Page 77 of Deadly Strain

“I have to go watch the store,” Jamal said. “Stay quiet.” He headed back through the tunnel.

Sharp went to where Grace was sleeping and shook her until she complained. “Bug off,” she said, her eyes still closed.

Sharp ruthlessly controlled the spike of need her grumpy complaint shot through him.Fuck, he had it bad. “Grace, do you have a personal cell phone number for Max?”

She lifted her head an inch, squinted at him, and gave him the number. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

“Yep.”

Her head dropped and her snoring purr resumed as if it hadn’t been interrupted at all.

The ease of it hit him between the eyes.

Trust.The level of trust it took for her to sleep now, in the middle of a life-or-death situation, with only a word from him, humbled the shit out of him. It was going to kill him to go back to life at a base, where he couldn’t touch her and had to pretend his feelings didn’t exist.

Fuck, he needed to sleep some more or he’d be crying on Runnel’s shoulder. Ick.

Sharp sat down a few feet away and punched in the number.

A cautious male voice answered, “Hello.”

“Hey, Max,” Sharp said keeping his tone light, almost cheerful. “This is Grace’s friend Sharp. Can you talk?”

A couple of seconds of silence passed before Max replied, “Just a moment.”

The sound of someone walking and a door closing. “How is she?” Max asked in a quiet tone.

“Sleeping. She’s good.”

“I have transport arranged,” Max explained. “I’ll be flying by helicopter to a spot in Iraq, then transferring to a truck so I shouldn’t raise too many eyebrows.”

Sharp stomped on disappointment. “Alone?”

“No, I have another A-Team coming in with me.”

“Okay, that will help. How soon can you get here?”

“An hour or two after dusk.” He paused for a moment. “I’ve argued with Marshall to the point where he won’t take my calls. At the moment, his orders are to arrest you on sight. General Stone is coming from Germany to take over the situation, and I’ve talked to him at length regarding this entire fuckup. He wants to get to the bottom of all this and has countermanded Marshall’s orders, but there seems to be a communication problem. Stone’s orders haven’t been passed along to everyone.”

“Figures. Nothing has gone right since the anthrax attack.”

“Be ready for my arrival, and Sharp?”

“Yeah?”

“Take good care of Grace. She’s one of my best doctors and a good friend.”

Something in Max’s tone told him there was more to the story. “Any special reason for that request?”

“Things have not been easy for her since she won the Star,” Max said.

“How bad is it?”

“I don’t know and that’s part of the problem. See you soon.”

Max hung up.

Sharp walked around to talk to each of his men, letting them know the plan and the timetable. Hopefully, lying low would get them out of this ridiculous situation without any more trouble.