Patient Zero

by Maberry, Jonathan

  When I said Grace’s name there was the faintest flicker of amusement in his face, but it was gone in an instant. Maybe I imagined it.

  “Is this a hunch?” he asked.

  “Not really. Maybe half a hunch. It’s just that if I were going to launch this thing, that’s where I’d do it.”

  Church leaned a shoulder against the chopper and considered the point. “The First Lady will be there. Perhaps I should request that she be removed from the event.”

  “That’s your call. I could be wrong about this. There are a lot of big celebrations tomorrow, all over the country; and maybe these guys are too smart to pick the one where about every third person in the crowd is carrying a federal badge. No, I can’t see disrupting the event on a half a hunch, but I think you should reinforce your warning to all commands to stay extra frosty.”

  He nodded. “I’ll do that; and I’ll be with the President in a couple of hours and he can punctuate the request. But I’ll have some National Guard units on standby just in case.”

  “Fair enough.”

  We shook hands and he climbed into the chopper.

  The rest of us climbed into the Seahawks and we rose into the night sky, flying across Maryland with two Apaches giving close air support. For some strange reason going back to the Warehouse felt like going home.

  Chapter Eighty-Nine

  Baltimore, Maryland / Saturday, July 4; 1:12 A.M.

  BACK AT THE Warehouse we each went our separate ways. Echo Team was already sacked out for the night but Top had left me reams of notes on the new recruits. I put that aside for later and headed off to get clean. In the shower I let the hot water blast me for a long time. I do some of my best thinking in the shower and as I washed, rinsed, and repeated I wondered about who Lester Bellmaker might be and despite furious lathering I came up with nothing.

  It was already into the early hours of July 4. I figured we’d head out early and get to Philadelphia in time to add a little security muscle to the event. And if nothing happened . . . at least they have great hot dogs, soft pretzels, and beer in that town.

  Back in my room I was bemused to notice that Cobbler had been fed and even his cat litter changed.

  When I climbed between the sheets Cobbler crouched at the foot of the bed and stared at me like I was a stranger. I told myself that he was only spooked by having been handled by someone he didn’t know, but I knew that wasn’t really it. It was me. Rudy was right—I’d been changed, too. Cobbler could see it in my eyes and he kept his distance. After five minutes of trying to coax him nearer I gave up and turned out the light.

  I could feel him watching me with his wise cat eyes.

  I finally fell asleep around one or so but within minutes a tap at the door woke me. It was tentative. I lay in the dark and listened, uncertain whether it was real or part of some complicated dream. Then it came again. Firmer this time.

  I switched on the bedside light and padded to the door in sleeping shorts and a T-shirt. There was no peephole or intercom so I unlatched it and peered cautiously through the crack. I guess I expected Rudy, or Church. Maybe Top Sims or Sergeant Dietrich.

  I never expected Grace Courtland.

  Chapter Ninety

  Baltimore, Maryland / Saturday, July 4; 1:17 A.M.

  SHE WORE MAKESHIFT pajamas—blue hospital scrubs and a black tank top. Her hair was untidy, there were fatigue smudges under her eyes. She held a six-pack of Sam Adams Summer Ale beer by the handle of the cardboard carrier.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, because I can’t sleep. Let me in.” She let the sixer of beer swing from her finger.

  “Okay,” I said, and stepped back to pull the door open. Grace nodded and walked past me into the room. She gave it a quick, flat appraising look and grunted.

  “They brought a lot of your things.”

  “They brought my cat,” I said as I closed the door. Cobbler jumped off the bed and came over to her, sniffing tentatively. “Cobbler, be nice to the major.”

  Cobbler still looked cautious but when Grace squatted down to pet him he allowed it. Her fingers flexed luxuriantly in his fur.

  “Have a seat,” I said, indicating the recliner. I got the bottle opener that was attached to my key chain, opened two bottles and handed her one. I took mine and sat on the edge of the bed.

  She rose and stood looking down at the cat for a moment, sipping thoughtfully.

  “I like your friend Dr. Sanchez.”

  “Rudy.”

  “Rudy. We met outside the showers, had a bit of a heart-to-heart. He’s a good man.”

  “You any judge?”

  “I’ve known a few shrinks in my time.” She looked away, but I saw that her eyes were wet. Cobbler was still close so she busied herself by scratching between his ears, then she tilted the bottle back and drank nearly all of it.

  “These last few days have been unreal,” she said softly. “Ungodly . . .”

  She shook her head, sniffing back tears. She finished her beer, got another. I handed her the opener and as she took it her fingers brushed mine. She wanted it to look casual, but she wasn’t that good an actress. My skin was hot where she’d touched me.

  “It must have been pretty bad at the hospital,” I said. “I still haven’t seen the tapes, but Rudy told me. Worse even than the crab plant, from what he said.”

  Back in her chair she looked at the beer bottle as if interested in something on the label. When she spoke her voice was almost a whisper. “When we realized something about . . . about what was going on, when we saw that we were losing control of the situation at St. Michael’s . . . I . . .” She stopped, shook her head, tried again. “When we realized what we had to do . . . it was the worst thing in my life. It was worse than . . .” A tear gathered in the corner of her eye.

  “Have some beer,” I suggested softly.

  She drank and then raised her head and looked at me with her red-rimmed eyes. “Joe . . . when I was eighteen I got pregnant by a boy during my first year at university. We were just kids, you know? He freaked and buggered off, but then he came back when I was in my third trimester. We got married. A civil ceremony. We weren’t ever really in love, but he stayed with me until the baby was born. Brian Michael. But . . . he was born with a hole in his heart.”

  The room was utterly silent.

  “They tried everything. They did four surgeries, but the heart hadn’t formed correctly. Brian lived for three months. There was never really a chance he’d make it, they told me. After the last surgery I sat with my baby day and night. I lost so much weight I was like a ghost. Eighty-seven pounds. They wanted to admit me.”

  I started to say something, but she shook me off.

  “Then one afternoon the doctor told me that there was no brain activity, that for all intents and purposes my baby was dead. They . . . wanted me to . . . they asked me if I would consent to having the respirator disconnected. What could I say? I screamed, I yelled at them, I argued with them. I prayed. For days.” The tears broke and cut silvery lines down her face. They looked like scars. “When I finally agreed it was so horrible. I kissed my baby and held his little hand while they stopped the machines. I put my face down to listen to his heartbeat, hoping that it would go on beating, but all I heard was one heartbeat. Just one, he died that quickly. One beat and then a dreadful silence. I felt him die, Joe. It was so awful, so terrible that I knew that I would never—could never feel anything worse.” She drank most of the second bottle. “It ruined me. My husband had left again after the second surgery. I guess to him Brian was already gone. My parents were long gone. I had no one else in my life. I continued to get sicker and I wound up in a psychiatric medical center for nearly three months. Are you shocked?”

  She looked at me defiantly, but something in my expression must have reassured her. She nodded.

  “In the hospital I had a counselor and she suggested that I look for something that would give me structure. I had no family left a
nd she knew a recruiter. She wrote me a letter of recommendation and two weeks after discharge from hospital I was in the army. It became my life. From there I went to the SAS. I saw combat in a dozen places. I saw death. I caused death. None of it touched me. I believed that whatever had made me a person, a human being, was gone, buried in a little coffin with a tiny body. Both of us dead, killed by imperfect hearts.”

  She wiped at the tears then stared with subdued surprise at the wetness on her fingers. “I hardly ever cry anymore. Except sometimes at night when I wake up from a dream of holding Brian’s hand and hearing his last heartbeat. I haven’t cried in years, Joe. Not in years.”

  My mouth was dry and I drank some beer to be able to breathe.

  Grace said, “When Al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center I didn’t cry. I just got angry. When the bombs went off in the London subways, I tightened up my resolve. Grace Courtland, Major SAS, combat veteran, professional hard-ass.” She took a big breath, blew out her cheeks. “And then St. Michael’s. God! We went in there hard and fast, so tough and practiced. You never got a chance to see the DMS at its best, but everyone in Baker and Charlie teams were absolutely first-rate. Top-of-the-line combat veterans, not a virgin among them. What is it you Yanks say? Heartbreakers and life-takers? State-of-the-art equipment, cutting-edge tactics, nothing left to chance. And you know what happened? We were slaughtered! Grown men and women torn apart. Civilians killing armed military with their fingers and teeth. Children taking shot after shot to the chest, falling down and then getting right up again, their bodies torn open, and still they kept running at our men, tearing and biting them. Eating them.”

  “God,” I whispered.

  “God wasn’t there that day,” she hissed in as bitter a voice as I’ve ever heard. “I’m not a religious person, Joe. Faith isn’t something I’m good at, not since I buried Brian; but if there was ever a splinter of belief or hope left in me it ended that day. It was consumed by what happened.”

  “Grace . . . you do know that you and Church had no other choice?”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Do you really think that makes any difference to me? I know we didn’t have another choice, that’s why we made the choice we did. We were losing, Joe. Losing. Suddenly, all the training, all the power that we thought we had was gone. It failed us. Just as medicine and prayer failed Brian. All we could do was disconnect another switch, turn off more lives because there was nothing else left for us.” Tears fell steadily but she didn’t bother to wipe them away.

  She gave me a twisted smile. “The thing is . . . that was even worse than turning off my baby’s life support. Worse, do you understand? And afterward do you know what I felt the most? Guilt. Not for having to kill all of those people. No, I felt—I feel—guilty because that was the worst moment of my life. It probably always will be. So I feel like I’ve somehow betrayed or maybe abandoned my baby because now this event is bigger and worse even than that. I feel like I’ve lost Brian again. Forever this time. It hurts so damn—”

  Her voice suddenly disintegrated into terrible sobs and she dropped the bottle and covered her face with both hands. I was up and across the room before her bottle rolled to a stop. I took her by the arms and gathered her to me, pulling her off the chair, wrapping her up against my chest. The sound of her sobs cut through my flesh and into my heart. I held her close—this angry woman, this bitter soldier—and I kissed her hair and held her as close and as tight and as safe as I could.

  SHE WEPT FOR a long time.

  I walked her to the bed and we lay down together, her face buried against me, her tears soaking through my T-shirt, her body fever-hot. Maybe I said something, some nonsense words, but I don’t remember. Her body bucked and spasmed with the tears until slowly, slowly, the immediacy of the storm began to pass. Her arms were wrapped around me, her fingers knotted in my shirt. The knots of tension eased by very slow degrees.

  We lay like that for a long time, and then I could feel the change in her as her tension changed from the totality of grief to the awkwardness of awareness. We were as physically close as lovers, but there had been nothing even remotely sexual about her tears or my holding her, not even in our lying down together. Not at first. But now there was a new tension as we both became enormously aware of all the points of contact—of thighs intertwined, of groins pushed forward, of her breasts against my chest, of hot exhalations, and of animal heat and natural musk.

  There was a moment when we should have rolled apart, made a few awkward jokes, and retreated to separate corners of the universe. But that moment passed.

  After a minute or two she said, very softly, “I didn’t come here for this.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s . . . well, there was no one else. I can’t talk to Mr. Church. Not about this. Not like this.”

  “No.”

  “And I don’t know Dr. Sanchez yet. Not well enough.”

  “You don’t know me, either.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly, her forehead tucked under my chin. “I do. I know about Helen. I know about your mum. You’ve lost so much. As much as I have.”

  I nodded, she could feel it.

  “Will you make love to me?” she asked.

  I leaned back and looked down at her. “Not now,” I said. When I saw the hurt on her face I smiled and shook my head. “You’ve chugged two beers, you’re grieving, exhausted, and in shock. I’d have to be the world’s biggest jackass to try and take advantage of that kind of vulnerability.”

  Grace looked at me for a long time. “You’re a strange man, Joe Ledger.” She pushed one of her hands up between us and touched my face. “I never thought you’d be kind. Not to me. You’re an actual gentleman.”

  “We’re a dying breed . . . they’re hunting us down one by one.”

  She laughed and then laid her head against me. “Thanks for listening, Joe.”

  After another long time of silence she said, “Back at the plant I asked you a question, about whether we’ve stopped this. Was that the last cell? Did we stop the terrorist movement here in the States, or did we just burn up our last lead?”

  “Bad questions to ask in the dark,” I said, stroking her hair.

  “Mr. Church spoke with the President and the head of the FDA. The gears are already turning to get the pharmaceutical companies involved. The President will address a closed session of Congress in two days. The full resources of the United States, England, and the other allies will be thrown against this now.”

  “Yes.”

  “So why am I still so afraid?” she asked.

  The silence swirled around us.

  “Same reason I am,” I said.

  She said nothing more and after a long while her breathing changed to the slow, steady rhythm. I kissed her hair and she wriggled more tightly against me, and after a while, she slept. After a much longer time I, too, drifted off.

  Chapter Ninety-One

  The DMS Warehouse, Baltimore / Saturday, July 4; 6:01 A.M.

  GRACE AND I had a quiet breakfast in the mess hall before first light, then she headed off to muster her team while I made a call. I was hoping I’d wake Church up and get to hear him when he was off balance, but he answered on the first ring. Fricking robot.

  Instead of “Hello” he asked, “Is there a problem?”

  “No. I wanted to touch base about the Liberty Bell thing. You still cool with me taking Echo Team to Philly?”

  “Of course,” he said, and it implied that I’d have heard different if he’d changed his mind. The communication flow with him was going to take some getting used to. I’m used to a lot more bureaucracy. “I advised the President of our concerns with safety during the holiday, and he approved all of my recommendations. The gears are already turning to get the pharmaceutical companies involved. The President will address a closed emergency session of Congress tomorrow. The full resources of the United States, England, and the other allies will be thrown against this now.”

  Chu
rch briefly outlined the steps he was taking to bulk up security at the top twenty Fourth of July events scheduled across the country. It meant mobilizing tens of thousands of additional police and military, and though that had to be a red-tape nightmare Church seemed confident that it would all be handled. I guess having a rubber stamp from the Commander in Chief lit a lot of fires under the right asses. Points for Church.

  “My question,” I said when he’d finished, “is what our actual status is going to be down there in Philly? I mean . . . we can’t exactly flash DMS badges, can we?”

  “We don’t have badges,” he said. “I also discussed this with the President and obtained authorization for Echo Team to roll as a special detachment of the Secret Service. How familiar are you with their protocols?”

  “I can fake it.”

  “Last night I called a friend in the garment industry and appropriate clothes should be arriving by six-thirty. IDs were already sent by courier and Sergeant Dietrich has them.”

  “You don’t like wasting time, do you?”

  “No,” he said, and hung up.

  I smiled and shook my head. So this is what it felt like to be in the major league.

  I found Dietrich and got the material Church had sent. IDs for everyone plus a detailed set of notes from Church that included the names and numbers of the people we planned to interview.

  I found Grace in the computer trailer. I told her about my call to Church. “How is it that he has this much power over the President? I mean . . . who is Church?”

  Grace shook her head. “I’ve heard some bits and pieces of things over the last couple of years that add up to his having the goods on a lot of people in Washington.”

  “The goods? As in . . . blackmail?”

  “I think he quite literally knows where all of the bodies are buried, as the saying goes. He has leverage on a lot of power players and he uses it to get what he wants.”