by Julie Rowe
The crowd shifted and a man dressed in quasi-military gear and armed with the same weapon Connor carried walked toward her.
She pointed her gun at him and he came to a stop and took his hands off his weapon, leaving it dangling from his neck by the strap.
A hand touched her back, then slid around her shoulder and pushed her extended arms down. “He’s a good guy.”
She made eye contact with Connor and nodded. There was still too much sand in the air for her to want to open her mouth to talk.
Connor flashed a hand signal at Henry, who lowered his weapon a fraction also.
The man she’d stopped came forward and gave her a salute as he went past. She glanced behind her to see him join the men unloading the helicopter with Connor. When she returned her attention to the crowd, she sucked in a breath at how quickly it had grown, and took an unconscious step toward Henry.
One Beretta and one semi-automatic weapon was never going to be enough to hold these people off.
The crowd surged again, but this time a half-dozen men came forward and toward her. They weren’t wearing uniforms or body armor, but they were wearing identical shirts with the logo for the medical aid group she knew was working here.
This time she didn’t point her gun at them.
Behind her, the helicopter took off, finally allowing the sand to settle. Too bad it wasn’t going to last.
Connor patted her shoulder. “If we try to move the food we’re going to get mobbed, so the aid group is going to distribute it from here.”
“What about our stuff?”
“We’ll take it to their makeshift hospital while the food is being handed out.”
That sounded like a very smart idea. “Okay.” She grabbed up the smaller, portable level two lab bag, while Connor took the larger two bags with the level three lab components. Smoke, River and the marines all grabbed up the other medical supplies, and Connor’s friend led the way into the camp.
She almost had to run to keep up with them, but didn’t complain. Something in her primitive hindbrain told her that there were predators all around, waiting for an opportunity to take what they were carrying, even if it wouldn’t do anyone else any good.
They traveled along a beaten path in the sand, but from underneath a cobblestone road or trail occasionally poked through. There were rough stone walls and buildings on either side of the path at first, but after a few minutes, only tents were lined up several rows deep.
Ahead, she could see a larger tent with a large red cross painted low enough on the canvas that it could be seen from the ground or air. They entered a space between the medical tent and the ones clearly meant for individual families. There were few people here, at least fewer walking around. A large mound on the left looked oddly out of place.
Sophia came to a stop. She’d seen something like this before and really hoped she was wrong about what it was. “Is this a mass grave?” It wasn’t until the words were out that she realized she’d spoken out loud.
In front of her, their guide stopped for a moment to look at her. “Yes,” he said, without inflection. “We’ll need to dig another one soon.”
“How many bodies are in there?”
He shrugged and continued until just short of the tent, but in the shade.
Sophia looked at the mound for another second or two then followed at a slower pace. Connor didn’t say anything at all, but he, Smoke and River seemed to be looking all over. Same with the marines. Searching for threats?
The temperature dropped enough in the shade to be noticeable. There were rows and rows of cots, more than she’d ever seen before. Most of those cots were occupied. Other than that, there wasn’t much inside the tent.
No IVs dripping fluid into the veins of the sick.
No food visible.
Very little water.
Not enough nurses or anyone ambulatory to care for all these people.
“We didn’t bring enough of anything,” Sophia said in a soft voice to Connor.
“Agreed.” Connor sounded as horrified as she felt. “I’m going to go back to the landing area and see if I can grab a couple of bags of rice. I’ve got one of the water filters and some purification tablets, so we’re okay there.”
“Can you ask for more food to be flown in? Rice, flour, MREs. Anything?”
“You’re the ranking officer here, you can make the request.”
“Oh. Right, sorry, I forgot.”
Their guide snorted and looked away.
“Speaking of forgetting, Captain Sophia Perry, this is Len Zobel, former Snake Eater who now works for himself.” From the grin on Connor’s face, they must be friends.
“I sure as shit earn enough to live on now,” the other man said with a playful grin. Then he gave Sophia a thorough once-over and offered his hand. “I wouldn’t have minded looking out for you, Captain. You’re a whole lot easier on the eyes than any assignment I ever had in the Army.”
She shook it once, then pulled her hand away despite his momentary tightening of his grasp. Jerk. “Charmed.”
Both men blinked, then started laughing.
“Hot damn, ma’am,” Connor’s friend said, saluting her. “I haven’t been put in my place that well since General Stone did it last, two years ago. I’d be pleased if you called me Len.”
“You can call me Dr. Perry.”
“Oh,” Len said with mock fear to Connor. “Is she always this prickly?”
Connor smiled. “You should see her with a syringe. My ass is going to be sore for a long time.”
Wonderful, now he was making it sound like they’d done something sexual and saying it to a guy she didn’t know.
“You can tell me all about it later,” Len said with a wink to Connor. “We’ll be right back, Dr. Perry. I promise.”
She ignored him and stared at Connor. Was this some kind of male bonding bullshit? Sometimes men were so weird.
“Why don’t you start sorting out your equipment and decide where you want your lab set up?” he said, glancing at Smoke and the marines. “If you pick out a spot before I get back, these guys can get it started. River, you’re with me.”
“Fine.” She looked around, trying to find someone who looked like they were in charge, but all she saw were sick people. There had to be hundreds of them. “I need to talk to a doctor to find out what’s going on.” How on earth was she going to help this many people?
“Are you good, Sophia?” Connor asked. The smile was gone, replaced by a frown.
“Yeah, shoo.” She swallowed hard and forced herself to focus on what she could do, not what she couldn’t. “The sooner you go the sooner you get back.”
Connor took one last look around, nodded at her and followed Len out.
Sophia stood, duffel bags behind her, sick people in front of her, with one Green Beret and four marines who looked like they were holding on to their cookies by the skin of their teeth.
“Um, hello?” a diffident voice asked from behind her.
She turned to see a man in his late twenties to early thirties with brownish hair hanging in dreadlocks and a full beard. His blue eyes and fair, sunburnt skin told her he probably wasn’t a native of the area. His surgical mask, gloved hands and clear plastic rain poncho told her he was with the medical aid group.
“Are you, by chance, the doctor we were promised?” he asked even more diffidently. “I’m Dr. Nigel Blairmore.”
“Dr. Sophia Perry, Captain, US Army, Biological Response Team.” She gave him a professional nod.
Dr. Blairmore glanced at the bags around her. “I see you’ve brought some supplies. I was rather hoping you’d brought more.”
“One of my escorts and your Len have gone back to bring some of the food supplies here for your patients.” She pointed at the bags. “Most of
this is my portable lab and other medical equipment. Now that we’re here, I’m going to make a list of the most urgently needed items and request more be brought as soon as possible.”
Dr. Blairmore seemed to wilt with relief. “Thank God. We’ve been without proper food or clean water for several days now.”
“We brought filtration units and purification tablets.” She grabbed the right bag and opened it so he could see.
“We can put that into use straight away.” One of the men hovering around their conversation gave her a brilliant smile, picked up the filtration unit and pointed at a large plastic tank that sat about twenty feet away from the medical tent, inside a tent of its own. The tank was about half full and wouldn’t be enough to keep a large number of people alive for long.
“Where does your water come from?”
“There’s a well in the older part of the camp,” Dr. Blairmore answered.
“Everyone in the camp drinks the same water?”
“It’s the only source.” When she continued to stare at the water, he added, “It’s been tested for parasites and bacteria. Other than a high iron content, the water was safe enough to drink short term. Your filter will definitely improve the quality.”
One possible infection source removed, Sophia turned her attention to the interior of the tent. “Where can I set up my lab?”
“Well, we’re a little cramped for space. We’ve had thirty-three new cases in the last hour and we’re running out of cots, as well as space.”
“And everything else, it seems.”
“Yes. There’s probably a tent you can use. Are you a trauma doc or...?”
“I have a dual specialty in hematology and virology.”
Dr. Blairmore blinked at her. “You’re not a people doctor, are you?”
“I’m here to determine the cause of all of these people becoming sick and—” she glanced out at the mound, easily visible from the hospital tent “—dead.”
“We need that, absolutely, but we also need front-line health care workers. Nurses, doctors, anyone who can help.”
“I’ll make the request, but your isolation here makes getting even the most basic of items, like food, difficult. The Army may choose to do a series of air-drops.”
“Will that include nurses?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out.” She crouched down among the bags and pulled out her satellite phone.
Max answered on the first ring. “Colonel Maximillian.”
“Sir, it’s Dr. Perry. We’re on the ground and I’m at the camp’s hospital. Food, medical supplies and trained hands to help with the sick are desperately needed.”
“Orders have come down, food and supplies can be air-dropped, but until you determine what’s causing so many people to sicken and die, no one new is going in. Identify the pathogen. That’s your only priority, Sophia. It needs to be done fast.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Check in with me every four hours. Good luck.”
“Thank you, sir.” She hung up and tucked the phone into a holster on her belt. When she stood Dr. Blairmore looked at her expectantly.
“They’re going to start supply drops from the air, but won’t send more human assistance until after I determine the pathogen responsible for this outbreak.”
There was no hiding the disappointment on his face, but he nodded amiably enough. “Do you need help setting up your lab?”
“No.” She pointed at Smoke and the marines. “I have all the help I need.”
“We’ll all feel better knowing what we’re dealing with.” He turned and said a few things to the people waiting with him. They reacted with smiles, then frowns, but all dispersed with relatively neutral body language and tones to their voices. One man came back with a banker’s box. “Our records, so far. I’m sorry some of the patient documentation is missing. We’ve had so many people we sometimes don’t even get a name before they’re too far gone to talk to us.”
“Thank you. I’ll read them here.” She quickly went through the box, scanning the forms for symptoms, treatment and results.
A couple of people pointed, then ran out of the tent. Sophia glanced after them. Connor, River and his buddy were laden with sacks of rice.
Smiles graced the faces of everyone not wearing a surgical mask as the men came closer to the tent with the sacks. A woman came over and directed them to another tent about fifty feet away. Probably where they did the food preparation for the sick.
Connor glanced at Sophia as he passed her. “I’ll be right back.”
She nodded and set the box aside. There wasn’t anything in view for miles, only desert. Casting her gaze over the camp only revealed that every available spot within eyesight with any shelter or older building was already in use.
Connor came back within a minute. “You still here? Where are we setting up?”
“I thought I’d let you choose the spot.”
“Really?” His expression said he didn’t quite believe it.
She sighed. “To be honest, I’m not sure where to go. Nothing is closed off or easily defendable, so...”
He looked around. There wasn’t much to see. The tent was open until about five or six feet above the ground so air could circulate. Anyone could see in and out of the structure.
Connor’s mouth pressed into a grim line. “No privacy or protection.”
“Privacy isn’t a huge concern,” she told him. “Safety is another matter.”
“I can’t promise you one hundred percent safety,” Connor said, looking unhappy about it.
Little did he know, he couldn’t protect her from the deadliest enemy she had.
Her own body.
Chapter Eighteen
There was a small rise to the northwest of the hospital tent. It wasn’t much, but it was better than flat terrain. “Let’s pitch your tent over there,” Connor said, thrusting his chin in the direction of the hill. “Close enough for easy access to the hospital, far enough to see trouble coming.” He, Smoke, River and the marines grabbed up most of the bags, leaving just two for Sophia.
She made enough noise behind him that he didn’t have to look to know she was back there.
Once he reached the spot he liked, he dropped his bags, nodded at the men and took hers from her.
They set up the lab tent first. It took him and the boys less time to get the structure up than the first time they’d done it, but it took longer to anchor it to the sandy ground. They had to pound anchor pins several feet deep.
Sophia wasn’t idle while they played construction crew. She pulled out the segmented furniture that unfolded into barstool-tall surfaces she called benches. Only these benches weren’t for sitting, they were for the pint-sized lab equipment she was going to use to determine the pathogen causing all the sickness and death.
By the time the tent was anchored, she was setting up her equipment.
He left her to it and took Smoke, River and the marines aside. “I want you on a two on, two off rotation,” he said to the marines. “Your job is to defend Dr. Perry and her equipment. If things go FUBAR, she is top priority. Got it?”
“What will you and Sergeants Smoke and River be doing, sir?” Henry asked.
“She’s my responsibility. I go where ever she goes. Smoke and River are going to go where they’re needed. You might be coming with us or you could be staying with the equipment. It’s going to depend on what’s happening at the time. Right now, I want two of you to patrol the area. Look for places where an attack might come from. The other two can set up a tent, which we will all use for sleeping.”
“Yes, sir,” the marines said in unison. They didn’t talk to each other, but Henry and Stalls got to work on the tent while Macler and Norton began their patrol.
They were already a team. That was a very good thing since their situation was one where no one knew what the outcome might be.
Con walked over to Sophia and crouched next to her. She was sorting through a bunch of power cords and chargers. “What do you plug all this in to?” he asked.
“Everything runs on batteries, like the ones in a laptop computer. See those black boxes?” She pointed at a row of four sitting in one of the open bags on the ground. “Those are the backup battery chargers. Between them and the batteries in the analyzers, I’ve got enough power here for about twenty-four hours of continuous use. After that, I’ll need to charge the batteries with a generator.”
He had to admit he couldn’t see anything he’d change with the setup. “That’s pretty slick.”
“It took a while to develop the technology for us to do this. But, there’s a strong market for this kind of thing in several industries. From communications to search and rescue.”
“You sound like a commercial.”
She sighed. “Max made me talk in front of one of those Senate committees in order to get the funds to pay for it. I hated every second.”
“I don’t doubt it. Not many politicians have a good grasp of what’s a good investment these days.”
“Max said my being young and pretty helped more than my testimony did.” Her voice dripped disgust and anger.
A strong reaction. “Did anyone come on to you? Those bastards can be pretty handsy.”
“No. I just talked with big words and they eventually went away.”
“You scared them away with big words? Seriously?” How stupid had the political population gotten?
“It works surprisingly well,” she said in a chipper voice that told him she was happy to have this little defense mechanism. “I’ve done it before.”
“It’s good to know that you do that to people who irritate you. Gives me something to look out for.”
She paused in her work, tilted her head to one side then said, “Yes. If I start talking with really long, complicated vocabulary, you can assume I’m unhappy or irritated.”
