Patient Zero

Chapter Seventy-Nine

Crisfield, Maryland / Thursday, July 2; 3:13 P.M.

I SPENT HALF the day with Jerry. Once I’d explained my theories we set about comparing them with what he’d deduced from his forensic walk-throughs. We were both on the same page. I told Jerry to round up all the forensics experts that had arrived while I’d been sleeping and I went off to find Church. Outside I ran into Rudy. He accompanied me to the computer van, where Church and Grace were using MindReader to search for Lester Bellmaker.

“Jerry Spencer’s ready to give a preliminary forensics report,” I said. “I think we should set that up sooner than later.”

“You have something?” Grace asked, searching my face.

“Maybe, but I want you both to hear the forensics first and then we can play ‘what-if.’ ”

Church made a call to set up the meeting.

Grace told us that MindReader had come up with two Lester Bellmakers in North America and six more in the U.K., but so far none of them appeared to have even the slightest connection to terrorists, diseases, or Baltimore. The closest hit had been a Richard Lester Bellmaker who served a tour in the Air Force from 1984 to 1987 and was discharged honorably. That was it. The guy managed a Chuck E. Cheese outside of Akron, Ohio, and no matter how deep Grace searched into his background the guy didn’t ring a single damn bell.

“We’re getting nowhere,” she said.

“And slowly,” Church agreed.

“Could Aldin have been lying to us?” Grace asked, cutting a look at Rudy. “You watched the interrogation videos, and you read the telemetry feeds. What’s your assessment?”

Rudy shrugged. “From what I could see that man was desperate to tell the truth. That much was in his voice. He was trying to make a dying declaration, and he wanted to go out with as clear a conscience as possible.”

“So, he was telling the truth?” Grace asked.

Rudy pursed his lips. “It’s probably fair to say that he was telling the truth as he knew it, but we can’t discount the possibility that he may have been regurgitating disinformation fed to him by the guards.”

“Too right,” Grace agreed. “Which means we could be wasting time and resources on a wild-goose chase.”

“So what do we do now?” Rudy asked.

“Keep looking,” Church said.