Page 50 of The Team

“Don’t touch anything,” Rhett ordered.

Gordian stumbled backwards, blood spray across hisface, and Yin quickly stood over him, his rifle trained on him. “Do not move.”

“I don’t know who the buyer is,” he cried, shaking. “Everything came through encrypted servers. Not traceable.”

“Yunho, you hear that?” Rhett asked.

“Everything is traceable,” Yunho said. “We have the files and the networks they used. It won’t take us long to access. You can leave him for the Iranian government to deal with.”

Gordian made a strange, pitiful sound. “No, no,” he wailed, fumbling hands reaching for his inside coat pocket. He produced a black handheld trigger and scrambled for the silver canister on the floor.

Yin and Echo both fired at the same time, and Gordian’s lifeless body slumped to the floor, blood and brain matter pooling from where the top of his head used to be.

“Captain?” Jay called out. He was at the back of the lab, through another door near the quarantine station. It was essentially a glass room inside the lab. “Kowalski and Myles are here.”

“Don’t go in there,” Rhett yelled back. “Yunho, I need clearance for that quarantine room.”

Rhett could hear Yunho tapping away at a keyboard. “There is an advanced filtration system and it’s not showing any airborne pathogens. The air is clean, but your two men aren’t moving, and I cannot guarantee the safety of anyone who goes in there.”

Giardello and two of his men came in, with Chen on his heels. “Perimeter is secure,” Giardello said. He thennoticed the very dead men on the floor. “Guess they won’t be selling any bio-shit today?”

“Not unless it’s in the afterlife,” Rhett said. And it was then, he noticed Jay pulling on a hazmat suit. Jesus Christ. “Medic, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“My job,” Jay replied, still pulling the suit on. “Someone’s going in there and it may as well be me.”

Rhett headed toward him. “I don’t think so.”

Jay smiled at him as he zipped up the helmet. “Is that an order, Captain?”

“Does it fucking need to be?” Rhett snapped back at him.

Jay sighed and fixed the filter on his gas mask. “It’s completely sealed and has a self-contained breathing apparatus,” he said. “See? I’ll be fine.”

Rhett growled, and as much as he hated it, he knew someone did have to go in there. And as the team medic, it should be Jay. Didn’t mean he had to like it, though.

“First compartment is a negative pressure airlock,” Yunho said. “Ouston, move everyone else out.”

Rhett hesitated for just one split second. Could he leave Jay? Could he let Jay go in there alone?

“Now,” Yunho snapped.

Echo took Rhett’s arm. “He’ll be fine,” he murmured, leading him out. They closed the door, and Rhett could do nothing but watch.

Watch as Jay opened the door to the airlock. Watch as some kind of ultraviolet light scanned him up and down, and watch as the door to the inside opened.

Jay ran into the first bed. “It’s Myles,” Jay said. “Jesus fucking Christ.” Jay looked up at where Rhett was watching. “He’s alive... He has blisters, skin lesions. Myles, can you hear me? It’s Medic. We’re here to get you out.”

Rhett couldn’t be sure, but it looked like Myles spoke. Or tried to.

Jay turned to the second bed. “Kowalski... Fucking hell. Kowalski’s in worse shape. We’re gonna need a full medevac.”

“A team is already on their way,” Yunho said.

“Who?” Rhett asked. “Who’s coming?”

“Director King called in MI6 for containment,” Yunho said. “And a specialist medical team from Tehran.”

MI6? And Tehran?