and more thoroughly than down in Delaware.”
“What about your team? Did they perform to your expectations?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “I expect a frank and open report, Captain. Now’s not a good time to be coy.”
“I’m not being coy, Church. I’ve known these guys for less than a full day and all of it’s been action. Yesterday they performed superbly. This morning we hit some potholes. Skip Tyler and Ollie Brown both went missing under questionable circumstances and I haven’t had time to fully debrief them. There are some twitchy points about that. Skip claims he was jumped and Tasered from his blind side, but that doesn’t square with the facts because there were only two ways out of that shower room: the door my team came through and the corridor Skip was watching. He says he got zapped and then woke up in a storeroom, managed to cut his bonds and retrieve his weapon, and was then set upon by walkers. Ollie’s story is about the same. Says someone must have opened a door and Tasered him. Both of them have burns on their necks, and most of the guards in the plant carried Tasers.” I didn’t mention the fact that Ollie had nearly blown my head off during the fight. It was something Ollie and I would discuss at some later time.
“So, for a considerable amount of time you can’t account for either of those men?”
“Guess not.”
“By your own statement there was a period where you were alone, which means that Sims and Rabbit were not with you throughout the mission. And you told me that Sergeant Rabbit carried a prisoner back to the entrance and it was he who reported that Tyler was missing. How do you know that he didn’t disable Tyler and then break the prisoner’s neck? We have no immediate proof that the prisoner died as a result of Alpha Team blowing open the door.”
“Are you targeting Echo Team? You think that’s where the mole is?”
“I have no idea where the mole is and I’m questioning everyone,” he said with some edge in his voice. “I’m not a big fan of making assumptions, Captain. Until proven otherwise everyone is under the microscope.”
We glared at each other for a minute, but then I nodded. “Yeah, damn it.”
Church looked away to watch a truck drive by and when he turned back to me he was completely composed.
“Maybe you should broaden your search,” I said. “Instead of just going all Inquisition on everyone in the DMS, you might want to take a close look at whoever sent these people to you. Everyone you have was handpicked, right? Well, then, how sure are you about the people who picked them?”
Church gazed at me for a space and I thought I could hear relays clicking in his head. “Thank you for that suggestion, Captain. It wouldn’t surprise me if the mole was planted simply to bring the DMS down. It might not even be connected with the terrorists. After all, everyone in the intelligence community constantly jockeys for funding and there’s probably some hard feelings from some quarters that we’re getting their funding.”
“And are we?”
“Sure, but there’s a war on and we’re a little more ‘frontline’ than most. Mind you, there is always some political espionage and backstabbing going on in the intelligence services. Always has been, and it’s factored into daily life. The release of the walkers from Room Twelve may have been a terrorist act or it may have been meant to disrupt the DMS and discredit me.”
“Mass murder is a pretty extreme thing to do just to discredit someone. Are you that important?”
He shrugged.
“Well then, let me put it another way: are you that vulnerable?”
I didn’t expect an answer to that but he surprised me. “Not as much as some people might think.” He wouldn’t elaborate on that rather enigmatic remark, however, nor did he return to the topic. His cell beeped and he opened it and listened for a moment and then hung up without comment. “Dr. Hu has finished prepping the prisoner for interrogation.”
As he turned to go I blocked his way. “Slow your roll one minute more. I failed in there, Church. The quiet infil turned into a full-out assault and people died. You hired me on to lead Echo Team and I led them right into a trap.”
He looked at me steadily through the nearly opaque lenses of his glasses. “What do you want to hear? That I’m disappointed? That this was a badly led mission? That I want you to resign?”
I wasn’t going to feed him the script to my own dismissal so I waited.
“Sorry,” he said, “but you’re still Echo Team leader. I don’t have much interest in Monday-morning quarterbacking. So far you’re still four and oh with walkers. Baker and Charlie teams were totally destroyed; Alpha Team has been cut down by half while Echo Team, small as it is, remains intact.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m the man for this job-”
He sighed through his nose. “If you need absolution go see a priest. If you want to decompress, talk to Dr. Sanchez. However, if you feel that you have some need to put things right and balance the scales, then help me stop this thing. Besides last night you told me that you wanted to wait until your team was fully rested. We didn’t, and we can both take blame for that if blame needs to be assigned.”
I said, “What about reinforcements? I thought you had more Echo Team candidates on their way.”
“Some of them have already arrived. They’re being processed at the warehouse as we speak. They’ll be shown the tapes, given the speeches, and when you get back you can start training them.”
“Maybe we should send Top Sims back there now. Him and Bunny. They can start training the new guys.”
“Not Brown and Tyler?”
“I need to have a chat with each of them first.”
His phone rang again and he looked at the display and his mouth twitched with impatience. He flipped his phone open. “Yes, Mr. President,” he said. I raised my eyebrows but Church kept his usual composure. He listened for a few moments, then said, “Mr. President, I have neither the time nor the facts to give you a full briefing. What I can tell you now is that the crab plant appears to have been rigged as a trap. Yes, sir, we sustained heavy casualties.” He gave a bare-bones account of the hit. The President interrupted him at least six times. “We have one prisoner, Mr. President. Yes, that’s correct, just the one. I am on my way to conduct an interview with him right now so time is pressing,” Church listened some more and I could actually see the point at which his patience evaporated. He did something that I had never even heard of anyone doing before, and something I would have thought that not even Church would dare. “Mr. President, with all due respect this conversation is wasting my time. The clock is ticking for my interview and if you keep trying to micromanage this we’re going to lose the best opportunity we have. Now, please, sir, let’s stick to our original agreement. You will be properly informed when I am ready to make my report. Good day, sir.”
He didn’t wait for a reply but simply closed his phone and put it back in his pocket. He saw me goggling at him and said, “What?”
“Church you just bitch-slapped the President of the United States.”
He said nothing,
“Nobody does that. Nobody can do that. How the hell did you-?” Church made a dismissive gesture. “We have an understanding. The DMS was built upon and continues to operate based on that understanding.”
“Care to share what that understanding is?”
“No,” he said.
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.
