Chapter Four
G race groaned. “Shut up.” She searched the area and found Leonard still standing with Bart by the communications station. As she walked toward him, he began waving at her to come quickly.
“Marshall is on the phone,” Leonard said. “He’s insisting on speaking to you.”
She sucked in a deep breath and took the sat phone from Bart.
“Yes, sir.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Marshall’s tone could have sliced her into very thin slivers.
“Sir,” she began, injecting calm and confidence into her tone. “One member of the discovery patrol has tested positive for anthrax. If it’s the same strain as the one that killed the villagers, we could be looking at a devastating weapon.”
“What did you do to endanger my men?” His bellow could easily be heard by all three men around her.
Marshall was angry and looking for someone to blame. If she tried to defend herself, he’d stop listening. She needed him to listen. Needed him to understand and agree with the next steps in the process to correctly identify and destroy the pathogen.
“I believe the pathogen was still active in the area when the discovery patrol arrived. I believe it might still be active. I need time to properly identify this strain and discover how it was introduced into the environment.”
“Now,” Marshall said a doomsday tone, “is not the time to hesitate.”
Grace flinched. “I’m not hesitating, I’m taking appropriate precautions.”
“Your precautions didn’t save my patrol, did they?”
“Sir, their team leader went into two homes containing bodies with evidence of disease before putting on his breathing gear.”
“You were the one who trained my men on how to respond to possible biological weapons,” Marshall spit out. “I’m not going to take the word of an inept bitch who obviously doesn’t know what she’s doing. If this bug is as dangerous as you say, then cleaning the site will stop any further infection.”
“This appears to be a man-made strain, sir. If we don’t properly identify the strain and how it was created now, we might not have a chance to do it later. A few extra hours at this point could mean the difference in living and dying for more soldiers in the future.”
“My men are not guinea pigs for you to test your theories on. You will follow established protocols, identify the agent and evacuate the area for decontamination. Now.”
“I’ve identified the agent, sir, but—”
“Are you arguing with me, Major?” Marshall’s purr wound its way up her spine, leaving a trail of cold sweat in its wake.
She shook off the implied threat. “With all due respect, Colonel, the situation calls for extraordinary measures.”
“Not your call to make.” He sounded like he enjoyed saying it.
“You’re correct, sir, which is why I contacted Colonel Maximillian. As the head of the Biological Rapid Response team, the decision is his.”
When Marshall didn’t respond, she continued with, “Colonel Maximillian has ordered the area quarantined and protected until we can be sure we’ve identified the specific strain of the pathogen and method of delivery.”
Still no response from Marshall.
“Sir, are you there?” she asked as diffidently as she could.
He disconnected the call.
She handed the sat phone to Bart and prayed Marshall wouldn’t do anything stupid.
“What did Marshall say there at the end?” Leonard asked.
“He didn’t say anything, he hung up on me.”
Leonard winced, but said, “You’ve made your report, and we have a plan of action. Time to execute it. I’m going to stay here and enforce the quarantine. You two head out with the samples.”
“You got it,” Sharp said.
“Don’t let anyone blow anything up while I’m gone,” Grace told Leonard as he walked away.
“Yes, ma’am.” He gave her a crisp salute and kept walking.
“Don’t salute me. I’m not in command of this situation.”
“Yes, you are,” Sharp told her.
“Yes, you are,” Leonard shouted back. He disappeared behind one of the squat houses.
She shook her head. “No,” she said to Sharp. “The anthrax is in charge here and none of us can afford to forget it. There’s no room for ego or hurt feelings.” She sucked in a deep breath. “How should we split up the team? Some need to stay here and monitor the situation.”
“You, me, Rasker, Williams, and three of Marshall’s men.” He watched her face for a second. “Don’t let Marshall’s stupidity rattle you.”
“The problem is, he has a point. Too many things have gone wrong here.”
“No plan survives first engagement. Things always change. There’s no way you could have predicted this.”
She couldn’t maintain eye contact and let her gaze skitter away. “Strategy, tactics, and figuring out who the enemy is are not my strong suit.”
“That’s not what I’ve seen from you before now and definitely not what I’ve heard.”
That caught her attention. “Heard?”
“You were awarded the Bronze Star a couple of years ago.” He said it almost gently and she scowled at him.
She shouldn’t be surprised he knew about that. Hell, the whole A-Team probably knew about it. There was just one problem. She wasn’t proud of what happened two years ago. “I was doing my job, and it went horribly wrong.” She spun around and took a couple of steps toward the Sandwich. “Other people deserved that medal more than I did.”
“That’s what all the heroes say.” It was a low whisper.
She jerked to a stop and stared at him, but he was already talking to Bart. “Get us a ride. Something close and fast.”
“One magic carpet ride coming up,” he said. “ETA, ten minutes.”
“That was fast,” Grace said to Bart. “What did you do, make the request when I wasn’t looking?”
“Leonard had the aircraft waiting on standby in case we needed a quick pickup.”
“You guys think of everything.”
Sharp nodded at her. “Have you got everything you need?”
She glanced at the Sandwich. “Everything I need is right there.”
“Get it ready for transport, boss.”
As she moved to do it, Sharp called for Rasker, Williams, and three of their security detail to join them.
Grace got the samples squared away in multiple zipped plastic baggies, then put them all in a biohazard travel container and threw the strap over her head.
She took the bleach and sprayed down the suits of everyone leaving so they wouldn’t contaminate the interior of the bird.
The thud of the helicopter’s rotors beat against her skin before she saw it. Sharp and the men who were coming with her gathered around her in a protective huddle.
It landed, kicking up dust and dirt, and they raced to get in. Sharp leaned over the pilot’s shoulder for a minute and she could tell from the rising tension in his body that the conversation wasn’t all happy, happy, joy, joy.
Finally, Sharp patted the pilot on the shoulder and sat down in the jump seat next to her. The helicopter took off.
“What were you and the pilot talking about?” she yelled at Sharp.
“Our destination,” he yelled back. “He had orders to return to the forward base, but I told him Marshall wasn’t in charge of this party anymore.”
“Marshall had given him other orders?” Wanting to get the job done quickly was one thing. Interfering with an investigation of this magnitude was another. She had hoped to avoid another confrontation with Marshall, but it looked like one was going to happen anyway.
“Yeah, but don’t worry. One doctor, two Green Berets, and one situation-specific colonel beat one regular army colonel in this poker hand.”
She scowled at Sharp. “We’re not playing poker.”
“Sure, we are,” he said. “We’re playing to win.” He patted her knee. “Close your eyes and pretend you’re sleeping, Doc. We’re okay.”
Oh, she very much doubted that.
The flight got bumpy. Enough to bounce her out of her seat had she not been strapped down.
“I hate flying,” she yelled at the world as she hung on to her harness and prayed for deliverance. The constant engine vibration and turbulence bumps had her stomach on strike and trying to crawl up her throat. “I really hate helicopters.”
“Want a barf bag, Doc?” the soldier sitting on the other side of her asked as he tried to hide a grin. Tried and failed. Vomiting inside her suit would not be fun.
Asshole. “No, I was planning on taking my suit helmet off and puking on your lap.”
The soldier stopped grinning and leaned away from her. “Seriously?”
“If we don’t get out of this turbulence, I’m very serious.”
“Sorry.” A plastic bag was thrust in front of her face. “Just in case,” he said.
She rolled her eyes and took it. It would take hours of bone-jarring air travel before they arrived at the naval base in Bahrain where Max waited to confirm the Sandwich’s test results, and they’d have to stop for fuel before the Iranian border.
“How did you get tapped for this duty if you get airsick?” the soldier asked.
She gave him a sidelong look. Did he think trauma doctors or infectious disease specialists grew on trees? “It’s only flying that makes me sick. A lot of the time I don’t have to fly to where I’m needed.”
All told, there were seven people on the helicopter besides the pilot and copilot. Everyone else was there to keep her, and her samples, safe. Three of them could kill a person with their little finger.
She leaned back against the harness of her jump seat, closed her eyes and began a relaxation technique to put herself to sleep.
She’d need all the rest she could get now, because she had the suspicion not a lot of it was going to be available later.
* * *
G race woke with a start , dizzy and disoriented. They were still in the air, but they weren’t flying, they were falling. The helicopter was twisting and turning like an insane amusement park ride, losing altitude fast. Sharp was out of his jump seat yelling at the pilot, and the soldier beside her was trying to get out of his harness.
Where the hell did he think he was going to go?
She watched as he finally hit the release on his harness. There was a flash and a deafening bang .
The world went dark.
* * *
W hy couldn’t she breathe ?
Grace inhaled, but the air choked her like it had hands around her throat.
Coughing, she clawed at those invisible fingers, opened her eyes, and realized there were no bumps or vibration.
They were on the ground. Smoke formed a black wall around her, shutting her away from the rest of the world. Smoke, inside her suit helmet. She forced her mind to think.
The aircraft was down. That meant injuries and death.
Her suit was compromised. That meant possible exposure to infection and death.
For a moment her stomach took over, rolling like they were still in the air, but she wrestled it into a lockdown and forced herself to think through the shock of what had happened. Injuries, infection, and death .
Her limbs and lungs all seemed to be working. Time to get at it. She released her harness and pitched out of the seat and onto her hands and knees.
Within touching distance of her left hand was the face of the soldier who’d been sitting next to her. He was staring up at her, his mouth slack, eyes fixed and pupils dilated. Blood was splattered all over his bio-suit, inside and out, and a piece of the aircraft stuck out of his temple.
She stared at him unblinking for a couple of seconds, her stomach twisting tighter than it ever had while she was the air.
She’d just been talking to him and now he was dead.
She tried to push her jumbled emotions aside, but there were too many. Old traumas and the new twisted together into an uncontrollable boiling mass of confusion and pain.
Her body had only one way to get rid of it.
The world narrowed and grayed, and she wrenched her bio-suit helmet off as she vomited all over the soldier’s chest. She scrambled sideways to get away from the body, her stomach still heaving.
A sound penetrated her mental haze. Screaming.
It was hard to see where the noise was coming from. Between the smoke and the jumbled debris all around, it was hard to even believe the wreck had once been a helicopter.
She crawled around a large piece of metal paneling that probably had once been part of the rear bulkhead. Her hands landed on a suit-covered boot and she felt her way up the body to search for evidence of injury.
Another of Marshall’s men. He’d been decapitated.
Horror worked its way up to choke her, freezing her in place like the day the IED went off and she’d been faced with an extremist with a weapon. Then, the only thing that saved her had been the quick actions of another soldier.
No. She wrenched her mind out of the past.
Focus. Where was Sharp?
She searched the area, but there was no sign of him. He could be hurt or dead. No, not him. She hadn’t beaten him at chess yet.
She’d find him, then she’d worry about everything else.
She discovered a second body, dead, then got to the source of the screaming. It was one of the men on her security detail. One of his arms was trapped under mangled pieces of the wreckage, pinning him to the ground.
There was a lot of blood.
Too much blood.
She began to pat him down, searching for the injury and the source of all the blood.
His left foot was missing. Completely gone.
“I need some help here,” she yelled as she jerked at a piece of harness. It came loose and she quickly used it to put a tourniquet at the end of the stump to stop the bleeding. The screaming stopped as the soldier passed out. She turned, hoping to see assistance in the form of Williams or Rasker or Sharp. No one.
Where was Sharp?
She’d have to get an IV going and push fluids into the injured soldier if there was any hope of saving him. Did they even have those kinds of medical supplies on this bird?
No one was there.
The smoke had dissipated a little, allowing her to see better, but all she saw was a dead aircraft filled with broken bodies.
Despair grabbed hold and shook her like a hunting dog with a rat. She wanted to throw up some more, then crawl into a hole and never come out, but the soldier needed her.
He was going to die if she didn’t get moving.
The biohazard container hanging around her neck bumped into her arm. It appeared intact. Thank God.
She stripped off her suit—it wasn’t any use now—then crab-crawled below the smoke and over debris and bodies toward where the emergency supplies were supposed to be stowed. Stored in a series of bulkhead cabinets in padded containers and locked to the fuselage by heavy-duty straps, some of it should be okay. As long as there were IV sets and saline, she could cobble something together to keep the soldier alive.
She dug out one case, but it was full of bandages and splints. She’d gotten her hands on another one when she heard voices and laughter. From the sound of their baritones, men. From the language, Dari or Persian, locals rather than a rescue team. From their laughter, extremists or insurgents.
The soldier started screaming again.
There was a burst of gunfire and the screaming stopped.
She didn’t have to see it to know what happened. They’d killed the soldier. Murdered him. A wounded man, pinned to the ground, who had no hope of defending himself.
Anger rushed through her system like a firestorm, heating her blood and completely clearing her head for the first time since the crash.
The men kept laughing and she could hear the crash of debris being thrown aside. Gunfire erupted for a second time and her hands curled into fists.
They’d killed her patient, then moved on to shoot someone else.
They thought it was funny.
She was going to show them funny.
She was going to ram funny right down their throats.
She put the crate down with suddenly steady hands and searched for something she could use to school those giggling idiots. Next to the medical supplies was a small rack of backup weapons, three Beretta M9s. She pulled one out, grabbed a fifteen-bullet magazine and slowly, carefully loaded the weapon.
Gunfire echoed around her. They’d moved away, probably to the other side of the aircraft.
She crept out of the hidey-hole she’d been in and listened carefully to the voices, judging direction and distance. There was still enough smoke to make visual contact somewhat hit-or-miss, so she kept low and moved slowly toward them.
Movement had her ducking down. Two men in typical Afghan clothing, chattering at each other in what she was sure now was Dari, walked quickly away from the wreckage. She couldn’t see where they were going, but they started to run, so it must have been something important.
She peeked over a piece of bulkhead and stopped breathing when she saw what they were after.
A soldier in a bio-suit lay at the end of a trail of debris as if he’d been spit out of the helicopter like a mouthful of something that tasted awful.
The two Afghans were only steps away from him, their weapons raised.
Grace lunged out of the aircraft and sprinted toward them. She yelled, “Hey!” dropped to one knee and fired two shots in rapid succession as they turned to see who’d called out.
They both fell. She leaped to her feet, running toward them, her gun up and ready to fire again if those first shots hadn’t done their job.
But they had. Both Afghans were dead.
She turned and looked at the American.
He blinked up at her like he’d just awoken from an unwelcome sleep. “Doc?”
“Sharp?” Grace nearly wept in relief. He was alive. “Can you stand? Are you injured? Your suit is torn.” She looked around, watching for more bad guys. “Did those men shoot you? There might be more of them.”
“I’m mobile and don’t need medical attention at the moment,” he said, his tone slow and even. “How about I handle the shooting, and you handle the first aid.” He held out his hand.
“Yeah.” She handed him the pistol, and he palmed it with the ease of long familiarity. “I need to check for more wounded.”
He accepted her hand up, and they walked toward the helicopter.
She noted his limp, but it would have to wait until their immediate problems were addressed.
“What did I miss?” he asked.
“We crashed.”
“I got that.”
She told him what she remembered of the crash and what happened after.
He glanced back at the two Afghani bodies lying on the ground. “How many bullets did it take to lay them out?”
“One each.”
“Damn, Doc, that’s fine work.”
She stared at him blankly. Too tired, too heart-sore to respond.
He studied her face for a moment. “Are you injured?” he asked.
“No.” She looked down at herself. Splatters of blood covered her uniform, but none of it seemed to belong to her.
“Anyone else alive?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t had time to look.”
“Okay, let’s look now. I’m also going to arm myself to the teeth and see if I can radio for help.” He took two steps away, then stopped and turned back to her. “You took your suit off?”
“It was torn in several places. Just like yours.”
“Good point.” He pulled it off as he walked.
They entered the wreck, and Grace began checking for more wounded. She found Williams first, but he was dead, one side of his skull crushed. He’d always been so quiet, but the second she ever needed anything he’d be there helping out or pitching in any way he could. Grief surged to the surface of her mind, but she shoved it back down and put a lock on it. Next, she found another soldier from her security detail, a bullet hole in his head. Finally, after some digging through debris, she found Rasker. He was breathing, but unconscious. Her palms moved up his body, checking for injuries, and found broken bones and at least one skull fracture.
“Doc.”
She glanced up. Sharp crouched in front of her, cradling an M4 in one arm with the pistol she’d fired in his other hand, butt toward her. “I want you to keep this.”
She took it and holstered it. “The pilot?”
Sharp’s expression was so carefully bland she knew the news was bad before he said it. “Dead —along with the copilot. The radio is junk, too.”