Zafir went on, lost in his twisted fantasy. “The awful things you said to me that day when you were released-they do not matter anymore. I am quite certain that after Zafir Jawad has held you in his arms, no other man has been good enough.” He raised an eyebrow. “Am I wrong when I assume that few nights have passed that your thoughts have not turned to me?
“I must admit, Carrie, my bird-” He set the boy on the ground, patting him on the head with a blood-soaked hand. “I have spent many nights with a picture of you in my mind’s eye… and in that picture I see the time in which I will end your life.”
Towering above her, Zafir drew a long knife of his own. Sunlight glinted off the blade as he turned it in his bloody fist. His lips drew back in a yellow snarl.
“Allah be praised for delivering you to my hand-”
A thundering roar shook the air as a helicopter rose like an apparition from the live oak trees beyond the yard, appearing out of nowhere. Two men with rifles stood, one on each skid, as the aircraft bore toward them like a falcon coming in for the kill.
Zafir’s head snapped around, forgetting Carrie to focus on this new approaching threat. Christian pressed his hands to both ears against the deafening noise.
Carrie sprang to her feet, still reeling from the vicious head butt. In her right hand, she clutched the broken shard of the chef’s knife.
“Zafir!” she screamed above the thumping din of the chopper. “There’s something you need to know!”
The Bedouin turned back to face her, startled to see her standing.
Lunging forward, she plunged the broken blade into his eye, pushing it home until she felt the shuddering scrape of steel against bone and she could push it no farther. Zafir clawed at his face with his gnarled hand, trying to fend her off with the other. He wailed in agony. His legs peddled backward as if creating distance from his tormentor might help him escape the pain.
Carrie flailed with both hands, slapping at Zafir’s arms, clawing blindly at his face and neck until he fell writhing and screaming on the ground.
“Stay away from me!” she screamed. “I’ll kill you! I swear I’ll kill you if you touch my son!” Her voice cracked in a hysterical rage. Backing away but never letting her eyes leave Zafir, she reached to find Christian and dragged him to the far side of the deck.
Vaguely aware that the helicopter had set down in the backyard, she watched through blurry eyes as people in large rubber hoods ran toward Zafir with guns in their hands. She swayed for a long moment on wobbly legs before finally sinking onto the grass beside her son.
CHAPTER 55
17 September
Jericho peered through the six-by-six-inch observation window at the newest patient at the BSL-4 containment. Mahoney and Thibodaux stood on either side of him. Bo stood back a few feet, along the startlingly white tile of the far wall. Though he was a tough and grizzled outlaw biker, he had no stomach for what was on the other side of the air seal and heavy metal door.
Inside the innermost room of the Slammer, Zafir Jawad lay shackled to a metal hospital bed by one ankle. Blood seeped through white surgical bandages wrapping the left side of his face, covering his sightless eye socket. His dry, hacking cough was audible through a black intercom box on the wall. But for the dignity afforded the dying patient, the scene was eerily reminiscent of the lab Quinn had visited in Al-Hofuf.
Palmer worked with the military and had the entire BSL-4 containment unit at USAMRIID turned into a modified version of the Slammer. No one on the Hammer Team had been within breathing distance of Zafir without protection, but out of an abundance of caution, everyone who’d had any sort of contact with any of the three would-be martyrs or their backup agents was put under quarantine. Zafir occupied the actual Slammer. A test of his blood had shown that the virus was still fully encased in the protein sheath at the time of his capture, so all but Carrie and her son, who’d been in physical contact with his blood, were allowed to commingle inside the BSL.
Quinn pushed a silver button flush with the white tile wall. “Zafir,” he said, “we’d like to give you the opportunity to tell your side of the story.”
“Imbecile!” Zafir scoffed. He turned gingerly, wincing in pain to face the wall away from the observation window. “Do you not see that I am at peace with Allah? I have prepared myself to die long ago.”
“I know you believe you are prepared.” Quinn kept his voice low, belying the hot torrent that churned in his gut. He firmly believed anger had little place in his chosen profession. Dispassionate action was always better-but he was human. “Things have changed in a great way since you began your plans.” He paused. “Many, many things.”
“Tell me…” The Bedouin turned again, despite his pain, tilting his head toward the door, narrowing bloodshot eyes. The flesh around his lips hung loose around his mouth, giving him a grotesque, clownlike effect. Pandora was beginning to take her toll on his body. “Are you the one called Jericho?”
“I am indeed.”
Zafir swallowed, nodding almost imperceptibly. “Then I will tell you this about the sheikh. He is a very wise man. Make no mistake, he will find out who you are and he will come for you.”
“Tell me where he is and I will go to him.”
“He will flay the skin from those you love.” Zafir’s voice rose from a hoarse whisper into a menacing growl. “He will send your women-”
“As I said-” Quinn pressed the intercom again, interrupting the tirade. His patience was at an end. “Circumstances have changed. Do not forget, we are in possession of your suicide drug. You will have the opportunity to die, as you wished, but, as you are fully aware, your death will not come as quickly. Perhaps you remember the faces of the American soldiers and the innocent young girl you infected with this same virus back in Al-Hofuf…”
Chains clanked against the metal bed as Zafir jerked against his shackles. A hollow scream-the wailing roar of a damned soul-poured from the intercom box until Quinn pushed the button to silence it.
Three doors down from Zafir, in another soundproof room, Carrie Navarro and her son sat on the edge of a hospital bed behind a glass partition. A careful examination of Zafir’s blood showed a ninety-nine-percent chance that his virus had not yet matured to the contagious phase when they’d had contact. Because of this-not to mention all the poor woman had been through-Megan had allowed mother and son to be housed together. But there was still a great deal to learn about the Pandora virus, so they were not allowed to roam around with the others.
Mahoney pressed the intercom button as they walked past their isolation room. “Hey, Carrie. Hey, Christian. How’s it going in there?”
Everyone in the hall waved. Christian waved from the safety of his mother’s lap. Carrie smiled. “Hey,” she said wanly. Her physical recovery was going to be much easier than her mental one. Luckily she had her little boy and, Megan thought, as she looked at Thibodaux and both of the Quinn brothers beaming through the glass, that lucky little boy now had three extremely protective godfathers.
“You know, my brother’s still stuck on his ex-wife, right?” Bo sidled up next to Mahoney after they said good night to Navarro and walked down the long hall toward the outer lab and the room that would serve as their chow hall and common area for the next two weeks of quarantine.
Under the pitiful gaze of a love-struck Justin, Megan grinned, tossing her head in the best flirt she could muster. “I’d heard that.”
“Well,” Bo said, “the big dude from Louisiana tells me Jericho took you for a spin on his Beemer. If you’re not sick of Quinn boys after all this, I could take you for a ride on a sure-enough American bike when we get out of this place.”
Mahoney looked at Jericho, who shrugged.
“I can only vouch for him as a good kid brother,” he said. “Beyond that, I’m pretty certain he belongs in
