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Ian sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. Piper, who’d lain down while he was on the call, curled around him, mink-like. She was warm and sleek, and he wasn’t going to get a chance to find out if she was being honest with him. If he could forgive her and trust her again. They were sitting at ground zero. If they weren’t dead yet, they could be, soon.

The FBI agent spoke heavily. “We need you to find out when, where, and how the virus was released and give the CDC any support it needs to manage the outbreak.”

“Do you guys have any idea how bad this is going to get?” Ian demanded. “There are thousands of tourists in this town, and they’re all potentially exposed.”

“Make that hundreds of thousands, McCloud. We estimate that 220,000 people have passed through the city in the past three days. Effective now, the city is quarantined. You’re the only special operators we have on the ground, there. You’ll spearhead our efforts inside the quarantine zone.”

“And die?”

“We’ll do everything in our power to come up with an antidote, and the two of you will be at the top of the list to receive it.”

“Whatever,” Ian retorted. He knew full well the odds of scientists coming up with a cure for this killer virus in the next few days. “What do the powers-that-be want us to do?”

“Help with crowd control.”

“We may have a bigger problem,” Ian announced. “My partner and I believe the virus is only the first part of a two-pronged attack on the city. With your permission, I’d like to pursue investigating the other angle we’ve uncovered.”

“That’s a negative. You’re more useful there, dealing with the known crisis. Widespread panic is likely. We need you to help keep people calm and show that the government is in control of the situation?—“

Ian hung up on the FBI agent before he could say something he truly regretted. The government was fucking not in control of anything. Hell, if he and Piper were going to die anyways, it wasn’t like they needed to worry about disobeying orders. The PHP had yet to drop the other shoe in this drama, and he’d be damned if he’d sit around twiddling his thumbs while those bastards knocked out all the power to a city already in crisis.

A vision of dead girls with blood red eyes stared back at him out of the darkest corner of the hotel room.

“C’mon, Piper. We’ve got to go.”

“But I’m tired.”

“Right now, baby. Las Vegas is about to get quarantined, and we’ve got to slip out before all the roads are closed.”

17

Piper watched tensely for pursuit as Ian guided their rental car onto Hwy 15, headed north and east out of North Las Vegas. Funny how the booze retreated from her mind when faced with the prospect of being trapped in a city full of contagion. She wasn’t entirely sober, but she working damned hard at ignoring the alcohol in her blood.

“This is a major highway,” she protested. “It’ll be one of the first roads closed. And Nellis Air Force Base is up this way. They’ve got plenty of cops who can be recruited to close the roads.”

Ian shrugged. “Overton is this direction. That’s where the PHP helicopter was last seen. Thought we’d head up there and see what we can learn about it. We’ve got no other leads to follow right now.”

It was a reasonable plan. She just didn’t think they were going to make it clear of the city before the quarantine was put in place. She used her spotter’s scope, which was basically a small telescope, to scan the highway ahead. Sure enough, a cluster of brake lights and the faint blue and red flash of police cars came into view. Crud. She and Ian were too late to slip out of the net.

Frantically, she scanned the sides of the road with her scope. “Take this exit,” she blurted.

Ian swerved the vehicle off the highway at the last minute as the exit ramp loomed beside them. “You got an idea?” he asked grimly.

She glanced over at him. “Any chance you know how to hot wire a dune buggy?”

He frowned. “I can hot wire a car. I expect the ignition on a dune buggy is the same. Why?”

She pointed at an ATV and dune buggy rental business ahead on the right. “There aren’t all that many roads out of Las Vegas. If we want to get up to Overton, I’m thinking we’ll need to go cross-country to make it.”

Ian grinned. “I like the way you think.” He turned off the headlights and parked in front of the closed dune buggy business. “We’ll need all the fuel we can carry. And we’ll need to bust open that lock on the gate.”

“I’ll get the lock,” she offered.

“You’re not going to shoot it out and make an unholy ruckus like you did in Khartoum, are you?” he asked quickly.

She scowled at him. “I got that door open before we died, thank you very much. And I’ll pick this lock if it makes you feel better.”

He hopped over the low, steel gate and headed for one of the largest dune buggy models, a four-seater with a sturdy undercarriage and big wheels. It took her a while to pick the double-action padlock holding the lot’s exit gate closed. By the time the chain fell away from the steel posts, Ian had started the dune buggy and loaded up the back seat with several big jugs of extra gas he’d collected from other dune buggies. She threw the gate open, waited until he drove through, locked it shut again, and climbed in the passenger seat.