by Julie Rowe
“That’s my feeling, as well, sir. Orders?”
“I’ll get in touch with Colonel Marshall and tell him to stand down on his cleanup plans. We can’t afford to do that until after we know exactly what we’re dealing with, and we discover if this secondary infection is even the same contagion. This anthrax is too virulent, too deadly to skimp on confirming the identity of the pathogen and how it’s being transmitted. If we’re dealing with anthrax spores, they’re airborne. If their creator releases them in a densely populated area, we’d be looking a major disaster. It might only be another six to twelve hours to wait, but those are valuable hours to us. Have you got samples collected for lab verification?”
“Almost done. I just need to check on the discovery patrol members and get samples from them.”
“Good work. Do that, then get in a helicopter and get them to me as fast as you can. I’ll talk to Marshall and have him stand down his cleaning crew.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anyone not involved in bringing the samples needs to stay in that village. No one else is allowed in or out.”
“I’ll order the quarantine.”
She ended the call and turned to the waiting men. “I’ve got orders from Colonel Maximillian to examine the discovery patrol and collect samples from them. Once that’s done, I need to get the samples to Max as fast as possible. This area is not to be decontaminated until we’re sure we know what we’ve got here. He’s as worried as I am about how fast this infection progresses and the possibility it’s crossed the species barrier. This is a unique pathogen that is already a devastating weapon. If we don’t do this right, we could make things infinitely worse.”
It took a couple of seconds for anyone to respond. “Marshall won’t like it,” Sharp finally said.
“He doesn’t have to. Colonel Maximillian is in charge of this situation now.” She turned to Leonard. “I’m going to check in on the patrol. Can you and Bart contact the base and let them know they have to wait until Colonel Maximillian gives the word before any decontamination can begin?”
“What do you want us to say if Marshall insists on talking to you?” Leonard asked.
He probably would. “I don’t have time for long explanations, but if he wants a short report from me directly, he can have one after I’ve finished with the discovery patrol.” She walked away.
The medical tent was up, but that was all it was: a tent with three sides down, the fourth open to the air. Grace grabbed one of the larger first-aid kits and took stock of what she had. The kit had the supplies to treat everything from broken bones to heart attacks, but not enough supplies to treat multiple patients with the same illness or injury.
She might have to get creative.
She laid a thermal blanket on the ground and went to find the patrol leader.
He waited only a few feet away and started walking as soon as she made eye contact with him, but he stumbled after only a few steps, coughing hard.
She went to him, holding on to his arm and taking some of his weight so he didn’t fall over. It took several seconds for him to calm his breathing and straighten, but when he did, she had to hold back a horrified gasp.
His face plate was completely obscured by blood. The mask wasn’t helping him at all and the filter was probably saturated. “Can you walk?” she asked him.
He nodded and walked with obvious difficulty into the tent. He lay down on the blanket and she slipped the face mask off him. “This isn’t helping you.”
He didn’t complain, just closed his eyes and lay quivering on the ground.
“Are you experiencing any pain?”
“My joints.” As he spoke, she heard popping sounds from deep in his chest, like an old-fashioned coffee percolator.
She picked up his hands and noted slight swelling in them. “Your knees, too?”
He nodded. “Hard to breathe.”
“I’m sorry this is difficult for you, just try to breathe normally.” She couldn’t use a stethoscope without taking her suit off, so she leaned in close to listen to him breathe.
Definitely fluid in his lungs.
He managed two good breaths before he started to cough again. Blood sprayed out from between his lips with every exhalation he made.
Sharp crouched down on the other side of the soldier and used some Wet Wipes to clean off the sick man’s face.
“I need to take your clothing off from your waist up,” she said to her patient.
He didn’t complain, just kept coughing and nodded.
Sharp helped her remove the soldier’s upper body armor, uniform shirt and undershirt. She took a flashlight and peered at his armpits. Small lesions were visible under both arms.
Grace grabbed swabs and sampled the discharge from the lesions, then she drew a couple of vials of blood from the soldier.
“Am I going to die?” he asked her, his eyes dull and frightened.
No doctor ever had a good answer for that question. “I need to know more about what’s making you sick. It might be the same thing as what killed these villagers, it might not.” She patted his arm. “I’ll be right back.” She looked at Sharp. “Stay with him, please.”
Sharp was shaking his head before she could finish talking. “I can’t do that, Doc. You know my orders.”
“I’ll stay with him,” another soldier said. One of Marshall’s medics.
“Thank you.”
She gathered up her samples and went back to the Sandwich.
She didn’t want to accidently contaminate any of the samples with cast-off expectorant, so she used a spray bottle of bleach from among the supplies included with the analyzer to clean off all the blood the patrol leader had coughed onto her suit.
She input one, put half of the samples in her container to go to with her to the lab and put the remainder inside the Sandwich’s cooled storage compartment.
The machine spit out the result and Grace made herself read it.
Anthrax.
Fuck.
“Anthrax,” Sharp breathed. He stood right behind her and had obviously read the result over her shoulder. “That sucks donkey’s balls.”
Chapter Four
Grace groaned. “Shut up.” She searched the area and found Leonard still standing with Bart by the communications station. As she walked toward him, he began waving at her to come quickly.
“Marshall is on the phone,” Leonard said. “He’s insisting on speaking to you.”
She sucked in a deep breath and took the sat phone from Bart.
“Yes, sir.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Marshall’s tone could have sliced her into very thin slivers.
“Sir,” she began, injecting calm and confidence into her tone. “One member of the discovery patrol has tested positive for anthrax. If it’s the same strain as the one that killed the villagers, we could be looking at a devastating weapon.”
“What did you do to endanger my men?” His bellow could easily be heard by all three men around her.
Marshall was angry and looking for someone to blame. If she tried to defend herself, he’d stop listening. She needed him to listen. Needed him to understand and agree with the next steps in the process to correctly identify and destroy the pathogen.
“I believe the pathogen was still active in the environment when the discovery patrol arrived. I believe it might still be active. I need time to properly identify this strain and discover how it was introduced into the environment.”
“Now,” Marshall said a doomsday tone, “is not the time to hesitate.”
Grace flinched. “I’m not hesitating, I’m taking appropriate precautions.”
“Your precautions didn’t save my patrol, did they?”
“Sir, their team leader went into two homes containing bodi
es with evidence of disease before putting on his breathing gear.”
“You were the one who trained my men on how to respond to possible biological weapons,” Marshall spit out. “I’m not going to take the word of an inept bitch who obviously doesn’t know what she’s doing. If this bug is as dangerous as you say, then cleaning the site will stop any further infection.”
“This appears to be a man-made strain, sir. If we don’t properly identify the strain and how it was created now, we might not have a chance to do it later. A few extra hours at this point could mean the difference in living and dying for more soldiers in the future.”
“My men are not guinea pigs for you to test your theories on. You will follow established protocols, identify the agent and evacuate the area for decontamination. Now.”
“I’ve identified the agent, sir, but—”
“Are you arguing with me, Major?” Marshall’s purr wound its way up her spine, leaving a trail of cold sweat in its wake.
She shook off the implied threat. “With all due respect, Colonel, the situation calls for extraordinary measures.”
“Not your call to make.” He sounded like he enjoyed saying it.
“You’re correct, sir, which is why I contacted Colonel Maximillian. As the head of the Biological Rapid Response team, the decision is his.”
When Marshall didn’t respond, she continued with, “Colonel Maximillian has ordered the area quarantined and protected until we can be sure we’ve identified the specific strain of the pathogen and method of delivery.”
Still no response from Marshall.
“Sir, are you there?” she asked as diffidently as she could.
He disconnected the call.
She handed the sat phone to Bart and prayed Marshall wouldn’t do anything stupid.
“What did Marshall say there at the end?” Leonard asked.
“He didn’t say anything, he hung up on me.”
Leonard winced, but said, “You’ve made your report and we have a plan of action. Time to execute it. I’m going to stay here and enforce the quarantine. You two head out with the samples.”
“You got it,” Sharp said.
“Don’t let anyone blow anything up while I’m gone,” Grace told Leonard as he walked away.
“Yes, ma’am.” He gave her a crisp salute.
“Don’t salute me. I’m not in command of this situation.”
“Yes, you are,” Sharp told her.
She shook her head. “No. The anthrax is in charge here and none of us can afford to forget it. There’s no room for ego or hurt feelings.” She sucked in a deep breath. “How should we split up the team? Some need to stay here and monitor the situation.”
“You, me, Rasker, Williams and three of Marshall’s men.” He watched her face for a second. “Don’t let Marshall’s stupidity rattle you.”
“The problem is, he has a point. Too many things have gone wrong here.”
“No plan survives first engagement. Things always change. There’s no way you could have predicted this.”
She couldn’t maintain eye contact and let her gaze skitter away. “Strategy, tactics and figuring out who the enemy is are not my strong suit.”
“That’s not what I’ve seen from you before now and definitely not what I’ve heard.”
That caught her attention. “Heard?”
“You were awarded the Bronze Star a couple of years ago.” He said it almost gently and she scowled at him.
She shouldn’t be surprised he knew about that. Hell, the whole A-Team probably knew about it. There was just one problem. She wasn’t proud of what happened two years ago. “I was doing my job and it went horribly wrong.” She spun around and took a couple of steps toward the Sandwich. “Other people deserved that medal more than I did.”
“That’s what all the heroes say.” It was a low whisper.
She jerked to a stop and stared at him, but he was already talking to Bart. “Get us a ride. Something close and fast.”
“One magic carpet ride coming up,” he said. “ETA, ten minutes.”
“That was fast,” Grace said to Bart. “What did you do, make the request when I wasn’t looking?”
“Leonard had the aircraft waiting on standby in case we needed a quick pickup.”
“You guys think of everything.”
Sharp nodded at her. “Have you got everything you need?”
She glanced at the Sandwich. “Everything I need is right there.”
“Get it ready for transport, boss.”
As she moved to do it, Sharp called for Rasker, Williams and three of their security detail to join them.
Grace got the samples squared away in multiple zipped plastic Baggies, then put them all in a biohazard travel container and threw the strap over her head.
She took the bleach and sprayed down the suits of everyone leaving so they wouldn’t contaminate the interior of the bird.
The thud of the helicopter’s rotors beat against her skin before she saw it. Sharp and the men who were coming with her gathered around her in a protective huddle.
It came in to land, kicking up dust and dirt, and they raced to get in. Sharp leaned over the pilot’s shoulder for a minute and she could tell from the rising tension in his body that the conversation wasn’t all happy, happy, joy, joy.
Finally, Sharp patted the pilot on the shoulder and sat down in the jump seat next to her. The helicopter took off.
“What were you and the pilot talking about?” she yelled at Sharp.
“Our destination,” he yelled back. “He had orders to return to the forward base, but I told him Marshall wasn’t in charge of this party anymore.”
“Marshall had given him other orders?” Wanting to get the job done quickly was one thing. Interfering with an investigation of this magnitude was another. She had hoped to avoid another confrontation with Marshall, but it looked like one was going to happen anyway.
“Yeah, but don’t worry. One doctor, two Green Berets and one situation-specific colonel beat one regular army colonel in this poker hand.”
She scowled at Sharp. “We’re not playing poker.”
“Sure, we are,” he said. “We’re playing to win.” He patted her knee. “Close your eyes and pretend you’re sleeping, Doc. We’re okay.”
Oh, she very much doubted that.
The flight got bumpy. Enough to bounce her out of her seat had she not been strapped down.
“I hate flying,” she yelled at the world as she hung on to her harness and prayed for deliverance. The constant engine vibration and turbulence bumps had her stomach on strike and trying to crawl up her throat. “I really hate helicopters.”
“Want a barf bag, Doc?” the soldier sitting on the other side of her asked as he tried to hide a grin. Tried and failed. Vomiting inside her suit would be very uncomfortable.
Asshole. “No, I was planning on taking my suit helmet off and puking on your lap.”
The soldier stopped grinning and leaned away from her. “Seriously?”
“If we don’t get out of this turbulence, I’m very serious.”
“Sorry.” A plastic bag was thrust in front of her face. “Just in case,” he said.
She rolled her eyes and took it. It would take hours of bone-jarring air travel before they arrived at the naval base in Bahrain where Max waited to confirm the Sandwich’s test results, and they’d have to stop for fuel before the Iranian border.
“How did you get tapped for this duty if you get airsick?” the soldier asked.
She gave him a sidelong look. Did he think trauma doctors or infectious disease specialists grew on trees? “It’s only flying that makes me sick. A lot of the time I don’t have to fly to where I’m needed.”
All told, there were seven people on
the helicopter besides the pilot and copilot. Everyone else was there to keep her, and her samples, safe. Three of them could kill a person with their little finger.
She leaned back against the harness of her jump seat, closed her eyes and began a relaxation technique to put herself to sleep.
She’d need all the sleep she could get now, because she had the suspicion not a lot of it was going to be available later.
* * *
Grace woke with a start, dizzy and disoriented. They were still in the air, but they weren’t flying, they were falling. The helicopter was twisting and turning like an insane amusement park ride, losing altitude fast. Sharp was out of his jump seat yelling at the pilot and the soldier beside her trying to get out of his harness.
Where the hell did he think he was going to go?
She watched as he finally hit the release on his harness. There was a flash and a deafening bang.
The world went dark.
* * *
Why couldn’t she breathe?
Grace inhaled, but the air choked her like it had hands around her throat.
Coughing, she clawed at those invisible fingers, opened her eyes and realized there were no bumps or vibration. They were on the ground. Smoke formed a black wall around her, shutting her away from the rest of the world. Smoke, inside her suit helmet. She forced her mind to think.
The aircraft was down. That meant injuries and death.
Her suit was compromised. That meant possible exposure to infection and death.
For a moment her stomach took over, rolling like they were still in the air, but she wrestled it into a lockdown and forced herself to think through the shock of what had happened. Injuries, infection and death.
Her limbs and lungs all seemed to be working. Time to get at it. She released her harness and pitched out of the seat and onto her hands and knees.
Next to her left hand was the face of the soldier who’d been sitting next to her. He was staring up at her, his mouth slack, eyes fixed and pupils dilated. Blood was splattered all over his bio-suit, inside and out, and a piece of the aircraft stuck out of his temple.
She stared at him unblinking for a couple of seconds, her stomach twisting tighter than it ever had while she was the air.