by Julie Rowe
She finally looked at Len. “I need to check them.”
“No problem,” he said, an evil smile spreading across his face. “Just as soon as you give me a blow job.”
“You motherfucking son of a bitch,” Connor yelled as he tried to get up. “Don’t you touch her.”
Len pointed his weapon at him and grinned.
Connor froze with his teeth bared.
She put her face close to Len’s and said, “You put anything that close to my face, I’m going to bite it off.” She snapped her teeth a couple of times.
Len backhanded her, knocking her to the sand. Again. He came at her, violent intent turning his face into a hideous mask, and she laughed.
“How are you going to explain damaging Akbar’s prize?” she asked.
He stopped, then snarled, “I’ll tell him you tried to escape.”
“To where? We’re in the middle of a desert. If you claim I tried to overpower you, he’s not going to believe that either. I’m too small and weak for that to be a possibility.” She sat up and when that didn’t seem too difficult, she got to her feet.
“You know what your problem is?” she asked the mercenary. “You think you’re in control. You have the combat and weapons skills, so you pretend to bow down to Akbar. Until your final paycheck is in the bank, and then you think it’ll be easy to kill him and disappear.”
When he didn’t respond right away, she knew she was right. “The reality is, he’s crazy and no one’s life means anything to him. Certainly not yours, not even his own. He has no plans to let you live one second longer than necessary.”
“Shut up, you stupid bitch.”
“I’m going to examine them now,” she said. “I advise you to think about it while I’m doing that. Right now, Akbar needs me a whole lot more than he needs you.”
She checked on the unconscious men first. Stalls was dead, and from the amount of blood soaked into the sand underneath him, he’d bled out. She glanced at Connor and shook her head. River was alive, but when she checked his pupils, only one reacted to light. “Concussion,” she reported softly. “A bad one.”
Smoke didn’t say anything when she looked at his shoulder. “Any trouble breathing?”
“No.”
“Good. It looks like your collarbone is broken. Try not to move around or it could pierce your lung.” She wished she could do more for him, but advice was all she could give.
He gave a short nod but never took his eerily light blue eyes off Len.
Connor had his hands wrapped around his thigh, but his pants were so blood soaked she couldn’t tell where the wound was. “Is the wound on the outside or inside the thigh?”
“Outside, but it’s still bleeding like a bitch.”
He wasn’t going to be able to hold it forever.
She pulled off her shirt, leaving her in just a tank top, and tied it around Connor’s leg, wadding up what she could to press against the wound he revealed when he removed his hands.
“What does Akbar want from you?” Connor asked very softly.
“To make his virus easier to transmit.”
“Fuck.” He hissed as she tightened the fabric hard around his leg. “You know which one it is?”
“Rabies.”
“Is that even possible?”
“He’s read my dissertation and has made certain assumptions. I mapped the virus’s code, so I know which changes would need to be made...” She tried to pin a confident expression on her face, but seeing him so bloody was doing something to her insides. Something painful and cold. “He says if I don’t do what he wants, you’re all dead.”
Connor glanced Stalls’s body, then at his own leg. “We’re all dead anyway.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “That’s what I think, too.” She was going to die, in a matter of weeks most likely. She wanted her life to count for something. Maybe this was it. Maybe she could save Connor, Smoke and River. Maybe she could take out Akbar with his own weapon.
She leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “Don’t blame yourself. I kinda knew I’d die first.”
“What the fuck are you whispering?” Len asked, his gun pointed at Connor’s head.
Sophia rolled her eyes and said to Con at a normal volume, “I really, really wanted to have sex with you.” Then she was on her feet and walking away.
“Not going to happen,” Len said with a disgusting sneer on his face. He put a hand on the back of her neck and pushed her faster.
She glanced over her shoulder to see Connor staring after her, the confused, irritated expression on his face reassuringly familiar.
* * *
Rage and pain combined and roiled inside Connor until he felt like he was going to explode.
“Sex?” Smoke asked.
“Don’t fucking go there, man,” Connor said with a glare at his friend. “Don’t.”
Con glanced at their jailors. Two guys who held their weapons like they’d had some training.
Probably not enough though.
Stalls was dead and River was halfway there. Their jailors likely thought this was easy duty, standing guard over a bunch of bloodied and dead guys.
Connor groaned and grabbed his leg like it really hurt, then whispered to Smoke. “Collarbone?”
“Not broken,” he whispered back.
She’d lied out loud to give them an advantage. Fucking A.
Connor switched to Dari and said to their guards, “I have information about an American military attack.”
They looked at him, but didn’t move.
“I want to trade this information for my life.”
One of the two men came toward him. “What attack? This is a refugee camp.”
“The United States knows there’s a terrorist group with people here. They’re going to destroy the entire camp, then apologize later and say it was a mistake.”
The man came closer, his rifle pointed at a spot halfway between Smoke and Connor.
Connor lunged upward, putting his weight on his good leg, to grab the rifle and push it so it was pointed up and away from anyone.
At the same time, Smoke rolled and reached for the knife strapped to the terrorist’s leg, pulled it out, then threw it at the other guard.
He fell to the ground, the knife embedded in his eye.
Connor wrestled the rifle away from the other one, then bashed him on the side of the head with the butt.
He handed the rifle to Smoke. “I’ll carry River.”
“Hospital?” Smoke asked.
“Yeah, best place to hide him.”
“Wait here.” Smoke slipped out of the room, and came back with three traditional Middle Eastern robes long enough to cover up their uniforms.
“Where’d you steal these from?”
“Not far. Laundry.”
It took both of them to get River into a robe, but they managed it and Connor hoisted him over his shoulder. Good thing the guy wasn’t Smoke’s size.
They walked relatively slowly to the hospital. No one paid them much attention, mostly because they weren’t the only ones. By the time they got there, they were part of a procession of about four groups taking someone to the hospital.
Connor got River into a cot. “Stay with him. I’m going to look for the doctor,” he said in Dari. There were a lot of people in the hospital tent, most of them were on cots, sick or already dead, but there were still a lot of aid workers amongst the ambulatory family members taking care of the sick.
But no Dr. Blairmore. Where could he have gotten away to?
He found the good doctor behind the tarp of the staff-only area. He was sitting on a cot staring at his feet like they were fascinating.
Connor limped over and crouched next to him. “Hey, Doc. I need you to che
ck out my friend.” He spoke in English, but Blairmore didn’t seem to notice what language he was using.
“I’m sorry, your friend will have to wait his turn.” He glanced up and understanding flooded his face. “Sergeant Button? I thought you were dead. I heard gunshots and saw bodies at your camp.”
“Not quite there yet.”
Blairmore glanced around uneasily. “So you know Len is a...a murdering monster?”
“Yeah, my cracked ribs let me in on that little secret. Has he hurt you or the other aid workers?”
“No, not yet, but he says he will if we interfere with whatever he and that madman are doing.”
“That madman the same guy who told you Dr. Perry was a problem?”
“Yes.” Blairmore shook his head and his bottom lip quivered like he was going to cry. “I was a fool.”
“There’s a lot of that going around.” Con patted his shoulder. “Listen, there are only three of us left and my buddy Len kicked River pretty hard in the head. Can you take a look at him?”
“Of course, but be careful. Len comes through the hospital every so often. He might notice your man.”
“As soon as he realizes we’ve escaped, he’ll probably be too busy searching for us to bother with your patients or you.” Con smiled at him and winked. “You’re no threat to him, right?”
Blairmore stared at him, blinked, then nodded and said slowly, “Yes, of course, I’m no threat and far too busy with people who really need my help to watch for some stupid soldiers. Besides you guys are a bunch of arrogant assholes and that woman with you needs to be taken down a notch or two.”
“That sounds good. He’ll buy it sight unseen.”
Con led Blairmore to River’s cot, and the doctor did a quick exam.
“He’s got a nasty concussion, and I don’t have the equipment here to do anything about it. I can give him some medication that might help reduce the brain swelling, but that might not be enough.”
“Any help is better than none,” Connor said, working hard to sound like Dari was his first language and English was an afterthought. “Do you have a way to call for more help? More medicine or machines?”
“No, I can’t seem to get a signal.”
Shit, Len must be blocking it.
“Battery dead, maybe,” Con said, then gave him a little bow and limped away with Smoke beside him.
“Now what?” Smoke asked, sticking to Dari.
“Now we figure out how to get Sophia away from Akbar before he makes her design the next great plague.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
If only Connor had had time to teach her more of the martial arts stuff he promised, Sophia could have done something about the asshole twisting her arm damned near in half.
“I realize I don’t matter much, but if you keep hurting my arm like you are, I won’t be able to use it at all.”
He didn’t answer or change the way he held her.
“Don’t take my word for it,” she said. “Have a look at it.” Her uniform shirt was around Connor’s thigh, leaving her arms free of fabric.
He glanced down, then did a double take. “It looks like it’s broken.”
“No, I have a clotting problem, though.”
“Why the fuck did Button bring you out here if you’re sick?” Len asked, disgust twisting his features.
“I’m a specialist. Did you think people who could diagnose weird viral or bacterial diseases grew on trees? Your boss is a dangerous man whose only goal is to kill Americans.” She gasped, pretending shock, “Oh my, that means you, too.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Or what? You’ll hurt me some more, or kill my team? Those threats have already been used.”
He pointed his weapon at her face. “Shut. Up.”
She shut up.
Shaking his head, Len shoved her in front of him the rest of the way back to the lab tent.
Akbar was pacing outside it. He took one look at her, stared at her arm, then started yelling in Dari.
Len yelled back.
After a minute of this back and forth, Akbar turned to her and asked with some concern, “You’re sick?”
Was he serious? He was going to kill her anyway.
Still, she wasn’t quite ready to die.
“I have idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, ITP.”
Akbar stared at her for a long moment. “What does this mean?”
That’s right, he wasn’t a doctor, he was a chemist.
“It means that if you’re stupid—” she glanced at Len “—and you twist my arm, I’m going to look like I was in a car accident. If you shoot me, you’d better mean to kill me, because I’ll probably bleed to death no matter how severe the wound.” She was laying it on a little thick, but she wasn’t telling Akbar anything he couldn’t find out on the internet.
He and Len exchanged a few more words, then Len headed off, leaving her with Akbar and at least a dozen of his well-armed friends.
Akbar stared at her like he was trying to take her apart. “Death does not scare you.” It was a statement.
One she disagreed with. “I’ve seen a lot of death, some of it violent, some of it...peaceful. However it happens, the result is the same. The loss of a person. All their knowledge, memories, culture, everything that makes them unique, is gone. From one second to the next, wiped out as if it had never been.” She narrowed her eyes. “Facing death has made me stubborn. I’ll fight death with everything I have, but I’m still afraid.”
“You think like a woman,” he said with a sneer.
“This is a surprise?”
He continued to stare at her like she was dirty underwear. “You saw your men. Will you comply with my order?”
“If I do as you ask, will you allow my men to have medical treatment?”
He nodded.
Hmmm, say no and get them killed or say yes and give them time to escape or get rescued? Yes, it is.
She swallowed hard, hunched her shoulders a little and nodded. “You want me to make your virus easier to transmit, right?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not the only consideration when evaluating the virulence of a virus,” she offered tentatively. No use in angering the nutcase. “There are others, like the immune status of the host, how quickly the host can adapt to the virus and mount a defense. How hardy the virus is or if it can survive outside the body for any length of time. What kinds of cells the virus can invade and multiply in or not, and how efficient the virus is at replication.”
“Replication has already been altered. As you can see—” he pointed at the hospital tent “—it runs its course in hours instead of weeks.”
“But there’s been no person to person transmission, has there? You’re infecting people one at a time.”
“Correct, but rapid person to person transmission is my goal. I want a rabies variant that can spread quickly through the population.”
“Airborne?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “The rabies virus isn’t the measles. It’s extremely difficult to become infected without a bite. Rabies has been around for thousands of years, it’s relatively stable for a virus.”
His expression was cold. “I changed it. I accelerated the progression of the disease.”
“Okay, so one change worked. Doesn’t mean another one will.”
His mouth tightened brutally.
Her hindbrain read the danger and kept her tongue talking. “How did you infect all these people?” She glanced behind her at the hospital with its hundreds of occupied cots.
For a moment she wasn’t sure he was going to answer or if he was going to have her killed on the spot. Finally, he said, “The water supply. I’ve used up almost all of the virus I have
. Creating large quantities will take time, even for me.”
“You thought you had already solved the problem of person to person transfer without a bite?”
“Yes, but it appears that the virus isn’t viable in water for longer than an hour, and infection takes a fairly large quantity of virus.”
He was treating this camp full of people like his personal lab rats. There was no way she could do what he wanted, but she needed to give time to Connor to find a way out of his predicament, and for Max to investigate why she hadn’t contacted him at their regularly scheduled check-in time.
She sighed, hoping she wasn’t making it too theatrical. “I suppose I’d better take a closer look at it. I only did a Direct Rapid Immunohistochemical Test on a small sample of brain tissue.” She gave him a frustrated look. “Most of the equipment I have with me is diagnostic.”
He didn’t say anything, just gave her a brief nod.
She went into her tent and took another look at the test samples she had on slides. The samples looked typical, but it wasn’t designed to reveal anything probative about the virus itself.
She went back to her initial brain tissue samples and began to prepare them for several new tests. All the tests she could think of. Anything to take up time.
Come on, Max. We’ve missed a check-in. Where are you?
* * *
Connor and River took up seated positions at the outskirts of the hospital tent, as if they were waiting on one of the patients near them to die.
Con was not happy with what he was seeing at the lab tent.
Sophia had been talking to Akbar, though not loud enough for them to hear what was said, then she went into the lab with Akbar’s permission.
Surrounding the tent were a dozen or more armed militants. Akbar himself didn’t appear armed. Though for all Con knew, he carried around containers of anthrax just for the sole purpose of tossing it at people, then running the other way.
Sophia seemed uninjured, except for her arm, which looked badly bruised even from this far away. He was going to have a short but painful conversation with Len very soon. The bastard had killed Stalls and had a hand in the deaths of the other marines. Sophia was safe, sort of, for now, but the lust on Len’s face meant she wouldn’t stay safe.