Page 63 of Viral Justice

“You mean like that bird flu from a few years ago?”

“Sort of. That one didn’t spread like we feared. Which is the reason why the human race is still here, because its mortality rate was horrific. We got very, very lucky with that one. This one looks worse, and all I see when I look at the unarmed, is the sick.” His hands opened and closed like he was holding himself back from some action.

“You really need your equipment don’t you?”

“Yes. If this virus gets out of this village, it’ll be too late to do anything about it.”

“Well,” she said, turning her weapon and scope toward the edge of the tents surrounding the village. “No one is getting out at the moment.” As she watched, armed men stopped a group of six and forced them to turn around and return to the tents.

Max shifted to observe them. “Are they afraid of getting sick or are they doing it because someone ordered them to?”

“I want to know who’s looking for Americans,” she said. “Is it extremists who want hostages to threaten on TV, or was someone expecting us?” She looked at him. “Does this feel like something Akbar would do?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Max said with a frustrated huff. “The problem is believing that he’d be using a flu virus.”

“Why?” Ali asked. “I mean, one virus isn’t much different than another, right?”

“No.” Max ran his hands through his hair, something he did only when he was worried. “Influenza viruses mutate extremely rapidly. They pick up bits of genetic code from other viruses they come in contact with inside carrier animals. Pigs, birds, and bats are some of the animals that act almost as a mixing pot for influenza viruses.”

“Could Akbar control the changes? Make a customized flu?”

“It’s been done in labs, but you need specialized equipment and supplies he just doesn’t have access to. It would be dangerous to try to create something without a fully equipped lab. Even more dangerous than working with anthrax.”

“From what I’ve seen, he doesn’t care about danger.” She’d read the reports, especially Dr. Sophia Perry’s account of her run-in with Akbar, when he’d tried to create a rabies virus that could be easily transmitted from human to human.

“I hope you’re wrong,” Max said.

Movement in the street below. Ali turned her scope to see who was approaching.

“Tom and Bull are coming. That was fast.”

“I’ll go down and meet them,” Max said. He crawled to the hatch and disappeared into it.

She watched the street for anyone following, but no one seemed particularly interested in what two men, one playing sick with a racking cough, were doing.

Just before they got too close to the house for her to keep watching, Tom looked up at her, his expression dark and worried.

So, not good news, then.

A woman’s crying grabbed her attention. The door to a home a few houses down the street opened and a man came out carrying a small bundle. He put it on the ground, but the woman moved to pick it up. He grabbed her by the arm and tried to pull her away.

She’d gotten a piece of it and the blanket-wrapped bundle unraveled.

A child.

The pale skin and absolute stillness of death made looking at the body harder than it should have been. She’d seen death before, but never like this. Never with the agony of the living right in front of her.

A whisper of sound behind her. Someone was coming out through the hatch.

Tom. He crawled over to her and said quietly, “Max wants you downstairs. I’ll keep watch.”

She nodded and made her way down into the house.

Max was examining Bull in the kitchen. The soldier was bare to the waist, while Max was standing behind him poking at one massive bruise on his back.

After what she just witnessed, she craved Max’s lean, confident strength and warm hands on her skin. Strength that knew exactly how and where to touch to take away pain or bring pleasure.

“I don’t think you have any broken ribs,” Max said to Bull. “But I’m going to wrap them anyway. Broken or bruised, they’ll still hurt.”

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