And suddenly Gault was snapped out of his reverie and out of his shock and was completely present in his mind. She had said “cause,” not program. Not scheme, or plan. Cause. That is a very interesting choice of a word, my love, he thought.
So he told her and he watched her face as she listened; and he paid special attention to the muscles around her eyes and the dilation of her pupils. What he saw told him a lot. Perhaps too much, and it both elated him and hurt him. By the time he was done her beautiful face was suffused with a terrible light.
Amirah pulled him close and wrapped her arms around him. They held tightly together, ignoring the absurdity of the PVC suits.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too,” he said, and meant it.
And when this is done I may have to feed you to one of your pets, he thought. And he meant that, too.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Balkh, Afghanistan / Five days ago
1.
THE TOWN OF Balkh in northern Afghanistan was once one of the great cities of the ancient world. Now, even with a population of over one hundred thousand the town is largely in ruins. The Iranian prophet Zoroaster was born there and for centuries it was the center of the Zoroastrian religion. Now, like much of Afghanistan it varies between poverty and desperation, with some rare spots of music, color, and the laughter of children too young to grasp the realities of the life that awaits them.
South and a little east of the city is the small town of Bitar, a village caught like an eagle’s nest in the spiky crags of a mountain pass. Only one serpentine road led up into it and a worse one wound down. Camels manage it because they’re stubborn, but even they slip once in a while. There are eighty-six people living in Bitar, most of them childless parents whose sons have died fighting either for the Taliban or against them; or who have gone off to work the poppy fields and never returned. A few of the youngest children walk seven miles to go to school. There are only thirty camels in the whole town. The chickens are all skinny. Only the goats look hardy, but they are a hardy breed used to very little. For plumbing the people have well water that smells of animal urine and old salt.
Eqbal was sixteen and his parents had not yet lost him to the poppy fields or the wars. Eqbal was destined to service Allah through service to his family. It was his qawn identity, he was sure, to be a farmer and in that way both preserve old ways and yet provide for the future. Despite war and strife, Eqbal believed in the future and to him it was bright with promise. Wars pass, but Afghanistan, graced by the love of Allah, endures.
Every morning Eqbal would rise with the day, clean himself, and then dress in loose robes and place a kufi cap on his head so that he would be ready to say his first prayers of the day, following the precise requirements of salat. First standing and then kneeling and finally prostrate in humility before the grace and majesty of God.
Though a young man of uncomplicated faith and one who had dedicated himself to the simple rigors of the farm life there in the dusty desert, Eqbal was not a simple-headed youth. As he tended his flocks or did chores around the farm he was often deep in complex thought, sometimes wrestling meanings out of the passages in the Qur’an; sometimes working to understand the complexities of delivering a breeched goat without losing either mother or kid. He did not think fast, but he always thought deep, and when he came to a conclusion he was generally correct.
Had he lived Eqbal would have very likely become the headman of the village, and certainly a man to be counted. But Eqbal did not live. Eqbal would not live to see his seventeenth birthday, which was eight days away.
“Eqbal!” called his father, who was laid up with a broken ankle. “How is that goat coming along?”
The young man crouched over the gravid goat, who was crying out in pain as Eqbal worked his hands inside the birth canal to try and turn the kid. The other goats picked up her nervousness and the air was a constant barrage of snorts and baas. Eqbal’s hands were red with blood and mucus and sweat shone brightly on his face as he worked, brow knitted, his clever fingers feeling along the tiny legs of the unborn goat.
“I think I have it, Father!” he called as his fingertips encountered the soft ropy length of the umbilical cord. “The cord is twisted around the hind legs.”
He heard the scrape of a crutch as his father shuffled toward the open window. “Be gentle now, boy. Nature does not want you to hurry.”
“Yes, Father,” Eqbal said. It was one of his father’s favorite sayings, and it matched the slow process of thought and action that made Eqbal his father’s son. Patience was as valuable to a farmer as seeds and water.
He curled one finger around the cord and gently—very gently—pulled it down and over the kid’s legs, then felt inside to make sure that there was no other obstruction. With great care he pushed on the kid to turn it inside the mother, who continued to bleat and cry.
“It’s clear, Father.”
“Then step back and let her do her own work,” his father advised, and Eqbal glanced up to see his father’s face in the window. He, too, was slick with sweat. The pain of his broken leg—shattered in a terrible fall on the cliffside—was etched into the lines on his face. His color was bad, but he was smiling at his son as Eqbal slowly withdrew his hand from the goat and sat back to watch.
The bleating of the goat changed in pitch as the baby began to slide along the birth canal. It was still painful, but now the goat did not sound desperate, merely tired and sore.
Within two minutes the wet, slime-slick little body slid out of her and flopped onto the straw-covered ground. Immediately the mother struggled to her feet and began licking at it, sponging clear her baby’s nose and mouth and eyes.
“A female, Father,” said Eqbal, turning again to look at his father. He froze, confused at the expression on his father’s face. Instead of relief or joy, his face stared at him with a an expression that was a twisted mask of shock and horror.
“Father . . . ?”
Then Eqbal saw that his father was not looking at him . . . but behind him.
Eqbal whirled, thinking that it was one of the men from the Taliban group in the caves to the south; or a collector from the poppy farms come to take someone else off to work in the fields. Eqbal’s hand was straying toward his shepherd’s crook when he froze in place; and he could feel his own face contorting into lines of dread.
A man stood behind him.
No . . . not a man. A thing. It was dressed like a man but in strange clothes—light blue pants and a V-necked short-sleeved shirt. Eqbal had seen TV, he had been to the clinic in Balkh, he knew what hospital scrubs were; but he had never seen them out here. This man wore them now, and they were dirty and torn and stained to a dark shining purple wetness by blood. Blood was everywhere. On the man’s clothes, his hands, his face. His mouth. His teeth . . .
Eqbal heard his father scream and then his whole world was torn in red madness and pain.
2.
EL MUJAHID SAT comfortably in the saddle of his four-wheeled ATV, leaning back against the thick cushions, heavy arms folded across his chest. Three hundred yards up the slope the screams were already starting to fade as the last of the villagers died. He did not smile, but he felt a strange joy at so much death. It had all worked so well, and so quickly. Far more quickly than the last time. Four subjects, eighty-six villagers. He checked his watch. Eighteen minutes.
His walkie-talkie crackled and he thumbed the switch and held it to his mouth.
“It is done,” said his lieutenant, Abdul.
“Are you tracking all four subjects?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the villagers.”
“Five have already revived,” said Abdul, and the Fighter thought he detected a slight tremble in the man’s voice. “Soon they will all be up.”
The Fighter nodded to himself, content in the knowledge that Seif al Din, the holy Sword of the Faithful, was in motion now, and nothing could deny the will of God.
In the vi
llage the rattle of gunfire seasoned the air like music.
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-ass 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 hell 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 asses 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 circumstances 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. Décor 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 balls. 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 damn 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 glasses. 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 fuck 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 po
sition 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 ass. 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 button. 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 shit and you know it. Nine-eleven may have wrinkled the Constitution 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.”
Patient Zero Page 9