Patient Zero

Chapter Seventy-One

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.”

“Okay, okay, I get the relativity of it, O wise Yoda,” I griped, “but that still doesn’t cover all of it.”

“I know,” Rudy said, nodding, “you’re afraid that Church might have been serious when he threatened that man’s children.”

I stared into the open mouth of my Coke bottle. “Yeah,” I said. “He called himself a monster.”

“Yes, but let’s both hope that he really isn’t that kind of monster.”

“And if he is?”

Rudy shook his head. “I’ve said it before, cowboy. It must be terrible to be him.”