Lethal Game

by Julie Rowe

“I have no idea,” Connor said with a shrug. “Jail time made for a better threat.”

  “I better check on our marines.” She glanced at him, sighed, then went to the sleeping tent.

  Con didn’t follow, there was too much shit going down and too many people willing to blame their hard times on the easiest scapegoat—the United States Army.

  An odd bird sound flitted past Con’s ear. One of Smoke’s early warning signals. The man himself followed after a couple of seconds, barely distinguishable from the darkness.

  “How much trouble are we in?” Con asked the other man.

  “About half an hour ago, it looked like a mob was forming, but several people collapsed, some with seizures. It broke things up when family members came to take the sick away and bring them to the one place where they’d just been talking about erasing from the face of the earth.” Smoke snorted. “That’s a direct quote.”

  “So, it’s a good news, bad news situation.”

  Smoke shrugged.

  “I caught a guy who tried to slice up the lab tent. It turns out someone in camp has been telling everyone that all this is our fault. Sold them some bullshit that we’ve been experimenting on them, creating some kind of vaccine for Ebola using a live virus.”

  “Akbar?”

  “A possibility. Keep an eye on Dr. Blairmore. Turns out, he’s a pompous ass who’s only looking out for himself. He made threats against Sophia.”

  Smoke nodded.

  “Can you and River keep the rest of the camp under surveillance? Let me know if things are about to blow up again?”

  Smoke nodded again and left.

  Sophia came out of the sleeping tent, frowning.

  “How bad is it?”

  “They both have concussions. They’ve regained consciousness and I don’t think they have any fractures, but I’d like to X-ray them to be sure, but that’s one piece of equipment we don’t have.”

  “Yeah. Until you figure out what’s going on, no one is going in or out of here.”

  She deflated a little. “They’re on bed rest until I say different. It’s all I can do for now.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  “How soon until dawn?” she asked, staring out into the desert. Her hair had come loose from its tidy bun and she looked no more than sixteen, until you looked into her eyes. There was knowledge in her gaze that told you she’d seen and lived through horrible things. Things that would have broken a weaker person.

  She might look fragile and bruise easily, but there was a toughness inside her he recognized on a visceral level. She was a survivor. When she set her mind to solve a puzzle, she didn’t give up.

  “Probably less than an hour.” Less than an hour to prepare for a new day and all the deaths it would bring.

  She looked at him, unblinking for a moment. “I still need samples from a dead body.”

  “Get ready. We’ll go when the air-drop is made.”

  She gave him a grim smile and walked around him and into her lab. A light came on inside and he could hear her moving around.

  Henry came out of the other tent. “I’ll stand watch, sir.”

  Con nodded. “Very good. We’re going to get a supply drop at dawn, but it’s supplies for the camp, not us, so maintain your station.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Connor did a sweep of the area, looking for people or things that shouldn’t be around. He took a couple of photos of the slice in the tent, then pulled out a roll of duct tape and sealed it up on the outside. The edges were already tacky due to the sticky, weblike stuff the material of the tent was coated with, so sealing it was relatively easy.

  The deep purple of dawn turned the unending darkness of night into a shadow realm.

  Time to set the stage for a little body snatching.

  Con headed for the hospital tent and nodded at Len who was standing just inside. “That supply drop is going to happen soon. We’ve got nothing coming for us this time. Everything they’re dropping is for the hospital or the camp in general.”

  Len’s face perked up. “Where are they dropping it?”

  “North of here, maybe a quarter mile. Two of our guys are down. Concussions, so we’re not going to be much help to you. Have you got enough people to get what you need?”

  Before Len could answer Blairmore charged over to them. “What now?” he demanded.

  Con smiled at him. “Just reminding you that there’s going to be an air-drop of supplies this morning for the hospital and camp. You’re going to need to get some people to the drop site or the refugees might take it all.”

  “We’ve got it covered, right, Doctor?” Len asked Blairmore.

  “Absolutely.” Blairmore’s face twitched like he didn’t know if he should be angry or appreciative.

  “Awesome.” Con nodded at Len and headed back to his own territory. About ten feet away, he turned back. “I wonder, two of our guys were hit over the head during the scuffle. Dr. Perry thinks they both have concussions, and we’re under a quarantine order, so if we need help, can we come to you?”

  “Of course,” Blairmore said, as if he’d been grievously insulted. “I’m well aware that Dr. Perry might have other things on her mind.”

  Yeah, he was a prick.

  Con made himself smile and wave. “Thanks.”

  He walked back to the lab tent and went in. Sophia was finishing up the work she’d started last night.

  “How long will it take to get your samples?” he asked her, watching her look at a slide under the microscope.

  “Not long.”

  “What are you going to do, drill a hole in someone’s head?”

  She glanced at the big knife strapped to his left leg. “Ever open a coconut?”

  She’d surprised him again. “Okay, that’s quick. I can work with it.”

  “Excellent. When are we going?”

  “As soon as we hear the plane’s engines. Anytime.”

  She stepped away from her microscope, changed her gloves, then donned a mask and grabbed two sample containers big enough for about one cup of something. She shoved those in her pants pockets, then picked up two scalpels, holding one while the other got stowed in another pocket.

  “You’re taking two samples?”

  “Well, I figure, since we’re there...” She shrugged, but looked more energetic than she had since they arrived.

  He grunted. “I’m going to ignore how creepy it is that you sound excited about this.”

  “What I’m excited about is figuring this shit out, helping these people, then getting out of here.”

  “Amen.” Con put a mask and gloves on, too.

  Airplane engines, big ones, droned in the distance. Connor angled his head toward the hospital and the pile of dead bodies on the other side of it. “That’s our cue.”

  She followed him, watching a number of people from the hospital, and the camp beyond it, run past them toward the sound of the airplanes.

  They skirted the path most of the people seemed to be taking, headed toward the hospital at an oblique angle then kept going until they were fifty yards away.

  The smell hit first, like a punch to the gut, rotting meat and far, far too much old blood.

  Con gagged and thought about taking his mask off so he could puke.

  “Breathe through your mouth, not your nose,” Sophia said to him. “It’ll take a few minutes, but the smell will get easier to tolerate.”

  “I forgot, you doctors have to work with a lot of corpses.”

  “Yes. In medical school it’s common to name your cadaver. I called my first one Reginald, because he looked so uptight and British.”

  “You give them names?” That was a disturbing thought. “It’s not like they’re pets.”

  “You’d
be surprised what some medical students do with their cadavers. One guy took his to a frat party dressed as a clown. The stiff made a hundred bucks in tips.”

  “That is a very weird kind of awesome. I’m oddly impressed. Did you do anything like that with yours?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Not...really?”

  “There was one guy who used to torment me because I was only sixteen. I removed the testicles of his cadaver and put them in his shoes.”

  “You what?”

  “He kept calling me a ball-buster, and I didn’t want to be the only one doing it.”

  “Holy shit.” He shouldn’t find that funny, not with so many dead bodies lying in front of them, but it hurt not to laugh.

  The dead had been stacked like logs in a pile reaching about three feet high and stretched for about twenty feet. Most of the bodies were wrapped in cloth, but not all of them.

  Sophia looked at the bodies, walked around the pile, then pointed at a wrapped one, whose head was easy to access.

  Connor cut the cloth away, then sheared off the back of the skull with the big knife he had strapped to his left thigh. Sophia took a sample of brain matter, screwed the cap on the sample container, then quickly pointed out a second body.

  Con repeated the process and she had her second sample in about the space of a minute. He cleaned his knife and slid it into its sheath. The two of them walked calmly past a corner of the hospital, glancing at the people inside. Most of the healthy staff and helpers were missing—gone to the air-drop—leaving only the sick and dying.

  Every cot was taken. A few people lay on crude pallets on the sand around the edges of the hospital. Not a problem now, but when the sun was higher in the sky, it would be. Anyone not in the shade would probably die of dehydration and sun exposure very quickly.

  When they got back to their tiny territory, Smoke and River had returned and were playing guard by standing in plain view with their rifles in their hands. Henry was with them and the three had set up a reasonable perimeter around their two tents.

  Smart. Let all the people coming and going from the air-drop see sufficient guards to keep them wary of trying anything stupid.

  Sophia walked straight to her lab tent and disappeared into it.

  “Any problems?” Con asked River.

  “Not so far. We’re not as interesting as we were a few hours ago. That air-drop might do more to keep the refugees from mobbing us than anything else.”

  “Satisfy a few basic needs and people are always happier and less willing to take risks.”

  “Did you get what you need?” River asked, glancing at the lab as he spoke.

  “I think so. There’s a lot more people in the hospital than there were last night.”

  “How many is a lot?”

  “They’re bursting at the seams.”

  River’s mouth tightened. “We could be looking at another mob situation tonight.”

  “If the rate of sickness keeps going up, that’s a definite possibility.”

  Excited yells caught their attention and a few older kids ran past carrying smallish sacks of rice and boxes of MREs. Con kept watch with Smoke, River and Henry while people moved around, either going or coming from the area of the air-drop. Things didn’t calm down for at least an hour.

  River and Smoke headed out to snoop in the camp while Con went into the lab to check on Sophia. “How’s it going?”

  “Not good. I ran both samples through the Sandwich, but the results are negative.” She clenched her fists and stared at the piece of equipment like she could change the answer with her mind alone. “I don’t know what this is, and it’s driving me crazy.”

  “So, you’ve tested for everything this machine can test for, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, what’s left?”

  “A surprisingly large number of viruses.”

  “What about those brain-eating amoebas I heard about on one of those medical mystery shows?”

  “Not likely. You need to dunk your head in warm standing water and get it up your nose. These people don’t have enough water to do that, and it still takes two to three weeks before symptoms appear.”

  “Can you test for it?”

  “No, we’re in the middle of a desert, I didn’t bring anything to test for that.”

  “So, what could you do a rapid test for that the Sandwich doesn’t?”

  She turned to look at him, but she wasn’t really seeing him, her brain was moving at Mach 10 and he just happened to be in the way.

  “I could check the morphology of the tissue with some different stains,” she muttered, “and rule out several possibilities...”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, mad cow disease, West Nile, even malaria...” Her voice trailed off again.

  “So, I should let you work?”

  She didn’t answer. She was already grabbing her samples and moving to another of the tent’s arms to do something else.

  “Okay then.” At least she was working and doing something productive. He still had to get his hands on Akbar.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sophia wanted to throw her microscope across the room. Negative, negative, negative. Every stain she’d tried for every virus, fungus and parasite she knew of that fit the symptoms turned up exactly nothing.

  She growled at the offending piece of equipment and clenched her fists to keep from doing something very stupid.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Connor stood behind her, looking much too awake and alert than should be allowed. Neither of them had had more than two or three hours of sleep and it was now noon. The heat of the day made her want to curl up on the sand and snore.

  “All the tests I’ve conducted are negative.” She gripped the narrow counter her microscope sat on until her knuckles were white. “I’ve tested for every disease that could match the symptoms, but there’s nothing.”

  Connor nodded slowly. “Okay, here’s what you’re going to do. First, you’re going to eat something and take a nap. Then, when you’ve gotten some rest, you can come back at this problem with fresh eyes.”

  She snorted. “I’m not sure I can sleep. I’m too wired up. Too fucking angry at everything.”

  “Did I ever tell you how I survived the monthly week from hell when I was growing up?”

  “Week from hell...oh, your sisters.”

  “Yeah. My sisters. The only thing that kept me alive was my ability to judge when a woman needed to eat, and you, Doctor, are overdue for some food.”

  “You’re not going to go away until I agree, are you?”

  “Nope. Max gave me strict instructions to make sure you ate. He seems to think that you forget to do that when you’re working.”

  “Tattletale.” Max was a great boss, but his tendency to over-protect her was infuriating.

  Might as well get the eating over with, then maybe she could get some work done. She walked out of the tent to find that the team had erected a sun shelter just outside. Smoke and River were both asleep, the remains of consumed MREs beside them. Stalls was awake and standing under the tarp that composed the shelter, his rifle in his hands.

  “Where’s Norton, Henry and Macler?”

  “In the sleeping tent,” Con replied. “Henry is grabbing some sleep.”

  “How are Norton and Macler?”

  “They’re doing okay. We’re waking them every couple of hours, but there’s been no change.”

  “Good.” She took a seat and Con handed her an MRE.

  Chicken Dinner. All MREs tended to taste the same, but this one wasn’t too bad. By the time she was done, she was half-asleep.

  Con smiled at her.

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m tired. Happy?”


  “Only if you actually sleep.”

  “I’m going to. It would be stupid not to.” She gestured at the lab tent behind her. “In there.”

  He nodded and continued eating his own meal.

  Sophia got up, dusted herself off and went into the tent. She lay down in the same place as she’d slept last night.

  Had it only been last night? It felt like it had been a week already since they’d arrived, not less than twenty-four hours.

  Con slipped into the tent and lay down behind her.

  He wasn’t touching her.

  Unacceptable.

  She rolled over and came face to face with him. “I need you to agree to something.”

  He blinked and took in a breath, but she spoke again before he could.

  “When we find Akbar, before you do anything, I want to punch him in the face.”

  He waited, then said, “Every time you open your mouth you surprise the shit out of me.”

  She stared at him for a moment. “Is that a no?”

  “You’re that frustrated?”

  “I’ve never failed to figure out a problem like this before. I’m so angry I want to scream and pound the sand.” She had a clenched fist in the air before she realized what she was doing. Sophia forced herself to relax her hand and lower it. “But I’ll settle for hitting him.”

  Connor examined her face for another moment. “Thomas Edison was once asked how it felt to fail after ten thousand failed attempts to create a commercially viable light bulb. His response was, ‘I haven’t failed. I’ve just found ten thousand ways that don’t work.’” He cupped her face and rubbed a sandy thumb over her cheek. “You only fail if you give up.” He raised one eyebrow. “Are you giving up?”

  She scowled. “No.”

  “Then shut it with the failure talk.” He drew her closer and kissed her, long and slow. “Now roll over and go to sleep.”

  She did as he ordered and was rewarded with him spooning her from behind, his arm coming over her waist. It felt safe and sexy at the same time.

  She laced her fingers through his and finally let herself drift off.

  * * *

  Sophia woke from a dreamless sleep. Con was gone, the impression on the tarp floor behind her unoccupied.