Code Zero: A Joe Ledger Novel

by Jonathan Maberry

  Artemisia realized that she feared him for reasons she could not adequately understand. She was in the presence of power on a level she’d never previously encountered.

  And the woman, the Whoopi Goldberg with ’tude, had a lot of power, too. But it wasn’t quite on the same level.

  After the cookie was gone, the big man took a handkerchief—a real one, not a tissue—and dabbed at the corners of his mouth. He folded the handkerchief neatly and placed it on the table beside the box of cookies.

  “My name is Church,” he said, then nodded to the black woman. “This is Aunt Sallie.”

  “‘Aunt Sallie’?” echoed Artemisia.

  “You can call me Auntie. Call me ‘ma’am’ and I’ll kneecap you.” She wasn’t smiling when she said it.

  “Noted,” said Artemisia.

  “Dr. Hu speaks very highly of you,” said Church.

  Artemisia nodded. She was letting her instincts guide her, and the remark did not seem to warrant a verbal reply. The man was stating a fact, not asking for agreement.

  “Your profile suggests that you would be a good fit for us.”

  “May I ask who ‘us’ is, exactly?”

  “We’ll get to that.” Church studied her for a long time. A longer time than was comfortable, and she began to fidget. She hated that, because she never fidgeted. It was a point of pride for her. The big man ate another cookie. Slow bites, a lot of measured chewing. A dab of the handkerchief. Without consulting any paperwork or computer, he said, “You were first in science and math in every school you’ve attended. You graduated from high school at age fourteen, you received special consideration that allowed you to earn a doctorate at twenty. You don’t appear to have much in the way of personal politics.”

  She resisted the urge to give a dismissive shrug. Instinct told her that a reaction like that would cast her in a poor light. Probably in the black woman’s eyes and definitely in the big man’s eyes.

  “I care more about people than political parties,” she said.

  “Oh, jeez,” sighed Aunt Sallie.

  Mr. Church gave a faint smile. “Would you mind elaborating on that?”

  Artemisia felt her face growing hot. Despite her best effort she’d put her foot wrong. Still, she kept her voice controlled, her manner calm. Much calmer than she felt inside.

  “I don’t know enough about politics to have an opinion that would matter. Not when it comes to Republican and Democratic pissing contests. If we’re talking the politics of science, then I land on the humanist side.”

  “Meaning—?”

  “Meaning that science should benefit humanity. I have a private loathing for any science that exists for its own sake. Science should be used. It should be applied. The end result of research is practical and beneficial application.”

  “What about military applications?” asked Mr. Church.

  “Is that a trick question?”

  “No.”

  “I won’t build nukes, I won’t create bioweapons. Beyond that … if you’re talking about drone technology that can fight an enemy in a modern combat scenario while keeping U.S. troops out of the line of fire, then … sure. I’d do that. Would I build a space-based laser system so the CIA can assassinate whoever’s on their shit list, then no. That’s bullshit and it’s too much of a gray area.”

  “You distrust the Agency?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re untrustworthy.”

  “How so?”

  She took a moment to find the word that she thought would work best. “They’re inept.”

  The Whoopi Goldberg lookalike turned away to hide a smile. Dr. Hu studied his nails.

  “What makes you say that?”

  Now she did shrug. “Because they get too much press, and none of it’s good.”

  “It could be a front,” he said. “A misdirection.”

  “Sure. But I don’t think it is. I think they’ve had to do too much and never had enough legal funding. They let their need to accomplish an impossible agenda trick them into making bad choices. The whole drug thing in the sixties. That may even have begun as a well-intentioned reaction to the threat of Soviet expansion, but it was badly played. They broke so many laws while trying to save capitalism that it became their knee-jerk reaction. It became the easiest path to a series of short-term goals that probably looked good on reports to Congress but were chump change in terms of real global control. The space race did more to scare the Soviets, as did the Reagan-era military buildup. That’s what tore the wall down and collapsed communism.”

  “So you do have politics,” observed the woman.

  “No,” said Artemisia, shaking her head. “I’m aware of politics … but really what I’m aware of is the evolution of military sciences since the Manhattan Project.”

  Mr. Church selected a cookie, tapped crumbs off, took a bite. “Why?”

  “Because that’s the sandbox I want to play in, and I can’t do it from the outside. All of the university research projects are in permanent stall mode, presenting only enough results to renew their grants. And don’t get me started on the private sector. If I were a male Asian scientist I’d already have a job in the high six figures, but there is a bizarrely counterproductive bigotry against placing women, particularly ethnic women, in the trenches of the top military contract teams. That leaves DARPA or something like DARPA. Some kind of think tank way out on the cutting edge where results matter more than gender, race, age, or any other bias.”

  Aunt Sallie opened a file folder, read for a moment, her lips moving, then raised her head and gave Bliss a direct stare. “What would you say if I told you that we have transcripts of your therapy sessions going back to junior high?”

  “Hmm. Two things occur to me.”

  “And they are?”

  “First, fuck you.”

  Auntie measured out a slice of a smile. “Fair enough. What’s the second thing?”

  “I’d be surprised and a little disappointed if you hadn’t.”

  That seemed to surprise Aunt Sallie. “Oh?”

  “I’m beginning to get an idea of the scope of this organization, or division or whatever it is. If I was on that side of the table I wouldn’t hire anyone whose full psych records I didn’t have.”

  “Invasion of privacy…?”

  “I’m all for privacy, hence my telling you to go fuck yourself. But at the same time I understand your needs. It’s a gray area and I’m neither a philosopher nor political ethicist.”

  Aunt Sallie nodded.

  “If you have my records, then,” continued Bliss, “aren’t you going to ask me about the suicide attempts?”

  “It was going to be my next question.”

  “Yes, I tried to kill myself. Twice.” She held out her arms, palms up, to show her wrists. There were two lateral scars. “Razor blades the first time, pills the second. Ask your question.”

  “Why do you want to die?” asked Aunt Sallie.

  Bliss smiled. “I don’t. If I did, I’d be dead.”

  “Explain.”

  “A determined suicide is nearly always successful. Countless studies show that. That’s point one. Point two is how I went about it. Razors across the wrist.”

  “Right.”

  “Wrong. You’ve seen my IQ tests and all of my other test scores. Do you think that, even at thirteen, I was so unaware of human anatomy that I didn’t know where to cut? Lateral wrist cutting does tendon damage, and I didn’t wind up with much—if I had, I wouldn’t have had the muscular control to cut both wrists. If I’d made a precise venous cut I would have suffered cardiac arrhythmia, severe hypovolemia, shock, circulatory collapse, and cardiac arrest. Clearly none of that happened.”

  Aunt Sallie said nothing. Mr. Church ate his cookie.

  “And the pills … I took a fistful of tramadol between classes in school. I vomited and passed out in health class. Ask yourself, of all the teachers in a modern school, which one is most likel
y to know basic first aid? A health sciences teacher.”

  “So what are we talking,” asked Auntie, “teenage angst? A cry for help?”

  Bliss smiled. “No. Absolute boredom. I was in an accelerated school but I was miles above those others kids. I was smarter than all my teachers. And I hadn’t yet had the offers from MIT, CalTech, and the other schools where my intellect would be cultivated and prized. I was screaming to be heard. And if I couldn’t be heard, then I wanted to be locked away and medicated so I wouldn’t be aware of how sucky my life was and how nowhere my future would be.”

  The room was utterly silent.

  Without commenting on that, Aunt Sallie opened a second folder, consulted it, and said, “There’s a lot of stuff in here about games. You play games, you hack them and design new levels, you share them with your friends.”

  “Is there a question in there?” asked Bliss.

  Irritation sparked in Aunt Sallie’s eyes, but there was none in her voice when she replied. “Games and game simulations are a big part of defense research. These simulations are used for everything from devising response protocols for various extreme threats to testing the security designs on new high-profile facilities.”

  Bliss nodded.

  “Games are also being used for psychological screening,” continued Aunt Sallie. “Put a bunch of candidates for spec ops or other classified jobs in separate rooms, wire them up so you can monitor everything from pupillary reaction to sweat glands, then let them play violent games, and you learn a lot. Like whether someone is going to freeze, to kill, to want to kill, to hesitate, whatever.”

  Bliss gave her another nod.

  “We’re always looking closely at that kind of research,” said Hu. “We do a lot of it, and we want to do more of it.”

  “Building a better mousetrap,” said Bliss.

  “Building a tougher mouse,” said Aunt Sallie. “Or spotting mice who are likely to become psycho killers if you put a gun in their hands and turn them loose.”

  Bliss shrugged. “A lot of it will depend on the quality of the test and how perceptive the people are who are interpreting the data.”

  There was a long silence. Church ate a cookie. Hu wrote some notes on a tablet. Aunt Sallie tried to stare holes through Bliss.

  Finally, Church said, “How do you know we’re not CIA?”

  “I don’t. But I’d be surprised.”

  “Why?”

  Artemisia pointed a finger at Hu. “Because they wouldn’t know what to do with someone like him.”

  Dr. Hu turned the color of a ripe tomato.

  “And they wouldn’t know what to do with someone like me.”

  Bliss gave Church and Aunt Sallie as flat a stare as she could manage. They gave it right back to her.

  It was Aunt Sallie who broke what became a very long silence.

  “She’ll do,” she said, grinning like a thief who had just stolen something of unexpected value.

  Hu beamed.

  Church ate a whole cookie before he gave a single, small nod.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Grand Hyatt Hotel

  109 East Forty-second Street

  New York City

  Sunday, August 31, 6:38 a.m.

  She didn’t know I was watching her.

  She thought I was still asleep.

  She slipped out of the bed the way she did every morning, moving slowly so as not to wake me, moving across the bedroom floor on silent cat feet, reaching for her robe, ducking into the bathroom and closing the door.

  It was a kind of modesty.

  Not that she was coy about seeing her nude body. I have happily explored every inch of that beautiful landscape. I’ve mapped every pale freckle, paused to consider each tiny scar, paid my respects to each curve and plane, and become lost in the textures and tastes and scents of her.

  No, her furtiveness in the first light of morning was because she did not sleep with her wig on. She wore a colored headscarf to bed and it usually came loose.

  Junie Flynn did not like me to see her naked scalp. She’d never said so in words, but I knew her well enough to know that she did not want to start the day for either of us with so obvious a reminder that a clock was ticking down inside the cells of her body. We had no way of knowing how many days or weeks or months she had left. If the drugs in the experimental program she was on worked, then maybe it would buy her years.

  If not …

  Life is a cruel, cruel bastard. It’s merciless and malicious.

  Through the bathroom door I could hear her throwing up. Again.

  When I’d met Junie last year she was already undergoing chemo, having already finished previous sets of drugs and radiation. The tumor in her head had been removed. Twice. But it was aggressive and sly. It hid little bits of itself from the doctors and then waited for everyone to take a deep breath for that sigh of relief before it snuck back into our lives.

  At the moment, she was doing okay. She’d regained some of the weight she lost during the last relapse, with new padding to soften the edges of hip bones and ribs. I was doing my best to fatten her up with hot dogs and beer at every Orioles home game—and at the same time trying to convince her that baseball, not football, was the American national pastime. And we spent a lot of time with my best friend, Rudy Sanchez, and his new wife, Circe—both of whom could cook, and both of whom were medical doctors. Rudy was a psychiatrist and Circe had so long a list of credentials after her name that I’m not sure which profession most factually applied. Dinners with them always involved rich foods and appallingly rich chocolate desserts.

  Junie had filled out to almost one hundred pounds. Twenty-five to go to hit the target weight for her height.

  But her head was still pale and hairless and she didn’t want it to be a statement in the morning. A reminder.

  A threat.

  So I faked being asleep and watched her out of the thinnest possible slit of eyelids. I saw her dart toward the bathroom, stepping over Ghost, who lay twitching, deep in a dream of flight and pursuit. Junie paused at the bathroom door and looked back to see if I was still asleep. I affected a soft snore. She bit her lip and there was an expression on her lovely face that was equal parts love for me and sadness for us.

  No trace of self-pity even though, let’s face it, it would be completely excusable and understandable. But that wasn’t Junie. Her biggest concern was making sure those she loved could survive her passing.

  Her death.

  God.

  The new experimental drugs were rough. They robbed her of energy, they gave her frequent nosebleeds, and they nauseated her.

  But were they also saving her? Were they worth the suffering?

  We all hoped and prayed so.

  The bathroom door clicked closed and I waited until I heard the shower running before I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I sat there, flexing my toes in the carpet shag, staring at the closed door, feeling an ache throb in the center of my chest. It was so deep, so sharp, so powerful that it felt like a stab wound.

  I would have preferred a stab wound. If that were the worst that we had to face, then I’d take the hit and go down smiling, knowing that she was safe and would live. Or I’d do what I do when someone tries to stab me for real. I’d deflect, defend, disarm, and destroy. If this were something I could confront and engage, then I’d be in the thick of it, teeth bared, eyes narrowed, a battle song in my head, blood singing in my ears. If this were some threat come to harm the woman I loved, then there would be no level of ugly to which I wouldn’t go, no depth of crazy to which I wouldn’t descend, to protect her.

  I would win that kind of fight, too.

  That’s what I do. That’s what people like me do. The trained killers. The shooters and fixers who work in the topmost level of special operations. Defeat is a rare thing for us because we train to disallow the probability of it, and we strive toward eliminating even the possibility of it.

  And that’s proof of the cruelty of this
thing.

  Among my friends who are doctors, my boss, Mr. Church, has the best of the best scientific resources at his disposal, and I’m top kick of the most lethal crew of shooters in the world, and none of us can really stand between an innocent woman and a monster so small that it has to be seen through a microscope.

  It’s all humbling in a vicious, mean-spirited way.

  “Junie,” I said, whispering her name.

  She came out of the bathroom after a while, looking fresh and clean and wholesome and whole. Here wig of wavy blond hair was in place. Small touches of makeup applied to her face. Wearing a sheer white cotton blouse over a cream camisole and jeans. Lots of earrings, pendants, bracelets, and rings. Looking perfect.

  Smiling at me.

  “You’re up!” she exclaimed happily.

  “In many interesting ways,” I agreed.

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Morning wood or genuine interest?”

  “Both.”

  “I’m already dressed.”

  “You got dressed before you checked the calendar.”

  “Why,” she asked, “what’s today?”

  “It’s National Romp Junie Flynn in the Ol’ Sackaroonie Day.”

  “Elegant.”

  “It’s early,” I confessed. “Best I could come up with.”

  “Romping is sooo sexy a word.”

  “It’s classier than ‘banging my baby’ day, which was in the running for a while.”

  She made a face. “I would have hit you with something heavy.”

  “Why should you be different from everyone else I know?” I held out my arms toward her. “It’s an official holiday, ma’am. You wouldn’t want to fly in the face of tradition.”

  “We both have important meetings today.”

  “Then let’s start the day off with a bang.”

  She winced. “Ouch. That’s bad, even for you.”

  “It’s still early.”

  “I don’t know,” said Junie skeptically. “With a start like that, I don’t know if your day is going to get any better. You’ll be doing knock-knock jokes next.”