Jonathan Maberry - Patient Zero

The man spat out a single word. The Iranian word for “dog.”

“The word you’re looking for,” said Mr. Church, “is ‘monster.’” He said it in flawless Iranian. The word hit the man like a punch and he recoiled from it. “Let us understand each other. I know that you are a subordinate, a scientist or a laboratory technician. Your loyalty has been obtained through fear for your own life and the lives of those you love. A monster did that. Someone like me. That person was willing to kill innocent people—people you love—in order to create and release a weapon that will kill millions. Imagine what I would be willing to do—to you, and to your family—to protect everyone that I love.”

The man started to open his mouth, to say something else, but whether it was a curse or a confession was unclear because he found another splinter of resolve and bit down on it. His eyes and mouth tightened again.

Church leaned back and considered the prisoner for two minutes. That’s a long time to endure a stare from anyone, let alone from a man with the personal intensity of Mr. Church. The man squirmed and sweated.

“I do not believe that you are a military man,” Church said. “Military men are trained to be hard, to be tough, to resist torture. I can see from your face, from the softness of your hands, that you are not going to be able to resist torture. We have chemicals. We have appliances. We can be so very crude, and in the end everyone talks. Everyone. Even I could not endure some of the techniques that could be used, and I am not soft. This man here,” and for the first time he indicated me with a slight gesture, “is a battle-trained soldier. You saw him in combat today, you saw him kill many people. He is a soldier, a leader of men, a hardened killer. Even he could not endure if the torturer were truly committed.”

“I… I… cannot!” the man said in a voice so hoarse it sounded like there were jagged rocks in his throat.

“Yes you can. You will. No one can outlast what we have. Our science is too good. I have studied torture, I understand its magic. The only thing you can do is to talk to us now, to work with us, to help us fight this thing.”

“My children…”

“Look at me,” Church said with soft intensity. “See me. If you give me information right now I will dispatch my teams to find and protect them. If you don’t then I will still get the information out of you, but I will make sure that everyone who has ever heard your name will be hunted down and exterminated so no memory of you or your family will be left upon the earth.”

I felt a chill dance along my lower spine and I wanted to get the hell away from this man. If Church was only messing with this guy’s head he was doing almost too good a job of it. It was messing with my head, too.

The prisoner opened his mouth again, closed it, opened it again… and finally said, “You have to promise that my children will be safe. When they are safe and in American hands then I will—”

Church’s face was ice and his look stopped the man mid-sentence. “You misunderstand me, my friend. I will send teams once I have information from you. Every second you waste is a second longer that your masters have to realize that you are in captivity and that means that your children are a second closer to death. You are wasting the seconds of their lives. Is that what you want? Do you want to kill your own children?”

“No! In Allah’s name, no!”

“Then talk to me. Save them. Be a hero to them and to the world. Save everyone by talking to me now.” He paused for a moment, and then reinforced it. “Now.”

The man closed his eyes and tears broke from beneath the closed lids. He bowed his head and shook it for several moments. “My name is Aldin,” he said, and a sob convulsed in his chest. “I will tell you everything I know. Please do not let my children die.”

Crisfield, Maryland / Wednesday, July 1; 6:47 A.M.

WHEN I STEPPED out of the interrogation van I felt dirty. I understood the need for what Church had done, but it still made me feel like a piece of shit. Church had called himself a monster, and I think he meant it.

“Joe!” I heard my name and turned to see Rudy hurrying across the parking lot. He grabbed my hand and shook it, then stepped back to study my face. “ Dios mio! Major Courtland told me what happened. I… I don’t have words for it, Joe. How are you?”

“I’ve been better,” I admitted, but before I could explain Gus Dietrich came over at a fast walk.

“Captain Ledger,” he said, “I have most of the forensics experts you wanted. The others are all en route and should be here by noon. Jerry Spencer is already on-site.”

“Okay, Sergeant, I want everyone cleared out of the building. Tell Jerry that I’ll be in there in a few minutes to do the walk-through with him.”

Dietrich smiled. “Detective Spencer seems to be pretty mad at you for bringing him into this, especially this early in the morning.”

“He’ll get over it. Especially once he has a big juicy crime scene to play with.”

“Mr. Church requested a medium-sized circus tent to be used as a temporary forensics lab. It’s being set up around the corner on the far side of the lot.”

“Church was able to get a circus tent on short notice?” Rudy asked.

Dietrich gave him a rueful smile. “Mr. Church has a friend in the industry.”

“Jeez,” Rudy said, shaking his head.

“Oh, and Gus…?” I said as Dietrich turned away.

“Sir?”

I stuck out my hand. “Thanks for saving our asses in there.”

He looked embarrassed as he took my hand. “Sorry it wasn’t sooner.”

“Believe me when I tell you that it was in the very nick of time.”

He nodded and headed off. Rudy and I watched him go.

“He’s a good guy,” Rudy said. “I had a chance to get to know him yesterday and I saw him in action this morning. If there really is a mole in the DMS, it isn’t going to be him.”

“Would you bet your life on that?’

Rudy thought about it, nodded. “I surely would.”

“Glad to hear it.” We started walking over to a card table on which plastic tubs of ice were set. I rummaged inside and pulled out a bottle of green tea for him and a Coke for me.

Rudy tapped my bottle with his. “To life.”

“Amen to that. Look, Rude, Church just got finished interrogating the prisoner.” I told him about what Church had said to Aldin.

“Will he save the man’s family?”

“I think so. I heard him make the call and I don’t think he was bluffing.”

“That’s comforting.”

“That’s all you have to say? The guy’s a self-admitted monster, for Christ’s sake!”

“Joe, you’re tired and you’ve got symptoms of postincident stress, so I’m going to cut you a lot of slack. You’re all upset because Church threatened the man’s family, that he used psychological manipulation, that he—”

“He did more than that, Rude. He tore that guy to pieces.”

“Physically?”

“No, but—”

“So, all he did was scare the man into cooperating. No physical torture, no thumbscrews, no sexual or religious humiliation.” He shook his head. “I wish I had been there to see it. It sounds brilliant.”

I stared at him. “Christ! Don’t tell me you approve of this?”

“Approve? Maybe. Admire, certainly. But turn it around, cowboy, and tell me how you would have extracted that same information. Could you have gotten the man to speak without resorting to physical torture? No, what you’re upset about is that you don’t know whether he was bluffing about the threats to the man’s family. You soldiers and cops talk very tough. Over the last twenty-four hours I’ve heard a lot of ‘kill ’em all’ and ‘let God sort ’em out’ stuff; lots of ‘we’re heartbreakers and widow-makers’ trash talk. To a large degree it might even be true, but a fair amount of this stuff is team cheers to get the players ready. Down on the real level you’re each human and there’s no way you can truly separate yourselves from the realities of war. You might have had to hurt Aldin physically in order to get him to talk; you might even have had to do permanent physical damage to him. Doing that would be hurtful to you, but it’s a battlefield thing, ultimately not much different than a sword thrust or a kick to the cajones. What you’re reacting to here is that Church inflicted damage on a completely different level. He hurt the man psychically, emotionally. Tough as you are I’m not sure you can do that, and you are very sure that you can’t. And yet… Church did not so much as slap this man across the face.”