Page 10 of Viral Justice

Chapter Three

“How expensive am I?” Colonel Maximillian asked, one corner of his mouth crooking upward.

His smile melted something cold and hard inside Ali. She couldn’t relax her guard around many people, but Max was different. It frustrated the hell out of her sometimes, but he was honest with her. He didn’t play games or tell her what he thought she wanted to hear. She’d had enough ofthatto last her a lifetime.

It didn’t hurt that he radiated confidence and intelligence. Unless he was in the shooting range or in combat training. There he looked like a duck out of water, ungainly and awkward.

The contrast was jarring. Max was an irresistible puzzle, one she was determined to solve.

“More than what I’d pay for you, that’s for sure.”

“Sometimes I’m not sure you like me at all,” he said with a glance her way.

She had to work to keep a smile off her face. “Of course I like you—you’re a US Army asset.”

He sighed, as if she was trying his patience. “Nothing is ever going to be simple with you, is it?”

The question seemed mostly rhetorical, but she answered anyway. “People appreciate the things they work for,” she told him, using the same tone her grandmother had used when she told Alicia the same thing during her first year in the army.

“Will our entire conversation be in fortune cookie–sized sound bites?” he complained.

Her façade cracked and she laughed. “God, I hope not.”

His sense of humor surprised her, always had. He looked so buttoned up and stuffy, but he wasn’t either. He was smart, funny, and wasn’t afraid of suggestions from lower ranks. She’d been impressed by his ability to focus on multiple goals and achieve them. He was relentless when hunting a disease or containing an outbreak, and frequently got his hands dirty with jobs other men in his position would have given to an underling.

Max didn’t assign tasks to anyone else that he wouldn’t do himself, and he didn’t waste his people or their time on meaningless work.

His inability to defend himself worried her. He was so competent at everything else, she suspected his personal life had something to do with it.

The shit his ex-wife put him through would have turned a saint into a serial killer. Ali had witnessed exactly one meeting between them. They were outside a restaurant where Max and Ali’s father were meeting for a meal and a chance to talk away from the base. It was the first time she’d met Max, and his ex was screaming at him about money and shoving him. He said something low and calm, and she punched him in the face.

Twice.

Ali had run toward the pair, intent on stopping the raging woman, but Max had waved her off, so she got her phone out and hit record.

He didn’t do a damn thing to defend himself, other than attempt to talk to his ex. The woman finally left when Ali had shouted at her to stop. The cops showed up ready to arrest him for assault an hour later, until she showed them her video recording. They urged him to see a lawyer, but she was pretty sure he hadn’t.

Now, he led her through a set of closed double doors. They walked about five feet down a hallway until they reached a row of internal windows. On the other side of the glass was a laboratory. She recognized microscopes, but not much else.

There were four people working inside the room, all of them in space suit–style outfits with hoses extending from the back of their helmets up to the ceiling.

“They have their own air supply?” she asked.

“Yes. The room’s air supply is also filtered—scrubbed, really—to ensure that no pathogens get out.”

What was in that room was as dangerous as any other weapon. “Do you work in there?”

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