Deadly Strain (Biological Response Team) (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Stone reached out to take the envelope, and Sharp sucked in a breath to stop him, but Grace hollered first.

“Don’t touch it!”

Everyone froze.

“Anthrax. Envelopes.” She nodded at a table that stood against the nearest wall.

The general’s aide walked over, gently set the envelope down and backed away with his hands in the air.

“Sir,” Grace said. “We brought an effective disinfectant with us, wash your hands in it.” She turned to the general. “I recommend you seal off Akbar’s quarters and work area.”

“Contaminated?” Marshall asked.

“I won’t know until I can test for anthrax, but it’s better to be safe rather than sorry.”

Marshall ordered a man to bring some of the disinfectant from the helicopter.

“What would it look like?” Sharp asked. “If there was anthrax planted there.”

“That’s the problem,” Grace said to everyone. “The spores are so small, you’d think it was a little bit of dust.” She sounded as worried as he felt. Dust? How were they supposed to fight that? With vacuum cleaners?

“General Stone,” Sharp said. “This attack could be aimed against you or whichever high-ranking officer it would require to clean up this messy situation. Respectfully recommend you leave the base.”

“Or, the people behind this attack could be waiting for me to leave,” he said. “It would be relatively easy to take me out in a helicopter.”

“Not if one left before yours as a decoy.”

The general grunted and considered the floor for a moment. “Major, could this anthrax be produced anywhere?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. Some mobile labs are fully equipped for anthrax. Max is working in a portable isolation chamber in a cave at this moment. And, if you’re not too concerned with safety, all you really need is power and privacy.”

“Afghanistan is riddled with caves.”

“For a lab to be operating for any length of time, they would need to bring in fuel for the generators.”

“And other supplies, as well.” Stone nodded and turned to Marshall. “Have your people review satellite pictures of the region from the past month. Look for fuel and other supplies going into the mountains, or vehicles leaving full and returning empty.”

“Yes, sir.” Marshall turned and nodded at a man, who ran off to carry out the orders.

“I’ve got a bio-suit, but I’ll need a Sandwich,” Grace told the general.

“I can have one here in three hours,” Stone said. “Colonel Maximillian organized resupply for this eventuality.”

“Excellent.”

“Until it gets here,” the general said, pointing a finger at her, “you are to report to the base hospital. You will follow any recommendations the ranking doctor might make. Understood?”

“But, sir, Akbar’s quarters?”

“There are people on base who can take care of that. Hospital. Now.”

Grace looked like she’d just sucked on a lemon. “Yes, sir.” She turned her sour expression on Sharp, but all he did was smile back. She needed care and he was willing to play dirty to make sure she got it.

Grace saluted the general and left to follow her orders, he hoped.

“You.” The general looked at him with a scowl on his face. “You’ve made yourself responsible for the major?”

It wasn’t exactly a question, but he answered it anyway. “Yes, sir.”

“Commander Cutter was your CO and now he’s dead.” The general shook his head. “What a goddamn mess.” He looked at Smoke, March, Clark, Runnel and Hernandez. “Is this all that’s left of your team?”

“No, sir. Our second in command, Leonard, is at the village north of here where the anthrax first appeared, with the other two surviving members of the team.”

“I’ve sent reinforcements up there and ordered anyone healthy to return here. They should be joining you soon enough.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your job is to dog the major’s steps. Never let her out of your sight. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.

“I don’t care if she squawks loud enough to raise the dead, you men go where she goes.”

“She’s that important?” Marshall asked, his own expression sour.

“People with her skills don’t grow on trees. We’ve got less than a dozen specialists like her in the army,” the general said. “But she’s also reckless. You boys keep her out of trouble or I’ll have your asses over a hot fire. Understood?”

“Sir, yes, sir,” they responded together.

“Go,” he ordered.

They went.

Marshall raised a hand, as if to stop them from leaving. “Sergeant, I...” He stopped with a faintly surprised look on his face, as if it were the first time in his life he didn’t know what to say.

Sharp didn’t need to hear the words. “I’ll tell her, sir.”

Marshall’s face turned red, but he met Sharp’s gaze with a steady one of his own. “See that you do.”

Sharp saluted and led his team out into the sunshine.

It looked like a beautiful day. Quiet and peaceful.

He’d learned not to trust either.

The walk to the base infirmary didn’t take long, but Grace was already lying down on a gurney, a doctor and a nurse talking to her while they worked.

The nurse glanced up and saw him and his guys walking their way and pulled the curtain to block their view.

As if that would stop him.

He flashed a hand signal at his men to stay where they were and ducked around the curtain.

“Out,” the nurse ordered as soon as she caught sight of him.

He looked at Grace.

She rolled her eyes. “He can stay. I have the feeling General Stone ordered him to stick close.”

“You sure?” the doctor said.

“Yeah, he was the first one to patch up my leg. I don’t think the sight of my underwear is going to incite him into unbridled lust.”

Someone outside the curtain coughed.

Sharp grinned, but kept his mouth shut.

“Who’s out there?” she asked.

“Who do you think?”

“All of them? Huh, I guess I scared someone pretty bad.”

“Several someones.” Including him. Sharp shook his head. “You’ve got a nose for trouble, Doc.”

She winced at something the doctor or the nurse was doing. “I wish I didn’t.”

“How’s her infection looking?” Sharp asked the doctor. “She had a fever before.”

“It looks okay,” the doctor said after a glance at Grace’s face and her nod. “I’m going to give you a liter of saline to get you rehydrated,” he said to Grace. “Keep taking those antibiotics.”

“Of course,” she replied. “Can I go back on duty as soon as that liter is infused and I’ve had something to eat?”

“No,” Sharp said. “You need eight hours of rest, minimum.”

“He’s right, Grace,” the doctor said. “Sleep is your next order of business.”

She looked from Sharp to the doctor and back, then rolled her eyes again. “Fine.”

The doctor walked away from Grace and stripped off his gloves. “Angie is going to put a new dressing on that and get the IV started.”

“Thanks, Ted,” Grace said. She looked at Sharp. “Could you hunt down some food? You should eat too.”

“Sure.”

Sharp sent Hernandez and March to get MREs for everyone while the nurse got the IV running in the back of Grace’s hand.

Sharp pulled the curtain aside so Smoke and Clark could join them. A few minutes later, March came back with five MREs and Sharp took way too much satisfaction in watching Grace eat.

He was such a Neanderthal.

“March, how’s your shoulder?” Grace asked while they ate.

March paused in his shoveling of food into his mouth. “Fine. Doc cleared me for duty.”

Grace frowned at him, but didn’t say anything more.

When Hernandez came back, his face was so carefully blank Sharp knew shit had hit the fan somehow.

“What?” Sharp asked them, setting his meal aside.

“Her bio-suit has been punctured in multiple places,” Hernandez said. “It’s useless.”

“Marshall hid ours somewhere, track those down.”

“They’ve been destroyed too.”

“Fuck me,” Sharp hissed. When were they going to catch a break with this bug baker?

Grace looked pale. “Sabotaged? When?”

“Don’t know,” March answered.

“General Stone and Colonel Marshall need to know.”

“Fill them in, Hernandez, then get your butt back here.”

Hernandez saluted and jogged away.

Sharp studied Grace’s expression. She was staring into space, her mind obviously working.

“What next?” he asked her.

“I think we can safely say someone doesn’t want any of us to have the proper isolation equipment available.”

“Agreed.”

“If it were you,” Grace asked him, “revenge on your mind, and you wanted to kill a bunch of American soldiers, including a general, what would you do with a baseball-sized amount of anthrax spores?”

Scary question.

“I’d probably put a plan A and B into motion. Plant some inside the base and throw some at the base.”

“Plant some,” she muttered under her breath. “Like in a workspace or gathering place?”

“Nope, if it were me that lost my family and I was wanting to kill those I decided were responsible, I’d take out the highest-ranking person in the organization by making sure my weapon was targeted at him. The throw-and-run type of weapon, I’d use on the grunts taking orders.”

She nodded. “I agree. Please send someone to tell General Stone and Colonel Marshall not to go back to their quarters until they’ve been checked for spores.”

“Yup,” Sharp said, nodding at Clark.

“Next, we need to evacuate the base. Get all the grunts out of here.”

“Hmm, I don’t think that’s going to work, sweetheart,” Sharp said.

“Why not?”

“If everyone leaves before the designer has released his pestilence on everyone here, he’ll just change his plans and target another base. One we might not know about. Now is the time to find him and stop him. Before he initiates his attack.”

“How are we going to do that?” She shook her head. “It won’t work. I’m not willing to sacrifice a few hundred soldiers like they’re nothing more than fish bait.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. I want to hunt this fucker down and kill him before he has a chance to do anything else.”

“Hunt him where?”

“That’s what all those satellite pictures are going to help with. We should be able to narrow down the possible locations.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“We move on to the next location.”

“What if that’s wrong?”

“Grace,” Sharp said, smiling at her. “This is part of the job we’re actually good at.”

“Why don’t I feel reassured?”

He shrugged.

Clark came back at a run. “I was too late.”

“What?” Grace asked sharply.

“Marshall went to his quarters. When he opened the door, a light bulb fell on the floor and shattered, releasing a cloud of fine dust.” Clark stopped to take in a breath. “He closed the door right away, but some of the spores could be hanging around, right?”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Grace ran. Blood dribbled down the back of her hand and off the end of her middle finger. When had she taken the IV out?

Someone bellowed her name behind her, but she ignored it. The clatter of footfalls, many of them, chased her, but she ignored them too.

She wasn’t going to lose the father like she’d lost the son.

A hand wrapped itself around her arm just south of her shoulder and tried to pull her to a stop.

She abruptly switched directions, throwing her weight onto the man who’d grabbed her, pushing him to the ground. She twisted her arm to get him to let go, but his grip was strong and sure, and she found herself hauled down on top of him.

She bared her teeth at the one man she trusted to let her do her job and snarled, “Let me go.”

“Doc,” Sharp growled back at her. “You can’t go in there.”

She met him glare for glare. “I can’t let him die.”

Sharp’s voice was hard, cold and unrelenting. “He’s dead already.”

A cold chill abraded her exposed skin, and a broken sound of protest escaped her tight throat. “We don’t know that for sure.”

“Lying to yourself never works out. I know, I’ve tried.”

His shot hit home and she sucked in a painful breath and pushed at his chest with both palms. “We can’t do nothing.”

He scanned her face with an intent gaze then let her go with slow deliberation. “We can’t run willy-nilly into danger either.”

She had run off without thinking. The bio-suit was damaged. No one should go anywhere near Marshall’s room until the air and surfaces within twenty feet of the doorway had been tested for spores.

How the hell was she supposed to do anything to help anyone without a way to protect herself?

Anger’s heat suffused her body, curling her hands into fists. Helpless—she was helpless to stop this weapon, to stop the man behind the weapon.

Helpless was one thing she refused to accept.

She forced herself to engage her brain. She needed information. “Does Marshall have a phone or radio with him?”

“Yeah.”

“I need to talk to him. I need to know exactly what happened.”

Sharp’s gaze didn’t waver, but he nodded. “It’s this way.” He led her to another set of prefab buildings, these devoted to communications.

He left her standing in the middle of the room to talk to the soldier manning a computer and wearing a Bluetooth headset.

She turned and found the way out blocked by Smoke and Clark. “I’m not going to run away.”

Clark shrugged while Smoke didn’t reply at all except to glance at Sharp once, then back at her.

“Doc?”

Sharp’s voice brought her attention back to him, and she walked toward the phone he held out to her.

“Colonel Marshall?”

A man coughed. “Here,” he said, his voice so rough it sounded like it had been torn to shreds.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

He made an impatient sound.

“I’m sorry if this is getting repetitious, but I need to hear it from you, not second—or third-hand.”

“Understood. I opened the door to my quarters and a light bulb fell from somewhere above me, smashed on the floor, releasing a cloud of fine dust.” He paused to cough for several seconds. “As soon as I saw that cloud of shit, I knew. The son of a bitch had put a trap in my room. I know I’m dead, but I didn’t want to take anyone with me, so I slammed the door.”

“How long after the dust was released into the air did you shut the door?”

“A second, maybe two.”

“It’s only been a few minutes since it happened, yet you sound very ill. Can you describe your symptoms for me?”

“Sore throat, watery eyes, difficulty breathing.”

“When did those start?”

“Within a couple minutes of breathing in that crap.”

“I’d like your input on our next steps. My bio-suit has been damaged beyond repair. This reduces our ability to investigate what’s happened and assist you.”

Marshall laughed. “I’ve heard you talk like that before, and I always thought you were a cold fish, Doctor, but now I realize you’re so angry you’ve got yourself on lockdown.”

She had no response for that.

“Here’s what you’re going to do.” His voice changed from amused to steel-strength hardness. “You’re going to find the fucker who’s fucking with us and kill him.”

“But...”

“No buts, Doctor. Those are your orders.”

It took her two whole breaths to calm herself enough to attempt speech again. “There has to be a way to help you.”

“I’m dead. Make it worth something.”

“I don’t think I can do it. Leave you to die, I mean.”

Marshall didn’t say anything for a few moments. “You never let Joe go, did you?”

A sob burst out of her, and she sucked the rest back until her whole chest hurt from keeping them in. “No. I see his face in my mind every day. When I wake up, when I doubt myself, and before every decision.”

“My son acted without thinking and it got him killed,” Marshall said in a tone she’d heard him use for his own soldiers, but never with her. “He fell for the distraction. Don’t make the same mistake. Find the
real
enemy. He’s probably not far. Men like him want to watch their handiwork in motion. Figure it out, Major Samuels. Kill the asshole before he kills again.”

“Yes, sir.” She swallowed hard and said, “It’s been an honor serving with you.”

The line went dead.

Grace put the phone down gently and turned to face Sharp. “He said this is all a distraction and we’re falling for it. We need to find the real enemy. Marshall thought he wouldn’t be far.”

“What about Marshall?” Sharp asked.

She couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down her face. “He’s already feeling sick. He inhaled a huge amount of spores. I don’t think...he’ll last long.”

General Stone spoke from where he sat, unnoticed, on the far side of the room. “Marshall’s right. Go find me that bugger,” he said to Sharp. “But don’t kill him, not unless you have to. I want to have a little chat with him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Doctor,” Stone said to Grace. “You’re going with the Berets. They may need your expertise.”

“Understood, sir.”

“However—” he pointed a finger at her “—no heroics.”

“Sir, I believe Sergeant Foster will sit on me if I try to do something noble like trying to save someone’s life in the middle of a firefight.”

“And take care of that hand.”

She glanced down. The back of her hand was covered in blood and big scab had formed where the IV had been inserted into a vein.

“I will, sir.”

Stone grunted and waved a hand at them.

Sharp took Grace by the arm again and walked her out of the communications building and into supply with Hernandez, March, Runnel and Smoke trailing behind. He loaded her up with clean clothing, body armor, a Beretta and extra clips of ammunition.

He marched her to the nearest bathroom, where she washed her hand and put a Band-Aid over the puncture hole.

She disappeared into another female soldier’s quarters and changed clothes. When she came out, she felt almost human again. “I’m ready,” she told Sharp.

“That makes one of us,” he muttered, then added in a louder tone, “We’re expected in the War Room. Those satellite pictures should be ready now.”

She glanced at him while he spoke and watched the muscle in his jaw bunch. “You’re angry?”

He didn’t answer.

She put her hand on his arm and pulled him to a stop. “Talk to me.”

Hernandez coughed. “We’ll meet you there.” He patted Sharp on the shoulder. “Good luck, buddy.” March, Runnel and Smoke followed him.

Sharp scowled at the men, then met Grace’s gaze and crossed his arms over his chest.

“What?” she asked, matching his posture.

“This is going to be a bitch of a mission, and I don’t want you...”

“There?” she finished.

“In harm’s way,” he corrected.

“I’ve been doing that since I took the Hippocratic Oath. There’s a part that goes,
I
will prevent disease whenever I can
,
for prevention is preferable to cure
. This is prevention.”

“You’re equating disease prevention to taking out a terrorist?”

“Yes.” She shook her head. “Jerk.” She continued walking to the War Room, Sharp grumbling behind her all the way.

Stone was in the War Room and examining a number of satellite photos. As soon as she and Sharp walked in, Stone gestured at Sharp to join him.

She glanced at the photos on the table, but they all looked the same to her. This part, she wasn’t going to have much input in. She just hoped Sharp wouldn’t do anything to make her job harder in the name of protecting her.

She moved around the table to look at the photos from a different perspective. At first they seemed so alike, studying them would be a waste of time. As she looked at them, though, individual elements began to pop out of them. At first it was the rutted lines of roads and buildings, or their remains, crafted by man. She found one with three trucks headed down the same rough country road.

Hadn’t Sharp said to look for a spot with a lot of truck traffic in and out?

She picked up the picture and studied it closer. The trucks appeared to be heading to...nowhere?

“Where is this?” she asked out loud.

The room went silent, and she glanced up. Sharp was on his way around the table to her.

She handed him the photo, then he looked at it and nodded.

“Here it is, sir. Sixteen hours before that one.” He pointed at the photo Stone was currently looking at. He strode around the table and put the picture in front of the general.

Stone stared at the photo. “I agree. Get out there and find out if this is our traitor’s home base.”

Sharp glanced at the men in his team and said, “Saddle up.”

* * *

He didn’t want her on this mission. Damn it, she’d been through hell already and she didn’t need to get beat up, shot or infected with anything else. Unfortunately, they also needed her on this mission.

It was the only reason he hadn’t duct-taped her to a wall in her quarters.

He led his men and Grace back to their staging area to get geared up and remembered she didn’t have a bio-suit. Fuck.

“You don’t have a suit.”

“No. I don’t.”

Shit, she wasn’t going to let that stop her, she of the Hippocratic Oath.

“I’m not about to throw my life away,” she said in a softer tone. “I won’t take any unnecessary risks.”

“Who gets to define what
unnecessary risk
means?”

She sighed. “Both of us.”

He stopped and pointed a finger in her face, when what he really wanted to do was kiss the fight right out of her. “If things go to shit, you follow my commands. No arguing or hanging back.”

“As long as you let me do what I need to, no problem.”

He held out his hand and she shook it.

“Jesus Christ, I’m outta my fucking mind,” Sharp muttered as he resumed their journey to the staging area.
And in love with a fucking angel.
That, he didn’t say out loud. She’d run like hell if he did.

A helicopter was waiting for them, fueled and rotors turning when they hit the helicopter pad twenty minutes later. They took off into the setting sun.

The trip wasn’t a long one, only forty miles away, but Sharp got their pilot to slow down and fly low as if on a search pattern a couple of miles out from their target. They hopped out as the bird disappeared behind a rise, then the bird popped back up as if nothing had happened.

Sharp’s team spread out to watch for incoming threats as they moved closer and closer to their target, likely a cave system.

As darkness fell, they put on their nighttime goggles, Grace too, and continued.

They came across the first roving sentry thirty minutes after departing the helicopter. Smoke took him out quietly with a knife to the throat and hid the body.

They moved forward with more caution and took out two more sentries before having to move down into the rocky gullies in search of the place the road led to.

There was a cave with a mouth about three men wide and two high. Four men, armed with Soviet-made rifles, manned the opening. None of them appeared to be wearing night-vision equipment.

Sharp flashed a signal at Smoke, who moved location slightly, then called out for help in Dari saying he’d twisted his ankle.

Sharp settled into his half-crouch shooting position and found the four in his scope. They were a little too far apart.

The men guarding the cave gathered together, talking about what their response should be, whether one of them should investigate or if two should go.

Sharp couldn’t have asked for a better scenario. He let his breath out and fired.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Dead.

Behind him, Grace sucked in a breath.

He waited for her to say or do something to berate him for shooting the men, but nothing came. No one yelled or moved.

A second later, he and his men were on the move, Grace tucked in behind him. Like she’d been when they’d hightailed it to the hills to hide after the helicopter crash. Her breath came in short pants, just loud enough for him to hear. Just loud enough for him to know exactly where she was even though all his attention appeared to be in front of him.

They moved like a mist, low to the ground in a smooth rush that suddenly contracted and circled the cave’s entrance.

Smoke took point, advancing into the cave. Hernandez followed. He gave the all-clear hand signal and Sharp went in with Grace so close he could feel her body heat penetrating his clothing and armor.

Twenty feet in, voices became audible. Men, speaking in Dari.

Smoke slowed their forward momentum, giving everyone enough time to stay in close formation. Darkness faded as gas lights appeared overhead.

Two men suddenly came toward them carrying a crate, headed toward the cave’s exit. Smoke let them pass.

Hernandez didn’t. He and Clark grabbed a man each and thrust knives into the backs of their skulls. They dropped like dead fish onto the ground.

Smoke and Sharp caught the crate before it could crash on the rocky floor of the cave. They moved it to one wall and went to pry the lid off, but it wasn’t nailed down.