Jonathan Maberry - Patient Zero

“You like that theory?” I asked her.

“Not much, no, but it’s worth keeping on the table. Though I think it’s more likely that they wanted the prisoner silenced.”

I downed half my coffee. “Church, you said that there was a way to get that access code. How?”

“There are only three practical possibilities, two of which are highly improbable,” he said. “First, they got it directly from Grace, Gus, Hu, or from me.” He paused for comment, got none. “Second, one of us was careless and left a code scrambler lying about.”

Hu was shaking his head before Church finished. He fished his scrambler out and set it on the table. “No way. Not after the speech you gave me when you gave me this thing. It’s on the side of the tub when I take a shower and it’s in my pajama pocket when I go to bed. Twenty-four/seven I know where this is.”

Grace and Dietrich similarly produced theirs. Church didn’t bother. The point was made.

“What’s the third choice?” I asked.

“That someone else has a scrambler or some compatible device, though that’s a bit hard to accept. These scramblers aren’t on the market yet. I obtained them directly from the designer. He made five of them and I acquired all five.”

“Who has the other one?”

“Aunt Sallie.”

“Who?”

Grace smiled. “Aunt Sallie is the DMS’s chief of operations. She runs the Hangar—our Brooklyn facility.”

“And you call her ‘Aunt Sallie’? Kind of conjures an image of a blue-haired maiden aunt with too many cats. Should I assume that you believe this Aunt Sallie person is trustworthy and hasn’t left her scrambler lying in her knitting basket?”

Dietrich smiled. “If you’re lucky, Captain, no one’ll ever tell her you said that.”

Grace’s smile broadened and it youthened her, stripping away several layers of tension. Even Church looked amused, though with him it was harder to tell. “I think those of us who know her can safely vouch for Aunt Sallie’s integrity.”

“What about force? Could someone have taken the scrambler from her?”

“I would truly love to see someone try,” said Church. Across from him Dietrich was laughing quietly and nodding to himself, apparently visualizing the scenario.

The laughter and smiles, however, died away. I glanced at Rudy, who was quietly observing everyone. I imagine that he, like I, realized that the laughter was a pressure valve. The enormity of what had happened in Room 12 loomed over us.

Church’s phone rang and when he looked at the displayed number he held up a finger and took the call, speaking quietly for a couple of minutes. “Thanks for getting back to me so quickly,” he said. “Please keep me informed.” He clicked the phone off and laid it on the table and any trace of humor that had been on his face was completely gone now. “That was a contact of mine at the Atlanta office of the Bureau. Henry Cerescu, the engineer who designed the code scrambler, is dead. His body was found in his apartment this morning and he’d been dead for about thirty hours. Cleaning lady found him and called the police. No suspects, but the report says that Cerescu’s apartment, which doubles as his workshop, was trashed. A complete report will be faxed to us.”

“Damn,” I said. “Sorry about your friend, Church, but I bet I can tell you what’ll be in that report. Most likely it’ll look like an ordinary break-in by a junkie. TV and DVD player will be gone, there’ll be lots of random damage, a big mess. The smartest way to hide a small crime is to make it look like a bigger one. I’ll bet Cerescu probably had the design schematics of his scrambler somewhere, maybe hard copy or on his computer. The hard drive will be gone, too, and most of his papers.”

“Very likely,” Church said. He took another cookie and pushed the plate toward me. I poked through them and took an elephant and a monkey.

“So where does that leave us?” Grace asked.

“With the certain knowledge that we’ve been infiltrated by someone with an understanding of what the DMS is,” Church said. “And someone who knows me well enough to know how I obtain equipment.”

“That can’t be a long list,” Rudy suggested.

“It isn’t,” Church agreed, “and I’ll be taking a look at that list once this meeting is concluded.”

“It still leaves one or more persons inside the DMS,” I said. “Inside this building.”

“Excuse me,” Rudy said, “but am I to presume that if we are here in this room then we are not on the list of potential suspects?”

Church leaned back in his chair and studied Rudy for a few moments, one index finger tracing a slow circle on the tabletop. “Dr. Sanchez, there are very few people I trust implicitly, and in each case that trust is based on many years of experience, opportunity, and evaluation. As for most of the people gathered here, my trust is based on more recent knowledge. You and Captain Ledger were in the science lab with me and were then escorted to your quarters. Major Courtland was with me and Sergeant Dietrich had just completed his rounds with two other officers. One of them walked him to his quarters.”

“Okay, but doesn’t that indicate that we were not directly involved in opening the door? What makes you sure we’re not accomplices?”

Church bit an edge off a cookie, munched it. “I haven’t said that I have cleared you of all suspicion, Dr. Sanchez, but as you already said, you can presume that if you’re in this room then you are not high on the list of suspects.”

That seemed to satisfy Rudy, at least in part, because he gave a curt nod and lapsed back into observant silence.

“We’ve brought a lot of people on board in the last couple of days,” Dietrich said. “The movers, more than half the security team, the decorators, some new lab techs.” He paused and looked directly at me. “And all of Echo Team.”

“How good was the screening for all of these people?” I asked.

Grace said, “We have three FBI agents on loan to us working as screeners. You’ve met them, Joe. Agents Simchek, Andrews, and McNeill—the agents who picked you up in Ocean City.”

Buckethead and his cronies, I thought. “Okay, but who screens the screeners?”

“I do,” Grace admitted, and I could see a troubled look in her eyes. She knew that I had to be thinking about her oversight with the task force logs regarding me and the second panel truck. She’d been under tremendous stress since the massacre at St. Michael’s. Stress isn’t conducive to a calm and meticulous approach. I kept that to myself for now and I think I caught a flicker of a grateful nod from her.

“I’ve been supervising the actual screens, though,” added Dietrich. “If this is someone who slipped through because of sloppy work then it’s on me.” I liked that he made no attempt to weasel out of anything. Dietrich was Church’s pet bulldog and he seemed blunt and honest. I liked him, and he was low on my personal list of suspects.

“Another question,” I said. “Where are we recruiting from? You gave me files on the Echo Team guys, along with a big stack of other possible candidates. Some of those are generic folders—off the shelf from Staples—but some were FBI, a few were military, a couple were even marked “top secret.” Am I right in assuming that you’re recruiting from all of the military and federal agencies?”

“And law enforcement,” Dietrich added with a nod in my direction.

“How? I thought you guys were secret.”

“Secrecy is conditional, Captain,” Church said. “We all have to answer to someone, and the DMS answers directly to the President.” He paused, then added, “A few days ago I met with the Joint Chiefs and the heads of the FBI, CIA, ATF, NSA, and several other branches. I was asked by the President to give a brief description of the DMS and its mission, and to then make requests that each department or branch of service provide me with a list of candidates for inclusion in the DMS. The files were sent to us, and Agent Simchek and his team of screeners did evaluations and ran each candidate through MindReader. Anyone with even a twitch in his or her records was discounted. I will admit, however, that there was a bias toward individuals with skill sets that are appropriate to the current crisis, and that may be our hole. Simchek and his team may have somehow erred on the side of immediate need. That… or the traitor has a spotless record and rang no alarms.”