Viable Threat

by Julie Rowe

  His smile started in his eyes and slowly moved across his face. “I can live with that.”

  Finally, her brain kicked in. “I’ll think about it when this is over and if we’re both in the same part of the country. That’s a big if,” she cautioned.

  “Trust me.”

  Oddly enough, she did. And if that wasn’t the most dangerous thought she’d had in a long time, she didn’t know herself at all.

  Ava tugged at her hands and busied herself with her MRE. While she waited for it to heat, she pulled out her cell phone from one of the side pockets on the right leg of her pants.

  “Why is your phone in a sandwich bag?” River asked.

  “To keep it from being contaminated,” she answered, without looking up.

  “Huh. Smart.” She glanced at him, to see him smiling at her. “Got another bag I could have?”

  She reached into the same pocket, pulled out another bag, and handed it to him, then went back to looking at the pictures she’d taken with her phone. The crowd River had spoken to had been aggressive and ready to rush the police. Why?

  She got a good picture of the man who’d argued with River, his mouth open and finger pointed right at her new partner like he’d done something horrendous. Given the situation, that much anger seemed out of place.

  She turned the phone toward River. “Remember this guy?”

  He grunted. “How could I forget that dick?” River frowned as he began eating his food. “Way too eager to start shit.”

  “It felt, to me, like he wanted to attack you. He was so…angry.” She’d been afraid that anger would set off a stampede. River had stood there alone, confronting all that rage with nothing but a half-dozen police officers, a few traffic pylons, and yellow caution tape to keep the mob from trampling him.

  Idiot.

  “Too angry.” River chewed with the thoroughness of a man deep in thought. “Could you send me a copy of that picture? I’d like to see if he’s on anyone’s radar.”

  “What’s your phone number?”

  He gave it to her, and she sent him the photo.

  “You took a huge risk when you confronted that crowd,” she told him, her tone as even as she could make it. He’d scared her. Badly. But, she didn’t want him to know just how shaken she’d been when he’d strode away from her. It was irrational, the depth of her fear. It resided in the deepest part of her soul. A dark, cold pit inside her she hadn’t been consciously aware of until that moment. “Things could have easily gotten out of hand. You put the safety of those police officers and yourself in jeopardy.”

  His eyebrows rose as she spoke.

  So much for keeping it professional.

  Damn it, she sucked at this.

  He didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then, while he ate, his head tilted to one side.

  “I think part of the problem is that you and I got assigned to work together without so much as a hello. Which means neither of us knows much about the other.”

  “Does that mean you know how to handle a crowd?” She tried not to sound too skeptical, but she didn’t think she succeeded.

  He nodded. “I’ve performed in training roles for foreign military and police forces. I’ve taught everything from guerrilla warfare to crowd control.” He gave her a nod. “I had a pretty good idea of what would work to get them to disperse, but I should have told you what I was going to do before I did it.”

  Ava blinked. Was he apologizing to her?

  “I won’t make that mistake again.” He met her gaze with a steady regard that was in no way apologetic.

  She dropped her gaze first. “Thank you,” she muttered, right before shoveling a fork full of food in her mouth. Though he wasn’t smiling, she had the distinct impression he was laughing at her.

  Jerk.

  “So, you said you worked in Africa during the Ebola outbreak.”

  Was there a question in there somewhere? She glanced at him and found a smile on his face. The kind a parent wears when their kid just got 98 percent on a math test.

  “Where else have you worked?” Even his voice sounded happy.

  What the hell was he up to?

  “I worked for three years for the World Health Organization, first tracking the annual influenza infection patterns and the bird flu across Asia. Then, investigating recurrent cholera outbreaks in Tanzania and the Middle East. I also investigated the stubborn repeated occurrence of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in South Korea and Saudi Arabia.”

  “What was your biggest takeaway from those jobs?”

  He made it sound like her job was of the fast-food variety, when it was actually the most exclusive restaurant in town.

  “Travel,” she answered, “has a huge impact on infectious diseases. The world population is so mobile one aid worker can carry the flu and infect other people in a different country within hours.”

  “How can that be mitigated?”

  Two questions, and he’d already asked more about her job than Adam ever had.

  Adam hadn’t wanted to know all of the details and dangers of her job. He recognized her work was valuable and a service to not only the United States, but the world, and had supported her 100 percent. Still, he hadn’t learned more about what she did than that.

  He’d been caught up in his own training and missions, too busy to ask more than surface questions.

  River was deep-sea diving in comparison.

  So far, he was doing it alone. Nope, for safety’s sake, one should always have a diving buddy.

  “Tell me more about your training,” she said. “Aside from crowd control, what do you learn?”

  He thought for a moment, then shrugged. “I speak five languages. I’m a medic, which means I’m closer to a physician’s assistant than an emergency medical technician. I’ve also been trained in dentistry and veterinary medicine. I’ve twice had to vaccinate the entire population of a village for diseases that are almost nonexistent here. There’s a lot more to it. It takes longer to train a Special Forces medic than a fighter pilot.”

  “Five languages?”

  “Can’t get along with people if you can’t communicate with them.”

  Get along with people? “You’re in the military. Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?”

  “Not if you want to win.”

  “A war of words?” she asked, trying to understand.

  “When you fight a war in another country, the only way to win in the long run is to communicate with, and educate, the locals. Empower the good guys so they can deal with the bad guys on their own.”

  “How do you know who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy?”

  “Lots and lots of talking.” He pursed his lips in a rueful gesture. “But, sometimes the good guys are really the least bad of the bad guys.”

  “Sounds like a dangerous job with no guarantee of success, and the price for getting it wrong is death.”

  River snorted. “You’ve just described every armed conflict since the beginning of time.”

  Was he really that blasé about it? “How can you live with that kind of risk hanging over your head like a…a guillotine?”

  “It’s no different than the danger you face when you’re in the middle of an infectious disease outbreak,” he replied with a shrug. “You gather all the information there is, you use your understanding of the situation and its dangers, then you formulate a plan to deal with it.”

  She must not have looked convinced, because he continued with, “Crossing a busy street at rush hour is dangerous, too, but pedestrians do it all the time, every day, despite the possibility of getting hit by a car.”

  “Cars and armed men shooting at you are not on the same level of dangerous.”

  “How we manage risk is the same.”

  His mind was made up, but then so was hers. “So, what do you do with people like that idiot Homeland agent? He wasn’t listening to you or me, and it’s not like you can shoot him.”

  River laughed,
an open, unfettered sound that relaxed a restless, anxious part of her she’d been unable to ease since Adam died. Until now.

  The absence of strain unbalanced her. Panic of a different sort teased her senses, and she found herself hyperventilating to keep it at bay.

  On her second heavy breath, he stilled, his gaze taking in everything.

  She had about a third of a second before he called her on it. Before he asked questions she didn’t want to answer.

  “Sergeant River.”

  Ava jerked her head around at the not-quite-masculine shout.

  A tall, broad-shouldered man in a rumpled suit strode toward them.

  “Agent Dozer, Homeland Security,” River said as he got to his feet. “This is Dr. Lloyd, from the CDC.”

  “Doctor,” Dozer nodded at her before addressing River again. “I have some new information.”

  He took the spot next to River and leaned in, speaking to both of them. “The name of the kid River shot is Roger Squires. He’s the oldest son of John Squires, who owns Gold Inn, an international hotel chain. Roger was a student at the U of El Paso, majoring in political science. He was in his fourth year, held a 3.9 grade point average, and from what I’ve gathered so far, seemed like a completely normal, intelligent American twenty-two-year-old.”

  “Have you spoken to his family?” Ava asked.

  “No. There was no answer when I tried to reach his parents. We have agents on their way to his parents’ home and his dorm room at the university.”

  “Have both locations been cleared by CDC personnel?” River asked.

  Dozer frowned. “No.”

  “Call them off,” River ordered.

  Dozer’s eyebrows went up.

  Was he high enough in the Homeland food chain not to have many people telling him no?

  “River is right,” Ava told the agent. “Until they’ve been cleared by CDC personnel, both locations could be biologically hot.”

  Dozer looked at her for one second, then pulled out his cell phone, hit a button, and relayed her instructions. He ended the call, then gave them both a fierce smile. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything at his parents’ house.”

  “His dorm has two things that make it more likely to contain useful information,” River said.

  “What’s that?” Ava asked.

  River held up a finger. “Roommates.” He held up a second finger. “Questionable cleaning habits.”

  “Thank you for volunteering.” Dozer grinned, punching in a number on his phone and tapping the speaker icon.

  Dr. Rodrigues’s voice called out a hello.

  Dozer explained what he wanted River and Ava to do.

  “We’ve done a level one background check on the first hundred people to report sick at the hospital,” Rodrigues told them. “Half of them live in the same dorm building or within a quarter mile of it on the university’s campus.”

  “Well, shit,” River said, giving her a half-smile. “The kids on a campus like that are too fucking mobile.”

  “This is going to make containing this bug a lot harder,” Dozer said.

  “It’s possible the coffee shop wasn’t ground zero for the infection,” Rodrigues said tentatively. “Investigate Roger Squires’s dorm. Dr. Lloyd, take whatever equipment you need. Sergeant River, her safety is your number-one priority. Your second priority is to assist in the investigation using whatever tools you deem necessary.”

  Agent Dozer’s choke was in no way quiet.

  “Does that include my M24?” River asked with far too much glee.

  “I assume that’s your rifle?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Yes. Agent Dozer, please coordinate with law enforcement and assign an appropriate escort for Dr. Lloyd and Sergeant River.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied.

  “Good. I expect updates no less than every fifteen minutes.”

  “Very good, ma’am.”

  “Make sure your people follow orders, Agent Dozer. Their lives, and the lives of thousands of Americans, depend on it. I know some of your agents don’t think the CDC is the appropriate agency to be in charge of this disaster, but if this infection gets away from us, the death toll could be astronomical.” Rodrigues ended the call.

  “Is that true?” River asked Ava.

  “If the sick aren’t isolated from the healthy, or if someone exposed carries the pathogen to another location, it could spread. From the pattern of infection and death we’ve already seen, it would be devastating.”

  “As bad as Ebola?” he asked.

  “Oh no,” she said as she thought back to the chaos of the emergency room. It was a scene she’d witnessed hundreds of times when she was in Sierra Leone during the Ebola outbreak. Though she didn’t like making predictions about how virulent a pathogen was, she wasn’t about to hold back the truth from her new partner. “Much, much worse.”

  Chapter Eight

  8:55 p.m.

  “Fuck.”

  She had to agree with River’s assessment. “That’s about the size of it.”

  “And it’s resistant to the antibiotics used to treat it, right?”

  “Yep.”

  River swore a long, unbroken sentence. “What’s our plan?”

  “You two get yourselves sorted out,” Dozer told them. “Meet me in ten minutes by the decontamination tents so I can assign you some people to assist.”

  “Will do,” River said.

  Ava waited until Dozer was gone before answering River’s question. “Contact Ben White. He’s the decontamination team leader. If the dorm is location zero and not the coffee shop, we’re going to need him.” She got to her feet and deposited the remains of her MRE and water bottle in the appropriate trash containers.

  River was right behind her. “I left my M24 with Bill. I need to pick it up.”

  “You left your weapon with a man you just met?”

  “I left my weapon secured in a lockbox with a professional of the CDC.”

  “Really?” She pointed at herself. “Member of the geek brigade here. You didn’t sound all that happy to leave it with him, to rely on one of us for…what did you call it?” She arched a brow. “Oh yeah, help with your weapon.”

  He grinned at her. “There’s help, and there’s help.”

  “From Bill?”

  “I’m working with him on this mission. That makes him a brother.”

  She couldn’t stop a snort from escaping. “I’m working with you, too. Does that make me your sister?”

  His response was immediate. “Fuck, no.”

  “What am I, then?”

  “My mouse.” His voice was low and rough, and it sent a heated arrow through her.

  Allowing him to use a pet name for her was a bad idea, no matter how much parts of her liked it. “I am not your rodent.”

  “But you are mine.”

  What did he just say? “Excuse me?”

  He met her gaze squarely. “My partner. My responsibility.”

  It sounded reasonable, sort of, but there was a thread of heated steel in his tone that said his commitment to keeping her safe went further than it should. “Have you always been this territorial?”

  The look on his face was one she hadn’t seen in almost two years. Raw, heated, and focused solely on her. “Nope.”

  He wanted her?

  No, it had to be her own feelings of attraction toward him reflecting back at her. Anything else was crazy. She wasn’t pretty or witty or a girl who knew how to flirt, not even with Adam.

  She and Adam had dated since their last year in high school. They’d been lab partners in chemistry class, and that relationship carried on after school. She went to university, got her medical degree, then specialized in microbiology. Adam had gone into the military, and though they didn’t see a lot of each other due to his frequent deployments, their relationship had been comfortable.

  Easy.

  This partnership with River felt…different.

  More.
<
br />   He’d made a point of putting her in charge, not something Adam had ever done. How long could it last?

  “Men are confusing,” she muttered to herself.

  River laughed and nudged her shoulder with his own. “And women aren’t?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You are a twelve-year-old.”

  “Guilty.”

  She stopped to face him. She couldn’t afford to have him question her authority once they picked up their escort. “You’ll back up my orders to our law-enforcement partners, won’t you?”

  His brows rose, the smile slid off his face, and then he nodded slowly. “Whatever you need, Mouse.”

  The sincerity on his face melted the uncomfortable ball of ice in her chest. “Okay.”

  She started walking again. They were rapidly approaching the CDC’s decontamination area in the parking lot. There was just one more thing she needed to say before anyone else was around.

  “If you must call me Mouse,” she said quietly, “please don’t do it where other people can hear.”

  “Giving a fellow soldier a nickname is a sign of trust,” he replied just as quietly. “A sign to everyone else that we’re a team.”

  “Well, my mental nickname for you is Mr. Smooth, but I doubt you want the Homeland agents calling you that.”

  “Mr. Smooth?” he asked in a very quiet voice.

  Her stomach dove into her shoes. Shit. How stupid was that? She could see it on his face. Surprise. Comprehension. Speculation.

  Me and my big mouth.

  “Could you just forget you heard me say that? Please.”

  “That kind of…confession gives a man a lot to think about,” he said, his voice a heated whisper. “Don’t think I’ll be able to forget.”

  She glanced at him and had no problem recognizing the wicked desire on his face. A ball of ice formed in the place where her stomach used to be. “I…I just screwed up big time, didn’t I?”

  He froze, then frowned. “What?”

  She threw her hands up in the air. “The way you looked at me just now, like I’m some bimbo throwing herself at you for…for meaningless sex.”

  “Huh?” He stared at her with his mouth open.

  “How could you not lose respect for me? I objectified you the moment I met you.” She swallowed hard. Pull yourself together, you twit. “I’m sorry.”