Chapter Four
6:52 p.m.
River was going to strangle the asshole pounding on his head. And who the hell was screeching at the top of their lungs? It was impossible to determine gender based on the tone, but the sound penetrated his skull faster than a hot blade in butter.
He opened his eyes. Smoke and dust crowded around him in the air like ethereal spirits of the dead.
Nausea churned his gut, and the smell of burnt plastic and flesh filled his nose. Combined with his vicious headache, the whole mess threw him back into a fight he’d lost over a year ago. His mouth, nose, and eyes were full of sand and blood. Pain ricocheted through him like a razor blade in a pinball machine. A razor that was going to slice him to death if he didn’t kill the fucker jabbing him with it.
He forced himself to throw off the weight on his back, get to his feet, and attack his assailant, but there wasn’t anyone there. Only smoke, rubble, and ghosts.
Reality slammed the last hour’s events into his head in a series of flash images, smells, and sounds.
A woman’s voice, sexy and arousing.
Squeezing the trigger of his rifle.
The red bloom on the back of his target.
Wide brown eyes, startled and fearful.
His mouse, Ava, where was she?
River stood in the middle of a coffee shop, but it looked, sounded, and smelled like a fucking war zone.
The order counter was mostly gone. Wood splinters, chunks of countertop, and shards of glass littered what was the café’s work space.
His mouse was somewhere under all that shit.
Adrenaline surged through him, clearing his head.
“Ava,” he called as he picked up a large section of the counter and tossed it aside. Why did his voice sound so funny, muffled?
Oh, fuck. The goddamned backpack had exploded.
River dug deeper into the pile of debris and found a hand attached to an arm covered in a thick, flexible plastic. A hazmat suit. “Ava!”
No response.
His stomach dropped into a black hole. No, no, no. She was his partner and under his protection. She had to be okay. If she wasn’t…
The smell of blood and sand momentarily replaced the scent of burnt wood and plastic.
He was lying on his back on the sand looking at Smoke, one of the toughest sons of bitches in the Special Forces. Blood spatter covered his uniform and face, and he looked pissed the fuck off.
Pain shot through River’s head. When he opened his eyes, he was back in El Paso, but he’d gotten a piece of his missing memories back.
Ava.
A little more digging, and he found her back and head.
She was just coming around as he lifted the last of the big stuff off of her.
“What…happened?” she asked, blinking at him like a very young owl. Her pupils reacted normally to the light, and he would have kissed her if they weren’t wearing these stupid head-to-toe latex outfits.
“We got blown up.” He visually inspected her. “Are you injured?”
She took his hand and got to her feet. “I’m fine…I think.” Her gaze examined him, and then she put both hands on his arms. “Where did all this blood from?” She wiped her fingers over a spot on his hazmat suit, inking a trail of blood across the plastic.
He did a quick inspection of himself. “It’s not mine.” He glanced at the spot where the body of the terrorist-in-training had been. Only a bloody mess of assorted body parts was left. “I think it’s the dead man’s blood.”
The backpack wasn’t close enough to the body to do that much damage, but, if he’d been carrying explosives on his body…the damage looked all too accurate.
Ava sucked in a breath, drawing his attention. He watched the color leech from her face. “Check your suit. Oh my God, if our suits have been compromised, we could be exposed to…the infection.”
Fuck.
“Hold still.” River held onto her with both hands on her upper arms and visually inspected her suit. “Turn around.” He spun her, ignoring her irritated squawk. “I don’t see any holes.”
She jerked herself out of his hold. “Now you.”
It took her a little bit longer to inspect his suit, and by the time she let go of him, more sirens were audible and growing louder.
“I couldn’t find any obvious holes, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.” She sucked in a deep breath. “The explosion could have caused any number of micro holes big enough to allow for contaminants to enter our suits.”
Not much they could do about that now, and he’d learned a long time ago not to worry about shit he couldn’t do dick about. “Well, that sucks.”
“Sucks?” she asked, her voice rising and hands clenching into fists. “Are you looking forward to having a fever high enough to cook your brain?”
“Not especially, but then I so seldom use my brain.” He gave her his best little boy grin. “Settle down, Mouse. Let’s not borrow trouble.”
“Mouse?” She pressed her lips together. “Did you just call me a mouse?”
“Small, with silky-brown hair and eyes.” He shrugged and glanced at the three emergency vehicles pulling up outside the yellow tape. “Mouse.”
She choked. “I’m not a rodent.”
He had to hide his smile. She was fun to irritate.
One of the vehicles was an ambulance, one a black SUV with no identification, and the third had the CDC logo on the side along with a biohazard sign. It was the size of a small bus. “I like mice,” he added. “They’re cute.”
Ava glared at him, then noticed the emergency vehicles and sighed audibly. “Thank God. The decontamination team is here.”
“They’re going to clean us up?”
“Yes.” The relief in her voice was almost insulting. He was taking good care of her. Neither of them were dead. “Us, and the whole area.”
Another vehicle arrived, this one a police vehicle. A guy in a SWAT uniform jumped out and ran over to the CDC bus. He yelled something, and then four guys from the SUV exited their vehicle to join the conversation. It looked congenial for the first few seconds. Then the SWAT guy started yelling and waving his hands around.
“This party is getting interesting,” River said, as the discussion descended into argument.
“Who are those guys?” Ava asked. “There’s no time for this. The whole area needs to be decontaminated.”
“I think the SWAT guy is here because of the bomb.” River nodded at the crater in the concrete. “There could be multiple devices. It’s a common tactic with this kind of terrorist attack.”
“But—”
“The guys in black are probably from Homeland Security.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “They like to think they’re in charge of everything. Nobody I recognize, though.”
“It doesn’t matter what either group wants. Unless they’re in a hazmat suit, it would be suicide to come any closer.”
“Good point. Let’s share that intel.” River headed toward the group of men shouting orders at each other.
“Wait,” hissed Ava. “What if you’re right, and there’s another bomb?”
“Then it’ll be a short trip.” He kept walking, despite her calling his name.
He passed the body and attempted to avoid the majority of the blood coating the cement and the remnants of tables that had survived the blast.
It looked like the entire backpack had been destroyed, but that didn’t mean the threat was over.
He kept watch for anyone approaching the area, but the blast and the emergency vehicles seemed to have driven the mob of bystanders off.
The argument between the various law-enforcement officers and the CDC wasn’t cooling down a bit. The CDC guy was trying to get anyone to listen to him, but Homeland and SWAT just ignored him.
It was almost enough to make River laugh.
“Hey, Homeland, SWAT,” he shouted at the group. “You’re seriously underdressed.”
The four Homeland agents and the SWAT commander turned to stare at him.
“This is a biological hot zone, fellas,” River explained. “You guys come in here with anything less than a hazmat suit on, and you’re asking to go home in a body bag.”
“Who the fuck are you?” one of the Homeland guys asked.
Weird. Dozer should have alerted any other agents that a Special Forces soldier working for the CDC had shot the kid with the bomb.
“Sergeant River, Army Special Forces on loan to the CDC. Who are you?”
“Tom Geer, Homeland Security. Agent in charge.”
Interesting. “I thought John Dozer was the agent in charge.” River paused a moment to watch Geer’s reaction.
The asshole was good at concealing his annoyance, but not quite good enough. The muscles around his mouth tightened enough to betray his irritation.
“He’s set up a command post a block south of here,” River continued, knowing the smile on his face would piss the other man off even more. “Perhaps you should check in with him.”
“It’s my job to find out everything possible about the terrorist you just killed.” Geer sneered at him. “Since we can’t question him, thanks to you, we’ll have to settle for the tech over there.” He threw a nod toward Ava.
“She’s not a tech. She’s a doctor with the CDC. I’m sure she’ll be happy to talk to you just as soon as she’s able.”
River turned to the SWAT commander. “Before you do anything, I’d ask for some direction from this gentleman from the CDC, if I were you.” River looked at the CDC guy, who stared back at him with his mouth hanging open. “Sir, which protocols do you need us to follow?”
The guy didn’t hesitate long. “This is a level four event. Since there is a danger the pathogen could be airborne, hazmat suits are required by all personnel. No one can proceed until we’ve had a chance to spray disinfectant over the entire area.”
“Have you got a suit that will fit over my bomb tech’s protective armor?” the SWAT commander asked.
“Do I look like a tailor? Either the suit fits or it doesn’t.”
“We can’t allow anyone in there until we’ve cleared it for explosives,” the SWAT commander said.
“You can’t go in there at all without a suit on.”
“Where’s the bomber?” Geer asked.
“See that red mess?” River pointed it out. “That’s what’s left of the dude.” Despite the urge to annoy the Homeland agent some more, he decided to be more forthcoming. He might need these guys at some point. “He did get a call from someone right before he died and about five minutes before the bomb went off. There are more fish to catch.”
“Did he talk to the woman?” Homeland asked, pointing at Ava.
“A little, but with his fever, none of it made sense.”
“How do you know that?”
River tapped the device attached to his ear. “We’re connected. I heard some of it.”
“I want to talk to her,” Geer demanded.
“What happened to the samples Dr. Lloyd collected?” the CDC guy asked.
River had no problem figuring out who had the more urgent agenda. “I don’t know,” he said to CDC guy. “Last time I saw her tackle box, it was sitting on the floor behind the counter. It’s probably still there under some debris.”
“Can you retrieve it, please? We need to get it to the identification lab as soon as possible, and we need to decontaminate it first to ensure the exterior of the case is clean.”
“Can do. Uh, doc?”
“Yes?”
“Could you do the same for Ava and me? She’s concerned there might be holes or tears we can’t see in our suits as a result of the explosion.”
Geer swore. “This series of attacks is bigger than you and one doctor. We need to find out if there’s going to be any more of them.”
Footsteps approaching from behind him told River his mouse had taken the initiative. He found himself fighting with the instinct to step in front of her, to protect her from this idiot’s one-track mind. There were a lot of moving parts to the situation, and Geer didn’t seem to understand just how important the biological hazard was.
“Ask your questions while the CDC performs its decontamination procedures,” Ava said, stopping just behind River.
Relief at how accurately she’d interpreted his body language, what he wanted her to do, gave him a boost of energy. He and his mouse were thinking like a team. She was smart, and damn, if that didn’t give him a boner.
“We can’t interrogate you here, out in the open.” Geer clenched his teeth so tightly together he shredded every word that came out of his mouth.
“Interrogate?” River asked, moving to completely block the view the other man had of Ava. “Why would you need to interrogate her? She’s on our side.”
“He spoke to her and no one else.” Disgust and contempt turned Geer’s words into targeted weapons. “We want to know why.”
“You’re seeing conspiracies where there aren’t any, Senator McCarthy,” River said with enough sarcasm to melt a hole in the concrete.
“I had no idea I’d be coming here to collect samples until my supervisor ordered me to,” Ava said, leaning around River’s body to make eye contact with the Homeland agent. “The man had an obvious fever. He was sweating and confused. He thought he was in the middle of a crowd when the only person nearby was me.”
“You kept him calm long enough for a sniper to take him out.” Geer’s tone screamed disbelief. “How did you manage that?”
“Like I said, we’re on the same frequency,” River said, making a phone out of his hand and fingers. “I told her what to say until I got into position and could take the shot that laid him out. Agent Dozer was standing next to me the whole time. Maybe you should talk to your own people before you make accusations against someone who’s actually doing something useful.”