Page 27

A s soon as Con left , Sophia bent down to check Len’s carotid pulse. The mercenary was still alive, but she suspected the blow Con had landed may have done more damage than just knock him unconscious.

She picked up the scattered syringes, disposed of them, then grabbed the metal tray and was trying to decide what to do with it when Akbar came in.

He took in the situation in one glance and one corner of his mouth rose in a snarl.

“He attacked me,” she said, glancing down at Len’s unconscious body. “I didn’t mean to do this, though. And, um...he’s still alive. I think.”

Akbar swore in a language other than English, then went back out and yelled something.

Two of his men came inside and carried Len away.

“Pack all this up,” Akbar said. “We’re leaving.”

Leaving? Had he decided to abandon the refugee camp? Whatever the reason, it wasn’t good. They had him here and they needed him to stay here so Max and the Army could catch him. “But I’ll have to start testing all over again.”

Akbar’s jaw clenched. “You will do as you’re told or your men will be shot.” He took a gliding step toward her that was all the more threatening in its silence. “I won’t ask again.”

You don’t have my men. She examined his face and saw an explosive anger there that hadn’t been there before. He knows they’ve escaped. Is he running? “You’re bringing them with us?”

His nostrils flared. Had she pushed him too far? “They will follow.” He glanced around. “Pack the equipment you want or it gets left behind. We leave in ten minutes.” He strode out to call to his men.

She could hear him issue orders and really wished she could speak Dari.

There was no way she could go with him. If she did, she was as good as dead with nothing accomplished.

So, how to make him leave her behind?

Outside, the sound of engines approaching had her poking her head out of the tent to see what was going on.

Trucks, three of them, were pulling up to the area around her lab. Fuck. She had less time than she thought.

Well, if she was going to fuck up Akbar’s day, she was going to do it with style.

She went back inside, calmly unplugged her favorite microscope and put it into its hard-shell carrying case. It had a nice sturdy handle on it. The microscope was, like everything else in her portable lab, compact, but it was still heavy. The case with the scope in it weighed in at about eight pounds. She put that to one side, then pulled out a couple of bottles, one of formalin, the other methanol.

She used both for fixing tissue samples, preventing decomposition and allowing her to create single-cell-thick cross sections of a tissue sample. These she mounted on slides so she could evaluate their morphology. Both chemicals required caution to use. Formalin was toxic and a known carcinogenic, and both were highly flammable.

Sophia opened the bottles and began sprinkling the tent with their contents. She dropped the bottles on the sand just inside the tent and walked out with her microscope in her left hand. She stopped about ten feet away.

Akbar saw her, frowned and walked toward her. “That is all you want to bring with you?” He continued past her toward the tent.

Sure, go right on in.

She put her microscope down and slid her right hand into her thigh pocket and pulled out a flare.

Akbar stopped a couple of feet away from the entrance. Maybe he saw the empty bottles. Maybe he smelled the chemicals, since she’d so liberally doused everything in them. Whatever the reason, he turned, violence riding him like one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

She lit the flare and threw it into the tent, then threw herself to the sand and covered her head.

The next few seconds passed in slow motion, as if she was watching a movie rather than real life.

The armed men around her moved, or started to, some to raise their weapons at her, others at threats that weren’t there.

The explosion that resulted after the flare ignited the formalin and methanol tossed all of them on their backs.

Akbar was thrown only a few feet away from her, facedown in the sand.

She sat up, glanced at him. He seemed down for the moment, so she grabbed her microscope and walked away toward the hospital and refugee camp.

People in the hospital stared at the fire burning behind her with their mouths open. Well, most of them did. One man, dressed in a traditional robe, came straight toward her.

She’d know that face anywhere. Connor.

He met her halfway between where her lab had been and the hospital. He had no rifle or weapon that she could see, just a grim set to his mouth.

Now what had she done wrong?

He took her by the arm.

“Ouch.”

He adjusted his grip instantly and asked through clenched teeth, “Are you injured?”

She shook her head. “Just a lot of people grabbing me there today.”

Behind them someone yelled in Dari.

“Fuck,” Con breathed, looking past her shoulder at something and dragging them to a halt.

“Is there more than one?” she asked.

“Not yet.”

“How close is he?”

“Ten feet.”

“Wait here.” She turned, then nodded at the man with the rifle and walked toward him.

Behind her, Con sucked in a breath.

Four feet away from the gunman, she stumbled, then spun and bashed him in the shoulder with the microscope.

He went down with at yell, and Con was on him within a second or two, punching the man a few times, then taking his rifle.

“Come on,” Con said, looking angrier than she’d ever seen him.

They made it into the hospital tent, where everyone ambulatory was rushing to see what was going on and watch the fire.

Con pulled her into a cluttered corner of hospital supplies, and made her sit down in the middle of them. “Was Akbar with you?”

“Yes. He brought in trucks. He was trying to get me to pack up my lab so he could move it.”

The rage on Con’s face hadn’t lessened a bit. “And you too.”

“I suppose. I doubt that’s going to happen now. I sort of blew him up with the rest of the lab.”

“How do you sort of blow someone up?” Con asked, his voice rising. “Is it the same as getting sort of pregnant or sort of dead?”

“Why are you so mad? Would you rather I let him kidnap me and my stuff?”

“No, but I do mind you trying to kill yourself.” He leaned down to say, in a dangerous tone, “And you promised you wouldn’t.”

She smacked him on the chest. “I wasn’t. I was doing my best to prevent a problem from getting any bigger.”

“Which problem? We have several to choose from.”

“The Akbar problem. He needed to be stopped and I had no time to consult with you. He only gave me a few minutes to pack up.”

“So that’s when you thought... hey, what the hell, I’m going to blow myself up ?”

She smacked him again. “No. I thought what a great opportunity to take away the lab equipment he had a hard-on for, and maybe kill him at the same time.”

“What kind of explosive did you use?”

“I opened a couple of bottles of flammable liquids, tossed the stuff around, then threw a lit flare in.”

“Fuck, you’re lucky you didn’t create a crater the size of a house with that shit.”

Yelling and movement of people had Con pushing her to the sand behind the boxes and crates of supplies.

“Don’t go anywhere. It doesn’t sound like Akbar stayed blown up.” He gave her a glare. “I’m going to see if I can do some permanent damage to the bastard.”

“Max might want to question him.”

“That’s why I only said damage, not kill.” Con stood and was gone the next moment.

Sophia took a look at herself. She was dirty, bruised and her hands were shaking like crazy. At this rate, the aid workers were going to think she was sick.

What she was, was thirsty, but drinking the regular water supply was out. Even knowing whatever rabies virus was in there was most likely non-viable didn’t make it safe. Didn’t Blairmore have any bottled water? That must be why he wasn’t sick.

She opened a cardboard box and found bottled water. Score. She grabbed one, broke the seal and drank it all down. She grabbed another, but caught sight of something behind the box, stashed where no one would see it unless they were raiding supplies like she was doing.

It was a backpack, a lot like the ones Con and the other soldiers wore, only it was filled with one piece of equipment. Interesting. She dumped the device onto the ground and studied it.

It was large enough that it took up all the space in the backpack. Black with several knobs on the front, and a couple of lights on it were blinking. It also had an odd looking basket-ish antenna protruding from one end.

It hit her. This was Len’s pack and this device must be a signal jammer to prevent anyone from calling for help.

The off button wasn’t immediately obvious, so she fiddled with it until she got the battery compartment open, pulled the batteries out and threw them away.

Now she needed a satellite phone. She looked around and found one lying on the ground as if someone had just dropped it.

She punched in Max’s cell number and prayed for him to answer as it started to ring.

“Sophia!” he yelled after the second ring.

“Max,” she said as loud as she dared. “We need help. Lots of help from soldiers with guns.” Idiot, she sounded hysterical.

“Help is on the way. Someone signaled the jets I sent on a fly-over.

“It’s rabies, but Max—”

“Rabies? Slow down. What happened? Was Akbar involved?”

Pain exploded in the side of her head as someone knocked her down and ripped away the phone. Disoriented, she tried to grab the phone, but it was kicked away.

Akbar stood over her, bleeding from multiple cuts on his head and neck. His lips peeled back to expose his teeth at her and he grabbed her by the neck with one hand. Then he dragged her through the boxes and crates she was hiding behind and past the hospital’s cots, occupied and not.

He didn’t seem to care if she avoided any obstacles or hit them with her body.

Once they reached open sand, he ruthlessly forced her to the ground on her back, his hand tightening on her throat.

“You have cost me far more men, money, and time than I can afford.”

She tried to talk, but his hold on her throat was too tight. She tried again anyway. His curiosity must have got the best of him, because after the third try to talk, he let off on the pressure so she could speak.

It was probably a fool’s errand, but she was going to try talking to the human being who used to inhabit this monster’s body.

“Why?” she asked in a tone made harsh by the pressure he’d already put on her neck. “These people didn’t hurt you. Why kill them in such a horrible way? Why kill them at all?”

For a moment she thought her question might have reached him. Might have given him pause, perhaps a moment to realize just how terrible the things he’d done were. He looked at the hospital, at all the people, some of them dying only a few feet away of a virus he’d given to them. His face relaxed a little, his jaw sagged, and he sucked in a breath.

A moment later, yelling and gunfire turned his face to stone.

She sucked in a breath while she still could.

His hand tightened on her neck again and this time she knew there would be no reprieve. He was going to kill her. An insane smile spread over his face as he pressed harder. “Every one of the people I love has been murdered. Why should anyone else be free of the pain and suffering I live with every day? Until I know peace, no one else will know it either.”

Goddamn it, she hadn’t beaten cancer as a kid, then become the youngest medical doctor in the USA with a double speciality, just to cave in to the whim of a madman.

She closed her eyes, fisted some sand and threw it in Akbar’s face. He reared back, so she lunged up and managed to punch him on the side of the head, hoping his current injuries made him more susceptible to a strike there.

It loosened his grip on her neck and she slid away, but he followed, backhanded her and grabbed her again. This time he had both hands around her neck.

She wasn’t going to get away. Death was looking at her and he seemed much too happy to see her.

She’d accomplished one of the two things she wanted to do before she died. She’d done something worthwhile. Something worth dying for.

Please, let Connor be safe.

Spots crowded her vision and she struggled to take in a breath, began to panic, claw at his hands until blood coated her fingers, but the world was going dark and...

The vise around her throat suddenly disappeared.

She coughed and sputtered, her battered throat still tight as she sucked in air. Wonderful air.

Nearby, a sharp cry of pain caught her attention. Two men were struggling together, fighting, one with a knife. Con and Akbar.

Con should have been able to subdue Akbar, but he’d been stabbed in the thigh and lost a lot of blood. And Akbar had noticed. He kept punching Con’s leg.

She forced herself to her feet and moved to interfere in their death match, but three of Akbar’s armed guards were running toward them. Akbar’s back was to them or they likely would have shot Con. As it was, their shouts distracted Con enough for Akbar to break away.

He yelled at his men and pointed at Con and Sophia.

Their weapons came up.

Sophia dove behind a crate, her attention split between Con and Akbar’s goons.

Con hesitated.

“Con!” she shouted. He’d promised, promised her he would stay alive.

At her shout he threw something at one of the gunmen. His knife struck the chest of one of the men so hard, he fell backward.

The others scattered, their shots going wide.

A distant gunshot rang out and one of the men dropped to the sand. The other two ducked and backed away just as another shot hit one of them in the neck.

Akbar grabbed the injured man’s rifle and he tried to wrestle it away, but the next shot hit Akbar in the arm.

The uninjured man grabbed Akbar and ran, putting the hospital between them and whoever was shooting at him.

Sophia crawled over to Con and began to check him for new injuries. Her shirt bandage on his thigh had come loose and he was bleeding again. She clambered to her feet and moved to look for a proper bandage, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her back down.

“Stay down,” he growled at her. “Can’t you see someone is shooting at us?”

“Whoever it is,” she said, jerking her hand out of his grip, “isn’t shooting at us.” She got away from him this time and went to the supply area Akbar had used her as a battering ram to destroy.

Aha, she had upended a box of bandages. She grabbed a couple, then went back to Con, who was now sitting up and looking grumpy.

“You didn’t know the shooter wasn’t shooting at us.”

“I did the moment he didn’t shoot us.”

“What the hell does that mean?” he demanded.

She took a long look at his leg, then inserted her fingers through the tear in his pants and ripped it open.

“Ow!”

“Oh, shut up, you big baby.” She gave him a glare as she bandaged his leg. “Or would you rather bleed to death?”

People were running around, but between the explosion, fire, and gunshots, most of them were giving Sophia and Connor a wide berth.

A tall man wearing a robe about six inches too short for him walked toward them like a panther approaches prey.

“Hello, Smoke,” Sophia said. “Please tell Con you were the one who shot those guys over there and made Akbar stop trying to kill us.”

Smoke shrugged. “Okay.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Con said. “Was it actually you?”

“Yeah.”

Con shook his head, frustration and irritation making him look dangerous, wild, and out of control.

“Max called,” Smoke said. “He’s on his way. We should see some support in an hour or so.”

“Wow, I almost don’t know what to do with that good news,” Con said with more sarcasm than Sophia felt was required.