Chapter Fifteen
“W hat about the other aid workers?” Max asked, his stomach tight. Cornett might have been CIA and aware of the risks he was taking, but the people he was using for his cover probably weren’t.
“We were separated into two groups. The other three were taken somewhere else.”
“Anyone trying to leave is being forced back into the village by armed men, so they’ve got to be here somewhere,” Ali said.
“We don’t have enough people or weapons to liberate them,” Max said, knowing he wasn’t the only one to consider the idea. “And a firefight inside this village would result in too many civilian casualties.”
“They’re dying anyway,” Bull grumbled. “Out in the tents, people are dropping like flies.” He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, testing his ribs and the bandage around them.
Max tilted his head to one side. “How many of the men who took you were sick?”
Bull shrugged, then winced. “At least half of them.”
“Did you notice any bodies that could have been their dead?”
Bull stopped poking at his ribs. “Yeah, there was a pit they were throwing the dead into. When I looked in it, all I saw were men. No women or children.”
“So,” Ali said in a businesslike way. “We have a village and refugee camp full of extremists and a flu that’s killing people in large numbers.”
What a clusterfuck.
What was even worse, this had been planned by someone else. Someone who was scarier than armed men and an out of control disease. “This is not the situation I was told to expect,” Max confessed. “The illness, yes. The extremists, no.”
“Well,” Ali said. “This is the situation we’ve got.” She looked at him and smiled. It was the kind of smile that reminded a man that not all women were sweetness and light. If you made her mad or hurt those she considered hers, she’d rip your guts out and thank you politely when she was finished. He’d never really considered the advantages of having a partner who could be ruthless in doing what she thought was right. He was starting to love that about her.
“Do we stay or go?” she asked him.
If they left, most of the people here would die.
If they stayed, they’d be fighting on two fronts. Against militants and against a virus whose exact identity was yet unknown.
The virus was the first priority. If it spread and maintained its current infection and mortality rate, thousands—no, millions—of people could die.
“We stay.”
Bull and Ali both straightened a little.
“Screw just four guys. I’m going to ask for a full Special Forces team and another portable lab.”
“A supply drop,” Ali said, “would give our extremist friends something to chase while our guys infiltrate.”
“These people need the help as well.” Max nodded, then grinned. “Excellent suggestion, Sergeant.” There was nothing sexier than a smart woman who knew how to play dirty.
Bull coughed and looked away.
Ali bit her bottom lip and said, “Thank you, Dad .”
Max sighed. “This cloak and dagger shit is a pain in the ass. I’m going up to the roof to make my call .”
On the roof, Tom was watching a group of people at the edge of the tents.
“Are they coming or going?” Max asked him.
“Going, but I don’t think they’re going to get very far,” Tom said quietly. “There are enough assholes with guns forcing them back. This is their third try and they’re looking pretty desperate.”
Max looked down his scope at the group. “They have women and children with them,” he murmured, his stomach sinking.
“Yeah.” Tom sounded as horrified as Max felt. “This is not going to end well.”
As Max watched, one of the group trying to leave rushed a man with a rifle pointed at him. He managed to rip the weapon away, but another gunman took aim and fired.
The man trying to escape fell and the rest of the group seemed to fly apart. People scattered and the gunmen patrolling the edge of the tents began firing at anyone moving. Including the women and children.
“Motherfuckers.” Tom looked ready to kill them with his bare hands.
“Who are those men?” Max asked.
“I want to know where they’re camped so I can give them a taste of their own fucking medicine,” Tom growled.
Max pulled his head away from the scope. “That is an excellent point. They can’t be camped in the village or the refugee camp. It’s got to be somewhere close, though.” He glanced at Tom and noted his amazed expression. “What?”
More gunshots echoed and both men dove for their scopes to discover the gunmen shooting at a second group of people from the tents.
“Holy fuck,” Tom said, his voice vibrating with fury. “Someone needs to kill those assholes.”
“I might let you when our backup gets here.”
Once again, Tom turned his head to look at him, surprise lifting his eyebrows. “You calling in the troops?”
“A full Special Forces team along with another lab. I’m also going to order a supply drop for cover when they’re ready to come in.”
Tom’s grin was lethal. “Fuckin’ A, Dad.”
Again with the shock and awe at intelligent ideas. When he had ten minutes and no one was trying to kill them, he was going to ask why every fucking soldier on this mission thought he was an idiot.
Leaving Tom to his observations, Max pulled out his satellite phone and called General Stone direct.
After the issues with one of his other teams a few months earlier, Max had insisted on the lead physician having a more reliable way to communicate with their command than cellular phones or the same radio communication system that the rest of the team had. His doctor had had to resort to near suicidal actions in order to achieve her mission because someone used a cellular phone blocker in the area.
“Stone,” the general answered. “You’re still alive I take it, Max?”
“Yes, sir,” he replied as quietly as he could in English. Being overheard by someone in one of the houses nearby would not bode well for the future of their mission. “We’ve run into some problems and need support.”
“Problems?”
Max didn’t have to ask for clarification. Stone wanted to know what had gone wrong.
“My contact was dead of the disease by the time we arrived. Another aid worker met us and took us to what they were using for a hospital. I was able to identify the virus as influenza, but a large group of armed men set fire to the house. We got out, but my equipment didn’t. Bull and our aid worker friend dropped out of contact. The armed men had them and executed the aid worker before we could get him and Bull out of there.”
“Bull?”
“He’s fine. Some bruised ribs. He told us our aid worker friend was CIA. Do you know anything about that?”
“No.” The word was spoken like the general was spitting it through clenched teeth. “I’ll look into it, but I want you and your team out of there.”
“Sir, this influenza virus has a high infection and mortality rate. We’re seeing bodies dumped outside houses and in the streets. This could get away from us in only a few hours. Hell, it could be too late to stop it already. I can’t come in. To have any hope of getting ahead of it, I have to identify the strain. If I don’t, we could be looking at a staggering number of dead and a virus that’s out of anyone’s control.”
“A pandemic.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not blowing hot air up my skirt?”
“No, sir.”
The following pause was more than a little bit pregnant. “What do you need?”
“Thank you, sir. I want a full Special Forces twelve-man ‘A-Team’, another portable lab, along with a few extras I can have my assistant, Eugene, prepare. I also want a series of supply drops made close to dawn as cover for the team as they come in. We have armed men keeping the people here from coming and going. Sir, there’s a deep game going on here.”
“Akbar?”
“I don’t know. I’ve seen no sign of him, just well-armed men looking for Americans and me. That bounty is becoming a pain in the ass. Bull did overhear some of the men that held him captive mention a very scary man in charge.”
Another pause, then General Stone barked, “Tell your assistant to have whatever gear you need ready in one hour. I’m sending you a dirty dozen along with the hardware.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Stay alive, Max.”
He knew the general wasn’t just referring to himself, but all of the men on the mission, and the woman too.
“I will.” He ended the call.
Tom glanced at him. “Get what you wanted?”
“General Stone is no fool.”
Tom grunted. “I don’t know about that. He sent his daughter out on a mission that had danger written on it with radioactive letters.”
“I had no idea you cared so much, Tomahawk.”
Both men turned to find Ali coming out to join them.
“It’s a lousy thing for a father to do, put his daughter in danger,” Tom told her, censure in every word.
Max winced. Ali was going to go ballistic.
“Fuck you very much,” she said to Tom. “No one has to explain jack-shit to you, but since all our asses are on the line, I’ll do it just this once. I made the request to be on this team. You know why? Because I’m a woman and women are still not allowed on active duty as Special Forces soldiers. I can beat any man out there. I train you sonsofbitches. This is as close as I could get to doing the work I should have been doing years ago.”
“He’s still your dad.”
“Yeah, he is. Where do you think I got my charming personality and winning smile?” She showed off those teeth in the most dangerous smile Max had ever seen.
He cleared his throat and glanced at both soldiers. “Stone, what do you think is really going on here?”
“Colonel,” Ali said lowering her voice, “I think someone went fishing and you... we took the bait.”
Tom nodded in agreement.
They thought he got suckered?
“I should have let a viral plague just go on its merry way?” he asked them. “Despite calls for help? Despite my team’s mission to eradicate these kinds of biological threats before they can become weapons in the hands of ruthless people?”
Ali lifted her chin. “No, you have a duty to react to shit like this, and you also have a duty to make sure your intel is high quality so you don’t lose any men or any of your fancy microscopes.”
“Sometimes,” Max said, leaning close, “no matter how much you know or how hard you try, things still go wrong. The job still has to get done.”
“Fuck, Dad,” Tom said. “You sound like a recruiting ad on TV.”
“Did you or did you not volunteer for this mission?” Max asked him.
“Stuck my hand in the air as high as it would go.” The soldier grinned. “I guess we’re all a bunch of fuckwits.”
“Lovely,” Max said, punching in the number for Eugene’s personal cell phone.
“Sir?” Eugene answered.
“We’ve run into a few problems. I’m going to need another portable lab, plus a few other things. I have a list.”
“Yes, sir.” He paused, then said, “Shoot.”
“Viral identification packages three, four, and six. The hot vaccine package and enough materials for five hundred doses.”
“Got it. Anything else?”
“Add some basic medical supplies to the drop General Stone is going to authorize shortly.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Excellent, thank you, Eugene.” Max hung up, then studied the two soldiers scanning the village and surrounding area through their scopes.
“Which of you wants to take the first watch?”
“I will, sir,” Tom said.
Ali slid away from the edge of the roof. “I’ll relieve you in three hours.”
Max went down the ladder first and was met by Ferhat.
“What is happening?” he asked, his face tight with worry and lack of sleep. “We could hear fighting.”
“People tried to leave. Men with guns wouldn’t let them. They killed children. Where are your boys?”
“Sleeping.”
“We will also, down there,” Max said, nodding at the hearth and its hidden stairway. “One of my sons will watch for unfriendly people.” He glanced up to indicate Tom on the roof.
The man nodded. “Thank you.”
“It is us who thank you.”
“Your son protected my sons,” the man said. “This makes us more than friends.”
Ali took that moment to slip past them and disappear down the stairs. After a nod to Ferhat, Max followed her.
Bull was already lying along one wall in full gear, his rifle on his chest, asleep.
Ali pulled a drop sheet out of her pack and spread it out on the dirt floor. Max did the same, a couple of feet away from her. She lay on her side, facing Max, a solemn expression on her face.
He wanted to offer her the comfort of his body, hold her, and show her she was okay. That she had done the right thing by killing the man who would have killed a child. “You did good,” he whispered. She’d taken lives today, but if she hadn’t those two little boys would have died along with her.
Her face softened, and for a moment she looked as emotionally open as she had when they were in bed together. A tear rolled across her face.
He reached out and offered his open palm to her. No censure, no hesitation.
She put her hand in his and he wrapped his fingers around hers, brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it.
She gave him a weak smile and though he knew she wasn’t right with it, she was functional.
Mostly.
Max went to sleep with her hand in his.