Page 27 of The Team

Jay shook his head, his face pale. “Rhett,” he whispered. “What pathogen? What exposure risk? Airborne? Contact?”

“I don’t know. Contact, I think,” Rhett answered. “I could have exposed you all. Yin and Sid, I’m sorry.”

Oh god. He’d touched Jay’s arm . . .

“Jay,” Rhett whispered, his breath short.

“Okay, we got incoming,” Sid said, looking out the window. “White van.”

Jay rushed to the window.

“They’re wearing full PPA,” Sid said. “Jesus Christ.”

“Okay, everyone over to the far wall,” Rhett said. “Except for Sid and Yin. And Jay. Come over here.”

They stood by the window, the table, the pizza box.

Rhett hated himself for this. For putting his team at risk. If there was even the slightest chance he’d put Jay at risk... Ruining this operation was secondary.

And it shouldn’t have been.

He went to the door and opened it as two men in full protective gear came down the hall. One carried a toolbox, the other one carried a handheld reader of some kind. “Captain Ouston,” the first guy said with a nod as he walked in.

Rhett didn’t recognise him.

The first guy slid the pizza box and contents into a clear plastic bag with yellow tape and sealed it shutwhile guy number two pulled out some vials and swab sticks.

Christ.

“Who handled the contents?” he asked, looking at Rhett.

“I did,” he replied. “No one else touched the box or the flyer, or the contents. I wore gloves. Time, approximately four hours ago.”

The guy took a mouth swab from Rhett’s mouth and nose and then shoved it directly into a vial of blue solution and shook it. The second guy swabbed Rhett’s vest, his sleeve, his gloves.

“Blue is good, purple is bad,” the guy said.

Guy number two began packing up his kit.

What the hell?

“Agent Yin was with me in the apartment,” Rhett said. “Agent Ritchie sat next to the box for the four-hour duration. The longest out of all of us. And I touched Medic Lin’s arm, without my glove. I slept on the floor beside him for three hours. If this pathogen is airborne, then you should test them too.”

Guy number one, still holding the vial, looked Rhett dead in the eye. “If it was airborne, you’d all be contaminated, and this would be an exercise in futility.”

Rhett seethed with anger. “Agent Yin was with me. Direct contact. In the apartment. I demand he be tested?—”

“We don’t take our orders from you,” he said.

Rhett took a breath in and exhaled slowly, trying to calm down. “I respectfully request you monitor the health and safety of my men.”

The man looked at Rhett as if he were speaking to a child. “That won’t be necessary, Agent Ouston,” he said,shaking the vial like a prize. “Blue is good. You’re all clear.”

Then, like Rhett wasn’t even there, guy number one spoke into a radio. “We are all clear. Negative swab on Ouston.”

And that pissed Rhett the fuck off. “I was not the only one who came into contact with?—”

The guy cut off the radio comms, and it took every ounce of self-control for Rhett to not grab that fucker and squeeze his windpipe like Harrigan did to that piece of shit back in the bunker.