Chapter Twenty-Nine
A li stared at the floor as she listened to Akbar grill Max, careful to remain motionless. Catching the attention of a man without a conscience could be deadly. She just hoped Max was aware of the tightrope he was walking in his conversation.
“But this virus won’t just kill Americans—it’ll kill people in every country, everywhere in the world.”
“Where were those people, those countries, when my family died? No one stepped forward to stop you from interfering in the affairs of others, in countries you had no business invading.” He paced away, then back again, crowding Ali, almost kicking her. “Your leaders lie to you and what do you do? Nothing. Nothing .”
“What happened to your family was a horrible mistake,” Max told him hoarsely. “Killing a third of the world’s population won’t bring them back.”
“The world will suffer as I have suffered, and when it’s over everyone left alive will know my name and the names of my wife and children.”
It was an almost unimaginably appalling legacy, and this time, it might just work.
Akbar walked over to Max until they were only a few inches apart. “You are powerless to save anyone.”
“Then I have no reason to cooperate with you.”
Akbar laughed, and it sent a shiver of fear down Ali’s spine. “Don’t you?” He strode over to her and she braced herself for the violence to come.
Akbar grabbed her by the back of the neck and yanked her up to her feet, displaying a strength that wasn’t obvious in his slight stature. He shook her hard, her teeth rattling, and squeezed her neck, cutting off the flow of blood to her head. The pain was enough to make her whimper, and she had to force herself to not fight him.
She could’ve gotten out of his hold a dozen ways, killed him with a dozen more, and might have been able to incapacitate one or two of his armed men before the others shot her, but that would get her and Max killed.
Max needed her alive.
So she hung, stiff but not fighting, in Akbar’s grip.
“You will follow my orders or I will kill this woman, your soldiers and the civilians you’ve brought here under your protection, one at a time in front of you.”
For a moment the only sound Ali could hear was Max’s breathing, deep and fast.
“What do you want me to do?” The words came out of Max’s mouth broken. She wanted to beg him to stay strong and not give in.
“Show me how you create a vaccine.”
“Fine, fine,” Max said, his voice cracking. “Let her go. She’s helping me with the work.”
Akbar dropped Ali, and she let her body flop onto the floor like she had nothing left.
“She will stay in this room, under guard. Do you require anything besides the eggs?”
Ali tilted her head so she could see Max’s face out of the corner of her eye. His face was pale, his eyes dark with strain.
“I have everything else.”
“Prepare the materials. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Akbar paused in the doorway. “If either of you attempts something heroic, these men will kill you.” He left.
Max swallowed hard and approached the counter. He stared at it unblinking for a moment, then said to her in an undertone, “Are you okay, Ali?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “My neck is sore, but I’m able to help. What do you want me to do?”
“Could you help me unpack the supplies we just got? I need to sort through it for more syringes and stabilizing agent.” He showed her what the agent looked like. A glass bottle with a blue cap, containing about half a cup of clear fluid. The syringes were small, only two milliliters in capacity.
There were other things packed into the Styrofoam package. Vials of flu vaccine, alcohol wipes, one hundred doses of an antiviral medication that was widely available in the United States but hard to get in this part of the world, a sharps container for used needles, miscellaneous first aid supplies, and a few MREs.
They had a couple of goons watching them, but could they hide some of this stuff?
Akbar strode into the room again. He came over and looked at the supplies, picking up a vial of the vaccine and a box of the antiviral medication.
He grabbed all of the vaccine and left with it. A few seconds later he came back for the medication and left with that too. He was gone a lot longer this time. Long enough for Max to complete his preparations before needing the eggs.
They sat down on the floor to wait.
“What did he do with the vaccine?” she asked softly.
“I suspect he destroyed it. Threw it in the fire. The medication, he might actually keep for his own use or for some of his men.” “Max,” she began. “What does he want?”
“I think he wants to understand how dangerous this flu is. Perhaps he stumbled on it and now needs to know how to reproduce it.”
“How can he fool around with something this deadly and not know what he’s doing?”
“He’s a chemist. He knows enough to get the job done.”
“But the job is done, isn’t it? He’s got his killer pathogen. If he’s achieved his goal, why does he need to understand it better?”
Max didn’t respond right away. “I don’t know.” And that made him look worried.
“You can’t show him.”
Max shook his head. “It doesn’t matter if I show him or not. He’s already got the virus.”
“If he had control of it, he wouldn’t need to know how to grow more of it. You can’t show him.”
“He’ll kill you, those kids, our men, everyone.”
“No, he won’t. He needs enough people alive who have the virus or carry the virus, so he can spread it faster.”
“He will kill someone.” Max stared at her, his gaze heavy. “He’ll kill you.”
“It’s a risk, but it’s one I’m willing to take. You can’t show him.”
“Can’t show me what?”
Akbar walked into the room with two more armed men. He grabbed her by the neck again and pulled her away from Max. “Continue with the vaccine.”
Max injected the eggs with virus and set the timer. “In about forty-eight hours the virus will have multiplied and can be extracted by syringe.”
“What is the next step?”
“Mix it with the stabilizing agent.”
“Excellent.” Akbar told one of his men to take the inoculated eggs. “Thank you. I don’t need you anymore. Any of you.” His smile was grotesque in its anticipation. He dropped Ali and walked up to Max until there were just inches separating them. “You are...disposable.”
He began giving orders in Arabic, telling his men to destroy everything in the building and kill everyone. He wanted Max to watch while his men raped Ali and gelded Max. Then they were to kill everyone else in front of Max, killing him last.
“It’s very satisfying to know you’re dead,” Akbar said to Max. He nodded at his men and left.
Two of the men grabbed Ali by her arms and dragged her across the room from Max, their intentions clear from the eager expressions on their faces.
Anger swept through her, a firestorm that cleared her head of conspiracies and petty worries and dumped rocket fuel into her bloodstream.
Max bellowed, then launched himself off the floor. He’d covered more than half the distance between him and the men holding her when a gunshot reverberated through the room. Max fell to the floor, blood turning his left pant leg dark and wet.
That’s it, you’re done.
Her mind shut down everything but the warrior she was at her core.
The two men who thought they were about to have some fun had her by her arms, one on each side. They’d slung their rifles onto their backs when they took her.
Big mistake.
She threw her weight up and twisted, kicking one man hard on the chin with her foot while grabbing the other man by his shirt and yanking his head down so she could knee his temple.
Their grips loosened and she twisted again, thrusting out with open palms. She was free.
But not safe.
She struck the closest one with a punch to the temple and he went down. The other man was bringing around his rifle as he staggered to his feet. She moved in close, kneed him in the kidney, stepped around, grabbed his head and twisted hard.
The snap of his neck seemed louder than a gunshot.
The other man yelled as his hands scrabbled for his weapon, leaving him open to a throat strike. She hit his Adam’s apple with a sickening crunch and he abandoned his rifle to clutch at his throat.
She took the weapon and turned, slamming the butt of the weapon down on the back of the neck of one of the men now trying to hold down Max.
He collapsed, freeing one of Max’s arms.
Max punched the other man in the face, just like she’d taught him, with the heel of his hand in an upward strike against the other man’s nose.
The militant fell backward, his eyes wide and sightless.
Max stared up at her, his gaze wild. “Ali?”
“I’m okay, I’m okay.” She looked at his leg. “But you’re not.”
His hands grasped at her shoulders. “They didn’t... didn’t...”
“All they did was die,” she said. “Just like these two.”
Max jerked to look at the man he killed and the ones she’d taken out. “I...killed him.” His hands were shaking.
“Yes, and I killed three of them, so don’t freak out on me.” She knelt next to him and tried to find the bullet wound. “Where did you get hit?”
“What?” He glanced down at his leg, a frown on his face, and blinked. “Oh.”
“Not feeling it yet?”
He shook his head, his frown deepening.
“Adrenaline will do that sometimes. Don’t worry about it—it’ll start hurting soon.”
“How reassuring.”
Now that was her Max.
She grabbed a rifle and put it in his hands. “Watch the door while I bandage you up.”
He didn’t say anything—he didn’t have to—his hands putting the rifle into position as competently as hers would have done.
Hot damn that was sexy.
She found wound pads and bandages in the pile of supplies Akbar wanted to destroy. “Now, where are you?” she muttered as she found the hole in his pants and tore open the fabric.
The wound was in his thigh and was bleeding freely, but not so fast as to make her suspect an artery had been hit. She slapped the pads on the entry and exit wounds, then wound the bandage around them to keep them in place and add pressure to stop the bleeding.
He was okay. He’d been shot, but he was focused and ready to go. There was no reason to panic, yet all she wanted to do was hold him.
Max grunted once, but didn’t take his attention off the doorway.
When she was done, she picked up one of the other rifles, inhaled a calming breath and asked Max, “Got a plan?”
“Wait for the next bunch of militants to show up with people they’re going to shoot?” It sounded sarcastic, but she gave it serious thought.
“I don’t think we have that kind of time,” she said after considering it. “We need to get our guys out of jail and armed if we hope to stop that bag of dicks.”
“Suggestions?”
“Walk up like we’re in charge and kill the bad guys.”
“How refreshingly direct.”
“Got a better idea?”
“No.”
“Then let’s go. I’ll take point.”
“If I argue you’re going to complain, right?”
“No, I’m just not going to follow that order.”
He looked like he was going to argue anyway, so she added, “By the way, I loved how you kicked ass just now.”
“You...approve?”
“Approve? You delivered a textbook punch that killed your assailant. Boom. I’m so proud it’s disgusting.”
Max shook his head. “I don’t understand you, not even a little.”
“That’s okay, you don’t have to.” She loved him, but it was obvious he was having trouble with her rationalizing the lives they’d taken.
So, she tucked away the sadness of that realization, smiled and asked, “Ready?”
“What exactly are we going to do?”
“We’re going to fake it ’til we make it.”
“Oh. That.”
She grinned. She didn’t like his sarcasm, she loved it.
They left the room and walked the short distance to the room where the children had been sleeping. It was empty.
“They took the children?”
Max’s voice was rough when he said, “They’re going to use them as carriers of the flu, send them to populated areas. We have to get to them first.”