by Julie Rowe
There was a brief knock at the door. Eugene opened it and said, “General Stone and Sergeant Stone to see you, sir.”
“Very good, Private.”
Eugene disappeared and the two Stones came in and closed the door.
General Stone glanced at the two chairs in front of Max’s desk and raised his eyebrows before grunting his appreciation.
Why such surprise?
Observing the two of them as they sat and looked at him made it clear. They were both astonished an officer of Max’s rank would show a woman of her rank any deference.
“Sir, Sergeant.” Max greeted them both with a nod. “I’ve been expecting you for a few weeks.”
“I apologize for the length of time it took to get Sergeant Stone to you,” the general said. “I hadn’t anticipated the difficulty in arranging for replacements for her in the Special Operations training program. There was also some unanticipated red tape to getting her properly transferred.”
“No apology necessary, sir.” Max nodded at her. “I’d been warned by Demolitions Sergeant Smoke that it might be longer than initially thought. Sergeant Stone is highly respected.”
The Stone in question blinked in surprise.
“It’s good to know that boy can do more than grunt,” the general said.
“Have you had time to read Dr. Perry’s latest report?” Max asked, examining Alicia’s expression. Something about her reactions was bothering him.
“Slippery bastard,” General Stone muttered. “No clue as to what disease he’s planning to use as his next weapon?”
“Not so far, no. I’m afraid that there are too many possibilities. He’s proven to be adept at manipulating very complex organisms, though he’s had no formal training in how to handle them. He’s taking a lot of risks, not the least of which is accidently releasing a biological weapon in a highly populated area.”
“How probable is that threat?” Sergeant Stone asked.
“If you’re looking for a number, I can’t give you one, but if it happens I won’t be surprised.”
“He’s insane,” she said almost to herself.
“Yes.” Max thought the same. “A very dangerous sort of insanity. He’s highly intelligent and without a conscience. It’s not a matter of if he’ll attack again, it’s where and when.” He paused, then added, “I think it will be soon.”
“We’re starting to see small outbreaks of cholera in some of the refugee camps in various places in the Middle East. The CIA has intel saying these camps are prime targets for the same extremists we think are supporting Akbar,” General Stone said. “The problem is, we can’t send in troops. These are countries who haven’t asked for military assistance.”
“Unless they start dying by the hundreds.” Max was unable to hide the rough edge that eventuality put into his voice. “Then they’ll call us, but it will be too late.”
The general turned to his daughter. “Are you clear on your assignment?” There was a note of reprimand in the general’s voice. What the hell was going on?
“Bodyguard and liaison for Colonel Maximillian with Special Forces,” she replied, her back as flexible as a steel rod.
“Yes, and see if you can get him to shoot straight. I’d hate to lose him because he can’t hit what he’s aiming at.”
“Why don’t you just shoot me?” Max suggested sarcastically.
“No,” General Stone said with an oddly flat expression. “I like you just the way you are. Alive.”
“Has there been a specific threat against me made?”
“Dead bodies with your name on them not enough?” The general stood. “The sergeant will fill you in on the latest. Keep in touch.” General Stone exited the office, closing the door behind him.
Max turned to her. “The latest?”
Sergeant Stone nodded. “The general has friends in the CIA. Your name keeps coming up in connection with several dangerous people.”
“I suspected, but had hoped I was just being paranoid.”
“Be all the paranoid you want. It might help keep you alive.”
“You’re full of happy thoughts today,” Max said, examining her expression. “What happened?”
“Nothing good.” She closed her mouth after those two words and pressed her lips together.
Fine. She didn’t want to talk.
He wasn’t the only stubborn one.
“Come on, I’ll introduce you to my aide.” He gestured at the door and she got to her feet. “We’re a tight group, on a first name basis unless we’re out in the general base population. How would you prefer to be addressed?”
She relaxed. It was subtle, mostly in her shoulders, but still noticeable. “Not Super Bitch.”
Max couldn’t keep his eyebrows from rising. “Someone called you that to your face?”
She laughed. It lasted only a moment, but the change in her demeanor was astonishing, as if she’d removed a layer of plain brown paper to reveal the hidden work of art beneath. “Not anymore.” Before his eyes, she pulled the wrappings back around her, hiding the warm woman behind the uniform again. “Stick with Stone.”
Max took in a breath, filed the incident away into a special section of his mind labeled Alicia Stone, and said with a nod, “Good, Stone.” He led the way out of his office and stopped at Eugene’s desk. “Private Walsh is my personal assistant.”
Stone shook his hand.
“Call me Eugene or Gene,” he said.
“Stone,” she told him.
“Eugene always knows where to find me,” Max explained. “Not sure how he does it, but...” He shrugged.
“Good to know there’s a GPS for you, sir,” Stone said.
“Max.” He permitted a grin before he said, “Eugene, I’m taking Stone on a tour of the lab. I have my phone if you need me.”
“Very good, sir,” Eugene said, reclaiming his seat.
She leaned slightly toward him and said, “He called you ‘sir.’”
Max leaned toward her and replied in the same quiet voice, “He’s only got one or two bad habits. Calling me sir every once in a while is one of them.”
“I was raised to be polite to my elders.” Eugene said it without a trace of humor.
Stone laughed, while Max gave him a sour look.
Max set off toward the lab with Stone at his side. “So,” he said casually, “what didn’t the general tell me?”
A rueful smile came and went across her face. “Remember that suicide bomber I shot in Germany? It turns out there’s a bounty on you. A big one. You’re on the hit list of every mercenary and warlord in this part of the world.”
Chapter Three
“How expensive am I?” Colonel Maximillian asked, one corner of his mouth crooking upward.
His smile melted something cold and hard inside Alicia. She couldn’t relax her guard around many people, but Max was different. It frustrated the hell out of her sometimes, but he was honest with her. He didn’t play games or tell her what he thought she wanted to hear. She’d had enough of that to last her a lifetime.
It didn’t hurt that he radiated confidence and intelligence. Unless he was in the shooting range or in combat training. There he looked like a duck out of water, ungainly and awkward.
The contrast was jarring. Max was an irresistible puzzle, one she was determined to solve.
“More than what I’d pay for you, that’s for sure.”
“Sometimes I’m not sure you like me at all,” he said with a glance her way.
She had to work to keep a smile off her face. “Of course I like you—you’re a US Army asset.”
“Nothing is ever going to be simple with you, is it?”
The question seemed mostly rhetorical, but she answered anyway. “People appreciate the things they work
for,” she told him, using the same tone her grandmother had used when she told Alicia the same thing during her first year in the army.
“Will our entire conversation be in fortune cookie—sized sound bites?” he complained.
Her façade cracked and she laughed. “God, I hope not.”
His sense of humor surprised her, always had. He looked so buttoned up and stuffy, but he wasn’t either. He was smart, funny and wasn’t afraid of suggestions from lower ranks. She’d been impressed by his ability to focus on multiple goals, and achieve them. He was relentless when hunting a disease or containing an outbreak, and frequently got his hands dirty with jobs other men in his position would have given to an underling.
Max didn’t assign tasks to anyone else that he wouldn’t do himself, and he didn’t waste his people or their time on meaningless work.
His inability to defend himself worried her. He was so competent at everything else, she suspected his personal life had something to do with it.
The shit his ex-wife put him through would have turned a saint into a killer. Alicia had witnessed exactly one meeting between them. They were outside a restaurant where Max and Alicia’s father were meeting for a meal and a chance to talk away from the base. It was the first time she’d met Max, and his ex was screaming at him about money and shoving him. He said something low and calm, and she punched him in the face.
Twice.
Alicia had run toward the pair, intent on stopping the raging woman, but Max had waved her off, so she got her phone out and hit Record.
He didn’t do a damn thing to defend himself, other than attempt to talk to his ex. The woman finally left when Alicia had shouted at her to stop. The cops showed up ready to arrest him for assault an hour later, until she showed them her video recording. They urged him to see a lawyer, but she was pretty sure he hadn’t.
Now, he led her through a set of closed double doors. They walked about five feet down a hallway until they reached a row of internal windows. On the other side of the glass was a laboratory. She recognized microscopes, but not much else.
There were four people working inside the room, all of them in space suit—style outfits with hoses extending from the back of their helmets up to the ceiling.
“They have their own air supply?” she asked.
“Yes. The room’s air supply is also filtered—scrubbed, really—to ensure that no pathogens get out.”
What was in that room was as dangerous as any other weapon. “Do you work in there?”
“Sometimes. I have a fair amount of administrative work that cuts into my lab time.”
“How many different pathogens do you have in there?”
“It varies.” He was in his comfort zone here, relaxed and self-assured.
The best time to ask a tough question. With a bounty on his head, she needed all the intel she could get.
“Why don’t you like guns?”
“Because I...” His voice trailed off. “I became a doctor to save people, not put holes in them.” His voice sounded calm and controlled, yet she could see a hint of something that was neither in his eyes.
He turned away to stare through the glass again. “I don’t like violence in any of its forms.”
“Why did you join the army, then?”
He grinned at her as if everything was normal. As if he hadn’t been in the grip of some negative emotion only moments ago. “It does seem counterintuitive, doesn’t it?” He extended his hand toward the lab. “This is where real work is being done. Not in the research labs at the Center for Disease Control. We’re on the front line of any attack using biological weapons. We can respond faster, diagnose and begin treating in hours. Not days. Hours.”
She took a moment to process that. He saw identifying and treating disease as battle? Disease as the enemy? “Your weapons are antibiotics and antiviral drugs?”
His whole face lit up. “Yes.” He patted one of her shoulders and gave it an excited shake. “That’s it exactly.” He stared at her for a long moment, then seemed to remember he had his hand on her and abruptly let go.
For a long time she had thought Max wasn’t a warrior, that he didn’t have the skills or stomach for combat. She’d been wrong. His field of combat was simply different than hers.
Her mistake.
One she’d fix, starting now.
She glanced around and noted discreetly placed security cameras. “What security precautions are in place for the lab?”
“Good question. Eugene can give you the particulars and have an ID badge made for you so you can move throughout the lab.”
“Those doors we came through are locked?”
“At all times.”
She nodded. “Good. If you don’t mind, I’ll familiarize myself with lab security and provide anything else you or your assistant need from me to have me integrated with your group. I’d like to evaluate your hand-to-hand skills later today or tonight.”
“They’re no better than the last time you wiped the floor with me,” he said with a sigh.
“I wasn’t in charge of your training the last time. I need more information so I can create a program for you.”
“You mean, you’re not going to embarrass me in front of a couple dozen soldiers once, but daily?”
“Any soldier who laughs, comments or smiles too wide will get his own chance for embarrassment. After the first week, no one will bother watching anymore.”
He winced. “I’m going to be all over the internet, and that crap never disappears.”
“No photos allowed. Anyone taking them will face severe penalties.” She stopped to frown at him. “You know that.”
He pursed his lips like he tasted something awful. “Doesn’t help. You know how clumsy I am.”
She’d thought his reluctance stemmed from a desire to maintain his dignity in public, but there was something else in his voice. Maybe this wasn’t all about his ego. “I’ve trained people who’ve never held a gun in their life to become expert snipers. You’re smart and you know how to use your hands. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be able to hit your target and defend yourself as well as any soldier.”
He stopped and turned to face her, his expression cold. “Have you ever considered the possibility that a man might not want to acquire some of those skills? Might find them at odds with his personal beliefs?” He strode off before she could respond.
She followed and ended up at Eugene’s desk. Max had retreated into his own office with the door closed.
“Your boss is very good at shutting people down when he’s not happy,” she said, staring at that closed door.
“He can be intimidating,” Eugene agreed. “But he’s also the best man I’ve ever worked for, in or out of the military. He’s had my back in a couple of tricky situations.”
“Who has his back?”
“Your da...” He cleared his throat. “General Stone.”
“Has Max needed the general’s help often?” Most people who were good at their job pissed someone off somewhere along the way.
Eugene froze for a second before swallowing and saying, “A few times. Some regular army types. Not everyone agrees with how Colonel Maximillian runs the team. There’s been some grumbling since Akbar started his personal war on us. Somehow information has leaked out and we don’t know who’s doing it or how. But it keeps happening.”
“Let’s work on that.” She liked this kid. He was a good bridge between the team and the rest of the army. “I need to see all the info on the security for this building. I’d like to find out from you if you think there are any holes in it or if any of the staff who work here have mentioned any deficiencies.”
Eugene’s eyebrows rose. “Okay.”
She smiled at him. “My job is to protect Colonel Maximillian. Not just the man, but e
verything he’s accomplished. This team is important. I want to be proactive rather than reactive. Make sense?”
The kid sat up a little straighter. “Yes, ma’am, I mean, Stone.”
“Good. So, tell me something I don’t know.”
* * *
Colonel Maximillian was clumsy, awkward and ungainly.
They’d been sparring for about fifteen minutes and he seemed two seconds behind every move she made. No matter how hard she put him down, he didn’t get angry or the least bit frustrated. It was almost like he wanted to lose. Wanted to have bruises all over his body from getting thrown, tripped and tossed to the mats. She’d never worked with anyone this hesitant, like he was doing it on purpose, and it was starting to piss her off.
She flipped him onto his back, then stepped back to give him room to regain his feet. “Attack me,” she ordered.
He froze and frowned. “I’ve been attacking you for over an hour now.”
Like hell. “No. Really attack me.”
He shrugged helplessly. “Do you want me to say it in another language?” Then he said it to her in French.
Her hold on her patience slipped and she stepped forward. He responded by moving a pace backward, but she changed her direction with her next move.
He hesitated, his body jerking one way then another as he tried to change direction also, but it was too late. She swept his feet out from under him, then grabbed one arm as she pounced, forcing him onto his back. A twist of his arm and he was under her control.
They stared at each other for a couple of seconds, then she got up. “Is it because I’m a woman?” If it was, she’d misjudged him.
“Pit me against anyone here, the result will be the same,” he told her in a low tone. “I can’t attack anyone.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
He ran both hands through his short hair in a jerky motion. “Both.”