Joe Ledger: Code Zero Part 21

Top gave him a pitying look. "Don't you ever read the d.a.m.n newspapers, Farmboy?"

"I read Yahoo news sometimes."

"A black bloc is a protest thing," explained Top. "It's a tactic some groups use, including anarchists. Bunch of people show up to make a protest and they're all wearing black hoodies, dark gla.s.ses, scarves, ski masks, motorcycle helmets. That sort of s.h.i.t. Trying to be anonymous, like ants in a swarm. No individuals, just a faceless mob, which forces the target of their protest to react to the mob as a whole. No way to focus countermeasures like discussion or negotiation on a single person, because they're all the same. Get it?"

"Yeah, okay, maybe I did hear about something like that. Started somewhere in Europe?"

I nodded. "Sure, Germany, places like that. People making protests against squatter evictions, war involvement, nuclear power. All sorts of stuff, and some of it's legit. Sometimes they have a good point."

Top's expression was sour. "But the tactic's for s.h.i.t. Building barricades, setting things on fire, throwing rocks at cops."

"Not to go all Occupy on you, old man," said Bunny, "but some of those cops deserve it. Tear-ga.s.sing unarmed protesters."

Top leaned on the seat back between Bunny and me. He gave Bunny a hard look. "So you're saying there are a.s.sholes on both sides of a conflict? Really? That's brand-new news for the whole world? d.a.m.n, Farmboy, you're smart."

"Okay, okay, you know what I'm saying. Sometimes you have to make a lot of noise to get heard."

"No doubt. Sometimes you have to pull a trigger, too. But I don't believe Mr. Church sent us here to debate political ethics."

"Point is," I said, leaning into their conversation, "the big man thinks Mother Night's wig and sungla.s.ses might be a black bloc costume. Emphasis on 'costume.' Doesn't mean she's an anarchist or a protester. Means she and her people are maybe trying to look like them."

"Can't rule it out, though," said Top.

"Can't rule anything out," I said.

"So," said Bunny, "we're not sure this is a real anarchy thing? The hacking thing, the bombings."

"You heard Mother Night's rant," said Top. "Pretty much right out of the anarchist textbook."

"Exactly," I said. "So textbook it's generic."

They nodded and Bunny said, "Wonder if her name has some kind of meaning to it. Some kind of symbolism."

Top shrugged. "Comes from the t.i.tle of a novel by Kurt Vonnegut. 'Bout a guy who becomes a n.a.z.i propagandist. Ends up in an Israeli prison."

Bunny half smiled. "Have you read every d.a.m.n book in the world? I mean, when the f.u.c.k do you have time to read?"

"Maybe you'd have time to read if you weren't playing video games all the d.a.m.n time," murmured Top, "and following Lydia around with your d.i.c.k dragging on the ground."

"Hey."

Top shrugged. "Mother Night. Might be something in the name, in the book reference. What do you call it? A metaphor. Propaganda and that s.h.i.t. We should keep it in mind, Cap'n. Been too many cases already that have one coat of paint over something else."

"Yup," I said, nodding. "Okay, street looks quiet. Let's go do this."

"Hooah," said Bunny dryly. "Hoo-frickin'-ah."

He opened the glove box and sorted through a stack of official identification wallets, selected two, and handed one each to Top and me.

I opened mine, saw the letters FBI, nodded, and tucked it into the inner pocket of my coat. We checked our weapons, nodded briefly to one another. Ghost wagged his tail like we were going to play.

We got out of the car and walked toward the cyber cafe.

Interlude Seven The Liberty Bell Center Independence Mall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Four Years Ago Dr. Artemisia Bliss stood with her back to the wall, keeping out of the way as EMTs and DMS field techs carried in armloads of body bags.

Armloads of them.

Ninety-one people died at the Liberty Bell Center today. A few were part of a terrorist cell run by the legendary El Mujahid. Fourteen of the dead were members of Congress. The rest were civilians. Tourists, press, children.

Dead.

Dead twice, she corrected herself.

Killed by the seif-al-din pathogen delivered either by the explosive device that was hidden at the center or by the vectors.

Vectors.

Such a strange little word for so dreadful a thing.

The truth was much more horrible. Infected people whose bodies had been hijacked by genetically modified parasites, driven by unstoppable urges and specifically triggered brain chemicals to attack. And bite.

And devour.

Many of the bodies were no longer whole.

There was blood everywhere.

Everywhere.

Bliss wore a yellow hazmat suit and held a forensic collection kit in one hand.

"It's safe," said Dr. Hu as he came over to join her.

"'Safe'?" she echoed.

"It's not airborne," he said, unfastening his hood and pulling it off. "Just don't touch anything without gloves."

She removed her hood and looked around at the devastation. The new DMS shooter, Captain Ledger, sat on a bench next to another recent recruit, the psychiatrist Dr. Rudy Sanchez. They both looked sh.e.l.l-shocked.

Bliss had watched videos of Ledger in action.

She could understand why Church liked him. The man was utterly ruthless, brutal and efficient. A nearly perfect killer, except for a psychological profile that read like it was written by Stephen King. Lots of people inside Ledger's head, and none of them very nice.

Which did not at all change the fact that Bliss liked him.

No. Wanted him. That was closer to it.

She wanted the power that was in him to be inside her.

s.e.xually, sure, but that still wasn't it. It was at times like this that she wished she were a vampire so she could drink his power and take it for her own. If she had that power, she knew she would use it. No question. She'd take Ledger's power. And Church's, of course.

Who else?

Samson Riggs-now Colonel Riggs; Aunt Sallie. A very few others.

Maybe even a weasel like Hu. He was as s.e.xless as a broken d.i.l.d.o-and in bed he was all talk and very little else-but he had that brain. That s.e.xy, s.e.xy brain.

At times like this she felt that old familiar shift inside her head. As if something was changing. The first few times it happened, it felt like a loss of control, but an unspecified loss over an unknown area of control. Like something was happening in a closet somewhere in the back of her mind.

Now she understood it a little more.

It wasn't a loss of control. Not a loss at all.

It was a process of removal.

Cutting away restraints. Removing the chocks from beneath the wheels of potential.

It was all about power.

Wanting it.

Deserving it.

Getting it.

Having it.

And ... using it?

That part was still unformed in her mind, and she wasn't at all sure she wanted to attach an agenda to the process. That felt somehow limiting. It was like the quantum phenomenon of light photons. A photon can behave as a wave or a particle, depending on how you measure it. To measure it restricts its infinite possibilities.

Bliss knew that she was changing, evolving, but she had no idea where that evolution would go or what form it might take. To predict is to attempt to measure, and that felt wrong.

These thoughts flowed through her brain as she moved into the Liberty Bell Center, knelt by one corpse, opened her kit, and began to collect samples. The protocol was simple enough: take three vials of blood, sc.r.a.pings of skin from around the mouth and cells from inside the cheek. Bag and tag each set of samples along with a fingerprint card and digital photo of each victim and then place them in a plastic bag marked with a biohazard symbol. Later, at the Hangar, the science team would run a ma.s.sive battery of tests.

But as she collected samples, Bliss felt as if that evolving part of her gently but firmly took over the controls that drove her hands. She filled three vials with blood. And then a fourth. A fifth. A sixth.

She took two sets of skin samples.

Two cheek swabs.

Two of everything.

Into identical biohazard bags.

One bag went into the evidence pouch. The other ...

She glanced around to see if anyone was watching her.

No one was, although the vice president was in the room, and he glanced her way, then glanced away.

When she was sure no one was looking, she unzipped a tool pouch on her hazmat suit and slipped the duplicate bag out of sight.

Then she paused there, letting both aspects of her personality-the upstart science geek girl she'd always been and this more evolved personality-stare at each other across the fact of what she'd done. Like gunslingers.

However, only one real gunslinger had come armed to this confrontation.

She felt the smile that reshaped her mouth as she began taking two sets of samples from a second victim.

Why am I doing this?

Both parts of her mind asked that question.

The geek had no answer. Or was afraid to answer.

The evolved aspect whispered an answer that was couched inside a single word.

Power.

She rose and moved to another body, and another, and another.

When she was finishing with the eleventh body, she rose and yelped in surprise to find a man standing directly behind her.

A tall man. Good looking in a desk-jockey way but with big hands that Bliss knew came from blue-collar work in his youth. A square jaw and intense eyes. And a smile that she'd seen on TV and the cover of Time. A smile everyone in the country knew. A smile everyone in the world knew. The supremely confident smile of a truly powerful man.

She said, "Oh-Mr. Vice President ... I didn't see you there."

"Yes," he said, "you did."

"W-what?"

His smile was very handsome, but not at all the same one from the cover of Time. This wasn't the smile you wanted on the face of a man kissing babies at a rally. This smile, she knew, was meant for her to see, and to interpret exactly as it was meant.

"You're the Deacon's wonder girl," he said.

"I, um, work for Mr. Church."

"Church, Deacon, whatever the f.u.c.k he calls himself. You work for him."

She nodded, wondering where this was going.

"Your team's always wired in to each other. Did you see the way that b.i.t.c.h Courtland treated my wife?"

Bliss had. The Second Lady was a notorious loudmouth and a legendary b.i.t.c.h. When the outbreak started, Collins's wife tried to take charge of the moment and boss everyone around, and even if she was well-intentioned, she went about it the wrong way. Things went south from there and Major Courtland had dropped Mrs. Collins with some kind of karate chop. The Second Lady was ambulanced off once the whole thing was over. She never stopped screaming threats up to the point where the beleaguered EMTs slammed the doors.

"I..." began Bliss, and didn't know where to put her conversational foot.

But Collins leaned close and, in a voice pitched only for her to hear, said, "Between us, sweetheart, I was kind of hoping Courtland would have busted my wife's f.u.c.king jaw."