Viable Threat

by Julie Rowe

  “Homeland Security is screaming at me to make sure he stays alive and well enough to answer questions.”

  “Homeland can’t always get what they want,” River said, without any sympathy. “Besides, we can learn a lot about this guy by studying whatever goodies he has stashed on him and in his backpack.”

  “I thought it was explosives.”

  “We’re assuming that. No one has had time to look. Even if an explosive is all we find, the materials used to create it can tell us plenty.” River pushed the button on the portable heart monitor to get a new pulse, but there wasn’t a pulse to get. Only a long, flat line.

  “He’s in cardiac arrest.”

  Rodrigues made a frustrated noise, and then her end of the call went dead.

  More shit hitting the fan?

  Ava muttered, “Crap,” under her breath, then began chest compressions.

  The heart monitor broke out into beeps, but they were haphazard, erratic, and in no way normal.

  “Where’s that blood?” Ava demanded.

  River looked around, but no one was making any effort to get any closer than the yellow caution tape. There were a lot fewer law-enforcement types around and a lot more civilians, some of them looking none too happy to see a couple of people in hazmat suits busy with a guy on the ground who was leaking out a river of blood.

  “I think we’re on our own,” River said to her. “People are blowing up all kinds of shit all over the place.” He glanced at the man he’d shot. “Maybe it’s a coincidence, but something tells me whoever sent this kid here doesn’t want him to be able to talk.”

  His mouse jerked her head in one direction to stare at the reduced numbers of cops and agents, and the increasing numbers of civilians, then in another direction and the next, until she’d confirmed his read on the situation.

  “Didn’t we call for help first?” she demanded. “Shouldn’t we get the first ambulance?”

  “Call me crazy,” River said to her, “but I don’t think anyone was all that interested in saving the life of a terrorist over an innocent bystander.”

  “That is not how the health-care system works.” She sounded shocked, appalled, even.

  “That’s how people work,” he countered. “I doubt there’s going to be much sympathy for him.”

  “What about his family? Friends?”

  River shrugged. “Little fish in a big pond.” He activated the monitor again, and again got nothing but flatline static. “Shit.”

  Ava straddled the kid and performed textbook chest compressions, but after a minute, River put a hand on her shoulder and said, “Stop. He’s gone.”

  She snarled at him, actually snarled, and said, “Fuck off.”

  Well, shit, that was sexy as hell. Which only underscored how fucked in the head he really was.

  Chapter Three

  6:38 p.m.

  Ava’s hands itched to smack River. Just one little smack, to release a fraction of the frustration burning a hole in her gut.

  No one should be so cavalier about a person dying, no matter what crime they’d committed. Besides, the CDC needed answers this man might be able to provide, like the identification of the pathogen released here, and if it had been altered in some way to make it more virulent and deadly.

  As the soldier had said himself, You can’t question a dead man.

  Her arms were starting to ache, but she doggedly kept up with the compressions.

  “Dr. Lloyd?” River phrased her name like a question.

  She ignored him.

  “Ava,” he said with more power. “It’s been five minutes since his heart stopped beating. He’s bled out. Nothing is going to bring him back.”

  Rage burned hot enough in her blood to singe everything she touched. She took in a breath to call him a coward, but the sea of red around her finally registered.

  The pool of blood beneath the young man had gotten larger. His face had turned stark white and his lips blue.

  She stopped the chest compressions. When had she started breathing so hard? She glanced at the concrete again. A bloody lake pooled around her knees, staining her hazmat suit. “I’m just pushing his blood out the bullet wounds, aren’t I?”

  “Probably,” River said in an oddly gentle voice.

  “You must think I’m an idiot.” Her voice sounded scathing and harsh, even to herself.

  “I think you’re a good doctor.” Still, he used the gentle tone, as if she were a spooked horse.

  She snorted. Pity was the last thing she wanted from anyone, let alone this stranger, a man who represented a way of life she’d learned to hate. “Why, because I’m too stubborn to admit I can’t help someone?”

  “Because you don’t give up until all hope is lost.” A steel thread of strength and conviction threaded its way through his tone now. “Only then did you stop.” It almost sounded like he admired her.

  She stared at him, surprise holding her tightly in its grip. Her former fiancé, a soldier who wholeheartedly believed the old adage might made things right, had never spoken of her profession with such respect. Old pain snatched the air out of her lungs and squeezed her chest until breathing became something to fear.

  Stupid woman.

  Adam was gone, killed eighteen months ago in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan where he was training Afghani military and police in counter-terrorism tactics. Adam was gone, along with all her plans for the future. A husband, a family. Gone, because he put the military and his mission at the top of his priority list. Ahead of everything else.

  That’s what soldiers did. Put the protection of everyone else in front of themselves.

  Soldiers…died.

  She didn’t want to like this one.

  Ava shifted off of the body and crab-crawled a couple of feet away. Yes, that’s what she needed—distance, emotionally and physically.

  “Okay,” she said, taking in a deep breath, discovering it hurt less than she thought it might. “Okay. He’s dead.”

  River didn’t say anything, only watched her with careful eyes. Adam’s gaze had never been careful.

  “I’m going to take some samples from him before the ambulance gets here.” She glanced at the backpack the soldier had set aside. “What about that thing?”

  “We’re going to wait for the bomb squad to examine it.”

  Weird how normal that sentence sounded. As if he were talking about moving a sofa or a refrigerator.

  “How long will that take?”

  River frowned and looked at the dead body. “Not sure. With all the other attacks going on, it could be a while.”

  She nodded in what she hoped was a professional manner, then stood, locking her trembling knees when they threatened to collapse, and then went to her collection case. A sterile blood sample wasn’t going to be possible, as most of the terrorist-in-training’s blood was on the concrete, but she could collect nasal, throat, and other samples.

  Her hands shook so badly she dropped the first swab she’d selected.

  River wasn’t looking at her; he was studying the growing crowd outside the police tape and readying the lethal-looking rifle he carried. He handled the weapon with the same mastery and ease as a violinist might handle a violin.

  She ignored her unsteady hands and threw the contaminated swab away. With the next one, she focused on one task at a time, and the shaking gradually decreased.

  “What’s your first name?” she asked the soldier as she took a quick temperature reading from the dead man’s ear.

  “River.” He sounded distracted.

  “I thought that was your last name.”

  “It’s the only name I answer to.” She could hear the hint of a smile in his voice this time.

  The temperature that flashed across the tiny digital thermometer’s screen made her breathing stall in her chest. “Whoa.”

  That brought River’s head around. “Whoa, what?”

  “This guy’s temperature is through the roof. 104°F.”

  “He had i
t, didn’t he, the killer illness?” River asked. “There were thirty plus people in the ER with high fevers when I left an hour ago.”

  “One of my jobs is to figure out where the outbreak started and who patient zero might be.” She angled her head at the dead man. “He’s a possible candidate.”

  “Which pathogen is it? Anthrax?”

  “That would fit some of the symptoms, but not all. The consensus was that we might be looking at bacterial or viral meningitis.” She looked at the café’s order counter. “If someone working there, one of the baristas, was sick with it or carried it, they could infect a lot of people by coughing or sneezing at the wrong time.”

  “Don’t most people get vaccinated for that?”

  “Most doesn’t mean everyone. There are always a few who refuse to vaccinate because they think the vaccine is going to hurt them.” She sighed. “Which is stupid, because the only reason vaccines were developed in the first place was to protect us from diseases which cause a high percentage of brain damage, blindness, and death.”

  “The infection rate seems…high.”

  “That’s the other possible problem. Whatever bug is causing this could have been genetically engineered to be different. More virulent.”

  “That is not a happy thought.”

  An understatement. “I didn’t think soldiers were allowed happy thoughts.”

  “Not true. The best soldiers are always thinking happy, even when they know there’s a bad guy around the corner, or in this case, on the other side of the yellow tape.” The way he said it, as if he were looking at a bad guy right now, snagged her attention.

  “What?” Ava glanced at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. She turned her head in the same direction as River’s and reared back at the number of people staring at the two of them with very unhappy faces.

  There were a half dozen uniformed police telling people to back up and leave the area, but few seemed to be following those instructions. As she watched, the swell of voices rose and turned into yelling.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Why are those people dressed like that?”

  “Are they terrorists?”

  “Ava,” River said in an almost-normal tone. The abnormal part was stone, cold serious. “If you have to get any more samples, get them now.”

  “They wouldn’t rush us, would they?” Given the danger it would put them in, it would be a crazy thing to do, but the shouting wasn’t calming down.

  “A mob doesn’t think. They trample.” He positioned his rifle so the butt was nestled in the hollow of his shoulder, but kept it pointed toward the ground. “Hurry.”

  She moved as quickly as she dared. The last thing she wanted was to give the crowd the impression she was in a panic. It could spark a riot.

  Her specimen collection case, which looked like a large tackle box, still sat on the counter where she’d left it. She grabbed it and quickly sampled several areas around the order counter, cash register, and pick-up counter.

  The crowd was now pushing and shoving each other and the police officers.

  “We can’t have a stampede. This area, and the body, are likely to be sources of the infection. Anyone who gets too close has a huge risk of becoming contaminated.”

  River nodded. “Not to mention the danger of explosives. I’m going to make a call.”

  He did something with his earpiece and spoke softly. After a moment, he nodded at her. “I’ve asked for a bullhorn. Might as well see if we can talk these people down.”

  A few seconds later, a policeman set a bullhorn on the ground about ten feet inside the yellow tape, then went back to his position.

  “Stay here,” River told her, then walked calmly toward the bullhorn.

  Alone.

  He wasn’t…yes, he was. “Wait!” she yelled at him. “It’s not safe.”

  He glanced at her for only a moment, a single moment, but that’s all it took for her to see the calm resolution in the set of his jaw, mouth, and eyes. “This is the best option to make our situation safer.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” she called after him, but he ignored her and continued walking.

  Toward a horde of people who sounded more and more angry by the second.

  Fear gripped her so hard she had to breathe through her mouth to prevent herself from throwing up.

  How could he put himself in such a dangerous situation without a shred of hesitation? Nearly a million people in Texas had a concealed gun license, ergo at least some of those people were armed.

  Goddamned soldiers have no sense of self-preservation.

  He picked up the bullhorn, faced the crowd, and said, “I’m with the Center for Disease Control. This area is under investigation by the CDC. It is not safe. Please clear the area.”

  The crowd quieted down, a few left, but others shouted questions.

  “What’s with the plastic suit?”

  “How do we know you’re not some terrorist?”

  “This is a hazmat suit, and I’m in it because there are more than thirty people in the ER who’ve gotten really sick. Deathly ill. My partner over there and I are trying to discover if this is the source of the disease.”

  “You mean, you don’t know?” someone shouted.

  “Does this rifle look like a Magic-8 Ball?” River asked, sounding irritated. “We’ve got to take samples, then get them to the lab and analyze them, before we know for certain what’s going on. In the meantime, all you people are doing is putting yourselves in danger by hanging out here and arguing with the cops.”

  He paused, then shouted, “Go home.”

  People looked at each other and began backing away.

  It worked. River’s plan actually worked.

  One of the crowd, a man who’d been asking most of the questions, demanded, “I want to see some identification.”

  Several people paused to listen.

  “Yeah,” River said, disgust clear in his voice. “They put pockets in this condom, too. You think they hand these portable goldfish bowls to everyone? Why are you being such a shit disturber?”

  “It’s my right to ask questions.”

  “You have a right to be a dick? Really? When did that become law?”

  Several people laughed.

  Interesting how adversarial that man was behaving.

  Ava picked up the small digital camera she kept in her collection kit and discreetly began to take pictures of the crowd.

  The man’s face turned a deep red. He pointed at River and yelled, “You’re part of a government cover-up. This isn’t terrorists, this is the military conducting illegal, covert experiments on people.”

  “A dick, and crazy.” River shook his head with mock sympathy. “Dude, you need professional help.”

  The man bellowed and ran at River, but was stopped by one of the cops, who took the raving lunatic to the ground and handcuffed him.

  A few people stayed to watch the arrest, but most of the crowd retreated and left.

  “Keep this area clear,” River told the police officers. “Possible bomb threat in the backpack, plus the café is hot, in a biological sense. You feel me?”

  “Yes, sir,” one of them said. “Absolutely.” The cop reminded him of a new recruit. Eager to please.

  “Don’t call me sir. That’s almost as bad as saluting me.” River hesitated, then added, “Call me sergeant if you have to call me anything.” He turned and seemed surprised to see Ava behind him. “Hey, I didn’t hear you come this way.”

  “Since I was trying to blend in with the concrete, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  He grinned at her, the sort of grin people on the same team give each other. “Any particular reason for sneaking around?”

  “I wanted to take some pictures of the crowd. That guy gave me the heebie-jeebies.”

  “Yeah, he’s a couple of bricks short of a fireplace.” River nodded at the café. “Did you get everything you needed?”

  “I think so. Let me just p
ack it up.” She returned to her collection kit, made sure she’d gotten all her garbage, and locked the kit.

  River stepped behind the order counter. “Place looks pretty clean.”

  “Looks can be deceiving,” she told him, picking up her kit.

  A flash blinded her at the same time as a giant hand picked her up and slammed her into the floor.

  Chapter Four

  6:52 p.m.

  River was going to strangle the asshole pounding on his head. And who the hell was screeching at the top of their lungs? It was impossible to determine gender based on the tone, but the sound penetrated his skull faster than a hot blade in butter.

  He opened his eyes. Smoke and dust crowded around him in the air like ethereal spirits of the dead.

  Nausea churned his gut, and the smell of burnt plastic and flesh filled his nose. Combined with his vicious headache, the whole mess threw him back into a fight he’d lost over a year ago. His mouth, nose, and eyes were full of sand and blood. Pain ricocheted through him like a razor blade in a pinball machine. A razor that was going to slice him to death if he didn’t kill the fucker jabbing him with it.

  He forced himself to throw off the weight on his back, get to his feet, and attack his assailant, but there wasn’t anyone there. Only smoke, rubble, and ghosts.

  Reality slammed the last hour’s events into his head in a series of flash images, smells, and sounds.

  A woman’s voice, sexy and arousing.

  Squeezing the trigger of his rifle.

  The red bloom on the back of his target.

  Wide brown eyes, startled and fearful.

  His mouse, Ava, where was she?

  River stood in the middle of a coffee shop, but it looked, sounded, and smelled like a fucking war zone.

  The order counter was mostly gone. Wood splinters, chunks of countertop, and shards of glass littered what was the café’s work space.

  His mouse was somewhere under all that shit.

  Adrenaline surged through him, clearing his head.

  “Ava,” he called as he picked up a large section of the counter and tossed it aside. Why did his voice sound so funny, muffled?

  Oh, fuck. The goddamned backpack had exploded.

  River dug deeper into the pile of debris and found a hand attached to an arm covered in a thick, flexible plastic. A hazmat suit. “Ava!”