Patient Zero

Chapter Sixty-Eight

SS Albert Schweitzer / Wednesday, July 1

MEN IN BANDAGES walked the decks, or slumped onto chaise longues, or sat in wheelchairs with the brakes locked against the slow pitch and yaw of the freighter. The SS Albert Schweitzer had been on semipermanent loan to the International Red Cross for over sixteen years now, and for more than half a decade it had assisted the British and American navies with the transport of wounded and convalescing service personnel from theaters of war to their homelands, or to nations where the right kind of medical treatment was available. Experimental surgery in Switzerland and Holland, reconstructive surgery in Brazil, microsurgery in Canada, thoracic and neurosurgery in the United States. Funding for the ship’s staff and enormous operating costs were underwritten by five governments, but in real dollars and cents the government donations barely kept coal in the furnaces. The crew and staff salaries, the medical equipment, the drugs and surgical supplies, and even the food and drink were provided via generous grants from three different multinational corporations: Hamish Dunwoody of Scotland, Ingersol-Spüngen Pharmaceuticals of Holland, and an America-based vaccine company called Synthetic Solutions. The companies shared no known connection, but all three were owned in part, and by several clever removes, by Gen2000. And Gen2000 was Sebastian Gault.

The big man standing by the railing only knew that Gault was involved, though the level and scope of that involvement was unknown to him. Not that it mattered. To El Mujahid the only crucial information was that while aboard this ship he was believed to be Sonny Bertucci, a second-generation Italian American from the tough streets around Coney Island in Brooklyn. In his wallet was a snapshot of Sonny and his wife, Gina, and their two young sons Vincent and Danny. A search of his fingerprints would show that he had worked as a civilian security guard at a Coast Guard base and that he had served for three years with Global Security, a private company licensed to operate in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the most scrupulous computer search would only come up with information verifying this identify because all documents, from the New York State driver’s license to the frequent blood donor’s card he carried in his wallet to the credentials locked in the ship’s safe, were issued by the actual organizations. Gault was wired in everywhere.

The fighter rested his muscular forearms on the cool metal rail and looked out over the waters to the far horizon. The swollen summer sun was setting in the west and its dying light was a fierce red that seemed to set each wave top ablaze. Everything was painted with the hellish glow, and the skyline far across the waters was as black as charred stumps against the fiery sky. Closer to the ship, standing all alone in the burning waters, the Statue of Liberty seemed to melt in the inferno of the sun’s immolation and in El Mujahid’s fierce stare.