Page 129 of Lethal Game

Chapter Twenty-Seven

As 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.

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