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I f only Con had had time to teach her more of the martial arts stuff he promised, Sophia could have done something about the asshole twisting her arm damned near in half.

“I realize I don’t matter much, but if you keep hurting my arm like you are, I won’t be able to use it at all.”

He didn’t answer or change the way he held her.

“Don’t take my word for it,” she said. “Have a look at it.” Her uniform shirt was around Con’s thigh, leaving her arms free of fabric.

He glanced down, then did a double take. “It looks like it’s broken.”

“It’s not, but I do have a life-threatening illness, though.”

“Why the fuck did Button bring you out here if you’re sick?” Len asked, disgust twisting his features.

“I’m a specialist. Did you think people who could diagnose weird viral or bacterial diseases grew on trees? Your boss is a dangerous man whose only goal is to kill Americans.” She gasped, pretending shock, “Oh my, that means you, too.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Or what? You’ll hurt me some more, or kill my team? Those threats have already been used.”

He pointed his weapon at her face. “Shut. Up.”

She shut up.

Shaking his head, Len shoved her in front of him the rest of the way back to the lab tent.

Akbar was pacing outside it. He took one look at her, stared at her arm, then started yelling in Dari.

Len yelled back.

After a minute of this back and forth, Akbar turned to her and asked with some concern, “You’re sick?”

Was he serious? He was going to kill her anyway.

Still, she wasn’t quite ready to die.

“I have disease that affects my platelets.”

Akbar stared at her for a long moment. “What does this mean?”

That’s right, he wasn’t a doctor, he was a chemist.

“It means that if you’re stupid—” she glanced at Len “—and you twist my arm, I’m going to look like I was in a car accident. If you shoot me, you’d better mean to kill me, because I’ll probably bleed to death no matter how severe the wound.” She was laying it on a little thick, but she wasn’t telling Akbar anything he couldn’t find out on the internet.

He and Len exchanged a few more words, then Len headed off, leaving her with Akbar and at least a dozen of his well-armed friends.

Akbar stared at her like he was trying to take her apart. “Death does not scare you.” It was a statement.

One she disagreed with. “I’ve seen a lot of death, some of it violent, some of it...peaceful. However it happens, the result is the same. The loss of a person. All their knowledge, memories, culture, everything that makes them unique, is gone. From one second to the next, wiped out as if it had never been.” She narrowed her eyes. “Facing death has made me stubborn. I’ll fight death with everything I have, but I’m still afraid.”

“You think like a woman,” he said with a sneer.

“This is a surprise?”

He continued to stare at her like she was dirty underwear. “You saw your men. Will you comply with my order?”

“If I do as you ask, will you allow my men to have medical treatment?”

He nodded.

Hmmm, say no and get them killed or say yes and give them time to escape or get rescued? Yes, it is.

She swallowed hard, hunched her shoulders a little and nodded. “You want me to make your virus easier to transmit, right?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not the only consideration when evaluating the virulence of a virus,” she offered tentatively. No use in angering the nutcase. “There are others, like the immune status of the host, how quickly the host can adapt to the virus and mount a defense. How hardy the virus is or if it can survive outside the body for any length of time. What kinds of cells the virus can invade and multiply in or not, and how efficient the virus is at replication.”

“Replication has already been altered. As you can see—” he pointed at the hospital tent “—it runs its course in hours instead of weeks.”

“But there’s been no person to person transmission, has there? You’re infecting people one at a time.”

“Correct, but rapid person to person transmission is my goal. I want a rabies variant that can spread quickly through the population.”

“Airborne?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. “The rabies virus isn’t the measles. It’s extremely difficult to become infected without a bite. Rabies has been around for thousands of years, it’s relatively stable for a virus.”

His expression was cold. “I changed it. I accelerated the progression of the disease.”

“Okay, so one change worked. Doesn’t mean another one will.”

His mouth tightened brutally.

Her hindbrain read the danger and kept her tongue talking. “How did you infect all these people?” She glanced behind her at the hospital with its hundreds of occupied cots.

For a moment she wasn’t sure he was going to answer or if he was going to have her killed on the spot. Finally, he said, “The water supply. I’ve used up almost all of the virus I have. Creating large quantities will take time, even for me.”

“You thought you had already solved the problem of person to person transfer without a bite?”

“Yes, but it appears that the virus isn’t viable in water for longer than an hour, and infection takes a fairly large quantity of virus.”

He was treating this camp full of people like his personal lab rats. There was no way she could do what he wanted, but she needed to give time to Con to find a way out of his predicament, and for Max to investigate why she hadn’t contacted him at their regularly scheduled check-in time.

She sighed, hoping she wasn’t making it too theatrical. “I suppose I’d better take a closer look at it. I only did a Direct Rapid Immunohistochemical Test on a small sample of brain tissue.” She gave him a frustrated look. “Most of the equipment I have with me is diagnostic.”

He didn’t say anything, just gave her a brief nod.

She went into her tent and took another look at the test samples she had on slides. The samples looked typical, but it wasn’t designed to reveal anything indicative about the virus itself.

She went back to her initial brain tissue samples and began to prepare them for several new tests. All the tests she could think of. Anything to take up time.

Come on, Max. We’ve missed a check-in. Where are you?

***

C on and Smoke took up seated positions at the outskirts of the hospital tent, as if they were waiting on one of the patients near them to die.

Con was not happy with what he was seeing at the lab tent.

Sophia had been talking to Akbar, though not loud enough for them to hear what was said, then she went into the lab with Akbar’s permission.

Surrounding the tent were a dozen or more armed militants. Akbar himself didn’t appear armed. Though for all Con knew, he carried around containers of anthrax just for the sole purpose of tossing it at people, then running the other way.

Sophia seemed uninjured, except for her arm, which looked badly bruised even from this far away. He was going to have a short but painful conversation with Len very soon. The bastard had killed Stalls and had a hand in the deaths of the other Marines. Sophia was safe—sort of, for now—but the lust on Len’s face meant she wouldn’t stay that way.

“Would she?” Smoke asked.

Con frowned. “Would she, what?”

“Design a plague?”

The contents of Con’s stomach turned to ice. “Fuck, no she wouldn’t. A guy like him, fucking around with shit and killing people...she’d find a way to fuck him up six ways to Sunday.”

Smoke’s face looked even colder than Con felt. “Do we stop her or help her?”

“Yes.”

Smoke’s only response was a grunt.

“We need to get some of those guards away from here.”

“Missed a check-in.”

“Yeah, so Max will send a fly-by to see if there’s a problem or if it’s a technical glitch. He won’t wait long. He’s kind of paranoid.”

“The guards will disappear at the first sign of an aircraft,” Smoke said.

“Got a laser pointer in one of your pockets or did Len take it?”

Smoke smiled. “I’ve got it.”

“Find a position where you can signal any aircraft that flies over and be ready to send an SOS.”

Smoke nodded, got up slowly and disappeared into the camp.

Con considered moving to a closer location, but before he could decide where, Len arrived at the lab. He went inside, then came out with Akbar.

The two men talked quietly for a few minutes. There was head nodding and finger pointing. Akbar called a couple of his goons over and there was some more discussion, then he went back into the tent.

Len sat down on an overturned bucket under the tarp at the entrance to the lab and seemed to be content with whatever was going on.

Akbar came out of the lab, spoke to Len again, then took four of the armed goons and headed into the camp.

Looking for supplies, water, or fresh victims?

The rumble of a couple of fighter jets became audible and got louder fast.

Len shouted in Dari, “Everyone smile and wave.”

All the goons smiled and waved on cue. Too bad Smoke was signaling for help at the same time.

Fucking crazy son of a bitch, you just got made.

The fighters didn’t circle back and everyone relaxed. Len went around to give orders to a couple of the goons, then went into the lab tent.

Alone.

The fucking asshole . He was going to put his hands on Sophia. Again.

He needed a reason to go there, to approach the lab. Looking around, he found a tray with a row of hypodermic syringes on it. He picked it up and began walking toward the lab with a businesslike air.

At the first challenge, he said in Dari, “I was told to give these samples to the American woman.” He held out the tray.

The guard glanced at the tray and nodded.

Con went into the tent.

“Take your hands off me.” Sophia sounded mad. “I’m up to my elbows in rabies virus and you want to play snatch and grab? Are you stupid? I’ve got enough of the virus here to kill ten of you.”

“I’m on your side, sweetheart.” Len’s back was to Con and he backed up a step as he lowered his voice. “I’m double-crossing Akbar. Put down the container of brains and come with me. I’m going to get you out of here.”

“What about Con?” she asked in a tone that told him she hadn’t seen him standing behind Len.

“I’m sorry, Akbar had him and his buddies killed.” He held out a hand to her. “Come on, let’s go.”

The son of a bitch.

Con shifted his weight to take a step closer, to take Len down, but Sophia spoke before he could move.

“There is nothing that would make me go with you willingly,” she told him in her I think you’re stupid and therefore uninteresting voice. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Len’s posture changed. He shifted toward her, crowding her against the bench behind her. “Akbar has already promised to let me have you when he’s got what he wants,” Len told her in a disgusting purr.

That’s it, you’re done. Con rammed the tray, rim first, into the base of Len’s skull.

He dropped like a stone.

Sophia stared at Con with wide eyes for a second then set what she was holding on the bench with a shaking hand, stripped off her gloves and threw herself at him.

He staggered for a moment, his injured leg a little wobbly. “Are you okay?” he whispered, running his hands over her. She was badly bruised everywhere he looked.

“Yes. No.” She shook her head and wiped tears away. “I was so scared they were going to kill you.”

“Hey, it’s been tried, but I keep bouncing back.” He rubbed her back, kissed her temple then coaxed her chin up so he could make eye contact. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“How are we going to do that?” Her voice quivered with enough stress to make him look around for another asshole to beat up.

But they were alone. “Good question.”

She pulled back to stare at him incredulously. “You came in here with no plan to get out?”

“I saw Len go in and knew he was going to...” Con glanced down at the son-of-a-bitch and had to fight the anger that made his hands tighten with the need to bloody his fists on the other man.

“You...you...” she sputtered, smacking his chest with the flats of her hands. “You can just go out the way you came in.” She pointed at the exit. “Shoo.”

“I won’t leave you here with nut bar.”

“Juvenile,” she muttered, then stretched up and kissed him so quick he didn’t have time to respond. “Someone has to tell Max what’s happening,” she whispered. “Akbar is trying to weaponize rabies. It’s not going to work, I’ll make sure of that, but he introduced large amounts of the virus to the water supply here. He just couldn’t get it easily transmissible from human to human. That’s why he wanted me.”

“Rabies is fucking deadly.”

“Yes, and it’s a terrible, painful way to die, which is his secondary goal.” She poked him with her index finger. “You’ve got to tell Max to get rabies immunoglobulin, passive antibodies, and the vaccine to the camp as soon as possible. We might be able to save some of these people, but only if it happens quickly.”

She was a saint, an angel, and insane if she thought he’d leave her here. “You’re coming with me.”

She shook her head. “I’m the only one who can stall Akbar long enough for help to arrive.”

“ No. ”

“Yes.” She gave him a watery smile. “Please. I’m a lousy shot, I don’t know the first thing about hand-to-hand combat, and I’m too breakable to really learn, but I can do this .”

He got right into her face and bared his teeth. “Can you stay alive?”

“Can you?” she asked just as fiercely, grabbing the fabric of the robe he wore so she could give him a shake. “Will you?”

She knew. Goddamn it, she knew he’d planned to never get out of this alive.

He couldn’t leave her and he wouldn’t let her leave him. The grip the ghosts of his battle brothers had on his heart burned away, leaving only Sophia in possession of it.

“I will if you will,” he snarled at her. “You might have terrible depth perception, spatial orientation and aim, but you’re smarter than Einstein and when things get tough, you get mean. I need you to look after yourself and knock this guy on his ass.”

“I have the perfect motivator,” she whispered, smiling and wiping some dirt off his cheek. “I’m going to have sex with you, remember? You promised.”

Well, if she had to have a goal, he’d be happy to sacrifice himself. “Is sex all you think about?”

“No, sometimes I think about the very small things I can see with my very nice microscope.”

He hesitated. He hated this. It fucking sucked , but she was right. Someone had to get help, someone had to delay Akbar, and he couldn’t do both. He had to trust her not to do anything self-destructive.

He kissed her, hard and quick. “Don’t disappoint me. We’re going to have lots and lots of sex.”