Patient Zero

3.

About ten days later I found Church in his office at the Warehouse. I’d heard that he was moving back to the Hangar at Floyd Bennett Field.

“Are you closing the Warehouse?”

“No you and Grace can run it. We need a base here.”

I liked the sound of that, but I kept the smile off my face. Grace and I had been too busy to share that drink since the Liberty Bell Center catastrophe, but we had a rendezvous planned for tonight. From the secret smiles she’d been giving me I thought we might go beyond the platonic sleepover. I pulled up a chair and sat down. “So, where are we?” I asked him.

Church set down the papers he had been sorting and spread his hands. “We saved the world, Captain Ledger. More or less. And we certainly saved the economy of the United States. We also took down a major terrorist network. We’re heroes and we have the thanks of a grateful nation, though no one will ever say so. But along the way we embarrassed a lot of people and made a few enemies. The Vice President’s wife would like to see Major Courtland’s head on a pike. On the other hand the First Lady wants you and First Sergeant Sims canonized.”

“What will all that mean for us?”

“Us?”

“For the DMS,” I said.

Church shrugged. “We’re still open for business.”

I looked him straight in the eyes. “Who are you, Church?”

“Just a government paper pusher.”

“Bullshit.”

“Who do you think I am?”

“Grace thinks you can keep all of the Washington power players at bay because you know where the bodies are buried.”

He gave me the bleakest, saddest smile I’d ever seen.

“I should,” he said softly. “I buried a lot of them.”