Chapter Thirty-Three
4:05 p.m.
Henry sounded as if he were fighting a war with himself. He ran around the outside of his portable lab, checking everywhere for the bomb, swearing like nothing she’d ever heard before.
Why did he think the lab was the target?
“Get the fuck out of here, Ava.”
If Palmer’s goals were fear and killing people, wouldn’t it make more sense for him to have left the bomb in someplace full of people, someplace those people felt safe?
Henry used to be a soldier. If the bomb was planted here and he couldn’t find it, no one could.
Experience with Palmer’s previous bombs told her it was going to explode in a few minutes. Also, he preferred high-value targets with lots of visibility. The lab was virtually invisible, but there was a building next door that would qualify as perfect.
Where would he have put a bomb inside the hospital? Where would he get, as River said, the biggest bang for his buck?
Ava stood and walked toward the nearest entrance to the hospital. “Fine, I’m going, but I think I’m dead already.”
She took the most direct route to the hospital, past the decontamination area, where she left her respirator, glasses, and gloves. They were just irritating her more than anything.
No one paid her any attention, at least not until she approached the guarded checkpoint. The guards frowned at her, but let her leave without a challenge.
Nope, the challenge would happen when she tried to get back in.
She was almost to the door when Henry yelled at her. “Ava?”
Now what was he yelling about? She ignored him and went inside.
The building was full of people. And noise. Yelling, crying, begging. Hospital staff were running in all directions, and security was attempting to subdue a man who looked like a typical suburban husband and father who was threatening to kill everyone in sight with a baseball bat.
Society sure had broken down in here in a hurry.
Ava walked past it all and entered the ER waiting room. Every chair was occupied, every piece of wall was used as a place to lean or a spot to rest a gurney carrying a patient. There was even a news crew, all wearing respirators, trying to interview a crying woman.
What could be more visible than this? Now, where would he have left the bomb?
She scanned the floor and under chairs and side tables. There were plenty of purses, messenger bags, and backpacks. In one corner, several bags were jammed under a side table being used as a chair by a man who would have looked right at home in the middle of a biker gang. Tattooed and dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and leather vest, he looked as if he were hanging onto consciousness by the skin of his teeth.
Ava walked up to him. “Hi, are any of the bags under there yours?”
He frowned, blinked, then shook his head.
She got down on her knees and reached under the table to pull the first couple of bags out.
“Hey, that’s mine,” a lady sitting in the chair to Ava’s left protested.
“Sorry.” Ava handed the woman her bag.
No one claimed the other bag, which was a large, carpet-bag style purse. She couldn’t see Palmer using it. It didn’t make the right statement.
There was a black backpack shoved up against the wall. To reach it, she was going to have to crawl under the table.
She gave the biker an apologetic smile and said, “Don’t take this personally.” Then she scooted between his legs and under the table to snag the bag.
“Anyone own this?” she called out.
“You shopping for a new bag?” the biker asked, his voice slurred.
“No,” Ava answered as she unzipped the main compartment and peeked inside. “I’m looking for a bomb.”
“Lady,” he muttered. “You’ve lost your mind.”
The bag was full of wires and wrapped bundles. “Found it.” She flashed the guy a smile and hurried out of the hospital the way she got in. It seemed to take forever, as if she were swimming through honey.
Henry nearly ran over her.
She held up the pack as soon as she saw him and said again, “Found it.” She handed it to him. “Now what?”
He didn’t answer, just spun around and half ran, half limped away.
“You’re welcome,” she shouted after him. Huh, that probably wasn’t an appropriate thing to say.
Okay, that bomb was just explosives, but was it the only one? There never seemed to be just one. What if the explosive device was a decoy for a larger biological weapon? An outbreak could spread to kill or injure more people without regard for borders than any IED created. Palmer had had unrestricted access to this hospital and the CDC’s equipment. He could have easily left more than one bomb lying about.
Ava walked back into the bull pen of the ER, letting her gaze search for another possible bomb, one with more than explosives.
“Dr. Lloyd.”
Ava followed the sound of her name to her boss, who was waving at her. Next to her stood a tall soldier wearing a respirator and a rifle that looked like River’s favorite weapon. Ava approached them, still allowing her gaze to wander the room.
“Ava, this is a friend of Sergeant River’s, Sergeant Smoke.”
The man nodded. “Just Smoke.”
Rodrigues’s phone beeped, and she stepped away from them.
Ava and Smoke stared at each other. The frown on his face told her he had a question, but he didn’t say anything. Finally, she asked, “What to help me find a bomb?”
He continued to stare at her, but after several seconds he finally nodded once. He probably thought she was nuts. Not much she could do about that. She carried on, looking for a backpack with no owner.
“Description?” he asked as he stalked behind her.
That was a good question.
“I’ve seen two kinds,” she said as she got down on her hands and knees to look under the chairs behind the bull-pen counter. “Grenades out in the open, or backpacks created by malcontented students. We’re looking for one that contains weaponized bacteria. The bomb’s goal isn’t to kill people, it’s to infect them.”
“Assholes.”
“Yep.”
Something beeped. Smoke pulled a cell phone out of a pocket and barked, “Smoke.”
His gaze jerked to meet hers and stayed there. His eyes narrowed.
“That’s River, isn’t it?”
“I’ll make sure she’s secure,” he said into the phone, then ended the call.
Ava rolled her eyes and walked over to a chair that held several sweaters and purses. At the bottom was a brown messenger bag with an El Paso police emblem sewn onto it.
Ava opened the bag. Wires, taped bundles, and a clock ticking down.
Twenty.
Nineteen.
Eighteen.
Well, didn’t this suck. Seconds, she only had seconds to do something with the bag. She’d never make it outside.
Limited options.
She picked up the bag and walked to the washroom at the back of the space. Before she opened the door, she made eye contact with Smoke, raised the bag with one hand, and pointed at it with her other hand. Then she opened the door, set the bag on the floor, and closed the door.
Smoke was running toward her.
Not fast enough.
She only got two steps away before the bathroom blew up.
…
River managed to make it around the corner without losing control of the bus, but it was probably a good thing there wasn’t any other traffic on the road.
“I don’t like saying this, but,” Dozer said in a tone that could only be described unnaturally calm, “we aren’t going to get there in time.”
River didn’t reply. He knew they weren’t going to get there before the bomb went off, but that didn’t change his determination to try.
As they approached the hospital, the flashing lights of police vehicles reminded him traffic was at a standstill within two or three blocks of the place.
“Fuck it,” he muttered, as he braked and parked the bus along the far edge of the cemetery that bordered the west side of the hospital’s property.
“What are we doing?” Dozer asked as River bolted out the door and vaulted the fence.
“Running,” River yelled over his shoulder. “Try to keep up.” He kicked his stride into high gear, jumping over gravestones, crosses, and memorials as if he were an Olympic hurdler.
Ahead of him, someone was running, heading toward the street to River’s right. It was clogged with cars and trucks, but the runner slid over engine hoods as if he were a good ol’ boy with the cops on his tail. No one was following him, so why was he in such a hurry?
The runner stopped between two cars and disappeared. A loud, metallic clunk drew River’s attention. In order for him to hear it at this distance, it had to be significant. River slowed.
New threat?
Another metallic clunk, and then the runner came bounding over a car and the cemetery fence into the graveyard.
The guy was wearing a hazmat suit.
Henry Lee.
“Hit the dirt!”
One did not ignore an order like that from a man who was as much a soldier as River.
He didn’t quite make it before the ground rocked beneath him, hard enough to put him on his face. The boom wasn’t far behind. The manhole cover rocketed into the air and caved a crater in an empty car’s roof.
River managed to get to his feet. “Henry? Was that the bomb?”
Lee was lying on his back, not trying to get up yet. “Yeah.” He sounded irritated and more than a little pissed off.
“Where’d you find it?”
“I didn’t,” Lee said as he rolled to his feet. “Ava did.”
What. The. Fuck. “How did that happen?”
“I don’t know. I was running around the lab, looking for it. She just walked away, went into the hospital. I didn’t think much of it. Then it occurred to me that she’d been acting a little off.”
“Off?” River asked. “Where is she now?”
“Staff entrance is where I ran into her. She had the damn bomb in her hands.”
River started toward the medical center at a fast walk, but as soon as he got out of the cemetery, he broke into a jog, then a run. Just before he reached the door, the whole building vibrated as if King Kong had landed a punch on it with a heavy fist.
A second bomb? That fit with Palmer’s MO. Not once had he used just one. He opened the door so hard and fast it banged against the exterior. The power flickered inside the building, but River ignored it and rushed into air hazed with…dust?
Where would she be? ER? Going there first solved the secondary question of what happened.
The ER bull pen had been turned into a slaughterhouse. A ragged hole in a wall gaped open at the back of room, water spraying out of it like a fountain on speed. Dust and debris coated everything. People were strewn about the floor like drunk frat boys after a three-day party. The only difference was the blood smeared indiscriminately over every surface.
Fuck.
Some of the bodies moved, moaned, and tried to get up. One of them wore an Army uniform.
“Smoke?” River strode over to his friend. “Where’s Ava?”
Smoke glanced around, then pointed at a door that had been ripped off its hinges and now lay haphazardly. “Under that.”
River strode over and lifted the door off her. She lay crumpled and unmoving. He checked her pulse. Strong and regular. He did a quick check with his hands to see if she had any injuries. Nothing obvious.
Lee caught up to him. “She okay?”
“She’s out cold and putting out heat like a furnace in January.”
“This place isn’t secure,” Lee said, looking around. “Bring her to my lab. She can rest on that cot set up outside in the tent.”
River picked her up very carefully, then looked for Dozer. The Homeland agent was bent over another figure on the floor. Dr. Rodrigues.
“Rodrigues?” River called out.
“She’s conscious,” Dozer answered. “Ava?”
River shook his head. “Lee has a cot out by his lab.”
“Yeah,” Dozer replied to River’s unasked question. “That’s probably the best place for her right now. Come back once you’ve got her tucked in. I’m going to need every pair of hands I can get.”
River looked at Smoke.
“Go,” the other man said. “I’ll help here.”
River didn’t waste time replying. He just moved as quickly as he dared, with Ava in his arms.
He laid her down and waited for Lee to come back with…hopefully something that would combat this damned infection.
Lee returned with a bag of saline and two smaller bags of fluids. He hung all three up on the IV pole on the other side of the cot, then picked up Ava’s hand. On the back was an IV needle capped and waiting for the business end of a line.
“I already gave her a dose of antibiotic and a second drug I think will make the bacteria sensitive to that antibiotic, but this…” He paused, looking at her. “Isn’t a good sign.” He connected the bags to the tubing and started the drip.
“You think?” River asked.
Lee winced. “It’s only been used in a couple of studies.”
“And you gave it to her?” River couldn’t believe it. The medication dripping into Ava’s vein was fucking experimental.
“It was that or nothing.” Henry threw his hands up in the air, showing for the first time how frustrated he was. “Five hundred plus people have died of this infection so far.”
“Will it work?”
“I don’t know.” Lee’s voice was bleak.
That sucked ass.
“Will it make things worse?”
“No. The worst it could do is nothing.”
He really didn’t give a shit about whether or not the treatment was fifty years or five minutes old. As long as there was a possibility of it working.
Fuck. He’d done this to her. He’d played a game of strategy and tactics with a lunatic, but had forgotten the most important and immutable rule of war.
People died.
He’d gambled with her life. Even if she survived, she’d never forgive him. He’d never forgive himself.
Fucking selfish bastard.
Sweat beaded on Ava’s forehead to trickle across flushed skin and past swollen eyes. Fear crawled up his spine on spider legs, threatening to take control and paralyze him. He couldn’t move, could only watch as men ran over the sand, shouting and shooting, the pain in his head blurring his vision until all he could see were watery shadows.
No, no, he wasn’t paralyzed. Wasn’t in the Middle East. Wasn’t bleeding on the sand.
River closed his eyes and focused on the sounds around him. All the conversation he could hear was in English. The sirens of police and EMS vehicles was uniquely American. He opened his eyes to see Lee taking Ava’s temperature.
“Where did she find the bomb?” River asked, forcing words out of his desert-dry mouth.
“I don’t know that, either.” Fuck, Lee looked ready to rip his hair out. “When I realized she was gone and I hadn’t found the bomb, I decided to follow her. She was coming out of the building, and when she saw me, announced she had it like she’d found her keys or something.”
“What about the second one?”
“Didn’t know a thing about that one.”
River sat down on the edge of the cot. He should probably be helping Rodrigues, but he needed to sit, to listen to her breathe, and convince himself that she was going to be okay.
Dozer walked up to the tent. “Is she…?”
“Unconscious,” Lee replied.
The agent nodded, but didn’t say anything, his gaze sharp on River and Ava.
River met the other man’s assessing gaze. “Thanks, by the way. You helped save a boatload of people.”
The other man snorted. “Boatload? I thought you were Army.”
“Yeah.” He ran a hand over his short hair. “Speaking of Army.” River gestured at Lee. “Henry Lee Sergeant, Special Forces, retired, this is Homeland Agent Dozer.”
The two men shook hands.
“Retired?” the other man asked, giving Lee a once-over.
River had to admit, the guy hadn’t let himself go. He looked in top shape and had sprinted like a man who could have done it for miles.
Lee rapped a knuckle against his left pant leg. The sound of metal made Dozer’s eyebrows go up.
“IED convinced me a change in occupation would be a good idea.” He shrugged and turned his attention to the IV, continuing absently, “Though, I have to admit, I miss the adrenaline rush.”
“How long until we know?” River asked as he watched Ava’s face, unwilling to consider the possibility she might not wake up.
“I don’t know. Hours, maybe.”
River inspected his uniform. He looked as if he’d been wrestling with a porcupine and lost. “I guess I should talk to Dr. Rodrigues.” He glanced at Dozer. “What about you? You want to go back to the police station?”
“There’s a travel ban in effect,” Dozer countered. “Now that we’ve stopped the terrorists, we should probably follow the rules, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Look, son,” the agent said, crouching next to River. “I’ll stay and watch over Dr. Lloyd while you talk to your boss. How about we do that?” He thrust his chin at Lee. “Mr. Lee can assist as needed.”
Henry looked momentarily surprised, then came to attention and barked, “Aye, aye, sir.”
Dozer rolled his eyes. “I can do without the flirting.”
River shook his head and got to his feet. “Okay, I’m going before you two pick out the china.” As a joke, it was a weak effort.
He didn’t move for a couple of seconds, then gave both men a nod and left.
Behind him, he heard Dozer ask Lee, “What are her chances?”
River walked faster and managed not to hear the answer.
He found Dr. Rodrigues in the same room he’d left her in, a room with walls now decorated by whiteboards. One detailed the University Medical Center’s infected and casualty numbers while another provided the stats of other hospitals from around the city. Another board had been turned into an evolving timeline of both the infection and the explosive terrorist attacks. He stared at the boards and compared it to his mental timeline of events. Could Palmer have any other accomplices?
Dr. Rodrigues joined him. “There was an explosion outside as well?”
“Yeah. Ava found a bomb in here somewhere and gave it to Henry Lee. He managed to throw it into the sewer system in the street outside the hospital,” he told her. “How many did we lose here?”
“None.”
At his frown, she said, “I don’t think the bomb was meant to kill anyone outright.”
“What do you mean?”
“It didn’t cause a lot of damage, and we found something in the debris that tells me this bomb’s real goal was to spread the infection.”
“Did it?”
She gave him a sad smile. “If Ava hadn’t moved it, it would have exploded in the middle of the bull pen. It might have killed people, but it would have certainly infected many, many more.”
“How?”
“Neisseria can produce spores. They were inside glass pressure tubes, so when the tubes shattered…” Her hands pantomimed an explosion.
“The bathroom kept it contained.”
“Yes.”
Okay, so, she did good. Was her heroism going to kill her? “I took her back to the cot Henry set up for her.” River had to clear his throat. “She’s not doing very well. High fever.”
“I’m sorry.”
If he thought about Ava, he wasn’t going to be able to do anything useful. “I left things at the police station a bit unresolved.”
“Don’t worry. A Mr. Ken Sturgis contacted me. He’s put the four college boys into the lockup at the station, left one FBI and one Homeland Security agent behind to make sure no one gets in there to kill them, and is now on his way back here. He says you have his bus.”
No one gets in to kill them? “Have threats been made?”
“Somehow, the information on the four was leaked to the media. We’ll be lucky if a lynch mob doesn’t storm the police station and hang all four of them.”
“Leaked, huh?”
“A lot of people are very angry.” Rodrigues’s eyes looked grim, and she looked him over. “You’re off duty until I say otherwise.”
“Mind if I hang out over by Henry’s lab? I’d like to be there when Ava wakes up.” He saw the objection on her face. “I promise to sleep.”
Rodrigues closed her mouth and studied him for a moment. “We don’t know if the combination of drugs Henry is giving her is going to work. The FDA still hasn’t made a decision about allowing us to use the combination to treat people. Success in the lab and success in the real world don’t always equate.”
River left the room and went back to the tent outside Henry’s lab. He stood over Ava’s cot and watched her breathe for a long time. Sweat had darkened the roots of her hair, and a shiver rolled through her. And kept rolling.
Seizure.
“Shit.” River turned her onto her side so if she vomited, she wouldn’t aspirate it.
Henry appeared next to him and stuck a digital thermometer in her ear. 105 °F.
A fever that high was enough to freeze his insides solid. “A febrile seizure? I thought that only happened to little kids.”
Henry darted a glance at her. “She’s got meningitis. That changes the rules.”
“Could this result in brain damage?” He should know this, but he was too tired, too worried, and too…everything…to think straight.
“It doesn’t usually cause any damage in kids,” Henry said. “But, she’s not a kid.”
Ava’s body finally stopped shaking.
“We’re in a wait-and-see holding pattern,” Henry told him. “We have to give the antibiotic and its friend some time to do their work.”
“If they work.”
Henry didn’t respond. What would be the point? They both knew it was a shot in the dark.
“Okay.” River nodded. “Rodrigues told me to rest. Got another cot or something I can sleep on right here?”
“I found a camping mat. Just give me a second.” Henry left the tent. He came back with a roll and handed it to River.
“You wake me if anything changes,” River ordered.
“I will.”
River unrolled the mat on the ground next to the cot, lay down, and closed his eyes.
If Ava didn’t wake up, he wasn’t sure what he’d do with himself.
She was amazing. Smart, funny, and so fucking cute. He couldn’t wait to see her naked, wanted to touch her, stroke her, and taste her all over. The taste of her he’d had only a few hours ago was enough to make him ravenous for her. He wanted all of her.
She got him. Every sarcastic, geeky comment and joke.
Twice, Henry came over to check on Ava. The second time, he hung new bags of fluid on her IV pole. River stared at them, invisible fingers wrapping around his throat and closing it tight.
This was his fault. All of it. He’d gotten her blown up four times, kidnapped by terrorists, and infected with this killer bacteria. He’d treated her like another soldier, but she was a fucking doctor. Trained to investigate disease, not assholes with guns, bombs, and a cavalier disregard for life.
He wanted her. All of her, but he sure as hell didn’t deserve her.
Dizziness crowded his vision, but his lungs wouldn’t work, those ghostly fingers strangling him.
He pushed to his feet, sat on the edge of the cot, and took Ava’s right wrist in his hand. Her pulse was strong and steady. He closed his eyes, focusing on the rhythmic throb under his fingers. She was alive.
The pressure on his neck lessened enough to allow him to suck in a breath.
Footsteps approached. Dozer. River didn’t move, didn’t release Ava’s wrist. The song of her pulse brought him a comfort he wasn’t ready to give up yet.
Dozer entered the tent, then crouched on the ground a couple of feet away from River and the cot.
“We searched Palmer’s apartment,” he said, then sighed. “This guy’s been planning something big for years.”
Years?
River shook his head. “Asshole.”
Dozer grunted. “Yeah. It didn’t become a terrorist-style attack until a year ago. That’s when he recruited all those college kids, including his brother. Before then, he was on his own.” Dozer paused to sit on the ground. “Typical serial killer stuff. He had a couple of huge bulletin boards full of antiestablishment bullshit and a list of people he wanted to murder up close and personal. There’s a ton of explosives in his place, which we are now removing very carefully.”
“What about this outbreak?” River asked. “What info did he have on that?”
“Surprisingly little. There were instructions on how to spread the bacteria around, but no actual information on the bacteria itself. It was like he ordered it ready to go off the internet, and it came with an instruction booklet.”
“What the fuck?” River tried to merge the two goals in his head. “So, he’s been building up to a mass-shooting scenario for years, but adds bioterrorism to the plan only in the last year? Was there any evidence of why he decided to play cult leader and recruit other people and form a terrorist cell?”
“Not that we’ve found, but it’s going to take some time to go through everything. There’s enough material in his apartment to keep a half-dozen behavioral analysts busy for a long time.”
“So, did he come up with the bug on his own, or did he have outside help with that part?”
“That’s a question a lot of us want answered.” Dozer glanced at Ava. “How is she?”
“Still unconscious.” He cleared his throat of the sudden lump stopping him from speaking. “Is the quarantine doing any good?”
“Hard to say. The number of new cases arriving at the medical center has dropped, but the death toll is still climbing.” He stood and waved his hand toward the IV pole and the bags of fluid hanging there. “If this doesn’t work, we could lose thousands.”
“Right now,” River said, his voice sounding rough even to himself, “I only care about one.”
Dozer looked at Ava’s wrist locked in River’s grip. “I hope she makes it.”
River’s first response was to tell the other man to fuck off, but he managed to keep his mouth shut. She was going to be fine. No other outcome was acceptable.
“You get any sleep?” Dozer asked.
“Some.”
“Good. I could use your help. We’re short of intelligent people who don’t panic easily.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere with me.”
“How about a direct order?”
River stared at Ava’s pale face and didn’t answer.
“You’ll drive yourself crazy if you sit here and mope.”
River grunted out a noncommittal sound.
“You might as well keep busy until she wakes. You can get all mopey dopey then.”
He didn’t want to leave her, but Dozer was right. If he didn’t keep busy, he’d go mad. “All right, let’s go.”
He got up and followed the other man out of the tent, away from the one person he never wanted to let go.