Breaking Danger (29 page)

It took forever.

But finally, finally, a little control came back. Not much. Just enough to raise his head to see if she was smiling or snarling. If she was mad at him for losing control. He'd have to explain to her as carefully as he could that that wasn't the way he usually operated and that he'd try to be more gentle the next time, if there was a next time. Maybe she was disgusted with him. All that sweating and groaning and, well, he didn't smell like springtime either.

So he lifted his head, prepared for just about anything—happiness, anger, anything in between, and instead what he got was Sophie's head turned to the side, eyes closed and what was that? He turned his ear to her mouth and grinned.

Sophie Daniels, virologist, sexy, classy woman, was snoring. Light delicate little exhalations that barely qualified, totally unlike the rhinoceros snorts of his teammates in the field, but definitely snores. Delighted with her, delighted with what was happening to him, he slowly turned with her in his arms, so gently he managed to stay inside her, and adjusted her on top of him. Sophie made a wonderful blanket. Soft and light.

He took in one deep happy breath and let it out, and fell asleep.

Sophie was dreaming. She and Jon were dancing on a rickety wooden pier far out over the ocean. The wind was still, the water calm, bright sun picking out diamond-like reflections in the water. Each step they took made the pier rock and sway, made the wood creak. Jon was kissing her cheek, over and over, a tender look on his face . . .

“Sophie, wake up. It's nearly sundown. Time to go.”

Not kissing, tapping at her cheek.

She woke in a swoop, disoriented. She wasn't on a pier out over the ocean. She was in a bed and the room was filled with shadows. Outside the windows, the sky was the dark pink of sunset.

She sat up, still groggy, and pushed her hair out of her eyes. Sitting up, she felt the muscles between her thighs, the tissues of her sex, complain. She was sore and she blushed a bright red when she remembered just how those muscles and tissues had become sore.

Jon was standing several feet away from the bed, face grim and tight. He looked like he'd been up for hours and he looked like a completely different man from the one who'd been in bed with her.

“We'll go just as soon as it becomes dark enough to use night vision.” His voice was tight, clipped, impersonal. Team leader to teammate. “I made you sandwiches. Eat as much as you can; you're going to need fuel. I don't want to stop unless we absolutely have to—it's going to be a trek. There's time for you to take a shower if you want. I've already taken mine. But I'd like to leave in half an hour.”

Sophie watched his face more than listened to his words. He'd carefully erased any emotion from his face and looked and sounded like a robot. An incredibly good-looking robot whose manufacturer had given it ripped muscles.

“Okay.” She carefully matched her tone to his. Impersonal, matter of fact. “I'll be ready in half an hour.”

He nodded and marched rather than walked out of the room. Mission-ready.

Sophie showered, rummaged in Mrs. Robb's amazingly well-stocked closets, and came up with a silk undershirt, a thick cashmere turtle-necked sweater, jeans. Her own Nomex coat and winter boots completed the outfit—Apocalypse Chic. In the kitchen she found the food Jon had set up: two ham-and-cheese sandwiches and fruit juice. The Robbs believed in living right—the bread was whole wheat, the cooked ham and Swiss cheese delicious. Jon had even peeled two apples for her and quartered them.

Jon showed up exactly half an hour after he'd woken her up. He was dressed for battle, exactly as he was when he showed up at her door, the Nordic god who seemingly fell from the sky on top of her. She remembered clearly the huge emotions of the moment—terror and hope in equal measure.

And then, they'd made love. As if those emotions had cut right through the usual getting-to-know-you phase. Strong enough to blast right through all the walls people put up.

She'd known who he was at that instant—a man who'd walked through hell to find her. Not much else was necessary to know. It had been enough, more than enough, to get past her defenses.

It was sunset now; the sky outside the windows a darkening blue.

“I've checked the vehicle,” Jon said. “She's good to go, fully charged and with a full tank of LPG. With luck, she'll last till we get to Haven. I loaded her up with food. The Robbs have a full stock of staples and I stacked as much inside as the vehicle can carry. I know Haven has ample stores, but I checked with HQ and refugees are pouring in. The food will come in handy.”

“Did you track our route?”

Jon pulled a face. “Sort of.”

He showed her an expanded map with GPS waypoints. “The satellites took photographs of the roads from here to Haven.” He traced a path with his finger from where they were on the coast eastward to Mount Blue, a desolate part of the state. She'd never been there. “The Lynx has off-the-road capabilities and she's strong, but going off road will also mean increased fuel consumption. We've got a map of where we can travel on highways and roads and where they are blocked by vehicles. The thing is, the photographs were taken the day before yesterday and the satellites are down now. Our drones are being used to scan for pockets of survivors, and they don't know when they can assign some to us. So, we're operating essentially on old intel in a hostile environment.”

He looked at her narrow-eyed, as if expecting something from her. She showed him her determined face. She was not going to slow him down in any way; she was going to do everything in her power to help.

“The scanner works, right?” she asked. “We'll know where the infected are.”

“Oh yeah, it works all right. And as long as we keep moving, we won't have anything to fear from the infected. They sure can't outrun us. We just have to make sure we don't run into trouble off road.”

Sophie looked out the window at the rising darkness. “I'm ready when you are, Jon.”

“Okay,” he answered, but he didn't move. He kept his face neutral but there was something, some strong emotion, quivering just beneath the surface. He looked tense, like the string of a bow before release. He looked like he needed something badly, but Sophie had no clue what that might be.

“Jon?”

He suddenly lunged and wrapped his arms around her. His grip was so tight she could barely breathe, and beneath his clothes Jon was trembling, his breath quick and rough.

“I'm not going to let anything happen to you,” he said, voice low, husky, strained. As if it was hard for him to get the words out. “That's my promise to you. I'll get you to Haven safely.” He swallowed hard. She could feel it and hear it. “Trust me. Trust me to get you to safety.”

Though his words were reassuring, somehow Sophie felt that
he
needed reassurance, as if he would fall apart if she weren't holding on to him.

“I trust you, Jon,” she said softly.

He jolted, then settled down onto her so heavily, she was bearing his weight. Just for a moment. Then he straightened, stepped back, holding her by the shoulders. “Good. We're going to do this. You'll get to Haven, you have my word.”

He dropped his hands and took another step backward, all elite soldier now. He all but saluted, face completely neutral, expressionless.

The robot was back.

Except he didn't fool her. Jon was no robot. That tight hold he had on his emotions was because he felt them too keenly.

He wanted her to trust him? God, yes. At that moment Sophie knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he would sacrifice his life for her if it could get her to safety. This went beyond getting the case back to the labs. This was about
her
, Sophie Daniels. But she couldn't let on that she understood that, not now, not when he had to show her he was all supersoldier, utterly emotionless.

Her only possible response was to stay neutral herself. “Okay.” She dipped her head. “So I guess we're heading on out.”

The Lynx was a surprising vehicle. She'd never seen one in real life, only in ads. Nobody needed a private vehicle in San Francisco. She just rented a CityCar from the city when she needed transportation, so she wasn't up on the latest models. This thing looked like a beast, like something she'd laugh at if she encountered it on city streets. Huge, high and broad, a complete waste of material. Except right now they were going to trust their lives to this beast, and it looked like it was up for it. Its size and toughness were welcome if they were going to have to go off road.

“Bless you, Jason Robb,” she said as she ran her hand along the beast's flank.

Jon looked up briefly from fitting her backpack into the rear compartment. “Yeah, we're really lucky. I don't think a normal vehicle could make this trip. We have something back at Haven that would be even better than this, but it's there and we're here.”

Sophie looked the Beast over, realizing it was something she couldn't drive, not even on freeways, let alone in the wild. “Can I help you in any way, Jon? Can I navigate for you?”

Jon had come around to the passenger side and opened the door. The floor of the vehicle was higher than her breasts. The small step that appeared from the flank of the vehicle was absolutely necessary. Jon gave her a quick boost and she settled into the seat. Inside, it was enormous, like a small room. Jon had packed the back tightly, covering the windows to midpoint. But the car would have sensors and video cameras for rear view vision.

“No. We're going to have to travel with the lights off because the light would attract the infected. I have night vision goggles and the waypoints are on the GPS. But we're going to have to be ready to change the itinerary at any moment.”

Jon's comms unit crackled and she saw movement. He pressed a button and the hologram was projected. His teammates, Mac, and Nick. And Elle.

“We're ready to roll out,” Jon said. “Anything we need to know?”

Mac looked tired and drawn. “The infection has spread to the rest of the country. There are now severe outbreaks in Houston, Dallas, Seattle, Denver, Chicago, and Boston. Plus a number of smaller cities. Martial law has been declared in half the country. We know this because our comms system is picking up sporadic signals, but we are completely unable to establish any kind of radio contact with anyone in the military. There is no priority higher than getting that case to a safe place; there is nothing more important that the U.S. military could achieve, and we can't communicate with them, not in any way. Snyder tried, and he connected with a lieutenant somewhere for half a minute, then they were cut off.” His jaw flexed. “But we're trying 24/7 to get through. The instant we do, we'll get a bird to you, no matter where you are. But you're not getting help any time soon, Jon. Neither are we. We're on our own. The good news is that we still have people pouring in and we've located more strongholds. People are dug in and most of those communities are going to make it. The countryside is littered with the bodies of the infected. They are dying fast.”

Sophie snapped to attention. “Do you have any hazmat suits, sir?”

“Mac.”

“Okay, Mac. Do you?”

Mac turned to Elle.

“Yes,” Elle said. “Three. Nick picked them up when he went to a research lab to liberate some equipment for us. Why?”

“We need dead bodies. We need to know how long the virus can survive in corpses. I think we should be okay. The most virulent viruses known to us—the hemorrhagic fever viruses like Ebola—cannot last more than three days in corpses. Smallpox can't survive more than twenty-four hours. And most viruses deteriorate when exposed to ultraviolet rays. A lot of the dead infected will be outdoors. This is my best assessment. But . . . we need to be sure. So have two men in hazmat suits find a dead infected, put him in another hazmat suit and we'll try to replicate a Level-4 containment lab to the best of our ability.”

Nick stirred, looked at Elle, then back at her. “Sounds dangerous for you guys.”

“It's all dangerous, Nick,” Sophie said before Elle could talk. “But we're going to beat this thing, and when we start reconstruction we will also have to know whether a coyote who slinks away with an infected's arm will become infected and infect a human being in turn. I don't think the virus is transmissible to animals because it was tailored for humans, but we must know for certain. We have to know whether we need to undertake a massive program of burying in mass graves dug very deep and lined and covered with cement or if we can simply bury the dead normally, because the virus is dead. Any mass graves that would have to be dug under containment conditions would take months and months. And in the meantime, men, women, and children will starve to death. If we know that the virus can't survive outside a live body, we can bury the dead quickly even as we care for the living.”

Nick nodded, a brusque up and down movement. “On it. I'll grab one of the ex-Marines not on guard duty and go out.” He disappeared from the screen.

Elle's eyes followed him, then turned back to the vid. “And I'll set up a separate lab with Catherine, trying to make it as much a containment lab as we can.”

“How are you doing for supplies?” Jon asked.

Mac sighed, a huge heave of his massive chest. “Up until yesterday I'd have said we're doing fine, but we just got another influx of three hundred refugees. We've got people sleeping in the corridors in shifts. We're down to about four days' reserves.”

“Well, we're bringing in as much as we can in the Lynx. And if ever a helo can be spared, Robb's got enormous stocks of food here.”

“Yeah. He said. So we've done as much on our end as we can for you. We lost satellite contact about twelve hours ago, so we can't give you any more details on the terrain you're going to have to cross. ETA?”