Hell & Back (Outbreak Task Force)

by Julie Rowe

  It was possible he’d have to initiate the last-resort protocol. He wanted to avoid that if at all possible.

  He explained all this to Ruby, and she seemed to take it all in with calm consideration.

  “I can hear a but in your voice,” she told him.

  “But the bad guys have been attacking the emergency exit. If it’s blocked on the outside, we’re screwed. When I say last resort, I mean last resort. There’s no stopping the countdown once it’s activated, and anyone down here will end up dead when it goes off.”

  Ruby looked at the floor for a moment then met his gaze. “We can’t let them get into the containment area.”

  Her gaze was calm, determined, and certain. He should be relieved. Instead, the look in her eyes made his sixth sense, the one most soldiers who’d gone through a baptism of dying and death developed, scream at him in warning. She was ready to die, to sacrifice herself to stop whoever was trying to break in.

  Not a chance in hell, sweetheart. He’d have to be careful to ensure that didn’t happen. “Agreed.”

  “Is there a time delay on this last resort?”

  Okay, he wasn’t happy with this last question. “Yeah, fifteen minutes, why?”

  She looked at the glass wall. “Because I think we should activate it now.”

  He followed her gaze. Standing only inches from the steel chain hanging in front of the glass was a terrorist. Not one of the mercenaries who wore what amounted to a uniform—this guy wore ratty khaki pants, a ripped old army jacket, and a battered flak jacket. All of his clothing looked well worn and splattered with blood.

  The terrorist looked at them with the whites of his eyes glittering with hatred and death.

  She was right; they needed to start the countdown.

  “Come with me,” Henry said to Ruby. He had a couple of things she needed to see before he activated the countdown to a very large explosion.

  “Shouldn’t one of us keep an eye on him?” she asked.

  Henry glanced at the terrorist, who’d stepped back and was loading a grenade launcher.

  “We don’t need to. He’s going to try to break through the barriers between us and him. He’s not going to wander off. I’ve got to explain a couple of things before I can deal with him.” He took hold of one of her hands. Despite the layers of latex gloves separating them, her touch calmed and centered him.

  He led her through the containment room and out an unmarked door that opened with a key-code lock. He told her the code then tugged her after him as he went through the door.

  In front of them was a staircase that went up several stories. On the wall on the right side just before the stairs was a glass-covered case over an unmarked red button. He glanced at Ruby.

  She met his gaze then nodded.

  This was taking a huge chance, but it was also the only road they could take.

  He pushed the button. An alarm began to peal, similar to a standard fire alarm, but slower, with six seconds between each clang. Next to the button, a small digital timer lit up, counting down from fifteen minutes, second by second.

  She was looking at the countdown with a furrow between her eyes. “Why fifteen minutes?”

  “To give people time to get out.” He pulled a screwdriver out of his bag, stuck it under the door so it wouldn’t close, and walked out.

  A blast hit the other side of the room hard enough to knock both of them off their feet.

  After checking to be sure she wasn’t injured, Henry strode past the freezers to see what their terrorist friend was up to.

  The front windows were intact, but there was a fine lattice of cracks in the glass of every pane, the kind that forms when a rock hits a vehicle windshield.

  The steel chain in front of the windows still shivered from the force of the hit and had several ragged holes in it. There was also a lot of smoke, but no fire.

  “Shit, the bastard is using sabot rounds.”

  “What?” Ruby asked.

  “They’re antitank rounds, designed to penetrate armor and make a hell of a mess.” He shook his head. “The guy is fucking nuts to use them in here.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Thursday May 9, 2:12 a.m.

  “Then it’s a good thing we’re going to blow him up,” Ruby said, surprised at how calm she sounded to herself.

  Henry’s head jerked around so he could look at her, his eyes narrow.

  Maybe too calm?

  She should probably be freaking out, but ever since she’d seen the stupid red button that started the fifteen-minute countdown to doom, she’d known what Henry planned to do and she wasn’t going to let him do it.

  She had her own fucking plan. Letting him sacrifice himself to save everyone else had no part in it.

  “Ruby,” he said, his voice saturated with suspicion. How had he learned to read her so fast? “What are you—”

  “Oh, stuff it,” she said. “I’m in the zone, or found my Zen, or whatever you want to call it when a person decides to fall apart after the emergency. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to keep breathing after those fifteen minutes are up.” She thrust her chin at the windows. “What are we going to do with our unwelcome guest?”

  “We?” His voice sounded even more suspicious.

  “Yeah. Is there a way I could distract him so you could get that sabotage thing away from him?”

  Henry tilted his head to one side for a moment. “Only if you stay in this room, if you run if he gets in here, and if you close the emergency exit and get out.” His glare heated up again. “Got it?”

  “Run like a coward. Got it.”

  Glancing quickly toward the window, he took her by the shoulders and brought her close so he could stare down into her eyes. “You will follow my orders to the letter.” He paused, his breathing fast. “Promise me.”

  If she didn’t agree, he’d have her up those stairs with no time left for him to escape.

  “I promise,” she said, maintaining contact with his gaze, willing him to believe her. She lowered her voice until it was almost as whisper. “We’re burning seconds we’re going to need.”

  He stepped back, dropped his bag on the floor, pulled out a holster that held a handgun and a wicked-looking knife, and strapped it to his body.

  “Keep him interested in what you’re doing, but don’t take any risks. If you see him coming and he looks like he’s going to take a shot, get behind some cover.”

  She nodded. “I can do that.” She knew what the terrorist wanted—smallpox—and she wasn’t going to let him get it.

  Gunfire, loud enough to hurt her ears, had both of them stumbling back. More shots and the crunch of a lot of glass hitting the floor made them duck.

  “Fuck,” Henry said, his voice harsh, then he was gone, heading toward the exit and a confrontation he was relying on her to help him win.

  Ruby waited for a moment, listening hard, but the front of the room was quiet. Not necessarily a good thing.

  Cautiously, she made her way to the location of the freezer containing the smallpox sample. Glass littered the floor, but the freezer didn’t appear damaged. Good. The terrorist wasn’t visible, nor was Henry, and that made her belly sink.

  What were the two of them doing? Some kind of martial arts dance? She looked around to see if there was anything she could use as a weapon, just in case. Along the far wall was a metal door the size of a dishwasher. Above it was a small sign that read Autoclave.

  Not a weapon against the bad guy, but something almost better—something that could destroy the sample of smallpox here for good. Autoclaves used high-temperature steam and pressure to kill microorganisms and sterilize instruments and materials. And if there wasn’t much in the load, it could do all that fast…in a few minutes. Sure, it wasn’t useful to do since the whole place was going to go up in smoke before it could complete its cyc
le, but the bad guy didn’t know that.

  An excellent distraction.

  She headed for the freezer containing the smallpox, put on heavy-duty gloves to protect her hands from the cold, and opened the door to the appliance. She’d been in this freezer only hours ago and knew exactly where the smallpox was.

  Before she could grab it, a voice much colder than the interior of the freezer said, “Bring the sample to me.”

  She glanced over her shoulder, being careful to keep her movements small and slow.

  The terrorist stood in front of one of the holes he’d made in the steel mesh and armored glass. He had a militaryish-looking rifle in his hands, but wore no gloves, hazmat suit, or mask. How had he not killed himself before this? One way or another, this man was going to die.

  Where was Henry?

  A shout and movement drew her eye to the hallway behind the terrorist. She gaped at the two figures, one a mercenary, the other dressed in a hazmat suit. Henry and the other man were in a hand-to-hand battle for their lives.

  Worry etched holes in her stomach, and she tried to keep track of the fight and the terrorist, but the two men grappling with each other were moving too fast.

  Everything was moving too fast. The seconds seemed to tick faster and faster and faster.

  “Woman,” the terrorist shouted. “Bring me the sample. Now.”

  Woman? Really?

  There wasn’t time to hesitate. Ruby plucked the sample from its cold resting place and closed the door to the freezer. Instead of turning to walk over to the terrorist, she moved around the appliance toward the autoclave.

  A shot rang out, and something created a neat little hole in the ceiling above her head.

  “Bring it here and I will spare your life.”

  She needed to keep his attention on her. If he turned to help the mercenary…Henry was dead.

  “Why should I trust you to do that?” she shouted. He needed her alive, at least for the moment, to bring the sample to him. “You want to release a bioweapon and kill millions of people.”

  He laughed, but it was so evil it cut across her senses like a serrated knife. “You think I’m doing this alone?”

  “Why do it at all?” she asked.

  “Bring me the sample.”

  “No.”

  “If you give me the sample of smallpox”—his smile turned sly—“I’ll tell you who in your government is helping me.”

  Someone in the government?

  “No.” She shook her head. He was fishing with the shiniest lure he had. “No, you’re making stuff up to try to get me to do what you want.”

  He continued to chuckle, the smug bastard. “I’ve kept records of all my communications and transactions with this person in a secure online data cloud.”

  Shouts from more than one male voice had her easing around the freezer, needing to see Henry, needing to know he was okay.

  Henry and the mercenary were still fighting, but they were also hurling insults and expletives at each other. It was almost as if they knew each other.

  She had to keep the terrorist’s attention on her. “Prove it,” she said. “Which cloud has the information?”

  “Give me the sample,” he ordered.

  “No, the information first.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. The mercenary had Henry in a headlock and on his knees. His face was the deep red of a man unable to breathe.

  She took a step toward the glass. Henry. But stopped when the terrorist turned back to her…and smiled. “The sample, Miss Toth, or your brother won’t be the only member of your family who dies,” he said in a conversational tone as if threatening lives was his way of saying, welcome to the neighborhood.

  Behind the terrorist, Henry flipped the mercenary onto his back and sank his blade into the other man’s shoulder.

  To keep the terrorist’s attention on her, she ducked back behind the freezer then yelled, “So now it’s my entire family?” She dashed to hide behind the next one in the direction of the autoclave. If she was careful, she might be able to keep the various freezers and other pieces of equipment between her and her destination, now only a few feet away.

  “Give me the sample!” the terrorist shouted.

  She ignored him and moved to the next freezer. The last piece of cover. There was nothing between her and her objective but five feet of air.

  The terrorist shouted obscenities at her, calling her a whore and a few things she’d never heard of before.

  He fired at her, sending bullets to nick the floor near her feet and ricochet into the wall in front of her. The freezer behind her began to hiss, and a white cloud seeped out and down its side.

  Nitrogen. With it at a temperature of negative 140 Celsius, it instantly turned into an opaque gas as soon as it hit the room-temperature air. Heavier than the rest of the atmosphere around it, it slithered and snaked across the room, creating a rising shroud. Giving her the chance she needed to destroy the weapon in her hand.

  Ducking down and partially obscured, Ruby reached up and pulled the autoclave door open.

  The terrorist continued to yell in what sounded like Arabic while shooting at her. She ignored him, setting the sample inside the autoclave then closing the door. She rose from her crouch so she could reach the controls. Something punched her upper left arm.

  The pain made her knees wobble and collapse. She glanced down. Blood ran out of two holes in her hazmat suit in a steady trickle, staining the white material red. The holes weren’t far apart. The bullet had gone through the muscle, but it was a shallow wound.

  She’d been shot.

  It hurt, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Thank you, adrenaline. Nitrogen swirled around her and seeped into her hazmat suit, numbing the wound and sending a chill through her.

  A few more bullets tore through the fog, but all of them missed. She still had a job to do—to keep the terrorist’s attention on her.

  “Do you know what this is?” she shouted and rapped her knuckles against the bottom of the metal autoclave door.

  “Your tomb,” the terrorist called back. “You stupid bitch.”

  “That’s overly dramatic, don’t you think?” she called out but didn’t wait for an answer. “This is an autoclave. It’s used to sterilize medical equipment and can kill that vial of smallpox in minutes.”

  Ruby darted up and pressed the start button. “Bye-bye, smallpox.”

  The terrorist roared and hit the broken armored glass window one, two, three times with the butt of his weapon. The glass didn’t shatter or even break any more than it already was, but it did sag a little. Not nearly enough to allow him to squeeze through and into the room.

  Still yelling not quite words, he backed up a couple of steps, hefted his weapon, and pointed it at the drooping barrier, but he didn’t fire bullets.

  Whatever it was that came out of his weapon did so with a whoosh followed by an explosion of light.

  A concussive force knocked her off her feet, slammed her to the floor, and dulled the world to a fuzzy gray mist. Or was it just the nitrogen swirling around her?

  Her arm hurt enough to make her stomach roll and buck. That adrenaline boost hadn’t lasted nearly long enough. She was so damned tired, so ready to be done with all this violence and noise, but a man’s shout jerked her attention back into the moment. Had that been Henry?

  Passing out wasn’t an option. They still had to get out of this death trap they’d created, preferably before the place disintegrated in a ball of fire and destruction.

  Movement deeper inside the room caught her attention, and she fought the urge to close her eyes. It took a moment before the cloud of nitrogen parted with a swirl to reveal two men moving around each other in a deadly dance and the body of the mercenary slumped against the far wall.

  Henry and the terrorist were grappling with e
ach other, Henry with one knife and the terrorist with another. What had happened to the terrorist’s firearm?

  She rolled to her side, and when she found herself no worse off, struggled into a sitting position. Okay, her body seemed to be working well enough. Standing was next.

  She got to her feet, as unsteady as a newborn fawn, to see the terrorist slice his blade across Henry’s throat. A red, glistening ribbon bloomed in its wake.

  The pain she was in disappeared in a rush of panic.

  Henry.

  Her vision cleared, and her body found its balance.

  Henry fell back, twisting and trying to avoid the terrorist’s second knife strike. He looked exhausted, bloody, and at the end of his wits, whereas the terrorist seemed to be riding a wave of anger and hate.

  Henry wasn’t going to beat him alone.

  She’d promised to stay out of the way and let Henry handle the fighting stuff, but she couldn’t stand by and watch the terrorist kill the man she loved.

  Loved. The word rolled through her, setting to rights a thousand thoughts, questions, and concerns. It lent her strength and determination, and she launched herself at the terrorist.

  One second passed…two.

  Ruby slammed into the man, grabbing his wrist as he moved to strike at Henry again. Her momentum shoved the terrorist a couple of steps away from Henry, and he tried to shake her off. She wasn’t going to let go.

  Using his own weight and momentum against him, Ruby hooked her foot behind his ankle and threw him to the floor. He had a grip on her suit, though, and yanked her down with him.

  Something hot and painful scraped her right side, and a blow to her bullet wound sent a sudden stab of weakness down her limbs. The terrorist pushed her off him, and she found herself on her back.

  Breathing through the pain radiating from both her arm and side, she glanced down and saw a bloody furrow in her hazmat suit along her right side.