Page 18 of Jacob

“Yeah. Spent time in Syria in an abandoned factory where they were manufacturing ricin.”

“Uncomfortable, isn’t it? The MOPP4.”

“God yeah.”

“They’re bulky.”

“And they smell.” As if a skunk had farted in there. And the smell never went away.

“Yes. And they overheat. The suits don’t breathe very well, and there’s a lot of heat buildup. How much time at a stretch did you spend in your MOPP4?”

Jacob had no idea where she was going with this. “Maybe two hours at a time. This was Syria.”

“Mm-hmm. And the visor clouds up and it’s hard to manipulate things with the clumsy gloves.”

“Yeah.”

Alex leaned forward and tapped him on the knee. “We work every day, sometimes eight hours a day, in PPPS in the BSL-4 labs. A Positive Pressure Personnel Suit that makes the MOPP4 look like rompers. While doing delicate lab work. Every day.”

Jacob kept his mouth shut. If he opened his mouth, he’d start yelling and he didn’t want to yell, not at Alex. He didn’t want to yell. He was known for keeping his cool, always, but he didn’t feel cool right now, not at all.

Alex tapped him on the knee again. “I know Elias and he knows me. He doesn’t know you at all, except by reputation, and you aren’t known for being a sweet and gentle man. If we go to wherever we think he is, and he is open to talking, who do you think he will listen to. You? Or me?”

Jacob huffed out a breath. Another. Tried to unloose his throat enough to speak. “Wherever this Elias is, he is in deepest shit and possibly—probably—surrounded by terrorists. Whether he is completely in with them, or whether he regrets being bought, they will not give him up easily. This feels like a massive conspiracy of bad guys. Maybe even state-sponsored bad guys, planning on using a deadly weapon. Is that what you want to walk into? Yes, you know viruses, better than anyone, certainly better than anyone in my company or my teammate’s company and for sure better than me. But you haven’t spent the better part of two decades dealing with these kinds of people, Alex. You think in scientific terms, not in strategic terms. The danger comes from what you think might have happened, that Dr. Field has weaponized smallpox, which might or might not be true, and if it is true, you are the expert. But what is absolutely true is that we’re dealing with very dangerous people, and I’m the expert. I’ve dealt with the scum of the earth all my life.”

Alex met his eyes. “If Elias worked up a modified smallpox virus, he did so under my watch, so to speak. We have worked together every day for the past year and a half and I suspected absolutely nothing. If this game changer was created in the past year and a half, I bear some responsibility. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to deal with the danger.”

Responsibility. Shit. She’d pushed the wrong button. Jacob was nothing but responsibility. It was in his bones. He knew exactly where she was coming from. It hurt, but he did it. He threw up his hands. “I can’t let you win this.”

“It’s not a contest, Jake. Nothing to win.”

“No, it’s not a contest. But I just can’t wrap my head around you walking into danger. Messes with my head.”

Alex sat up straight. “You’re getting all protective now? Where have you been? When I was with the WHO, we travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo and to Chechnya. I haven’t been living in a bubble, as you seem to think.”

Jacob set his teeth. She was not going to like this. “You were travelling with an official UN delegation on a diplomatic passport, both times, to conferences. The delegations were surrounded by local police and were afforded every diplomatic courtesy and both times you never went outside Lagos or Grozny.”

Alex drew back, pale blue eyes wide. “What the hell? Have you been stalking me? How do you know so much about my life?”

“Not stalking, no.” Jacob treaded carefully here. It was like walking on a floor where grenades had been thrown, the pins pulled. This could go south very badly, very fast. “I kept informed about what you were doing. And since Black Inc. works closely with the CDC, we have access to personnel files.”

Alex stood abruptly, standing ramrod straight. She looked furious. He’d never seen her furious before, or even sad or mad. As a young girl she’d always been even tempered, sunny, happy. This was new. It made her even more beautiful, like some Greek goddess ready to hurl arrows down on the mortals from Mount Olympus.

“You’ve been stalking me since before the CDC? I worked for the WHO before accepting the job at the CDC.”

Jacob fudged. “Like I said, our contract with the CDC includes access to all personnel files,” he repeated. Though the truth was he’d been following her since forever.

Alex was blinking rapidly, eyes shiny with unshed tears. Her fists were clenched and she was trembling from head to toe. Not in fear. In rage. “Oh my God. You’ve known where I was this whole time.” She shifted her weight from foot to foot as if getting ready to take off. Not even in the sense of running but of a rocket shooting through the ceiling. “I can’t believe it. You could have gotten in touch at any time.”

Jacob said nothing.

Alex swallowed heavily. “I missed you so goddamned much. And I had no way to know if you were okay or not. If you were even alive.” Her eyes swept him from head to foot, then looked around his office, and he knew she was taking in the expensive clothes and the huge office. “I imagined it all. You homeless, sleeping under a bridge. You hurt, because you never hesitated to take on bullies. You sick, because you never took care of yourself. I worried myself sick and I missed you terribly, all at the same time. Aunt Emily took me in, but she wasn’t happy about it. She was cold. I didn’t know any of the kids in the local high school in Boston, so I did the only thing I could do, which was study like crazy.

“But I was so… so fucking lonely. Missed you so much. You could have gotten in touch at any moment, and yet you never did.”

“I did,” he said quietly.

“What?” Alex wiped under her eyes with a finger.

---