Deadly Strain (Biological Response Team) (10 page)

“Different training, similar mind-set. We all put our lives on the line to save others.”

Oh yes, the noble sacrifices men make. “What about the people who love you? Do you think about what your
sacrifice
does to them?”

“I don’t give a shit if my dad likes it or not. My mom succeeded in working herself to death when I was sixteen.” He speared her with a glance. “She was a nurse.”

Grace wasn’t going anywhere near that, not even with a bio-suit on. “And your girlfriend? How does she feel about it?”

He shook his head. “Don’t have one. I’ve watched too many guys get Dear Johned. That shit can fuck you up.” He cleared his throat. “Not that I think you’d do that.”

Me?
He was out of his mind. “Do
not
go there.”

“Where?”

“Crazyland.”

“I don’t know, crazy can be a good place sometimes. A necessary place.” He looked around them at the cave they were in. “Better than this place.”

Chapter Ten

Sharp watched Grace’s face as she thought about what he said and didn’t say.

He opened his mouth, but he never got the chance to say anything.

She kissed him.

He froze, letting those soft lips slide against his own.

After a couple of seconds, he let his lips follow hers, allowed her to take the lead. When she nibbled on his bottom lip, he groaned. She took total advantage of his lapse by sending her tongue on a teasing foray into his mouth. He had to fight with himself to keep his hands off her, to let her set the pace.

She pulled back with a frown. “What the hell am I doing?”

Sharp played dumb. “Kissing?”

“Exactly. First we’re kissing, then we’re fighting, then we’re kissing again. We shouldn’t be kissing at all.”

“Just for the record, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest.”

She snorted. “You are a menace.”

“To what?”

“My peace of mind.”

“If I had a nickel for every time a woman said that to me...”

“You’d have five cents.”

“Probably. What do you say, Doc, want to get some rest?”

She answered with a chuckle that told him she was okay.

Despite the pain from his injuries, the lack of sleep and the precariousness of their situation, he’d never felt better. He settled into the uneven ground beneath him with a twitch of his shoulders and damn near purred, “Anytime you want to make out, I’m your guy.”

* * *

Grace woke to Sharp shaking her with one hand and holding the other over her mouth. Fear spiked through her, leaving her shaking. It took a few seconds for her vision to adjust to the darkness and for her to realize what was happening.

The sound of feet scuffing against the rocky ground outside their cave had her nodding at Sharp to let her go and reaching for her Beretta.

Sharp put his hand on her wrist and pushed hers down. When she glanced at him, he sat up, pulled a knife and motioned for her to back away from the entrance.

What was he going to do, kill whoever was outside in hand-to-hand combat?

Idiot
,
of course that’s what he’s going to do.

By the time she thought of questioning his plan, he was already gone, out into the gathering darkness with no sound at all.

Would the man he was about to kill hear him coming, or die not knowing he was being hunted?

Grace waited, straining to hear any sound that might tell her what was going on outside. A short, faint moan was all she heard, gone almost immediately. No sounds of movement reached her. No sounds at all other than faint insect noises.

A dark wraith slipped into the cave and came to rest in front of her. It surprised the hell out of her and she sucked in a breath.

Two fingers covered her lips and she relaxed as she recognized Sharp’s touch. He leaned in and put his mouth to her ear. “Only one man,” he said in that soundless whisper she wished she could reproduce. “I put him down and hid the body in another cave. There are others searching for us, though. We need to move.”

“Where?” she asked. “You’re injured. How far are we likely to get?”

“I heard helicopter blades out there. I think those flares you used may have been seen by our guys and they’re now looking for us. We need to find another spot to set off another flare. Someplace defendable.”

“You know of a place?”

“Yeah, about a half mile from here.”

“How’s your leg?”

“It’ll hold. How are you?”

She had so many cuts, bruises and aches she wondered if any part of her was injury free. “I’ll make it. There’s no other choice.”

He grabbed her hand and squeezed. “We have to go now.”

She nodded and he led her out of the cave.

She’d been wrong about how late it was. The sun was just setting, but it was overcast and the clouds were low and dark.

A few feet away from the cave, there was a wet patch on the sandy soil, with a trail of blood leading a few feet toward the surrounding rocks.

More blood. Lots and lots of blood.

As long as it wasn’t Sharp’s blood.

Grace forced herself to follow Sharp, who moved quickly and silently. How he could do it in his current condition, she had no idea.

He’d probably smirk and say,
That’s what put the special in Special Forces
.

Twice, they had to hide from Afghan men. Sharp whispered that it was better if they didn’t kill anyone else, since that person could be missed or the body discovered, alerting all the searchers.

That was just fine with her.

They were approaching a plateau when a helicopter seemed to emerge out of the cooling air. The markings on the bird proclaimed its allegiance and function. It was American. A Combat Rescue team.

Relief spurred her feet and she ran with Sharp toward the craft.

Unfortunately they weren’t the only ones.

From three o’clock came movement on the ground, along with gunfire.

Sharp put his stolen rifle to his shoulder and returned fire. So did soldiers on the bird. As they came closer to the helicopter, now hovering a few feet above the ground, the Afghans rushed the aircraft.

Grace pulled her Beretta and fired until her clip was empty.

Sharp stumbled and fell to one knee, but was up, firing and running at the same time almost immediately, with one difference.

He was limping worse than before.

“Are you injured?” she yelled at him.

He didn’t answer.

She scanned his body, trying to see what had happened and narrowed her gaze on his right leg. It looked wet. Again. Bloody. Again. “Have you been shot?”

“Not now, Grace. You can screech at me later. If we survive.”

“
Screech?
” Ha. She was going to take a strip off of him, she really was. She was also very tired of being shot at.

More shots were fired behind them. Sharp shoved her down behind a pile of rocks, spun and returned fire. They were only ten or fifteen feet from the helicopter.

“Get over here, you moron,” she yelled. “You don’t have any body armor on!” Okay, maybe she was screeching a little.

But the gunfire directed at the helicopter stopped. Sharp grabbed her by the scruff of her uniform and dragged her with him as he continued on.

“Sharp, how bad is your leg?”

“It’s still attached,” he barked at her. “Get in the bird.”

A soldier manning the doorway, returned fire over her Grace’s head as Sharp threw her inside and covered her body on the floor of the helicopter.

She tried to get up, but he yelled in her ear, “Stay down.” With his entire weight on her, she didn’t have any choice.

More bullets pinged overhead as they lifted off. This time two soldiers fired back before slamming the door shut. She couldn’t see much, but she could tell the men on board were yelling at each other, trading hand signals and preparing for God knows what.

Sharp finally got off her and helped her up. She immediately looked at his leg. Damn it, he had blood all over himself. She got in his face and yelled, “Sit down. I want to see your leg.”

He hesitated, like he was going to argue, but sat down in one of the jump seats instead. She put her hands on his leg and began searching for the wound.

Someone put a headset over her ears.

“Ma’am,” a man said over the headset. “I need to check your injuries.”

She looked over her shoulder at the soldier behind her. He wore a paramedic patch on his shoulder and his helmet.

“I’m a trauma surgeon. Major Samuels,” she told him calmly. “My injuries are minor and can wait. Sergeant Foster has sustained multiple wounds to his leg. He’s first priority.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied. He dipped his head and came up with a pair of scissors.

She loved working with the Combat Rescue guys. They were prepared for everything.

Grace cut Sharp’s pants where the blood seemed heaviest and found the bullet wound she’d bandaged hours before sluggishly bleeding. She checked the back of his thigh to see if there was anything new there, but aside from more bleeding, it was okay. She reached up and squeezed Sharp’s hand.

“Through and through happened a few hours ago,” she said to the paramedic. “Doesn’t seem to have involved the femoral artery, but he might need a transfusion. Let’s pack it for now. He can be sewn up at the base.”

She and the medic went to work, put an IV line in and had him bandaged up in a few minutes.

“Am I gonna live?” Sharp asked, now wearing his own headset.

“Yep. You might have some muscle damage, but nothing that should put you on the sidelines for long.”

A grimace etched lines onto his forehead and around his mouth. “Sidelines? I don’t want to go there at all, Doc.”

She got herself strapped into the jump seat facing her patient. “You don’t get a choice, Sharp.”

His grimace dug in deeper. “We might all have fewer choices when we get back to the base.”

That sounded ominous. “What does that mean?”

“I mean, these guys—” Sharp glanced around at the soldiers surrounding them “—say Marshall is not a happy camper. He’s pissed. At you.”

“Because I went over his head about his cleaning plans?” She pressed her lips together. “Too damn bad. It’s not a situation he’s in control of. He doesn’t have enough info to make the right decisions.”

“He doesn’t agree.”

“He doesn’t need to. This is over his head and his pay grade.”

“He can still make trouble. Slow things down.”

“Why would he do that? He’d be risking lives of soldiers and civilians both.”

“I didn’t say I agreed with him, I said what I think he’s going to do. Right or wrong, the guy was king shit of his island until you voted him out without a paddle or a canoe.”

And here she thought the man couldn’t get any lower or behave any worse. “Well, that’s just fucking perfect.”

Chapter Eleven

A grin came and went on Sharp’s face. “Wow, so you do know how to swear.”

She looked at the other soldiers on the helicopter. Most of them still wore grins, but a couple didn’t. They frowned and avoided her gaze. Great. Marshall was probably going to hear a complete report of everything they’d said here within minutes of their arrival at the base. She’d need to talk to Max ASAP to make sure Marshall didn’t get in the way of what needed to be done, rather than what one power-hungry asshole wanted done.

He was going to come at her with everything he had, which was a lot. His initial patrol infected, the helicopter crash and her having gone over his head before she left.

Yep, he was going to attempt to tear her limb from limb.

She let one of the combat rescue medics check her over and re-dress the injuries on her left arm and leg. Sharp was lying quietly on his gurney on the floor of the aircraft, staring at the bulkhead above him or at her face. She listened as he asked the medic monitoring him how much longer until they arrived at the base.

Fifteen minutes.

Grace let her head fall back. Fifteen minutes of relative peace before having to face Marshall and the rest of Sharp’s team. Rasker and Williams had died in the crash, and so had the rest of the men with them. All of them soldiers. All of them her responsibility.

No matter how rational an explanation there was for their deaths, she was the reason they’d been in that helicopter, the reason they died.

Maybe she deserved to get yelled at, because she’d accomplished nothing. She still had the original samples, yes, but they were over twenty hours old now, and they’d had the shit shaken out of them.

She was going to have to go back to the village and get fresh ones.

Marshall wasn’t going to like that.

Something nudged her foot. She glanced down at Sharp, who tapped his headset. She checked hers and realized she’d shut it off.

“What?” she asked after she turned it back on.

“How long will it take for you to fix me up?”

Geez, he sounded like it was as easy as fixing a car. A few stitches here, a unit of blood there and he’d be as good as new.

“You need at least one unit of blood, probably two. Your bullet wounds, large and small, need to be cleaned out and sewn up. You’ll need a complete set of X-rays to make sure you don’t have any broken bones, and you need at least eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. You tell me, how long will it take?”

“Too fucking long.”

She shrugged. “That sounds about right.”

His narrow gaze told her he suspected something. “What are you going to do when we land?”

“I need to go back and get fresh samples.”

“You’re not going back to that village alone.” He said it like he was the major and she was the sergeant.

“Of course I won’t. I’m sure Marshall will assign several soldiers to accompany me.”

Sharp lifted his lips in a silent snarl, showing her just how much he didn’t like that idea. She didn’t like it much either, but her list of choices in regard to how she completed her mission was getting shorter and shorter. She gave him a long, direct look that said
protest all you want
,
buddy
,
it’s going to happen
.

“Make contact with Cutter as soon as we’re on the ground,” Sharp said. “He’ll support you in whatever you have to do.”

“Are you sure about that? Rasker and Williams are dead.” Grace fought tears. Again.

“Not your fault.”

She shook her head. She was the reason they’d gone.

“Hey.” Sharp rapped his knuckles against her leg. “
Not your fault
.”

“Then whose fault is it?”

“The son of a bitch who’s playing around with a bacteria that could easily kill a whole lot of people.” He wrapped his hand around her ankle. “Don’t lose focus. Stay on task. Complete the mission.”

“I wish it was that easy.”

“It isn’t easy.”

She sighed. “Let me guess, it’s what puts the
special
in Special Forces?”

The medic on the other side of Sharp’s gurney stifled a laugh.

“Now, now,” Sharp said with a grin in his voice. “No giving away trade secrets.”

“Ha, as if. What I know about how you guys get to be what you are would fit in a shot glass.”

The pilot broke in to their conversation. “Two minutes to touchdown. Medical standing by.”

Everyone onboard shifted in anticipation of landing.

“Remember what I said,” Sharp ordered, his hand on her ankle again. “Make contact with Commander Cutter.”

“I won’t forget. I want to tell him personally how sorry I am for the loss of Rasker and Williams.”

“Tell him I want beans for breakfast, okay?”

“Beans?”

“Don’t knock ‘em. They’re good for when you’ve got a long haul ahead of you or when you need to heal.”

At that moment the helicopter landed and two medics were unstrapping Sharp’s gurney and rushing him out as fast as they could.

Grace released her jump harness and followed them into the base hospital. She quickly related the history of Sharp’s injuries to the on-duty doctor, who insisted on taking care of Sharp himself, while she got checked out by another physician.

She ended up needing a few stitches on her left leg and arm. The doctor had finished sewing her up and was talking to her about giving her antibiotics despite the fact that no visual infection seemed present, when Colonel Marshall strode into the curtained cubicle treatment room she was in.

Colonel Marshall was an old-school officer. Big on discipline, short on excuses and zero on failure. She anticipated anger, frustration and dislike.

He looked like he wanted to kill someone—her. She held herself very, very still.

“Is she medically fit?” he asked the attending doctor without looking away from her.

“Yes, sir,” the doctor replied. He’d also frozen into immobility, his back against the wall.

“Dismissed.”

The doctor glanced at Grace, then left without saying anything else.

Coward
.

Marshall waited a couple of seconds, then snarled, “My patrol is dead. Every last man.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“I don’t want your goddamn apology,” he spat at her. “I want a fucking explanation for why you chose to leave the majority of your team, and my men, to die.”

“They’re
all
dead?” No one had mentioned anything to her. No one had even brought up the village and what was happening there.

“My entire original patrol is dead, thanks to you. The rest of the A-Team that went with you are fine, for now, but they won’t stay that way for long. Insurgents have taken up positions around the village and are trying to pick them off.”

“Did you send in some support?”

“Don’t tell me how to do my job,” he yelled, not an inch from her face. She jerked back as his spittle landed on her eyes, nose and mouth. “I sent support, but guess what, their helicopter came under heavy fire short of the village and barely made it back here intact.”

He walked around her, shoving her away from the exam table she was standing in front of, until he could circle her. “I was told you left in a bird with three of my men and two from the A-Team. Where are they?”

Was this some kind of trick question? “We were shot down, sir.”

He walked around her one full circuit before saying, “And you survived with a couple of scratches. How convenient.”

Ooh, that was the wrong word to use. “Convenient would have been arriving at my destination with my samples and my escort intact,” she said in as even a tone as she could manage. “Convenient would have been identifying the pathogen that killed everyone in that village
and
your men, and determining the correct procedure to contain and eradicate the pathogen.”

“What a load of sanctimonious bullshit,” he sneered at her.

“It wasn’t bullshit to regain consciousness after the crash to realize that most of the people with me were dead. Insurgents reached our crash site in minutes.
Minutes
, Colonel, and when they got there they proceeded to shoot everyone they found, alive or dead, in the head.”

“Explain to me how you and your boyfriend got away with so few injuries.”

She narrowed her gaze. “I’d found someone alive, one of your men. I was trying to find the emergency medical supplies when two Afghan insurgents arrived and began shooting everyone. I was hidden behind a piece of bulkhead, and though I hadn’t found the medical supplies, I’d found the backup weapons’ locker. I loaded a Beretta and shot them both.”

“You shot them?”

“Yes.”

“And your boyfriend?”

“Who are you referring to? I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“That sniper pal of yours, the one who never leaves you alone.”

“He’d been thrown clear of the aircraft. The two insurgents had spotted him and were moving in to kill him. I shot them first.”

“Well, isn’t that a nice, neat little story.” His sneer twisted even further. “I don’t buy any of it.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re lying.”

His accusation made no sense whatsoever. “Why would I lie?”

“To cover up your earlier mistakes at the village that allowed my men to die of whatever bug killed them.”

“I made no mistakes.”

“I’ve got eight bodies that say otherwise.” He stepped back and signaled to two armed soldiers standing a few feet away. “Lock her up.”

They approached her, one with handcuffs out. “What? Why?”

“I’m charging you with dereliction of duty, abandoning your post and reckless disregard for human life,” Marshall said as his goons cuffed her and then started to march her out of the medical building.

“None of that is true!”

No one paid her any attention. Not even Marshall spared her another glance once his men had her under control.

She twisted her body and head around as far as she could in order to yell, “Wait! We have to go back to the village and get new samples. The ones I took are probably contaminated.”

No response.

A few members of the medical staff flicked glances at her and she could tell they were worried, but with Marshall in no mood to listen to anyone, no one said anything.

“Colonel, please,” she begged. “Send another team.”

Her two jailers marched her faster.

The last thing she heard was Marshall ordering Sharp locked up with her under the same charges.

Holy shit
. Marshall had just made a horrible situation a thousand times worse.

There was nothing she could do to stop him.

* * *

Sharp lay on the gurney, playing possum for all he was worth. The last thing he wanted anyone to know was that he was conscious. Grace had talked to the doc who was still sewing him up. This was the third wound he’d put stitches in and there might still be a fourth. They’d also stuck an IV in his arm and were giving him a unit of blood. He felt better already.

He’d pretended to pass out during his first stitching up, mumbling something about being afraid of needles.

His gurney was on the other side of the cloth wall from where Grace got checked out and stitched up, so he’d heard every word Marshall said to her.

The guy was a paranoid buck-passer, but the charges he’d leveled against Grace were no joke. Things were FUBAR and Marshall had decided to make her the scapegoat. Along with Sharp’s A-Team.

Not a smart move.

Sharp continued his lights-out routine as the doctor finished up, then played dead when Marshall came and breathed right on his face.

Someone needed a mint.

“Why isn’t he awake?” Marshall demanded. “I was told he was talking to the bitch on the bird.”

“Maybe he was, but from all the bruising and swelling he’s had his bell rung at least twice. He lost consciousness while I was sewing him up.”

Marshall stepped away and grunted. “Move him to the brig.”

“I’m afraid I can’t allow that, Colonel,” the doctor said. “Sergeant Foster needs to remain immobile until after I’ve done a scan of his head. If he’s got the concussion I think he has, I might even need to perform emergency surgery.”

No one said anything for a moment, then Marshall grunted again. “He’s under arrest for the same charges as Samuels. When he wakes up, contact me.”

“Yes, sir,” the doctor said.

Heavy footsteps walked away, followed by a couple of others.

Other people started talking, mostly medical-speak.

One of those voices belonged to his doctor, who ordered the cleanup of the exam room he was in and the one where Grace had been. After a few minutes, things seemed to calm right down.

A soft sound told him someone was standing close by.

The doctor whispered in his ear, “You can stop faking now.”