Patient Zero_ A Joe Ledger Novel Part 9

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Baltimore, Maryland / Tuesday, June 30; 9:11 A.M.

I MADE IT through the rest of the night and all through the morning without federal agents appearing to kick down my door. Days of searching for the DMS, Javad, the two trucks, and Mr. Church had gone exactly nowhere. I now knew way too much useful information about spongiform encephalitis, including mad cow disease and fatal familial insomnia, but I had nowhere to go with it. Hoorah for me.

I took a hot shower, dressed in khakis and a Hawaiian shirt that was big enough to hide the.45 clipped to my belt; and then headed out to my appointment with Rudy. But first I had to stop at Starbucks and pick up his silly-a.s.s drink.

"I'M SORRY, JOE," said Kittie, the receptionist, when I arrived at Rudy's office, "but Dr. Sanchez didn't come back from lunch. I called his cell and his home number but they go straight to his answering machine. He's not at the hospital, either."

"Okay, Kittie, tell you what I'm going to go swing by his place and see what's what. I'll give you a call if I find anything. You call me if he gets in touch."

"Okay, Joe." She chewed her lip. "He's okay, though, isn't he?"

I gave her a smile. "Oh, sure could be any number of things. He'll be fine."

Out in the hallway my smile evaporated. Sure, any number of things could explain this.

Like what?

On the elevator down I began to feel a little sick. Now was not a good time for Rudy to suddenly go missing. I thought about the message I'd probably sent to Church via my Internet searches and began to get a big, bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I stepped out of his building and looked around the parking lot. His car wasn't there, not that I'd expected it to be. So I walked over to mine, clicked the locks and opened the door.

And stopped dead.

I had my gun out before I even fully registered what I was seeing. I spun around and scanned the entire lot, pistol down by my leg. My heart was a jackhammer. There were over fifty cars and half a dozen people going toward them or walking toward the building. Everyone and everything looked normal. I turned back to the front seat. There, on the driver's side, was a package of Oreo cookies. The plastic had been neatly sliced and one cookie was missing. In its place was one of Rudy's business cards.

I holstered my gun, picked up the card and turned it over. On the back was a note. Nothing complicated, no threats. Just an address that I knew very well and one other word.

The address was the dockside warehouse where I'd killed Javad the first time.

The single word was: "Now."

Part Two Heroes

Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.

BERTOLT BRECHT

Chapter Twenty-Four.

Baltimore, Maryland / Tuesday, June 30; 2:26 P.M.

IT TOOK TWENTY minutes to drive back to the docks and I had murder in my heart.

When I pulled up to the parking lot entrance I slowed to a stop and stared. The place had changed a h.e.l.l of a lot in the last few days. There was a brand-new heavy-duty front gate that hadn't been there when we'd raided the place, and a chain-link fence topped with coils of razor wire. There was a second inner fence that looked innocuous except for the metal signs every forty feet that read: DANGER-HIGH VOLTAGE. I saw four armed security guards, all of them dressed alike in distinctly nonmilitary uniforms. Some kind of generic guard-for-hire rig, but that didn't fool me. They all had the trained military look. There are certain levels of training you can't disguise with polyester sports coats and khaki slacks.

I have to admit that I debated going in quick and dirty, knocking these guys on their a.s.ses and coming up on Church out of a shadow but I didn't. It was a cute thought but not a good one and it probably wouldn't do Rudy or me any good. So I drove right up to the gate and let them take a good look at my face.

"May I see some identification, sir?"

I didn't make a fuss, just flashed them my badge and picture ID. The guard barely looked at it. He already knew who I was. He waved me through and told me to park by the staff entrance on the far side. I did as instructed, aware that they were watching me; and in my sideview mirror I caught a glimpse of a guard walking the perimeter of the roof. I strolled over to the door, taking only enough time to see other new features, like the tidy little security camera above the door and keycard lock. I didn't need a key, though, because the door opened before I could knock. Inside the entrance was one of the most striking women I'd ever seen. She had gold-flecked brown eyes, and an athletic figure that looked hard in the right places and soft in the right places. Her hair was cut short and she wore black fatigue pants and a gray T-shirt with no markings. Nothing like "DMS" stenciled on the front. No sign of rank, either, but her bearing was officer level. You could tell that right off. She had a Sig Sauer.9 in a shoulder rig and the grips looked worn from hard use.

"Thanks for coming, Detective Ledger," she said in a London accent. Her face showed signs of sleep deprivation and strain, and her eyes were red-rimmed as if she'd been crying. It could have been allergies, but under the circ.u.mstances I didn't think so. I wondered what had happened to upset her; was it the same thing that had caused Church to send his invitation? Whatever it was it didn't take a genius to get the idea that it wasn't good.

The woman didn't offer her name, give me a salute, or want to shake hands. She also didn't ask me to surrender my piece.

So I said, "Church."

"He's waiting for you."

She led the way down a series of short hallways to the conference room where my tac team had run into the trigger-happy terrorists. The same room where Javad had first attacked me during the raid. The big blue case was gone and the bullet-riddled conference table had been replaced with some generic government desks and computer workstations. A flat-panel TV screen filled a good portion of one wall. Decor change notwithstanding, the room gave me a serious case of the creeps. I could still feel the bruise on my forearm where Javad had bitten me-and there but for the grace of Kevlar.

The woman nodded toward a wheeled office chair in one corner. "Please have a seat. Mr. Church will be with you in-"

"Who are you?" I interrupted.

She gave me a three-count before she said, "Major Grace Courtland."

"Major?" I asked. "SAS?"

That got the tiniest flicker, a microsecond's widening of her eyes, but she recovered fast. "Make yourself comfortable, Detective Ledger," she said and left.

I turned in a slow circle and took in the room, looked for and found the three microcameras. They looked expensive and of a kind I hadn't seen before. I'd bet a year's pay that Church was sitting in another room watching me. I was tempted to scratch my b.a.l.l.s. This whole thing was bringing out the screw-you fifteen-year-old in me, and I had to watch that. Give in to any kind of pettiness and you lose your edge real d.a.m.n fast.

So instead I strolled the room and learned what I could, even with Cookie Monster watching. There was a second and much heavier door at the far end of the room that looked brand-new-I remembered it being a regular office door before-and when I inspected it I could see the recent carpentry and smell the fresh paint. I tapped it. Wood veneer over steel, and it was dollars to doughnuts that the wall had been reinforced, too.

I heard the door behind me open and I turned as Mr. Church entered with the British woman behind him. He was dressed in a charcoal suit, polished shoes, and the same tinted gla.s.ses. He made no comment about my investigation of the room, he just pulled up a chair and sat. Major Courtland remained standing, her face a study in disapproval.

I took a step toward him. "Where the f.u.c.k is Dr. Sanchez?"

He brushed lint from his tie. If he was threatened by me in any way he did a workmanlike job of not showing it. Courtland shifted to a flanking position with her hands folded across her stomach, perfectly positioned to make a fast grab for her pistol.

"Do you know why you're here, Mr. Ledger?"

"I can make a few guesses," I said, "but you can go stick them up your a.s.s. Where is Rudy Sanchez?"

Church's mouth twitched in what I think was an attempt not to smile. He said, "Grace?"

Courtland walked over to the wall with the TV screen and hit a b.u.t.ton. A picture popped on at once and it showed an office with a desk and a chair. A man sat on the chair with his hands cuffed behind him and a blindfold around his eyes. Rudy. A second man stood behind him. He held a pistol barrel against the back of my friend's head.

Rage was a howling thing in my head and my heart was throbbing in my throat like it was trying to escape. It took everything I had to stand there and hold my tongue.

After a moment Church said, "Tell me why I shouldn't have the sergeant put two in the back of Dr. Sanchez's head."

I forced myself to turn away from the screen. "He dies you die," I said.

"Yawn," he said. "Try again."

"What good would it do you or your organization to kill him? He's an innocent, he's a civilian."

"He stopped being a civilian when you told him about the DMS and about our patient zero. You put that gun to his head, Mr. Ledger."

"That's a crock of s.h.i.t and you know it. Nine-eleven may have wrinkled the Const.i.tution but it didn't run it through a shredder."

Church spread his hands. "I repeat my question. Tell me why I shouldn't have Sergeant Dietrich shoot Dr. Sanchez. We're a secret organization and we're playing for the highest possible stakes. Nothing, not even the Bill of Rights, matters more than what we're doing and that is in no way an exaggeration."

I said nothing.

"Mr. Ledger, if terrorists had a truck filled with suitcase nukes and one of them went off in each of twenty cities around the country it would do less damage to America as a whole, and to its people, than if another carrier like Javad got out into the population. If a plague of this kind starts we could not stop it. The infection rate and aggression factor would make it uncontrollable within minutes." He chewed his gum for a minute and then repeated that. "Minutes."

I held my tongue.

"If we cannot count on your complete loyalty and complete cooperation, you are worthless to us. You would be useless to me." Even behind his tinted gla.s.ses I could feel the impact of his stare.

"What is it you want?"

"Time is very short, so this is the deal, Mr. Ledger: we have a need to put a new tactical team into operation asap. Ordinary military and even our standard special forces units are not appropriate for this, for reasons we can discuss later. Major Courtland already has one team at operational readiness; our other team is on the West Coast involved in something of nearly equal importance. One local team isn't enough. I need a third team. I need it to be tight and I need it yesterday. I also need someone to lead that team into the field. I've narrowed the list of possibles down to six candidates. Five others and you."

"Hooray for me. What does this have to do with Rudy Sanchez?"

"I want you to give me your word that you will join us and become one of us. Not some reckless outsider. You are either DMS or you're not."

"Or what, you'll kill Rudy?"

Church jerked his head toward Courtland. She punched a b.u.t.ton on the wall. "Gus? Uncuff Dr. Sanchez. Bring him a sandwich and keep him company." She turned off the monitor.

I turned back to Church. "Why all the frigging drama?"

"To make a point. If I'd had more time to be dramatic I'd have had your father, your brother and his wife, your nephew, and even your cat in here."

"I'm a short step away from popping a cap in you," I said.

He leaned close. "I don't care. Dr. Sanchez is here because you made a breach of security. How we'll handle that is another matter. Right now we need to stop playing ping-pong here and get to the point."

"Then d.a.m.n well get to it."

"I told you what I need."

"A team leader?"

He nodded. "I need to start training the new team today because if we're really lucky, Mr. Ledger, that team may have to go into the field within days, maybe within hours. I don't have time to coax you or stroke your ego or appeal to your patriotism."

"So what? You wanted to make me afraid?"

"An apocalypse is an abstract and unreal concept. The sudden loss of everyone you love and care about is not. Time is not our friend."

"You're saying that there are more of these walker things, aren't you?"

"Yes." Even though I expected that answer it was like a punch in the mouth. He said, "We haven't stopped this thing yet, Mr. Ledger. At best we slowed it down by a few days."

"You should have figured that out before. It's the logical-"

"We did figure it out, but we had nowhere to go with the supposition. Our code breakers have been working round the clock to determine the location of any cells connected to the one you took down. We know where one is because of the truck the task force tailed. We have not risked hitting that site because there may be more sites and we don't want to panic these people. Play it wrong and they could go dark and we'd lose the trail, or they could release the plague right away. We've recovered enough information to make us reasonably sure they are sticking to a prearranged deadline, so we don't want to hurry that along. Because we did not intercept that truck, and did not raid the place to which it went, we're trying to make them believe they've given us the slip. The raid, after all, was half a day after the truck left."

"Trucks," I corrected. "There were two. We tailed one and lost one."

"Too b.l.o.o.d.y right you did," muttered Courtland, and I gave her a hard look to which she merely c.o.c.ked a challenging eyebrow.

"So why the urgency to train a hit team if you're not about to make a hit?"

"I didn't say that. It's my intention to have a team covertly infiltrate the one facility we have under surveillance."

"Infiltrate to what end? To locate other cells or to find more walkers?"

"Either will do."

I swallowed a dry throat. "What makes you think that the other hypothetical cells will still be in place? Once this cell here at this warehouse went dark the others would probably have followed a protocol of some kind-"

"Very likely," Major Courtland cut in, "but we have to go forward with what leads we have. On the upside, however, the other facility shows no sign of activity, no rats fleeing, so maybe they think they're clear. In the absence of more intelligence a quiet infiltration is our safest option."

I frowned. "And with all the military special ops and guys like SWAT and HRT you want to form a new team? There are guys out there with years more experience than me. Does the name 'Delta Force' ring any bells with you people?"

"It's more complicated than that," Church said. He gestured toward the far door, the one with the heavy scanner. "The other potential team leaders are in the adjoining room. Each of them is tough, experienced, and aware of the threat. All of them are active military-two Rangers, one Navy, one Marine Force Recon, and yes, even one from Delta Force. All of them have more combat and tactical experience than you do, though admittedly you bring other qualities to the game. You're all unique in one way or another but we don't have time to discuss that at the moment. I need to get the team leader status sorted out right now."

"What do you want us to do? Play rock-paper-scissors to see who gets the job?"

"Grace?" he said, and she went over to the heavy-duty door and unlocked it.

"If you'll come this way, Detective."

I stood up slowly. "This is a lot of James Bond bulls.h.i.t to decide a human resources issue isn't it?"

Church remained seated. He nodded his head toward the doorway, so I walked over and peered inside. Five guys in civilian clothes: three sitting and two standing. All of them looked tough and all of them looked either confused or p.i.s.sed off. They seemed frozen in an agitated tableau as if the door opening had interrupted them in the middle of a heated debate.