Chapter Sixteen
7:28 a.m.
A couple of police cars blocked the main road onto the university grounds. The cops who came up to the van’s window were wearing white disposable masks. River had to consciously relax his shoulders. What they were doing now, hunting terrorists, was fucking dangerous. He didn’t want his worry for Ava triggering interest from outsiders. If he didn’t need her expertise, he’d make sure she stayed at the hospital wearing a hazmat suit.
“Sir,” one of the officers said. “The university is closed. They’re sending everyone home—staff, students, everyone.”
“We’re with the CDC.” Something River shouldn’t have to say, given how well marked the vehicle was.
“I’m not authorized to allow anyone onto campus,” the cop said.
In other words, he didn’t want to be responsible for anything that might happen if he let them in.
River gave the other man an agreeable nod. “I get it, but we’re not exactly civilians, Officer. We’re supposed to collect samples from the building that blew up as well as high traffic areas around the main buildings. That’s it.”
The cop glanced inside the van, but there wasn’t much to see. Ava’s collection kit was visible, but his rifle was out of sight, hidden under a couple of boxes of masks and gloves.
“Okay, just a moment.” He walked away, shouting at the other police officer to move his car.
River drove by them, giving them a wave and a nod.
“That was impressively vague,” Ava said as they drove down the empty road. The other side of the road, the one leading out of the campus, was clogged with vehicles.
“It should keep them from wondering why we’re going where we’re going.”
“Do you even know where the lab is?”
“Sure I do.” He tapped his temple. “It’s all right here.”
“How reassuring,” she said drily.
He couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him at her tone. She was tough. She’d been held hostage by a fevered crazy man and blown up twice in less than twenty-four hours, but retained the ability to joke about the shitty situation they were in.
He’d served with soldiers from all branches of the military—strong, capable, disciplined—but to be an elite warrior took something else not everyone had. She knew who she was, and like every good Green Beret, Army Ranger, or Navy SEAL he’d ever met, she put other people first. The team first. The safety of innocent lives first.
That need to serve and protect was an endless well of strength no workout could build. Sometimes you could train it into people, but for the best of the best, it was part of them from the beginning.
“You remind me of one of my trainers.”
“Oh?” She raised a brow. “A trainer of what?”
“Hand-to-hand combat. Most guys took one look at her and proceeded to stick both their feet in their mouths. She’s only about five feet tall, but shit, on the first day we trained with her, she put every guy down hard in less than thirty seconds. Even the guys who thought their black belt in karate meant something.”
“I remind you of this person?” She sounded astonished.
“Yeah,” he said. “You’re tough, too. You give a shit without the bullshit.”
Both her eyes were wide. “That’s…that’s quite the compliment.” Her voice had a vulnerable quality to it. He’d surprised her, in a good way. “I’m not always tough, though.” She paused, then continued. “I’ve had my share of breakdowns where I cried until I looked like someone had beaten me.”
“Did you leave? Stop whatever you were doing?”
“No.” She sounded insulted. “I blew my nose and went back to work.”
“Exactly. That’s what a tough person does. Accepts the shitty shit, vents, then finishes the job.”
“Oh.” She turned her head to stare at the road, but that one little word told him she was vaguely disappointed.
He didn’t want her feeling like she was lacking in any way. So he added, “It’s also seriously hot.”
Her head jerked in his direction. “What?”
“Sexy.” He grinned. “A woman who knows who she is, confident and smart…” He glanced at her. A blush had turned her face red. He wanted to touch her, feel the heat infusing her skin. “Later, I’m going to kiss you a hell of a lot.”
She glared at him. “You’re assuming there’s going to be a later.”
“Seriously hot,” he repeated in husky voice. “Our nap wasn’t nearly enough.”
“But…I…” She closed her mouth, breathed deeply a couple of times, and tried again. “I’m dressed like an extra in a zombie movie. How can you even think about…that?”
“Mouse,” River drawled his name for her. “You’ve been spending time with the wrong men.”
“And you’re the right one?”
“Yep.”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous. What we did…earlier, was blow off steam.”
He didn’t like the sound of that. “I’m keeping things light so I don’t scare you off, but I’m serious.”
“I’m a geek, and I’m the only woman around.”
“That’s an insult to both of us.”
She sighed. “You’re right, I’m sorry, I just…I lost my fiancé a year ago, and I’m still finding it hard to move on, I guess. Part of me is scared to move on.”
Well, shit. “I’m sorry. Was it…bad?”
“Is any death easy?” She hesitated, glanced at him, then continued. “He was a soldier. He was training soldiers in the Afghan Army. There was an accident, friendly fire, I was told.”
“I heard about an incident like that.” The soldier who died hadn’t been anyone he knew directly, but a couple of guys on that same training mission had said the victim of the friendly fire had a habit of jumping with both feet into a situation, when he should have done more planning.
Her fears about safety and assessing risks accurately made a lot more sense.
“Damn, that’s a shitty way to die,” River said to her as gently as he could.
“He used to say that my worrying about him was unnecessary stress. He knew what he was doing, and he trusted the people he served with. I should have trusted him more—” That last word was cut off abruptly as she audibly sucked in a breath.
Shit, she was trying not to cry.
“A deployment can be harder for the people who love us back home than it is for the soldier themselves. We’re usually kept pretty busy, but our family members have plenty of time to worry and imagine all the things that can go wrong.” All he could see in her eyes were tears threatening to fall.
“Yeah.” It was barely a whisper. “And when it does all go wrong, we have to no way to cope and no one to blame.”
“It’s nice to have a faceless enemy to hang all the shit on. No one has to think too hard about that. Don’t have to rationalize death when we can blame it on an extremist. It gets harder when the cause is avoidable or accidental.” He glanced at her again, but she was studying her gloved hands. “The sad truth is, most of the time death makes no sense. We’re all going to get there. All we can do is our best until our time is up.”
Something suspiciously close to a sob came out of her. “Is this your version of suck it up, princess?”
“I don’t know. Is it helping?” Because if it wasn’t, he was the biggest asshole ever.
She snorted a laugh, which sounded weird with her respirator on, then she shook her head and muttered, “Men.” She looked away, but her left hand touched his shoulder, squeezed once, and then it fell away.
A spot in the center of his chest that had been wound so tight it made breathing difficult let go, allowing his chest rise and fall with air for the first time in what felt like hours. He hadn’t hurt her, maybe even had helped her.
He wanted to do it again. Wanted her to reach out and touch him because he was just as hurt as she. Not for the same reasons, but the result left him in a similar place.
A couple of minutes later, River pulled up and parked outside a nondescript brick building.
“Is this it?” Ava asked.
“It should be.”
There were no people in sight.
They got out of the van, Ava grabbing her specimen collection kit at the same time as he snagged his rifle.
“Let’s hope no one sees us,” she said.
River led the way to the entrance. “I believe in the CYA combat strategy.”
“CYA?”
“Cover your ass.”
She groaned. “That’s not a combat strategy, that’s a life strategy.” Then she called Dr. Rodrigues, telling her that they were checking out the microbiology lab at the university as a precaution. She listened to for a moment, then said, “Interesting. We’ll let you know if we find anything.” She listened again. “No ma’am, Sergeant River is armed.”
She ended the call.
“They got more information on Ethan Harris about five minutes ago. He’s listed as taking two first-year microbiology classes. One last semester and one this semester.”
“So everyone knows?”
“Yep. I suspect Homeland Security is going to be joining us shortly.”
“Well, let’s see what we can see before they get here.”
He led the way inside, looking for anything that might be out of place. The bastards had blown up a college kid and coffee shop, a mall, the main gate at a military base, a dorm, and city hall. He wouldn’t be surprised to find anywhere they might have worked or hidden stuff to also have IEDs.
There was a room map of the building near the stairs. A number of labs were listed, as well as lecture rooms and a few instructor offices.
“Any clue on that phone about which lab to start with?” Ava asked him.
He shook his head. “The building should be empty. Why don’t we nose around and see if anyone is still here?”
“The straightforward approach is nice, for a change.” She gestured for him to lead the way.
“When have we not been straightforward?”
“How about the first time I heard your voice telling me how to keep a terrorist with a high fever calm?”
“There was nothing overly sneaky about that.”
“Okay, how about you stealing that phone and notebook from Geer?”
“He stole it in the first place.”
“Or us not telling Homeland about this little trip.”
He frowned at her. “Whose side are you on?”
“Just keeping it honest.”
They reached the second floor, which was where all the labs were housed. They began opening doors, or trying to. Everything was locked.
River muttered about paranoia in academia as he picked the lock of the first door they tried.
The lab inside was dark, and the only things alive were the bacterial cultures Ava found in incubators. They were labeled with the names of bacteria.
Ava went through them all.
“These are all commonly found bacteria from the human body. No pathogens here.”
“Next lab.”
River picked three more locks before they found a lab containing pathogens that made Ava’s mouth tighten in disapproval.
“They should have better signage regarding the danger of these organisms,” she said as she looked around the room.
“What are they?”
“Clostridia bacteria. Some of them are very pathogenic. They cause things like gas, gangrene, tetanus, and botulism.”
“Why are you surprised to find them?”
“They’re anaerobes. They don’t survive in the presence of oxygen, but they do form spores, and that’s what makes them dangerous.”
“Spores? Like Anthrax?”
“Close. These need to be handled with more care and more protective equipment than I’m seeing in here.”
“Could one of these bacteria cause the disease that’s killing people?”
“No. Meningitis is quite different.”
“Then we need to carry on.”
She nodded, and they moved on to the next lab.
River crouched in front of the doorknob, his lock picks out when she tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the bottom of the door. Light.
None of the other labs had lights left on.
They looked at each other, then he rose from his crouch and waved at her to follow him.
They stopped some distance down the hall.
“Maybe we should call for…” She took a second to find the correct word. “Backup.”
“Like who? Homeland?” he asked her as he stroked his rifle. “They’re on their way. Do you want to wait for them?”
“Not really.”
“Then why consider calling them?”
She gestured at him, then herself. “There’s just the two of us.”
River smiled. She had no idea how deadly he could be. “Two is all we need.”
“But—” she sputtered. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“What do they teach you in Special Forces school?”
“I already told you that.”
“You told me about your medical and language training.”
“We’re military first. I know how to kill in more ways than most people can count.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide, and didn’t seem to breathe for a couple of moments. “What if…” She paused, and he let her gather her thoughts. Her face was pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes.
He’d frightened her.
Idiot.
“Roger Squires’s apartment had grenades in it.” Her voice grew more confident as she spoke. “What if this lab has its own booby trap?”
Her question indicated he hadn’t completely fucked up. These terrorists had shown no hesitation in using explosives so far, and it might make her feel better if he took a little extra time.
“I know we have to find the source of the pathogen, but we need to be safe about it.”
There was that word again. Safe. Nothing about this situation was safe, but, maybe he could compromise. River reached into the tool kit attached to his waist, took out a dentist’s mirror, and showed it to her.
“Let’s have a look, shall we?”
Damn, if her eyes didn’t light up at the sight of the tiny tool. There was no reason for his cock to sit up and take notice, but it did. Stupid thing.
Fuck, he had it bad.
He kept his rifle out of the way with his left hand as he got down on the floor in front of the lit-up lab and eased the mirrored end under the door. There were about two inches of space to work with, more than enough.
What the mirror allowed him to see had him freezing in place.
The doorknob had a wire attached to it.
He followed the wire and found its end tied to the pin of a grenade that lay against the wall next to the door. The moment anyone opened that door, they would pull the pin out and blow themselves to hell.
“Fuck.”
How the hell had anyone managed to set up that booby trap and still leave the room?
Were there other hazards?
He let the mirror show him more of the room.
“Fuck, as in what a fucking mess, or fuck, as in an IED?” Ava asked.
How could she ask that question like it was an intellectual query and not the fucking disaster their situation was? Again.
“IED,” he replied shortly, then just to be sure she understood him completely, he added, “When I catch the fucking fuckers, they’re going to be fucked.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it.
That was probably the smart thing to do.
He turned the mirror to see more of the left side of the room and found a body. “Someone’s in there, lying on the floor. Want to bet they’re dead?”
“Not really. I believe you. What else can you see?”
He angled the mirror so he could scan the wall farthest away from them. A large grocery-store style refrigerator took up most of the space. It looked mostly empty. “There are petri dishes and other lab equipment on the floor. Looks like they cleared out a bunch of stuff, and neatness didn’t count.”
“Can you get us inside safely?”
“Not with the equipment I have on me.”
It was going to take time to get the right equipment, and even then, this wasn’t a military mission with his team in a foreign country. He was going to have to follow law-enforcement procedures, bring in someone from the bomb squad.
It could take hours.
Hours they didn’t have.