Heart of a Hero (40 page)

He took one stride toward her, yanked her into his arms and pressed his mouth down hard over hers, claiming her, holding her tightly, stroking her hair as he kissed her roughly, his tongue meeting hers, searching, needing. Sarah melted into him, hot emotion burning her eyes, searing her body. He pulled back suddenly, gazed deep into her eyes. “I missed you, Sarah.”

She glanced away, afraid of what was coming next, of what must be said.

He lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Sarah?”

“Irish!” December yelled from the Jeep. The engine was running, the doctor waiting, the pathogen waiting for him.

Hunter glanced at December, then back at her, not easing his hold. But a look of worry had shifted into his eyes. “Sarah,” he said, his voice low, urgent. “We have to talk. I have a plan—”

“A plan?”

“For how we can be together. I want us—”

Her heart lurched sickeningly. She had to say it. She couldn’t allow him to think there was a future for them. “No, Hunter.”

He went stock-still. The rotor blades stopped turning, leaving only the whisper of the breeze through the dune grass at their feet, the thump of waves on the shore and the purr of the vehicle waiting across the helipad.

“No?”

“I can’t be with a man like you. There…there is no us.”

Confusion rippled across his features. “Sarah, I love you. I want to be with you. I—”

She pressed her hand over his mouth. “Don’t do this.”

“Irish! Now!”

He flicked his eyes to the Jeep, torn between duty and her. Again. She’d forced him to make the choice once, at great cost. She never wanted to put him in that position again. It wasn’t fair.

He gripped her face suddenly with both hands, his gaze ferocious. “Sarah, I
know
you care for me. I
know
you want me. I’ve seen it in your eyes. I’ve felt it in your body. Tell me you don’t want me, Sarah!”

Her throat went tight. She couldn’t talk.

Desperation flared in his eyes. His hands tightened against her face.
“Tell me!
I want to hear you say it.”

Tears welled in her own eyes. “I…I love you, Hunter. I want you with all my heart—more than you’ll ever know. And I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for me…in ways you’ll never understand. You saved me. But…” Emotion snared her voice. “It—we—won’t work.”

His lowered his face to hers. “You love me. I love you. Isn’t that enough?”

She shook her head. “You’ll kill me, Hunter. I won’t be good for you—”

“Irish!” December barked. “They need you in the war room ASAP!”

His eyes, lit with a mad kind of fury, tunneled right into her soul. “Just wait for me, okay? Promise me you’ll wait, so that we can talk.”

“No,” she said softly. “I don’t want to wait, Hunter.”

The Jeep horn sounded. Despair clouded the mercenary’s eyes, then turned to white-hot anger. “You’re lying.”

The horn sounded again.

“Go, Hunter,” she said. “They need you. Go do your thing.”
Go save the world.

He spun on his heels and stalked over to the waiting vehicle.

Nausea churned her stomach, but tears, release, would not come. She was empty, a husk ready to blow in the wind. She wiped a smudge of black paint from her face as she watched him swing himself into the Jeep. He was one of the most incredible men she’d ever met. She loved him. And he loved her. He’d proved it in the most profound way. Yet she couldn’t have him. She watched him go, a cloud of dust boiling behind the vehicle as it disappeared over the ridge.

15:00 Alpha. FDS Base, São Diogo.
Monday, September 29

Sarah pushed open the heavy door that led to the war room, and noticed immediately that Hunter wasn’t there. A mix of relief and pain punched through her. It had been almost three days since she’d seen him disappear in the Jeep. He hadn’t come looking for her, and she hadn’t gone looking for him. He’d probably seen that she was right, that this was for the best. For both of them. So why did it hurt so much?

Sarah stepped into the room and the four men seated around
an oval table looked up instantly. The sense of presence and power they exuded was immediate and tangible. A prickle of awe ran over her skin.

The dark-haired man at the far end stood as she neared the table, his silver eyes appraising her with cool, calculated concentration. He was tall, well over six feet, his face all rugged angles. She noticed he had a scar that sliced from the corner of his left eye all the way down to the base of his jaw.

“Sarah, thank you for joining us.” His voice was accented with French and something more guttural she couldn’t quite place. “I am Jacques Sauvage. You know Rafiq Zayed here, and this is December Ngomo. I believe you’ve met briefly.” He turned toward the white-haired man seated to his left. “And this is Dr. Jan Meyer.” Sauvage held his hand out to her, palm up. “Please do take a seat.”

Her eyes flicked around the table. There were two vacant seats. She chose the one closest to the door, eyeing the renowned Dr. Meyer. She’d heard about him. Every medical professional who worked in Africa had. He was an internationally renowned expert in rare tropical diseases, affiliated with the Prince Leopold Institute in Belgium, Europe’s answer to the CDC.

“We’ve gone over Zayed’s debriefing report on you,” Sauvage said. “And we’d like you to join us for the first portion of this meeting just to see if there is any information you feel might be inconsistent with your experience. If anything new comes to mind, please speak up.
Ça va?”

Sarah nodded, still trying to place his accent.

“Bien.”
Sauvage seated himself and Dr. Meyer stood. The man looked tired, his wrinkles etched deep behind his wire-rimmed glasses. He adjusted the collar of his lab coat and hit a key on a laptop. The bank of LCD screens on the wall behind him flickered to life with images of cells taken under an electron microscope. He peered over the rims of his glasses at them.

“Sauvage has asked me to keep this brief. We’ve been working on the Ishonga samples around the clock for three days now.” His English was perfect but his accent was heavily Dutch. “Fortunately, the integrity of the biological material was maintained at cryogenic temperatures due to the nitrogen vapor canister used during shipping.”

Shipping? Sarah felt a ridiculous laugh bubble somewhere deep in her gut. Was that what she’d been doing in the Congo this past week? Shipping biological material? He didn’t know the half of it.

“If you look at these slides here—” Meyer pointed to one of the LCD screens “—you’ll see that the brain tissue of the Ishonga samples is riddled with holes, like a sponge. This disease has been eating through the brains of these patients.” He turned back to face them, eyes intense over the rims of his spectacles. “This is
not
a virus and it’s
not
a bacteria, or any other conventional disease agent. This kind of pathology—” he gestured broadly to the images behind him “—is more consistent with what we see in brains that have been infected with transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, or TSEs—”

Sarah leaned forward. “You mean mad cow?” Everyone in the room turned to look at her.

The doctor shoved his glasses up his nose. “Correct—more commonly known as mad cow disease in cattle or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. I believe the Ishonga patients were infected with a unique, new form of TSE.”

“But this can’t be,” said Sarah, images of the infected villagers flooding her brain. “This disease moved like wildfire. The villagers went mad and died within days, hours. TSEs take
years
to manifest. And these patients were violent—
that
doesn’t happen with TSEs.”

The doctor nodded. “Yes. I agree. This is highly unusual,
but nevertheless I believe it
is
a form of TSE. The violence in this case actually helps facilitate the spread of the disease through the transmission of blood and saliva.” He paused, pursing his lips. “Only once have I heard of anything even remotely like this—in a very rare and elusive band of bonobo chimps that live in a remote reach of the Congo Blacklands.”

Every muscle in Sarah’s body tensed, and for a moment she forgot the powerful men sitting around the table. “You think the bonobo disease has spread to humans?”

“I think the causative agent has been
engineered
to spread to humans.”

Rafiq cleared his throat. “But if it’s not a virus and not a bacterium, what
is
the causative agent?” His
Rs
rolled over his tongue, his voice resonant with hints of Arabic and French inflections.

“It is my opinion that the verdict is still out on what actually causes TSEs,” said Meyer. “However, the most common current scientific thinking is that the agent is a prion—a defective protein that forces other proteins in the host’s brain to degenerate, leading to progressive dementia, and finally death. My theory is that someone has figured out
exactly
what causes TSEs—prion or not—and they’ve discovered how to manipulate it genetically. They have thus been able to create a whole new family of TSEs as yet unknown to science.” He paused, eyeing the men around the table, his expression grave. “And from the description of the symptoms you have provided me with, I believe President John Elliot has also been infected with one these hybrid TSEs—albeit one that moves much, much more slowly than the Ishonga sample.”

Sauvage leaned forward. “But it’s the Ishonga one they’re threatening to release as a bioweapon. How do you suppose they will do it if it’s transmitted via bodily fluids?”

Meyer shook his head. “I don’t know yet. It
could
be made
airborne, I think. Or perhaps they’d use a food or water source. I really need more time—”

“We don’t have time.” The deep voice resonated through the room. Sarah’s heart tripped. She spun around.

Hunter McBride stood in the doorway and he looked drop-dead gorgeous. He was clean shaven and he’d had his hair cut, accentuating his eyes. He wore a crisp white T-shirt and faded jeans that should be declared sinful. He stared straight at her, right into her, and for a moment everything in her body stood still. Then her stomach churned with a sick sensation. He looked happy. He’d been away from her and he was…
happy.
She turned, forced herself to stare at Dr. Meyer, to concentrate on what he was saying.

Hunter stepped up behind Sarah’s chair, gave her shoulder a quick squeeze and then went to sit in the vacant chair in front of the window. Her chest cramped tight. Hot emotion seared her eyes, but she blinked it back. How could one touch do this to her? How could he feign casual affection like this? She had to fight not to look at him.

“I’m fully
aware of the time constraints,” Meyer said coolly, eyeing Hunter intently.

“No offense intended, Doctor,” said Hunter. “Just stating a fact. We have exactly two weeks to D-day now and we’re no closer to the antidote.”

The doctor shoved his delinquent glasses back up his nose. “On the contrary. There is one lab rumored to be working with something like this, and one scientist in particular. Her name is Dr. Paige Sterling and she’s with the Nexus Research and Development Corporation in Ham?n.”

Rafiq tensed visibly. He placed his hands flat on the tabletop, his black eyes flashing. “How do we know this?”

“A defector from Ham?n. He was brought to see me at the Leopold Institute by the French secret service two years ago.
I do consulting for the intelligence community on certain biological warfare matters,” explained Meyer. “And this defector used to work in the Nexus compound. He believed the Nexus group was involved in creating bioweapons, and the Secret Service wanted to know if I thought his information was credible. But the man had no proof, and getting into the country to obtain any kind of proof is close to impossible. As you well know, Ham?n is closed to all travel and all foreigners. The European intelligence community did, however, put together a task force, including myself, that has kept a watch from a distance over the years. But so far nothing has hit the radar—until now.”

“But how do you know the Nexus lab is working on TSEs specifically?” said Rafiq, pressing his hands even more firmly against the tabletop, as if trying to contain something.

“I was given a list of the scientists stationed there. One of them is Dr. Sterling, an American. Both her father and mother used to work with that rare group of bonobos in the Congo I mentioned. And it was her father, Dr. Richard Sterling, who first told me about this rare form of TSE in the bonobos.” Meyer ran a weatherbeaten hand through his shock of white hair, leaving it standing on end. “Richard and his wife disappeared in the Congo Blacklands shortly after he’d spoken with me. No one ever saw them again. That was about seventeen years ago. Paige went on to graduate, and continued with her parents’ research. She was eventually recruited by the Nexus group. I presume they selected her specifically because of her controversial and cutting-edge work with TSEs.”

December stood. “I’ve done some electronic digging,” he said, his deep voice reverberating around the room. “Nexus, through a convoluted system of shell and holding companies, is ultimately controlled by BioMed Pharmaceutical in the U.S.—”

Sarah sat upright. “BioMed—that was the logo…the one I saw on the hazmat suits of the soldiers that attacked the Ishonga compound!”

December nodded.
“Yebo.
And BioMed, through Dr. Andries Du Toit, also supplied the militia soldier with the corticosteroid nasal spray. Du Toit is an exiled military figure from South Africa’s apartheid days. He appears to have been on BioMed’s payroll for several years, allegedly marketing the company’s product to the African sector.” December paused, shuffling the papers on the table in front of him. He found what he was looking for. “And the company that funded Dr. Paige Sterling’s postsecondary education—Science Reach International—is indirectly controlled by BioMed as well.” He looked up. “Science Reach International is the same company that financed Paige’s parents’ Congo-based TSE research before they mysteriously disappeared.”

“There’s a definite thread there,” said Sauvage. “We need to get into Ham?n ASAP.”