The King of Plagues

Yet where does that leave guys like me? Where does it leave Echo Team and the DMS?

(5)

I stood at the window of my hotel in Washington, looking out at the green stretch of the Mall, watching the masses of crowds that were already gathering for the big New Year’s celebration tonight. The papers said that there would be a candlelight vigil. For the London Hospital, for the Sea of Hope and all that it represented, for the victims of the Starbucks attack. I would like to think that some of those candles would be lighted in honor of the DMS agents, SEALs, Delta operators, and shipboard security who had died to keep this from being an international day of mourning.

Now the sun was setting over Washington. In a few hours this year would burn away. It was crazy. At the beginning of June I was a Baltimore cop. By early July I was fighting to stop terrorists with a doomsday plague. By the end of August I’d fallen in love with an amazing woman, and I lost her to a murderer’s bullet. I’d led good men and women into battle with monsters. Actual monsters. And I’d gone aboard a cruise ship packed with people who had gathered for the purpose of easing the pain and suffering of children living in the most economically depressed places on earth. Good people of all races and religions, all colors and political viewpoints, working together for the common good. On that ship, out in the middle of the dark Atlantic, I had moved among the very best humanity has and fought against the very worst humanity can be.

Was this my life?

After Grace died I had planned to leave the DMS forever. Even the Warrior in my head had been glutted from all the blood and death. The Cop had become convinced that all goodness had died with Grace … and the Modern Man was adrift, clinging to the last splinter of hope. Then Church had called me and brought me back. To the London Hospital, to Fair Isle, to the gunfight in the coffeehouse, to Jenkintown, to the slaughter of the DMS, and to the Sea of Hope.

So … was this my life? Fighting and fighting and fighting?

It is a horrible moment when you can no longer count the number of people you’ve killed. I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the window glass. It was mild for December, but the glass was cold.

I heard a rising burst of laughter from the adjoining suite. Rudy and Circe. They sounded happy. I felt gutted and empty.

Was this my life?

Was this who I am?

I opened my eyes and saw the first of the candles flare up down in the Mall. A tiny spark in the sea of late- twilight gloom. For a moment there was only that one small light in the darkness, and the loneliness of it was almost unbearably sad.

Then someone bent close and used the flame to light their candle. And others did, and more, sharing out the light so that it spread. Slowly and sporadically, but steadily. An infection of light that did not defeat the darkness— the darkness was too big, too vast, too powerful to ever be completely destroyed—but for now, for this moment, those tiny flames conspired together to drive the darkness back.

I placed my palm on the glass. I don’t know why. Maybe it was a romantic or childish need to feel the heat of that light. But the glass was cold.

And yet …

I smiled.

The cold was okay. The fact that I was up here in the darkness of my room, in the darkness of my thoughts, was okay. The flame was still there. If this was who I was, and if it wasn’t for me to be part of the light, then maybe that was as it should be.

I am what I am. I’m a hunter and a killer. I’m the Cop and the Warrior, and the Modern Man. As I— as we—watched the light from the vigil candles spread, the answer to the question was there. It had always been there.

Was this my life?

Yes.

Acknowledgments

As Joe Ledger’s biographer (ahem) I rely heavily on the brilliance, insight, experience, and patience of a variety of experts. Thanks to Dr. John Cmar of the Infectious Disease Department of Johns Hopkins University Hospital; Dr. Steve A. Yetiv, professor of political science, Old Dominion University; Dr A. M. Dodson, FSA, Research and Teaching Fellow, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology of the University of Bristol; Dr. Pawel Liberski of the Department of Molecular Pathology and Neuropathology, Medical University of Lodz, Poland; Philadelphia police officer Bob Clark; the men of the 1/111th Infantry Battalion–Recon Platoon, with Thirty-sixth Brigade–Iraqi Army Recon; Marie O’Connell, Jackie Szambelak, and Dr. Barry Getzoff; Michael Sicilia of the California Homeland Security Exercise and Education Program; Walt Stenning, Ph.D., former head of psychology at Texas A&M University; Michael E. Witzgall; Ken Coluzzi, chief of Lower Makefield, Pennsylvania, police department; the International Thriller Writers; authors David Morrell, Gayle Lynds, Sandra Brown, John Gilstrap, Jason Pinter, and Eric Van Lustbader; George Schiro, M.S., consulting forensic scientist; Greg Dagnan, CSI/Police/Investigations Faculty–Criminal Justice Department, Missouri Southern State University; Peter Lukacs, M.D.; Ted Krimmel, SERT; and Suzanne Rosin, winner of the “Name Joe Ledger’s Dog” contest.

And special thanks to Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Michael De Luca, and Matthew Snyder; Fran and Randy Kirsch, Charlie and Gina Miller, Arthur Mensch, Sam West-Mensch, and Greg Schauer; Geoff Strauss; Nancy Keim-Comley, Janice Gable Bashman, and Tiffany Schmidt; and Rachel Stockley and Ian Graham.

And, of course, Michael Homler, Joe Goldschein, Matthew Shear, and Nadea Mina at St. Martin’s Griffin and my agents, Sara Crowe and Harvey Klinger.

And to the wonderful staff at the Starbucks in Southampton, where much of this book was written (yes, I do believe I’ll have a refill).

Also by Jonathan Maberry

Fiction

Rot & Ruin

The Dragon Factory

Patient Zero

Ghost Road Blues

Dead Man’s Song

Bad Moon Rising

The Wolfman

Nonfiction

Wanted Undead or Alive

Vampire Universe

The Cryptopedia