Joe Ledger: Code Zero Part 37

No nose.

No lips.

All we could see was raw and ragged ends of muscle and chipped edges of white bone.

There was no way this person could still be alive. His throat had been savaged, his clothes were drenched with blood that was as black as oil in the green night-vision light. I thought that it might somehow be easier for me because I'd seen this before. The walking dead, the violation and perversion of the body that was the hallmark of the seif-al-din pathogen. I'd fought these walkers before. Fought them with guns and knives and my own hands. I believed that having defeated this horror before that I was somehow immune to the soul-tearing sight of it again. That the reality of it would be less real to someone like me.

That's hubris. That's the kind of thinking that only a fool can manage and I hated myself for my blindness and my weakness.

The man-the wreck of what had been a man-opened its jaws and from between rows of broken teeth he uttered a moan of such aching and indescribable hunger that it made me want to weep. Or scream.

Instead, I pointed my gun at his ruined face and pulled the trigger.

G.o.d help us all.

Chapter Fifty-six.

Grand Hyatt Hotel 109 East Forty-second Street New York City Sunday, August 31, 2:06 p.m.

He checked into the hotel under the name Thomas T. Goldsmith, Jr. It was a nice choice, Monk thought. Goldsmith had co-created the very first interactive electronic game-a missile simulator-back in 1947. One of Mother Night's little jokes.

Monk took the elevator to the thirteenth floor and entered his room. A gift basket stood on the table by the window. Wine, fruit, cheese, chocolate. And at the bottom a plastic pill case filled with the right goodies, and also keycards for three other rooms at the hotel. Those rooms were booked for Estle Ray Mann, Goldsmith's partner for the missile game; Alan Turing, inventor of the first computer chess game, also in 1947; and his colleague Dietrich Prinz.

Each room had an identical suitcase and bag of golf clubs. In each golf bag was a twin-or a sister, as Monk viewed it-of his darling Olga. The suitcases also contained handguns and explosives. Better to be prepared for all eventualities.

He unwrapped a chocolate bar, bit a piece, and sat down to wait for Mother Night's call.

"Hope it won't be too long," he said to Olga's sister.

Interlude Fifteen United States District Court Southern District of New York 500 Pearl Street New York, New York Two Years Ago Her lawyers told her to wear a pretty suit and show a little leg, maybe a hint of cleavage. Bliss spent a lot of time on her makeup, and when she stepped into the courtroom she was sure that no one even noticed the handcuffs. They were looking at the prettiest woman in the room, and that was a tactic. It was, the lawyer a.s.sured her, the last card they had left to play.

The judge had spent a lot of time during the trial looking at Artemisia Bliss's legs. The judge was a well-known hound dog and had a useful track record in light sentencing for pretty women.

She smiled at him-not too overt a flirtation, of course-as she sat down at the defense table. Her lawyers-both attractive women-sat on either side of her. They, too, were showing a little skin. Skirts and tailored jackets. Probably push-up bras, too. Anything that would work.

Bliss was well aware that nothing much else had worked so far.

Eighteen separate charges had been brought against her. Her lawyers had gotten four of them tossed on technicalities and the jury had decided in her favor on six more. That left eight in place, and the jury didn't let her slide on those. Standing there, listening to the foreman delivering eight guilty verdicts, was the toughest thing Bliss had ever done. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. Before that day she'd been certain that it wasn't possible to feel more completely vulnerable and afraid than she already had. Through the booking phase, that awful first night in jail, the arraignment before a grand jury, the months in federal custody, the endless nights in jail where predators abounded and her looks and breeding were no protection at all. Feeling abandoned by Bill Collins, who could not risk even the most tenuous connection to her. The trial itself, burning away days, then weeks, and finally two months of her life.

And the endless deliberation. Four and a half days of it.

Guilty of cybercrimes.

Guilty of wire fraud.

Guilty of unauthorized access to protected computers. Notably those belonging to federal agencies.

Guilty.

Guilty.

Guilty.

Including the big one. Guilty of human rights violations.

That was not actually true. Not as such. But she had copied all of the information in the computer systems of the Jakoby twins and their father, Cyrus. The elder Jakoby had devised a number of pathogens designed to target different ethnic groups. Her theft of that science painted her with the same brush. No amount of argument from her lawyers could convince a jury that any innocent person would want the formulae for ethnic genocide for any reason other than to use or resell it.

Hence the conspiracy charges for which she was convicted.

Which brought her to today.

The sentencing.

Her looks and the judge's poor personal judgment when it came to women. One card left to play.

The judge sat behind his bench and listened to prosecution and defense make their elaborate arguments for and against a harsh sentence. Bliss thought her lawyers were particularly eloquent, and the judge even smiled as he watched the younger of the two attorneys jiggle her way to the lectern. The cuffs had been removed before the proceedings began.

The judge then turned to Bliss.

"Would the accused like to make a statement?"

"Yes, your honor," said Bliss, rising slowly to her feet. Exactly as she had been coached.

He gestured for her to continue.

"Your honor," began Bliss, "I understand the gravity and consequences of what I did. I really do. But I meant no harm. I've been a loyal and dedicated member of the team since its inception." It had been agreed by all parties that the DMS would never be named and would instead be referred to as the "team." "I've done everything I could to help strengthen our country against all threats." Her use of our was deliberate and she leaned on it ever so slightly. "Everything I've done since joining the team was to make sure that we were prepared for anything that could pose a threat to us. Collecting and collating data, a.n.a.lyzing it, disseminating it to the proper groups within the team was my only concern. Everything else was part of that goal. Everything. I love our country. And I want to continue to serve it and to help protect the American people." She paused and gave him a brave smile. "Thank you."

There was a frown on the judge's face. Was it doubt about the convictions? Was it doubt about whatever sentence he'd already decided before today? As she sat down, each of her attorneys took one of her hands. When she cut a look at the prosecutors, they looked worried.

The judge was silent for a long time, his lips pursed, chin sunk on his chest. Finally, he looked at Bliss and nodded.

"Very well," he said. "Bearing in mind your record, the evidence, and the remarks made here this morning, I am prepared to p.r.o.nounce sentence."

He cited the verdicts and the applicable laws and statutes.

Then he smiled at her. "Dr. Bliss, you are a very attractive and charming woman. You are a brilliant scientist and perhaps one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. Your skills and your potential are, as has been pointed out, a powerful weapon capable of doing great good for the American people in these troubled times."

Bliss brightened, and both of the hands holding hers tightened.

"However," said the judge, "when a person puts self-interest in front of patriotism, and personal gain before the general welfare, then that person has thrown away any grace or consideration she might otherwise have."

Bliss did not hear anything else the judge said.

Her mind simply shut down.

There were only vague memories. She remembered screaming. Weeping. People putting hands on her. The coldness of handcuffs. Shouts.

Red madness.

It was only later that she was able to a.s.semble the facts. The horrible, impossible facts.

The judge had given her the maximum sentence for each separate charge.

One hundred and sixty-five years.

Life.

And death, because she would never get out.

They had to drag her from the court.

Chapter Fifty-seven.

Fulton Street Line Near Euclid Avenue Station Brooklyn, New York Sunday, August 31, 2:09 p.m.

Sometimes a gunshot is a small, hollow pok. Sometimes it's a sharp crack.

In the damp blackness of the subway tunnel, my pistol boomed like thunder. Too loud, too harsh, the echo slammed off the wall and boomed into my eardrums.

The SWAT officer's head snapped back and he fell.

It was that quick.

There was no intermediary phase of a body slowing down from the chemical urgency of life into the stillness of death. This was as immediate as throwing a switch. Like cutting the strings of a puppet. The strange blend of misfolded proteins, chemicals, and genetically modified parasites that made up the seif-al-din kept only a part of the brain alive. The motor cortex and some cranial nerves. Everything else was already dead. So when my hollow-point bullet punched through his forehead and exploded his brain, that entire process simply stopped. On one side of a broken moment the man was a walking, ravenous monster, and on the other he was simply dead. Totally, finally, tragically dead.

I watched the officer fall.

A SWAT operator.

A cop.

A person.

Gone.

I heard Ivan say something. No joke about b.a.l.l.s in this moment. He called on G.o.d, needing and wanting some mercy down here. Some grace. But then movement around the bend proved that we were closer to h.e.l.l than heaven as several figures shambled around into view.

Four.

Six.

More.

The rest of the SWAT team. Their Kevlar armor ripped and yanked aside to reveal flesh that was no longer whole. We saw dreadful things.

They were twenty feet away and moving toward us. Their moans rose from the cry of the lost to a more urgent and hungry tone.

"h.e.l.lboy," I said, using Ivan's combat call sign.

He did not move.

"Ivan," I barked, my voice as sharp as a gunshot.

He flinched and jumped. For one brief, wretched moment he looked away from them and into my eyes. With the night vision he could not have seen much, and maybe it wasn't a visual connection he was looking for. Maybe he needed to see the living, to remember that he, too, was alive, before he could bring himself to fight the dead. I don't know. I'm a soldier, not a psychologist, not a philosopher.

"Ivan," I said again. Just that. His name.

I saw the exact moment when he regained himself. He jerked as if I'd shocked him with an electrical cord, and I think that's when he realized that this was how so many of our comrades had died in the past. Charlie and Delta Teams, who were devoured the first time any of us encountered this disease. This was how the SWAT team died. Ivan's mouth became a hard line and he bared his teeth as he brought his gun up.

He carried an AA-12 a.s.sault shotgun and the big drum magazine loaded with twelve-gauge rounds. He had the selector switch set to full automatic, and the gun fired five rounds per second, filling the tunnel with thunder a hundred times worse than my Beretta. The walking dead men were caught in a maelstrom of destructive force. Ivan was aiming at them but not aiming for their heads. His first thirty rounds tore away arms and legs, blew torsos apart, tore heads from necks, but he wasn't destroying enough of them.

Then Lydia was there and with her were the new members of Echo Team. More and greater thunder filled the tunnel. Lydia had her rifle snugged against her shoulder, shooting on semiauto, taking time to hit the head. To end the unlife of these monsters. Duncan, Montana, and Noah hesitated for only a moment, and then they crossed the line that the moment demanded we all cross. They opened up on fellow officers, on men and women in uniform. On victims of terrorism who had been forced to embody the very concept of terror.

There were screams st.i.tched into the thunder.

They did not come from the walking dead.

The screams came from the living.

From us.

From all of us.

The SWAT members fell, but the fight did not end there. We stepped over torn pieces of bodies and rounded the bend. Knowing what we'd find.

The train was there.

The tunnel was filled with the dead.

Hundreds of them.

Some dismembered, some dragging twisted limbs. Others achingly whole, their death wounds hidden from our eyes.

All of them dead.

Walkers.