by Julie Rowe
She tried not to look at him but couldn’t help a quick glance, and the young man saw it.
He spun, his hand coming out of his pocket, revealing the weapon.
Dozer grabbed the wrist of the intruder’s gun hand, and he snapped up the heel of his other hand, striking at the young man’s face.
The intruder dodged at the last moment, turning Dozer’s strike into a glancing blow. The gun fired, slamming a bullet into the tiled floor beneath their feet. The noise set off a flurry of activity outside the room, but Carmen ignored it to focus on the fight.
His assailant landed a punch to Dozer’s chest. A punch that could turn his cracked ribs into bone shards—splinters that could penetrate his organs, killing him.
Oh no you don’t. Worry, fear, and rage set fire to her entire bloodstream.
There weren’t any heavy objects handy to bash against his head. She’d have to improvise. Several feet of oxygen-line tubing hung in a tidy bundle on the wall next to the bed. She ripped it off the wall, took four rushed steps, then hooked it around the assailant’s head and pulled it tight around his neck.
Dozer punched the young man in the face, a solid strike, and wrestled with him for possession of the gun.
With her choking the life out of him from behind and Dozer beating on him from the front, it was only seconds before John had the gun and had it pointed on its owner.
A shadow clouded the doorway.
“What the fuck is going on in here?” DS demanded.
“We got ourselves an assassin,” Dozer said, his voice harsh and low.
DS came in and took a long look at their intruder. “Don’t look like much of a problem to me.” He suddenly smiled at the assailant, and it was his scary grin. The one that said he could kill you with his bare hands and enjoy it. “You here alone, boy?”
The would-be assassin gurgled.
Carmen realized she was still choking him and released the pressure on his neck.
He took in a couple of deep breaths and shook himself like he was a big dog shaking off a dip in cold water.
“Feel better, boy?” DS asked, his tone saturated with scorn. “Want to call home to Mommy?”
“You’re going to die, old man. All of you.” He tried to laugh, but his abused neck didn’t cooperate, and it sounded more like a cough. “Every single one of you. You’re dead already.”
Dozer grinned just as mean as DS. “Does he actually know anything, or is he just trying to sound scary?”
“I dunno, but we can find out.” DS looked way too happy about it.
“Torture is against the law, gentlemen,” she reminded them.
“Not if he’s arrested as a suspected terrorist,” John said. “All we have to do is take him to one of several black sites. No one will ever see or hear from him again.”
“How,” Carmen asked with a calm that surprised even her, “did he get in here with a gun in his pocket?”
John and DS looked at the man in question.
“I want a lawyer,” he said with a sneer, but that sneer was slipping.
“Dude,” John said. “You’re not under arrest. We haven’t read you your Miranda rights.” He kept the gun leveled at the kid’s chest.
“How,” DS asked, all mirth gone from his face, “did you get in here?”
“I’m not talking without a lawyer.” Their assassin shifted uneasily on his feet, looking past the men to the corridor outside as if he was expecting someone. “The cops—”
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” John asked, interrupting. “Homeland Security is coming, and you’ll never find your way out of the hole we’re going to stick you in unless you start talking right now.”
“I…I have rights. You can’t just question me and toss me in jail.” The words came out of his mouth in a rush, tumbling over one another and tangling together at the end of the sentence.
“You came into this room with a gun in your pocket and the name of your target rolling off your tongue.” Carmen was so fucking angry she was shaking. She took a step toward him, and he moved. Fast.
A hand grabbed her neck, squeezing hard enough to buckle her knees. The assassin was yelling, but it was babble. Her head pounded, her breathing cut off.
Something large crashed to the floor next to her. The assailant’s grip on her neck slipped, and she jerked away from him, kicking out with both feet to keep him from grabbing her again.
Something flew across the room, spreading smoke or some kind of gas.
Carmen got a face full of the stuff. It irritated her airway, causing her to cough and choke. The smoke turned the hospital room into a battlefield strewn with land mines, enemy fighters, and deadly shadows from the past.
She managed to take a breath as the caustic fog swirled around her. A man landed on his back on the floor a few feet away. John.
Was he hurt? Had he been shot?
A flash of metal split the smoke and connected with flesh. DS stumbled and fell to his knees next to John with a grunt of pain.
“Security! Security,” someone shouted. It sounded like their terrorist, and he was leaving. “Two men jumped me in that room.”
The pounding of running feet in heavy boots had her crawling toward the nearest source of shelter—the bed.
The fire alarm began to ring, its deep toll adding to the confusion and cacophony.
Nausea threatened to hijack her stomach, throwing her back nearly ten years to when she’d lain on the ground trying to understand how she’d ended up there. The smoke and shouts and shots told a story. A life-and-death story. Hers.
“Carmen,” John shouted at her. “We need to get out of here.”
But where could they go? They were in Afghanistan, surrounded by strangers, most of whom wanted to kill them.
No.
No, this was Atlanta, not Afghanistan. The armed men who swarmed toward them weren’t insurgents; they were security guards. Those guards grabbed John and DS by the arms, twisting them behind their backs and hauling them out of the room.
She wasn’t a wet-behind-the-ears doctor anymore.
She wasn’t someone anyone could dismiss, disregard, or discount anymore.
She got to her feet and plunged out of the room into sweet, sweet clean, clear air.
“Stop,” she said, her voice a command, an order. “These men are victims. The assailant is the young man in the lab coat who just ran out of here.”
“Ma’am, please step back,” one of the security guards ordered. “Don’t interfere or you’ll join them.” He pointed his Taser at her for two long, ludicrous seconds.
Carmen held up her CDC identification. “I’m Dr. Rodrigues from the CDC. You are restraining a Homeland Security agent and a retired Army Drill Sergeant, both of whom are my people.”
The guard looked at her ID blankly for a couple of seconds. His hand wavered. “Shots were fired.”
“Yes, by the man in the scrubs and lab coat.”
The guards looked at each other, then slowly helped John and DS get to their feet.
Carmen watched John touch his ribs with a grimace.
Acid rose from the pit of her stomach, but she forced herself to swallow it down. “Your head, your chest?”
“That little asshole tagged me with an elbow.” John glanced at the guard who’d been about to zip-tie his hands behind his back and pressed one hand to his ribs. “Getting manhandled didn’t help much, but I don’t think they’re any worse.”
She watched him breathe. Shallow—it hurt worse than he was saying. “You’re getting another set of X-rays,” she said to him.
He had the gall to roll his eyes.
“Where did the fucking smoke bomb come from?” DS asked.
Carmen reviewed the events of the past few minutes. Their attacker, John, and DS had been wrestling with one another. An object had been tossed into the room, spewing smoke.
Their assailant had had help.
Stomach turning to ice, she turned to the security guards. “I need to see the securi
ty feed from this hallway for the past hour. Any angles you have.”
“Now?” the guard who’d threatened her with a Taser asked.
“Right now.”
“Ma’am, the police have been called, and we have to follow hospital protocol.”
“I’ll stay here with your partner,” DS offered to the security guard. “While you three take a look at that video.”
The reluctant guard looked like he wanted to continue to argue, but his cell phone went off, and he answered it immediately after looking at the screen. He listened, then dropped the phone into a pocket. “This way,” he said, sounding subdued.
Must have been a boss or supervisor. Or possibly hospital administration.
They took the elevator to the main floor and followed the guard down the hall toward the security office.
“Are you okay?” she asked John.
“Fine.”
“You’re favoring your ribs more than before.” She put a hand on his arm. How bad was it? “Are you bleeding again?”
“I’m fine.”
She might have believed him if the words hadn’t been shredded by his clenched teeth.
Once inside the security office, the guard called up the footage of the hallway outside John’s room. She saw herself walk in, then, a couple of minutes later, the young man appeared in the frame. He entered the room without showing his face to the camera.
The next person to come into view on the footage was the drill sergeant, but only for a couple of seconds—he was moving fast.
Someone dressed like a veteran taking part in therapy, in jeans, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap, walked by the room, pausing only a moment to throw something inside. The smoke bomb. Twenty or thirty seconds later, the assailant ran out just as the security guards arrived, shouting.
At no time did the cameras have a clear view of the assailant or his friend’s face. Either the cameras were placed poorly or the two men knew where the cameras were and kept their heads down.
“Very smooth, considering he found you when he walked in, rather than me,” John said. “He brought backup.”
“He’s wearing one of our lab coats,” the guard pointed out, enlarging the insignia on the pocket of the coat.
“This was planned,” Carmen said, fury a rolling boil in her blood.
“Who knew I was here?” John asked her.
“CDC and Homeland Security,” she answered. “But whoever they are, they might have used a description rather than a name when they looked for you.”
“That implies enough people to add up to a network.” His jaw was set. He was no happier with that conclusion than she was.
She wanted to dive into an investigation, skip the bathing suit and water wings—it was time for a running-start cannonball into the rapids. Doing it might give her adrenaline an outlet in the short term, but it might also lead to any number of dangerous outcomes.
It had taken many bumps, bruises, and botched attempts to get out of the deep end for her to learn that caution and careful planning saved her a lot of headaches later. No matter how urgent the problem.
“How do you want to proceed?” she asked the man who’d been the target of this murder attempt.
“My department will want to do a full investigation.” He looked at the security guard. “Can you make copies of all the security video for the past week for that hallway, along with the past twenty-four hours of the entire building?”
“Yes, sir,” the guard said respectfully.
Oh yes, he’d figured out he’d fucked up royally.
“Talk to your supervisor,” she suggested to John. “Then we can inform this gentleman and the hospital what the next steps will be.”
John gave the guard and her a brisk nod.
“Don’t forget to set some time aside for an exam and X-rays,” she said.
He paused to smile. “Yes, ma’am.” He left the office.
“Ma’am,” the guard said after the door was closed. “I’m sorry. The way that guy was dressed made it seem—”
“A great deal of planning went into this,” she interrupted. “You responded as you should.” She sighed. “This incident…” She wasn’t sure how to describe it to herself, let alone someone she didn’t know.
“It’s big,” he said, and she noted the fear on his face.
“Maybe.” She didn’t want to lie or cause a panic. “We will get to the bottom of it. No one attacks a Homeland Security agent and fires a weapon inside a VA hospital and just walks away.”
“But he did just walk away.”
Carmen smiled at the guard. “Not nearly far or fast enough.”
Chapter Four
3:12 p.m.
Dozer finished his brief report to his unit chief and gave the man a few seconds of silence so he could make some decisions. It only took three.
“I’m sending a couple of investigators to the hospital, and I’ll have our cyber bloodhounds look for any kind of digital footprint. This was too coordinated for just a couple of disgruntled guys.”
“And me. What do you want me to do?”
“Preferably, grab a cab and find a hotel for a few days until we find the bastards who tried to shoot, stick, and snipe you. You’re still on medical leave until I say otherwise.” Dozer sucked in a breath to argue, but his boss kept talking. “Don’t bother disagreeing with me or I’ll stick you in protective custody like Rodrigues keeps ordering me to.”
“I’ll go to a hotel like a good boy.”
“Good idea. Pay with cash. Keep in touch.”
“Yes, sir.”
Click.
Dozer looked at his cell phone, then dropped it into a pocket in disgust. Again, someone had tried to kill him. That was bad enough, but then the son of a bitch put his hands on Carmen and hurt her. That was unacceptable.
How the hell was he supposed to keep her safe if he was in a hotel room resting?
Carmen came out of the security office. “The guard is making a recording of all the security footage we’ve asked for. What did your boss say?”
“He’s sending an investigative team to find those fuckers.” He winced. Carmen didn’t use bad language much, almost never while working.
She didn’t seem to notice his less-than-savory choice of name for the two men who’d tried to kill him. “Come with me. You’re going to the ER.”
“I’m fine.”
“Do not start with me,” she said, low and slow. Her gaze slid to his side, where he had one hand on his ribs. Well, shit. He dropped his hand, but it was too late.
“I’m so angry with you right now,” she said, her hands clenched. “I could punch you myself.”
What the fuck? “What did I do?”
“Nothing.” She said the word like it was an accusation, then pointed to an indistinct position in front of her. “March.”
Following orders was the only thing he could do, so he did it.
As soon as they entered the ER, Carmen spoke to the staff and had him tucked away in a small exam room.
The ER doc took a look at his ribs and sent him for an X-ray of his chest and head.
“I don’t see any new issues,” the ER doc said. “Just some additional bruising around your ribs. Headache, dizziness, nausea?”
“No.” Dozer glanced at Carmen’s cold expression and decided to be forthcoming. “But my chest is sore.”
“All you can do is wrap your ribs or wear back support.”
“Does a tactical vest count?”
The doctor shrugged. “If it supports your core, sure.” He nodded at Carmen and left the room.
“Congratulations,” she said like she was giving him the news of a terminal condition. “You’re discharged.” Maybe she was.
Dozer grunted and said with distaste, “I’m supposed to hole up in a hotel room and rest.”
“You can’t go home. Your address is a matter of public record.” Her forehead furrowed. “Why don’t you want to go to a hotel?”
“I’ll go stir-crazy in less t
han a day if I don’t have something to do.”
“You aren’t known for your patience,” she said, her gaze on the floor.
He kept his mouth shut, only because this was a public place. They needed to have that talk about Afghanistan. Not only about what had happened between them nine years ago and why she had run from him, but why those fake agents confronted her at the airport.
And they needed to have that talk soon.
One of them could have been murdered today.
Her phone beeped. She pulled it out and looked at it.
“I have to go to a meeting with your boss and my boss,” she said with a slight sigh.
“Can you drop me off at my apartment?” he asked. A cab would give anyone hunting him too easy a trail to follow.
“Sure.” She looked at him, the frown still on her face. She tilted her head as if confused by something.
“Something wrong with my face?”
“No, you’re just a little too agreeable.”
Since when did following simple orders equate to being too compliant? “Just how big of an asshole do you think I am?”
She blinked. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
He smacked himself with one hand. “Would you rather I had a hissy fit and told my boss to go fuck himself?”
“I’d rather you acted like you normally do and not this stranger who meekly does as he’s told.”
Meek?
He smiled, bent closer to her, and lowered his voice. “That depends on who’s doing the telling and what they want me to do.”
That should have angered her or irritated her, but instead, she lost the concerned expression and relaxed her posture. “Thank you. That’s…well, it’s not good, but it is normal.”
“You’re kidding, right?” he asked. “You’re not supposed to thank me for saying that shit. You should be mad at me. Accuse me of sexual harassment. A punch in the face would be justified.”
She snorted. “Hah. Like you’ve done anything sexual toward me. A nun would have gotten more attention from you than what you’ve given me.” She stopped abruptly, her gaze skidding away from his. “If you were to give anyone your attention, that is.”
Holy shit. This was the first time since he’d come to the CDC to work with her that she dropped her professional attitude toward him.