Ostermann watched Dr. Oliver pick her way over to the oxygen tanks through the lab she had trashed. He’d thought she’d come around. He’d thought she saw what he was trying to accomplish for the good of humanity. He had thoroughly misjudged her.
“Sir. We have to leave. She’s going to blow up the lab.”
The words penetrated and he jumped to his feet. His man held out a specially made refrigerated suitcase, and he grabbed it as he crossed to his icebox. He opened the door and took quick stock of all the vials inside. He only had room for about half of his collection, and it pained him to have to choose. Every one of these viruses was beautiful and deadly. Many were his own creation, hybrids he’d designed to be especially nasty, but he’d have to leave most of them behind in favor of their parent viruses. Except for Delta Hemorrhagic Fever, of course. He had plans for that one.
Besides, he could always create new hybrids.
Working quickly, he picked out the vials for smallpox, Ebola, rabies, and some of his other favorites. Lastly, he chose the vial of Akeso. He may not have Dr. Oliver on his side, but he’d hire the best scientists in the world to figure out how she’d created her miracle drug. He didn’t need her.
He nestled everything safely in the travel case, then handed it off to his man. “Get the helicopter ready.”
As his man saluted and turned away, he climbed to his feet and took one last look around the room. When he’d first chosen the furnishings, he’d done it with the knowledge that his office, his lab, his castle would one day be revered as a sacred place by the world he would create.
And now this.
Anger boiled in his stomach as he watched Dr. Oliver on the monitors. She’d finished opening all the oxygen tanks and now drizzled a line of accelerant out the door and down the hallway. Tossing aside the bottle, she pulled the lighter out of her pocket again. Everything he’d worked for was about to go up in flames, and he couldn’t do anything but leave.
But he wasn’t just saving himself. His plan to save humanity was too perfect, too beautiful to end here.
…
Marcus heard another body enter the moat behind him and stiffened. The rest of the team was ahead of him. He’d been the last to enter the water. He swung around, weapon aimed.
“Friendly,” Harvard said through the comm channel.
“Jesus, kid. What are you doing?”
“Not a kid,” Harvard said as he waded past, weapon up in the correct position, head on a swivel just like it should be. “Jean-Luc is my oldest friend. I’m not staying behind this time.”
Marcus opened his mouth to tell Harvard to get the fuck out of there, but a shock wave rumbled under his boots before he heard the muffled whump of an explosion. He stopped in his tracks as the water around them rippled. His NVGs tinted the landscape green and the built in thermal detectors picked out the body heat of Harvard and their teammates crossing the moat ahead of them. He followed the line of the castle wall until he found the four heat signatures of Ian, Seth, Carreras, and Devlin.
Ian’s voice came over their comms in a hoarse whisper. “That wasn’t us. We haven’t set the charges yet. It came from inside.”
The ground rumbled and shifted, sending Marcus and Harvard plummeting sideways into the moat as debris rained down from the sky. He came up gagging on the lungful of water he’d inhaled and scrambled to find the kid. All he could see was the mass of body heat from his teammates on the other side.
“Sitrep!” Lanie’s voice was like a whip over the comm channel.
“Explosion inside,” Ian replied, coughing. “The wall fucking collapsed on us. I’m back in the water with Carreras. We’re good, but Seth and Devlin are MIA.”
Marcus made it to the rocky shore and surveyed the damage. The wall had crumbled exactly where they had planned to set off the charge. The castle’s weak spot—they’d been right about that at least. Flames licked at the sky. He scanned the water and spotted the two bomb techs. They swam toward the opposite shore.
Where the fuck was Harvard?
“Some serious power behind that boom,” Carreras said over the comm. “Whoever was in there is toast now.”
Marcus looked up at what was left of the castle. No. He wouldn’t believe it. Every piece of intel they had said Jean-Luc was in there.
“Contact!” Ian shouted.
Marcus trained his weapon at the heat signatures flooding across the bridge overhead, but from what he could see, they didn’t look like the enemy. Some were running as fast as they could, others helping the injured, and some bent over coughing.
“Secure them,” Lanie said.
Ian and Carreras climbed the moat’s bank to meet the crowd on the other side of the bridge. Several long seconds ticked by before Carreras’s voice came over the radio again.
“Friendlies. Hostages secured.”
“Copy,” Lanie said, relief evident in her voice. “Get them out of here.”
“Found Seth!” Harvard called. Marcus spun toward his voice, relief flooding his system, and found the kid ten feet away, clearing debris from Seth’s unconscious body. He ran over to help.
“Injuries?” Jesse demanded and dropped to his knees beside Seth.
“Looks like a conk on the head,” Marcus said. Wasn’t anything he could do for Seth, so he climbed over a piece of the wall to search for Devlin. He moved a sheet of wood aside and found the man bloody and broken in a hole underneath.
Shit, no. They weren’t losing another man.
Heart thudding, Marcus slid down the side of the crater. Debris and ash rained on him as he knelt down in the mud to check Devlin’s pulse. Strong—thank God—but too fast. He released the breath pent up in his lungs and took stock of the man’s wounds. Devlin’s legs were trapped under a fairly large boulder. Blood leaked from a deep gash along his hairline and his arm had bent unnaturally, likely broken.
Water seeped into the hole from the moat. If the ground shifted again, the whole thing would flood and Devlin would drown.
“Medic!”
Jesse appeared at the top of the crater. “How bad?” Pebbles skittered under his feet as he descended, pinging against Marcus’s back.
“He’s alive, but worse than Seth.”
Jesse did a quick visual check and fastened a brace around Devlin’s neck. “Help me pull him out.”
Working together, Marcus lifted the rock and Jesse carefully pulled on Devlin’s upper body. The mud got stickier by the second and didn’t want to let him go, sucking at his legs like quicksand. After several frustrating minutes, they finally freed him and the guys helped lift him to more solid ground.
While Jesse climbed out of the hole, Marcus dusted off his hands and looked around. One of the walls of the crater was flat stone, not loose earth like the others, and there appeared to be a hole leading somewhere else. He pulled his rifle off his back and switched on the flashlight attached to the barrel.
“Marcus, wait—”
He ignored Lanie’s command from overhead. They weren’t losing any men today, and that included Jean-Luc. He kicked through the opening, sweeping left and right. A hallway, but nothing like he’d expected to find inside a fourteenth-century castle. More like a twentieth-century hospital, all white and sterile. The overhead lights had blown out at the explosion, the suspended LEDs swaying from wires. Sparks showered from one as he crossed under it. The flashlight beam played over a pile of debris and spotlighted a gloved hand, attached to a small figure in a white coverall and respirator mask.
Claire.
He had no doubt, but he still eased down beside her to make sure. Blood smeared her face, but she appeared to be breathing still.
“Medic,” he called into his comm. “Hostage down!”
He scanned the hallway beyond her body. Whoever had been down here with her hadn’t been as lucky as her, judging by the scatter of body parts.
God, he hoped none of those severed limbs belonged to Jean-Luc.
Chapter Forty-Five
Claire started
awake and swung out at the dark shapes manhandling her. Ostermann and his Stepford goons weren’t taking her anywhere. She’d rather die.
“Hey, hey, hey,” a familiar voice said. “Shh. You’re okay. You’re safe now.”
A face appeared in front of the cracked mask of her respirator. Dark eyes, dark curly hair wet and flattened to his forehead. Mud streaked his sharply angled face and coated his hands.
“Marcus?” She blinked to focus her vision, unsure if he was really here or if the bump on the head was playing tricks with her mind.
“Yeah, it’s me. You’re safe now, Claire. These guys are friends.” He motioned to another man with dark hair and kind blue eyes. “This is Jesse, our medic. He’s gonna look you over, okay?” Then he motioned to another man with spiky light brown hair. She pegged his age no more than mid-twenties, if that. “Harvard, our computer whiz. They’re going to help you out of here.”
She relaxed, realizing they hadn’t been manhandling her, but putting her on a stretcher. As they lifted her out of the rubble, she stared over their shoulders at the bodies littering the hallway. She ached all over, but she’d fared better than Ostermann’s men.
“Wh-what happened?”
“The place exploded.”
Even before Marcus finished the sentence, she remembered setting the line of accelerant on fire and running like hell. “I set the lab on fire. I had to. Ostermann wanted to end the world. I didn’t know how else to stop him.”
Something popped overhead and sparks showered down from a broken light. She let out a squeak of alarm. Both Jesse and Marcus used their bodies to shield her.
“It’s not safe here,” Marcus said once the sparks fizzled away. “Jesse and Harvard will lift you out of here from a hole in the side of the building. Was Jean-Luc with you? The whole castle is one stiff wind away from collapse. I have to find him before—”
“Jean-Luc!” She tried to sit up again, but they had strapped her to the stretcher. “No, you can’t!”
Marcus scowled. “We’re not leaving him.”
“I don’t want to leave him, but you can’t go in after him without a biohazard suit. You shouldn’t even be here without one. Ostermann kept all of his favorite viruses on site.” She tried to sit up again, and let out a frustrated shriek when she couldn’t. “Let me up! I’m going with you.”
“Dr. Oliver, you’re injured,” Jesse said in a calming drawl. “You might have a concussion and…”
She glared at him through her mask and he trailed off. The man actually backed up a step before releasing the straps holding her down. She must’ve looked feral, but she didn’t care. She felt feral.
She ripped off her broken mask. It wasn’t doing her any good. If any of the viruses escaped containment and survived the explosion, she was already exposed. “Tell me you have biohazard suits.”
The three men shared a glance, then Harvard said, “We have a biocontainment unit on the way.”
She stared down the hallway. “How long?”
“They’re flying in from Germany. An hour—maybe a little less now.”
“We can’t wait. What if he’s hurt?” She shook her head and climbed to her feet.
Jesse held out an arm to steady her. “With all due respect, doc, you’re hurt.”
He was right. Her head thundered in beat with her heart, but at least the dizziness passed quickly. The longer she stood on her own two feet, the better she felt. She faced the men. “I’m going in after him.”
All three of them protested at the same time.
Marcus: “No way.”
Harvard: “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Jesse: “Not without a space suit.”
She held up a hand and started picking her way down the hall. “If there are contaminants I was exposed the moment my mask broke. You guys should be okay as long as you stay here. The heat of the explosion likely sterilized this area, but Jean-Luc was…” She trailed off at the memory of the hallway and those poor infected men trapped behind glass like lab specimens. “Not here.”
“Fuck that,” Marcus said and followed her. “Cajun will feed my balls to his pet gator if I let you go it alone. Jess,” he called over his shoulder. “Stay with our injured. We’ll call if we need you.”
When Harvard took a step forward, Marcus swung around and pointed a finger at him. “No. You stay put, kid. I’ve seen this virus and you’re not going anywhere near it.”
Harvard flushed. “I’m not a fucking kid.”
Marcus said nothing more. He just turned away and held out a hand to help her over a pile of debris.
“He’s angry with you,” she said softly.
“He’ll get over it. He’s too young to—he’s just too young.”
“Too young to end up like your friend Danny, you mean?”
“Yeah,” he said, voice raw. “Nail on the head. Harvard’s amazing with computers and that’s exactly where I want him to stay. Behind a computer, where he’s safe.”
“You can’t keep all of your friends safe, Marcus. You just can’t.”
“Don’t I know it,” he muttered. “You’ve met my friends. They’re all suicidal lunatics. Present company included.”
That made her laugh. “I used to be fairly risk averse.”
“Risk is all you signed up for when you fell in love with the Cajun. You do love him, don’t you?”
She stared down at her boots as they crunched over glass. “Yes.”
They picked their way through the hall for several long moments in silence, Claire following her memory. Some corridors had been blocked by a collapsed wall, and they had to backtrack several times, but the deeper they went, the less debris there was.
“Does Jean-Luc actually have a pet alligator?” she asked in a pathetic attempt to lighten the mood.
Marcus scoffed. “What do you think? He calls him Grand Bedee and feeds him rotisserie chicken. Don’t ask me why, but he loves that thing.”
Yes, that sounded like her Jean-Luc.
Finally, she found the heavy steel door that marked the start of the containment unit where she’d left Jean-Luc. The door was intact, and all of the walls still held solidly. The lights were even still on. Ostermann probably had this whole area running on a generator. If she were building a bioweapons lab, she’d want to make sure nothing short of a nuclear blast would compromise it.
Marcus put a hand on her shoulder. “What are we gonna find in there?”
She met his gaze. “I really don’t know.”
He swallowed hard, then nodded once. “Ready when you are.”
She found her ring of key cards and started trying each against the lock, but a panicked shout from the opposite end of the hallway stopped her.
Marcus swung around, bringing his weapon up and using his body as a shield for her. “Don’t move!” he shouted at the dark finger shambling toward them.
The jaundiced man with yellow eyes. He bled from multiple gashes and scraps and walked with a limp. One eye was swollen almost shut.
“Holy fuck,” Marcus muttered under his breath. “This is some Walking Dead shit right here. Stop moving or I will shoot you, dude! Just stop.”
“No, wait.” She set a hand on his arm and pushed until he lowered the weapon. “It’s okay. He has Yellow Fever. It’s only transmitted by mosquitos. You can’t catch it from him.”
The man babbled in another language and kept motioning to the door. It sounded like some form or another of Arabic. She knew five languages, but Arabic was not one of them. She’d been working on it, but when her life turned upside down, learning a new language had been last on her list of concerns.
“Where’s the Cajun when you need him?” Marcus grumbled.
She shushed him and tried to focus, but the man spoke too fast. She barely knew the basics, and just wasn’t going to understand him.
“Do you speak any other languages?” she asked in English and then repeated the question in French and Swahili. If he was from the African continent, the
re was a good chance he spoke at least one of those languages as well.
The man switched to a rough Swahili. It had been a while since she’d used the language since most of her recent studies had been in South America, but it came back fast. “He says his name is Ra’id and he was helping Jean-Luc. We can’t open the door. There’s infection behind it. Wait.” She stopped Ra’id and asked him to repeat himself, unsure she’d heard right. “Oh my God. Smallpox. They released the smallpox victim and shut Ostermann’s men in there.”
“What the fuck?” Marcus backed away from the door fast.
“It’s okay. It’s pressurized. The explosion didn’t damage things this far in. The unit should be secure.” She turned back to Ra’id. “Where’s Jean-Luc?”
Ra’id waved a hand, indicating they should follow, then limped back in the direction he’d come from.
“He says—”
“Yeah,” Marcus interrupted and stepped out in front of her, weapon at the ready. “I got it. The Cajun’s over here somewhere.”
She let him take the lead, but stayed close behind. Ra’id led them through a maze of hallways that became more and more damaged the farther they went. It was only when they turned a corner she recognized that she realized they were headed toward the lab, the epicenter of the blast.
Oh, no. Had Jean-Luc gone there looking for her?
Ra’id stopped and motioned up ahead. Claire peeked around Marcus and spotted a pair of boots under a pile of debris. Her stomach flipped with horror. “Is that…?”
“Shit.” Marcus dropped his weapon and lunged forward. “Help me!”
Working together, they started clearing away the debris. They uncovered his legs, then his stomach and chest. He’d put on a biohazard suit before the blast, and so far, she didn’t see any tears, but she stopped Marcus just in case. “If he’s bleeding through the suit, don’t touch him.”
Marcus looked frantic. “Why the fuck not?”
“Listen to me. We will get him medical help, but he’s infected. Ostermann gave him DHF again and it’s transmitted by blood and bodily fluids. That’s why he put on the suit.”
Jean-Luc let out a moan and shifted, making the rest of the debris roll off him. Dust coated his mask, but it hadn’t cracked like hers had.
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