Sleight of Hand (Outbreak Task Force)

by Julie Rowe

  “I’m fine,” he growled. “My leg just gave out.” He shooed helpful hands away and repeated, “I’m fine.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Wednesday 3:31 p.m.

  Joy knelt next to Gunner but didn’t treat him like an invalid or victim. As long as he was conscious, she’d let him ask for help.

  A hospital staffer reached out, maybe to take his pulse, Joy wasn’t sure, but she blocked the woman with a hand. “If he says he’s fine, he’s fine.”

  “If you’re sure?” the woman asked hesitantly, glancing between Gunner and Joy.

  “I’m sure,” he grumbled and sat up.

  The woman got to her feet and walked back to her table. The rest of the people who’d responded followed suit.

  Gunner didn’t move, just watched their audience drift away. “That was embarrassing.”

  “Want a hand up?”

  In response, he took her proffered hand, and she pulled him to his feet.

  He tested his weight on his injured leg carefully. “Seems fine. I think it went to sleep.”

  “Are the bandages too tight?”

  “No. I can feel my foot.” He pinched his lips together, telling her without saying a word that he didn’t want to answer any more questions right now. “Let’s go.”

  She nodded and followed him out. His limp was a lot more pronounced than before; perhaps it was pain, or tiredness, or a combination of the two. Watching him walk made her wince and finally admit maybe Ketner had been right to find a way to get Gunner and her pulled from active duty. Geez, and that thought, with its military bent, told her she was just as tired as Gunner was.

  She wasn’t going to tell Gunner that, at least not now.

  It took them ten minutes to get back to their temporary lab slash isolation room. Both Rawley and Ketner were inside talking quietly while a couple of other people from their respective agencies took photos of the kegs and all of the CDC’s equipment. Dozer was nowhere in evidence.

  The two agents looked at them. Rawley nodded at them, a frown bringing his brows low, but Ketner smiled.

  Not a nice smile.

  “Feeling better?” he asked Gunner.

  Great. So Gunner’s collapse in the cafeteria had been reported to the asshole.

  Gunner smiled back, and it was so sharp and menacing, she almost took a step back. “Fuck off,” he said pleasantly to Ketner, his tone at sharp odds with his expression.

  The FBI agent chuckled. Chuckled. “This investigation is almost finished, and your health is important. I hope you do the right thing and take the time you need to get well.”

  Wow, that was laying it on thick.

  “This investigation won’t be finished until we uncover the source of the E. coli,” Gunner said, that serrated smile still on his face.

  “We?” Ketner asked, but it wasn’t really a question.

  He was taunting them.

  Seriously? “How old are you?” Joy asked. “Twelve?”

  “Oh no,” Gunner said to Joy seriously. “He’s fully grown, he’s just an asshole.”

  Ketner’s smile changed, became patronizing. “Think about what you’re saying, doctor. You might want my assistance someday in the future. Our community”—he gestured at Rawley and the other people in the room—“is a small one. You’ve already earned a reputation as a difficult son of a bitch. Do you really want to add disruptive and disorderly to the list?”

  “I can be cooperative,” Gunner said. “When I’m working with people who have their eye on the ball and not on the prize. In fact, next time there’s an Ebola outbreak, I’ll remind my boss how helpful you’ve been and request your immediate assistance.”

  Joy nearly laughed at the shock and fear that dropped Ketner’s jaw.

  He recovered fast though. “Is that a threat?”

  “Nope, it’s me being cooperative. That is what you said you wanted, isn’t it?”

  The agent looked at Joy. “Your partner is clearly not in his right mind.”

  “His mind is functioning a lot better than yours,” she told him. She paused for effect, then said, “Dick.”

  Ketner gathered himself, straightening his shoulders before deliberately relaxing. He didn’t say anything else, just gave them that patronizing smile again and walked out of the room.

  That left Rawley staring at them with a contemplative expression on his face. “He might be a dick, but you take too many risks.”

  “Thank you for your honesty. I mean that sincerely.” Joy thumbed over her shoulder in the direction of the door. “That guy would cheerfully stab you in the back and smile at you while doing it.”

  Rawley didn’t respond to her assessment of Ketner’s character. “I don’t like working with people whose self-preservation instinct is all but nonexistent. You’re too hard to predict, which makes you dangerous.” He stared at them for a moment longer, no apology on his face, then moved off to talk to his man taking the photos.

  “This sucks,” Joy said.

  Gunner didn’t answer. She looked at him and found him rocking back and forth a little on his feet.

  “Gunner?” she asked, touching his arm.

  His face had lost what little bit of color it had.

  “Sit down,” she ordered in a low voice. “Before you fall down.”

  He blinked then shuffled toward a chair someone had set against the wall near the door. He didn’t sit down, he fell down, landing hard on his butt.

  Joy took his face in her hands and looked into his eyes. “Hey, are you still with me?”

  His response took two seconds too long. “Always.” He met her gaze, and despite the pain he had to be in, it warmed her from the inside out. They were a team, had each other’s back. No one was going to get the jump on them.

  Her stomach flipped over. How many people, patients and fellow soldiers, had she lost in Afghanistan? Too many.

  Get your head in the game. They were still on the clock, and if they left the room to find a place where Gunner could sleep, handing over the case to Henry was going to take even more time. Time no one had to waste.

  She turned to Rawley. “Hey, can you find out if we can get a cot in here? Gunner needs a cat nap.”

  Rawley stared at her like she’d spoken in a foreign language before coming over to look at her partner. Gunner had closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. Sweat was beading on his forehead.

  “He doesn’t look so good.”

  Joy almost laughed at the irony of it. She cleared her throat and said, “He needs rest.”

  “He’s sitting right here,” Gunner said, sounding like his normal grumpy self.

  “Look,” Joy said, giving Rawley a tight smile. “We’ve got to stay here until our CDC colleagues arrive to hand off the case.” She glanced at Gunner again and had to stop him from sliding down the wall and off the chair. “It’s either the floor or a cot.”

  Rawley sighed. “You two are a pain in the ass.”

  “We appreciate your dedication to your job, too.”

  He rolled his eyes, then muttered, “I’ll see what I can do.” He spoke with his man then left the room.

  Joy studied Gunner’s face. “Do I need to take you upstairs to the ER?” she asked.

  “No,” he answered. “I just ran out of gas. Adrenaline, coffee, and sugar can only do so much.”

  “Maybe you need an energy drink.”

  He started to laugh. “I’d probably act drunk, then crash.”

  “Can I look at your leg?”

  “Sure, whatever.” He shrugged, but didn’t open his eyes.

  Joy pulled up his pant leg and measured the bloodstain showing through on the bandage. It grew as she watched it. “It’s bleeding again.”

  “Hurts, too,” Gunner added.

  “Why would it still be bleeding? It was a simple puncture, sutured on both sides. Then we glued it. Twice.”

  Gunner opened his eyes and glanced down at his leg, a frown powering its way onto his face. “A puncture caused b
y an explosion with a lot of debris.”

  “You think something might be in it? Didn’t the attending doctor clean it out?”

  “If it was in there good and deep, he could have missed something.” Gunner looked at her. “How do you feel about flushing it out?”

  She glanced around. “Me? Here?”

  “Where do you want to do it?”

  “The ER. If we’re going to do this, it’ll be by the book.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  “Shut up and get up. You can lean on me.”

  He got to his feet and did lean on her hard enough for her to know he was in a lot of pain. She wedged her shoulder under his arm, and they took one coordinated step toward the door.

  Henry stood in their way.

  Joy frowned, surprised, and since she was tired, irritated. “When did you get here?”

  “Now,” he said, examining Gunner and her with one thorough glance. “You two look like shit.”

  “Tell us something we don’t know,” Gunner muttered.

  Behind Henry, several people crowded the doorway.

  “Make a hole,” someone said outside of the room. People stepped aside, and Rawley came in with a cot. He set it on the floor next to the chair, and Joy helped Gunner lie down.

  Henry studied the room and everything in it. Then he crossed his arms over his chest, looked at Gunner and Joy, and said. “Give me the details. Assume I know nothing.”

  It took them about twenty minutes to explain the whole situation, with Rawley adding his bits to it.

  “A video some college kid posted on Instagram has gone viral. Oddly enough, you two are center stage in it, telling some kids just how horrible and deadly the E.coli they’re infected with is,” Henry said. “We weren’t getting anywhere with our previous press releases. Now we’re getting reports of cases of beer coming out of our ears.” A smile came and went on his face. “But no kegs so far.”

  “Damn it,” Joy muttered.

  “We’re on standby until we get a call,” Henry said. He walked over to Gunner with a limp that didn’t slow him down. “I heard you took some shrapnel in your leg. Can I take a look?”

  Henry lowered himself to one knee, then the other, pulled Gunner’s pant leg up, and studied the bandage and the stain of blood on it.

  He looked at Joy.

  She didn’t need him to voice the question she saw on his face. “As soon as we’re done here, I’m taking him up to the ER to have it flushed. It’s been closed three times, and it’s still bleeding.”

  Henry nodded. “Good plan. Execute it.”

  Joy smiled. “Go Army.”

  Henry smiled back so briefly no one else saw it, but she had. And so had the tech he’d brought with him, a tiny woman with red hair pulled back into a pony tail.

  Henry shifted his body slightly to indicate the woman. “This is Ruby Toth, microbiologist. Third day on the job.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Joy said. “I’m Joy Ashiro, nurse, and this is my partner, Dr. Gunner Anderson. Call him Dr. Gunner.”

  Ruby smiled and nodded, ducking her head, but didn’t say anything else.

  Shy, maybe?

  “So, up to the ER, deal with Gunner’s leg, then on to the airport, and flight back to Atlanta?” Henry asked, though it wasn’t as if she and Gunner had any other choices in front of them.

  “Yep.”

  “We brought our own equipment, so take yours with you,” Henry said, indicating their collection kits.

  A snore rose behind her. Gunner was asleep.

  Yeah, he’d crashed. “I think I’m going to need a wheelchair to get Gunner upstairs.”

  It took a few minutes to wake and move him. He made grumpy noises that got even grumpier when the ER doc flushed his wound with saline and fished out a piece of metal that had embedded itself in his calf.

  News of the search for the contaminated beer keg was everywhere. Every news and social media channel was buzzing about it.

  “Airport?” Joy asked as she and Gunner made their way slowly toward the ER’s exit.

  “I want another beignet.” He scowled at the sunshine outside then turned that unhappy face toward her, as if daring her to make a different suggestion. “Or five.”

  They were supposed to go straight home, but they’d both been through enough shit that a treat sounded really good.

  “I don’t think it would be too much to ask to enjoy a good cup of coffee and a couple of beignets before we board the plane.”

  They got into a cab.

  “Where to?” the driver asked.

  “The best place for beignets in the French Quarter,” Gunner told him.

  “You got it.” The driver started the meter and drove away from the hospital.

  The cab dropped them off at a very popular café, given the number of people there. They still managed to find a table, got coffee and beignets, and just sat and ate.

  A man at the table next to them swore and showed his companion something on his phone. “What a waste of beer.”

  Joy checked a few of the larger news sites. All of them were talking about the search for contaminated beer in New Orleans, and how some people were simply dumping all of their beer down the drain.

  “Well,” Gunner said. “I guess that’s one way to solve the problem. Get rid of all the beer.”

  “Could the bacteria survive in the city’s storm drain system?” Joy asked. “Contaminate other bodies of water?”

  “Unlikely. Any water source the beer might enter if it’s dumped in the street is going to have high bacteria counts already. E.coli is part of the normal flora. These two strains are a drop in the bucket.”

  “Hah, hah. Good one.”

  He raised his cup and saluted her with it. He was about to take a sip, when he stopped with his cup in mid-air.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Beer isn’t a great choice if you want to infect and kill a lot of people,” Gunner said slowly. “The alcohol content will eventually kill off the bacteria.”

  “I know, but Mike Creek doesn’t fit into anyone’s definition of logical.”

  “It’s just… If you wanted to infect a lot of people with something like E.coli, how would you do it?”

  She tilted her head to one side. “Are you thinking about contaminated water sources?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’d have to find a way to introduce the bacteria after the water has been treated for drinking, but before it reaches the people.”

  Gunner stared at her, his lips pressed tightly together.

  Her jaw fell open, and she had to work to close it. “I wouldn’t use a keg of beer. It wouldn’t reach enough people. I’d contaminate the water as it leaves the water treatment facility.”

  Gunner nodded. “Guess who gets blamed when thousands of people get sick, instead of just a couple dozen college students here on spring break?”

  “The beer,” she whispered, her stomach suddenly unhappy with the coffee and pastries she’d just consumed. “The beer is the fall guy.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Wednesday 4:43 p.m.

  “It’s fucking brilliant,” Gunner said, his voice low enough that no one could overhear him. “We’ve been so busy trying to track down the vector, the source the assholes behind this wanted us to see, we didn’t bother looking any further.”

  Joy pulled out her phone. “We’ve got to tell—”

  “Who?” he asked, interrupting her. “We have no proof. Just a theory.” He snorted. “We’ve already been deemed unfit, due to my injury and our exhaustion. No one is going to look into it in time for it to make any difference.”

  She put her phone down, squared her shoulders, and asked, “What do we do?”

  “I don’t think the target has changed,” Gunner said, thinking it through. “Just the delivery system. So, where does the drinking water for the French Quarter come from?”

  “A small section of the city with a concentrated number of young people and tourists in
it. An excellent target for a terrorist.” Joy picked up her phone and searched for the answer.

  “I have the address of the water treatment facility providing the water for this part of the city.”

  “Still got your gun?”

  “Yep.”

  “Feel like not following orders?”

  She grinned at him and stood up. “It just so happens I’m not in the Army anymore.”

  They got in another cab and gave the driver the address to the water treatment facility. As they walked to the entrance Joy asked, “So, are we performing a quality control inspection?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Gunner replied. “I’ll be the bad inspector.”

  “How come I’m always the nice one?” Joy’s question came out in a teasing tone that woke parts of Gunner right up.

  “Because no one would be believe me if I tried to be nice. I don’t have the patience for it.”

  “Fine,” she said with a gusty sigh that almost made him laugh.

  They went into the building and approached a reception desk covered in stacks of paperwork and three different laptop computers. No one sat behind it, nor could they see anyone in the vicinity.

  “Hello?” Joy called out. “Anyone here?”

  No answer.

  She glanced at him, her expression asking plainly what he thought of the lack of people. He shrugged.

  Joy moved closer to the desk then stopped cold. “Do you smell that?”

  Gunner joined her and inhaled through his nose. Blood. Fresh blood. A lot of fresh blood, and it was emanating from the other side of the desk. The pain in his leg faded as adrenaline flooded through him.

  Joy was already halfway around the desk by the time he moved. He followed her but stopped as soon as he could the see the body clearly.

  A woman lay on the floor behind the desk, the back of her head wet and matted with blood.

  Joy pulled out her gun and began searching the reception area.

  “Be careful,” he whispered loudly. “If you get hurt, I will tan your bare ass.”

  She flashed him a half grin as she moved to check down the two hallways leading farther inside the facility. “Promises, promises.”

  He might give her that spanking anyway.

  Gunner called 911, gave a concise report to the operator, then hung up before the woman could start asking a bunch of questions. His next call was to Rodrigues.