“This won’t take long,” he assured her.
She nodded, not daring to speak as her stomach lurched. She felt the helicopter lifting, moving, the sound of the engine increasing with the effort. It wasn’t until a few minutes later, when Zed peeled her fingers from around his hand and held on with the other that she realized she’d had a death grip on him.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said. And that smile of his, it lit dark places inside her she hadn’t even known existed. “You hold on as tightly as you need to. I just have to change hands every so often to let the blood flow to my fingers.”
Yeah, she was a sucker for them already.
She didn’t even try looking out the windows. Within a few minutes, it felt like, they were landing again. Only then did she really take a look. There appeared to be tall pine trees surrounding the open field they’d set down in, and what she could make out of grass and other vegetation looked brown and dead.
Zed helped her unstrap and Uncle offered her a hand to emerge from the helicopter. There was another quick round of introductions. When she tried to help them and the men who’d walked out to meet them unload, Uncle waved her off.
“Go on inside, honey. We’ll bring all this.”
Omega, a large, black man who dwarfed Uncle and Zed, offered her a friendly smile. “Chief’s inside. She’ll start showing you around.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
She grabbed her purse and her bag with her computer and other breakable stuff in it and trudged through the dead grass in the field to the building. The door opened as she approached, a woman with a gun on her hip giving her a warm smile.
“Welcome to your new home away from home.”
“Thanks. Chief?”
“That’s me.” She shook with Leta. “I won’t ask why Papa dubbed you Snarky, but would you rather be called something else?”
“No, if I’m part of the team, I’ll suck it up and accept it.” She smiled. “Besides, you already have a Doc.”
“True. That could get confusing. We set you three up in a single room. Not the fanciest digs, but you have a door that closes and you three won’t have to share the space with anyone else.”
“Beats sleeping in my car, I’m sure.” She followed Chief through the building as the other woman gave her a quick tour, ending up at the room they’d be staying in. A king-sized mattress had been pushed into one corner, several new packs of sheets and pillows lying on top of it.
Leta set her things down next to the wall. “I’m still not sure what I’m supposed to be doing other than being a doctor. I’d feel weird just sitting around twiddling my thumbs all day long, and I won’t be much help in the lab.”
“You can help with kitchen stuff, chores, things like that. I take it Uncle and Zed have plans to get you some range time?”
“Shooting?”
“Yeah.”
“I asked them to teach me to shoot. I don’t want to be totally helpless.”
“Good. If they turn out to be sucky teachers, let me know. I’ll take you.”
“Did I hear right that you were law enforcement?”
“That’s me. Former MP, too.” Her smile faded. “I’m not going to promise you that the rest of this mission will be a cakewalk, but seriously, it’s likely that in a few weeks we’ll be done with this mission and able to move on with our lives. By New Year’s, we all might be scattered to the four winds and the world could be on its way to healing.”
It was hard for her to wrap her head around that. “Are they seriously that close to a vaccine?”
“I actually saw Mama grinning like a loon this morning.” Chief let out a laugh. “That woman is as grim as they come. If this latest round of testing works out, that could be all they need to make the announcement and get a vaccine into production.”
“Wow.”
Zed and Uncle entered with a load of stuff and set it down. “This is us?” Uncle asked.
“This is us,” Leta confirmed.
Zed nodded. “Cool. An actual bed.” The men high-fived each other before they traipsed back out.
“Come on and let me give you the detailed tour,” Chief said. She led Leta down a hallway and into what had apparently been an open warehouse or manufacturing area of the building. In the back, a lab area had been set up, several studded lumber walls covered on both sides and over the top with layers of thick plastic sheeting.
Leta shivered as she rubbed her arms. “God, it’s cold out here.”
“On purpose,” Chief explained. “Helps to make sure that, just in case, if the virus does escape their containment protocols, it’ll quickly die. Doesn’t like anything under fifty degrees, apparently. The colder, the better. We keep the front area heated, since that’s the living quarters. This is all staging and the lab.”
“How long do they spend at the CDC every day?”
“Depends. Last week they all stayed overnight one night while waiting on some test runs to finish.” Leta followed Chief back inside, past the kitchen and dining area to a smaller room at one end of the hall.
Chief flipped on the light. There was a massage table set up in the middle of the room, and several large plastic tubs neatly lined along the wall. “Infirmary,” Chief said. “Should you need to treat anyone.”
Leta walked over and peeked inside the bins to find everything she’d need to do basic examinations and all the way up to triaging and even some meatball emergency field surgery.
“Doc gave Omega a list and they grabbed everything on it,” Chief explained. “He said with two bases, we needed two set-ups. He’s got the other set up down in Florida.”
“You have access to the CDC, though. I thought their facility was connected to a hospital.”
“And that’s a thirty-minute flight, or nearly an hour drive, depending on the time of day. If there’s anything you think is missing from that, make a list. We’ll get it.”
“Thanks.” She turned back to Chief. “I feel…kind of useless.”
“No, don’t think like that. Everyone has a job. Before we got a helo, Victor was sort of mopey that he was down to taking watches, but you know what? If that’s what has to be done, we all chip in and do what we can. Pandora’s a reporter. She’s been helping Bubba and Lima sift through data they’ve scraped from the church’s servers.”
“I can’t shoot, and I’m definitely not a computer expert.”
“When Scooter joined us, she was a bank teller. She provided insight we didn’t have and has been helping with the data mining, too. Annie was a sniper and a mechanic. Ak is a mechanic. Stu, she’s a computer programmer. Doesn’t matter what your skill is, we’ll use it. And when we don’t need that particular skill, there are plenty of support ops needing doing that don’t involve a gun. Long as you aren’t averse to helping out with KP or laundry.”
“I can do that.”
Leta heard the men return with another load of stuff and walked over to the door to look.
“I was going to get dinner started,” Chief said. “You can help me now, if you’d like.”
“Yeah, thanks.” As she followed Chief through the building, Leta realized none of this felt…real. It was like she was watching a TV series or something.
This is my new life.
It definitely would take some getting used to. Especially the two hunky men who wore a burning hunger in their gazes every time she caught them staring at her.
Then again, she knew she’d easily get used to that. And them.
Chapter Fifteen
After dinner was served and everything cleaned up, Uncle and Zed got the keys to an SUV from Omega and set out with Leta to buy her some cold-weather gear. All three of them took surgical masks with them to wear while out and about. They first stopped at a camping store that wasn’t nearly as busy as Leta thought it’d be considering it was the biggest shopping day of the year.
“Lot of people can’t afford to shop,” Uncle said. They talked in low tones as they moved through the sto
re together, filling a shopping cart with whatever she needed to not freeze her native Floridian keister off. “Lot of poverty in this region. Lot of people in the rural areas barely making it, especially this time of year.”
She’d been isolated from that as a ward of the state. Might not have been the greatest food on her plate, but there was always enough of it, clothes on her back, a bed to sleep in. And as an adult, once she was earning her own way, she hadn’t wanted for much. Then again, she’d grown up living with only the bare necessities.
It was after dark when they returned, and they were just in time for Leta to meet the research team—Mama, Waldo, Q, and Clara.
“Thank goodness we have a doctor here now,” Clara said.
“Don’t go teaching her castrations,” Uncle teased.
Clara evilly grinned. “Would I do that?” she sweetly asked.
“Yes,” everyone else said before laughter broke out.
“I take it there’s a story?” Leta asked.
“We’ll fill you in later,” Zed said. “Preferably after playtime and before we fall asleep.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
After a vigorous romp in bed, Leta did manage to get the castration story out of the men before she fell asleep.
Saturday morning, it was barely daylight outside when she heard people up and moving around. She dressed and slipped out of the bedroom. After using the bathroom, she headed to the kitchen, where Chief looked half asleep.
“Oh, good. Help. Please.” She was struggling with the coffee maker, which had decided to go feral and rebel against her attempts to get the basket correctly placed in it. That straightened out, Leta dug out an electric skillet and started cracking eggs to scramble while Chief tackled pancakes.
“They work seven days a week, I take it?” Leta asked.
“Yep. They want to fix this.” She glanced over at Leta. “The guys tell you about TMFU and what happened?”
“I’m up to speed.”
“Don’t hate them,” Chief said. “The scientists, I mean. I know that sounds crazy, but they didn’t want to be put into the position they ended up in.”
“So you’re from LA?”
“Not LA proper. Little town just to the north, still part of the county, though.”
“Did you have to…you know…deal with any Kiters?”
The hospital staff had been instructed to administer a fatal dose of po-clo to anyone testing positive for the virus. Leta avoided the secure drug storeroom where the cases of the pre-loaded boluses were kept.
It creeped her out seeing them.
“I had to shoot my former boss,” Chief said, her tone grim. “He’d gone down to the city with others to help out with the riots and barely made it home. Snuck back in. Covered in blood, even though he wasn’t bit. But he was blue. Gave it to his wife, too. We were standing in his driveway and he tried to draw on me. I was faster.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I wasn’t going to let him shoot me or the guys.”
“Guys?”
“Omega and Echo were with me. We went to check on his wife. We found them packing their cars, getting ready to go meet up with their kids and grandkids.”
Leta shuddered. “Yikes.”
“Yeah. His wife…she begged me to kill her, too. I gave her a dose of po-clo on her couch.” The woman went still for a moment, lost in her memories. “It was very peaceful for her.” She met Leta’s gaze. “But all those people in Barstow, infected and not, they may have gone quick but it damn sure wasn’t peaceful.”
“Do you have any regrets about joining up with the unit?”
“No. Not a single one. We’ve got to get this shit solved, and fast. Why? Are you regretting it?”
“No, not for my sake. I’m worried I’ll be a drag on resources.”
Chief shook her head as she flipped pancakes. “No. You’re a doctor. We need more doctors.”
“But I’m not a researcher.”
“Doesn’t matter. Team like this, a doctor is a welcomed addition. Especially someone with trauma experience.”
Within thirty minutes, the research team had finished eating and left together as the sound of an arriving helicopter filtered into the building. Her own men had come in to check on her earlier, grabbed coffee, and left again, promising to return to eat after the research team had finished. Leta had met everyone and noted that they seemed to be in high spirits.
“There’s their ride,” Chief said.
There weren’t any windows in the room they were using as the kitchen and dining area. “Is it safe for them?”
“Omega and Echo will go out with them, and the others, until they’re in the air again. A SOTIF team runs security at the facility. They’re safe.”
A few minutes later, after the sound of the helicopter departing reached them, sure enough Leta’s men returned to have their breakfast.
“Time for us to eat,” Chief said. “Thanks for the help.”
“Glad I can be useful for something.” They took their plates over to the tables to eat. Besides her and Chief, there were Omega and Echo, Uncle and Zed, Clara’s men, twins Oscar and Yankee, and Victor, their resident helo pilot.
“Can I ask a dumb question?” Leta started.
They all nodded. “There are no dumb questions,” Omega said. “You’re new. We expect questions.”
“Why aren’t there more of you here?”
Everyone deferred to Omega. “Chief here is as good as one of us, with her training and experience. That gives us eight guns, minimum. The Florida base is larger, more ground to cover, so we need more personnel there. We had Ax here, before he left—”
“The hacker?”
“That’s him.”
“Why was he allowed to leave?”
“There are some things we don’t question because it’s above our pay grade. He’s still in touch and will keep working with us. Today, your guys will take you out and start working with you at the gun range.” He turned to Uncle. “And go on and take her to the lab once you’re done. Show her around there. I’ll call ahead and tell them you’ll be stopping by. Get her an official ID and everything so she’s got it.”
Her stomach rolled. “No, I’m good. Really.”
Omega smiled. “You need to know where it is and how it’s laid out in case we ever need to go there in a hurry. Be prepared. Everyone stationed up here needs to know all the layouts, just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“Bug out,” Chief said. “Something happens and we have to move fast, it’s all hands. The lab samples and data take priority over everything else.”
“But it’s the CDC.”
“Precautions,” everyone said before breaking into laughter.
Uncle reached over and gently squeezed her hand. “Sorry. We dealt with a lot, including an earthquake. Being prepared is how we stay alive. I’m sure the hospital you worked at had trauma drills, right?”
“True. I didn’t think about it like that. I did mention I have no military experience, right?”
His green eyes crinkled at the outer corners. “A couple of times, babe.”
“It’s okay,” Chief said. “We’ll get you up to speed.”
* * * *
After cleaning up the kitchen and grabbing herself a shower, Leta left with her men. They stopped first at a military surplus store that carried even more gear than the sporting goods store they’d hit yesterday evening after their arrival.
Once the men had her well-equipped, including a couple more duffel bags for her stuff, they headed to the gun range.
She stood there and watched Uncle and Zed explain everything to her yet her mind wanted to wander. As she watched their hands with the gun, a nine millimeter, she couldn’t help but think about what they’d managed to do to her in bed thus far with those same hands.
When it was her turn to replicate what they’d just shown her, Uncle was the first to smirk. “You weren’t paying attention.”
“I can?
??t help it that you two distract me.”
The men shared a glance. “You said you wanted to learn how to shoot.”
“I do.”
“Then pay attention.”
“Monkey see, monkey do?” She flashed him what she hoped was a playful smile.
He rolled his eyes and showed her again. She managed to retain enough of the info this time that she could load rounds into the magazine, and then load the magazine into the gun.
Field stripping the gun and reassembling it, however, still tripped her up.
“We’ll work on that back at base,” Zed said. “Let’s get you shooting.”
Uncle started, showing her how to fire it. When she picked up the gun, he stood behind her, his arms around her, showing her how to hold it, how to aim properly.
And she gave thanks when he kept his hands around hers the first time she fired it, because it spooked her so much she nearly dropped the damn thing.
“You made it look easy,” she said, feeling shaky and more than a little queasy.
“That’s because we’ve done it a lot,” Zed said. “Don’t worry. It’ll get easier.”
After two hours in the range, however, it didn’t feel any easier. At least she could hit the target and not drop the gun. She’d learned how to clear it if it jammed, and felt reasonably certain she could operate it without shooting herself.
“I hope I don’t ever need to use this for real,” she said.
“You worried you might not be able to shoot someone because you’re a doctor?” Uncle asked without a hint of levity in his tone.
She thought about the evidence she’d seen from Los Angeles, and the two women murdered in Atlanta. “No, if someone was trying to kill me or someone I cared about, I absolutely could pull the trigger. I’m just worried about not being able to hit a person with my aim. Or accidentally hitting someone I don’t want to hit.”
“We’ll keep working with you,” Zed assured her. “We’ll have plenty of time.”
Now that she knew the basics and was fairly confident she wouldn’t be shooting herself with the gun, they outfitted her with a concealed holster that kept the gun handy in the middle of her back, clipped to her belt.