Chapter Seventeen

5:17 p.m.

Why was it so hot?

Carmen rolled over, or tried to, but there was an arm over her waist and a body behind her back preventing her from moving. Her memories came back in a rush, the very naughty things John had done to her jolting her completely awake.

Holy shit, she’d orgasmed so hard she’d passed out. Her face heated, and she tried to look over her shoulder so she could see him, but the angle made it impossible.

“John,” she whispered, using her elbow to nudge him.

No response.

Really? She elbowed him harder. His body rocked back slightly, allowing enough air between them for her to realize her clothes were wet.

Wet? How could…oh no.

Carmen fought her way out of John’s embrace and rolled off the cot to land awkwardly on her feet. She pushed herself upright, pulled the blanket away, and took in John’s soaked clothing. A touch to his forehead confirmed her fears.

He was burning up, and he’d been hot enough, for long enough, to sweat through his clothes. One of the earliest symptoms of measles.

Did he have the rash?

She attacked his shirt, nearly ripping the buttons loose as she pulled it open.

A throat cleared behind her. “Maybe you should wait until you get a room to tear his clothes off.”

Carmen looked over her shoulder at DS. Why was he talking and not helping her? “He’s got a high fever. I’m trying to see if he has the rash, not have my way with him while he’s sleeping.”

“Shit,” the older man said as he strode over, but he couldn’t get closer than the foot of the cot, thanks to the tight quarters. He pulled the cot out of the space, then helped her open John’s shirt and lifted his arm so she could inspect the skin underneath.

A mottled rash had begun to form. It was still faint, but it was there.

“How deep in shit are we?” DS asked as he lowered John’s arm.

“Up to our eyeballs,” Carmen replied. “His recent wounds will have had a negative impact on his immune system. The infection could overwhelm him.”

She’d told John this was a bad idea. She’d warned him that they were taking a risk in letting him come with her to ground zero of an outbreak. Now he was sick, very sick, and it was her fault.

He’d been sleeping behind her, breathing into her hair. She was probably infected, too. The whole tent would have to be disinfected if it were to continue to be used as a clean working area.

“We need to move him out of here.” Damn it, he couldn’t die now when they were finally, finally working through their past.

DS hurried off while Carmen located her stethoscope and listened to John’s chest. His lungs were clear. For now.

DS came back with clean masks for her and John.

“I’ll be back with someone who can help me move him.”

She nodded.

It was time to face a few unpleasant facts.

The masks weren’t offering the protection she’d been counting on. That meant…

Ninety percent of health-care workers currently working were going to get sick, probably within twenty-four hours of one another. And…

Hospitals were the last place people should be congregating. So…

It was time to issue shelter-in-place or quarantine orders to the public.

Carmen listened to John’s heart beating for a lot longer than she needed to. She just wanted some time with him. Heat came off him in waves. She didn’t need the actual number to know he was in trouble.

Footsteps became audible behind her. DS, River, and Rawley.

“How is he?” Rawley asked.

“He has a fever, but his lungs are clear.”

Rawley cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.” He looked like he meant it.

“He’s a tough bastard,” DS said.

“I’m going to tell him you said that,” River told him.

“Who do you think you are? My nosy little brother?”

Obviously, they were trying to make her feel better with all this banter.

It hit her with a sucker punch to her gut—John was a victim now. Another casualty of the outbreak. She’d always been good at putting the victims of any disease or disaster at a healthy mental distance, but she couldn’t do that with John.

He wasn’t a number.

He wasn’t a faceless victim.

She wasn’t going to let him die.

He’d saved her once. It was time she repaid the favor.

“We’ve got a cot for him near the entrance of the tent next door,” DS said. “You’ll be able to check on him whenever you want without having to walk too far.”

He was talking to her like she was the emotionally fragile relative of a dying man.

He was not dying.

“Thank you,” she said smoothly. There was no way she could allow anyone to see how scared she was. “Be careful with him.”

They moved around her, picked up his cot at the ends, and walked out with it.

For the next several hours, she split her time between the command tent and the rapidly filling overflow tent ward, where John alternately soaked his clothing and blankets or huddled under them racked by cold chills.

The number of sick continued to rise, with more and more Florida hospitals reporting cases of the variant measles.

“Got any ideas?” John asked, lucid thanks to a break in his fever. She’d dumped as much ice as could be spared on him in the hopes it would bring his fever down. It had worked, but as the ice melted, his body temperature began to rise again. “Any experiments you want to conduct? I’m open to anything as long as it doesn’t involve a three-way with DS.”

He was either trying to be funny or his fever was coming back fast and it was affecting his thinking. She decided it was funny and chose to be funny in return. “Experiments?” she asked, injecting a little fake outrage into her voice. “Who do you think I am, Dr. Frankenstein?”

The silly expression on his face faded. “I’m serious. Got anything you want to try? Even if it’s dangerous, I’m game.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“First”—he raised his head a little and looked around—“this tent is full of people, a lot of them kids. To pull a rabbit out of this hat will take some out-of-the box thinking.”

“So I’m supposed to just pull some chemical out of my ass and give it to you?”

“Well…” He gave her the same little-boy smile she’d fallen in love with years ago. “Maybe not out of your ass.”

“That isn’t funny. This,” she said, gesturing at the room, “isn’t funny. I won’t risk your life.” It took work to keep her voice low enough so none of the people around them could overhear. And panic.

He rolled his eyes, and in that moment she wanted to smack him.

“Second, I don’t want to die,” he said with a calm that was as out of place as the humor. “I’ve finally got you talking to me.” He grinned.

He was feverish. No sane man would try this bullshit if he wasn’t deathly ill. He probably wouldn’t remember this conversation at all. “You lied to me, you took my trust and tore it apart, and you think there’s still a chance for…for…you and me?” Her voice rose as she finished the question.

His smile got wider. “You wouldn’t be so mad if you didn’t care.”

He was right, damn him. She did care. She cared about him more than she cared about anyone or anything else, but once he was back on his feet, he’d never let her out of his sight. Never trust her to make the right decisions about her safety. And he’d use this horrible situation as the justification.

He thought he had everyone all figured out. Once he did, he’d stick you into a labeled box and never let you out. He assumed he knew what you needed, and he provided it despite any arguments to the contrary.

He had her in a box labeled helpless female. That probably wasn’t the only label on her box, but it was the biggest one. Well, thanks to him, she’d learned how to take care of herself. Other people, too.

She leaned down, putting her masked face next to his right ear. “Yes, I care,” she said in an even tone. “I will not risk your life on a slim chance. I’ll talk to my team and ask for ideas. I’ll talk to my boss’s boss’s boss to see if there are any drugs in the midst of the FDA approval process that might help. They’ve been known to grant special permission to use unapproved drugs in extraordinary circumstances. That is all I will allow.”

He blinked at her. “Wow, you’re fucking gorgeous when you’re angry.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. Nope, he wasn’t going to remember any of this.

He made a strange noise.

She opened her eyes to see him visibly shaking. “Cold?”

“F-freezing.”

The ice had melted; his fever was back. She pulled his blanket back up to his neck and stayed with him until he slept.

DS offered to watch over John and several of the people around him so Carmen could get an update on the situation.

Nothing had changed. It looked like the entire state of Florida was coming down with the measles. Airports in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Tampa had all been shut down. Hospitals were swamped with the sick, and the National Guard was sending units to help all over the state.

The state had also issued an outbreak alert and asked people to remain at home if at all possible. The Surgeon General of the United States was watching the outbreak closely.

People were dying.

Carmen talked with her teams, asked them for ideas on treatment and prevention, but everyone was already doing everything they could think of. Ice baths were helping some, but not for long enough. All approved anti-viral medications were being used, but to no noticeable effect.

Wednesday, April 2, 8:10 a.m.

“I feel like it’s the early sixties, before the first measles vaccine became available,” she said to Henry during a video call with him. She’d hoped he’d have some news or information to report, but he didn’t.

“Records say forty-eight thousand people were hospitalized a year before the first vaccine went into use,” Henry said. “We don’t have the capacity to handle an influx of that many sick.”

“Nobody does,” she replied. “And yet, here we are.” She cleared her throat. “John Dozer has the measles,” she said. “High fever, rash, but clear lungs so far.”

“Shit,” Henry said.

“All we can do is palliative care.”

“Yeah,” Henry said, sounding uncertain or distracted.

He had his thinking face on. “Henry?”

He shook his head.

“If you have an idea, I want to hear it.”

“It’s stupid, and it probably won’t make a difference.”

“I don’t care what kind of idea it is. We have to try something.”

He sighed. “Let me think out loud a bit,” he said. “It’s how I work.”

“By all means,” she said, hope bubbling in her blood.

“Anti-virals aren’t having much of an impact,” Henry said. “But the normal measles vaccine helps the body create some level of immune protection to other diseases besides measles. Vaccinated populations have fewer deaths due to any disease than unvaccinated populations. More children survive to adulthood, and adults live longer.”

“Okay.” Where was he going with this?

“What if… What if we gave people another shot of the standard measles vaccine?” he asked. “It might boost the body’s immune response to the new virus.”

“It’s readily available,” she said slowly. “Cheap and familiar.”

“Do we just start giving it to people?” he asked. “Across the board?”

“We’d need to have a control group. Give them a booster shot, then observe the results.”

“Do you need approval to do it?”

“I can’t just try it without a whole lot of people being on board with it, but it’s the only idea I’ve heard that hasn’t already been tried.” Carmen would have hugged the grumpy veteran soldier if they’d been in the same room. “Keep working. I really want to know what makes this virus tick. What makes it so much deadlier than the standard virus?”

“Will do, ma’am.” He paused, then said, “Stay frosty.”

“As if I could do anything else with DS here.”

Henry nodded and ended the call.

She had many more calls to make, but…for the first time since John was blown up, she felt hope again. Real, tangible hope.

She started with the CDC director, who could give her approval to try another measles booster and inform other health-care leaders of this potential response. She was surprised to receive a rousing endorsement. The relieved grin on his face made her uneasy. “It might not make a difference.”

“I’m aware, Dr. Rodrigues,” he said, smiling. “But if it works, it’s much simpler than the one that’s currently on my desk.”

“What response?”

“A new anti-viral from Curatuto. They say it will boost the body’s ability to fight off any virus.”

“At what cost?”

“One thousand dollars a patient.”

“Oh, is that all?” she asked. “What about the people who can’t pay or our military? The government doesn’t have enough money to even consider buying it.”

“If enough people die, no one will care what it costs,” he said. “Test your theory. Pick a group of people, give them the booster, and pray it works.”

“How long have I got?”

“Four days.”

Four days? For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. But his tight jaw and bleak gaze told her she might not have even that long. “Yes, sir. We’re going to need a lot of doses of the vaccine.”

“I’ll get it to you as soon as possible.”

Carmen called in everyone who could operate a syringe to tell them what to do. A few looked skeptical.

“I’d like to vaccinate all of the sick in this tent,” she said. “This has to be done rapidly, but correctly. If it works, it could be the answer we’re looking for. A way to beat this virus.”

That perked everyone up.

Within two hours, several cases of the vaccine had arrived, and her teams worked quickly to administer it to every sick patient in the tent.

Carmen gave the booster to John herself.

As she settled in to wait, the disease spread north past Florida’s border into Georgia and Alabama. It wouldn’t be long before hospitals in Louisiana reported suspect cases. People were demanding the government provide medicine to combat the measles, but there wasn’t one.

Twenty-four hours after the booster, John’s condition hadn’t changed. His fever rose and fell in waves. Twice, it got so high he was hallucinating.

Once, he wouldn’t stop yelling her name until she lay down with him on his cot. He clutched at her, begging her to stay, promising he’d keep her safe.

The raw worry in his voice broke something inside her, and she’d whispered reassurances and held him for over an hour, until he fell into a restless sleep.

Still, the numbers of infected rose steadily higher and higher. Five thousand turned into eight over the course of the next twelve hours.

When the death toll hit two hundred, Carmen managed to keep her shit together long enough to get to her feet and walk to the nearest portable toilet. She closed the lid, sat, and released the hold she’d had on her emotions. Her body shook with the force of her silent sobs, and her throat closed up so tight it took several seconds of frantic struggling to suck in any air.

No matter where this virus had come from, it acted faster and was clearly more deadly than the disease they were familiar with. A lot of people were going to die before this was over.

John wasn’t getting any better. She’d been so angry with him for so long, she’d squandered the second chance she’d been given. They’d been given. The fever had burned so many calories he looked like he’d lost weight.

She’d been an idiot. A selfish, bitter bitch.

That was going to end. If they survived this, she wasn’t going to push him away any longer. She was going to grab hold of him with both hands and never let go.

Decision made, she grabbed a few hours of rest in the only place available, under a table near the stacks of MREs.

Friday, April 4, 2:10 p.m.

It felt like only minutes had passed before someone called her name, pulling her out of a sleep so deep she hadn’t even dreamed.

“What?” she asked, as exhausted as when she laid down.

DS was on his knees next to her. Odd. He was smiling hard enough to put crinkles in the corners of his eyes. She couldn’t see the rest of his face because of his mask, but she was certain of the grin.

“Dozer’s fever broke about an hour ago. He’s been up and used the shi…bathroom and has had some food. He’s been bugging the shit out of me to let him see you, but until he’s no longer contagious, we’re not letting him out of the tent.”

“You did the right thing.” She crawled out from under the table and looked around. Roughly the same people doing the same work as when she crashed.

Her eyes stung from grit, and her skin itched for a shower. Her hair was probably sticking out in all directions.

“We set up another basic wash station,” DS said, pointing outside the command tent. “No one is taking their masks off unless they’re in a safe area, but it’s good to wash what you can.”

Hot water waited in a large insulated container. She filled a basin, then vigorously rubbed a wet towel over her eyes and hair.

“Thank you,” she said to him when she was finished. “Walk with me.”

He fell in beside her and began updating her on the current numbers of suspected cases, confirmed cases, and deaths. They had plateaued slightly.

“How long did I sleep?”

“About four hours.”

Not nearly enough, but if John’s condition had improved as much as DS said, it was worth losing some sleep to investigate. The fact that she was shaking with the need to see him, touch him, had nothing to do with it.

The tent now had wall-to-wall occupied cots. His back to the entrance, John was standing near his cot, talking with someone. River, if she wasn’t mistaken.

He was standing.

He turned, saw her, said something brief to River, then headed toward her with a single-minded focus she should have found disconcerting. Relief washed over her, light and fresh.

As he reached her, he didn’t slow down, just gathered her up until she was as close to him as she could get with clothing on.

He was shaking. So was she.

“John?” she asked after a few long seconds. “How do you feel?”

“Like shit.” His voice was raspy. “I thought I was going to die.”

Her stomach clenched. She didn’t want to think about that, not even for a second. “You’re too stubborn to die of a pesky disease,” she said, her voice oddly rough.

“You’ve been hanging out with DS for too long,” John said, laughter in his tone. “That’s exactly what he said to me.”

The laughter broke the emotional dam inside her, and she started to cry.

“Hey, hey,” he said, rubbing her back. “You got this.” He pulled away to look her in the face, and she wished she wasn’t wearing a mask so she could kiss him.

“You scared me,” she sniffed. “Don’t do that again.”

“You saved my life. You can do fucking anything.”

If only. “I was so scared.”

“Me, too, but I’m okay now.”

He wasn’t—not yet, anyway—but he was on the road to recovery.

“That vaccine booster you gave me worked. Lots of other people are improving, too.” He smiled at her with more energy than she had. “You deserve a real break and a hot meal.”

John wasn’t the only person who was ambulatory. Other people who’d been bedridden hours before were sitting up, sipping fluids, or even walking around. Not everyone, not even most of them, but…

“I need to look at the latest reports on everyone we vaccinated.” She turned to DS. “We can’t report anecdotal evidence. I need the numbers. The proof,” she said to John. “You need to focus on recovery. Extra rest and fluids.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a slightly fuzzy smile, then rocked a little on his feet.

She and DS each grabbed an arm and guided him onto his cot.

“I’m good. I’m okay,” he said. His smile was a little too wide. “Get to work, doc. Save the world.”

For the first time in days, she felt…hope.

“I’ll be back to check in on you soon,” she said.

“I get it,” he said. “I’ll be a good boy and sit on my cot until you give the order I can resume guarding your back.”

She stared at the smile on his face, and something warm and light filled her heart.

He’d made it. He’d made it.

Only about half of the vaccinated people had been reassessed in the last few hours. Carmen asked for the rest to be done while she studied the data. As the remaining information came in, she found herself getting more and more excited. Seventy-five percent of the people who’d been given the vaccine showed an improvement in their condition. Twenty-three percent showed no change. Only two percent had gotten worse.

It was working. The vaccine booster was working.

“We need blood samples,” she told her team. “We need to confirm a strong seroconversion in our test group.”

She dashed to the command tent. As soon as she walked in, people rushed to tell her that in the last two hours alone, forty-nine of the confirmed cases had appeared to improve—fevers broke, lungs cleared up, and the rash decreased or disappeared entirely.

They still had the measles, and every one of them was still contagious, but they were getting better.

It was time to start a second test group. Over the next six hours, her staff administered the booster shot to every confirmed or suspected case in the hospital—nine hundred and eight people.

After that, she was able to grab another four hours of sleep and a genuine hot shower.

By the time she was back on duty, John was nearly beside himself with wanting to help her. His blood showed strong evidence of antibodies to measles, and his rash had disappeared. He was still contagious and recovering, however, so instead, he kept an eye on social media and the news channels. He sent a constant stream of text messages on everything from the mood in Washington to what the media was saying. Some of the information being touted as accurate medical analysis and advice was flat-out wrong.

She’d had to grant more interviews in order to combat misinformation.

Two and a half days after John’s recovery began, his nose and throat swabs came back as negative for the virus. No longer contagious, he could go back to doing what he’d been doing before. Watching her back.

He’d lost weight, and due to the severity of his fever, he didn’t have the stamina he’d had before. Oh, he never left her alone, kept watch on anyone in the vicinity, but he wasn’t in her face all the time.

Oddly, she missed his comments and constant interference.

She was helping to package up a box of blood samples from her second test group when she realized John was focused on something behind her.

DS was walking toward her. “Henry is here. He’s got news, but he insists on telling you first. Alone.”

A cold chill wiped all traces of fatigue out of her head. “I’ll be right there.”

Carmen passed a couple of knots of people and saw a larger group in suits, military uniforms, and CDC gear. Henry stood in the middle of the group, facing Rawley and the National Guard commander with his arms crossed over his chest. All three of them were giving one another their version of a hard stare.

“Gentlemen,” she said, raising her voice enough to ensure they all heard her. “Henry,” she said, “What do you need?”

Henry dropped his arms and took a step toward her. “Some advice, Dr. Rodrigues.”

“Of course. This way, please.” She extended her hand toward the back of the tent, then looked at Rawley and the commander. “Thank you for coming in to give me a report. Give me five minutes to speak with Henry, and I’ll be with you.”

“We’d like to hear his report as well,” the commander said.

She met his gaze and said, “Please wait here.”

She guided Henry to where the stacks of MRE crates were piled, John a silent shadow behind them, and said, “Talk fast.”

Henry crouched in front of her, almost in her personal space. “I’ve identified the virus. It’s a variant, as we suspected. The success with your test group here is a surprise, however. My results indicate too many differences from the standard virus for the vaccine to offer protection. You’d started a second test group. Any results yet?”

“It’s too soon, but we know the MMR vaccine often decreases the severity of other diseases in people.”

“Those studies are observational,” Henry countered. “No one knows for sure why that appears to happen.”

“As long as it happens, you can figure out the why later.” She canted her head to one side. “Why did you need to come all the way here to tell me this in private?”

He paused, his gaze freezing into glacial ice. “Because the CDC is the source of the variant.”

The entire planet stopped rotating for a second. “What?”

“It was developed in the early eighties—a weaponized version of measles that was never used and stored in our vault.”

Our vault? That could only mean one thing. They had a traitor in their midst. A person willing to kill thousands of innocent people.

The magnitude of the crime closed off her throat for so long she wondered if she’d ever breathe again.

“Doctor?” Henry’s tone was both question and concern.

She couldn’t panic—too many people were counting on her. She closed her eyes and focused on relaxing. Finally, the block on her airway cleared. “Who else knows?”

“The CDC director, DS, River, Smoke, and now you.” Henry cleared his throat. “I think I might know who did it.”

She considered the possibilities. “Dr. Halverson?”

Henry nodded. “He was pissed when he got fired.”

“There’s a big difference between being angry and deciding to commit mass murder.”

“Who else could have done it?”

“We need evidence—hard evidence, not circumstantial.”

“Yes, ma’am, but, let’s, for argument’s sake, assume it’s him. What would he do next?”

“Why Orlando in the first place?” she asked. “Why not Los Angeles or New York?”

“This would be a better place to test it,” Henry said slowly. “See how it performs in a relatively small but dense population. So the question should be, where is the real test going to be?”

“If I were a virologist bent on revenge…” Carmen said slowly. “Washington, D.C.”

“Why?” Henry asked.

“That’s where the Surgeon General’s office is, and it was his signature on the termination letter. It’s where anyone important, who makes decisions, is.”

“He’s not going to be able to get anywhere near anyone’s office,” Dozer said, joining the conversation for the first time. “Security is airtight.”

“He doesn’t have to get close,” Henry said. “He just has to infect the right people. Cleaning staff, security, cops. The virus will take it from there.”

“What was it you wanted my opinion on?” Carmen asked Henry.

Henry angled his thumb at Rawley and the National Guard commander. “Can those two be trusted?”

“We’re going to need Homeland’s help in tracking down Dr. Halverson, and the Guard needs to know this isn’t going to stay contained to Florida and a few of the southern states. So, yes.”

Carmen waved at Rawley and the commander. When the two men arrived, she indicated they should sit down. They both looked ready to tear someone a new one.

“Please understand. Henry is one of my lead lab techs. He’s cautious about who obtains sensitive information, because that’s his job. He didn’t give you a report because, until I hear it and determine it’s something you need to know, he isn’t allowed to give you that information.”

“I’m not a doctor,” Henry added. “You’re going to have a lot of questions I can’t answer, but Dr. Rodrigues can.” He looked at her. “I want to take some samples and talk to some of the care teams before I go back to Atlanta.”

Henry-speak for I’m going to tear apart this virus until I figure out how to create a vaccine.

“Carry on.”

He nodded at DS, then turned and limped out of the tent.

Rawley stared after him. “What happened to him?”

“You mean why is he limping?” DS asked. “IED in Afghanistan. Tough bastard. He nearly bled out, but he put tourniquets on both legs before he passed out and was rescued by combat medics. He kept one but lost the other.”