Risking the World (7 page)

He shook off his mood and ordered Black out of Tivaz.  Then he checked the portable scanner.  Still no signal, which meant Tiger was running dark and expected to be chased down.  He instructed two men to follow the dirt track because it presented the easiest, most obvious route off the mountain.  He doubted Tiger would go that way, so he took the rest of his force to fan out along the steeper unmarked terrain where cairns marked hidden paths.

A half-hour later his scanner signal flashed, as did surprise, when the coordinates revealed were near the dirt road and not on the unmarked paths.  He radioed his men.  "Ambush them in the valley, but find a way to hold them until I get within range."

His adversary had disappointed him by choosing the easier route.  Nonetheless Tiger's past actions in battle elevated him as a worthy opponent.  And didn't a female companion hamper him?  Varat caressed Grandfather's khanjar, crafted at a time when warriors battled face-to-face. What better first step on his path to redemption than to witness the shock on Tiger's face as his life force gushed out?

Chapter 8

David noted the stream they followed curled to the right, the incline becoming more gradual as a shallow valley opened in front of them. In order to reach the rutted dirt road on the far side, they'd be forced to cross this basin, exposed to Varat and his men if they'd come this way in pursuit.

The briefing profile on Claire Ashe indicated he shouldn't expect her to have firearms training and indeed she did not.  But he took his spare pistol, showed her how to hold it with her trigger finger resting on the guard, and handed it over with the safety off.  He might be angry that she destroyed Black's TB stocks without telling him, but she deserved the right to defend herself if he were to be killed.  Or commit suicide, should that be her choice.

"Wait here.  I'll go to the closest cover and signal you to follow.  Come to me on the exact route I took.  Understand?"

She nodded and he set off in a crouching run to a thicket of bushes that provided a shield.  He flicked his wrist, and she hugged the ravine wall precisely as he had.  Maybe they'd be lucky.

He crept ahead once more, until the gulch no longer shielded him.  His best move now was to spring from the slight arroyo and race for a nearby boulder.  If Bobby were behind him, he could count on his friend to cover him. 

He leapt up and sprinted.  Bullets launched shards of stone directly toward his calves as he dove for the boulder's shelter.  Pinned down. Brilliant.  But at least he was the gunman's target, a situation he had far more experience with than she.  He motioned for her to stay put, and surveyed the terrain.  If he wormed his way along the trifling depression behind his boulder, he just might reach higher ground and a clearer shot.  Belly-scraping effort edged him forward until an inch further would reveal him to the waiting gunman.  A centipede crawled over his hand.  He lay still and watched the insect.  The longer he made the shooter wait, the more likely the shooter would lose concentration.  And then, when he was good and ready, Tiger made a run for it.

"On your left," Claire's voice thundered the instant he took off.

Two guns roared.  He spun and fired at a second shooter before rolling back to the refuge of his rock.

Safe . . . but only because neither rifle fired at him. Damn.

The eerie glow of his night goggles disclosed the second gunman sprawling face down in the dirt, lifeless.  From the man's shape and size he knew it was not Varat.  Next he located Claire, half-slumped against the wall of the ravine.  One arm hung limp and useless.  Her other hand still clutched his pistol.  She tapped the barrel in the crevice between her breasts and then pointed in the remaining gunman's direction.

Good God, she wants to partner?  She understood her warning had drawn fire away from him, and was offering to be decoy again.  She had no experience in this sort of thing.  Still, he knew enough of her to surmise she'd take action once her mind was made up, whether or not he agreed.  So he was prepared when she surged, pistol jutting above the rim of her hiding place. When the gunman returned fire, David stepped free of his own cover and squeezed off a shot.

Normally he would confirm his kills, even though both men were down.  Neither one was Varat.  But the bigger problem was the approaching retort of a semi-automatic weapon.  His decision was made for him, propelling him to Claire's safer position in the ravine.

Her eyes found his . . . then wandered.  "Stay with me, Claire."

Her wound bled steadily without arterial pulse, but he tied her torn sleeve as a tourniquet below her shoulder just to be safe while sporadic blasts echoed from gunmen descending on foot from the hills above.  Only Varat would announce his arrival with such fanfare.  Time to exit this hollow and find a redoubt easier to guard.

But she fought him as he supported her drooping body in his arms, and her good arm dug into the pocket of her jersey until she clutched her prize – that blasted TB canister.  He snugged her closer to his chest and sprinted toward a rocky outcropping, only to find the recess too narrow to shield one body, let alone two.

The thin whine of an engine rose from the track below. Bloody hell.

"Put me down.  Go on your own, Tiger.  Don't let them catch you."

He ignored her and scuttled downhill, seeking cover.

She pounded the stainless steel tube against his chest.  "Take this.  Get it to Don Strong.  He'll know what to do."

"Stop thrashing me."

"More is at stake here than my life.  Put me down. Now."

He slowed.  She was right . . . but could he live with her death as well as Jeremy's on his conscience?  No.  She'd risked her life for him, and now he'd carry her as Bobby carried him in Kurdistan – even if his action resulted in another mistake in a mission already gone awry.

He dashed toward higher ground.  The oncoming auto was winning the race.  He set her on the hard-packed earth and crouched in front in firing position.  The approaching car squealed to a halt just below the ridge he defended.

"Don't shoot, Tiger!  It's Aziz Bouchta!"

What the bloody hell?

"Get in!"

How could he?  This would be his best chance to get Varat while at the same time getting Claire to safety.  He wrestled her into the rear seat while Bouchta reversed direction.  A bullet bit into the dirt a few yards from his trailing foot.  Another ripped metal from the trunk.  He was forced to wrench himself inside so the car could speed away from Varat's escalating fire. He slumped over Claire's body aware his chance for revenge was receding.  
Damn, damn, damn.

When the shooting became more erratic, Bouchta glanced in the backseat.  "How bad is she?"

"She needs medical help, but not in full-blown shock yet."

"Medics wait at Agadir Airport.  Your people will have a plane to meet us."

"Whatever possessed you to broadcast an invitation to the bloody parade?"

"You activated your GPS, Mr. Tiger, and injuries would not be out of the question."

He exhaled his irritation.  "Right.  Got a Sat phone, Bouchta?"  Of course, the man had everything.  He input James' code.

"Here are the coordinates for Varat's facility.  Alert Bobby's team."

"They should go in directly?"

"Straight away.  Varat's not there, but the lead scientist is.  A man called Black.  Moroccan, short, twelve stone, crew-cut black and gray hair.  Go in with containment gear.  The biothreat's real, some sort of super TB bug."

"You unraveled the plot?"

"There were complications."

"Complications?"

"Right."  He looked at Claire, dazed and restless, but still clutching her canister of lethal microbes.  There would be time enough to explain what happened in the debriefs.  "I'll provide details shortly.  Cannot speak now," he said and cut the connection.

The Fiat bounced downhill, away from Varat.  Later, after the ruts gave way to smooth-packed dirt, Bouchta babbled about everything they passed, from sporadic donkey carts laden with tangled branches to rag tag school children carrying satchels of books.  He wished the man would keep quiet, and he stared at Claire.  She'd saved his life and most likely believed he saved hers when he stopped Red.  The truth was far more complex.  He was unable to watch her be raped and his action put her above his mission, the mistake of a rookie.  James was right.  Time he left the field for good.  He was losing his touch.  Claire moaned, and he brushed a strand of hair from her sweaty forehead.

Near the city they crawled behind an ancient truck whose exposed diesel engine blew smoke from fractured seals and strained to haul a mound of gleaming oranges.  Finally, Bouchta broke free and wheeled into the provincial airport where a British jet waited.  The medics took Claire and he followed the stretcher up the steps into the plane.  But he couldn't duck into the cabin before gazing back to the Atlas Mountains that Varat still owned. Unlikely Bobby's team would succeed where he had failed.  The whole mess, his responsibility, would take serious cleaning up.  The debriefs would prove an embarrassment, and he shuddered to imagine James' face when the facts came out.

At least Bobby would be in his corner.  He'd be pissed at the mission's failure, but given their history he could count on his friend's loyalty.  And the best minds in the world would work on the biothreat because of Claire's canister.

Despite everything, deep in his soul he knew it wasn't over between him and Varat.

Chapter 9

The pale pink walls of Claire's hospital room lacked a window, but she'd no desire to look out on the city of London.  The sooner she left this city, the sooner she'd get to Don Strong's lab in New Haven.  No one on the planet surpassed Don at leading top-flight scientists in pursuit of an answer.  She sank back into bed, pulled up the cotton blanket with her good arm, and waited for word from Don.  Why hadn't he called?  Maybe he was in a remote central African location, like the young man from the American embassy told her, but she still expected to hear from him by now.  Surely, he'd understood the stakes.

A loud knock interrupted her thoughts and a man in his late thirties, solidly built and assertive, military by the looks of it, entered.  "Morning, Dr. Ashe.  I'm Bobby Keane."

Yet another American come for details he probably couldn't grasp about Dr. Black's breakthrough, yet unwilling to disclose what happened to the TB sample she'd taken from Tivaz or tell her anything about Tiger.

"David Ruskin sends his regards.  He's been in debriefs nonstop.  Dodged his interrogators for a few minutes yesterday, but you were out cold when he got here."

Tiger came to see me?

"Said he's sorry he missed you.  Sometimes it's good to talk.  The kind of thing you went through together, well, it's hard to feel anybody else understands."

Who was this visitor with short butterscotch hair and friendly blue eyes?  How different from Tiger, whose deep-set eyes seemed to be forever quizzing her from an aloof distance.

"I've partnered with David a few times, so when he says you're one helluva brave lady, hat's off to you.  How's the arm?"

She wasn't prepared for his comment or for him to lift the blanket to inspect her arm.  She shielded her wound.  Instantly he backed off.

"Ouch.  Sorry 'bout that.  They debride it?"

"Yes."

"That sort of wound hurts like hell, but you'll feel better.  Until rehab.  Gotta make time for the exercises."

"Mr. Keane –"

"Call me Bobby."

She eyed him and saw he was as muscular as Tiger, but not as alarming . . . or as beautiful.  She decided to trust him.  "Bobby.  Who has the TB sample I brought from Morocco?"

"It's right here in London, at a lab David's group has used before.  Folks there are first-rate.  They say the stuff spreads like wildfire after a three-year California drought."

"If only water could douse it.  It's a million times worse than Strain W."

"Strain W?"

So clearly he wasn't a scientist.  "Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis that ran riot in New York hospitals and prisons in the mid '90s.  No antibiotics worked.  Nearly everybody infected died.  Only strict quarantine kept it in check."

"This Moroccan thing is really, really bad news?"

She sighed.  "The worst."  Once she thought she knew more about the life cycle of the TB bacillus than anybody but Don.  Then she met Dr. Black.  She drew the blanket tighter around her and prayed Don would ride in soon and find a solution for the genetic modification that made Black's TB strain so lethal. 

As though he could read her mind, her visitor picked right up on where she was.

"Don't worry.  You're gonna be released soon to work on this sucker."

"Good.  I'm just waiting to hear from Don Strong, my old thesis advisor.  He's the best in the world and as soon as I talk to him we can get going on figuring this out."

He picked up the briefcase he'd brought in and put a folder on top of her blanketed mummy-like body.  "No reason not to start now. Here's a list of researchers to assist you.  Pick who you want."

Who the heck is this guy?
  She unwrapped herself and sat up.  Then she opened the folder and took a few minutes to study the list of names inside.  "I can give you my opinion, based on what I know so far, but Don has the final call."

"Yep, he's on board.  I got his input."

"You spoke to him?  I need to –"

"Yep, understood.  Wasn't easy to get him.  Says he'll call you soon."

"If Don's picked his team, I don't need to review the list."

"Says you should choose."

"No, the team leader picks the team."

"Yep.  Says you're best for leading this."

She shook her head.  "Pardon me?"

"Yeah, you heard me right."

Okay, her mentor knew her scientific skills better than anybody else.  But leading a team for something with so much on line . . . she'd never done anything of that scope and what if Don was wrong?  Still, she always trusted his judgment and if he believed she was ready, maybe he was right.  Or was he wrong?  She was freezing and wanted to cover her head with the blanket.