Patient Zero (22 page)

The DMS Warehouse, Baltimore / Tuesday, June 30; 10:29 P.M.

THE DOOR BURST open and Sergeant Dietrich came in at a dead run, still in his skivvies but with a combat shotgun in his hands, with Grace Courtland at his heels. All of Alpha Team piled in behind them, and I saw Ollie and Skip, both of them looking scared and worried. Ollie had a bath towel wrapped around his hips and his hair was frothy with un-rinsed shampoo; Skip had a fire axe in his hands. They both looked terrified of what they might find. Dr. Hu trailed the pack, followed by a few lab coats with frightened faces and wide eyes. The doctors and techs faded over to the wall and stood there looking shocked.

“Stand down!” I yelled as the soldiers raced up. “All hostiles are down.”

Dietrich slowed to a stop. “Those idiots locked the bay door,” he said, clearly angry that he wasn’t able to help.

I pointed at Dr. Hu, who was standing against a wall, tears in his eyes. “Doc, we have an injured man in here. See what you can do for him.”

Hu didn’t move. “Was he      was he        ”

“Yes.” I cut a glance at the people clustered in the doorway and lowered my voice. “He was bitten.”

Hu pressed himself back against the wall. “We can’t do anything for him!”

“You’re a doctor, for Christ’s sake      he needs help.”

He flicked a terrified glance at the trailer and shook his head, unwilling to move.

I walked over and took a fistful of the front of his Hawaiian shirt and lifted him onto his toes. “Listen to me, asshole, that boy in there is hurt and he’s scared and he’s one of us, not some action figure. This is real stuff happening to real people. I want you to do whatever you can for him, and do it right now, or so help me God I’ll lock you in there with him.”

With a little push I let him go and Hu staggered back and then froze in place, legs bent as if deciding whether to run. He blinked a few times then he gave me a quick nod and went into the trailer, twisting by me so as not to make any contact.

I felt a light touch on my arm and turned sharply to see Grace standing right there. Her eyes searched my face and my body. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” I snarled, then bit down on my rage and tried it again. “No, Major, my men and I are fine. But the soldiers detailed here and all the lab techs are dead. So is the prisoner that we nearly died getting for Mr. Church and the docs who were working on him. And all the walkers, too; but one of your soldiers, a young kid      he’s been bitten.”

“Christ,” Dietrich growled. He had murder in his eyes.

Grace was appalled. “How did this happen? I don’t—?” She stopped, aware of the people around us, and gave me a significant look.

There had to be a hundred people in the bay now, some in fatigues, some in civilian clothes, all of them looking horrified and confused. We saw Church moving through the crowd toward us, with Rudy beside him looking frightened and out of place, so I went to meet them. I got right up in Church’s face. “Your security sucks!”

He looked at me for a long moment, and for the first time I saw real emotion bubbling beneath the surface of his professional calm. It was a seething, ice-cold rage. His lip curled back for a moment and then I saw him slam his control back in place, one steel plate at a time.

“First things first,” he said, and his voice was nearly calm. He took out his cell and hit a number. “This is Church. Security code Deacon One. Full lockdown.” Instantly a different set of alarms rang and revolving red lights mounted high on the walls began flashing. He disconnected and hit a second number. “Lock the surveillance office. Good, now I want all security logs and video feeds from the last twelve hours routed to my laptop immediately. The same goes for traffic cams in a twenty-block radius all directions. Code them eyes only. Stay in lockdown until you hear from me personally. And tell Colonel Hastings that I want two gunships in the air right now to monitor the grounds.”

He turned to Dietrich. “Gus, clear this room. Pick six men you trust and hand-lock everyone into their rooms. No electronics. Do it now.”

Dietrich pivoted and yelled at the crowd in a leather-throated roar. The throng of agents, soldiers, scientists, and support staff melted back and pushed through the doorways. Ollie and Skip backed out as well, flicking glances at the bodies, at me, and at Church. Bunny and Top stayed put.

“You okay, cowboy?” Rudy’s eyes were jumpy with shock.

“Ask me later.”

Again Grace caught my eye. I could feel something move between us, some subliminal telepathy, but I couldn’t translate it. Not then, not at that moment. With an effort I broke the eye contact and walked over to my guys. “Top, get the team together in one place and text me on my cell to let me know where.” I gave him my number.

Top murmured, “This don’t smell right, Cap’n.”

“No, it doesn’t. There’s no damage to that door. Someone
let
those things out, and that means someone just murdered four soldiers and all those doctors. I figure Church is going to start a witch hunt. That’s fine with me, but I’m going to start one of my own. You with me?”

Top’s lip curled back. “I didn’t sign on to get ass-raped, Cap’n.”

“Damn skippy,” agreed Bunny. Muscles bunched and flexed in his jaw. “What do you want us to do?”

“For now, circle up the wagons and sit tight. Keep your eyes open and your mouths shut. You catch wind of anything—I don’t care how small—I get to hear it before you take the next breath. Are we clear on this?”

“Sir,” they both said tersely. Their faces had to be a mirror of my own: horror, fury, and something else, some dangerous and predatory light that should not shine through the eyes of good people. I couldn’t define it any more than I could interpret what Grace had tried to convey, but I understood the sense of it, and I felt it burning in my own eyes.

I took a half-step closer and they leaned forward so that we were almost touching head to head. “Be best if you boys found some black coffee and had a couple of cups.”

“Christ, boss,” said Bunny, “I’m already so wired I’ll never get to sleep as it is      ” His voice trailed off as he got what I meant.

“I’ll make sure everybody’s wide awake, Cap’n,” murmured Top. “You won’t find nobody sleeping on this watch.”

“Hooah,” I said.

Top punched Bunny lightly on the shoulder and they left, both of them throwing angry looks around the room as if what had happened had been a personal attack made against them. I watched them go, reading their body language. I’ve been wrong a few times in my judgment of people but not often, and I found it hard to believe that they would have come running unarmed into the bay if either of them had bypassed the security and unlocked Room 12. Even so, I was going to be keeping both eyes open every second of the day and night. As of that moment I didn’t trust anyone in the DMS—except Rudy, and he wouldn’t even know how to bypass a security system let alone one as sophisticated as this.

Rejoining Church and Grace, I said, “So far, Mr. Church, I’m not entirely sold on your supersecret organization.”

He didn’t reply.

Dietrich came over. “Room’s clear, sir. Building is in full lockdown. Gates are sealed and I deployed the entire security force in pairs. No one goes out of sight of his partner. We’re locking people into their rooms.” He paused for a moment, looking worriedly at the lab. “Sir, I checked on this guard team myself thirty minutes ago. I know those boys.” Dietrich paused, and then with sadness in his voice corrected that comment. “I knew them all pretty well.”

“Somebody opened that door,” I said, pointing. “Do you see any signs of forced entry?”

Church said, “Let’s not make decisions in the absence of information. The security video logs are being fed to my laptop. Let’s meet in the conference room and take a look at them. Until then no one speaks to anyone.”

The others headed toward the door, but I lingered with Church. “The DMS finally gets a prisoner to interrogate and then this happens. Funny timing, don’t you think?”

“Yes, hilarious.”

He left and I followed.

Amirah / The Bunker / Tuesday, June 30

ABDUL, THE FIGHTER’S lieutenant, was a grim-faced man with humorless eyes and pocked skin that made him look like a smallpox survivor. He had first bonded with El Mujahid during a series of raids financed by one of the Iranian ayatollahs and together they’d blown up three police stations in Iraq, assassinated two members of the new government and planted bombs that killed or crippled over a dozen American and British troops—all of it in the days following the “liberation” of Baghdad. In the years since then they had cut a bloody path through five countries and the price on Abdul’s head was nearly as large as that offered for El Mujahid.

Now that El Mujahid was out of the country it was up to Abdul to ensure that no one knew about the Fighter’s absence. He made a series of small raids, including two more attacks on remote villages using the new and ferocious Generation Seven strain of the
Seif al Din
pathogen, and in each case he left behind a CD-ROM or videocassette on which were prerecorded messages from El Mujahid. As the Fighter mentioned specific incidents in the attacks it was that Abdul stage-manage those raids so that they precisely matched all references in the messages.

On the morning following El Mujahid’s “rescue” by British troops, Abdul returned briefly to the Bunker to consult with Amirah after first making sure that Sebastian Gault had left. Now they sat in her study, he in a deep leather chair, she perched on the edge of a love seat. The second half of the love seat was piled high with medical test results and autopsy reports.

Abdul sipped from a bottle of spring water and nodded at the reports. “Is that information on the new strain?”

“Test results, yes,” she said, nodding. She looked very tired and her eyes were red-rimmed.

“Has he said anything more about it?” Abdul never mentioned Gault’s name. He hated the man and thought that even saying his name aloud was an affront to God, not to mention to El Mujahid. Gault and that man-loving scorpion of an assistant of his, Toys. When he thought of what Amirah did and was willing to do with Gault it was very difficult for Abdul to keep a sneer off his face as he confronted this woman. This
whore.
How could she sleep with that man? Even if it furthered the cause and even if El Mujahid had ordered it, it was so     
vile
a thing to do. He wanted to spit on the rug between them.

If Amirah was aware of his contempt she hid it very well. She picked up one folder and weighed it in her hand. “This is a detailed schematic of the release device Sebastian has provided for my husband. It is waiting for El Mujahid in a hotel safe.” She smiled, stood, and walked them over to him; Abdul was careful not to touch her hand as he accepted them.

When he finished reading he looked up in alarm. “I’m not sure I understand this. This device is booby-trapped. It’s set to release the plague according to a preset clock instead of an active trigger.”

“Yes.”

“Where did you get this?
How
did you get this? It must belong to      ” He waved a hand, still unwilling to say Gault’s name.

“I downloaded it from his laptop,” she said. “Or, rather, I arranged to have it downloaded while the laptop was out of his possession.”

“He’s never without it,” Abdul said.

Amirah smiled. “He was distracted.” She let it hang there in the air between them and Abdul turned his face away, not wanting this whore to see him blush. When he finally turned back to face her he saw that she was smiling a knowing smile.
Witch!

“And you’re sure that he does not know that this material was taken?”

“He doesn’t know any more than he knows I disabled the program that would allow him to blow up this bunker. My computer experts are as good as any in the world. After all, Sebastian paid for the very best.”

Abdul almost smiled at the irony of that. He offered her a grunt of a half laugh, though he was truly very impressed. But he was also troubled. “Does the Fighter know about this?”

Amirah chuckled. “You of all people should have more faith in El Mujahid than that. I sent him the schematic which will allow him to rewire the trigger so that it actually works as it was supposed to work.” She paused, then with a sneer added, “As Gault promised it would work.” His sneer softened to a sly smile. “And I have my own contribution to make to our cause.”

When she told him what it was Abdul felt some of his dislike for this woman crumble away. He was almost smiling when she ushered him to the door.

The DMS Warehouse, Baltimore / Tuesday, June 30; 11:01 P.M.

AFTER THE CLEANUP we met in the conference room. Church, Grace, Hu, Dietrich, Rudy, and me. No one was going to be getting any sleep tonight, so we’re all drinking strong coffee, but despite everything there was a fresh plate of cookies on the table—vanilla wafers, Oreos, and what looked like, God help me, Barnum’s Animal Crackers.

Grace said, “Before we become totally paranoid, are we sure this is a security breach and not an error in protocol? If the door wasn’t forced then one of science team might have inadvertently opened it.”

“Perhaps one of the walkers got loose and the lab staff panicked,” Rudy suggested.

“I don’t think so.” He had his laptop open on the table and turned it around so we could all watch. He hit a button and an image appeared of the loading bay and the trailer designated as Room 12. “This is a continuous feed. Watch.” The image suddenly flickered and then disintegrated into static snow.

“Camera malfunction?” Dietrich asked.

“Unknown. If so then all of the cameras in that part of the building went down at the same time.” He held up a hand. “Before you ask      they’ve since come back online.”

Grace leaned forward, looking intense. “Sounds like electronic jamming.”

“I don’t understand,” said Rudy.

“All surveillance devices are electronic and are therefore subject to signal overload or signal blocking,” Grace told him. “The technology isn’t new and these days there are portable jammers small enough to fit in your pocket.”

“So this is sabotage?” Rudy rubbed his eyes. “This has been too long a day.”

Church ended the video feed. “Considering the timing and location of the signal failure and the subsequent breach of Room Twelve we’ll proceed on the assumption that we have been infiltrated by person or persons unknown. We have to find this person and neutralize him.”

“Or her,” Grace suggested.

“Or
them
,” I said. “You’ve been doing some heavy-duty recruiting lately. We can’t assume you’ve only scooped up one bad apple.”

“Agreed. We have to evaluate the incident, learn what we can learn from it, both strategically and in terms of our security. We also have to consider the effect this incident will have on morale.”

“Seems pretty damn clear to me,” barked Gus Dietrich, “that these assholes wanted the plague released.”

“Maybe,” said Grace, “or they could have been on a scouting mission and opened the wrong door.”

“You like that theory?” I asked her.

“Not much, no, but it’s worth keeping on the table. Though I think it’s more likely that they wanted the prisoner silenced.”

I downed half my coffee. “Church, you said that there was a way to get that access code. How?”

“There are only three practical possibilities, two of which are highly improbable,” he said. “First, they got it directly from Grace, Gus, Hu, or from me.” He paused for comment, got none. “Second, one of us was careless and left a code scrambler lying about.”

Hu was shaking his head before Church finished. He fished his scrambler out and set it on the table. “No way. Not after the speech you gave me when you gave me this thing. It’s on the side of the tub when I take a shower and it’s in my pajama pocket when I go to bed. Twenty-four/seven I know where this is.”

Grace and Dietrich similarly produced theirs. Church didn’t bother. The point was made.

“What’s the third choice?” I asked.

“That someone else has a scrambler or some compatible device, though that’s a bit hard to accept. These scramblers aren’t on the market yet. I obtained them directly from the designer. He made five of them and I acquired all five.”

“Who has the other one?”

“Aunt Sallie.”

“Who?”

Grace smiled. “Aunt Sallie is the DMS’s chief of operations. She runs the Hangar—our Brooklyn facility.”

“And you call her ‘Aunt Sallie’? Kind of conjures an image of a blue-haired maiden aunt with too many cats. Should I assume that you believe this Aunt Sallie person is trustworthy and hasn’t left her scrambler lying in her knitting basket?”

Dietrich smiled. “If you’re lucky, Captain, no one’ll ever tell her you said that.”

Grace’s smile broadened and it youthened her, stripping away several layers of tension. Even Church looked amused, though with him it was harder to tell. “I think those of us who know her can safely vouch for Aunt Sallie’s integrity.”

“What about force? Could someone have taken the scrambler from her?”

“I would truly love to see someone try,” said Church. Across from him Dietrich was laughing quietly and nodding to himself, apparently visualizing the scenario.

The laughter and smiles, however, died away. I glanced at Rudy, who was quietly observing everyone. I imagine that he, like I, realized that the laughter was a pressure valve. The enormity of what had happened in Room 12 loomed over us.

Church’s phone rang and when he looked at the displayed number he held up a finger and took the call, speaking quietly for a couple of minutes. “Thanks for getting back to me so quickly,” he said. “Please keep me informed.” He clicked the phone off and laid it on the table and any trace of humor that had been on his face was completely gone now. “That was a contact of mine at the Atlanta office of the Bureau. Henry Cerescu, the engineer who designed the code scrambler, is dead. His body was found in his apartment this morning and he’d been dead for about thirty hours. Cleaning lady found him and called the police. No suspects, but the report says that Cerescu’s apartment, which doubles as his workshop, was trashed. A complete report will be faxed to us.”

“Damn,” I said. “Sorry about your friend, Church, but I bet I can tell you what’ll be in that report. Most likely it’ll look like an ordinary break-in by a junkie. TV and DVD player will be gone, there’ll be lots of random damage, a big mess. The smartest way to hide a small crime is to make it look like a bigger one. I’ll bet Cerescu probably had the design schematics of his scrambler somewhere, maybe hard copy or on his computer. The hard drive will be gone, too, and most of his papers.”

“Very likely,” Church said. He took another cookie and pushed the plate toward me. I poked through them and took an elephant and a monkey.

“So where does that leave us?” Grace asked.

“With the certain knowledge that we’ve been infiltrated by someone with an understanding of what the DMS is,” Church said. “And someone who knows me well enough to know how I obtain equipment.”

“That can’t be a long list,” Rudy suggested.

“It isn’t,” Church agreed, “and I’ll be taking a look at that list once this meeting is concluded.”

“It still leaves one or more persons inside the DMS,” I said. “Inside this building.”

“Excuse me,” Rudy said, “but am I to presume that if we are here in this room then we are not on the list of potential suspects?”

Church leaned back in his chair and studied Rudy for a few moments, one index finger tracing a slow circle on the tabletop. “Dr. Sanchez, there are very few people I trust implicitly, and in each case that trust is based on many years of experience, opportunity, and evaluation. As for most of the people gathered here, my trust is based on more recent knowledge. You and Captain Ledger were in the science lab with me and were then escorted to your quarters. Major Courtland was with me and Sergeant Dietrich had just completed his rounds with two other officers. One of them walked him to his quarters.”

“Okay, but doesn’t that indicate that we were not directly involved in opening the door? What makes you sure we’re not accomplices?”

Church bit an edge off a cookie, munched it. “I haven’t said that I have cleared you of all suspicion, Dr. Sanchez, but as you already said, you can presume that if you’re in this room then you are not high on the list of suspects.”

That seemed to satisfy Rudy, at least in part, because he gave a curt nod and lapsed back into observant silence.

“We’ve brought a lot of people on board in the last couple of days,” Dietrich said. “The movers, more than half the security team, the decorators, some new lab techs.” He paused and looked directly at me. “And all of Echo Team.”

“How good was the screening for all of these people?” I asked.

Grace said, “We have three FBI agents on loan to us working as screeners. You’ve met them, Joe. Agents Simchek, Andrews, and McNeill—the agents who picked you up in Ocean City.”

Buckethead and his cronies,
I thought. “Okay, but who screens the screeners?”

“I do,” Grace admitted, and I could see a troubled look in her eyes. She knew that I had to be thinking about her oversight with the task force logs regarding me and the second panel truck. She’d been under tremendous stress since the massacre at St. Michael’s. Stress isn’t conducive to a calm and meticulous approach. I kept that to myself for now and I think I caught a flicker of a grateful nod from her.

“I’ve been supervising the actual screens, though,” added Dietrich. “If this is someone who slipped through because of sloppy work then it’s on me.” I liked that he made no attempt to weasel out of anything. Dietrich was Church’s pet bulldog and he seemed blunt and honest. I liked him, and he was low on my personal list of suspects.

“Another question,” I said. “Where are we recruiting from? You gave me files on the Echo Team guys, along with a big stack of other possible candidates. Some of those are generic folders—off the shelf from Staples—but some were FBI, a few were military, a couple were even marked “top secret.” Am I right in assuming that you’re recruiting from all of the military and federal agencies?”

“And law enforcement,” Dietrich added with a nod in my direction.

“How? I thought you guys were secret.”

“Secrecy is conditional, Captain,” Church said. “We all have to answer to someone, and the DMS answers directly to the President.” He paused, then added, “A few days ago I met with the Joint Chiefs and the heads of the FBI, CIA, ATF, NSA, and several other branches. I was asked by the President to give a brief description of the DMS and its mission, and to then make requests that each department or branch of service provide me with a list of candidates for inclusion in the DMS. The files were sent to us, and Agent Simchek and his team of screeners did evaluations and ran each candidate through MindReader. Anyone with even a twitch in his or her records was discounted. I will admit, however, that there was a bias toward individuals with skill sets that are appropriate to the current crisis, and that may be our hole. Simchek and his team may have somehow erred on the side of immediate need. That      or the traitor has a spotless record and rang no alarms.”

“If he was black ops or Delta Force,” Grace offered, “then his records might have been altered or sealed. Field agents’ names are often deleted from records of actions, especially when the agent is active military and the action technically illegal. Assassinations and infiltrations over enemy lines. It’s all plausible deniability, which means this bugger could hide even from MindReader.”

“What kind of person are we looking for?” Rudy asked. “A rogue government agent, a terrorist sympathizer        ”

“Unknown,” Grace said. “All we know is that this person, or persons, unlocked Room Twelve for reasons unknown.”

Church nodded. “This impacts you most of all, Captain. We don’t know how, or even if, this relates to the planned raid on the crab plant. Before the meeting Major Courtland advised me to push it back; Sergeant Dietrich wants to hit it with all the troops and go for a clean sweep. The mission is yours to call, however.”

“Jesus Christ,” Rudy said, “he just came out of a combat situation.
Two
combat situations—”

I touched his arm to stop him. “No, Rudy. You can get me on the couch later, but right now I can hear the clock ticking big time. If what happened in Room Twelve is not directly related to the crab plant then I’ll eat Sergeant Dietrich’s gym socks.”

“I’ll cook them for you,” said Dietrich.

“Church,” I said. “About hitting the crab plant at dawn?”

“Yes?”

“Fuck that. I want to hit it right now.”

Rudy gasped, but Church nodded. “I figured you would. Choppers are on deck and my computer team is getting your communications gear ready.”

I grinned at him.

“Joe,” said Grace, “are you sure about this?”

“Sure? No. I’d rather hit that place with a five-hundred-pound bomb and scratch them off the to-do list; but now more than ever we need to go soft and see about nabbing some prisoners. I think we should plan immediate interrogations, though.”

“Okay,” Grace said. “My team will be ready to rush the door at the first sign of trouble. But if you want everyone else to remain back at an unobtrusive distance then it still leaves us with a five-to-ten-minute lag for a full-on attack.”

“Joe      that’s suicide!” Rudy barked. “There’s no way that you could—”

“It’s my call,” I said firmly. “And I can’t think of a better plan that we could put into action right now. The longer we wait the more time there is for the spy to get a message out.”

“No messages are going out right now,” Church said. “We have jammers running everywhere in the building. However, we still have to consider the possibility that messages and intelligence may have been sent out before the lockdown.”