Jonathan Maberry - Patient Zero

“Really? Then you do have a working field team?”

“Did,” she said as a shadow passed across her face. “But we’ll get to that. First I need to tell you about the cell your task force took down. After the raid our computer specialists were able to salvage several laptops and we’ve been systematically decrypting their coded records. We haven’t learned as much as we’d like but we are making some headway. So far we’ve decoded what amounts to shipping manifests for weapons, medical supplies, research equipment, and even human cargo.”

“You mean agents they’ve smuggled in?”

She shook her head. “No… actual human cargo. Like Javad. Brought into this country in temperature-controlled containers like the one you found here.”

“How many others?”

“We’ve only found references to three, including Javad.”

“Shit,” I said.

“The import records indicate that the other walkers were brought into the country less than twenty-four hours before your task force raided the place. The other two must have been shipped out late the previous day; and there’s a high probability they were in those two lorries.”

“That’s why you took all of the files from the task force, isn’t it? You wanted the surveillance logs for traffic in and out of this place and you want all of it off the record.”

Again she gave me that appraising look, as if her idiot nephew had learned to tie his own shoelaces. “Yes,” she admitted.

“So where did the other containers go?”

It took her a few seconds to decide whether to tell me.

“Look, Major,” I said, “either you level with me on everything or we’re done here. I don’t know why you have a bug up your ass about me, and I frankly don’t care, but you are wasting my time hemming and hawing.” I started to get to my feet but she waved me back down.

“All right, all right,” she snapped, “sit down, dammit.” She opened a folder, removed a sheet of paper and slapped it down on the desk. “This is the log for the night before the raid. Two lorries left the warehouse lot. One eight minutes after midnight, the other at oh-three-thirty. Task force agents were assigned to follow both and report their destinations. One was tracked to a crab-processing plant near Crisfield, Maryland. The other was ‘lost’ in traffic.” She stabbed an entry with a forefinger. “You were tailing the one that got lost in traffic.”

I plucked the paper off the desk, glanced at it, and then tossed it down. “Good God, Major, if this is any indication of the precision of your intel then I’m going to grab my loved ones and make a run for the hills.”

“You’re denying that you were assigned to the tail?”

“No, I was definitely assigned to tail the truck, Major, but I didn’t do that tail. Four blocks into the follow I was pulled and replaced by another officer. My lieutenant called on the task force’s secure channel and had me report back to the surveillance van because there was more cell phone chatter and I was the only guy on shift who understands Farsi. I spent twenty minutes listening to one of the hostiles talk to an Iraqi woman living in Philadelphia. Mostly they talked about blow jobs and how much he wished she’d give him one. Really cutting-edge espionage stuff. You can believe me when I tell you, sister, that when I tail someone I don’t lose them.”

She leaned back in her chair and we stared at each other like a pair of gunslingers for maybe ten, fifteen seconds. There were a lot of ways she could have handled her response, and what she said would probably set the tone for whatever professional relationship we were going to have. “Bloody hell,” she said with a sigh. “Will you accept my apology?”

“Will you stop trying to frighten me to death with your icy glare?”

Her smile was tentative at first, still caught on some of the thorns of her earlier misconceptions, but then it blossomed full and radiant. She stood up and reached across the desk. “Truce,” she said.

I stood and took her hand, which was small, warm, and strong. “We have enough enemies, Major, it’s better if we’re at each other’s backs rather than each other’s throats.”

She gave my hand a little squeeze, then let it go and sat back down. “That’s very gracious of you.” She cleared her throat. “Since we, um, lost that one lorry we have an investigative operation going to locate it. That’s a major priority.”

I said, “What do we know of the cell itself?”

“Bits and pieces. We know that they’re using a higher level of technology than we’ve seen before from the terrorist community; and it’s just this sort of thing that justifies the existence of the DMS. Understand, the DMS was proposed at the same time as Homeland but was rejected as being too expensive and unnecessary; the belief at that time being that terrorists may be capable of hijacking planes but were incapable of constructing advanced bioweapons.” She sounded disgusted. “It’s racist thinking, of course. To a very great degree the moguls in London and Washington still think that everyone in the Middle East is undereducated and out of touch with the twenty-first century.”

“Which is bullshit,” I said.

“Which is bullshit,” she agreed. “What changed their thinking was something called MindReader, which is a piece of software that Mr. Church either procured or invented. I don’t know which and he won’t tell me. Point is that MindReader is a cascading analysis package that no other agency has, not even Barrier or Homeland. It looks for patterns through covert links to all intelligence-gathering databases. The tricky part is taking into account different operating systems, different languages—both computer and human—different cultures, time zones, currency rates, units of measure, routes of transport, and so on. MindReader cuts through all of that. It’s also what we’re using to try and decrypt the damaged files.”

“Nice toy.”

“Indeed. We began to see indications of the acquisition of materials, equipment, and personnel suggesting the creation of a bioweapons laboratory of considerable sophistication. A lab capable of both creating and weaponizing a biological agent.”

“I thought those materials were monitored? How’d they swing all that?”

She gave me a calculating look. “How would you have done it?”

“What country are we talking?”

“Terrorism is an ideology not a nationality. Let’s say you’re a small group living under cover in a Middle Eastern country, not necessarily with the blessing of your resident state. Your group is composed of separatists from a number of the more extreme factions.”

I thought about it. “Okay… first I’d have to know that most of what I would need for a conventional bioweapon would be on that list of monitored items. I can’t go to the corner drugstore and buy a vial of anthrax; I’d need to buy my materials in small quantities through several layers of middlemen so that no red flags go up. That takes time and it’s expensive. Secrecy has to be bought. I’d buy some stuff in one country, other stuff elsewhere, spreading it around. I’d buy used stuff if I could, or buy parts piecemeal and assemble them—especially hardware. I’d have them shipped to different ports, places where the watchdogs aren’t as alert, and then go through some dummy corporations to reship them and reship them again. So, this would take both time and money.”

She gave me an approving smile. “Keep going.”

“I’d need lab space, testing facilities, a production floor… preferably someplace where I could dig in. Stuff like this isn’t pick up and carry, so I don’t want to work on the run. I need a nest. Once I’m set and I’ve spent whatever time it takes to make my weapon I’d have to sort out the problem of getting my weapon from my lab to the intended target. And if we’re doing advanced medical stuff like plagues and new kinds of parasites, like the crap we’re dealing with here, then that’s harder because you need access to supercomputers, ultrasterile lab conditions, and a lot of medical equipment.”