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I t went against Con’s every instinct to allow Sophia on a mission this dangerous, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. She was the subject matter expert.

He led her out of the office. Max was waiting with Smoke, River, and their Marines.

Max had his hands wrapped around a file folder so tight his knuckles were white. “More details have come in. We received some blood samples from one of the Western aid groups based out of the UK. But test results have so far been unable to determine the pathogen, and the description of the illness doesn’t match anthrax.”

Con considered what he knew of Max. “How many sick?”

“The information we received wasn’t clear. The number was either five hundred or five thousand.”

“Where in Syria? Is it a location we can realistically get to without drawing the attention of extremists?”

“It’s just outside Syria, a refugee camp in northern Lebanon. It sprang up about six months ago and currently has between two and five thousand people living there. We don’t have a lot of intel from the camp, just an emergency request for medical support from the aid group. They arrived a week ago with food, water, and medical supplies, but there’s some kind of outbreak.”

“What about security? Is there any?”

“Nothing official.”

“Unofficially?”

“One of the doctors in the aid group has a rich uncle. The doctor has a bodyguard who may or may not be former Special Forces. We wouldn’t be sending anyone into this camp if it weren’t for the threat from Akbar,” Max explained. “This is an isolated group of people. It’s the perfect place to test and refine a lethal biological weapon.”

“Using a bunch of women, kids, and old people as lab rats,” Con said with a snarl.

“Which brings me to my next bit of news,” Max announced. “You’ll all be getting additional vaccination and antibiotic shots.”

“Yeah, better safe than sorry,” Con said with a sigh. “Now my ass really is going to be sore for a week.”

“Better than dead,” River said with crooked grin.

Sophia led them to a small room where the laboratory staff drew blood samples from people. There was a tray with a bunch of tiny bottles of fluid and several small injection needles.

Yep, sore ass.

Con took a good look at her as she prepared the first shot, about as friendly as a porcupine. “What’s bugging you now?”

She paused for a moment, then gave him a look that was clearly meant to size him up. “Roll up your sleeve.”

“Nope,” he said getting to his feet and turning around. He lowered his pants enough to show some cheek. “Give it to me, baby.”

When nothing happened, he glanced over his shoulder to find her staring at his butt. River and Smoke had slipped out of the room. “Is there something wrong with it?”

Her gaze jerked away from where she’d been staring to meet his. “I’m surprised to find no boot prints on it.”

She blushed a beautiful red.

He grinned.

She narrowed her eyes and jabbed him with the needle.

“Ow.”

“Now who’s the baby?” Something cool rubbed the spot where she’d poked him. “Are you sure you want all your shots in your ass?”

“Yes, ma’am. Better than having sore arms any day.”

She sighed and messed around with the tray. “Just about ready with the next one.”

“Dr. Perry, do you have...” Eugene’s voice trailed off. “Holy shit, I’m...wow. I’ll just go—”

Con started to laugh. The view the kid must have had at the moment.

“Gene, we’re not doing anything kinky,” Sophia told him in a patient tone. “I’m giving the sergeant several vaccinations. See?” She moved aside.

Con got himself under control long enough to see the expression on Eugene’s face. The kid looked ready to pass out and Con couldn’t help the snort that came out of him.

Sophia took that moment to jab him with the second needle.

“Ah!” When Con glanced back at the door, Eugene was gone. “Where’d he go?”

“To either throw up or get a camera. Not sure which.” She got another needle ready. “Personally, I’m hoping for the camera.” And she jabbed him again.

What the fuck ? “Why are you so grumpy?”

“You have to ask?”

Duh, moron, you did just present her with your ass. “Shit. I’m sor—”

“I saw how you reacted to the word revenge a few minutes ago,” she said as she prepared the next shot. “I’m going to need you where we’re going.”

“You think I’d abandon you out there?” he asked, jerking his head to indicate the world outside the base.

“I think a guy like you might have more than one objective,” Sophia replied, sticking yet another needle in his butt.

Shit, if she kept stabbing him like that he wasn’t going to be able to sit down for days. “How many more needles?”

“That was the last one.”

Con pulled up his pants and got his fly zipped just as River appeared in the doorway.

He took one look at Connor and Sophia and smirked. “Huh, I thought the kid was hallucinating. Sorry to interrupt.” He waved and disappeared.

Sophia glared at the empty doorway. “I hate people.” Her gaze moved to him. “I hate you.”

“But you like me too,” he said with his best little-boy smile. “Or you wouldn’t have given me shit.”

“Shut up before I jab you someplace that will hurt a lot more than your butt.”

He chuckled. He liked her all toothy and snarly, it made her mean. He turned his attention to the mission. “I’ll get Smoke and River.”

“Let them know I’m not giving any more ass shots.”

Damned straight she wasn’t. “I’ll tell them.”

The two men were lounging against the wall outside the room.

“Finished already?” River asked with a smirk.

It was obvious what River was thinking, and it triggered a cold burn in the pit of Con’s stomach. “I was getting her mind off the fire.”

“Oh yeah?” River’s smile got even wider. “’Cause it looked like more than that.”

Con took a step toward River and let some of the rage he’d been hiding the last year peer out of his eyes. “If you show her your ass, I’m going to give you the shots.”

River lost the grin and became very still. “Well, that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.”

“I guarantee it.”

Smoke stood there with all the responsiveness of a piece of granite.

“What about you?” Con asked him, ready to pound anyone who might hurt Sophia in any way.

“She’s too young.”

Con didn’t bother pretending he didn’t know that Smoke was commenting on her age relative to Con’s. “She’s twenty-four.”

Smoke shrugged and went into the room. River followed, leaving Con to calm himself down, but calm didn’t come easy anymore. Con listened to Sophia explain about the shots, and let her no-nonsense professional tone wash away some of the anger. The problem was, there was always more building, like a volcano on the verge of erupting.

He’d always been the joker, the easygoing guy on his team, the one who deflected the bullshit. But now, he kept seeing his buddies’ faces right before the explosion, relaxed and happy, then after, what was left of them. The ringing in his ears was as loud and insistent as the sobs of Wayne’s wife when Con called her from the hospital to say her sexy love letters wouldn’t be among Wayne’s effects because he’d always kept them in his pockets.

Now, only the anger was easy.

After giving them the shots, Sophia came out with the two soldiers behind her.

“What are you bringing for weapons?” he asked her.

“Weapons?”

When she looked at him blankly, he added, “A sidearm, a steak knife, anything?”

“I’ve got my Beretta.”

The woman was wicked literal. “We’ll keep practicing if we get a chance.”

“Only if it doesn’t interfere with my work.”

Right then, he decided to add extra ammunition and a second back-up weapon, another Beretta, holstered in the small of his back. It was a custom add-on to his body armor from a buddy of his who would have fought him for the assignment of looking out for Sophia. Fred had an eye for the ladies, the more fragile the better. Sophia might be smart and direct, but she was also the most physically fragile person he’d ever met in an Army uniform.

She was the most physically fragile person he’d ever met period.

How the hell was he going to keep her safe in an incredibly unsafe location?

Usually he could trust his partner to do his part to get the job done in as safe and logical a way as possible, but Sophia didn’t follow anyone’s rules, including those put in place for her security.

Fuck, he was going to need eyes in the back of his head to keep track of her and everything around them.

***

T he helicopter was so full of emergency food and medical supplies there wasn’t much room left over for its living passengers. Sophia tried to find a comfortable way to sit, but she was squished by the men seated on either side of her. Con on one side, Smoke on the other and River across from her. Their Marines, Henry, Macler, Stalls, and Norton, were sitting behind her, though she couldn’t see much of them with all their supplies, packs, and weapons between them.

Colonel Maximillian assigned these particular Marines because they’d all had at least one rotation in Afghanistan and all had expressed an interest in becoming Special Forces soldiers.

He’d given them one order—keep her alive.

The Marines stared at her like she was some kind of cockroach. They didn’t ask any questions or offer any introductions. No thanks. She’d had enough people stare at her blankly with no idea what to do with her when she’d been a kid.

She’d been ready to tell them all to get lost, but Con ordered them to help him with the supplies.

She could have kissed him for getting their hired muscle out of her way.

Thing was, next time she saw those Marines, as they were all getting on the helicopter, their attitude had changed. They nodded at her like they did to Smoke and River, treating her like she was part of the team.

She didn’t know what the hell Con had told them, but it had worked like a charm.

As soon as the bird was in the air, Con kept dropping off into sleep. Every time she moved though, he woke up, so she was concentrating on keeping still. That, of course, made it harder and harder to do.

They were flying over Syria now and that didn’t help Sophia’s restlessness. They’d been shot at when they crossed the border, so now any time the aircraft shuddered, she tensed up, expecting the whole machine to blow up.

She normally didn’t mind flying, but this trip might give her a phobia.

To keep her overactive brain busy, she went over the list of things she had to do once they arrived.

Set up the tent for her lab.

Ensure there was a safe water supply, using purification tablets and the water filters they’d crammed into the helicopter, if necessary.

Examine the sick.

Examine the dead.

Test samples from the living and the dead to determine the pathogen causing illness and death.

Create a treatment plan and carry it out.

And somewhere in there she might have to add maintaining the peace in a camp full of hundreds of people likely to be in a state of panic.

Oh yeah, and sleep. Maybe. Hopefully.

At least they knew they weren’t dealing with anthrax. The symptoms did not match anthrax in any way.

She’d read the report of the symptoms so many times it was engraved on the inside of her eyelids.

Fever, headache, and confusion lasting six to ten hours. Progressing to generalized pain throughout the body, continued high fever accompanied by increased agitation and hallucinations, swelling of the oral mucosa with many people choking to death on their tongues. Death occurring within twenty-four hours of onset of symptoms.

The most likely cause, as far as Sophia was concerned, was viral meningitis. To confirm that diagnosis, she’d need to test cerebral spinal fluid from a recent corpse and from a living patient showing the symptoms of the illness.

Max wondered if it was meningococcal disease, caused by the Neisseria meningitidis bacteria. The symptoms certainly fit, and the situation in the refugee camp was a perfect place for meningococcal disease to run rampant, but the tests of the few samples that had been sent ahead had been negative.

That didn’t mean much though. The samples had taken too long to get to a lab and hadn’t been stored correctly.

If she was right, there was little they could do besides support the patient’s health with an IV to keep them hydrated and proper sanitation so they didn’t get sick with a secondary virus or bacteria.

If it turned out that Max was right after all, they would need massive amounts of antibiotics and the meningococcal vaccine to give everyone in the camp, sick or not. They’d still lose a lot of people, but there was a treatment.

Treatment . Something not available for her.

Now was her moment. She was finally going to be in the right place to put her skills to the best use possible. She might not be able to save herself, but she was going to save everyone else she could.