Fever Zone (Danger in Arms, Book 1)

by Cindy Dees

  Piper guided the tractor down the long driveway and, as they approached an actual dirt road, called to Mike, “Which way?”

  He pointed to the north. She turned the tractor onto the road and accelerated cautiously. She prayed her jerry rigs and taped together fuel lines would hold up long enough for this old wreck to reach a working telephone. And a shower. And a freaking walk-in freezer.

  The temptation was great to shove the throttle to the forward stop, but she schooled herself to patience. Every yard of road they put behind them was one less she and Mike had to walk on foot. She estimated they putt-putt-ed down the road at about eight miles per hour. A hot, dusty breeze blew in her hair, and even though the morning sun was bright, she felt a lightness and freedom of spirit she hadn’t felt in as long as she could remember. They were in a hurry and they needed to get out of the desert and find a phone, but she was with Mike, they’d found water, they had transportation after a fashion, and they were alive. After coming so close to death in the desert, that word held a whole new richness of meaning for her.

  Mike’s hand came to rest on her shoulder and she glanced up at him. He smiled down at her and then closed his eyes and threw his head back, lifting his face to the morning sun. He felt it, too. The special exultation of cheating death.

  All the fear and doubt of the past few days sloughed away from her, leaving her feeling new. Reborn. Vibrantly aware of everything. Of the salty smell of sweat. The iron taste of the well water lingering on her tongue. Of the air heating rapidly against her skin. The vibration of the tractor through her feet. Even the tiniest details registered in this hyperaware state of hers. It was intense. Almost sexual.

  No wonder Mike liked living on the edge if this was the end result of his missions. She could see how it might become addictive.

  “I see pavement,” Mike announced.

  “Praise the lord.”

  “We may still be a ways from a town.”

  “But we at least made it to civilization. And a car will drive past eventually,” she replied.

  “Assuming this area isn’t totally quarantined and that the cars here didn’t get zapped, also.”

  She patted the tractor fender. “That’s okay. We’ve got Big Red. It’s too old to be affected by an EMP.”

  “I swear. If we make it out of this alive, I’m taking this tractor back to Pennsylvania, buying me a piece of land, and settling down to farm it. And I’m never leaving it again.”

  She blinked up at him. “Really? You’d walk away from being a super-commando?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve had some rough missions in my day, but this one takes the cake. And we’re still not in the clear. We’ve got to get someplace cold and get our hands on some of that silver stuff of yours.”

  He was right. Celebration now would be premature. They reached the sun-bleached ribbon of gray asphalt, and she turned the tractor in the direction Mike pointed. To the northeast. They’d gone no more than a mile when a green road sign announced that Overton was three miles ahead.

  “Can we start celebrating now?” she asked.

  Mike shook his head. “Not yet. Phone. Water. Power. Cold.”

  “Shower. Food. Bed. Sex,” she added to his list.

  “Roger that, baby.”

  An intersection loomed ahead, and Piper ran the stop sign, afraid of what would happen if she stopped Big Red and then tried to get it moving again. Not to mention the gas gauge was reading dangerously low, the needle bumping off the peg below the E as the tractor lurched along.

  In another five minutes, a building came into sight. And then more buildings. A town. Overton. She reached up and took Mike’s hand, squeezing it convulsively. Had they done it? Had they made it out of Hell for real?

  No traffic moved on the main street as they rolled into town. Crap. Had the place been evacuated or something? Surely, people ought to be out driving around at this time of day. It was mid-morning.

  And then a man stepped into the street ahead of them. Waved his arms over his head at them. Big Red drew close enough for Piper to see the guy was wearing a police uniform.

  “Stop the tractor!” the man called.

  Gladly. Piper stepped on the breaks, which gave a hideous squeal. She turned off the ignition, and Big Red belched a mighty cough of smoke and gave up the ghost.

  “We’re under quarantine folks. You have to leave town now, or I’m gonna have to arrest you—”

  Mike jumped down off the tractor and turned to help Piper down. “Officer, we work for the government and need a telephone immediately. It’s a matter of national security. We may know how to stop the virus outbreak.”

  The cop looked both startled and relieved. “Come on in the police department. We’ve got a phone working. This is a substation of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police and we have a dedicated underground phone line to headquarters.”

  “Power out in Overton?” Piper asked. That might explain why no one had been moving around town. The lights were out and people were hunkering down to ride out the electrical outage.

  “Yup. Went out a couple days ago. Everyone who could leave the area did. Headed for places with air conditioning and refrigerators,” the cop answered.

  “Are cars in the area running okay?” Mike asked urgently.

  Piper winced. If her father’s EMP bomb had exploded successfully, all the modern cars in the region with their internal computers and electronic ignition would be inoperative. Only ancient vehicles like Big Red, with its pre-electronic everything would continue to operate.

  The cop frowned. “Yeah. Cars are fine. Why?”

  “Thank God,” Mike responded fervently. “Phone first. And then we’re going to need a car. And you’re going to need to round up everyone in town and get them to the closest place with a big, cold air conditioner.”

  The three of them walked toward a plain one-story building with a sign out front announcing it to be a LVMPD substation.

  “Nearest place with power would be Las Vegas, sort of. They’ve got some back-up generators working around the city—the big casinos, hospital, airport, a few office buildings. But with the quarantine in place, no one gets in or out of there. Outside of Vegas, Caliente is the nearest town outside of the power outage zone, and it’s a couple hours north of here.”

  “Get your locals up there, and stick them in the coldest possible place you can find for—“Mike turned to her. “How long would it take to make the virus go dormant?”

  She shrugged. “Ebola goes dormant in under four hours of sustained cold. I’d say to give it twenty-four hours for safety’s sake.”

  Mike turned back to the sheriff. “You heard the lady.”

  It turned out the CDC field agents who’d gone into Las Vegas to attempt to isolate and identify the virus that had struck the city had set up a command post in the police department.

  Piper took the phone receiver Mike passed her and urgently relayed what she and Mike knew of the virus, and what they’d surmised about how to stop it. The CDC doctor was grateful and in a hurry to get off the phone and test the theories of external cold and internal colloidal silver. She handed the receiver back to the cop.

  “Uhh, Piper? We have a small problem.”

  She turned around to face Mike. His nose was bleeding.

  Twenty-Two

  Piper whipped around to face the cop. “I need a black-and-white with sirens, and I need it right now.”

  The cop moved over to a wall of car keys and pulled down a set. “It’s parked out back.”

  Mike tilted his head back and she jammed about a half-box of tissue into his nose before guiding him toward the rear of the building. She called out to the lone cop in the building, “If you have any food or water you can send with us, that would be great.”

  She heard a vending machine disgorge cans and another one whirring as it sent food down to the slot below.

  “He gonna be okay?” the cop asked, shoving an armload of soda cans, bags of chips, and candy bars at her.


  She answered tersely, “Call the CDC. Tell them the virus is outside the containment area, and we’re headed into Vegas.”

  “Shit!” The cop backed away from Mike hastily, eyeing both of them like lepers.

  “Get your citizens and yourself into a place that’s sixty degrees or below and stay there for a solid day. That’ll kill the virus on your clothes and skin. I’m gonna have the CDC send some medicine up your way that we think will cure infected people, too. You’ll be fine!” she shouted over her shoulder as she herded Mike toward a cop car. She guided him into the passenger seat and slid behind the wheel. Pulling the car into the street, she blasted the air conditioning for all it was worth, pointing every vent in the vehicle at Mike.

  She drove onto the highway, flipped on the light bar and sirens, and floored the powerful engine.

  “Easy Piper. I don’t need to die on the road when we’ve made it this far alive.”

  “You’re not dying on me, Mike McCloud. Do you hear me? That’s not the virus. The inside of your nose got dried out and that’s a regular old nosebleed. You hear me? I plan to make you marry me and have your children and die of old age together about a hundred years from now.”

  “Oh yeah?” he asked humorously. “How’re you planning to make me marry you?”

  Never taking her eyes off the road flying past, she bit out, “If the epic sex doesn’t lure you in, I may have to trap you with a pregnancy.”

  “That’s not fighting fair.”

  “Love and war, big guy. Didn’t you tell me that, once?”

  He grinned past the wad of bloody tissues at her. “You think we can beat the virus after it’s gone active?” he asked as the lights of a roadblock loomed ahead.

  “Yes, I do. I think the man we apprehended loves his daughter enough to build in a back-door cure.”

  “I hope you’re right,” he said grimly.

  She did, too. Fervently.

  She decelerated the police car as they approached a road block manned by armed soldiers and Humvee’s with machine guns mounted on them. A soldier with a machine gun slung over his shoulder approached her window. “You can’t proceed, ma’am—”

  She cut the guard off. “My partner’s got the virus, and I’m taking him into the quarantine zone so he won’t infect more people.”

  The soldier took a fearful step back from her window, and she stepped on the gas. Who was going to stop them from going into the fever zone? It wasn’t like that soldier was going to jump into a Jeep and follow them to drag them back out.

  “Just a little further,” she told Mike as his nose commenced seeping blood again.

  “You headed for the hospital?” he asked, his voice muffled behind the soaked tissues.

  “I figure they’re totally overwhelmed. Thought I’d head for the newest and swankiest casino in town. It’s likely to have the best air conditioners and the biggest security system, hence the biggest back-up generators.”

  She headed for the Strip and pulled up in front of a luxurious hotel entrance. A man—a valet or doorman, maybe—yelled at her. “She’s got a bleeder in the car. Get him out of here!”

  Mike swore under his breath.

  In response, she popped the trunk release and hopped out of the cop car, muttering to him as she went, “Let’s see how well this puppy’s stocked, shall we?”

  Mike nodded and climbed out as well. Blood trickled over his chin as she handed him a shotgun and a brace of pistols. For her part, she grabbed an automatic rifle and hefted its nylon strap over her shoulder.

  “We’re Feds,” she announced, “and we can cure the virus. We’re going into your hotel, and we’re giving the cure to you and everyone else inside. If you don’t believe me, I’ll kill you now.”

  There was no way this punk was standing between Mike and cold air. None. She’d kill anyone and everyone who tried to get in her way. He was her man, the future father of her children, and no one was messing with her.

  “Easy there, G.I.Jane,” Mike said from behind her. “It’s okay, buddy. I ran into a damned door as we were walking out to come over here. And we do have the cure. I’m gonna reach into my pocket nice and slow and pull out my military ID and show it to you. Okay?”

  She glared at Mike. What was he doing?

  “Keep glaring, baby,” he murmured low. “You’re bad cop. I’m good cop.”

  Ahh. His comment broke her fixation on killing anyone who crossed her the wrong way. Right. These were civilians. The very people she and Mike had nearly died trying to save. No sense shooting them all, now. But still. The kid had better not try to stop Mike from getting inside to cold air…

  “If you could take us to your head of security, we need to explain the procedure for decontaminating the hotel and everyone in it,” Mike told the kid.

  Apparently, the fact that they wanted to see the very person the kid was hoping would show up and save him from these crazies seemed to ease the kid’s fears. “This way.”

  The kid led them through the deserted lobby. Its cavernous interior looked garish in the silence and emptiness. “Security’s got everyone quarantined in their rooms,” the kid explained as he led them through the dark and silent casino.

  They passed through an unmarked door into a long hall. And then, they passed through another set of doors into an abruptly brightly lit and alive command center. The hotel’s security hub.

  Piper noticed that Mike had ditched the bloody tissues along the way and must have rubbed the blood off his face with his sleeve just prior to stepping in here.

  “What the hell?” a guy in a suit exclaimed. Several men leaped to their feet, reaching for weapons at the sight of hers and Mike’s.

  “Stand down, guys,” she said quickly, lowering her weapon as she spoke. “We’re here to help.”

  She and Mike quickly went through who they were and what they’d learned of the virus.

  The security man listened in silence and then responded with, “So all I have to do is cram everyone into a ball room, divert all the air conditioning in the building in there for a couple days. Then we have everyone drink water with this colloidal silver in it and wash in the stuff, and we’ll all live?”

  Piper shrugged. “Maybe. The CDC is testing the silver theory as we speak. But I’m pretty sure the air conditioning should decontaminate any surfaces in the hotel.”

  “Done!”

  “In the meantime, my partner could use a stint in a meat locker if you have one with power.”

  “Shit. He exposed?” the guy blurted.

  She shrugged. “Something like that. Do you have a working walk-in refrigerator?”

  “Yeah. The kitchens are on the main back-up power grid.”

  “Perfect. If we could get some warm coats and be shown to a frig, we’ll get out of your hair,” Piper said smoothly, taking a cue from Mike’s good cop routine. He’d said once, a lifetime ago, that she should learn how to use her gender as an asset and not fight against it. He was right. A little flirting and batting of her eyelashes, and the security guy led them to a fur coat store in the shopping arcade, let them have their pick of two expensive coats, and then led them through the huge kitchens into a walk-in refrigerator.

  “Phone’s on the wall. Light switch here. You need anything; let us know.”

  Mike piped up. “If someone could bring us bottles of water every few hours, and maybe a porta-potty, we’ll see you in a day or so. And thanks for everything, man.”

  “No. Thank you. If this works, the hotel will owe you big. How do you feel about a free suite for life here?”

  First, they had to make sure they both lived long enough to take the guy up on his offer. The heavy, insulated door swung shut behind them. She turned to Mike, whose breath hung in the air in great, white puffs.

  “Ironic that, after nearly roasting to death, now we get to flirt with freezing to death,” she murmured.

  “Let’s just hope this works,” Mike replied. “I’ve got stuff to do and places to go.”

  Onl
y time would tell. They found a pile of insulating blankets and made a bed on the floor for themselves. It smelled like raw meat, but she didn’t care. This had to work.

  “We can take turns sleeping,” she told Mike. “That way we don’t die of hypothermia in our sleep. You go first. I’m feeling pretty good.”

  Which was to say, he was the one possibly dying from the virus.

  About four hours had passed when the head security guy personally brought them food and a pitcher of water. “So, the CDC thinks this ionized silver stuff kills the virus. Turns out the city had a bunch of it in a warehouse…left over from the anthrax scares after 9/11. The plan was to put it in the water supply back then, too, as a mass inoculant against anthrax. They’ve treated the city’s water supply and are directing everyone to drink a gallon of tap water every day.”

  Mike grinned. “If it doesn’t work, at least we’ll all die with our kidneys in perfect working order.”

  Piper was humbled by his optimism and positive outlook. Even when things had looked bleakest in the desert, he’d never given up hope. She darned well wasn’t going to give up on him now.

  The security man reported that everyone in the hotel was camping in a ballroom so the cooled air could be concentrated in that one spot, decontaminating the air they all breathed. It was cramped, and people were cranky, but they were all cooperating fully with the understanding that this was the best way to avoid dying horribly.

  The clock on the cell phone the security man left them on one visit to drop off more water crawled slowly toward the twenty-four hour mark. Piper was convinced the thing was running at half speed.

  On his visit at the sixteen-hour mark, the security guy said that the CDC had a message for them. Their protocol showed early signs of working. Piper allowed her hope to grow a little bit more. And Mike actually smiled at her a little from time to time.

  After twenty-four hours, when the freezer door opened, the security guy was not standing there. Instead, a doctor stood there. He drew blood from Mike and told them it would be tested for the killer virus. He said he would return as soon as he had the results, but he warned them that it would take several hours. And he added that the two of them were rock stars outside their icy prison. They were being credited with saving thousands of lives.