Page 115 of Deadly Strain

“Stay right behind me. Put your hand on my back. Remember?” When they’d had to hide to evade capture, she hadn’t hesitated to stay in contact, close enough for him to hear her breathing escalate.

She nodded again and kissed him.

It was nothing more than a quick touch of her lips to his. Over in a second, but that second told him she was good with what they were doing. Good with what they had to do. Good withhim.

It was just his luck she’d toss him on his emotional backside while on a kill-or-be-killed mission.

He picked up his scattered wits and flashed two hand signals at the team, then led them farther into the cave.

Chapter Twenty-Six

They encountered noresistance in the next twenty feet. No sign or sound of people, though there continued to be gas lanterns hanging every so often from hooks in the ceiling of the cave. They came to a fork. One was lit with more lanterns, but there must be a bend or turn in the cave because they couldn’t see more than thirty feet. The other was dark.

Sharp didn’t want anyone coming up their asses, so he sent Smoke on reconnaissance down the dark road while the rest of them continued down the easy path.

They hit the bend, and Clark, who’d taken point, eased around it with the skill of a ghost. Three seconds passed before he returned and gave the all-clear signal.

Sharp went around the corner, Grace right behind, but the gas lights ran out and they switched to night-vision goggles.

This part of the cave appeared unoccupied, as there were only cast-off bits and pieces of wood, metal, and wire strewn about.

Those guys with the grenade launchers came from somewhere.

Up ahead, Clark signaled for everyone to stop. Contact. Someone was moving around, but Sharp couldn’t make anything out. Maybe the cave turned another corner.

After a few more seconds, Clark signaled the all-clear, and they moved forward again, but he set the pace even slower than before.

Light teased the edges of his vision, and Sharp realized the cave opened out into a huge room, hundreds of feet in diameter, with more gas lights in use. The room appeared empty until you looked across the space and saw crates stacked, some being used as tabletops, others with their lids off and their contents on display.

As they crept toward what looked more and more like a work area, Sharp figured out what one of the oddly shaped items in plain view on one of the crates was.

A microscope.

Sharp hesitated for a moment. A microscope, but no light source. Wouldn’t a generator be needed?

Gas lanterns were in use and no sign of a generator.

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