“We indeed meet Dawud, young miss,” Hamal said, eyes still glued to the road. “Please to refrain from speak now.”
“Hamal,” Carrie nearly screamed. “I am paying you well. You need to follow our plans or tell me before we leave.”
Now the Jordanian turned to face her. His lips drew back into a cruel sneer. “Plans?” He shrugged bony shoulders under his white dishdasha. “Plans change, young miss. Now, no more speak to me.” His right hand let go of the wheel long enough to punch her squarely in the jaw. A cascade of lights popped in her brain, first blinding, then falling like spent fireworks into nothing but blackness.
Navarro’s manicured nails dug into her jeans again. “That son of a bitch hit me in the face,” she said, eyelids closed but fluttering. “Why can’t I see anything, Doc?”
“You were unconscious. It’s a time for which you have no memory.” Dr. Soto cleared her throat, as if she’d been crying. “Let’s move forward now. Walk me through what happened when you woke up. Remember, none of what happened was your fault, Carrie. It’s important to know you won.”
“Won?” Navarro scoffed. “Is that what you’d call being tortured by a sadistic bastard for month after never-ending month?” Her shoulders shook uncontrollably. “I… I don’t think I can face this today, Doc. I’ve got to stop.”
“Very well,” Soto said, in her ever-soothing voice. “We’ll continue in a few days… if you’re ready. I’m going to count backwards from five, then snap my fingers. You’ll remember everything we talked about, but all your anxiety will disappear…”
Five seconds later Carrie opened tearful eyes. Her entire body shuddered with pent-up sobs. “I know you’re doing your best, Dr. Soto.” She took a tissue from the coffee table and blew her nose. “But after what that son of a bitch did to me… no amount of backwards counting or finger snapping is gonna take away the anxiety I got.”
CHAPTER 16
Mahoney looked skyward, shielding her eyes from the drizzling rain as she watched the flashing strobe lights on the white FedEx 747. It lumbered in from the east and overflew the airport to make a slow, rolling turn over the Everglades and land from the west. Since reporting her conversation with the French Ministry of Health to Admiral Scott, she’d half expected the FedEx plane would be blown out of the sky before it ever made it to land.
Fourteen heavily armed deputy U.S. marshals, each dressed in orange full-body biosafety suits, stood along the dark ramp. Blue lights glowed in the steamy mist along the hot tarmac. Self-contained breathing units hummed in the drizzle. Mahoney was similarly dressed, albeit without the submachine gun, as was her lab assistant Justin, a twenty-four-year-old doctoral student who made no secret of the fact that he was clearly infatuated with her.
Justin looked over his shoulder, wiping rain off the front of his clear bubble face shield. He patted his rear with a gloved hand. “What do you think, Megan? Does this suit make my butt look big?”
He was a cute kid, with mischievous, brown eyes, muddy-river hair, and the muscular shoulders of a baseball player. He was also young enough to cause a scandal of Fox News proportions if she yielded to his relentless advances.
“Justin,” Mahoney sighed into the tiny microphone inside her rubberized helmet, fighting the urge to flirt back with such a good-looking hunk of man. “Knock it off. The stuff on that airplane is nothing to screw around with. Besides, I’m old enough to be your—”
“Sorry,” he cut her off. “I’ll stop.”
“Thank you.” Mahoney walked past him. The battery pack that powered the breathing unit at her waist whirred as she made her way toward the approaching aircraft. Ensconced in the cumbersome suit, she couldn’t hear Justin sniffing along behind her, but she was sure he was there. Maybe she was giving off the wrong vibes. Maybe she was leading him on subconsciously. She certainly didn’t intend to appear needy — no matter how available she was. In point of fact, her social calendar was incredibly lacking. She told herself it was because she was too busy with work, but wondered in her heart of hearts if she just wasn’t overly picky.
When Megan was a little girl her father, the Fulton County sheriff, had described her hair as claybank, comparing it to the coat of his favorite dun mare — not blond, not red, and not brown but somewhere in between all three, depending on how the light hit it. As she’d grown up he compared her in other ways to his beloved horse. When she’d placed third in the state high school swim meet, he’d put a hand on her shoulder and said: “You know, you and your mama are more like quarter horses than thoroughbreds — built for comfort over speed.” She’d looked around the pool and, for the first time, noticed that all the other young female swimmers standing around with their families towered over her by at least four inches.
“Third in state is nothing to be ashamed of,” her mother had said, draping a towel over Megan’s shoulders.
“I ain’t sayin’ she should be ashamed,” her father tried to defend his reasoning. “I’m just pointing out she’s been blessed with a little more hip and a little less length than these bags of bones that are taking first and second.”
The quarter-horse comparisons not withstanding, Megan knew she was attractive enough. The men who did ask her out all looked like Ken dolls. Roger, the cardiologist she’d been having dinner with in Buckhead when she’d been summoned away to the limousine conference, was exactly the sort of man she seemed to attract, and exactly the sort she couldn’t stand — rich, well-groomed, highly educated, and incredibly boring. She wondered if working surrounded by life-threatening germs day in and day out had somehow dulled her senses, made her crave more excitement from a man than any human being was capable of giving. Justin was certainly willing to show her some excitement, albeit of the fumbling kind. She could see it in his hungry, young eyes every time he looked at her. Somehow, she’d have to figure out a way to hit him in the head with a figurative two-by-four to let him know she wasn’t, and never would be, something on his menu.
The jet made a slow turn off the taxiway and lumbered toward them amid pulsing lights, turning Mahoney’s thoughts back to the deadly task at hand.
Luckily, FedEx traveled with a flight crew of only two and no attendants, making it far less likely that anyone would have come into contact with the package containing the virus.
“I know what you were going to say, Megan,” Justin said from behind her, his voice dripping with impish enthusiasm. She’d started their relationship off badly by insisting he call her Megan instead of Dr. Mahoney. She made a mental note to remain more aloof with her next intern.
“You were going to say that you’re old enough to be my sister.”
Mahoney spun on her heels. Every breath threw a tiny puff of fog on her clear plastic face shield. It was uncomfortable enough to begin with stuck in the clammy suit. She wasn’t about to put up with this for one minute longer.
“Justin, I’m serious.” She jabbed him in the chest with her glove-encased finger. “If you want to work with me, you gotta rein in that horn-dog libido. If I was a twenty-year-old cheerleader at Georgia Tech, maybe you and I could have a hot roll in the hay. We could catch us a nice case of campus clap — then set up a romantic date to get treated together at the health unit. But I’m old—”
“Thirty-something isn’t old.” Justin amped up his perfect grin. “Cosmo says you’re in your sexual prime.”
“I’ve seen too many deadly bugs to screw around with you, or anybody else who hasn’t been living inside a plastic bubble all his life.” That was a lie, but it sounded good. Mahoney hooked a gloved thumb over her shoulder toward the FedEx jet as it powered down behind her, lights pulsing in the dark rain. “It’s time to get serious. You hear what I’m saying? There is no vaccine for what’s in there, no cure.”