by Julie Rowe
She didn’t look happy but finally said, “Okay.”
“I’m your bodyguard, but I’d also like to be your friend. I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I will make suggestions. I may ask you to stop working to do basic things like eat and sleep, but I won’t interrupt or interfere with your work unless it’s necessary. Use me as a sounding board and safe place to vent, but don’t shut me out.” He stopped, hoping for a positive sign—a smile or nod.
She frowned at him. “Why do I feel like I just kicked a puppy?”
That surprised a laugh out of him. He felt like a kicked puppy.
“Fine,” she said, as if coming to a decision. “We’ll take things as you suggest.”
Good. That was good.
He held out his hand, and after a moment she took it. They shook once.
“I’m going to sleep while I can,” she said, then put her head back against her seat and closed her eyes.
Dozer had to force his gaze away from her face. He wanted to keep her talking, but he had to give her some space. Rationally, he knew that was what he had to do, but he really wanted to throw rational thought out the fucking window, pull her onto his lap, and hold her for a couple of hours…days…weeks.
Not going to happen any time soon.
Fuck.
Someone jostled his shoulder. The drill sergeant.
The veteran smiled, showing off his teeth. “Get your shit figured out?”
Great. Half the people on the plane had probably witnessed their argument.
DS leaned a bit closer and said, “BTW, no one could hear what you two were saying, but your body language told everyone plain as day that you were having a fight.”
“Nosy Nellies,” Dozer growled.
“You made for great in-flight entertainment.”
“Wonderful.”
DS laughed and walked back to his seat.
The rest of the flight was uneventful, and they landed in Orlando at 5:40 p.m.
As soon as they touched down, Carmen roused, checked her phone, and began texting rapidly.
“Any news?” Dozer asked.
“The death toll from the bombing is still at twenty-three. The number of injured stands at forty-two with one person missing—one of our people—nurse Derek Anders.” She looked ready to strangle someone. “All of our people at Orlando General Hospital are either injured or…”
“Dead,” he finished the sentence for her.
She nodded, her eyes narrow and tight with anger.
The plane came to a stop.
While they were being met at the gate by two uniformed airport security guards, something on the tarmac caught the guards’ attention. Both men sucked in a breath, then froze.
Dozer glanced out the airport’s floor-to-ceiling windows. What the flying fuck?
A small car was driving erratically toward their plane, dodging a taxiing aircraft and a luggage train. Behind it, two security vehicles with lights flashing tried to catch up.
They weren’t going to make it.
The constant background ache of his ribs and the invisible weight of too few hours of sleep disappeared beneath a swelling wave of adrenaline. Smaller details came into sharper focus.
The area was full of people making their way to and from gates or waiting for their flights to be called. Faced away from the window, Carmen had no idea a threat was seconds away.
The two security guards were locked in shocked surprise, their eyes wide and mouths slack. No help there.
The car was three, maybe four seconds from impact, its target either the plane’s left side, which sprouted the baggage and passenger ramps, or the terminal building itself. Either way, if that car was full of explosives, people were going to die.
“Take cover,” someone shouted. It was only after the words were out he realized he was the one who shouted them, because he was already moving.
Carmen’s body weighed nothing as he snatched her up in an unyielding grip and pushed her onto the floor behind a row of chairs. Dozer covered her with his body just as an explosion punched the side of the building. Glass shattered, screams lacerated the air, and the smell of fuel on fire clogged his lungs.
Carmen choked and coughed, too, and tried to get up, but he wasn’t moving until he was certain the danger was over.
His head hurt with a throbbing ache that dulled and darkened the edges of his vision, but passing out wasn’t an option. Not with Carmen wiggling beneath him and yelling his name.
When he didn’t respond fast enough, she elbowed him as well as shouting at him. The jab broke through the dark fog, bringing him back to full consciousness.
He slid off her with a groan, wishing all the noise, alarms, and people shouting would fucking shut up.
Carmen got to her knees and put her hands on him, searching for injuries.
He glanced at himself but didn’t see any fresh blood on his clothes. He touched his head with careful fingers, but no blood stained his skin.
Yippee.
She got in his face, his name on her lips.
“I’m okay,” he told her as he slowly sat up. “You?” His voice sounded funny—blurred, blunted, and blanketed. Great. Now his hearing was fucked up.
She sucked in a breath, paused, then nodded. Three of the floor-to-ceiling panes of glass closest to the blast were completely gone from the windows. All of it blown inward in chunks.
Thank God for safety glass.
There were a few scattered flames flickering, but they appeared to be going out. The plane they’d just arrived in had a huge hole blown into one side, and their equipment was strewn all over the place.
All that was left of the car was the chassis with some crumpled metal on top of it. There was no sign of the driver. Obliterated?
A suicide bomber.
Anger and adrenaline fused, then ignited in his gut. Someone had to have shared their travel details with the wrong fucking people. And since this trip had only been hours in the making, that someone had to have access to sensitive information within the CDC or one of its partners, Homeland Security, or the FBI.
There was absolutely no doubt now. There was a traitor among them. A traitor who was now an accomplice to murder.
Sound began to clarify, the blanket slowly sliding away from his ears, until the world sounded normal again. Or as normal as it could be.
“Shit,” Carmen said, all but spitting the word. “All of our equipment has been damaged or destroyed.”
That was her biggest worry?
“We were almost damaged or destroyed.” The traitor could be any number of people, including someone with them right now. “It’s not safe here,” he told her in a low voice that wouldn’t carry. “You need to get on the next plane back to Atlanta.”
Her frown almost made her look ferocious. Almost.
“No. I won’t.”
“Your safety—”
“Can’t be guaranteed anywhere,” she interrupted. “I won’t let some assholes stop me from doing my job.” She leaned into him, close enough that their bodies touched, and she said in a suspiciously reasonable tone, “I won’t let you do it, either.”
Goddamned stubborn woman.
He could see it on her face—she wasn’t going to listen, wasn’t going to back down, was, in fact, going to do exactly what she set out to do. No one—no organization, no terrorist, not even a suicide bomber—was going to prevent her from getting to the bottom of this outbreak.
The urge to grab her and hide her somewhere inaccessible was an itch under his skin. Her refusal to leave left him powerless to claw or rip it out. “This is reckless.”
“This is my job. Whether it’s in Sierra Leone responding to an Ebola outbreak or tracking down the source of an E. coli outbreak across several states. This is what I do.”
“But we’re dealing with more than just microscopic threats.”
“That’s why you’re here. To deal with the macroscopic ones.”
Great, he had implied permission to take care
of her, but without all of the tools. He fought down frustration and fury, locking them in a small, insulated, steel-jacketed box. Later, he’d explain how irresponsible and rash her behavior was. Later.
Breathing deep for several breaths, he looked around and noted some good news. Most members of their team were up and moving. “We need to do a head count.” He glanced outside again and winced. “Casualties among airport personnel is guaranteed.”
“Yes, this assassination attempt very nearly worked,” she said with a cold tone promising pain to the would-be assassins.
“On you and/or me?” Dozer asked. He didn’t see the difference, but she might, and her perspective was important.
“All and any of us they could reach.” She snorted. “Although, if they wanted to kill specific targets, they’d have used bullets instead of a bomb.”
He had to admit, she’d grown some serious mental armor over the years. She kept her rational brain in charge and wasn’t letting her emotions take over.
It made him hard.
God, he was a dick.
“They knew we were coming,” Dozer said.
“Our travel plans were leaked,” she said slowly, nodding while the gears in her head ran faster and faster. “And the FAFO was ready to take this opportunity to destroy and demoralize us and our work.”
He looked at her, tilting his head to one side. “That’s going to backfire on their asses.”
She smiled, her teeth on display. “Yes, it is.”
Rawley hurried over, and Carmen told him she was going to check in with all of her people and figure out the state of their equipment. She asked him to secure the area and do whatever he needed to do all before he could say a word.
For a second, surprise opened up his features, but it disappeared in favor of a businesslike nod containing grudging respect.
Had he thought she would be stressed and showing it?
When his fellow agent looked at Dozer, questions in his gaze, John said, “I’m sticking with her. If I see anything that might help with your investigation, I’ll let you know.”
A moment of surprise passed before Rawley said, “The area should be evacuated, in case there are other undetonated explosives.”
Carmen agreed, and Rawley stepped away, already talking on his phone with someone.
DS reported a couple of people hurt by the blast. Dozer took a good look at the old man but didn’t see any injuries beyond a couple of small cuts on his hands.
Good. Dozer still didn’t know what the retired drill sergeant’s actual job title was at the CDC, but he seemed to have his finger on the pulse of everyone’s mental and physical health. He often ran interference between Carmen and anyone who might be in her way or become a distraction. He’d also done some hospital babysitting of himself and Dr. Gunner when the other man had been shot. Dozer would have given him a fancy nickname like man Friday or pool boy, but DS’s comeback would have been equally, or more, embarrassing, so Dozer kept the monikers to himself.
Carmen urged everyone to move away from the blast zone so she could do a head count and injury assessment.
Three people had been cut up badly enough to need stitches. One person had a concussion, thanks to hitting their head on the floor, and one person had a broken wrist.
She excused all five so they could get treatment, then ordered them to return to Atlanta once they were released.
“How easy will it be to get our equipment replaced?” DS asked after the wounded were taken to the nearest ER.
“Easier than the people. It will have to be trucked to the site.” She glanced around. Alarms were still going off. “I don’t think the airport is going to be open to flights for a while. The biggest issue,” she said with a frown, “is the loss of our hazmat suits. Until we get more, we’ll have to use particle masks, gloves, and safety glasses.”
“Is that good enough?”
“It’ll have to be. Waiting is not an option.” Her phone rang, and she answered it, stepping away from everyone to speak. Dozer followed, keeping his attention on their surroundings.
From her tone, he could tell she was talking to someone senior to her, probably the CDC director, but he didn’t let himself get distracted by her words. This was a dangerous time, right after a bombing. People were stressed, confused, and injured. That meant they weren’t watching their environment as closely as they should while first responders arrived to help.
A great time for a second strike to happen.
He scanned the area, looking for anyone out of place. Anyone calm or focused or showing a lack of reaction.
But no threat appeared.
Carmen touched his arm. “I’ve been ordered to get our team to the hospital. Military transport is coming to pick us up.”
Military? Someone had pulled some strings. “Equipment?” he asked.
“On its way. Until it gets here, the National Guard is going to provide some of what we lost. Tents, cots, generators, basic medical supplies. The rest, we’ll have to wait for.”
“Rawley?”
She hummed under her breath. “You’re right. I need to talk to him before he thinks I’ve left him out.”
“He is kind of needy,” Dozer said with what he hoped wasn’t too much sarcasm.
Carmen’s quick smile told him he got it right, and it hit him in the solar plexus with the power of a blow.
Kissing her now would be a bad idea, but that didn’t stop the images of her in his arms from crowding his head.
They found Rawley talking to a group of law enforcement and airport security people.
Carmen was too short to be seen over taller heads, so Dozer waved him over.
She explained what she wanted to do, and, predictably, he didn’t look happy about it.
“You have two options,” she told him before he could speak. “You can stay here and participate in this investigation, in which case I’ll request another agent as liaison. Or you can pass this on to someone else and come with us.”
His mouth twisted with distaste, but he didn’t say anything.
Dozer could understand his hesitation. The airport investigation might yield new evidence in the FAFO case, and that would go a long way to making an agent’s career.
“We’re leaving in five minutes,” she said. “You have that long to decide.”
“I need to report in before I can come with you,” he said as if it hurt to say the words. “Don’t leave without me.” It was an order.
Dozer winced, anticipating Carmen’s response.
“You’re here, with the CDC, at my discretion, Agent Rawley, not the other way around,” she said, her tone cold. “This has been explained to you, and yet you continue to behave as if you are in a position of power and authority over my people and myself. You are either being deliberately obstructionist, your memory has been degraded by injury or fatigue, or you simply don’t understand the situation at all. None of those possibilities puts you in a good light. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to deal with your stupidity. Either you’re ready to leave with us in five minutes and you stay on my team, or you’re not and you’re gone. Choose.” She turned on her heel and marched away, her people closing in around her.
Dozer gave Rawley one last questioning look—Are you going to pull your head out of your ass or not?—then followed her.
Rawley showed up on time.
8:05 p.m.
The military bus pulled out of the airport as more fire trucks and police headed toward it.
Carmen was on her phone, probably with CDC Atlanta HQ, talking to someone about supplies.
“Any injuries?” Rawley asked as he took a seat next to Dozer.
“Anyone with anything more serious than cuts has been removed from the team and sent for medical care.”
“I meant you,” Rawley said in a droll tone.
“No. I saw the car coming in hot a couple of seconds before it plowed into the plane and got behind some cover.”
Rawley perked up at that. “Did you get a
look at the driver? See anything about the vehicle that could assist the investigation?”
Dozer picked through his memory. “The car was dark in color. Small, older model. The driver had short hair, male…” Well, shit. “Young.”
“FAFO,” Rawley said under his breath.
“It fits their MO. They like using young idiots as bomb-delivery people.” Dozer gave Rawley a sidelong look and asked, “How did they find out about our flight so fast?”
Rawley’s expression went flat. “Inside information.”
“Yup.”
Rawley studied Dozer with genuine interest. “You still intent on guarding her and yourself?”
“Yup.”
“Good. Two less things I need to worry about.”
“Yup.”
“Just keep me in the loop, okay?”
“Dude, I’ve been nothing but straight with you since the moment we met. You’re part of the loop.”
“Okay, okay.” Rawley’s mouth pinched. “You don’t need to sing me a love song.”
Dozer laughed. “I think you owe me some fucking chocolate, though.”
Rawley stood. “Don’t hold your breath.” He made his way farther inside the bus to talk to DS.
The veteran was handing out masks, safety glasses, and handfuls of gloves to everyone, and he handed Rawley a pile of safety gear before the agent could ask. He seemed to respect DS more than anyone else at the CDC; Dozer wondered if the Army veteran should ride herd on the agent. No, Carmen needed the older man for other tasks. Like ensuring there was no communication breakdown between her people and everyone else.
After Carmen got off the phone, Rawley came back and said, “We’re going to be split into two locations. This doubles the risk of another attack. Is splitting up completely necessary?”
“The team going to Kissimmee will be focused on disease containment, identification, and patient care. The team going to Orlando General will have the resulting chaos of the bomb to deal with. I need to assess the situation in Orlando, then move all possible infected patients to Kissimmee. Hopefully, that will simplify things. If everything goes according to plan, our resources will only be split for twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”