Patient Zero_ A Joe Ledger Novel Part 6

The tent flaps opened. He turned to see her standing there, and for a moment all thoughts of raids and schemes evaporated from his head.

Amirah was slim, average height, dressed in the black chadri that showed only her eyes, and she might have gone unnoticed in a bazaar or on a crowded street. Unless, of course, any sane man made eye contact with her, then the anonymity would disintegrate like a sand sculpture in the face of a zephyr. This woman could stop traffic with her eyes. Gault had seen her do it. Conversations always faltered when she entered a room, men actually walked into walls. It was the strangest of reactions because it was so contrary to Muslim tradition. To catch a woman's eye once is okay, to do so twice was haram, a social and religious gaffe of serious consequence, especially in the traditional circles in which this woman and El Mujahid traveled. And yet no one-not one man Gault had seen-had ever looked into her eyes and not been affected.

It wasn't s.e.x, either, because all a man could see of Amirah were her eyes, and in the Middle East there were millions of women with beautiful eyes. No, this went deeper than s.e.x, deeper even than religious law. This was power. Real, palpable, earthshaking power; and it was there in Amirah's eyes, as if her eyes were a window into the heart of a nuclear furnace.

The first time Gault had seen her was two months before the Americans invaded Iraq. They were two among thousands at an anti-Coalition rally in Tikrit. He had been there, quietly recruiting and waiting for contact that, his sources had told him, could bring him to El Mujahid. Gault had felt something touch him, almost like hot fingers sc.r.a.ping the skin of the back of his neck, and he'd turned to see this woman standing fifteen feet away, staring at him. He'd been at a loss for words for the first time in his life, totally riveted by the impact of those eyes and of the fierce, vast intelligence behind them. She had walked up to him, affecting the modest gait of a good Muslim woman, and while the crowd was entirely focused on Saddam, who was giving a rousing speech in which he promised to rebuff any U.S. attempt to set foot on Iraqi soil, the woman bent close and said: "I am Amirah. I can take you to paradise."

In any other circ.u.mstances that line would have been cheap, a prost.i.tute's come-on; but to Gault it was the code phrase he'd been waiting to hear for many weeks. He was so taken aback, so startled that this was the messenger he'd come to Tikrit to find, that he almost flubbed the countersign, but after two or three stammering attempts he managed to say: "And what will I see there?"

She had said three magical words that filled Gault with great joy. Leaning a few inches closer Amirah had whispered, "Seif al Din."

What will I see there?

Seif al Din. The Sword of the Faithful.

That moment flashed through Gault's mind as Amirah stepped into the tent. He got to his feet, smiling, wanting to take her in his arms, to tear away that ridiculous black rag she wore. He saw his need mirrored in her eyes and she smiled. All he could see of her smile was the soft crow's feet at the corners of those l.u.s.trous brown eyes; and he knew that her smile was as much a promise as it was an acknowledgment. They could do nothing, share nothing while they were here in El Mujahid's tent. Two guards stood behind her, both giving him hard stares.

"Mr. Gault," she said in a docile voice. "My husband has instructed me to share with you the results of our experiments. Will you please accompany me to the bunker?"

"I need to get going. I have to be in Baghdad by-"

"Please, Mr. Gault. This is my husband's wish." She put just enough juice in the word "wish" to make it clear that it meant "order." Jolly well done, he thought as he saw the guards behind her stiffen and harden their stares. It was all drama, nicely staged for effect.

"Oh, very well," Gault said with an affect of bad grace and stood up with a sigh.

Amirah backed out of the tent and the two guards took position so that one was between her and Gault and the other between Gault and any chance of flight. El Mujahid was a careful individual, and that worked well for Gault, too. He followed Amirah to another tent that was set very close to a rock wall. Inside the tent were ornate wall hangings, and a third guard stood with his back to one of these, an AK-47 at port arms, his face as hard as a fist. At a word from Amirah, he stepped back and allowed her to push the heavy brocade aside. Behind it was the mouth of a shallow cave. Amirah, Gault, and two of the guards entered it, walked ten feet, and then turned with the cave's natural bend. Around the corner, out of sight of the entrance, was a blank wall of rough gray-brown rock hung with desiccated moss. The guards told Gault to turn around and face the mouth of the cave, but Gault knew what was happening behind him. Amirah would reach into the moss and pull a slender piece of wire-something that would never be caught in any but the most scrupulous search of the cave-and there were a lot of caves in Afghanistan. She would pull the wire twice, wait four seconds and then pull it three more times. At that point a piece of the uneven wall would fold down to reveal a computer keypad. Amirah would then tap in a code, a randomly selected set of numbers and letters that changed daily, and once the code was accepted she would place her hand on the geography scanner. As far as El Mujahid knew only two people on earth knew that code-he and his wife; but Gault also knew it. Gault knew everything about the cave, the keypad, and the bunker that lay behind this wall. He had paid for it and had built dozens of computer trapdoors into the system.

He also knew how to destroy that bunker and its contents so that not one piece of useful data could be recovered. Granted, a large portion of Afghanistan would be sterilized as well, but those-as the Americans were so fond of saying-were the breaks. All he had to do was enter a code on his laptop. And if that didn't work, Gault always had a backup plan ready; and if he disappeared his a.s.sistant, Toys, could initiate one of several retributive plans.

Gault heard the hiss of hydraulics and the guard grunted at him, indicating that he was allowed to turn. The whole back end of the cave had swung out to reveal an airlock as sophisticated as anything NASA had ever used.

"Please," Amirah said, gesturing that he enter. One of the two guards remained in the cave while the other stepped into the airlock with Gault and the Princess. The ma.s.sive door hissed shut and there was a series of complex sounds as various locks and safeguards engaged. A red light flicked on above the door and they turned to face the exit door as a green light came on above it. Amirah went through another code procedure, but this time the guard did not order Gault to look away. Now the guard grinned at Gault, who gave him a wink.

"How are the kids, Khalid?"

"Very well, sir. Little Mohammad is walking now. He is all over the place."

"Ah, they grow up so fast. Give them a kiss for me."

"Thank you, Mr. Gault."

The second door opened and a wash of refrigerated air filled the chamber. "Ready?" Amirah asked.

"Say, Khalid why don't you go into the office and watch some videos. Give us a couple of hours."

"Happy to, sir."

They stepped out of the airlock and into the bunker that was as different from the camp outside as a diamond was from a lump of coal. There was a big central room packed with state-of-the-art research equipment and intelligence-processing hardware including satellite downlinks, high-speed Internet cable hard lines, plasma display screens on nearly every surface, and a dozen computer terminals. Surrounding the central lab were gla.s.sed offices, the supercooled chamber for the bank of Blue Gene/L supercomputers, and the five clean rooms with their isolated air and biohazard control systems. Down one corridor was the staff wing, with bedrooms for the eighty technicians and the twenty support staff.

The setup had cost a fortune. Fifty-eight million pounds, all routed through convoluted banking threads that would require an army of forensic accountants to follow. Nothing could be tied directly to him or to Gen2000. It was Gault's belief that this was not only the most sophisticated private research facility in the world, but also the most productive and diverse. Genetics, pharmacology, molecular biology, bacteriology, virology, parasitology, pathology, and over a dozen other related sciences merged into one compact but incredibly productive factory floor that had paid for itself four times over with patents filed under the names of over seventy doctors who were on his payroll through one university or another, not the least of which was the first reliable drug for treating the rare blood cancers, new-onset sarcoidosis, and asbestos-related diseases that have cropped up in survivors of the World Trade Center collapse. The irony of that made Gault want to laugh out loud considering he'd advised bin Laden about the likely and potentially useful postcol-lapse health hazards before the Al Qaeda operatives had even enrolled in flight school.

Amirah led the way past the rows of technicians, still playing her role as the dutiful wife of the great leader even though these people were hers, every last one of them. Only Abdul, her husband's lieutenant, and a small squad of his personal guard were currently beyond her control, and they were outside. And even that sense of loyalty would change in time. Everything was going to change.

She led Gault into the conference room, then closed the door and engaged the lock, an action that turned on a red security light outside. The room had no windows. Just a big table and a lot of chairs.

Amirah turned away from the door, tore away her chadri, and attacked Gault.

She was fast, savage, hungry.

She pushed him back, forcing him down on the table, tearing at his clothes, biting at each bit of exposed flesh; and he grabbed her and clawed her skirts up over her legs. He knew that she would be naked underneath. They had planned this moment, needed it. He was as ready as she was and as he used his heels to slide farther onto the table she climbed over him, swung a leg across his hips, and as he pulled her toward him she thrust down onto him. It was hot and hard, painful and sloppy, but it was so intense. Their bodies ground into one another. Love was lost in the avalanche of need, buried beneath the immediacy of their hungers.

El Mujahid was sometimes as brutal and intense, but he was always quick, and Amirah could endure and outlast any man. Almost any man. With Gault it was different. Instead of a gallop to the precipice and then that quick plunge into unsatisfactory disappointment, they raced on and on, their bodies running with sweat, their hearts hammering like primitive drums, their breath burning into each other's mouths.

When they came, they both screamed. The conference room was soundproof. He'd made sure of that.

Chapter Fourteen.

Baltimore, Maryland / Sat.u.r.day, June 27; 7:46 P.M.

I DROPPED RUDY at his office. As he got out of the car he said, "Joe I know how obsessive you can get about things."

"Me? Really."

"I'm serious. Church is on some creepy level of government and he told you to leave it alone. I think you should take him at his word."

"Yeah, let me get right on that."

"What's your alternative? Poke at it with a stick until all the hornets come out of the nest? Think about it Church didn't approach you through channels, that means he wants this kept off the record. That frightens me, cowboy, and it should frighten you."

"I'm too wired to be scared. G.o.d I think I need to get totally s.h.i.+tfaced tonight."

He closed the door and leaned in through the window. "Listen to me, Joe go easy on the booze. No s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around. You've experienced two major traumas in only a few days. No matter how much of a macho facade you put on I know that killing those men at the warehouse had to do you some damage."

"They dealt the play."

"Like that matters? Just because they were doing something immoral doesn't take away your emotional connection to it. This isn't to say that you were in any way wrong. G.o.d knows I hope I would have the physical and moral courage to do what you did in there. You're a white hat, Joe, but that comes with a price tag. You have a heart and a mind and pretty soon you're going to have to open up those doors and take a close look at what kind of damage is there as a result of this."

I said nothing.

"I'm saying this as your friend as well as your therapist."

I still said nothing.

"Don't think I'm kidding, Joe. This isn't something you can shrug off. You're required to have sessions with me about this, and you can't go back on the job until I file my report. As of yet I don't have anything to file. You've blown off two scheduled sessions so far. You need to talk about it."

I stared out the window for a minute. "Okay."

In a softer tone he added, "Look, cowboy, I know how tough you are but believe me when I tell you that n.o.body is that tough. A complete separation from your feelings is not proof of manly strength it's a big glaring neon warning sign. I know you think you called me today to ask my opinion as a pal and as a medical doctor, but I have to believe that you're reaching out for support for what you've been through. As far as this thing with Javad and Mr. Church goes well, if you were capable of simply shrugging that off with no traumatic effects then I would either be afraid of you or afraid for you."

"I'm feeling it," I a.s.sured him.

Rudy studied my face. "I have a two o'clock open on Tuesday."

I sighed. "Yeah, okay. Tuesday at two."

He nodded, pleased. "Bring Starbucks."

"Sure, what do you want?"

"My usual. Iced half-caf ristretto quad grande two pump raspberry two percent no whip light ice with caramel drizzle three-and-a-half-pump white mocha."

"Is any of that actually coffee?"

"More or less."

"And you think I'm damaged."

He stepped back and I drove off. I could see in the rearview that he watched me all the way out of the parking lot.

Chapter Fifteen.

Baltimore, Maryland / Sat.u.r.day, June 27; 7:53 P.M.

I HEADED HOME and as soon as I was in the door I went straight to the bathroom, stripped and stuffed everything, even my boxers, into the trash and then stood under the hottest spray I could stand and tried to boil the day off my skin.

My cat, Cobbler-a marmalade and white tabby-hopped up on the toilet tank and watched me with his big yellow eyes.

I knotted a towel around my waist and thought about the beers in the fridge, but even though the adrenaline was out of my bloodstream the shakes were still right there beneath the surface. I pa.s.sed on the beer and put a frozen pizza in the oven, and turned on the TV. Normally I'd surf over to one of the horror or SF channels and see who was eating whom, but right now I wanted no part of that. All I needed now was to stumble on a rerun of Dawn of the Dead and I'd probably lose it. So I put on the news. The top story was a follow-up on the fire at St. Michael's Hospital that had occurred the same night as the warehouse raid. Over two hundred dead and half the hospital burned to the ground. They were calling it the worst hospital fire in modern U.S. history.

More depression I didn't need, so I surfed over to a different news channel and watched a few minutes of the preevent press hype over the big Fourth of July event in Philly. They were rededicating the Liberty Bell and also installing a brand-new one-the Freedom Bell-that had been built according to the specs of the original. Something the First Lady and the wife of the Vice President had cooked up as part of their Patriotic American Women organization. Lots of rah-rah stuff to build morale for the troops in the field and raise domestic support for our overseas action. The whole event was going to center around the ringing of the Freedom Bell, which would be symbolic of American democracy and freedom ringing out around the world. Must have sounded good to Congress because they approved it and hired some woman to make the new bell, and she was supposed to be a descendant of the British metalsmith who'd cast the original Liberty Bell. My task force team was one of over a dozen similar groups that were supposed to be on site during the festivities, though overall security was naturally a Secret Service gig. We were basically thugs in suits for the day, just in case bin Laden showed up with a hundred pounds of C4 strapped to his chest. Life in post-9/11 America. Happy holidays, bring the whole family.

I switched off the set and closed my eyes. What was it Church had said? Mr. Ledger, we are very much in the business of stopping terror. There are threats against this country greater than anything that has so far made the papers.

"No kidding," I said aloud.

So how did I work this? I'm self-aware enough to know that I have a somewhat fractured personality. Not exactly multiple personality disorder, but clearly there were different drivers at the wheel depending on my mood, and depending on my needs. Over the years I'd been able to identify and make peace with the three dominant personalities: the Modern Man, the Warrior, and the Cop. At the moment all three of them were trying to grab the wheel.

The Modern Man, the civilized part of me, was in full-blown denial mode. He didn't want to believe in monsters and he wasn't all that comfortable with secret government departments and all that James Bond c.r.a.p. The Warrior was okay with the cloak-and-dagger stuff because it partly defined him, it allowed him the chance to be who and what he was: a killer. He was useful in a firefight, but I seldom let him out to play. He was lousy at tea parties. Then there was the Cop. That part of me had become dominant over the last few years, and he also upheld the n.o.bler parts of the Warrior's personality-the codes of ethics, the rules.

With my eyes closed I settled back into meditative breathing and let the parts of me sort it all out. It was almost always the Cop who got the others to shut the h.e.l.l up. The Cop was the thinker. I dismantled this thing bit by bit and laid everything on the table so the Cop could take a good long look.

There were parts that didn't fit. The most obvious was the fact that the terrorists we took down at the warehouse had been such a mixed bag. These guys aren't known for tolerance and team spirit.

The suicide plan was also weird. Each of hostiles at the warehouse had been infected by a disease and had to take regular doses of an antidote to stay alive. That was impressive, but it also seemed like overkill. It was too sophisticated for its own purposes, considering that the mere threat of it should have been enough. It also spoke of a degree of technological sophistication that was, as far as I could judge, beyond the reach of your average extremist cell. If this was all real, and if it turned out that the plague that created these walkers was developed by the same mind, or minds, that created the control disease, then the DMS might be facing an actual real-world mad scientist. In another mood, or perhaps on another day, that might actually be funny. Right now it scared the h.e.l.l out of me.

Then there was Javad. Was he really dead and somehow reanimated? Impossible? You bet; and yet I know what I saw.

From now on, Church had said, we may have to consider "dead" a relative term.

I found it hard to believe that Javad was the only infected person. There hadn't been a lab at the warehouse. Church had to know that, too; and I should have remarked on it. The oven timer dinged and I opened my eyes. I took the pizza with me into the little nook off the kitchen where I had my computer. I ate a slice while it loaded. Then I got to work. The Cop in me was in gear now. Church had said that if I looked I wouldn't find anything about him or the DMS. I wanted to put that to the test, so I stayed up all night searching the Internet.

I did a search on the warehouse Church had been using. Baylor Records Storage. To dig deep I had to log on through the department Web site, and there was a serious risk in that. Everything is logged, everything is tracked.

"Screw it," I said, and kept going. But Baylor Records turned out to be a dead end. Previous owner was dead and there were no direct heirs, so the government had snapped it up for back taxes. Easy enough for someone like Church to commandeer. I searched all night to see if there was any connection between Baylor Records and the old container company warehouse where we'd taken down the terrorist cell; but if a connection existed I couldn't find it.

Early Sunday morning Rudy called to say he'd spent all of last night and this morning researching prions.

"What happened to 'leave it alone, Joe'?"

"What can I tell you," he said tiredly. "So we both need therapy."

"You find anything interesting?"

"Lots, but none of it germane to what you mean. The whole prion thing seems less and less likely, though. As dangerous as they are the infection rate is extremely slow. It can take months or years for it to manifest. I'll keep looking, though. And don't forget about our session on Tuesday."

"Yes, mother."

"Don't start with me, cowboy," he warned, and hung up.

The rest of Sunday went like that. I logged hour after hour on the Net, and Rudy and I shared URLs via e-mail and IM, but we didn't seem to be getting any closer to an explanation for what Javad was or how he came to be like that. Around midnight I finally shut off the machine, took a shower, and shambled off to bed. I was. .h.i.tting brick walls everywhere I went, and I guess another person would have thrown in the towel, but that's not my sort of thing. I just needed to rest and then attack this again with a fresher set of wits.

Chapter Sixteen.

Gault and Amirah / The Bunker / Six days ago THEY LAY EXHAUSTED on the table, their clothes tangled around her waist and his ankles, his body purple and red with claw marks and bites. He never left a mark on her, not even the smallest of love bites. That would be suicide.

They never spoke of love afterward. Never told each other how much this meant, or how much they meant to each other. They already knew what the other would say. It had all been said in that first moment of eye contact. Pillow talk would limit the feeling, it would define what did not need to be defined and therefore cheapen it all to some kind of clandestine Romeo and Juliet pap. This was much bigger and, Gault hoped, likely to end with less personal tragedy.

She spoke first, saying simply, "I've had some vague reports. Baltimore?"

"Mm, yes," he drawled. "Seems our warehouse is a total loss."