Sleight of Hand (Outbreak Task Force)

by Julie Rowe

  Next to him, Joy stood a little straighter. So, she saw it, too.

  “Frank Creek,” the man said, holding out his hand, despite the protective equipment they both wore.

  Gunner shook it once then watched Joy take the man’s measure while she took his hand.

  Creek studied Joy for a second longer than he had Gunner. “Have we met?” he asked her.

  “I don’t believe so, but it’s possible, I suppose,” she replied. “My last post was combat rescue in Afghanistan.”

  Creek’s eyebrows shot up. “Doctor?”

  She shook her head. “Trauma nurse. Army, retired. I’m currently assigned to the CDC’s Outbreak Task Force. You’ve met my partner, Dr. Gunner Anderson.”

  “Dr. Anderson,” Creek said, meeting his gaze. “What do you need?”

  This was why he liked working with Joy. No bullshit and right to the point.

  “Gunner,” he corrected with a half grin. “Anderson sounds like a guy who works in an office.” He handed the paperwork over to Creek. “You’ll need to halt sales and consumption of your beer until after we’ve completed our investigation.” He shut up so the guy could read the order through.

  It didn’t take Creek long. “Heather,” he said, looking at the receptionist. “Shut everything down.”

  “But what about the beer tasting?”

  Creek angled his head at the papers he held. “Everything.” His gaze landed on Rhonda and the security guard, and he said again, “Everything.”

  “Yes, sir,” the guard said, turning on his heel and striding out. Rhonda followed him at almost a run.

  Creek nodded at Gunner. “This order mentions kegs. Is that where you want to start?”

  “I want to start at the beginning of the process and work our way through it.”

  “Can I ask what you’re looking for?”

  “E. coli.”

  “In our beer?” Creek asked, his voice rising in pitch. He looked away, thinking hard. “That’s extremely unlikely. There just aren’t many opportunities for E. coli to be introduced and survive the brewing process. We pasteurize about eighty percent of it.”

  “And the other twenty percent?” Joy asked.

  “We have a craft label beer that isn’t. It’s brewed using a recipe and technique from my great-grandfather. We babysit that beer like it’s a newborn.”

  “How many people come into contact with it?”

  “A dozen or so, but it’s all family and employees who’ve been with us for years. That beer has been a labor of love for all of us.”

  “Is it sold in metal kegs?” Gunner asked.

  “Yes, but they’re limited in number.”

  Interesting. “Expensive?”

  “Double the price of any of our other beers.”

  “Can we see what you’ve got?”

  “Sure.” He looked at both of them. “What happened?”

  Joy glanced at Gunner, tossing the question into his court.

  “Four deaths so far,” he told Creek. “Several more in hospital. The cases aren’t restricted to one event or location. They’re coming from all over the city.”

  “How many cases does our beer factor in?”

  “All of them.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Monday 9:43 a.m.

  Joy watched the impact of Gunner’s words drain all the color from Frank Creek’s face. She wanted to wince in sympathy but knew better than to let that show. A man like this, with military practically tattooed on his forehead, would not welcome pity.

  That moment of reaction didn’t last long. He rallied, lifting his head and squaring his shoulders. “Let’s figure this out before my father climbs out of his grave to do it himself.”

  He led the way out of the office and into the brewery.

  “The CDC is issuing a recall on all of your beer until we’ve cleared this up,” Gunner told him with a surprising amount of empathy.

  “Damn.” Years of hard work died inside that short word.

  “We realize this is difficult for you,” Joy said, her voice softening. “We’ll do everything we can to help get your brewery back up and running as soon as possible.”

  Frank glanced at her. “Thank you, but we’re not a large company. Coming back from something like this might be impossible.”

  Gunner said. “This is a setback, but you can use it to change things for the better.”

  Frank snorted. “Didn’t peg you for the inspirational speech type.”

  “I’m not.” Gunner’s gaze never moved from Frank’s face. “You don’t strike me as the sort of man to give up so quickly.”

  “Safety trumps profit.” Frank made eye contact with Gunner and Joy, then added, “Always.”

  They moved through half the building before entering an area containing several large wooden vats. The wood looked weathered and old.

  “This is where we age the beer.”

  Gunner put his equipment on the floor, got out gloves and a couple of sample containers, then took a small sample of beer from the nearest vat. He handed it to Joy, who performed the quick test for E. coli.

  “Negative,” she reported as he collected a sample from the second vat.

  He handed her the sample, and she reported the same result as the first.

  They continued to follow the path the beer took from vat to bottling, taking samples along the process, receiving only negative results.

  “The bottled beer is sent out at this point,” Creek said. “There’s just the craft beer kegs left to check.”

  They had to walk around a wall of stacked cases of beer to reach the area where the beer was decanted into the same kegs as had been found at all the sites he and Joy had investigated.

  The kegs were also stacked in several pyramids, cutting the space into something of a maze. There were voices audible from somewhere close.

  “What’s he doing here?” Creek asked no one in particular.

  “He?” Joy asked.

  “My brother.” Frank strode forward, and Gunner followed with Joy.

  The place looked clean enough to eat off of, but all the kegs of beer testing positive came from the same brewery, the same label. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  If something was going on with Creek’s brother, they needed to investigate.

  They came around a stack of kegs to find two men reading a piece of paper, their heads close together.

  “Mike?” Frank Creek asked. “What are you doing here?”

  Both men looked up. The one on the right hesitated a moment too long before flashing a brilliant smile.

  “Hey, big brother. I heard about the tasting today and thought I’d help out.”

  “The tasting is outside, and you’re supposed to be at school.”

  The smile dissolved into a frown. “College,” Mike said, drawing the word out. “I’m in college. I can miss one day to lend a hand.” He stepped away from the other guy, who folded the paper, put it in his pocket, then turned and began walking toward a door marked EXIT behind them.

  “You can’t afford to miss any days,” Frank said. “Not if you want to pass.”

  Joy made eye contact with Gunner then strolled toward the kegs, examining the taps on each one.

  Gunner followed but noticed the guy heading toward the exit kept looking over his shoulder at them with fear-widened eyes. Odd and creepy.

  Gunner changed his trajectory to follow.

  “Who are these guys?” Mike asked, taking a step toward Joy.

  “Inspectors,” Frank answered.

  “Never seen any inspector wear shit like that before,” he muttered.

  Gunner rounded a stack of kegs, which took him out of sight of the Creek brothers and Joy. The guy he was following sped up, turning his head every couple of seconds to look at Gunner. Gauging the distance between them?

  Gunner lengthened his stride, closing on the increasingly nervous man.

  A few feet from the door, Mr. Nervous glanced back, noted how close Gunner had gotten, an
d broke into a run.

  Gunner dropped his case and sprinted after him, catching him as he slowed to open the door. He grabbed the back of the guy’s shirt and jerked him backward. He fell on his ass.

  “Where’s the fire?” Gunner asked, conversationally. “And why are you so concerned about me?”

  “You…you look like one of those geeks who fool around with danger”—he stopped talking to suck in a breath—“dangerous substances.”

  Gunner took a good look at the guy’s face, noting the tint of yellow to the whites of his eyes as well as the smell of weed mixed with something acidic coming off his skin. “You mean like the stuff you used to make whatever drug cocktail you’ve been smoking or shooting up?”

  The guy’s eyes went wide, and he rolled, pushing to his feet, but Gunner was there to trip him. A one-way trip to the floor. “Joy,” he shouted. “Call the police.”

  The guy panicked, his body visibly vibrating as he tried to get to the door. Gunner managed to block him a couple of times before the guy got around him.

  This time, he wasn’t going to be polite about anything and tackled the dude. They went down hard, but as soon as he got a grip on the guy’s torso, Gunner’s blood went cold. There was something under his shirt. He’d felt something like it once back in Syria on the torso of a suicide bomber who’d been killed by a sniper.

  It couldn’t be. This was Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America, not some battle-fatigued city filled with crumbling concrete, blast-zone craters, and broken people.

  Gunner kept the bastard off him with one hand and ran the other over the lumps under the dude’s clothing, praying he’d been mistaken.

  There was no mistake. The idiot wore a suicide vest. Son of a bitch.

  He grappled with the guy, grabbing his wrists, but the dude fought like it was his last stand.

  Maybe it was.

  People were running toward them, but Gunner couldn’t take his focus off the asshole trying to blow up himself, this building, and everyone in it.

  The first pair of shoes to enter his peripheral vision were Joy’s.

  “Suicide vest,” he shouted. “Clear the area!”

  There was nothing but Army in the volume and tone of her voice after that. She barked orders he didn’t have time to comprehend, swore, then he heard the distinctive click of a clip of bullets being inserted into a handgun.

  “Move,” Joy said, her voice hard and cold, “and you’re dead.”

  Suicide guy froze. “I haven’t done anything,” he said, trying to sound reasonable. “This guy grabbed me for no reason.”

  Gunner choked back an incredulous laugh. “You were so fucking anxious to get away from me, you ran, asshole.”

  “I don’t even know who you are,” suicide guy said so fast his words ran together. “I ran because I had to take a leak, man.”

  “No sober adult runs like a three-year-old for the bathroom.”

  Suicide guy tried to shove him off, but Gunner knew what could happen if he let the asshole go. Either they’d all get blown up or Joy would shoot the guy. Maybe both.

  “It’s just your bad luck I know what a fucking suicide vest feels like when it’s on a human being before it blows up.”

  He had asshole’s attention now. The guy stared at Gunner like he was speaking Greek at a Texas barbeque.

  “Why the hurry to die?” Gunner asked, keeping his tone casual, like it didn’t matter all that much. “Seems like overkill.”

  “The police are two minutes out,” Joy said quietly.

  Asshole began to struggle again.

  Frank Creek approached at a run, his brother and two security guards behind him.

  The brother stayed back, but the two guards split up and circled around until they had clean shots on everyone.

  “Drop your weapon,” one guard said in a no-nonsense tone to Joy. He had his Taser out and pointed at her.

  “I’m authorized to carry and discharge my weapon by Homeland Security,” Joy said, keeping her gaze and the business end of her gun focused on suicide guy. “I advise you to wait until the police get here.”

  The younger Creek brother, who stayed out of eyesight of Frank and Joy, was looking at the security guard, pointing at Joy, and pantomiming shooting her with his finger and thumb. Son of a bitch. No one was shooting his partner in front of him. Not going to happen.

  “Check your six, Frank,” Gunner snarled.

  The man immediately spun around, catching his brother in mid-shoot. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Mike raised his hands in surrender. “I was just kidding around.” The smirk on his face ruined the innocent act, though.

  “What part of suicide vest didn’t any of you get?” Joy yelled at everyone. “Get out of here.”

  “He’s really wearing a vest?” Frank asked, his frown one of disbelief.

  “Clear. The. Building,” Gunner said, out of patience, politeness, and peaceful intentions.

  Suicide guy twisted and jerked his shoulders. Something made a bone-chilling crunch, but it allowed him to move in an unexpected way out of Gunner’s hold. Gunner managed to get a grip on him again, but the guy weaseled out of it, got to his feet, and began unzipping his jacket.

  He wasn’t going to reach the asshole in time to stop him. That was about the moment his ears caught up to the rest of the world and what Joy was yelling registered in his brain.

  “Gunner, get down. Fire in the hole!”

  He threw himself away from suicide guy. The boom from Joy’s gun reverberated before he hit the ground. It swept him up in a wave of sound, merging with memories of another shot. The bullet that killed his wife. A bullet that should have hit him, but she’d seen the shooter, and had thrown herself between him and Gunner.

  Grief, horror, anger, and despair rolled over him like a wave of quicksand, tugging at him, pulling him back into that moment three years ago. The moment that broke him and left him a wreck of a man.

  The suicide bomber cried out then fell backward, blood blooming on his left pant leg. He started screaming obscenities, his hands going to his wound.

  Outside, police and EMS sirens made it clear the cavalry had arrived.

  The bomber’s head came up, his eyes wide and bloodshot, his skin pale and damp with sweat. He dropped his leg and reached for his jacket.

  “Tase him,” Mike Creek shouted. “Tase him before he sets off his bombs!”

  The two security guards moved closer to get a clear shot.

  “No,” Joy shouted. “You might set off the explosives!”

  Too late. Both men fired. The business ends of their Tasers shot out. One latched onto the guy’s calf. The other…the other landed on the back of his head.

  The crack and sizzle of the combined shocks made suicide guy convulse, his eyes roll back in his head, and his teeth chatter like it was fifty below.

  “That’s enough,” Joy shouted. “He’s down!”

  Gunner couldn’t say anything, couldn’t move. The smell of iron-rich blood and burning flesh, combined with the sirens and shouts, mired him in the past. Joy’s shot continued to echo through him, turning the past into reality. It was as if time had stopped the moment Sandy died, leaving him trapped in a place he believed he’d left behind a long time ago.

  Three years ago, he’d been in Aleppo working twenty hours a day trying to save little kids after their legs had been blown off.

  Three years ago, he’d been in Aleppo working twenty hours a day trying to save parents who vowed revenge against the monsters taking their families away from them one limb at a time.

  Three years ago, his wife had died two feet in front of him, the bullet that killed her meant for him. How many times had he imagined knocking her aside? She was so small it would have hit him high in the chest instead of going through her head. He might have survived it.

  He blinked, trying to clear his vision of the superimposed memories of dust hanging in the air. Dust that had been whipped into swirling ghosts by the souls of the dea
d. Syria was full of ghosts.

  So many dead. So many wounded. Too many for one doctor, or even a hundred, to help. What was one more casualty to add to an already too large pile?

  Sandy lay on the ground draped over the dead body of the last man they’d tried to help. Even though she was only a few feet away, Gunner hadn’t been able to go to her. One of the other doctors with them had tackled him, forced him behind a broken concrete wall, and all but sat on him. All he could do was watch as her life dripped out of her one drop of blood at a time until her skin faded to bluish-white.

  All he could do was ride the wave of rage rising up out of the gaping, bleeding hole in his soul created the moment Sandy had been murdered.

  Rage that hadn’t abated one iota in those three years.

  Rage that demanded a target to destroy before it destroyed him.

  Gunner got to his feet, but the world wasn’t steady, and he almost fell on his ass. No. He had monsters to stop. Monsters that had already killed too many people, destroyed too many lives.

  He managed to stay standing and avoid the thrashing body between him and his new target—the man the most primal part of his mind told him was the biggest threat in the building.

  Men in uniforms ran toward him, guns out but not pointed at him. They were pointed at the man on the ground whose teeth were shattering a little more with every jolt from the stun guns. The uniforms pointed their guns at the two security guards and the woman holding a 9 mm Beretta aimed at the man on the ground.

  They were worried over nothing—the guy on the ground wasn’t going anywhere. The twenty or thirty seconds of exposure to the electricity currently applied to his skull wasn’t going to do him any good, but it wasn’t going to kill him. Probably. Maybe.

  What would stop working if they didn’t let up on the electricity was his ability to breathe. Stun guns put muscles into a contracted state and kept them there, exhausting the fool on the receiving end of the shock. And the security guards were just doing what they were told.