Chapter Twenty-One
11:22 a.m.
River froze under her lips.
Surprise.
She’d certainly surprised herself. There’d been no internal dialogue or decision-making process, just a bone-deep, heart-deep need for his touch she refused to deny herself. Not if things were as dangerous as River claimed they were.
And they were. So many sick. So many dead. With no end in sight.
She wanted him, wanted the pleasure, the care she knew he would give her, even if was just for an hour. It would hurt to see him walk away when all this was over, if they both survived, but it was a risk she was willing to take.
He still hadn’t moved, and she almost smiled at the idea of seducing him. She’d never seduced anyone before. How hard could it be?
She ran her tongue across his bottom lip, and he detonated, his hands yanking her off the cot and onto his lap.
Not hard at all.
Her knees landed on either side of him, proving to her that some parts of him were very hard indeed.
He took her mouth and plundered it with an urgency that made her crazy in return. She wanted him inside her, not his fingers, his cock. She rocked against him and bit his bottom lip at the same time.
He growled low, almost silently, but the vibration went all the way through her, as he shoved his hand down the back of her pants. His long fingers caressed and teased her, making her squirm and moan.
“Shh,” he whispered in her ear. “There are people all around us, and those little sounds you’re making are killing me.”
She nipped his earlobe, then sucked on it, and he jerked beneath her, his breathing becoming choppy. His fingers were busy coaxing cream from her body, but she wanted more than that.
Ava jerked herself away, checked the tent’s closure. Zipped up tight. Giving River a grin, she tore off her clothes, all of them.
His mouth fell open as he took her in. She didn’t give him time to protest or try to talk her into putting some of her clothes back on. She went to her knees in front of him and attacked his pants.
“Ava,” he breathed, his hands coming up to cup her breasts, tease her nipples. “Fuck me, you’re gorgeous.”
“Yes, please,” she told him in a voice so soft she was almost mouthing the words. She tried to undo the button on his pants, but he brushed her hands away and undid them himself.
He shoved his pants and briefs down his legs until they were just above his knees. “One of us needs to be able to react quickly if someone comes,” he said in that soundless whisper. He yanked a condom out of a small pocket in his pants and rolled it on.
Ava didn’t comment; she was too busy staring. She hadn’t been with anyone since Adam, and River’s cock was every bit as large as she’d thought it was when she’d stroked him to orgasm.
His hands pulled her toward him, breaking her concentration, and she reached for him. When her hand wrapped around him, he hissed soundlessly.
She straddled him again, kissing him as she guided him with one hand. He entered her, slowly, carefully, at first, but his thrusts gathered momentum, and soon he was all the way in. He hit places inside her that made her want to moan and cry. Bending her backward so he could take one of her nipples into his mouth, he sucked hard while he loved her.
Her climax seemed to come out of nowhere, detonating a chain reaction of pleasure that had her biting down on the heel of her hand to keep from screaming. River increased his pace, taking her harder until his own orgasm shuddered through him.
For a few moments, they rested together, their arms around each other, and it was so easy, so comforting, she wanted to stay that way for the rest of her life.
Voices outside the tent, none too close but audible nonetheless, tore her out of her fantasy and dropped her back into cold, cruel reality.
River gave her one last, lingering kiss, then lifted her off him. While she dressed, he got the condom off and added it to a small bag of garbage near the tent’s door.
Putting on her clothes felt awkward, and her body shivered in the chill air. What had she just done?
River came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. “Hey, you okay?”
“Yes, just…wow, that was so inappropriate. Anyone could have walked in on us.”
His body shook. He was laughing.
“It’s not funny.” She elbowed him.
He kept grinning. “Sweetheart, you didn’t give me any options. You had your clothes off so fast, I haven’t recovered yet.” He kissed her neck. “I probably never will.”
“You could have…protested.”
“Not a chance. You’re a fucking bombshell.” He kissed her again. “Come on, let’s get some rest.”
He nudged her toward the cot, and she lay down while River stretched out on the mat Henry had lent him the last time they rested here.
River hadn’t slept well then.
“Are you okay down there?” she asked, peeking over the side of the cot.
His eyes were closed, but he smiled. “Yeah, you have well and truly tamed my ghosts for today.”
Ava rolled onto her back. What did that mean?
The next thing she knew, someone was calling her name.
Ava sat up in a rush and stared at the man poking his head into the tent. Agent Dozer.
“You awake?” he asked.
“Yeah, yeah,” River said, also sitting up. His position on the floor put his head just above her waist. He glanced at her. “We’re up.”
“We’ve caught a break,” Dozer said with a satisfied grin. “Police patrol spotted the senator’s car at a motel.” Dozer pulled his head out of the tent.
River stood, already wearing his boots. She had to put hers on.
“You okay?” he asked her.
“Yeah. How long did we sleep?”
He checked his watch. “Only about thirty minutes.”
“Huh. I feel oddly refreshed.”
River’s grin was massive.
She shook a finger at him and mouthed, “Don’t you dare take credit.”
He just kept smiling.
Dozer was waiting for them with Private Castillo about ten feet away from the tent.
“The police said there was no activity at the motel,” Dozer told them. He nodded at Castillo. “He’s all I can spare right now.”
“No problem,” River replied. “We’ll check this out and let you know what we find.”
Ava watched their faces as they talked and wondered at the calm she saw. “You think he’s dead, don’t you?”
“Only if he’s lucky,” River muttered.
Dozer didn’t respond, just glanced at her before saying to River, “Keep in touch.”
“Our vehicle is this way,” Castillo said, starting out at a fast walk. Ava grabbed the equipment she needed to take samples, if there were any to take. River had his rifle, a handgun, and at least two knives she could see. Castillo was armed with another rifle, not quite as fancy as River’s.
They donned respirators, gloves, and safety glasses, then left the clean area for wherever their vehicle was waiting. Castillo already had the address, so he drove.
No one said anything on the drive to the motel. It was all Ava could do to keep herself calm. She would be cautious and careful. Everything else was out of her hands. Breathing in and out in a slow, even pattern finally helped to loosen the fist around her throat.
The motel wasn’t a very inviting-looking place. 1970s-era design with an interior courtyard badly in need of fresh paint and new concrete.
Castillo drove in at a crawl and parked a few spaces down from the only luxury vehicle in sight. There were a few other cars in the lot, but they were old, battered, and dirty. If the kid was trying to hide, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. His dad’s shiny car stood out like a diamond in a coal pile. “Do you think he parked in front of his motel room?”
“Is anyone that stupid?” River asked.
“Well,” Ava tilted her head to one side. “If he’s sick, he might be. Confusion is one of the symptoms.”
River shot a hard glance at her, then resumed his visual inspection of the motel’s courtyard. “Yeah, he was definitely off in la-la-land.” He craned his head around to look at Castillo. “How far are we from the Fort Bliss main gate?”
“About ten minutes.”
“Do me a favor,” River said. “Go see if anyone is working the desk. Find out if the driver of the car that’s worth more money than this entire motel is checked in and into which room.”
“Will do.” Castillo hopped out and trotted to the manager’s office.
The small amount of calm she’d managed to acquire drained away. If Harris was dead, their investigation was also dead. They needed him alive and able to answer questions.
A couple of minutes later, Castillo slid back into the car. “He’s in room 124.”
Before she or River could respond, Ava’s cell phone beeped. River put his hand to his ECC Bluetooth as well.
Dr. Rodrigues said, “Three grade schools have been hit with explosions.”
Children? The terrorists targeted children? “Oh my God,” Ava whispered.
“Luckily, no one was inside. One of the television stations received a bomb threat about twenty minutes ago, which included a line reading, The attacks and disease will continue until all American troops are withdrawn from Syria and Afghanistan. No one is safe. As a result, the state of emergency has been expanded to include the entire El Paso County. I’ve also put the entire county under quarantine. All public buildings and services have been closed.”
Tired. She sounded so tired.
“Find the source, the terrorists…whoever is doing all this, and stop them. By any means necessary.”
“Ma’am?” Ava’s stomach twisted tight so fast, nausea hit with dizzying effect.
“Public safety is at risk, and if things continue to escalate, the outbreak could spread exponentially. This strain of Neisseria seems to survive longer on surfaces, and its contagiousness tells me it’s being spread through casual mucosal contact.”
“Understood,” River said, his voice calm and cold. “We’re at the motel now. We’ll contact you if we find Ethan Harris or anything connected to the attacks.”
“Good.” There was a click, and Ava realized their boss had just armed their most lethal weapon, a man who carried something far more dangerous than a rifle.
Fury. Until now, the rules of engagement on home soil had been very restrictive. Dr. Rodrigues had just given River permission to ignore many of those restrictions. He had a target now—eliminate those responsible for the chaos.
Heaven help them.
River looked at her, no hint of indecision in him. “Castillo and I are going to start with the room we think he’s in. You’re going to stay here.”
“What do you mean, start?”
“Break down the door and hope he’s there.”
At least he didn’t say shoot first and ask questions later. She’d take that as a good sign.
“Okay. Just…be careful. I refuse to deal with any more explosions today.”
He blew out a breath, which made him sound like a masked evil Jedi with his respirator on. “Our track record on that isn’t so good.” He gave her puppy-dog eyes. “I don’t know if I can promise that.”
She rolled her eyes. Nope, not backing down on this. “Trying counts.”
River glanced at Castillo. “You ready?”
“Give the go, Sergeant.”
River opened his door and crouched on the pavement next to the van. He repositioned his rifle, then said, “Go.”
Both men were gone with a speed and silence that left her gaping. They crouched on either side of the room’s door. River nodded once, then Castillo kicked it in. River dove inside, as if he’d been shot out of a cannon.
She found herself holding her breath as she waited to hear gunshots, but no sound emerged from the dark doorway.
Ten heartbeats later, River stepped out and waved at her to come in. Though he wore his respirator, she could read frustration and disappointment in his posture, back rigid and straight.
So, no good news, but no explosions. She’d take that result.
She exited the van and approached him. “What did you find?”
His answer was short. “More questions.”
The room was dark, the curtains pulled shut, and cold. Had someone turned up the air conditioning? There was an overturned chair and lamp on the floor. The bed was a mess, and on it Ethan Harris lay on his back, unmoving. There was no missing the bullet hole in the center of his forehead.
She approached with caution and examined the dead man visually.
The signs of meningococcal disease were evident in the frothy blood at the corner of his mouth and in his nose. His damp hair. An autopsy would have to be done to be sure.
River searched the room, but there wasn’t much to find. Not even a cell phone.
“Was Harris part of the attacks or just the wrong guy in the wrong place?” Ava asked River as she took a sample of blood from Harris’s nose with one of the collection swabs she carried in her belt tool kit.
“There’s absolutely nothing here besides the body.” River did not look happy about that.
“And his father’s vehicle,” Ava reminded him.
An odd noise caught her attention—a deep-throated boom that was as much a vibration as sound.
River made a call to Dozer with his ECC device. “Dozer said a suicide bomber just drove a vehicle overland through two barbed wire fences into the base. He got within fifty feet of a barrack before his car blew up.”
“Oh my God.”
“Any causalities?” Castillo asked.
“Seven.”
“Fuck,” the soldier hissed.
Ava stared at Harris’s dead face and had to restrain the urge to kick him. He was already dead. He wasn’t the one she wanted to hurt anyway. The one she wanted to hurt was still out there, sending college students to their deaths. “I hate these people,” she snarled.
“Get in line,” River told her in a growl. “Got enough samples? We need to move.”
“Yes.” She dusted off her hands. “Yes, I’m done.”
River strode over to the open doorway and looked out.
The sound of vehicles entering the courtyard had her taking a half-step back. Several vehicles.
“Who?” She glanced at him, but River was moving.
He closed the door, locked it, turned, then said in a calm voice, “Go out the window facing the alley. Go. Now.”
Castillo ran to the window and shoved the curtain aside. The sliding glass pane refused to move, despite the soldier’s repeated attempts to force it open.
Ava gaped at him. What was going on?
Someone knocked on the motel room door.
River grabbed her by the arm and shoved her toward Castillo. The soldier put his elbow through the glass, knocked most of the loose shards away, and clambered out the window. River motioned her to follow Castillo out, but just as she prepared to hoist herself onto the sill, a rapid rattle of shots ripped the air, and into Castillo. He fell to the ground.
Her muscles froze her in place. Not even her diaphragm moved, holding her witness to the growing blood pool beneath the soldier. She’d seen death in many of its guises, but this one told her a story she’d never fully heard before. She and River were next. No way forward or back, no escape.
A bellow broke through the ice as a hand reached around her from behind, flattened against her collarbone and pushed her backward into the room and onto the floor. River took her place at the window, looking for the shooter.
Bullets punched their way through the walls of the motel to finally stop in the interior wall adjacent to the window, narrowly missing River.
He sighted down his rifle and returned fire.
The motel room’s door exploded inward, raining splinters all over Ava. She threw an arm over her face to protect her eyes, but the shards of wood still stung her exposed skin like a nest of angry hornets.
Men surged through the door.
River turned and fired at them. The first three were dead before they hit the floor. One landed only a few feet from her. He was young, blond, and wore the same jeans and casual button-up shirt any college student might wear. The expression of shock on his face slowly smoothed out, leaving him as blank as an untouched canvas.
“Get up,” River yelled at her, jerking his head toward the window. “Go, go, go!”
Castillo had gotten shot going out that window.
Lying on the floor wasn’t an option, either. She rolled and got to her hands and knees. That’s when more men came through the door.
More jeans.
More screams.
More blood soaking into the worn carpet.
She stayed down, still, watching the point-blank shooting with horror’s hands wrapped around her neck, choking the ability to breathe out of her.
River was a silent menace behind and to her left. There was no sound or movement other than the weapon he used with complete competence. The young men trying to rush into the motel room were full of rash energy, yelling words and phrases in another language as they died. All with the same intonation as if they’d learned it by rote.
The fight went on for what seemed like months, but was probably only a few seconds. Two men crowded the motel doorway, firing at River. The man on the right went down to one knee, and someone behind him fired into the space he vacated. River jerked and grunted. His rifle slipped, his right arm hanging oddly limp.
The man on his knee collapsed, but the one next to him advanced, followed by two more, who pointed their weapons at River’s head.
“Drop your gun,” one of the young men ordered in a tone so close to a whine that it grated on her nerves.
Someone stopped in front of her, wearing black military-style boots. She glanced up into the muzzle of a rifle.
“Drop your weapon,” Boots said, his voice controlled, certain. There was nothing rote in his body language or tone.
River stood completely unmoving for one long second, then he said in a tired-sounding voice, “Okay.” He breathed deeply, and when she turned her head to look at him, lines of pain bracketed his eyes. “I can’t untangle myself from the weapon, though. My right arm isn’t working so good.”
He’d been shot? She sucked in a breath, the first in a long while, and pushed up from her position on the floor, but the man in front of her put the gun to her forehead. “Down.”
The muzzle of the weapon was surprisingly hot.
“She’s not armed,” River said, pain a living thing she could hear in his voice. “She’s a doctor.”
Boots didn’t move. “Take his weapon and his mask,” he said to someone.
Ava watched out of the corner of her eye as the whiner roughly took River’s rifle from him, ripped the respirator off his face and the ECC Bluetooth out of his ear. He ground the communication device into the carpet with his heel.
“You son of a bitch,” Whiner said, coughing. “You’re gonna die, but it’s gonna be slow.”
“Yeah?” River said in a tone that didn’t seem too concerned. “I’m not the only one, asshole.”
Whiner shoved his gun into River’s face. “What did you say, you fucking murderer?” He pushed the muzzle of his gun against River’s forehead. “Huh? You threatening me?”
Boots stepped away from her, grabbed Whiner by the arm, and pulled him back. “Don’t let him anger you. He’s hoping you’ll kill him quickly.”
“Not a chance,” Whiner said, coughing some more. “I’m in control.”
He was sweating, and his cough sounded productive.
“I highly doubt that,” Ava said.
“Shut up, bitch,” Whiner moved toward her, but Boots backhanded her before the kid could take more than a step.
“Woman, you will keep your mouth shut.”
She landed on her side, facing one of the dead men. The world narrowed into a long, hollow tunnel, turning everyone into shadows and speech into intelligible echoes.
How long before she joined the bodies on the floor?
Something tugged at her face, and she remembered to breathe. Her vision returned as someone reached over, pulled her respirator off, and threw it in the corner. River was shoved down next to her a moment later by Boots, who then began issuing orders as if he were some sort of evil mastermind.
Whiner stood over them, his smile enough to turn her stomach.
“Keep grinning, moron,” River said to him. “Maybe you’ll die happy.” He chuckled, but it sounded forced.
The kid, enough lingering baby fat on his face and arms to put him at eighteen or nineteen years old, sneered. “You’re the one who’s going to die.”
“I’ve been hunted by men who actually know how to point a rifle, and dude, that isn’t you.”
The kid looked River over. “You’re a soldier. Were you over there? The Middle East, murdering the poor farmers who can’t put enough food on the table to feed their families because our government is too fucking greedy to help?”
He sounded like a brainwashed cultist.
“Nope. I was over there,” River said, “trying to save those farmers from asshole drug lords who think Americans are stupid.” He gasped with theatrical flair and widened his eyes. “Hey, that’s you.”
“That’s it,” Whiner said. “You’re dead.”