examined every inch of my boxers, checking the seams and label. Nothing, so I put them back on.
“Thank God,” Rudy said.
I shot him the finger and went through the process with the borrowed clothes.
“What are you looking for?”
“Bugs.”
“Bugs as in creepy crawlies or bugs as in I’m being ape-shit paranoid and my psychiatrist friend had better keep the Thorazine handy?”
“That one,” I said as I put the sweats on and sat on a rock five feet away.
“What’s going on, Joe?”
“That’s the thing, Rude I don’t know.”
His dark eyes searched my face. “Okay,” he said, “tell me.”
And I did. When I was finished Rudy sat on his rock and stared for a long time at a praying mantis that was sunning herself on a leaf. The sun was a ruby-red ball behind the distant trees and the late afternoon heat was giving way to a breezy coolness as twilight began to gather.
“Joe? Look me in the eye and tell me that everything you’ve said is true.”
I told him.
He watched my pupils, the muscles around my eyes, looking for any shifts in focus. Looking for a tell. “There’s no chance this Mr. Church was playing some kind of game on you? There’s no chance this Javad was in on it?”
“A few days ago I shot him twice in the back. Today I smashed the guy’s face to jelly and then snapped his neck.”
“That would be a no, then.” His color was starting to look bad as all of this sank in.
“Could a prion do that?”
“Before today I would have said no unreservedly. And I still don’t think so.”
“What the hell are prions anyway? I can’t remember what I remember about them.”
“Well, there’s a lot of mystery attached to them. Prions are small proteinaceous infectious particles that resist inactivation by ordinary procedures that modify nucleic acids. Does that make sense?”
“Not even a little.”
“Sadly it doesn’t get much simpler. Prions are cutting-edge science and we are quite sure that there is more we don’t know than we do know. Prion diseases are often called spongiform encephalopathies because of the postmortem appearance of the brain with large vacuoles in the cortex and cerebellum; makes the brain look like Swiss cheese. The diseases are characterized by loss of motor control, dementia, paralysis, wasting, and eventually death, typically following pneumonia. Mad cow disease is a type of spongiform encephalopathy. Coming back from the dead, however, is definitely not a known symptom.”
“So prions couldn’t turn a terrorist into one of these monsters?”
“I don’t see how. You said Church was only guessing. It’s been what five days since you shot Javad? That’s not a lot of time to do that kind of medical research. Church may be completely wrong as to the cause.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that Javad was dead, though.”
“Dios mio.”
“Rudy you do believe me, right?”
He stared at the mantis some more. “Yes, cowboy. I believe you. I just don’t want to.”
I had nothing to say to that.
Chapter Eleven
Grace Courtland and Mr. Church / Easton, Maryland; 6:22 P.M.
MR. CHURCH SAT in the interrogation room and waited. There was a discreet tap on the door and a woman entered. She was medium height, slender, and had looks that Church had once heard referred to as “disturbingly pretty.” She wore a tailored gray suit and skirt, low-heeled pumps and coral blouse. Short dark hair, brown eyes with gold flecks. No rings, no jewelry. She looked like a Hollywood accountant or an executive at one of the snootier ad agencies.
“You saw?” Church asked.
She closed the door and glanced at the laptop Church had on the table before him, the screen lowered to hide its contents. “Yes. And I’m not happy with losing the walker.” Her voice was low and throaty with a London accent. “I know we have other subjects, but-”
Church dismissed that with a little movement of his head. “Grace, give me an assessment of his capabilities based on what just happened.”
She sat. “On the plus side he’s tough, resourceful, and vicious, but we already knew that from the warehouse videos. He’s tougher than any of the other candidates.”
“What’s on the minus side?”
“Sloppy police work. Two lorries left the warehouse the night before his task force raided it, one was tracked, one wasn’t. Ledger was involved.”
“I think that when we acquire all of the records from the task force things might look different where Ledger’s involvement is concerned.”
Grace looked dubious.
“What else is in the minus column?” Church asked.
“I don’t think he’s emotionally stable.”
“Have you read his psych profile?”
“Yes.”
“Then you already knew that.”
She pursed her lips. “He’s no yes man. He’d be hard to control.”
“As a team player, sure; but what if he was a team leader?”
Grace snorted. “He was a sergeant in the army with no combat experience. He was the lowest-ranking member of the joint task force. I hardly think ” Grace stopped, sat back in her chair and cocked an eyebrow. “You like this bloke, don’t you?”
“Liking him is irrelevant, Grace.”
“You really see him as management material?”
“Still to be determined.”
“But you’re impressed?”
“Aren’t you?”
Grace turned and looked at the window to the other room. Two agents in hazmat suits were strapping Javad’s corpse to a gurney. She turned back to Church. “What would you have done if he’d been bitten?”
“Put him in Room Twelve with the others.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
She turned away for a moment, not wanting Church to see the contempt and horror in her eyes. Her face reflected the horror, shock, and grief she-and so many others in the DMS-felt. It had been a dreadful week. The worst of Grace’s life.
“Your assessment,” he prompted.
“I don’t know. I think I’d need to see him in a few other situations before I would want to see him wearing officer’s rank. After what happened at the hospital we can’t afford to have anything less than first chair when it comes to team leadership.”
“If it was your choice to make, would you invite him into the unit?”
She drummed her fingers on the table. “Maybe.”
He pushed the plate toward her. “Have a cookie.”
She saw that the plate held Oreos and vanilla wafers. She declined with a polite shake of her head.
Church raised the screen of the laptop and turned it so they could both see it. “Watch,” he said and pressed the play button. A high-resolution image appeared of a group of men in black combat fatigues moving rapidly through an office hallway.
