Patient Zero

Chapter Seventy

Crisfield, Maryland / Wednesday, July 1; 5:22 A.M.

DOCTOR HU HAD the prisoner ready in a big white van that was kitted out with diagnostic equipment. The prisoner sat in what looked like a dentist’s chair with his wrists and ankles secured by nylon bands. An IV dripped clear liquid into his veins. Hu didn’t meet my eyes. He hadn’t forgotten our little dustup after the Room 12 incident. Neither had I.

Church pulled over a stool and sat down. I stood by the door. The prisoner’s eyes darted back and forth between Church and me, probably sorting out who was good cop and who was bad cop.

“What is your name?” Church asked.

The man hesitated then shook his head.

Church leaned forward, his forearms on his knees. “You understand English. That’s a statement, not a question, so please don’t hide behind a pretense of ignorance. I am a representative of the United States government. The other men in this room work for me. I know that you’ve been infected with a pathogen that will kill you unless you take regular doses of a control substance. You believe that if you stonewall me you’ll die, that the disease in your system will shut you down before you can be made to talk. Under normal circumstances that might be true, especially if someone other than me was interrogating you. Listen closely now,” Church said, and his voice was calm, conversational. “You will tell me everything that I want to know. You will not die unless I allow you to. You will not keep silent. You will not be rescued.”

The man was sweating badly and his eyes were no longer darting over to me. The entirety of his mental and physical focus was locked on Mr. Church.

“We know about the control disease. We know its nature. The IV contains the control formula. Very clever to hide them inside ordinary aspirin; but not really clever enough as you can see. Death will not save you from this conversation. Death will not save you from me. Tell me that you understand.”

Muscles bunched in the man’s jaws as he fought to keep his mouth clamped shut.

“One of your comrades told us that his family was being held hostage, that they would be killed if he spoke to us. Is this how they are controlling you?”

Church gave him nearly thirty seconds, not blinking once, and then the man gave us a single spasmodic nod.

“Thank you. I have covert operations teams in every country in the Middle East and Asia. With one phone call I will send a team to find your family. I can order that team to rescue them. Or I can order that team to torture them to death. I can order them to capture your family-wife, children, parents, cousins, nephews, and nieces to the fourth generation. If I order that then your entire family, perhaps your entire village, will cease to exist. Whether they remain in prison, or are tortured, or are released with false identities and money in a new country, is entirely up to you.”

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.”