Joe Ledger: Code Zero Part 5

That was a long d.a.m.n night, followed by a longer day.

So many questions.

From my people, from the cops, from Homeland and everyone else. From Vice President Collins's Cybercrimes Task Force. Everyone wanted to know what happened. I told the same story forty times. It didn't make any more sense the fortieth time than it did while it was happening.

None of the five dead people had ID. The Humvee was stolen. The serial numbers had been removed from the weapons, and ballistics didn't match anything on record. No fingerprints on file.

We had to wait for dental records and DNA. The woman I'd strangled was named Luisa Kan. Korean by birth, raised in foster care, and a runaway at fourteen. She was nineteen when I'd killed her.

Reggie said that she looked like Mother Night. He was sure it was her.

So who were the others? Two were Asian: a twenty-two-year-old j.a.panese boy named Hiro Tanaka who'd come to America as an exchange student three years ago and dropped completely off the radar; and Sally Lu, fifth-generation Chinese American, twenty years old and a junior at the University of Southern California. Last seen at the end of the spring term. We were unable to verify that she was the same woman Reggie met in Arlington. There was simply not enough evidence.

The others were Neil c.o.x, nineteen, a former employee of a store that sold role-playing and video games; and Arnie Olensky, a high school dropout with no work record. Both of them from Baltimore.

All of them dead.

Jerry Spencer and his forensics team worked their apartments. They found money, expensive video game consoles, including one handheld that was like a souped-up Gameboy, but which no one could identify. Bug later said that it was the most sophisticated handheld game he'd ever seen. He did a patent search on it and found nothing. It was loaded with a bunch of games, but most of them were standard first-person shooter stuff. Except for one, a Mission: Impossiblestyle intrusion game called Burn to Shine. However, when Bug tried to hack the game software it triggered a series of microcharges. The game was destroyed and Bug spent a week in the hospital. They found nothing else of value.

The phrase "burn to shine" stuck in my mind. Violin had told me that those words were painted in blood on a wall in an illegal genetics lab in Vilnius, Lithuania. So far no one understood the exact meaning, at least as far as Mother Night's organization viewed it.

Various agencies worked the case. n.o.body made headway, and it eventually reached that point in an investigation where the various agencies covertly dropped out so they wouldn't be seen as the agency still fruitlessly searching.

Bug kept his people on it, though, and MindReader dug up every known fact on the five dead kids. We had a ton of information and we knew absolutely nothing.

If they had political ties to Iran, China, or North Korea, MindReader couldn't find them. No one could.

After a month, the investigation ground to a halt. There was simply nowhere to go with it. The press had bailed, frustrated by the lack of anything juicy to follow up the initial news of five good-looking kids dead by violence.

My name stayed out of it. Press releases from Homeland declined to name the "agents involved." Reasons of national security, yada-yada.

I spent some time with Rudy Sanchez, drinking beers with him in my dad's backyard, and sitting on the couch in his office. Rudy listened. We talked. He gave great advice on dealing with the shock and feelings of self-loathing that any moral person would feel after such an encounter.

Again, yada-yada.

Nothing he said, nothing Church said, nothing Junie said, could change the fact that I'd strangled a teenage girl and partic.i.p.ated in the slaughter of four other young people. Kids.

I knew I'd take the memories of that night with me to the grave. Just as I knew that on my bad nights, on those nights when the hinges of the Pandora's Box in my damaged head come loose and the monsters sneak out, then five ghosts would be standing beside my bead. Watching me with accusation in their dead eyes.

Maybe if we knew what all of this meant, then there would be some closure for me.

Maybe.

But I doubted it.

Chapter Ten.

Camden Court Apartments Camden and Lombard Streets Baltimore, Maryland Tuesday, May 31, 6:54 a.m.

On the last day of May, Junie found me on the balcony of our apartment. I was in my boxers and undershirt with the macrame lap blanket from the couch wrapped around my shoulders.

"Joe-?" she asked, her voice soft and tentative.

Without waiting for my reply she came out onto the balcony and sat down next to me. It was a strange morning, with shreds of clouds scattered haphazardly against a dark blue sky that refused to grow brighter as the sun rose. In the distance a few big birds rode the thermals, but from that distance I couldn't tell if they were gulls or vultures.

Carrion birds either way.

Junie lifted the edge of the blanket and snuggled up against me.

"Aren't you freezing?" she asked.

I shrugged. Truth was that I hadn't noticed the temperature.

I kept looking at the birds, but I could feel Junie's eyes on me as she studied the side of my face.

"Tell me," she said. It was gently said, an offer instead of a demand. And it was part of our rhythm. We each had a lot of complications in our personal history; we'd each been battered by the circ.u.mstances of lives lived in the storm lands. She had every right to be more emotionally screwed up than me, G.o.d knows, but Junie was far more balanced. More at peace with who and what she was. The same cannot be said of me.

"Bad night," I said.

"Couldn't sleep?"

"Couldn't shut my head down."

She kissed my shoulder.

The winds of morning kept tearing the clouds into gray and white tatters.

"Those kids?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Joe ... I remember you once telling me that if the bad guy deals the play then he owns whatever happens. Those are your exact words."

"Clever words, too. I should put them on my business cards."

"Come on, Joe, what else could you have done? And don't tell me that it's not the point. We both know it is."

"You're quoting Rudy."

"No, I'm not," she said, and there was an edge of irritation in her voice. She was a smart and empathic woman, and it was unfair of me to say that she was cribbing lines from anyone else.

"Sorry. It's just that Rudy's been harping on me with that for a couple of weeks."

"Maybe you should listen to one of us. I think it's fair to say that he and I know you best. Okay, Rudy knows you better and longer than I do, but I know you, Joe. I do. And I know that sometimes you look for ways to beat yourself up over things that are beyond your control and aren't your fault."

"It's more complicated than-"

She cut me off. "I know it's more complicated than that. Of course it is. The life you live is extremely..." she fished for the right word, "... difficult. The things Mr. Church asks of you, the things you ask of yourself, not only push your body to dangerous limits, they constantly put you in situations where there is no good option, only options less terrible than others. I've seen that, Joe. I saw what you had to do to protect me the day we met, and what you had to do in order to save everyone from disaster. I saw it. Just as I saw the hurt in your eyes afterward."

I said nothing. Her body was a warm anchor to a better world and I closed my eyes and concentrated on the feel of her arm and breast where they pressed against my side.

"The question, my sweet love," she said softly, "isn't whether you did something wrong. You didn't. You couldn't do anything other than what you did. No, the question is whether you need to go back to the fight. We both know that this kind of war won't really end. Terrorism is a fact of our lives. It'll be here forever because there will always be hatred in the world and technology has gotten so user-friendly that anyone can reach out through the Net to do harm or cook up something in a cheap lab. I spent years talking about this sort of thing on my podcast, and it's not all conspiracy theories. This is our world."

"I know, but..."

"But do you have to be the one to fight everyone's battles, Joe?"

I said nothing. I didn't dare, because I knew what my answer would be.

"Joe ... listen to me. If you're fighting because you're afraid to stop fighting, then you're fighting the wrong war. Maybe it's time to stop."

I watched the carrion bird circle high in the sky.

"Not yet," I said.

Interlude Two The Hangar Floyd Bennett Field Brooklyn, New York Seven Years Ago Miss Artemisia Bliss looked out the window. "Am I allowed to ask where we're going?"

Midway through the interview Dr. Hu left the room to make a call, and when he returned he told her that they were going to take a drive. Without telling her anything else, he escorted her down to the lobby, where they were met by two very tall, very imposing men in dark suits. Hu knew that she was sharp enough to peg them as Secret Service or the equivalent. Outside, they got into a black Escalade that had a third man behind the wheel. The big car headed straight to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.

Now they were in Brooklyn, heading west on I-278.

"Am I allowed to know where we're going?" asked Miss Bliss.

"You'll see," said Hu.

She nodded, accepting the conditions.

"You're fond of games," said Hu, coming at her out of left field.

She gave him a full second's appraisal, then nodded. "Sure. Video games, mostly. Some RPG stuff and simulations."

"I'm going to shock and possibly offend you," said Hu.

She said nothing.

"According to your debit card purchase history, you're a frequent flyer at GameStop and other stores. Are you angry that I know this?"

"I'm not pleased," she said, "but not surprised. I'll bet you know all sorts of things about me."

She smiled when she said that, and Hu's pulse jumped a gear. Was that a flirty smile? There was definitely some kind of challenge there. He kept his composure intact, however.

"Thorough background checks are necessary for reasons you'll discover shortly."

"Oh, I have no doubt." She paused, then prompted, "Games-?"

"Right. Games."

"What about them?"

"That's what I want you to tell me," said Hu. "What's your interest?"

"Amus.e.m.e.nt?"

"Please."

She shrugged. "The real answer is kind of boring."

"Try me."

"I like to solve problems," she said. "The tougher the challenge, the more fun it is."

"You bought the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. How'd you do on the Water Temple level?"

"Is that a serious question?"

"Yes. Did you beat it?"

"When I was like ... ten?"

"You survived the jet ski level of Battletoads?"

"Sure."

"What was your best time?"

"It's not about best time. It's about remembering where you died in previous tries. I only played it six times, and beat it on the seventh try. I didn't have a stopwatch running."

"Have you done a speedrun?" he asked, referring to one his own favorite aspects of gaming, which was a play-through of a whole video game or a selected part of it, with the intent of completing it as fast as possible. Although Hu didn't compete with other gamers except a kid named Jerome Williams-known familiarly as Bug-recently hired by Mr. Church. They were neck-and-neck at speedruns of most games.

"Sure. Everyone does a speedrun once in a while."

"Did you do one of Battletoads?"

"No," she said. "Haven't played it since I beat it."

"Why?"

"I beat it, and then beat it again," said Bliss. "What would be the point?"

"To beat your best time...?"

Hu smiled. "What about Halo: Combat Evolved, the Library level? To beat your best time..."