Joe Ledger

by Jonathan Maberry

  DR. RUDY SANCHEZ

  Combat Call Sign: Aztec (honorary)

  Rank: Chief Medical Officer

  Brief Bio: Mexican-born Rudy is now an American citizen and the Chief Medical Officer for the DMS. A psychiatrist specializing in post-violence trauma, Rudy was one of the doctors who helped Ground Zero workers cope with their experiences after 9-11. Since coming to work for the DMS, his job is to help the field teams cope with the horrors they encounter and the violence they’re forced to commit.

  First Appearance: Patient Zero

  AUNT SALLIE

  Combat Call Sign: Auntie

  Real Name: Classified

  Rank: Director of Field Operations

  Brief Bio: Only Mr. Church knows who Aunt Sallie really is. And, though she could pass for Whoopie Goldberg’s twin sister, she has none of the actress’ charm and compassion. A former field agent and assassin, Aunt Sallie is the only person who knows Mr. Church’s secrets. She runs the Hangar, the DMS headquarters located at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn.

  First Appearance: The King of Plagues

  DOCTOR WILLIAM HU

  Combat Call Sign: Dalek

  Rank: Science Director

  Brief Bio: Dr. Hu is one of the most brilliant scientists in the world—proof that Mr. Church never hires second best. He runs the advanced sciences division of the DMS and oversees research and development. He and Joe Ledger have failed to bond on a spectacular level.

  First Appearance: Patient Zero

  DR. CIRCE O’TREE

  Combat Call Sign: Greek Fire (honorary)

  Rank: Director of Strategic Intelligence

  Brief Bio: A bestselling author whose books explore the ways in which religion and political ideologies are used as the basis for war and terrorism, Dr. O’Tree joined the DMS to help stop the terrorist organization known as the Seven Kings. She has since become a valuable member of the team and, most recently, the wife of Rudy Sanchez. Only a handful of people know that she is the only known surviving member of Mr. Church’s family.

  First Appearance: The King of Plagues

  LEROY WILLIAMS

  Combat Call Sign: Bug

  Rank: Director of Computer Sciences, Deputy Director of Field Support

  Brief Bio: Bug is the heart and soul of the DMS. His genius with computers brought him to the attention of Mr. Church, who hired him to manage the supercomputer MindReader. Bug and his team also provide real-time intelligence support for DMS field teams. He’s one of Joe’s most trusted allies and closest friends.

  First Appearance: Patient Zero

  GRACE COURTLAND

  Combat Call Sign: Amazing

  Rank: Major, Special Air Service, UK (deceased)

  Brief Bio: Grace Courtland was the first woman to make it through the experimental program for women soldiers in the SAS. After distinguishing herself in that notorious boys’ club, she helped Mr. Church form Barrier and later its American counterpart, the DMS. She and Joe Ledger became lovers for a brief time before Grace died a hero’s death saving billions from ethnic genocide.

  First Appearance: Patient Zero

  VIOLIN

  Combat Call Sign: Violin

  Real Name: Classified

  Rank: Arklight Senior Team Leader

  Brief Bio: Violin was born into horror, as the child of one of the breeding slaves kept by the horrific Red Knights. When her mother, Lilith, escaped the Knights and formed the covert counterterrorism hit-squad Arklight, Violin quickly rose to prominence as their top field agent. Beautiful, deadly, and not entirely human. She is Joe Ledger’s former lover and sometimes ally.

  First Appearance: Assassin’s Code

  JUNIE FLYNN

  Combat Call Sign: Bookworm (honorary)

  Rank: n/a

  Brief Bio: Junie has a complex past as the subject of a breeding program initiated by the Majestic Project in the years following the Roswell Crash. She is the former host of a conspiracy theory podcast and an author, and currently heads up a foundation dedicated to repurposing technologies illegally developed by the Majestic Three. She and Joe Ledger became romantically involved during the Majestic Black Book affair.

  First Appearance: Extinction Machine

  GHOST

  Combat Call Sign: Ghost

  Rank: Sergeant

  Brief Bio: A big, strong, occasionally goofy and entirely dangerous white shepherd who is partnered with Joe Ledger. He has been awarded official rank as a sergeant in the DMS.

  First Appearance: Dog Days

  BRADLEY SIMS

  Combat Call Sign: Top

  Rank: First Sergeant, Army Rangers

  Brief Bio: Top Sims is Joe Ledger’s strong right hand and the most trusted field agent in the DMS. A former Ranger who came out of retirement after his son was killed and his daughter wounded in the early days of the Iraq War, Top now runs Echo Team.

  First Appearance: Patient Zero

  HARVEY RABBIT

  Combat Call Sign: Bunny

  Rank: Staff Sergeant, USMC

  Brief Bio: Bunny is a big, blond, former competitive volleyball player who joined the Marines and went from Force Recon to the DMS. He and Top are best friends, and they joined Echo Team at the same time as Joe Ledger.

  First Appearance: Patient Zero

  LYDIA RUIZ

  Combat Call Sign: Warbride

  Rank: Chief Petty Officer, USN

  Brief Bio: Apart from Top and Bunny, Lydia is the most experienced DMS field agent. Quick and ruthless in a fight, she’s been on some of the most terrifying missions with Echo Team.

  First Appearance: Assassin’s Code

  SAM IMURA

  Combat Call Sign: Ronin

  Rank: Lieutenant, US Army

  Brief Bio: Sam is one of the best snipers in the U.S. military. Cool and patient, he provides Echo Team with long-range punch.

  First Appearance: Extinction Machine

  MONTANA PARKER

  Combat Call Sign: Stretch

  Rank: FBI Special Agent (retired)

  Brief Bio: Montana is a former FBI agent and the newest member of Echo Team. Tough, outspoken and reliable, she fits in well with the other top professionals on Joe Ledger’s top squad.

  First Appearance: Code Zero

  SGT. GUS DIETRICH

  Combat Call Sign: Bulldog

  Rank: Command Sergeant Major, retired; US Army (deceased)

  Brief Bio: Retired Command Sergeant Major Dietrich was Mr. Church’s personal assistant, aide and bodyguard. Bulldog tough and fiercely loyal, Dietrich was one of the few people Church trusted completely.

  First Appearance: Patient Zero

  BRICKLIN ANDERSON

  Combat Call Sign: Stonewall

  Rank: Gunnery Sergeant, U.S. Army

  Brief Bio: Brick Anderson is a former DMS field agent who lost a leg in combat. He originally ran the Field Support team for the Hub, the Denver Field Office, then worked out of the Warehouse before becoming Mr. Church’s personal assistant and bodyguard.

  First Appearance: The Dragon Factory

  BRIAN BIRD

  Combat Call Sign: Birddog

  Rank: Logistics Specialist

  Brief Bio: Birddog works closely with Brick, making sure that the field teams get all of the hardware they need to get the job done.

  First Appearance: Extinction Machine

  HELMUT DEACON

  Combat Call Sign: The Kid (honorary)

  Rank: Junior Executive for FreeTech

  Brief Bio: Helmut is a teenager whose parentage is both complicated and horrific. In a move to separate himself from his father, and prove to the world that beyond nature and nurture there’s a third option: choice, Helmut has used his genius and specialized knowledge to help humanity. He is currently on the science team for Junie Flynn’s FreeTech.

  First Appearance: The Dragon Factory

  THE BAD GUYS

  THE SEVEN KINGS

  A secret society made up of some of the most powerful and dangerous men in the w
orld. To build their mystique, the Kings hijacked much of the conspiracy theories built around other groups—such as the Illuminati. Though defeated by the DMS, the Kings are far from destroyed, and it’s likely they’ll be back in force before too long.

  First Appearance: The King of Plagues

  HUGO VOX

  The cold-hearted genius who built the Seven Kings was also one of the leading experts in anti-and counter-terrorism. He used his high security clearance to obtain insider knowledge that allowed the Kings to do untold harm.

  First Appearance: The King of Plagues

  THE RED KNIGHTS

  The Upierczi are a genetic offshoot of humanity that live in the shadows and hunger for human blood. Although they’re not supernatural—just products of genetic aberration—they are the basis for the myths of vampires. The Red Knights are incredibly strong and fast and utterly ruthless.

  First Appearance: Assassin’s Code

  BERSERKERS

  These super soldiers are the result of transgenics and gene therapy undertaken by the Jakoby Twins. Given DNA from silverback gorillas, the Berserkers are enormously powerful and highly dangerous.

  First Appearance: The Dragon Factory

  SEBASTIAN GAULT

  The former pharmaceutical developer has used both his genius and his vast fortune to fund terrorist groups and to provide them with dangerous bioweapons including the fearsome Seif al Din pathogen. Gault was recruited into the Seven Kings of Hugo Vox.

  First Appearance: Patient Zero

  ALLIES

  BARRIER

  Barrier was the first of the modern wave of counterterrorism organizations designed to respond to enemies with the highest level of technology. Based in London, Barrier’s teams are made up largely of the best-of-the-best agents from the SAS, MI5 and MI6. The senior consultant on the design and protocols for Barrier was Mr. Church.

  First Appearance: Patient Zero

  ARKLIGHT

  The covert and militant arm of a secret organization of female assassins, Arklight operates according to its own agenda. They are the principle enemies of the Red Knights and the Red Order. Arklight is run by Lilith, a former breeding slave of the Knights; her daughter, Violin, is their senior field agent. It’s rumored that Mr. Church and Lilith have some significant history, and they’ve shared a number of adventures in the years prior to the establishment of the DMS.

  First Appearance: Assassin’s Code

  TOYS

  Alexander Chismer is a former criminal who worked with Sebastian Gault and Hugo Vox. When he helped bring down the Seven Kings, Mr. Church offered him a chance at redemption by entrusting him with billions of the Kings’ ill-gotten gains and challenging him to do as much good for humanity as possible with it. He is the private financier behind Junie Flynn’s FreeTech. Whether Toys will earn redemption or slip back into his corrupt ways remains to be seen.

  First Appearance: Patient Zero

  FREETECH

  An organization formed to repurpose technologies originally created by terrorist organizations such as Majestic Three, the Seven Kings, the Jakoby Family, the Red Order and others. Funded by Alexander Chismer and run by Junie Flynn, FreeTech brings these technologies to the people who need them.

  First Appearance: Code Zero

  THE DEPARTMENT OF MILITARY SCIENCES

  THE ORGANIZATION

  The Department of Military Sciences was created by Mr. Church and is chartered by Executive Order. It is tasked with searching out and responding to terrorist threats involving cutting-edge science.

  The DMS operates out of regional field offices. Currently there are seventeen field offices that run thirty-six active teams. Joe Ledger’s Echo Team was originally based at the Warehouse in Baltimore, but was later relocated when Ledger opened the Pier in San Diego.

  The DMS’s primary weapon is the supercomputer system called MindReader. This system has two primary and overlapping functions. Using an elegant pattern-recognition software package, MindReader collates information culled from all domestic law enforcement and intelligences services as well as those from trusted international allies. MindReader sifts through the data on an endless hunt for terrorist activity. Its second function is as an intrusion weapon. MindReader can hack its way into virtually any known computer system and then rewrite the target computer’s memory to erase any trace of its presence.

  Unlike other covert agencies, the DMS is not buried under mountains of red tape. Field team commanders are given superior mission support and encouraged to act autonomously. Naturally this requires a certain kind of leadership personality, and screening new DMS agents is done with utmost care. Everything about the DMS is built around the accuracy of its intelligence and the speed of its response.

  First Appearance: Patient Zero

  ECHO TEAM

  Joe Ledger’s group of first-chair shooters. This SpecOps team has logged more field time than any other DMS unit; and they’ve tackled some of the most dangerous threats to humanity imaginable.

  First Appearance: Patient Zero

  THE WAREHOUSE

  The Baltimore Field Office and home to Joe Ledger and Echo Team from Patient Zero through Code Zero. The original Warehouse was destroyed by the terrorist Erasmus Tull, taking with it the lives of nearly two hundred agents. It was rebuilt by Ledger in the days following that tragedy.

  First Appearance: Patient Zero

  THE HANGAR

  The main headquarters of the DMS, housed in an old hangar on Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. The decrepit exterior hides the world’s most sophisticated counterterrorism organization on earth.

  First Appearance: Patient Zero

  THE PIER

  The DMS’s latest field office. Built on an actual pier in San Diego by Joe Ledger, this office is dedicated to Special Operations and runs four teams—Echo, Slingshot, Deep Six and Kraken.

  The Joe Ledger Series

  Novels and Short Stories in Chronological Order

  COUNTDOWN

  (A teaser prequel to PATIENT ZERO)

  “I didn’t plan to kill anyone. I wasn’t totally against the idea, either. Sometimes things just fall that way, and either you roll with it or it rolls over you. Letting the bad guys win isn’t how I roll.” Meet Joe Ledger, Baltimore PD, attached to a Homeland task force…who’s about to get a serious promotion.

  PATIENT ZERO

  NOVEL #1/Published in 2009 by St. Martin’s Griffin

  When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week there’s either something wrong with your world or something wrong with your skills... and there’s nothing wrong with Joe Ledger’s skills. And that’s both a good, and a bad thing. It’s good because he’s a Baltimore detective that has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new taskforce created to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can’t handle. This rapid response group is called the Department of Military Sciences or the DMS. It’s bad because his first mission is to help stop a group of terrorists from releasing a dreadful bio-weapon that can turn ordinary people into zombies. The fate of the world hangs in the balance.

  ZERO TOLERANCE

  Short Story

  This sequel to PATIENT ZERO brings Joe Ledger back into action, hunting for zombies in the deadly mountains of Afghanistan.

  DEEP, DARK

  Short Story

  In an underground bioweapons lab a team of scientists working to develop super soldiers instead create something that is far deadlier and infinitely stranger. Joe Ledger and Echo Team must hunt—and be hunted—deep down in the dark.

  MATERIAL WITNESS

  Short Story

  A stand-alone short story that takes place in the early days of Joe Ledger’s service in the Department of Military Sciences, a top secret division of Homeland Security. Joe Ledger and the DMS must protect a Pine Deep spook and author who is in over his head with the wrong people and may know more than he is letting on.

  THE DRAGON FACTORY

  NOVEL #2/Published in 2010
by St. Martin’s Griffin

  Joe and the DMS go up against two competing groups of geneticists. One side is creating exotic transgenic monsters and genetically enhanced mercenary armies; the other is using 21st century technology to continue the Nazi Master Race program begun by Josef Mengele. Both sides want to see the DMS destroyed, and they’ve drawn first blood. Neither side is prepared for Joe Ledger as he leads Echo Team to war under a black flag.

  DOG DAYS

  Short Story

  Joe Ledger returns in this tale that follows the tragic conclusion of THE DRAGON FACTORY. In the wake of a devastating personal loss, Joe Ledger and his new canine partner, Ghost, go hunting for the world’s deadliest assassin.

  ***An audio exclusive story available from Blackstone, read by Ray Porter.

  CHANGELING

  Short Story

  Joe Ledger teams with a mysterious British agent named Felicity to investigate a dangerous bioweapons factory.

  Originally published in Midnight Echo Magazine (Australia), June 2013.

  THE KING OF PLAGUES

  NOVEL #3/Published in 2011 by St. Martin’s Griffin

  Saturday 09:11 Hours: A blast rocks a London hospital and thousands are dead or injured…. 10:09 Hours: Joe Ledger arrives on scene to investigate. The horror is unlike anything he has ever seen. Compelled by grief and rage, Joe rejoins the DMS and within hours is attacked by a hit-team of assassins and sent on a suicide mission into a viral hot zone during an Ebola outbreak. Soon Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences begin tearing down the veils of deception to uncover a vast and powerful secret society using weaponized versions of the Ten Plagues of Egypt to destabilize world economies and profit from the resulting chaos. Millions will die unless Joe Ledger meets this powerful new enemy on their own terms as he fights terror with terror.