Lethal Game

by Julie Rowe

  “Would she?” Smoke asked.

  Con frowned. “Would she, what?”

  “Design a plague?”

  The contents of Con’s stomach turned to ice. “Fuck, no she wouldn’t. A guy like him, fucking around with shit and killing people...she’d find a way to fuck him up six ways to Sunday.”

  Smoke’s face looked even colder than Con felt. “Do we stop her or help her?”

  “Yes.”

  Smoke’s only response was a grunt.

  “We need to get some of those guards away from here.”

  “Missed a check-in.”

  “Yeah, so Max will send a fly-by to see if there’s a problem or if it’s a technical glitch. He won’t wait long. He’s kind of paranoid.”

  “The guards will disappear at the first sign of an aircraft,” Smoke said.

  “Got a laser pointer in one of your pockets or did Len take it?”

  Smoke smiled. “I’ve got it.”

  “Find a position where you can signal any aircraft that flies over and be ready to send an SOS.”

  Smoke nodded, got up slowly and disappeared into the hospital and into the camp.

  Con considered moving to a closer location, but before he could decide where, Len arrived at the lab. He went inside, then came out with Akbar.

  The two men talked quietly for a few minutes. There was head nodding and finger pointing. Akbar called a couple of his goons over and there was some more discussion, then he went back into the tent.

  Len sat down on an overturned bucket under the tarp at the entrance to the lab and seemed to be content with whatever was going on.

  Akbar came out of the lab, spoke to Len again, then took four of the armed goons and headed into the camp.

  Looking for supplies, water or fresh victims?

  The rumble of a couple of fighter jets became audible and got louder fast.

  Len shouted in Dari, “Everyone smile and wave.”

  All the goons smiled and waved on cue. Too bad Smoke was signaling for help at the same time.

  Fucking crazy son of a bitch, you just got made.

  The fighters didn’t circle back and everyone relaxed. Len went around to give orders to a couple of the goons, then went into the lab tent.

  Alone.

  The fucking asshole. He was going to put his hands on Sophia.

  He needed a reason to go there, to approach the lab. Looking around, he found a tray with a row of hypodermic syringes on it. He picked it up and began walking toward the lab with a businesslike air.

  At the first challenge, he said in Dari, “I was told to give these samples to the American woman.” He held out the tray.

  The guard glanced at the tray and nodded.

  Con went into the tent.

  “Take your hands off me.” Sophia sounded mad. “I’m up to my elbows in rabies virus and you want to play snatch and grab? Are you stupid? I’ve got enough of the virus here to kill ten of you.”

  “I’m on your side, sweetheart.” Len’s back was to Con and he backed up a step as he lowered his voice. “I’m double-crossing Akbar. Put down the container of brains and come with me. I’m going to get you out of here.”

  “What about Connor?” she asked in a tone that told him she hadn’t seen him standing behind Len.

  “I’m sorry, Akbar had him and his buddies killed.” He held out a hand to her. “Come on, let’s go.”

  The son of a bitch.

  Connor shifted his weight to take a step closer, to take Len down, but Sophia spoke before he could move.

  “There is nothing that would make me go with you willingly,” she told him in her I think you’re stupid and therefore uninteresting voice. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  Len’s posture changed. He shifted toward her, crowding her against the bench behind her. “Akbar has already promised to let me have you when he’s got what he wants,” Len told her in a disgusting purr.

  That’s it, you’re done. Con rammed the tray, rim first, into the base of Len’s skull.

  He dropped like a stone.

  Sophia stared at Con with wide eyes for a second then set what she was holding on the bench with a shaking hand, stripped off her gloves and threw herself at him.

  He staggered for a moment, his injured leg a little wobbly. “Are you okay?” he whispered, running his hands over her. She was badly bruised everywhere he looked.

  “Yes. No.” She shook her head and wiped tears away. “I was so scared they were going to kill you.”

  “Hey, it’s been tried, but I keep bouncing back.” He rubbed her back, kissed her temple then coaxed her chin up so he could make eye contact. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “How are we going to do that?” Her voice quivered with enough stress to make him look around for another asshole to beat up.

  But they were alone. “Good question.”

  She pulled back to stare at him incredulously. “You came in here with no plan to get out?”

  “I saw Len go in and knew he was going to...” Con glanced down at the SOB and had to fight the anger that made his hands tighten with the need to bloody his fists on the other man.

  “You...you...” she sputtered, smacking his chest with the flats of her hands. “You can just go out the way you came in.” She pointed at the exit. “Shoo.”

  “I won’t leave you here with nut bar.”

  “Juvenile,” she muttered, then stretched up and kissed him so quick he didn’t have time to respond. “Someone has to tell Max what’s happening,” she whispered. “Akbar is trying to weaponize rabies. It’s not going to work, I’ll make sure of that, but he introduced large amounts of the virus to the water supply here. He just couldn’t get it easily transmissible from human to human. That’s why he wanted me.”

  “Rabies is fucking deadly.”

  “Yes, and it’s a terrible, painful way to die, which is his secondary goal.” She poked him with her index finger. “You’ve got to tell Max to get rabies immunoglobulin, passive antibodies and the vaccine to the camp as soon as possible. We might be able to save some of these people, but only if it happens quickly.”

  She was a saint, an angel, and insane if she thought he’d leave her here. “You’re coming with me.”

  She shook her head. “I’m the only one who can stall Akbar long enough for help to arrive.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” She gave him a watery smile. “Please. I’m a lousy shot, I don’t know the first thing about hand-to-hand combat and I’m too breakable to really learn, but I can do this.”

  He got right into her face and bared his teeth. “Can you stay alive?”

  “Can you?” she asked just as fiercely, grabbing the fabric of the robe he wore so she could give him a shake. “Will you?”

  She knew. Goddamn it, she knew he’d planned to never get out of this alive.

  He couldn’t leave her and he couldn’t let her leave him. The grip the ghosts of his battle brothers had on his heart burned away, leaving only Sophia in possession of it.

  “I will if you will,” he snarled at her. “You might have terrible depth perception, spatial orientation and aim, but you’re smarter than Einstein and when things get tough, you get mean. I need you to look after yourself and knock this guy on his ass.”

  “I have the perfect motivator,” she whispered, smiling and wiping some dirt off his cheek. “I’m going to have sex with you, remember? You promised.”

  Well, if she had to have a goal, he’d be happy to sacrifice himself. “Is sex all you think about?”

  “No, sometimes I think about the very small things I can see with my very nice microscope.”

  He hesitated. He hated this. It fucking sucked, but she was right. Someone had to get help, someone had to del
ay Akbar, and he couldn’t do both. He had to trust her not to do anything self-destructive.

  He kissed her, hard and quick. “Don’t disappoint me. We’re going to have lots and lots of sex.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  As soon as Con left, Sophia bent down to check Len’s carotid pulse. The mercenary was still alive, but she suspected the blow Con had landed may have done more damage than just knock him unconscious.

  She picked up the scattered syringes, disposed of them, then grabbed the metal tray and was trying to decide what to do with it when Akbar came in.

  He took in the situation in one glance and one corner of his mouth rose in a snarl.

  “He attacked me,” she said, glancing down at Len’s unconscious body. “I didn’t mean to do this, though.”

  Akbar swore in a language other than English, then went back out and yelled something.

  Two of his men came inside and carried Len away.

  “Pack all this up,” Akbar said. “We’re leaving.”

  Leaving? Had he decided to abandon the refugee camp? Whatever the reason, it wasn’t good. They had him here and they needed him to stay so Max and the Army could catch him. “But I’ll have to start testing all over again.”

  Akbar’s jaw clenched. “You will do as you’re told or your men will be shot.” He took a gliding step toward her that was all the more threatening in its silence. “I won’t ask again.”

  You don’t have my men. She examined his face and saw an explosive anger there that hadn’t been there before. He knows they’ve escaped. Is he running? “You’re bringing them with us?”

  His nostrils flared. Had she pushed him too far? “They will follow.” He glanced around. “Pack the equipment you want or it gets left behind. We leave in ten minutes.” He strode out to call to his men.

  She could hear him issue orders and really wished she could speak Dari.

  There was no way she could go with him. If she did, she was as good as dead with nothing accomplished.

  So, how to make him leave her behind?

  Outside, the sound of engines approaching had her poking her head out of the tent to see what was going on.

  Trucks, three of them, were pulling up to the area around her lab. Fuck. She had less time than she thought.

  She went back inside, calmly unplugged her favorite microscope and put it into its hard-shell carrying case. It had a nice sturdy handle on it. The microscope was, like everything else in her portable lab, compact, but it was still heavy. The case with the scope in it weighed in at about eight pounds. She put that to one side then pulled out a couple of bottles, one of formalin, the other methanol.

  She used both for fixing tissue samples, preventing decomposition and allowing her to create single-cell-thick cross sections of a tissue sample. These she mounted on slides so she could evaluate their morphology. Both chemicals required caution to use. Formalin was toxic and a known carcinogenic, and both were highly flammable.

  Sophia opened the bottles and began sprinkling the tent with their contents. She dropped the bottles on the sand just inside the tent and walked out with her microscope in her left hand. She stopped about ten feet away.

  Akbar saw her, frowned and walked toward her. “That is all you want to bring with you?” He continued past her toward the tent.

  Sure, go right on in.

  She put her microscope down and slid her right hand into her thigh pocket and pulled out a flare.

  Akbar stopped a couple of feet away from the entrance. Maybe he saw the empty bottles. Maybe he smelled the chemicals, since she’d so liberally doused everything in them. Whatever the reason, he turned, violence riding him like one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

  She lit the flare and threw it into the tent, then threw herself to the sand and covered her head.

  The next few seconds passed in slow motion, as if she was watching a movie rather than real life.

  The armed men around her moved, or started to, some to raise their weapons at her, others at threats that weren’t there.

  The explosion that resulted after the flare ignited the formalin and methanol tossed all of them on their backs.

  Akbar was thrown only a few feet away from her, facedown in the sand.

  She sat up, glanced at him. He seemed down for the moment, so she grabbed her microscope and walked away toward the hospital and refugee camp.

  People stared at the fire burning behind her with their mouths open. Well, most of them did. One man, dressed in a traditional robe, came straight toward her.

  She’d know that face anywhere. Connor.

  He met her halfway between where her lab had been and the hospital. He had no rifle or weapon that she could see, just a grim set to his mouth.

  Now what had she done wrong?

  He took her by the arm.

  “Ouch.”

  He adjusted his grip instantly and asked through clenched teeth, “Are you injured?”

  She shook her head. “Just a lot of people grabbing me there today.”

  Behind them someone yelled in Dari.

  “Fuck,” Connor breathed, looking past her shoulder at something.

  “Is there more than one?”

  “Not yet.”

  “How close is he?”

  “Ten feet.”

  “Wait here.” She turned, then nodded at the man with the rifle and walked toward him.

  Behind her, Connor sucked in a breath.

  Four feet away from the gunman, she stumbled, then spun and bashed him in the shoulder with the microscope.

  He went down with at yell, and Connor was on him within a second or two, punching the man a few times, then taking his rifle.

  “Come on,” Connor said, looking angrier than she’d ever seen him.

  They made it into the hospital tent, where everyone ambulatory was rushing to see what was going on and watch the fire.

  Connor pulled her into a cluttered corner of hospital supplies and made her sit down in the middle of them. “Was Akbar with you?”

  “Yes. He brought in trucks. He was trying to get me to pack up my lab so he could move it.”

  The rage on Connor’s face hadn’t lessened a bit. “And you, too.”

  “I suppose. I doubt that’s going to happen now. I sort of blew him up with the rest of the lab.”

  “How do you sort of blow someone up?” Connor asked, his voice rising. “Is it the same as getting sort of pregnant or sort of dead?”

  “Why are you so mad? Would you rather I let him kidnap me and my stuff?”

  “No, but I do mind you trying to kill yourself.” He leaned down to say, in a dangerous tone, “And you promised you wouldn’t.”

  She smacked him on the chest. “I wasn’t. I was doing my best to prevent a problem from getting any bigger.”

  “Which problem? We have several to choose from.”

  “The Akbar problem. He needed to be stopped and I had no time to consult with you. He only gave me a few minutes to pack up.”

  “So that’s when you thought...hey, what the hell, I’m going to blow myself up?”

  She smacked him again. “No. I thought what a great opportunity to take away the lab equipment he had a hard-on for, and maybe kill him at the same time.”

  “What kind of explosive did you use?”

  “I opened a couple of bottles of flammable liquids, tossed the stuff around, then threw a lit flare in.”

  “Fuck, you’re lucky you didn’t create a crater the size of a house with that shit.”

  Yelling and movement of people had Connor pushing her to the sand behind the boxes and crates of supplies.

  “Don’t go anywhere. It doesn’t sound like Akbar stayed blown up.” He gave her a glare. “I’m going to see
if I can do some permanent damage to the bastard.”

  “Max might want to question him.”

  “That’s why I only said damage, not kill.” Connor stood and was gone the next moment.

  Sophia took a look at herself. She was dirty, bruised and her hands were shaking like crazy. At this rate, the aid workers were going to think she was sick.

  What she was, was thirsty, but drinking the regular water supply was out. Even knowing whatever rabies virus was in there was most likely non-viable didn’t make it safe. Didn’t Blairmore have any bottled water? That must be why he wasn’t sick.

  She opened a cardboard box and found bottled water. Score. She grabbed one, broke the seal and drank it all down. She grabbed another, but caught sight of something behind the box, stashed where no one would see it unless they were raiding supplies like she was doing.

  It was a backpack, a lot like the ones Connor and the other Green Berets wore, filled with gear. Interesting. She opened it and found it full of all kinds of stuff she normally wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. Explosives, Primacord, a couple of nasty-looking knives, a Russian Tokarev pistol with ammunition. She was used to a Beretta, but a gun was a gun.

  Beneath that was a small device that looked a little a remote control with a short antenna poking out the top.

  It hit her. This was Len’s pack and this device must be a signal jammer to prevent anyone from calling for help.

  The off button wasn’t immediately obvious, so she fiddled with it until she got the battery compartment open, pulled the battery out and threw it away.

  She still had her cell phone in one of her pants pockets. She pulled it out. It was almost dead, but there might be enough battery power to let her make a quick call. She punched in Max’s cell number and prayed for him to answer as it started to ring.

  “Sophia!” he yelled after the second ring.

  “Max,” she said as loud as she dared. “We need help. Lots of help from soldiers with guns.” Idiot, she sounded hysterical.

  “Help is on the way. Someone signaled the jets I sent on a fly-over.

  “It’s rabies, but Max—”