Joe Ledger (36 page)

First Appearance:
The Dragon Factory

BRIAN BIRD

Combat Call Sign: Birddog

Rank: Logistics Specialist

Brief Bio: Birddog works closely with Brick, making sure that the field teams get all of the hardware they need to get the job done.

First Appearance:
Extinction Machine

HELMUT DEACON

Combat Call Sign: The Kid (honorary)

Rank: Junior Executive for FreeTech

Brief Bio: Helmut is a teenager whose parentage is both complicated and horrific. In a move to separate himself from his father, and prove to the world that beyond nature and nurture there’s a third option: choice, Helmut has used his genius and specialized knowledge to help humanity. He is currently on the science team for Junie Flynn’s FreeTech.

First Appearance:
The Dragon Factory

THE BAD GUYS

THE SEVEN KINGS

A secret society made up of some of the most powerful and dangerous men in the world. To build their mystique, the Kings hijacked much of the conspiracy theories built around other groups—such as the Illuminati. Though defeated by the DMS, the Kings are far from destroyed, and it’s likely they’ll be back in force before too long.

First Appearance:
The King of Plagues

HUGO VOX

The cold-hearted genius who built the Seven Kings was also one of the leading experts in anti-and counter-terrorism. He used his high security clearance to obtain insider knowledge that allowed the Kings to do untold harm.

First Appearance:
The King of Plagues

THE RED KNIGHTS

The
Upierczi
are a genetic offshoot of humanity that live in the shadows and hunger for human blood. Although they’re not supernatural—just products of genetic aberration—they are the basis for the myths of vampires. The Red Knights are incredibly strong and fast and utterly ruthless.

First Appearance:
Assassin’s Code

BERSERKERS

These super soldiers are the result of transgenics and gene therapy undertaken by the Jakoby Twins. Given DNA from silverback gorillas, the Berserkers are enormously powerful and highly dangerous.

First Appearance:
The Dragon Factory

SEBASTIAN GAULT

The former pharmaceutical developer has used both his genius and his vast fortune to fund terrorist groups and to provide them with dangerous bioweapons including the fearsome
Seif al Din
pathogen. Gault was recruited into the Seven Kings of Hugo Vox.

First Appearance:
Patient Zero

ALLIES

BARRIER

Barrier was the first of the modern wave of counterterrorism organizations designed to respond to enemies with the highest level of technology. Based in London, Barrier’s teams are made up largely of the best-of-the-best agents from the SAS, MI5 and MI6. The senior consultant on the design and protocols for Barrier was Mr. Church.

First Appearance:
Patient Zero

ARKLIGHT

The covert and militant arm of a secret organization of female assassins, Arklight operates according to its own agenda. They are the principle enemies of the Red Knights and the Red Order. Arklight is run by Lilith, a former breeding slave of the Knights; her daughter, Violin, is their senior field agent. It’s rumored that Mr. Church and Lilith have some significant history, and they’ve shared a number of adventures in the years prior to the establishment of the DMS.

First Appearance:
Assassin’s Code

TOYS

Alexander Chismer is a former criminal who worked with Sebastian Gault and Hugo Vox. When he helped bring down the Seven Kings, Mr. Church offered him a chance at redemption by entrusting him with billions of the Kings’ ill-gotten gains and challenging him to do as much good for humanity as possible with it. He is the private financier behind Junie Flynn’s FreeTech. Whether Toys will earn redemption or slip back into his corrupt ways remains to be seen.

First Appearance:
Patient Zero

FREETECH

An organization formed to repurpose technologies originally created by terrorist organizations such as Majestic Three, the Seven Kings, the Jakoby Family, the Red Order and others. Funded by Alexander Chismer and run by Junie Flynn, FreeTech brings these technologies to the people who need them.

First Appearance:
Code Zero

THE DEPARTMENT OF MILITARY SCIENCES

THE ORGANIZATION

The Department of Military Sciences was created by Mr. Church and is chartered by Executive Order. It is tasked with searching out and responding to terrorist threats involving cutting-edge science.

The DMS operates out of regional field offices. Currently there are seventeen field offices that run thirty-six active teams. Joe Ledger’s Echo Team was originally based at the Warehouse in Baltimore, but was later relocated when Ledger opened the Pier in San Diego.

The DMS’s primary weapon is the supercomputer system called MindReader. This system has two primary and overlapping functions. Using an elegant pattern-recognition software package, MindReader collates information culled from all domestic law enforcement and intelligences services as well as those from trusted international allies. MindReader sifts through the data on an endless hunt for terrorist activity. Its second function is as an intrusion weapon. MindReader can hack its way into virtually any known computer system and then rewrite the target computer’s memory to erase any trace of its presence.

Unlike other covert agencies, the DMS is not buried under mountains of red tape. Field team commanders are given superior mission support and encouraged to act autonomously. Naturally this requires a certain kind of leadership personality, and screening new DMS agents is done with utmost care. Everything about the DMS is built around the accuracy of its intelligence and the speed of its response.

First Appearance:
Patient Zero

ECHO TEAM

Joe Ledger’s group of first-chair shooters. This SpecOps team has logged more field time than any other DMS unit; and they’ve tackled some of the most dangerous threats to humanity imaginable.

First Appearance:
Patient Zero

THE WAREHOUSE

The Baltimore Field Office and home to Joe Ledger and Echo Team from
Patient Zero
through
Code Zero
. The original Warehouse was destroyed by the terrorist Erasmus Tull, taking with it the lives of nearly two hundred agents. It was rebuilt by Ledger in the days following that tragedy.

First Appearance:
Patient Zero

THE HANGAR

The main headquarters of the DMS, housed in an old hangar on Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. The decrepit exterior hides the world’s most sophisticated counterterrorism organization on earth.

First Appearance:
Patient Zero

THE PIER

The DMS’s latest field office. Built on an actual pier in San Diego by Joe Ledger, this office is dedicated to Special Operations and runs four teams—Echo, Slingshot, Deep Six and Kraken.

Novels and Short Stories in Chronological Order

COUNTDOWN

(A teaser prequel to
PATIENT ZERO
)

“I didn’t plan to kill anyone. I wasn’t totally against the idea, either. Sometimes things just fall that way, and either you roll with it or it rolls over you. Letting the bad guys win isn’t how I roll.” Meet Joe Ledger, Baltimore PD, attached to a Homeland task force…who’s about to get a serious promotion.

PATIENT ZERO

NOVEL #1/Published in 2009 by St. Martin’s Griffin

When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week there’s either something wrong with your world or something wrong with your skills... and there’s nothing wrong with Joe Ledger’s skills. And that’s both a good, and a bad thing. It’s good because he’s a Baltimore detective that has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new taskforce created to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can’t handle. This rapid response group is called the Department of Military Sciences or the DMS. It’s bad because his first mission is to help stop a group of terrorists from releasing a dreadful bio-weapon that can turn ordinary people into zombies. The fate of the world hangs in the balance.

ZERO TOLERANCE

Short Story

This sequel to
PATIENT ZERO
brings Joe Ledger back into action, hunting for zombies in the deadly mountains of Afghanistan.

DEEP, DARK

Short Story

In an underground bioweapons lab a team of scientists working to develop super soldiers instead create something that is far deadlier and infinitely stranger. Joe Ledger and Echo Team must hunt—and be hunted—deep down in the dark.

MATERIAL WITNESS

Short Story

A stand-alone short story that takes place in the early days of Joe Ledger’s service in the Department of Military Sciences, a top secret division of Homeland Security. Joe Ledger and the DMS must protect a Pine Deep spook and author who is in over his head with the wrong people and may know more than he is letting on.

THE DRAGON FACTORY

NOVEL #2/Published in 2010 by St. Martin’s Griffin

Joe and the DMS go up against two competing groups of geneticists. One side is creating exotic transgenic monsters and genetically enhanced mercenary armies; the other is using 21st century technology to continue the Nazi Master Race program begun by Josef Mengele. Both sides want to see the DMS destroyed, and they’ve drawn first blood. Neither side is prepared for Joe Ledger as he leads Echo Team to war under a black flag.

DOG DAYS

Short Story

Joe Ledger returns in this tale that follows the tragic conclusion of
THE DRAGON FACTORY
. In the wake of a devastating personal loss, Joe Ledger and his new canine partner, Ghost, go hunting for the world’s deadliest assassin.

***An audio exclusive story available from Blackstone, read by Ray Porter.

CHANGELING

Short Story

Joe Ledger teams with a mysterious British agent named Felicity to investigate a dangerous bioweapons factory.

Originally published in
Midnight Echo Magazine
(Australia), June 2013.

THE KING OF PLAGUES

NOVEL #3/Published in 2011 by St. Martin’s Griffin

Saturday 09:11 Hours: A blast rocks a London hospital and thousands are dead or injured…. 10:09 Hours: Joe Ledger arrives on scene to investigate. The horror is unlike anything he has ever seen. Compelled by grief and rage, Joe rejoins the DMS and within hours is attacked by a hit-team of assassins and sent on a suicide mission into a viral hot zone during an Ebola outbreak. Soon Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences begin tearing down the veils of deception to uncover a vast and powerful secret society using weaponized versions of the Ten Plagues of Egypt to destabilize world economies and profit from the resulting chaos. Millions will die unless Joe Ledger meets this powerful new enemy on their own terms as he fights terror with terror.

ASSASSIN’S CODE

NOVEL #4/Published in 2012 by St. Martin’s Griffin

When Joe Ledger and Echo Team rescue a group of American college kids held hostage in Iran, the Iranian government then asks them to help find six nuclear bombs planted in the Mideast oil fields. These stolen WMDs will lead Joe and Echo Team into hidden vaults of forbidden knowledge, mass murder, betrayal, and a brotherhood of genetically engineered killers with a thirst for blood. Accompanied by the beautiful assassin called Violin, Joe follows a series of clues to find the Book of Shadows, which contains a horrifying truth that threatens to shatter his entire world view. They say the truth will set you free…. Not this time. The secrets of the
Assassin’s Code
will set the world ablaze.

A FOOTNOTE IN THE BLACK BUDGET

Short Story

Joe Ledger, Top and Bunny go to the bottom of the world all the way to the Mountains of Madness in this crossover with H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.

***This story is not yet released. It will be included in the anthology
The Madness of Cthulhu,
edited by S.T. Joshi.

MAD SCIENCE

Short Story

Joe Ledger and Violin go after a kill-squad of Red Knights in this sequel to
ASSASSIN’S CODE
.