a trap and we walked into it."

"You got out of it."

"We were getting our a.s.ses handed to us in there. I got lucky."

"Not counting your two encounters with Javad, this is your third combat situation with the walkers with zero casualties from your own team. In this kind of fight, 'lucky' can be enough."

"Not for Grace's people. Alpha Team got chopped. That's hard, man."

"It's very hard," he agreed.

"They had the whole place b.o.o.by-trapped and as soon as we broke into the lab they remote-detonated the computer room. The holding pens for the walkers were rigged to open all at once, which means we tripped some kind of alarm, something we didn't see. None of that was an accident. Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds knew we were coming."

"Knew that it was today, or knew that it was inevitable?"

It was a crucial question and one that I'd been mulling for the last few hours. Our entire a.s.sessment of the enemy and his potential hung on that answer. "I don't know. They were ready, but not completely. Only two of their bombs went off. The walkers didn't come after us fast enough or in the right place. It should have been an all-you-can-eat affair, but we survived. And none of the walkers got out. None of that adds up."

"No," he said, and I think he was as troubled by these facts as I was.

"Y'know, I don't know if we're looking at this thing the right way."

"I'm pretty certain we're not."

"We were expecting to find what, a bunch of guys sitting around a table plotting the downfall of Western civilization? Instead we find what looks to me like a testing facility. These guys were studying the walkers. More so and more thoroughly than down in Delaware."

"What about your team? Did they perform to your expectations?" When I didn't answer, he said, "I expect a frank and open report, Captain. Now's not a good time to be coy."

"I'm not being coy, Church. I've known these guys for less than a full day and all of it's been action. Yesterday they performed superbly. This morning we hit some potholes. Skip Tyler and Ollie Brown both went missing under questionable circ.u.mstances and I haven't had time to fully debrief them. There are some twitchy points about that. Skip claims he was jumped and Tasered from his blind side, but that doesn't square with the facts because there were only two ways out of that shower room: the door my team came through and the corridor Skip was watching. He says he got zapped and then woke up in a storeroom, managed to cut his bonds and retrieve his weapon, and was then set upon by walkers. Ollie's story is about the same. Says someone must have opened a door and Tasered him. Both of them have burns on their necks, and most of the guards in the plant carried Tasers." I didn't mention the fact that Ollie had nearly blown my head off during the fight. It was something Ollie and I would discuss at some later time.

"So, for a considerable amount of time you can't account for either of those men?"

"Guess not."

"By your own statement there was a period where you were alone, which means that Sims and Rabbit were not with you throughout the mission. And you told me that Sergeant Rabbit carried a prisoner back to the entrance and it was he who reported that Tyler was missing. How do you know that he didn't disable Tyler and then break the prisoner's neck? We have no immediate proof that the prisoner died as a result of Alpha Team blowing open the door."

"Are you targeting Echo Team? You think that's where the mole is?"

"I have no idea where the mole is and I'm questioning everyone," he said with some edge in his voice. "I'm not a big fan of making a.s.sumptions, Captain. Until proven otherwise everyone is under the microscope."

We glared at each other for a minute, but then I nodded. "Yeah, d.a.m.n it."

Church looked away to watch a truck drive by and when he turned back to me he was completely composed.

"Maybe you should broaden your search," I said. "Instead of just going all Inquisition on everyone in the DMS, you might want to take a close look at whoever sent these people to you. Everyone you have was handpicked, right? Well, then, how sure are you about the people who picked them?"

Church gazed at me for a s.p.a.ce and I thought I could hear relays clicking in his head. "Thank you for that suggestion, Captain. It wouldn't surprise me if the mole was planted simply to bring the DMS down. It might not even be connected with the terrorists. After all, everyone in the intelligence community constantly jockeys for funding and there's probably some hard feelings from some quarters that we're getting their funding."

"And are we?"

"Sure, but there's a war on and we're a little more 'frontline' than most. Mind you, there is always some political espionage and backstabbing going on in the intelligence services. Always has been, and it's factored into daily life. The release of the walkers from Room Twelve may have been a terrorist act or it may have been meant to disrupt the DMS and discredit me."

"Ma.s.s murder is a pretty extreme thing to do just to discredit someone. Are you that important?"

He shrugged.

"Well then, let me put it another way: are you that vulnerable?"

I didn't expect an answer to that but he surprised me. "Not as much as some people might think." He wouldn't elaborate on that rather enigmatic remark, however, nor did he return to the topic. His cell beeped and he opened it and listened for a moment and then hung up without comment. "Dr. Hu has finished prepping the prisoner for interrogation."

As he turned to go I blocked his way. "Slow your roll one minute more. I failed in there, Church. The quiet infil turned into a full-out a.s.sault and people died. You hired me on to lead Echo Team and I led them right into a trap."

He looked at me steadily through the nearly opaque lenses of his gla.s.ses. "What do you want to hear? That I'm disappointed? That this was a badly led mission? That I want you to resign?"

I wasn't going to feed him the script to my own dismissal so I waited.

"Sorry," he said, "but you're still Echo Team leader. I don't have much interest in Monday-morning quarterbacking. So far you're still four and oh with walkers. Baker and Charlie teams were totally destroyed; Alpha Team has been cut down by half while Echo Team, small as it is, remains intact."

"Doesn't mean I'm the man for this job-"

He sighed through his nose. "If you need absolution go see a priest. If you want to decompress, talk to Dr. Sanchez. However, if you feel that you have some need to put things right and balance the scales, then help me stop this thing. Besides last night you told me that you wanted to wait until your team was fully rested. We didn't, and we can both take blame for that if blame needs to be a.s.signed."

I said, "What about reinforcements? I thought you had more Echo Team candidates on their way."

"Some of them have already arrived. They're being processed at the warehouse as we speak. They'll be shown the tapes, given the speeches, and when you get back you can start training them."

"Maybe we should send Top Sims back there now. Him and Bunny. They can start training the new guys."

"Not Brown and Tyler?"

"I need to have a chat with each of them first."

His phone rang again and he looked at the display and his mouth twitched with impatience. He flipped his phone open. "Yes, Mr. President," he said. I raised my eyebrows but Church kept his usual composure. He listened for a few moments, then said, "Mr. President, I have neither the time nor the facts to give you a full briefing. What I can tell you now is that the crab plant appears to have been rigged as a trap. Yes, sir, we sustained heavy casualties." He gave a bare-bones account of the hit. The President interrupted him at least six times. "We have one prisoner, Mr. President. Yes, that's correct, just the one. I am on my way to conduct an interview with him right now so time is pressing," Church listened some more and I could actually see the point at which his patience evaporated. He did something that I had never even heard of anyone doing before, and something I would have thought that not even Church would dare. "Mr. President, with all due respect this conversation is wasting my time. The clock is ticking for my interview and if you keep trying to micromanage this we're going to lose the best opportunity we have. Now, please, sir, let's stick to our original agreement. You will be properly informed when I am ready to make my report. Good day, sir."

He didn't wait for a reply but simply closed his phone and put it back in his pocket. He saw me goggling at him and said, "What?"

"Church you just b.i.t.c.h-slapped the President of the United States."

He said nothing, "n.o.body does that. n.o.body can do that. How the h.e.l.l did you-?" Church made a dismissive gesture. "We have an understanding. The DMS was built upon and continues to operate based on that understanding."

"Care to share what that understanding is?"

"No," he said.

Chapter Seventy.

Crisfield, Maryland / Wednesday, July 1; 5:22 A.M.

DOCTOR HU HAD the prisoner ready in a big white van that was kitted out with diagnostic equipment. The prisoner sat in what looked like a dentist's chair with his wrists and ankles secured by nylon bands. An IV dripped clear liquid into his veins. Hu didn't meet my eyes. He hadn't forgotten our little dustup after the Room 12 incident. Neither had I.

Church pulled over a stool and sat down. I stood by the door. The prisoner's eyes darted back and forth between Church and me, probably sorting out who was good cop and who was bad cop.

"What is your name?" Church asked.

The man hesitated then shook his head.

Church leaned forward, his forearms on his knees. "You understand English. That's a statement, not a question, so please don't hide behind a pretense of ignorance. I am a representative of the United States government. The other men in this room work for me. I know that you've been infected with a pathogen that will kill you unless you take regular doses of a control substance. You believe that if you stonewall me you'll die, that the disease in your system will shut you down before you can be made to talk. Under normal circ.u.mstances that might be true, especially if someone other than me was interrogating you. Listen closely now," Church said, and his voice was calm, conversational. "You will tell me everything that I want to know. You will not die unless I allow you to. You will not keep silent. You will not be rescued."

The man was sweating badly and his eyes were no longer darting over to me. The entirety of his mental and physical focus was locked on Mr. Church.

"We know about the control disease. We know its nature. The IV contains the control formula. Very clever to hide them inside ordinary aspirin; but not really clever enough as you can see. Death will not save you from this conversation. Death will not save you from me. Tell me that you understand."

Muscles bunched in the man's jaws as he fought to keep his mouth clamped shut.

"One of your comrades told us that his family was being held hostage, that they would be killed if he spoke to us. Is this how they are controlling you?"

Church gave him nearly thirty seconds, not blinking once, and then the man gave us a single spasmodic nod.

"Thank you. I have covert operations teams in every country in the Middle East and Asia. With one phone call I will send a team to find your family. I can order that team to rescue them. Or I can order that team to torture them to death. I can order them to capture your family-wife, children, parents, cousins, nephews, and nieces to the fourth generation. If I order that then your entire family, perhaps your entire village, will cease to exist. Whether they remain in prison, or are tortured, or are released with false ident.i.ties and money in a new country, is entirely up to you."

The man spat out a single word. The Iranian word for "dog."

"The word you're looking for," said Mr. Church, "is 'monster.' " He said it in flawless Iranian. The word hit the man like a punch and he recoiled from it. "Let us understand each other. I know that you are a subordinate, a scientist or a laboratory technician. Your loyalty has been obtained through fear for your own life and the lives of those you love. A monster did that. Someone like me. That person was willing to kill innocent people-people you love-in order to create and release a weapon that will kill millions. Imagine what I would be willing to do-to you, and to your family-to protect everyone that I love."

The man started to open his mouth, to say something else, but whether it was a curse or a confession was unclear because he found another splinter of resolve and bit down on it. His eyes and mouth tightened again.

Church leaned back and considered the prisoner for two minutes. That's a long time to endure a stare from anyone, let alone from a man with the personal intensity of Mr. Church. The man squirmed and sweated.

"I do not believe that you are a military man," Church said. "Military men are trained to be hard, to be tough, to resist torture. I can see from your face, from the softness of your hands, that you are not going to be able to resist torture. We have chemicals. We have appliances. We can be so very crude, and in the end everyone talks. Everyone. Even I could not endure some of the techniques that could be used, and I am not soft. This man here," and for the first time he indicated me with a slight gesture, "is a battle-trained soldier. You saw him in combat today, you saw him kill many people. He is a soldier, a leader of men, a hardened killer. Even he could not endure if the torturer were truly committed."

"I I cannot!" the man said in a voice so hoa.r.s.e it sounded like there were jagged rocks in his throat.

"Yes you can. You will. No one can outlast what we have. Our science is too good. I have studied torture, I understand its magic. The only thing you can do is to talk to us now, to work with us, to help us fight this thing."

"My children "

"Look at me," Church said with soft intensity. "See me. If you give me information right now I will dispatch my teams to find and protect them. If you don't then I will still get the information out of you, but I will make sure that everyone who has ever heard your name will be hunted down and exterminated so no memory of you or your family will be left upon the earth."

I felt a chill dance along my lower spine and I wanted to get the h.e.l.l away from this man. If Church was only messing with this guy's head he was doing almost too good a job of it. It was messing with my head, too.

The prisoner opened his mouth again, closed it, opened it again and finally said, "You have to promise that my children will be safe. When they are safe and in American hands then I will-"

Church's face was ice and his look stopped the man mid-sentence. "You misunderstand me, my friend. I will send teams once I have information from you. Every second you waste is a second longer that your masters have to realize that you are in captivity and that means that your children are a second closer to death. You are wasting the seconds of their lives. Is that what you want? Do you want to kill your own children?"

"No! In Allah's name, no!"

"Then talk to me. Save them. Be a hero to them and to the world. Save everyone by talking to me now." He paused for a moment, and then reinforced it. "Now."

The man closed his eyes and tears broke from beneath the closed lids. He bowed his head and shook it for several moments. "My name is Aldin," he said, and a sob convulsed in his chest. "I will tell you everything I know. Please do not let my children die."

Chapter Seventy-One.

Crisfield, Maryland / Wednesday, July 1; 6:47 A.M.

WHEN I STEPPED out of the interrogation van I felt dirty. I understood the need for what Church had done, but it still made me feel like a piece of s.h.i.+t. Church had called himself a monster, and I think he meant it.

"Joe!" I heard my name and turned to see Rudy hurrying across the parking lot. He grabbed my hand and shook it, then stepped back to study my face. "Dios mio! Major Courtland told me what happened. I I don't have words for it, Joe. How are you?"

"I've been better," I admitted, but before I could explain Gus Dietrich came over at a fast walk.

"Captain Ledger," he said, "I have most of the forensics experts you wanted. The others are all en route and should be here by noon. Jerry Spencer is already on-site."

"Okay, Sergeant, I want everyone cleared out of the building. Tell Jerry that I'll be in there in a few minutes to do the walk-through with him."

Dietrich smiled. "Detective Spencer seems to be pretty mad at you for bringing him into this, especially this early in the morning."

"He'll get over it. Especially once he has a big juicy crime scene to play with."

"Mr. Church requested a medium-sized circus tent to be used as a temporary forensics lab. It's being set up around the corner on the far side of the lot."

"Church was able to get a circus tent on short notice?" Rudy asked.

Dietrich gave him a rueful smile. "Mr. Church has a friend in the industry."

"Jeez," Rudy said, shaking his head.

"Oh, and Gus " I said as Dietrich turned away.

"Sir?"