Midnight Fever

by Lisa Marie Rice

  Felicity was very happy here. Of course, her fiancé worked here, which made her loyalty ironclad. Felicity had received head-swimming offers from headhunters and had never been tempted, not once, not for one second.

  She loved her job, she loved her co-workers, she loved her bosses and their wives, and she loved Metal. Kay had watched her blossom from a shy nerd to a confident woman in the time she’d worked at ASI.

  Kay had even envied Felicity, just a little.

  Kay loved working at the CDC. Or had loved it until the troubles started. But no one could accuse CDC employees of being friendly or being teammates outside work. ASI guys and their women were really good friends outside work. Strong, steadfast friends, friends for life.

  And at work—Felicity was making the company a lot of money. The server farms, for example, which were her idea, were bringing in income like a river pouring cash, Nick said. But Felicity was clearly valued beyond her success as a rainmaker.

  While Kay sat beside Felicity studying Priyanka’s files, almost every single ASI operative stopped by, some just to say hello, some to ask her if she needed anything, some to ask how she felt. The news of the pregnancy was now official, and it was amazing to see all these really hard-bitten men all but offer to rub her feet for her.

  Felicity had to beat them off.

  At which point, they turned their attention to Kay. Some jungle drumbeat had somehow made the rounds that Kay belonged to Nick and might become a future consultant or even employee, and they were rolling out the red carpet. If she’d accepted everyone’s offer to make her a cup of tea, she’d drown. Pillows had been thrust at her, two operatives came in to ask her opinion on which gas masks to purchase, and everyone had stopped by to introduce themselves.

  Her first day at the CDC, she’d spent completely alone in her office.

  Sometimes life gives you gentle hints.

  Sometimes life gives you a punch in the back to make you stumble forward. This was one of those times.

  Her life was in total disarray. Very bad things were happening at her workplace. It was clear that people she implicitly trusted, people who were supposed to work tirelessly for the public good, had betrayed the trust given to them. Why had they done it? For money, for power, for both? Who knew?

  The one thing Kay knew was that she would never again be able to drive onto the CDC campus and feel good about what she was doing.

  For her, whatever happened, the CDC was gone. Her dream job since she was in high school had turned into a nightmare.

  She was under threat. It was true that she was being protected by an amazing man and an amazing company. They had spread their umbrella of protection over her and it would take a lot to pierce that protection.

  Nonetheless, pure evil had taken a swipe at her and she’d been nicked by its claws.

  For the moment, there was no past for her. No job to go back to; she couldn’t go back to her apartment; she didn’t dare visit her grandfather for fear that he’d be caught in the crosshairs.

  Though now, maybe, she was being given a future.

  But first, unfinished business.

  “I have something,” Felicity said. “Anomalies. But I don’t have any context. Don’t know what they mean.”

  “Show me,” Kay said, and Felicity did. The worst possible news. As they proceeded, Kay could feel her heart breaking.

  Felicity’s findings corroborated her findings of use of the CRISPRs at the CDC in Atlanta.

  Kay went over the data again and again. Told Felicity to try to prove her wrong. To find data that disproved her thesis. But Felicity couldn’t.

  In the end, they sat back and looked at each other.

  “I can’t believe it,” she whispered, sick at heart.

  “Yes, you can,” Felicity answered sadly. “I can read it on your face. This isn’t a surprise. You don’t want it to be true. But it is.”

  Kay nodded.

  Felicity touched her hand gently. “I can look into him. Hack into his finances. I’ll bet you anything we’ll find a sudden flow of money. Big money, to do what he’s done. It always comes down to money.”

  “It wouldn’t with me or with you.”

  “Or with Nick or Metal or Joe or Jacko or any of the rest of the guys at ASI. There wouldn’t be enough money in the world to have them do something like this. Betray their consciences and their country. But that’s not the case with this guy. He sold his soul to the devil, probably for a lot of money.”

  Kay opened her mouth, closed it.

  Sat, while the anger grew. And grew and grew until she thought she would explode.

  “He’s my boss.” A fierce, fiery lump was in her throat. The words hurt.

  “I know.” Felicity put a hand on Kay’s shoulder.

  “Dr. Frank Winstone. The head of the CDC.”

  Felicity nodded.

  Kay couldn’t move, could barely breathe.

  The head of the CDC was a person charged with protecting the nation’s health. Protecting it from harm. Protecting it from exactly this kind of danger. The CDC was filled with professionals working their hearts out to protect the public, often by risking their own lives.

  The Viral Special Pathogens Branch regularly sent officers into the heart of outbreaks of Lassa and Ebola and they went uncomplainingly, their sole purpose to help.

  Every cell in Kay’s body and every neuron in her brain rejected the idea of the head of the CDC helping to engineer a weaponized Spanish flu and genetically engineering it to hit specific people or peoples. It went against everything she believed in, had worked for all her life.

  Her mouth tightened. This was the evilest thing she’d ever heard of. She knew there was evil in the world. Hell, her grandfather was a former FBI agent. He’d shielded her from most of the horrible things he’d seen, but enough got through for her to understand what was out there.

  True, a lot of evil came from ignorance. But it took a special kind of evil to spend years and years studying science and turn around and use that knowledge to kill people. While heading an agency dedicating to saving lives.

  He’d betrayed her, he’d betrayed the thousands of people working for the CDC, he’d betrayed the thousands who’d risked their lives. He’d betrayed the millions of Americans who trusted the CDC to keep them safe.

  It was betrayal on an epic scale—and she wasn’t going to sit still for it.

  Felicity eyed her. “You’re getting mad, now.”

  She turned her head. “Damn right.”

  “You’re over the sad and into the mad.”

  Kay grunted an assent.

  “What are you going to do about it?” Felicity cocked her head and studied her.

  Kay froze. Was she going to do something about it?

  She straightened in her chair. Yes. Yes, by God, she was.

  Frank had taken something sacred—science and the worldwide effort to improve human health involving the sacrifices of generation after generation after generation of men and women—and turned it into something filthy. Dangerous and dirty, calculated to do harm.

  For money.

  To let it stand would be to betray the memory of scientists she revered.

  Not going to happen.

  But… “I don’t think we can prove anything, or at least anything that would stand up in court.”

  Felicity sat for a moment, thinking it over. “No,” she said finally, mouth turned down into a frown. “You’re right. I mean, I think I understand what he did, but only because you explained it. It makes sense to you, but you’re one of a handful of people in the world who can see it. For everyone else, it’s all circumstantial. A good lawyer, and he’d have the best, would throw out so much smoke nobody’d understand. The DA would follow the money, but I’ll bet the money disappears into opaque accounts very soon. We don’t have a smoking gun.”

  They didn’t. A terabyte of data, and though it pointed down to Frank Winstone like a huge red arrow in the sky, there wasn’t enough evidence, clear evidence, a
DA could follow. It was too technical.

  Everything inside Kay rebelled. She shuddered with disgust at the idea of Frank getting off scot-free, continuing his path of destruction. He’d killed her best friend, he’d probably killed a researcher, and he’d killed a fine journalist. He’d tried to kill her, and he’d been responsible for the death of who knew how many people via the genetically edited flu.

  If it served his purpose, he’d no doubt keep on killing. There was no one who could stop him.

  Except her.

  It was dangerous, and she’d have to depend completely on Felicity’s hacking skills and her acting skills and Frank’s greed. But if it could be done…

  “Felicity, do you think you can do something for me?”

  Felicity’s pretty face was serious. “Just ask.”

  “It’s dangerous and probably illegal.”

  “Will it bring this guy down?”

  Kay smiled. “Oh, yeah,” she said softly. Down. Down forever. With luck, six feet under.

  “What do you need?”

  Kay told her. Felicity turned pale.

  Kay froze. She was asking too much. “Oh God. Can you do it? Will you do it?”

  “Absolutely. Count on me.” Felicity covered her mouth.

  “I’m sorry if the thought makes you sick.” Kay touched Felicity’s arm.

  “Not that. Morning sickness.” And Felicity bolted for the bathroom.

  “Three,” SWAT lieutenant Rand Wilson said, and tipped his ruggedized tablet toward Nick.

  Nick could see the heat signatures of three men. He nodded gratefully, glad that Wilson was happy sharing intel. He knew that Wilson had been given explicit instructions to cooperate with him, but he didn’t get any sense that Wilson resented that. Cooperation was fully and freely given.

  The eternal brotherhood of soldiers. Wilson had been a Ranger and two guys in his team were former SEALs. One was a former FBI special agent.

  Nick fit right in. But he’d have been there even if they were one-eyed green-haired mutants who hated humans, because no way was he not going to be there at the takedown. Whoever was in the warehouse, behind those metal walls, had tried to kill Kay. He wasn’t going to miss anything.

  Bud Morrison was at TOC, the Temporary Operational Command, another warehouse farther down the street. Command and control, everyone bunched around computers hooked to their comms units. They were all connected via an internal comms system ASI had perfected. Or rather, Felicity had perfected, with the help of some mysterious guys in Asia with sky-high IQs and minimal social skills.

  ASI had tried to recruit them, but they preferred to stay in their hobbit burrows in Singapore and Taiwan. All Nick really understood was that soon there would be a blackout inside the target building and that, inside the building, cell phone coverage and their connection to their overhead drone was already gone.

  On the tablet, they could see the drone overhead, uselessly beaming down intel the fuckheads inside the warehouse couldn’t see. In the meantime, the PDP’s own drone was circling. Its FLIR showed the SWAT team with reduced profile, since they were crouching, the three upright figures inside the building, and cold emptiness all around.

  The guys inside were deaf and dumb and soon would be blind.

  Wilson and his guys were crouching outside, ready to infiltrate. Each had IR tape on their helmets so they wouldn’t shoot each other. The tape would easily show up in their night vision/IR goggles.

  God bless technology. Though of course the principle hadn’t changed since the dawn of time. The man with the biggest club won. Now it was a battle over who had the fanciest toys.

  It was also true that the most determined won, and Nick was determined. He respected Wilson and his boss, Morrison. This was their job and they did it well, with bravery and training.

  But they didn’t have Nick’s motivation. The men inside that warehouse had come after Kay, the love of his life and his future. He would never let on to the SWAT team leader or to Morrison, but he was determined that none of the men come out alive from the warehouse.

  Whoever their leader was, he was smart and resourceful. The kind who even from prison could enact revenge. Nick was not going to live checking his six constantly to make sure bad guys weren’t behind them, ready to kill or kidnap Kay.

  Not going to happen. Not in this lifetime or any other.

  Once they breached, Nick was going to have to tap dance fast to ensure that there were three kills and three dead bodies were ferried out, and those dead bodies wouldn’t be the guys on the SWAT team.

  He had various ideas how that could happen but it all depended on the flow of combat. So he was going to have to stay sharp and use every single opportunity to engineer the deaths of the three guys inside without having to go to prison for the rest of his life.

  Not easy. But then nothing in his career had been easy. And he’d never had so much at stake before.

  “Three.” Wilson began the countdown. On three, the lights would cut out and they’d breach the door, wearing night-vision goggles, and mop up.

  Nick was supposed to stay outside until the mopping up had finished, but he intended to wait until the SWAT team made it inside, then would follow on their heels in case they needed help.

  They probably wouldn’t. Nick had observed the behavior of every team member, and he approved. They all had the smooth, easy grace of athletes at the top of their game and they communicated without words, good signs. Their moves were smooth, not jerky. No panic in these men, no confusion. They knew exactly what to do.

  Nick could visualize in his head the moves. The sudden darkness as the lights cut out, the cops bursting in screaming, “Police! Down on your knees!” They’d have HK G36s at the shoulder, Beretta 92s in quick-draw thigh holsters for close work.

  “Two,” Wilson said.

  They’d burst through the door in a controlled way guaranteed to cover the entire area. High, low, left, right, as choreographed as the dancing in Swan Lake, only prettier as far as Nick was concerned. Anything planned to put down bad guys was as pretty as could be.

  Two guys would be stationed out back in case they were able to make a run for it.

  “One, gogogo!”

  The door blew open and the men moved as one, swarming into the space.

  And the three red figures on Nick’s tablet disappeared.

  Fuck!

  He looked up from the tablet and saw an immensely bright glow coming from the door. The inside of the warehouse was lit up like day. Light that bright would blind the SWAT team members, who had on night vision. Night-vision goggles magnified ambient light sometimes a thousand fold. In the sudden presence of a very bright light, they’d automatically switch off but not before causing temporary blindness.

  His guys were now blind.

  The shooting started immediately, careful single shots. No spraying and praying, these guys were pros.

  Someone screamed.

  There was an explosion in the back of the building. The two SWAT team members stationed in the back were gone.

  Nick ran, a clock ticking in his head. The SWAT team would know to go to ground and seek cover, even while nearly blind. But right now, right this instant, they were sitting ducks.

  Another shot, another man screamed.

  “Down!” Wilson roared. Then screamed as a bullet hit him.

  Fuckfuckfuck!

  “Morrison!” he yelled into his comms. “Men down!”

  “Incoming,” Bud’s calm voice replied. “Two mikes.” A car door slammed in the background and an engine revved.

  Two minutes were an eternity. Plenty of time for the good guys to die, for the bad guys to escape.

  Nick rounded the corner to the back, briefly eyeing the remains of two brave police officers. Rage burned in his heart. He toggled the handle of the back door, but it wouldn’t open. There was a lot of noise coming from the warehouse, so nobody would hear the bullet that struck the handle unless they were right on the other side.

 
; If somebody was right on the other side, and heard the shot, then they’d be standing right there, armed and waiting for him.

  Nick shot out the lock, kicked the door open, went in low, almost hoping someone would be there.

  Nothing.

  He could see at a glance the situation. A three-sided wall of glass had been erected around what was a command station. Glass explained why the three heat signatures had winked out. It didn’t allow IR through. The men had stepped into the cubicle when the lights went out.

  Two huge spotlights had been mounted on stanchions. A generator buzzed. They’d expected the lights to be cut.

  The SWAT team was recovering, shooting back from behind makeshift cover. An overturned table. Ominously, two of the SWAT team members were on the floor, still.

  The spotlights were aimed at the door, so Wilson and his men were still blind. They couldn’t see what Nick saw, the three men retreating, firing steadily to keep Wilson and his men under cover.

  The way the bad guys were retreating showed discipline and training. One would keep up a steady fusillade of bullets while two retreated, then another one would take to a knee while the shooter fell back. It was disciplined and well thought out. Nick knew from the drone footage that out back was an SUV, which would no doubt be armored. They had their escape planned, already probably rejoicing that they would make it out and disappear.

  Nope. They were not leaving this building alive.

  To hell with the order not to shoot to kill. Two men were down, two others were dead. Nick hoped with all his heart that the SWAT team members lying so still in the warehouse were alive, but the bad guys had shot to kill and had forfeited anything resembling mercy. There were two dead men out back.

  And they’d tried to kill Kay.

  The first of the men was almost at the back door. Wilson and his guys were still shooting blind, the bright light directly in their eyes. Their bullets went wide.

  Calmly, Nick took a knee, shouldered his weapon, selected single shot. This required precision shooting.

  So far, they hadn’t realized he was there. They were too busy trying to kill Wilson and his men.