Deadly Strain (Biological Response Team)

by Julie Rowe

  “Thanks.” Sharp shook his teammate’s hand. “I’ll take good care of it.”

  “Make sure you do. No dropping it out of an aircraft.”

  “Ah, come on. It’s only happened once.”

  “Cut the chatter, you two,” Cutter said. “Clark and Smoke, you two find us a helicopter we can steal. The rest of us will spirit the good doctor out of lockup. Ping me when you’ve found a bird.”

  “Yes, sir,” Clark said while Smoke nodded.

  Cutter led the way, followed by Hernandez, March, Runnel and Sharp. Sharp kept his head down, so his face wasn’t front and center. He was just one of the guys, no one special.

  Marshall had set up some kind of brig in a prefab metal rectangle building. It was hot, the air smelled stale and the walls and floors were a uniform grey color. Immediately to the right of the entrance was a hallway with several doors on either side.

  An armed guard sat on a chair at either end of the hallway. None of the doors were open.

  The guard at the door got to his feet real quick when Cutter walked in. “This building is off-limits.”

  “You got that lady doctor stashed in here?” Cutter asked him.

  “Prisoners are not allowed contact with anyone.”

  Cutter snorted. “I’m not her lawyer. My guys and I are going to get thrown into the mess she left up north. I need to ask her two questions so we don’t get shot to shit when we land. That’s it.”

  “The colonel said—”

  Cutter cut him off. “I know what the colonel said. He was referring to her calling some bug expert who thinks the world revolves around him, not us getting intel from her. I’ve got to know how to protect my guys.”

  The guard hesitated another second, glanced at the rest of their group, his gaze jumping from their obvious readiness, then back to Cutter’s face. He checked his watch. “Marshall should be back in ten minutes.”

  “We’ve got to leave in five. That’s why we’re here now and not later with Marshall.”

  The guard turned and nodded at the other one, then stepped aside. “Okay. She’s not talking to anyone, though.”

  “I think she’ll talk to us.” Cutter smiled a shark’s smile at him. “Which door?”

  “Second on the left.”

  Cutter and Sharp went to the door while Runnel and Hernandez stayed behind with the first guard. March continued down the hall a little toward the second guard and leaned against the wall like he was bored.

  Cutter opened the door, let Sharp in, then closed the door.

  Grace had been lying on a narrow cot. She sat up and blinked owlishly at them. “What are you two doing here?”

  She was fine. Just fine. Lying there like she was on vacation. No hysteria. No panic. Something raw and bloody inside Sharp healed over. “Breaking you out,” he answered her.

  Her jaw dropped open. “Are you nuts? Marshall will have both of you in handcuffs in the next room.”

  “Don’t think so,” Cutter said. “There’s seven of us.”

  “Besides,” Sharp added. “We’re planning on stealing a helicopter too.”

  “God.” She flopped back on her cot, sighed then said to the ceiling, “I see someone left the bag of idiots open again.”

  Cutter choked back a laugh.

  “Is that any way to talk about your liberators?” Sharp asked.

  Grace rolled her eyes. “It is when they’re about to do something supremely stupid.”

  “There’s two kinds of stupid,” Sharp explained. “There’s dead stupid and live stupid. We’re the latter.”

  She squinted at him. “I have no idea what you just said.”

  “Never mind, Doc,” Sharp said. “Let’s go.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. We’ve got a world to save.”

  Cutter opened the door while Sharp grabbed the doctor. It soothed that hurt place deep inside him to touch her warm, soft skin again, to know she was okay.

  “Here,” he said, handing her a military ball cap. “Put this on.”

  They stepped out in the hall to find the two guards tied up and on the floor, the rest of their team waiting for them by the door. No one said anything. They just walked out of the building and marched, with her in the middle of their five-sided formation, toward the landing field.

  “Doc,” Cutter said quietly. “Do you need those other samples?”

  “It would be better to get new ones,” she replied. “The old ones are still dangerous, though. They need to be disposed of properly.”

  “We’ll worry about that when we’re not breaking enough orders to cause an earthquake. Do you have all the equipment you need at the village?”

  “As long as no one has blown up the Sandwich or shot it all up, probably. But I have no protective gear. Do you guys?”

  “No. Marshall did something with our bio-suits.”

  The landing field came into view.

  “So, we’re not stopping to grab anything?” she asked, her tone betraying her nervousness.

  “No time,” Cutter told her. He’d stepped up the pace, leading them in a ground-eating march that still wasn’t out of place on the base.

  “What about a cell phone? My SINGCAR radio was destroyed in the crash.”

  “Nope. The Grinch took our phones and radios yesterday.”

  “Why am I not surprised,” Grace said, no trace of a question in her statement.

  Their group approached the helicopter where Smoke and Clark were talking with one of the pilots in front of an open panel near the rear rotor.

  “Guys, I just got a heads-up on that mission we worked up last night,” Cutter said to Smoke and Clark. He turned to the pilot. “Marshall wants to talk to you personally before he okays the mission. He doesn’t want another bird going down.”

  “No problem,” the pilot said, closing up the panel. “I’m fueled and ready to go. You guys make yourselves at home.” He headed out at a trot.

  Cutter turned and said to the team, “Let’s go.”

  Sharp urged Grace inside the bird. “Grab a seat.”

  “I need a weapon, and—” she glanced down at herself “—everything else.”

  “We’ll figure it out.” He strapped in next to her. He wanted to reassure her that everything would be fine, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t even promise they’d land at the village without trouble.

  The rest of the team piled into the bird, Smoke and Clark up front in the pilot and copilot seats.

  The engine started and the rotors began to spin.

  A couple of soldiers glanced at them curiously. Sharp grinned and waved. The soldiers returned to whatever they were doing.

  Across the aisle, Cutter put a headset on. He spoke into the mike, his lips moving to form the words in a precise manner that told Sharp he was addressing a senior officer.

  No, sir.

  No, sir.

  A long pause, then very distinctly Cutter’s lips formed the words: I can’t do that, sir.

  Shit had hit the fan.

  Cutter reached around and smacked Smoke on the shoulder and gave the get us out of here now hand signal.

  The helicopter began to rise off the ground.

  Movement on the tarmac caught Sharp’s attention. Soldiers were racing toward them with weapons raised. No one was firing yet, but that was probably going to change.

  Cutter took his hands off his weapon and raised them in the air. Sharp and the other guys followed suit. So did Grace.

  That seemed to give everyone pointing guns at them pause.

  Their helicopter continued to rise, more rapidly every second.

  Marshall appeared out of the growing crowd of soldiers watching them leave. He made a chopping gesture toward their helicopter, yelling something.<
br />
  For a moment, no one seemed to respond.

  The next second, bullets pinged all around them.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Grace ducked, having already heard more bullets coming at her than she ever wanted to hear. Fear, disbelief and horror made her normal nausea while flying seem like the calm before the storm.

  Their own people were shooting at them.

  Next to her, Sharp threw himself over her, covering her body with his. The damn hero. She tried to shove him, to get him to move, but he just pressed down harder.

  More bullets echoed around them, then it all stopped suddenly.

  Someone jostled Sharp, which shook her, then he let her up. She saw why immediately.

  Cutter had been shot.

  The left side of his chest and shoulder were bloody, his head dangling down like a marionette with its strings cut.

  “Doc!” Next to Cutter, Hernandez twisted in his jump seat and put pressure on his commander’s chest. He turned and yelled at her again. “Doc!”

  She was already moving, hitting the release on her harness and falling forward onto her hands and knees.

  There was a lot of blood soaking the front of his uniform and body armor. Too much blood and he appeared completely unresponsive.

  Sharp grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet. She thought he was trying to stop her from helping, and she tried to rip her arm out of his grip, yelling, “I have to help him.”

  He urged her toward Cutter, yelling, “I’ll get the first-aid kit.”

  She reached Cutter and put a hand on his neck. No pulse. Hernandez was still putting pressure on the wound.

  “Is there just one wound?” she asked him.

  His head jerked up at her question. “I don’t know.”

  She did a quick once-over, but couldn’t see any others. She checked for a carotid pulse again. Nothing.

  “Let me see his back,” she said to Hernandez.

  He allowed her to put her hands on Cutter’s shoulder and bring his body forward enough to see behind him. There was a hole in the right side of his back larger than the size of a golf ball. And blood. So much blood.

  Sharp appeared at her shoulder with the first-aid kit. She gave him a tight-lipped glance, then she looked at Hernandez and shook her head.

  He shouted something, but she shook her head harder. “He’s gone!”

  Hernandez stared at her like she’d shot him herself. He jerked his hand away with enough violence to make her rear back. He collapsed onto himself, bowed his head and fisted his hands tight on his thighs.

  She glanced at Sharp. He gave her a rigid nod. The other team members were either hiding their faces so they could grieve or staring at her like they couldn’t believe it.

  Couldn’t believe their commander had been killed by their own men.

  Grace swallowed the vomit that had risen in her throat and went back to her seat. Marshall had a lot to answer for, and she wasn’t going to let him bulldoze his way out of any of it. She put her harness back on, then stared at her bloody hands. Cutter’s body was still sitting across from her as if he were asleep. What would his men do with his body? With Marshall no doubt telling everyone they were the worst sort of criminals, they’d have to keep it with them. As if they didn’t have enough problems.

  They hit some turbulence and the whole aircraft shook like an earthquake registering nine on the Richter scale. It was the last straw for Grace’s stomach.

  She vomited, managing to miss everything but the floor of the helicopter. Yay her.

  A bag was thrust in front of her face and she took it automatically, continuing to fill it with what was left in her stomach. Eventually, her stomach stopped clenching and she was able to hand the bag off to Sharp, who threw it out the open door.

  She should be outraged. She should be formulating a plan to bring Cutter’s killer, Marshall, to justice. All she felt was tired. So many people had died, so many more were at risk, and now her friend and a man who was the glue to this team was dead.

  How on earth were they going to succeed?

  How were they going to stay out of jail long enough to prove they weren’t the crazy ones?

  Marshall had lost his mind. Ordering his men to fire on them—how was murder an acceptable response to soldiers following orders, even if they were someone else’s?

  Were the men on the ground at the village going to fire on them too?

  What about the insurgents who were supposedly firing on the village? Would they even be able to land?

  She didn’t have her bio-suit. None of them did. How was she going to take samples? The original patrol had contracted the illness, proving to her it had to be airborne.

  She glanced up to ask Cutter her questions, to brainstorm a plan...but Cutter was dead.

  Sharp had sat down next to her while her thoughts ran wild in her head. He was still and so, so quiet. She hated what she had to do next. He deserved some time to process what had happened, but none of them had time to make sense of any of it.

  She put a shaking hand on his arm.

  He leaned in close.

  “We don’t have any protection against the anthrax. For the discovery patrol to get infected, it has to be in the air. How are we going to take samples without putting ourselves at risk?”

  “We’ll get Leonard to collect some, then land a safe distance away to pick them up.”

  “Safe distance, huh. How far is that?”

  He shrugged, his eyes sunken, his face haggard. “Make an educated guess. We’ll land wherever you want.”

  “Wonderful.” If she chose wrong, it could mean all of their deaths.

  A hand waving from the front of the aircraft caught their attention. Clark was signaling Sharp to put on a headset. The only one available was the one Cutter was still wearing. Sharp took it off his head and put it on.

  He listened for a moment, then started yelling into the mike. Despite the noise from the rotors and engine, she could hear every word Sharp said.

  “Commander Cutter is dead, thanks to you.” He paused, then said, “Our bug expert knows what she’s doing, and her chain of command supports her. Special Forces soldiers are trained to handle unconventional warfare and think independently. I don’t believe you’re competent to issue orders on the situation. Stop while you still can.” He pulled the headset off and threw it on the floor.

  “That son of a bitch is trying to blame us for this clusterfuck?” Hernandez asked, his eyes glittering with anger and unshed tears.

  “Oh yeah.” Sharp’s voice sounded as angry and disgusted as she felt. “He’s so mad I could hardly understand him, but it’s clear. He’s going to make the case that we and the doc are at fault for all of it.”

  “There’s just one problem with that,” Grace yelled so all of them would hear. “Colonel Maximillian gave me and the A-Team at the village specific orders. I’m sure he contacted Marshall to explain why the site couldn’t be cleaned right away.”

  She made eye contact with Hernandez. “Do you know if Marshall followed Max’s orders?”

  “I never heard of any orders from anyone else. Cutter didn’t mention anything about it either.”

  Frustration made her want to hit something. “Did he do anything productive while Sharp and I were dying slowly in the desert?”

  No one said anything.

  She tried a different question. “How long did it take him to send out search-and-rescue after our helicopter went down?”

  Hernandez looked like he wanted to punch someone. “About six hours. We didn’t even know your bird had gone dark until three or four hours after you took off. Marshall claimed you took the bird against orders to a different location and weren’t responding to hails.”

  “The lying sack of shit,” Sharp s
aid. “He’s out of his mind.”

  “We’re coming up on the village fast,” Hernandez said. “What are we going to do when we get there?”

  “Can you get in touch with Leonard?”

  Hernandez turned around and yelled at Clark in the copilot seat.

  Clark said something back and Hernandez reported back to her. “Clark is talking to him now. We’re ten minutes out and clear to land.”

  “Tell Clark to land at least a quarter mile from the village and the field where the cows died. Ask Leonard to leave the samples then back away.”

  Hernandez nodded and yelled at Clark.

  Now all she had to do was wait to arrive at the village.

  Horror crept toward her from every direction. Cutter’s body, moving with every jolt and sway of the helicopter, the fear and anger on the faces of the men around her. Nausea threatened to tear her apart from the inside out, her shaking fists clenched so tight the skin over her knuckles was white.

  Her hand itched to slide over to Sharp’s, to seek out his strength, to have his long, strong fingers entwined with hers. Holding hands was inappropriate for so many reasons. She was the ranking soldier. Cutter’s death was her responsibility and hers alone.

  Cutter had died doing the right thing. Sharp had been shot, more than once, beaten and a higher-ranking officer had betrayed his trust. All of which happened because of her. Was she going to get all of them killed? Sharp killed?

  No. She couldn’t allow herself to think that way.

  What did she need to complete the mission?

  Samples of the bacteria.

  Safe transport to Max’s lab at the naval base in Bahrain.

  Corroboration of her version of events.

  She needed to make sure her friends, these men who were doing their best to help her do the right thing, the only thing that could save so many more lives, left this situation with their records clean and reputations shiny. And alive.

  Marshall was going to do everything he could to bring her down and Sharp’s A-Team with her.

  She couldn’t let that happen.

  Grace closed her eyes, breathed deep for a few seconds then forced her hands to open. She poked Sharp’s arm and waved him close so she didn’t have to yell so loud. “I need to talk to Max. Colonel Maximillian. He needs to be aware of what’s happened, and Marshall’s role in screwing this up.”