Patient Zero_ A Joe Ledger Novel Part 36

Chapter Ninety-Three.

The DMS Warehouse, Baltimore / Sat.u.r.day, July 4; 6:44 A.M.

WE TOOK TWO cars, a pair of brand-new DMS SUVs-BMW X6s that were equipped like James Bond cars with hidden compartments, armor plating, front and rear video, spy-satellite downlinks, and even fore-and-aft machine guns hidden behind faux foglamps. Church really loved his toys.

"No ejector seats?" I asked Grace as we climbed into the lead vehicle.

"You joke, but we have a Porsche Cayenne with an ejector option for driver or pa.s.senger."

"Really?" I grinned and switched to my best Sean Connery. "My name is Ledger. Joe Ledger."

She gave me an icy stare. "So help me G.o.d, if you call me p.u.s.s.y Galore or Holly Goodhead, I'll shoot you and leave you by the side of the road."

"Wouldn't dream of it," I said, and then under my breath added, "Miss Moneypenny."

"I'm serious. Dead in a ditch."

I mimed zipping my mouth shut. We were all dressed in dark suits, red ties, and white s.h.i.+rts, with little American flags on our lapels and wires behind our ears. Pretty d.a.m.n impressive for twelve hours' work. I mean, I can wear off the rack but Bunny is a moose. I marveled at Church's network of contacts. It must be nice to have so many friends in so many "industries." One of these days I was going to have to find out who the h.e.l.l Church was.

For hardware I had my old familiar.45 with me, snugged against my ribs, with two extra magazines clipped to my belt. Around my right ankle was a sweet little Smith Wesson Model 642 Airweight Centennial, a hammerless.38 revolver that is one of the most practical backup guns around. I also had a Rapid Response Folder, a tactical knife that could sit in a pocket clip and with a snap of the wrist would produce a 3.375-inch blade that, although short, was more than enough in the hands of a good knife fighter. I'm a very good knife fighter and I prefer speed over blade length any time. With all that I felt that I was a bit overdressed for the party, considering that we were going to interrogate government officials not storm the Bastille, but I'm one of those guys who believes that the Boy Scout motto is one of the most useful pieces of advice ever given: Be Prepared.

Grace looked very nice in a tailored suit that was a good balance of weapon concealment and curve revealment. No way that this was off the rack. She had on a light touch of makeup and a very enticing pink lipstick. The makeup was within professional guidelines, but the lipstick-I'm pretty d.a.m.n sure-was a personal choice with a different agenda and I hoped that it wasn't my male ego or wishful thinking at work here.

All I said was, "You clean up pretty good, Major." I gave her my best smile as I said it. The one that puts the crinkles around my eyes. Grace, however, did not pull around to the back of the warehouse and immediately undress. Her fort.i.tude was commendable in the light of that smile.

She said, "Buckle up for safety," and inflected it in such a way as to convey about fifty separate possible meanings.

Just as we were heading toward the main Warehouse doors I saw a figure step into our path: Rudy, and he was also dressed like a Secret Service agent. Grace slowed and when she stopped Rudy opened the back door and climbed in.

I turned around to look at him. "Halloween's not till October."

"You're hilarious," he growled as he thrust an ID wallet into my hands. I opened it.

"Rudolfo Ernesto Sanchez y Martinez, MD. Special Agent, United States Secret Service," I read. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"If it is then Mr. Church is the only one who knows the punch line."

Grace smiled. "Mr. Church is impressed with you, Doctor."

"Rudy," he corrected.

"Sorry. He told me you grilled him pretty thoroughly the other day."

I was surprised. "He admitted that?"

"He didn't go into details, but he gave the impression that you got a good read on him."

"Interesting," said Rudy. "Joe he wants me with you when you do the interviews."

"I'm okay with that, Rude, but if we get into anything today " I let it hang.

"Then I'll run and hide, don't worry, cowboy. I'm a lover not a fighter."

Grace turned and gave him an appraising stare. "I'll bet you could handle yourself." And again there were a lot of ways to interpret that. Rudy gave her an elegant incline of the head and settled back in his seat.

"Are you carrying a gun?" I asked him. At his request I'd taught Rudy to shoot a couple of years ago, shortly after he started working as a police psychiatrist. He thought it would help him with his patients if he more fully understood the power-both real and imagined-of a gun.

"You've seen me shoot, cowboy. Am I qualified to carry a handgun in public?"

"It would not be in the best interests of public safety."

"Then there you go."

Grace put the car in gear and we rolled out of the Warehouse with Echo Team behind us. When we were on I-95 heading north toward Philly, Rudy asked, "Won't the real Secret Service know that we're fakes?"

Grace shrugged. "Only if we tell them, and it will be need-to-know. Our credentials are real, authorized by the President himself."

Rudy said, "Wow." He hadn't voted for the President but the office and what it represented was bigger, and held more meaning, than any single person who had held it. Maybe more than all of them put together. A certain degree of respect was appropriate no matter what your personal political views were. "That's a lot of power."

"Mr. Church knows-" she started to say but Rudy cut her off.

"No, it's a lot of power to give us. Our team." He paused. "The eight of us." When I turned to him he went on, "We still have a traitor in the DMS, and that means that one of the men in the car behind us could be a spy or a.s.sa.s.sin. Or worse, a terrorist sympathizer." He waggled the ID case. "And this is an all-access pa.s.s to the President's wife and half of Congress. Is that wise?"

Grace smiled at him in the rearview. "Mr. Church has confidence that we'll stay in control of the situation."

All Rudy said in reply was, "Room Twelve."

Chapter Ninety-Four.

Sebastian Gault / Helmand Province, Afghanistan / July 4 GAULT'S HELICOPTER TOUCHED down two hundred kilometers from the Bunker, landing near a WHO outpost. The outpost supervisor, a wizened old epidemiologist named Nasheef, was willing to lend Gault a car but cautioned him about the dangers of traveling in the Afghani desert without military escort.

"We'll be fine," Gault a.s.sured him. "We have our Red Cross and WHO credentials. Even out here that often gives us safe pa.s.sage."

But Nasheef insisted on providing a driver, his burley nephew who had fought guerrilla actions against the Soviets. No amount of argument would dissuade Nasheef, and to make too strong a protest would raise suspicions, so they reluctantly agreed.

An hour later they were rolling out of the camp and heading west.

Gault had reclaimed his position as the de facto alpha dog in his relations.h.i.+p with Toys; though every now and then he could feel the ghost of a memory of the slap Toys had given him back in Baghdad.

"Go with G.o.d!" Nasheef called after them. It made both of them smile for all the wrong reasons.

Chapter Ninety-Five.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania / July 4; 9:39 A.M.

TRAFFIC WAS HEAVY as we approached Philly. The Phillies were playing a doubleheader, and a bunch of rock stars had put together a Freedom Rocks concert at the Wachovia Center down near the airport. Plus an estimated half million people were descending on Center City and the Liberty Center. Overall it was supposed to be the biggest, loudest, busiest day in Philadelphia history.

"Great day for travel," Rudy grumped from the backseat.

"Almost there," Grace said as she turned off I-95 near Penn's Landing. I'd called ahead and arranged for a pair of motorcycle cops to meet us and help us through the traffic snarls.

Grace filled us in on the people we would try and interview. There were six agencies involved in various aspects of security. The two who interested us most were Robert Howell Lee, the director of special operations for an FBI/Homeland joint command; and Linden Brierly, who was the regional director of the Secret Service and the direct link between the Secret Service and its parent department of Homeland Security. More current and proposed DMS personnel had been recommended by them than all of the other agencies put together. Both of them had extensive military connections and had sent candidates from every branch of the service. It seemed to be the best use of time to start with them first. They were also the men most closely involved with security at the Liberty Center event.

Robert Howell Lee and his FBI team were in charge of the facilities security and had oversight for all interjurisdictional arrangements between local, state, and federal law enforcement. He was an indirect descendant of Richard Henry Lee, the man who had ridden from Virginia to the First Continental Congress with the resolution to declare independence from England. He was an ambitious man of fifty who was almost certainly going to be the next director of the Bureau or maybe ever the top dog in Homeland.

The other man, Linden Brierly, was an equally careercentric man who had been involved in some key phases of the service's transition to Homeland after 9/11. It was Brierly who would be overseeing the personal safety of the First Lady and her party.

They were both powerful men; patriots as well as seasoned field agents and politicians. Move the wrong way with them and we'd not only upset the security applecart but we'd bring down so much heat that maybe even Church's clout would not save the DMS. This was dicey for a couple of big reasons: the careers of everyone involved with the DMS and the belief-which I now shared-that no other organization within the United States government was as equipped as the DMS to counter threats like the one we'd been facing during the last few days. The wrong word to either of these guys could spin everything out of control.

But, no pressure, right?

"We're here," Grace said.

Chapter Ninety-Six.

Amirah / The Bunker, Afghanistan "HE'S COMING!"

Amirah turned away from the big gla.s.s cage in the central lab as Abdul hurried into the room. Her only reply to his outburst was a slow smile.

"Did you hear me?" he demanded. He had a Kalashnikov hanging by a strap from his right shoulder and his face was dark with anger.

"I heard you, Abdul," she said, her voice soft and dreamy.

"Well what are your orders? Should I have him killed?"

Amirah blinked very slowly, once, twice. "Kill Sebastian?" She abruptly laughed as if it were all a wonderfully funny joke. She covered her laughing mouth like a teenage girl. "Is he alone?"

"He has his a.s.sistant with him, and a driver."

"Good. Let them come."

"Come? Come here?" he echoed, incredulous. "Amirah he has to be aware of what we're doing. He's coming to shut us down!"

"Shut us down?" She laughed again.

Abdul stared at her. Amirah's eyes were almost gla.s.sy. She looked drugged. Or worse, drunk! But that was unthinkable.

"You certainly don't want him to come in here. Not now. Not when he knows."

She shook her head. "How long until he gets here? Into the bunker?"

"Thirty minutes."

"a.s.semble the staff in the dining hall, Abdul."

"For what reason?" he demanded, and for a moment the dreamy look on Amirah's face solidified into something else. Something cold and reptilian that glared out at him through her beautiful eyes. Abdul took an involuntary step backward.

Amirah's lip curled and she turned away to stare through the gla.s.s at the monsters she had made. Four of them, each one clawing at the inside of the reinforced gla.s.s walls, their eyes burning like black stars.

"You have your orders, Abdul," she said without turning.

He backed toward the door, his anger warring with his doubt. He watched Amirah put both her palms on the gla.s.s and then lean forward so that her cheek was pressed against the cool surface as the four monsters cl.u.s.tered on the other side, tearing at each other to try and get to her.

Abdul fled.

Chapter Ninety-Seven.

The Liberty Bell Center / Sat.u.r.day, July 4; 10:28 A.M.

WE STOOD IN the Liberty Bell Center, which is located on Market Street between Fifth and Sixth Streets in the Old City part of Philly. Because of the task force's involvement with the event security I'd had a chance to tour the building a few times over the last six months and had a good working knowledge of its layout. The new building had been the centerpiece of a three-hundred-million-dollar makeover of the Independence Mall area, and they'd sunk nearly thirteen million dollars into the center, which opened in October 2003. The place was over thirteen thousand square feet, and was airy, well lighted, and pretty fascinating to any tourist or history buff. The bell itself sits in a gla.s.s chamber designed to magnify it so every one of the million-plus yearly visitors has a chance to get a really good look.

I think we all felt somewhat awed by all that it represented. I knew from having taken the tour that this was actually the second bell; the first one was made in the Whitechapel Foundry in England but it cracked shortly after it was cast. A couple of pot-and-pan makers named Pa.s.s and Stow recast it from a mixture of copper, tin, and traces of lead, zinc, a.r.s.enic, gold, and silver, but the second bell also cracked. That's the one that we were all looking at. The names Pa.s.s and Stow were stamped into the front of the bell. Rudy leaned forward and read the rest of the inscription: "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof-Lev. XXV, v. x. By order of the a.s.sembly of the Province of Pensylvania for the State House in Philada."

"They spelled Pennsylvania wrong," Skip remarked.

I shook my head. "It was one of a couple of acceptable spellings at the time."

"Darn thing's broken," Bunny said with a grin.