Not even when she had been working on her first doctorate had something seemed to take so long as waiting for the thermal cycler to finish. She needed the results. It had been over three hours since she had loaded the sample in the thermal cycler. She flipped through the pages of her notebook, checking her formulas for any kind of flaws or oversights. She moved her microscope again. Some of the paper Wyatt had jammed under the table had come loose, and the table was rocking. Unfortunately, the paper was between the plastic covering the floor and the actual travertine floor. Not good planning.

Dammit.

Finally, she heard the ping announcing it was done. She looked at the machine. What the heck? The light was still red. She heard more noise.

“Riya?”

She looked over her shoulder and saw Wyatt, Aiden and Dalton. She grinned and waved. It was nice to get her mind off of the red light. She saw another one of the modified oxygen tanks in Aiden’s hands and a really strange look on Wyatt’s face. Scratch that, it wasn’t strange.

She crimped her hose. “Wyatt, what’s wrong?”

“You have to come out here to get the new tank, right?” Wyatt asked.

“Yes,” she said the word slowly. “You didn’t answer my question. What’s wrong?”

“Riya, come out here,” Aiden said in a very reassuring tone of voice.

“Sure thing. It’ll take me a few minutes to decontaminate. I’ll be out as quickly as I can.”

Riya went through the first set of plastic doors and sprayed herself with disinfectant. She wiped the suit down. She inspected, cleaned and removed her overshoes, then disconnected the breathing line from her helmet. Not that she really needed that since she was dealing with liquids. When she went back in, she’d do without the hose, but she’d keep the helmet on, since she hadn’t brought goggles or a mask. She zipped up the interior door then unzipped the outer door and took off her helmet and smiled. It was good to breathe fresh air.

“Hi, guys.”

“Riya, we have a problem. We don’t have confirmation yet, but Griff and Hunter are pretty sure that the canister you’ve been examining contains a different toxin than the one used on the Jordanian royals.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Riya, we aren’t one hundred percent sure. But this all makes sense from a political standpoint. We have one of the Saudis who killed his teammate in order to silence him. Then he was going to kill another one, saying that this canister contained a poison to kill them all.”

Time stopped. But it really sped up at lightning speed. How was she possibly going to condense her three lost hours into a minute? Her eyes filled with tears of frustration. That little princess was going to die.

“Give that to me,” she made a grab for the metal tube that Aiden was holding.

“Wait,” Wyatt said. “There’s more.”

“Nothing else matters,” she said fiercely.

“This does. We think that the toxin you’ve been working on is that broad one they talked about in the briefing back in the States,” Wyatt said. “That means it can kill you.”

“No it can’t. It’s in its liquid form. Even if it wasn’t, I’m following all the protocols, I’m protected.”

Dalton went white, and shouldered Aiden aside. “Don’t ever say something like that again, Riya. Never tempt fate.”

“I—”

“Never.” His eyes blazed fiercely. “Do you understand me? Promise me.”

She had never seen him so shaken. This was obviously very important to him. She put her hand on his bicep.

“I promise, Dalton.” Her voice was quiet and fierce.

“Good,” he relaxed a little bit.

“Look, I need that canister. I have to start working on this. I’m not sure I have enough time to save them. There’s a little girl’s life at stake. I promise to be careful.”

Dalton took the oxygen tank from Aiden and held it while she put her helmet back on, then he handed it to her. “Remember your promise.”

“I will.”

“There.” Hunter pointed to a parking spot in a secluded corner that butted up to the children’s playground.

Gray and Hunter exited the Mercedes sedan at a leisurely pace, not wanting call any attention to themselves. Most of the Abu Dhabi military and emergency personnel were at the hotel. According to Wyatt they had cordoned off the entire building where the gala had been held. Aiden and Dalton had somehow made it up to the suite. Gray would find out how they had managed that Houdini trick later, in the meantime he and Hunter needed to get information from the Saudi who had escaped.

“We see the cricket pitch,” Hunter whispered into the phone. “Where are you?”

Hunter listened to Griff, then pointed to a copse of trees that were fifty meters east of the cricket field. “I see it,” he said into the phone, then he put it away.

Gray was surprised to see so many people out at night. The city was very cosmopolitan. There were even a few people picnicking.

“How in the hell did Griff manage to have a chase scene in this park?” Gray asked.

“Fuck if I know,” Hunter said. “Do you notice it’s mostly couples and families?”

“Kind of late for families to be out.”

Gray was getting sick of all the small talk as they made their way slowly across the field. But inconspicuous was the watch word.

They heard sirens, and as people turned to look, Gray took off at a jog, and Hunter followed.

Fuck taking it slow.

As soon as they made it past the tree line, they stopped and listened. Gray didn’t hear anything. Looking down, the tracks were obvious. Gray took point. Another twenty meters, and they found Griff kneeling above a man who was slumped in front of him, glassy eyed, blood dripping down his face, and what looked like a sock stuffed in his mouth.

“Glad you could join the party,” Griff said hoarsely. “Allow me to introduce you to Abdur Hamidi.” Griff pulled at the man’s hair. “Say hello, Abdur,” Griff said in Arabic.

The man made a high-pitched muffled squeal, tears and blood dripping down his face. “Oh yeah, something seems to be stopping him from being all social.” Gray looked closer and saw that underneath the man’s strands of hair, part of his scalp had been cut up and away from his head.

Holy fuck.

“Griff, you seem a little angry,” Gray kept his voice even.

“Not angry, tired. Just tired. I waited for the two of you to make sure I didn’t miss anything. We’ve got a big one on our hands.”

How come he wasn’t surprised?

“Our friend here explained to me that his brother is a scientist, who came up with a poison that was supposed to take out specific families. He did this for his King. You know the old guy, rules Saudi Arabia?” Griff gave a half smile.

“Shit,” Hunter said. “It goes all the way to the top.”

“Yep. So the King decided to try out his new toy to make sure it was in working order, before the big show, which was tonight’s grand finale. Apparently, he wants to take over a neighboring country. Simple enough, right?” Griff shook his head in disgust.

“Let me guess,” Gray broke in. “The King’s power hungry son had a different idea.”

“Hunter, give this man a cigar. I like our boss, he’s smart. He should date a genius.”

Hunter gave a short laugh, and Gray scowled at him.

“So, that’s what I heard on the roof? This asshole was going to send down a toxin that was going to kill everyone?” Hunter asked.

“Yep.”

“We need to find his brother,” Gray said.

“That was my take,” Griff agreed. “He’s given me a location. It’s here in the city, but I don’t trust him. What’s more, it’s not like I can drag his ass out through the flower children in the park. They freaked out as we ran through. I think they thought we were playing some sort of game the first time. Him all bloody isn’t going to cut it now. Pun intended.”

Gray crouched down in front of the man and grabbed his hair. “Where is your brother?” he asked in Arabic.

The man’s eyes got wide and his shriek could be heard even with the sock in his mouth. “I won’t kill you. However, I will cut off your scalp, then I will scrape the skin off your cock, if you don’t tell me the truth. Do you understand?” Gray continued in Arabic.

Hunter pulled out his knife and twirled it in front of the man’s face.

Gray watched as a large snot bubble formed and popped.

He took the knife from Hunter and placed it at the tip of the sniveling man’s nose, and pulled the sock out of his mouth.

“Talk.”

Thank God she didn’t have the hose hissing air at her anymore, she could hear herself think. Riya looked at the green light on the thermal cycler. She pulled out the samples that were useless, at least for now. She also pulled the slides out of the microscope. The one thing she didn’t have was an autoclave, which shouldn’t have been a problem, because she was supposed to have been working with only one toxin. Riya got out the disinfectant spray and cleaned everything she could, as thoroughly as she could.

Calm.

Breathe.

Think.

Calm.

Breathe.

Think.

Riya tried to imagine herself in her own lab. She had a microscope. It wasn’t her microscope, but it was a microscope. She looked over the table at all the other equipment. It was familiar, maybe not hers, but still familiar. Then she felt her heartbeat slow when she saw her black and white notebook. She could do this.

Her hands were now steady.

The table wobbled. Great. Her hands were steady, but the table wasn’t.

Just freaking great.

Riya made sure everything associated with the broad poison was put over to the right side of the table. She would work on the Jordanian toxin on the left side of the table.

She took the modified oxygen tank and opened it. She pulled out the deployed canister. The top part was missing. Carefully, she pulled out the bottom part and placed it on her table. She would need a substantial sample to pull off a miracle. Granted, when she’d been in D.C. she’d worked with a miniscule amount, but she’d had the best equipment in the world. Now, she needed a lot of the toxin.

The liquid was too thick to pour out of the canister, so she was going to need to reach inside to the bottom with an eyedropper. She gently tapped the metal on the table, trying to make it all fall to one side. She said a little prayer, and went for it. Please let there be enough to get a good sample.

“Ow!”

She dropped the eyedropper. Something sharp inside the canister had scraped her. Was it some kind of boobie-trap? She bit her lip. She fished around for the eyedropper and worked to extract her sample. She grinned when she pulled out the a full load. It would be more than enough.

Riya looked at her torn glove and the small scrape on her hand.

Fuck!

She froze. Then blew out a deep breath as she realized this was the DNA specific toxin, thank the Lord. She was good, but long years of protocol demanded she get a new pair. She reached over to the glove box. The table wobbled and the canister rolled and hit her elbow. She stumbled two steps to the right, her scraped hand landing on a slide with the broad poison.

She jerked her hand back and cradled it to her chest.

For the second time that day, time stopped.

Her mind blanked.

How long did she stand like that? Frozen? Unable to move?

Calm.

Breathe.

Think.

How was she supposed to think? How?

“Riya?

“Riya?

“Are you all right?”

It was Wyatt’s voice.

She let go of her hand and forced both of them down to her sides. She turned, thankful her face was obscured by the helmet.

“I’m fine, Wyatt.” If she asked a question, he wouldn’t question her. “Where’s Gray? When is he coming back?”

“Griff needed a lift back to the hotel. He should be back in an hour.”

“Okay. Got to get back to it.”

“How is it going?” Wyatt asked.

“Got a sample to work with from the new canister. I’ll be able to create an antitoxin in under four hours. Do you have any idea how the Jordan royal family is doing?”

Wyatt rubbed the top of his thigh. It was the first time she saw him do something to indicate his injury still bothered him. “I haven’t been able to. Dex is trying to work his magic now.” He seemed sad. Riya finally understood that he was upset that Dex was better than he was.

“Shouldn’t you be over there learning what he’s doing?”

“I guess so.”

“You’ll never get any better at this if you don’t learn.”

“I want to be on the team. Out in the field with Hunter. Not stuck in here working communications.”

Her hand throbbed. She needed to get started. “You mean Dex is somehow less than the others on the team because he does communications?”

Wyatt was quiet for a long moment. Finally he shook his head. “I’m a dumbshit.”

“So it would seem. I have to get to work.”

Wyatt walked away and she turned around. Her neck was beginning to ache just a little. That was the first sign of meningitis. She had been inoculated for the disease back in D.C. when she realized what she was working with. It seemed to be helping keep the symptoms at bay. Maybe she had time to get the antitoxin created before the Princess died.

Wait a minute. What the hell was she thinking? She could do two things at once. She couldn’t believe she was such a defeatist. Riya grabbed the broad poison that had gone through the thermal cycler. She quickly prepped it and put it into the fluorescence reader.

Finally she could breathe again. She would have both antitoxins made up.

One for her, and one for the royals.

A sense of peace flowed through her.