Search & Destroy (Outbreak Task Force)

by Julie Rowe

  “Nothing in our vault needs to be made more dangerous,” the SG said. “We’ve got all the deadly pathogens needed to wipe humanity out dozens of times over. No one should be developing bioterrorism weapons.”

  The smirk reappeared. “You might not be, but other people are.”

  The SG looked genuinely surprised. Either that or he was a really good actor.

  “Who are these people?” Before Halverson could answer, the SG continued with, “This is the kind of intelligence I, in particular, need. If you had this intelligence when we spoke last, our conversation would have ended quite differently.”

  Halverson looked skeptical. “Are you saying you wouldn’t have fired me?”

  The SG leaned forward. “The American government never throws away valuable assets.”

  Shock and confusion crossed Halverson’s face. The two emotions battled back and forth, twisting his features. “You wouldn’t have arrested me? He assured me I’d be arrested.”

  “Who told you that?” Carmen asked, pulling the attention of both men to herself. She smiled at Halverson. A sad, slightly misty smile. “Who convinced you to violate your oaths?”

  Halverson swallowed as if he had something large stuck in his throat, but he didn’t answer.

  “Did someone approach you to steal pathogens from our vault?” the SG asked, leaning as far forward in his chair as his bonds would allow. “Were you blackmailed into doing it?”

  At that, Halverson’s confusion cleared, leaving behind only ruddy-faced rage. “I was shown proof,” he said. “Proof you were going to fire me anyway. You ruined my career and have taken everything I am from me.”

  “No,” Carmen said, taking a step toward him. “That’s not—”

  “Shut up,” Halverson yelled, pointing the gun at her. “Not another fucking word or I’ll shoot you first.”

  Was getting shot second supposed to be better? She’d seen other men in this situation—armed, angry, aggravated, and at the end of their rope. She knew what was going to happen next. Because he was going to shoot her.

  He was going to shoot everyone in this room, including himself.

  Fear tried to strangle her. It circled her throat with cold fingers and squeezed.

  And squeezed.

  After all the hard work she and her people had done, after all the crap they’d had to sort through, put up with, and conquer, to be murdered now by one of their own was…unacceptable.

  She was done with people who thought it was okay to hurt others because they were frustrated, angry, or sad.

  Done.

  If he was going to shoot her, she might as well get shot for a good reason, like punching Halverson in the face.

  She had nothing to lose.

  The noose around her throat loosened, and she was able to take in a breath—let it out and suck in another one. Her stomach settled back into its place, her heart let up on the gas pedal, and she could suddenly see everything in the room in sharp detail.

  Dr. Halverson was yelling at the SG again, screaming about how dismissive his coworkers and supervisors had been. How often he’d been humiliated. How no one recognized or even noticed his intelligence or ideas. He waved the gun in the air, using it to punctuate his tirade. With every second that passed, his rage increased until spittle flew in a wide arc from his mouth.

  There was another chair sitting off to one side. Plain, with no wheels on the bottom or arms, it would be the last choice for any guest in this office. She measured the distance between herself and the chair and estimated that reaching it would take three steps.

  Three steps to return to her current spot.

  Another two before she’d be close enough to do what she needed to do.

  Halverson demanded the SG apologize while he recorded it. If he was happy with the apology, he promised to kill both of them quickly.

  How kind.

  Certainty and adrenaline slowed time to a crawl as she walked to the chair. She grabbed it by the back, turned, and pushed herself forward to gather momentum.

  Gun hand leading the way, Dr. Halverson turned toward her.

  She pushed harder. At the same moment he had the weapon pointed at her, she brought the chair down from right to left, bashing it against his arm and shoulder, knocking him to the floor.

  A shot exploded through the room, and the vibration spawned by the bullet reverberated through her in a sharp, sickening wave. The wave crested and plowed her over.

  She hit the floor, and time returned to normal.

  The chair had knocked Dr. Halverson down. He lay sprawled on his front and was scrambling to get to his hands and knees.

  The SG bellowed for help and struggled to get out of his chair.

  Halverson flopped over, staring at her with rage and pain twisting his features, but his hands were empty. Where was the gun?

  Carmen tried to roll, to get to her feet, but all her strength had disappeared.

  The door to the office burst open. Men in a variety of uniforms and suits rushed in, shouting for everyone to stay down and don’t move.

  Attention fixed on Carmen, Halverson slid toward her in a broken, jagged crawl. Blood dripped from somewhere on his head onto his hands and half of his face. His lips pulled back from his teeth, allowing the viscous red fluid to stain his enamel.

  He slithered closer, despite the male voices demanding everyone stop moving.

  Her limbs weighed far too much, her lungs unable to take in enough air for her to go anywhere.

  Odd. She really did need to move if she didn’t want Halverson to strangle her.

  He slid almost close enough to touch her, had reached out with one hand, when the sound of a shot hit her ears at the same time as Halverson dropped onto his front in an untidy sprawl.

  She glanced past the body, because the man was obviously dead, to see John standing in the doorway, his service weapon in his hands.

  She smiled at him. He looked good. Uninjured and full of energy. She wanted to tell him he could stop frowning at her, that he’d killed the bad guy, but a dark, prickly pain spread out from her chest with unexpected strength, swallowing her whole.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  1:47 a.m.

  Dozer saw Carmen sag onto her side, blood pooling beneath her.

  Fear stabbed him in the gut. “Carmen!”

  She didn’t respond.

  He was moving before he realized it, holstering his gun and stepping around the body of the disillusioned doctor he’d just killed. He knelt next to Carmen and rolled her gently onto her back so he could see where the blood was coming from.

  The front of her shirt had a bloodstain on it over her lower-right abdomen about the size of the palm of his hand. That didn’t match the amount of blood on the floor. He rolled her onto her side and glanced at her back.

  Her clothing was soaked in blood from her neck to her butt.

  “Medic,” he shouted, pulling her shirt up to see where the wound was. Blood poured out of a thumb-sized hole in her back.

  Jesus.

  He slapped his hand over it just as two pairs of booted feet arrived on either side of him. First aid equipment dropped to the floor, along with both responders.

  “There’s so much blood,” he said, but he didn’t even recognize his own voice it was so strained.

  “Was she shot?” a woman asked.

  “Yes, a through and through, I think. It happened before I could get into the room. There’s a smaller entry wound on her front.”

  “Keep the pressure up,” the other responder, a man, instructed.

  “She’s bleeding out.” The skin on her face and her hands was already paler than he ever remembered seeing it.

  “An air medevac is going to meet us outside,” the woman said. “We’re going to get her to a hospital in minutes.”

  The female responder probably thought she sounded comforting. Confident. Caring.

  All Dozer could see was the blood all over Carmen and, now, all over him.

  Her blood.<
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  He’d promised to protect her. He was supposed to keep her out of the line of fire. He was supposed to keep her safe.

  So how the fuck did he get here? Kneeling on the floor of the Surgeon General’s office, trying to stop the woman he loved from bleeding to death?

  He hadn’t even told her he loved her. Fucking moron.

  A moron about too many things, including a goddamned measles outbreak started by so-called domestic terrorists and possibly helped by one disgruntled ex-CDC employee.

  He glanced at the body of the man he’d just killed. From everything Dozer had been able to find out, Dr. Halverson had been a relatively normal guy. Smart, dedicated, and focused on his research. Until his wife left him. After that, he’d become aloof, secretive, and suspicious. That was still a long way from the paranoid asshole he’d put out of his misery.

  The two paramedics put pressure bandages over Carmen’s entry and exit wounds, inserted an IV needle into a vein on the back of her left hand, and got her onto a stretcher. They managed to move around Dozer without getting themselves or him tangled in their gear or the IV tubing.

  Because he wasn’t backing up or backing off.

  He kept his hand on the pulse point of her right wrist. As long as that steady rhythm kept on thumping, she was okay. If she was okay, then he was okay.

  She has to be okay.

  “Sir,” the female paramedic said to him. “We need to move.”

  He looked the competent middle-aged woman in the eyes and said, “I’m coming with you.”

  “You’re welcome to come with us to meet the helicopter,” she said. “But there’s no room for you in the bird.”

  He opened his mouth to tell her there wasn’t a force in hell that could keep him off that aircraft, but the Surgeon General appeared in his line of sight.

  “Agent Dozer, I need you with me.” Then, he took Dozer by one elbow and tugged him away from the stretcher, allowing the two medics to rush Carmen out of the room.

  Dozer took a step after them.

  The SG got in his way again. “The danger isn’t over yet,” he said in a low voice. “All kinds of people are trying to kill us.” He wiped his face against one shirtsleeve and looked around furtively.

  Sweating and suspicious? Dozer looked at the man, really looked, and noticed what he should have seen the moment he walked through the door—his white shirt was splattered with blood, his wrists were bruised and bloodied from whatever restraints Halverson had used, and he all but vibrated with indignant rage. “What do you mean?”

  “Halverson…” He glanced at the body, then back at Dozer, and continued in an even lower voice: “is just the beginning. Someone turned him. Someone else pulled his strings.”

  “The FAFO.” The name wasn’t enough. Dozer needed live people to question. To punish.

  The SG paced away. The back of his dress-shirt collar was soaked.

  Dozer had thought it was due to stress, but what if that wasn’t the only reason the other man was sweating? “Sir, are you okay?”

  The SG swung back around, blinked at Dozer, then stumbled a few steps to one side and collapsed like every tendon in his body had been cut.

  The paramedics were there almost before he hit the floor.

  “Check for a rash under his arms,” Dozer ordered.

  The paramedics glanced at him. “Measles?” one of them asked.

  “Look and find out,” he suggested. If there was a rash, the SG had been contagious for days. Every person in this room had been exposed to it.

  They tore open his shirt and looked under his arms.

  The paramedics glanced at him and nodded.

  The measles had infiltrated all the way to the Surgeon General. A man who spent time in every major government building in the city.

  The FAFO didn’t have to drop a bomb anywhere. The fucking measles was about to explode through the population of Washington, D.C., and it would kill a lot more people than any one conventional bomb could.

  The only problem was, Dozer still didn’t know what the fuck was going on, who the inside mole was, or how to stop the disease from killing thousands, and potentially millions, of people.

  Rawley came up beside him. “What’s the verdict?”

  Dozer glanced at him. “We’re fucked.”

  “That’s not funny,” Ketner said, joining them.

  “Does it look like I’m laughing?” Dozer shook his head. “He’s probably had a fever for a while. That means anyone who’s been in the same room with him in the last three or four days has been exposed.”

  Rawley and Ketner watched the paramedics assess the Surgeon General. Then they turned to him.

  “What do we do?” Rawley asked.

  Even Ketner looked concerned and seemed ready to accept orders.

  They were now in worst-case-scenario territory.

  Dozer pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling the Director of the CDC.”

  Once he explained the situation, the director decided to take the nationwide response one step further. The shelter-in-place recommendation was changed to an order to be enforced by not just police, but the military and National Guard.

  The director also decided to recommend every man, woman, and child in the country be given an additional MMR vaccination booster.

  “What the hell use is another shot?” Ketner asked, pacing away, then back.

  “It gives your immune system a kick in the pants or something like that.” He wasn’t the doctor.

  “Millions of people are getting sick, and they’ve already been vaccinated.”

  “People who get another shot appear to be faring better than people who don’t.”

  Both Ketner and Rawley stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

  Dozer raised his hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m just repeating what I’ve experienced and what I heard Dr. Rodrigues tell others. I’m not the expert.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ketner asked.

  “Dr. Rodrigues ran a couple of test groups.” He gazed at the other men. “Gave them the extra booster. One of those people was me.”

  “We should be trying one of the new anti-virals,” Ketner said.

  “Maybe if things go on long enough, one of those new drugs will turn out useful, but everyone at the CDC was hesitant to use untried drugs. Especially when they cost so much. The MMR vaccine is cheap, available, and safe.”

  Rawley nodded. “Those are very good reasons. Where do we get the vaccine?”

  “The CDC is already on it.” Dozer’s phone pinged. He pulled it out to check it. It was a text from Henry.

  Dr. Rodrigues is in surgery at D.C. General Hospital. Where the fuck are you?

  On my way, Dozer texted back. The Surgeon General just collapsed—measles.

  Proper face masks in use?

  Nope.

  Stupid fuckers.

  Yup.

  Get to Rodrigues. Guard her back.

  Will do, boss.

  Dozer looked at Rawley, then Ketner. “You got this?”

  Rawley nodded. He’d already pulled out his phone and was texting rapidly.

  Ketner’s eyes narrowed. “Where are you going? We need you here.”

  “Officially, I’m not here at all. Unofficially, I’m just a bodyguard, and the body I’m guarding is in surgery.”

  Ketner’s eyebrows rose. “I thought she died.”

  Dozer had to stuff the anger down deep, or it would stab out of him and poke a whole lot of holes in the FBI agent’s body. “No, in surgery.”

  Rawley studied Dozer for far too long. “I was told she was dead, too.”

  “By who?” Dozer asked. She’d been shot only minutes ago.

  Rawley stiffened. “That is a very good question.”

  “It could have been a member of the SG’s staff,” Ketner suggested.

  “That’s a hell of an assumption to make,” Dozer said.

  “The whole office is in chaos,” Ketner said in a tentative tone. “Mistakes and misiden
tifications are more likely to happen.”

  “I’m not sure I buy that explanation,” Dozer said. “Sharing sensitive information without corroboration will get your security clearance revoked. And, if they’re sharing that info with you, who else are they sharing it with?”

  “That is a unique position to be in,” Rawley said. “Only a handful of people are privy to that much information so quickly.” He punched in some numbers on his phone. “I’ve got this.”

  “Good, because I’m out of here,” Dozer said, walking toward the door.

  “Wait,” Ketner said. “Which hospital are you going to?”

  “The one with the best surgeons in town,” Dozer said, then strode out of the room before Ketner could ask another stupid question.

  Dozer left the building but stopped as soon as he reached the sidewalk. The only vehicles in sight were emergency and law enforcement. Shit.

  His phone pinged. Another message from Henry.

  You ready to leave? Because a buddy of mine should be there any second to take you to the hospital. His name is Marco. He’s with the NSA. He’s blond and looks like he should be surfing the big waves.

  A tan-colored SUV rolled up to him, the driver’s window came down, and the driver looked Dozer over. “You Dozer?” He raised an eyebrow. “I knew I should have put the plastic seat covers on. Henry never calls me unless there’s a mess to clean up.”

  Dozer glanced down at himself. Carmen’s blood had soaked the front of his shirt near his waist and splattered all the way up to his collarbone. Just how much blood it took to do it almost took him to his knees. Only his need to make sure she was okay, safe, kept him on his feet.

  “Get in.”

  He got in the passenger side and shut the door.

  “It’s going to take about fifteen minutes to get to the hospital.”

  Dozer studied the other man. It was either that or pound his fists on the dash. He was big, blond, and scruffy. “You don’t look like a surfer.”

  “Compared to Henry I do.”

  Dozer grunted. He couldn’t argue with that. “John Dozer, Homeland Security.”

  “Marco Blitzer, NSA, and I’m not just here to give you a ride.”

  “Oh?”

  “We’re all about information at the NSA. We monitor email, social media, texts. If you use it to communicate with someone, we’re watching it.”