Page 75 of Viral Justice

Bull slid down the wall to sit on his butt, laughing as quietly as a man could.

She had better luck choking her chuckles back, but Bull looked like he couldn’t even breathe.

“You’re going to give yourself a hernia if you don’t stop,” Max warned him. “Pull your mind out of the...”

“Sack?” Ali offered, amused by the entire episode.

“Fine,” Max said with a brief glare at her. “Sack. Get yourself up on your feet and get out there to meet with our incoming team.”

“Yes, sir,” Bull said, still laughing as he and a grinning Tom left the room.

After they were gone, she said to Max, “You do realize they’re never going to let you forget you said that.”

“It won’t be the first time I’ve tried to eat my boots.” He shrugged. He attempted to move the large light fixture in the center of the room, but it was bolted to the floor. The metal table was on wheels and was easy enough to put up against a wall.

“How much room do you need?” she asked.

“This is more than enough. I’ve got plastic sheeting in with the portable lab, so I just have to throw that over the counter and I’ll be good to go.”

“How long until the team gets dropped?”

Max glanced at his watch. “Soon, about ten minutes. They’ll be dropped a couple of miles out to keep from alerting anyone in the village. The supply drops will happen about the same time as the team is ready to enter the village.”

“Do I have a few minutes to scout for the best spot to shoot from?”

“Yes, of course.” When she didn’t move, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I shouldn’t leave you alone. The first rule of bodyguarding is stay with the body.”

“Why do I suddenly feel like a walking, talking cadaver?”

His sideways approach to everything never ceased to be a source of amusement for her. “If you are, you look damned good for a dead guy.”

He snorted. “Go.”

“I think you might have to convince me.”

He put down the piece of junk he’d been moving and walked over to her. His hands came out to cup her shoulders and bring her closer to him. “There’s a grieving widower and his two small children here. No one else knows where we are. We’re as safe as we can be.” He ducked down to catch her gaze. “I promise to scream for help if someone happens to come into the building.”

“Don’t scream. Speaking softly into the radio will work just fine and attract less attention.” She looked into his face and found a determination there she hadn’t seen before. “If you have to defend yourself or the kids, remember, you’resavingthem,defendingthem. Not attacking someone else.”

“I will.”

Something about him was different. Harder.

“I’ll be back as soon as the new team is here.” She left the room and made her way back to the entrance. Once outside she headed for the house one level up and used it to gain access to the roof. The pre-dawn light revealed a dense cluster of brush clinging to the rock face rising above the building.

She wiggled her way inside it and managed to eke out enough room to assume a crouched firing position. The scope showed her a good view of the village as it spread out over the hill and valley to her right.

There were more people out and about, along with militants who seemed to be searching for something or someone. Probably them. Some of the villagers were performing ordinary tasks—feeding chickens, getting water from the well—others seemed disorientated or lost.

Coughing echoed through the village and down into the tents like the conversation of a room full of people she couldn’t quite understand. It came from everywhere and went nowhere.

The distant hum of airplane engines became audible, and got louder and louder by the second. People stopped to look for the source and there it was, a large military aircraft flying low over the village and the valley below it.

Shouts brought more people out, some in fear, some with hope on their faces.

Ali looked for the team of Special Forces soldiers that should be making their way to them over land from the west.

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