Deadly Strain (Biological Response Team) (15 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Sharp watched sleep take Grace between one second and the next.

“She’s out?” Runnel asked from where he sat a few feet away.

“Yep, like a switch.”

“Cool,” Clark said. A couple seconds later he asked, “What the fuck are we gonna do now?”

“Option one,” Sharp said, sitting on the stone bench next to Grace. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “We wait here for the situation to be cleared by a higher authority and head back to Bostick. Two, we wait here for the doc’s boss, Max, to come to us with more gear. Three, we split up, draw attention away from the doc, so she can get the samples to Max.”

“I don’t like the idea of leaving her without protection,” Clark said. “Splitting up might work for a little while, but once it’s out that she’s not with us...” He shook his head. “She’d be even more vulnerable.”

“Together we’re a larger target,” Smoke added.

Sharp frowned. “Those samples need to be processed. Whoever created this bug could use it anywhere on anyone. That’s our number-one priority.”

“This mission has been fucked up since go,” Runnel said in his deep drawl. “Too many coincidences.”

“That’s been worrying me too,” Sharp said. “I wonder if our helicopter getting shot down was more than just a lucky shot.”

“A traitor?” Clark asked.

“Or an infiltrator maybe.”

“Marshall?”

“No, he’s got a history with Grace. But maybe someone who knows that history took advantage of it to create confusion and conflict to keep everyone from dealing with the big problem.”

“Anthrax.” Smoke sounded like the voice of doom.

“I think the picture is a lot bigger than anyone knows.”

No one said anything for a couple of minutes. Sharp gave them a chance to think on things. He wasn’t Cutter, and he wasn’t going to make decisions that could get them killed all by himself.

“The doc is stubborn,” Clark said. “She’s going to keep the pressure on. It’ll make her an even bigger target.”

Sharp nodded. “As soon as she was ordered to investigate the deaths at the village, she became a primary target of whoever wants to use the anthrax as a weapon.”

“I vote option two, boss,” Clark said. “I don’t trust Marshall to not fuck this up even more.”

Sharp looked at Smoke, who nodded, and Runnel, who grinned.

“Hernandez and March will be on board,” Clark said.

“Give them the heads-up,” Sharp instructed. Clark and Runnel split up to carry out his order.

“Smoke, go talk to our CIA friend, find out how he plans to deal with our incoming visitors.”

Smoke nodded and got to his feet.

“I’m grabbing a few minutes of sleep,” Sharp said.

Smoke smiled and headed back into the tunnel.

Sharp rubbed his eyes and glanced at Grace. She was snoring softly and looked so damn peaceful and cute that, had they been alone, he would have curled up on the floor with her. His hands itched to hold her, to feel her softness, to capture a piece of home.

But they weren’t alone and he couldn’t afford to have the team question his objectivity. If they knew how deep his need to protect her ran, they’d question it now.

He moved to sit next to her on the floor of the cave, leaned his head back and closed his eyes. One of the tricks all Special Forces soldiers learned was how to put themselves asleep in a few seconds, in order to take short naps whenever needed. This allowed them to stay awake without a long period of sleep, for up to several days at a time.

He sank into the breathing pattern that would trigger sleep.

* * *

“Sharp.”

He jolted awake at the sound of his name.

Smoke crouched in front of him and their CIA friend, Jamal, stood a few feet behind with Clark. But it was the item in Smoke’s hand that caught his attention. A satellite phone. He glanced at Grace, but she was still out cold.

Sharp took the phone and stood, waving at the men to back away from the sleeping doctor.

Everyone moved until they were just inside the tunnel.

“Got any intel for us?” Sharp asked Jamal.

“Too much,” he said, his tone sardonic. “
Everyone
is looking for you and your doctor. I’ve had two armed groups of extremists come through my compound already. I told them the story you made up about the helicopter, but I think they’re suspicious. The arrival of more Americans will attract even more attention. Dangerous attention.”

“How long until nightfall?”

“Three or four hours until full dark.”

“Okay. I’ll see if I can work some magic.”

“I have to go watch the store,” Jamal said. “Stay quiet.” He headed back through the tunnel.

Sharp went to where Grace was sleeping and shook her until she complained. “Bug off,” she said, her eyes still closed.

Sharp ruthlessly controlled the spike of need her grumpy complaint shot through him.
Fuck
,
he had it bad
. “Grace, do you have a personal cell phone number for Max?”

She lifted her head an inch, squinted at him and gave him the number. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

“Yep.”

Her head dropped and her snoring purr resumed as if it hadn’t been interrupted at all.

The ease of it hit him between the eyes.

Trust.
The level of trust it took for her to sleep now, in the middle of a life-or-death situation, with only a word from him humbled the shit out of him. It was going to kill him to go back to life at a base, where he couldn’t touch her and had to pretend his feelings didn’t exist.

Fuck, he needed to sleep some more or he’d be crying on Runnel’s shoulder. Ick.

Sharp sat down a few feet away and punched in the number.

A cautious male voice answered, “Hello.”

“Hey, Max,” Sharp said keeping his tone light, almost cheerful. “This is Grace’s friend Sharp. Can you talk?”

A couple of seconds of silence passed before Max replied, “Just a moment.”

The sound of someone walking and a door closing. “How is she?” Max asked in a quiet tone.

“Sleeping. She’s good.”

“I have transport arranged,” Max explained. “I’ll be flying by helicopter to a spot in Iraq, then transferring to a truck so I shouldn’t raise too many eyebrows.”

Sharp stomped on disappointment. “Alone?”

“No, I have another A-Team coming in with me.”

“Okay, that will help. How soon can you get here?”

“An hour or two after dusk.” He paused for a moment. “I’ve argued with Marshall to the point where he won’t take my calls. At the moment his orders are to arrest you on sight. General Stone is coming from Germany to take over the situation, and I’ve talked to him at length regarding this entire fuckup. He wants to get to the bottom of all this and has countermanded Marshall’s orders, but there seems to be a communication problem. Stone’s orders haven’t been passed along to everyone.”

“Figures. Nothing has gone right since the anthrax attack.”

“Be ready for my arrival, and Sharp?”

“Yeah?”

“Take good care of Grace. She’s one of my best doctors and a good friend.”

Something in Max’s tone told him there was more to the story. “Any special reason for that request?”

“Things have not been easy for her since she won the Star,” Max said.

“How bad is it?”

“I don’t know. See you soon.”

Max hung up.

Sharp walked around to talk to each of his men, letting them know the plan and the timetable. Hopefully lying low would get them out of this ridiculous situation without any more trouble.

Like his grandma always said, plan for the worst, hope for the best.

At best they all got out with no one getting killed or going to jail.

At worst, they all died, and there were way too many possibilities in between. He went back to where Grace was sleeping and put his head back for another power nap. No telling when he’d sleep next.

* * *

Grace woke feeling like she’d been run over by a herd of cows. Every muscle group she had ached. Even the insides of her eyelids. She lifted her head and turned to see what was going on.

Sharp was seated a couple of feet away, his head back and eyes closed. His breathing was deep and slow.

Behind her, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye.

Smoke, Runnel and Clark sat on the ground in the center of the cavern. At the moment, they were watching her, but it was obvious by how they situated themselves that they were watching the entire space.

Clark caught her gaze and put sleepy hands by his head, then he pointed at her and nodded.

She dearly wished she could follow his suggestion and get some more rest, but her head was too full of the danger they were in, the problems they were facing and the stacked odds against them.

Her stomach growled. Loud enough that all three men heard it.

Runnel laughed silently, and Clark threw up his hands and motioned her to come over. Smoke just smiled, his white teeth bright against the backdrop of his tanned face and scraggly beard.

Grace pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and crawled over to the three soldiers. They were all grinning at her.

“Stuff it,” she whispered to them.

That just made them laugh. Even silent Smoke. He held out a bottle of water to her and she plopped herself on the ground so she could take it.

Warm water had never tasted so good.

Clark handed her a MRE, which she devoured. The three men watched her like they’d never seen anyone eat before.

“I haven’t eaten a meal in...” She had to think about it. “Days.”

“You still haven’t,” Runnel said.

Grace rolled her eyes at him. “Funny.” She finished eating without any further commentary from the guys and drank some more water before looking at them, hoping for an update on their situation.

“You should get some more sleep, Doc,” Clark told her. “We might be busy in a few hours.”

Well, that was unhelpful.

The anthrax samples sat only feet away.

They’d been accused of murder and their commander had been murdered.

On top of all of that, a despot masquerading as an army officer was trying to find a way to punish her for something she couldn’t have prevented.

Would he stop if she told him she punished herself daily for it?

Sleep. Ha. She snorted softly. “I’ve got so much adrenaline in my system right now I could power a small town. What’s the poop?”

“Poop?” Clark asked, as if he’d never heard the word.

“You know, the latest, the situation, the status, the sticky wicket, the—”

“Stop,” Smoke said, holding up his palm and shaking his head. He transferred his gaze from her face to Clark’s. “Give her the
poop
.”

Clark struggled not to laugh. Runnel looked like he was going to bust something if he didn’t let out his laughter

She gave them a look. “You need to get out more, with, you know, people who don’t swear all the time.”

“Doc,” Runnel said, unable to keep the grin off his face. “Those people are a long way from here.”

“I realize that, but think of them once in a while, please.”

“Yes, ma’am. The poop is, we’re waiting for
your
Max to get here.”

Was she hearing attitude?

“He’s not
my
Max. He’s my boss and a good friend.”

“Whatever.” Clark shrugged, and didn’t look the least bit sorry. “Sharp talked to him while you were out cold. He’s coming with another A-Team, all disguised as extremists.”

“That’s not a bad idea.”

“Yeah.” Clark gave her a sidelong glance. “You planning on playing with that bug in here?”

She looked around the cave. “Since this place is mostly underground, the temperature is moderate. We’re protected from wind and any odd idiots who might get curious and want to investigate what we’re doing.” There was enough space, even with another dozen men, as long as they made an effort to stay out of the way.

“Odd idiots?” Clark asked, laughing again.

“You know what I mean.”

“The sad thing is, I do know what you mean. And you’re right, there are no eyes on us in here.”

She glanced around the cave again, trying to pick out the best area to set up the mobile lab. The stone benches along the wall where Sharp was sleeping were probably best. They would need to move some stuff around.

“Uh-oh,” Clark said to Smoke. “I know that look on her face. It’s the one that says we’re going to be moving furniture.”

When she turned to give the two men a piece of her mind, Smoke pointed at Clark and said, “Odd idiot.”

Clark looked at his friend sourly. “Thanks, man.”

“What’s with all the noise?”

Sharp’s voice brought Grace’s head around. “I’m sorry, I thought we were being quiet enough.”

He glanced at his watch, then at her with a frown. “You should still be sleeping.”

“I’ve got too many thoughts racing around in my head.”

“Grace,” he said, his voice heavy with disapproval. “You won’t be good for anything if you don’t get more sleep.”

“I had a great cat nap.” She stood and put her hands on her hips. “When I was doing my residency I had to work thirty-six hour shifts. I know what my limits are.” She grabbed her pack and pulled out the medical supplies. “Speaking of limits, I’d like to examine your various wounds to make sure none of them reopened over the last few hours.”

Sharp watched her face for a couple seconds more before he stood. He grinned and started unbuckling his pants.

Clark, Runnel and Smoke got up at the same time.

“We’re going to relieve Hernandez and March,” Clark told Sharp, waving his hand around in Sharp’s general direction. “And, uh, give you some time to do that.”

Clark and Smoke split up, one going to the tunnel, the other out toward the hillside exit. Runnel nodded at them. “Yeah, so, I’m going weapons shopping in the grenade aisle.”

She watched them all but run away. “That’s not necessary.” But they were gone. She turned back to Sharp and asked, “What do they think we’re going to do, have sex?”

Sharp shrugged. “Probably.”

Chapter Eighteen

“They know you’ve been shot a couple of times, right?” Grace asked with a touch of disbelief as she grabbed her pack and began pulling out fresh bandages.

Sharp snorted. “Like that would stop me.”

“Excuse me?” Grace froze and stared at him with her eyes wide.

He gave her a mischievous grin. “For you, two measly bullet wounds are nothing.”

“Be serious,” she said, sounding impatient. Like every irritated woman talking to a man she was comfortable with. “A rumor like that could ruin both our careers.”

Except, her hands were shaking.

“Grace—” he began.

“Sharp,” she interrupted. “Take your goddamn pants off.”

Her hands might be shaking, but her voice was rock solid.

“Yes, ma’am.” He shucked his pants, got on the ground, stretched out his legs and reclined on his elbows so he could watch.

She looked him over, starting from the pants wrapped around his ankles to his face. Whatever she saw there made her shake her head. “You’re such a guy.” She grabbed a pair of gloves, snapped them on and went after the bandages over his latest wound. “How does this one feel?”

“Okay. No worse than before.”

She peeled the last layer off and leaned forward to get a better look. Dirt streaked her face, her short hair was messy and there was blood splattered all over her uniform.

He had never seen a more beautiful woman. Ever.

What kind of degenerate moron gets a hard-on in this crummy situation?

Him, obviously.

She poked at the wound and made a happy noise at the back of her throat. A little antibiotic ointment smeared over the stitches, new nonstick pads and more bandages secured it all to his leg.

She switched to the wound on his thigh, leaning over him further in order to reach, and he had to force himself not to grab her and pull her across his lap.

Her hands brushed the skin of his inner thigh as she took the bandage off and he nearly came in his underwear.

Once the bandage was off, she removed the pads and pushed his leg up, so she could see, and prod, both entry and exit wounds.

“How bad is the pain?” she asked, her hands handling him with confident care. No hesitation, just the competence only experience and knowledge gives a person.

Fuck
, that was hot.

He let his head fall back and said, “I’m going to hell.”

“What?”

He brought his head up and let her see the need on his face. The kind a man never gets over, never lets go.

She glanced at the erection the size of a canoe in his underwear, rolled her eyes and said, “Put that thing away before someone sees it.”

Sharp had to choke down a belly laugh that would have alerted anyone within a mile of where they were. It shook his body so hard tears leaked out of his eyes and he collapsed on the ground.

“Goddamn, Doc, I love your mouth,” he managed to wheeze out.

When she looked at him like he was the dirty-minded man he was, he added, “But I love your brain even more.”

“Stop with the sucking up,” she said as she gave his thigh the same TLC as his other leg, then wrapped it all up with another bandage. Again, she seemed fine, until you looked at her mouth and the white lines of strain around it.

Great job, dickhead. Was he determined to fuck everything up today?

He wiped the stupid grin off his face. “I’m sorry.”

She glanced at him as she collected all the dirty bandages and moved back so he could pull up his pants. “Okay.”

The word sounded forced to him, and she headed toward the hillside exit a little too fast. If he’d thought he’d gotten himself out of the doghouse with that sorry excuse for an apology he was wrong.

“Shit,” he said, jumping as he tried to get his pants over his butt. “Grace, wait.”

She paused, but only for a second.

“Grace.” He finally wrestled his fatigues up and leaped forward to catch her arm in a careful grip. “I really am. Sorry, I mean.”

Her blank face didn’t change.

“Fuck, I’m no good at this touchy-feely stuff.” He ran a hand over his face. “I shouldn’t have acted like a sailor who hasn’t seen port in months. I’m such an asshole to even think that shit. How can I make things right between us?”

Her shoulders relaxed and she blinked fast a few times, like she was trying not to cry. “You just did it.”

“What are you apologizing for?” a voice said from behind Sharp.

Hernandez. Just what he needed, a peanut gallery. Not.

Sharp turned to head off anything else the moron was going to say. “Being an asshole. Your turn is next.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Grace keep going toward the exit with the garbage.

Hernandez grinned at him. “Making time with the doc?” he asked in a confidential speaking tone of voice.

Sharp’s reply wasn’t any louder, but it had a backbone of cold steel. “Fuck you.” He glared at his friend. “Say whatever you want about me, but do not disrespect the doc.”

“Ah, shit, sorry, Sharp.” Hernandez looked genuinely hang-dogged. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Yeah, well, start, will ya? We’ve got to be on top of this and back her up all the way or we might all be dead.”

“You bozos are too hardheaded for dead,” Grace said, coming back into the main cave. “I bet you’d even argue with Saint Peter at the Gates about being a wrong delivery.”

“Us?” Sharp said, turning to include her in their conversation. “Argue? Never.”

Hernandez held out his hand to her. “I’m really sorry, Doc.”

After a brief hesitation, she took it. “We’re good.” She turned her intelligent gaze on Sharp’s face. “I’ve heard this kind of thing before in the heat of the moment.”

“Oh yeah?” Hernandez asked.

Sharp was going to kick his ass. He opened his mouth to start the beating, but Grace got there first.

“Two years ago I ended up in the middle of a firefight. There was this one marine sergeant who kept yelling at me to get my, and I quote, ‘sweet American ass back inside the armored vehicle.’ I told him he could go fuck himself, but I wasn’t going without my wounded.” She laughed softly. “I thought he was going to strangle me, but after it was all over, you know what he did?”

Sharp and Hernandez shook their heads.

“He came up to me and said, ‘Good job, Sweet. Good job.
Oorah!
’” She smiled at both men. “Best compliment I’ve ever been paid.” She headed for her pack and began putting things away.

“That was when she won the Star?” Hernandez asked quietly.

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to take that as a win,” Hernandez said.

“
Oorah.
”

* * *

Grace glanced over her shoulder at the two soldiers standing several feet behind her. They were both looking at her with identical proud expressions on their faces, like she was important to them.

Tears prickled the corners of her eyes, and she had to pretend interest in organizing her pack in order to hide how much it meant. How much it helped with the difficult job ahead of her. Because the really hard part hadn’t even started yet.

Max would be here soon, maybe in as few as a couple of hours, and the work to identify how this strain of anthrax had been altered, magnified and weaponized was going to take some time. Then they had to test the bacteria against all known antibiotics to discover if any of them could kill the bacteria, or even slow it down. Again, taking up more time they didn’t have.

Given the deaths of the discovery patrol members, finding a quick answer didn’t seem likely. In the meantime, they had to pray the creator of the anthrax wouldn’t use it before they were ready. Even less likely.

She glanced around the cave, trying to picture how the equipment might fit into the space.

“How can we help?” Sharp asked, coming over to stand next to her. Hernandez flanked her on the other side.

“Well,” she began, “I think these stone benches will make the best working surface, but we’ll need to put down plastic sheeting in order to remove the possibility of dust contamination. If our CIA friend has some we could do that before Max and his team arrives.”

Hernandez nodded. “I’ll ask him. How much do you need?”

“I don’t know, guesstimating stuff like this isn’t a skill of mine, but it’s got to cover from here—” she moved to stand at the end of one bench, then walked about twenty feet down the wall and stood at the end of another one “—to about here, but a few extra feet wouldn’t hurt.”

“About seven or eight yards. Got it.” He headed out, entering the tunnel and disappearing into the dark.

“What’s the next job on your list?” Sharp asked.

She handed him a bottle of water. “You’re going to drink all of this while I talk.”

“They gave me a unit of blood in the medical center at Bostick,” Sharp told her softly even as he opened the bottle and took several swallows.

“Not nearly enough. Did they give you any saline or other fluids?”

“Saline, I think, while I waited for the blood to arrive, and an electrolyte drink right after, but I don’t know how much.”

She harrumphed. “You need to eat too.”

“We’ve got MREs, is that okay?”

Why was he asking so carefully? “It’s better than nothing.” She frowned at him. “Is something wrong?”

He shook his head, then finished the water and grabbed an MRE and another bottle of water.

He wasn’t arguing with her and seemed genuinely interested in preparing for Max’s arrival, so why did she feel like something was wrong?

“So, what’s the next job?” he asked, a pleasant, cooperative smile on his face.

She didn’t trust that expression at all. “We could move everything, so nothing is in the way when the team gets here. Thirteen more people occupying this space.”

“Might get a bit cozy,” Sharp remarked, looking around.

“We’re going to need to work and sleep in shifts, so setting aside an area for sleeping would be useful too.”

“Good idea. There was a smaller room off to the right just as the tunnel starts. That might work. Is Max bringing anyone besides his A-Team?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then you’ll be the only woman.” It was a statement of fact. An irrelevant fact in her opinion, but the way he said it, with just a touch of extra stress on the word
only
made her wonder why it was relevant to him.

“So?” she asked.

“So, stay within sight of one our guys, okay? Until I have a chance to see who’s on Max’s team.”

Her jaw dropped open and for several seconds she couldn’t even breathe, let alone articulate how ridiculous his request sounded.

“You,” she said, “are paranoid.”

“I’m cautious. It’s my job to prote—”

“Shut up,” she interrupted, tapping his meal with one finger. “And eat your food. Maybe a little sugar in the bloodstream will aid your thinking.”

“When did you eat last?”

“While you were sleeping.” Sick of his overbearing taking-care-of-the-little-woman attitude, she deliberately left him and began moving things away from the area she wanted for the lab.

He ate his food, drank the sports drink included and another bottle of water before going in search of the trash inside this camouflaged garbage heap.

She was alone for the first time in days.

The starch went out of her legs and she plopped onto the bench she’d been sweeping rocks off of.

Fear was exhausting. It took a lot of energy to remain in a constant state of terror, and every time she thought she and Sharp were out of danger, something else would happen to make things worse.

Unfortunately, worse seemed to be coming at them from every direction.

Her emotions were all tangled up and not only that, but physically, she was at her limit. At some point soon, her body was going to shut down whether she wanted it to or not.

“Hey, you okay?”

She pulled her hands away from her face. Sharp was crouched on the ground in front of her.

“Just running out of gas. I thought medical school was bad, but this is...worse by an order of magnitude.”

He nodded. “Yeah, this kind of constant-alert shit will kick your ass in short order. Have another nap before this place gets busy.”

“I thought I was okay, until I had more than two seconds of quiet, then I couldn’t even stand anymore.” Tears leaked out to wet her face, which made her feel even more inadequate and weak.

One of his big hands reached out to brush the wetness off her cheeks.

He frowned and felt her forehead. “Grace, you’re burning up.”