The three figures began moving toward them, then disappeared, the view blocked by rocks and vegetation as they worked their way to the left. Karr pulled off the glasses and pointed for Gidrey, who now had a pistol in each hand.
“I can’t tell if they’re on our side or not,” Karr warned.
“Better safe than sorry,” said Gidrey.
Something black moved twenty yards away. Karr fired into it, spraying bullets all around the area. There was no return fire.
Foster started to moan. Gidrey patted him reassuringly, then spun to his right and fired three bullets point- blank into the chest of a guerrilla who had managed to crawl out of the jungle ten yards away.
“Time to move on,” said Karr.
“Past time,” said Gidrey.
“Northeast,” said Karr. “They’re coming from the south and there’s another base a couple of miles west. There’s a field we can get rescue choppers into five miles that way.”
“You think we’re going to be rescued?” said Gidrey.
“Dad’ll come for us.” Karr smiled weakly. “I got the keys to his car.”
58
The flavor of the soup leaned heavily toward the metallic, but Dean sipped it off the spoon anyway.
“You look like Little Red Riding Hood,” snickered Lia, sitting across from him at the table.
“Thanks.” Dean left the towel draped over his head and took another sip of soup.
“You know, maybe you should let your hair grow.” Lia came over and started playing with the towel, arranging it as if it were a mop of hair. “You’d look good as a hippie.”
“Probably come in gray,” said Dean.
“Oh, Charlie, you’re not that old,” said Lia. She ran her fingers across the back of his neck, which still felt damp from the shower.
“I could dye it. I always wanted to be a blond.”
She slid her hands across his shoulders, starting to knead his muscles. Dean let himself lean back against the chair, his lats gradually relaxing. Her hands worked downward, then around to his chest.
He took another sip of soup.
“I could use a backrub,” she told him.
“Yeah?”
“It’d be nice,” she said, sliding her fingers up to his neck and then brushing his chin lightly. “Very nice.”
“Might be,” he said, taking another sip of soup.
Lia took the spoon from his hand and set it on the table. Dean didn’t need any more hints — he pushed up and let her fold her body into his. The towel fell off his head.
“You think they got this place bugged?” he asked her.
“Of course.”
She moved backward from the table. Dean put his hands over her thighs, then brought them up to her pants and unbuttoned them.
“Let’s go in the bedroom,” she said as he slid them down.
“My idea exactly,” said Dean, but rather than moving he pulled off her black T-shirt and ran his hands over her bra. He slid his fingers under the top, rubbing her left nipple, then moved up to pull the straps down from her shoulders. He pulled the cloth gently away from her breasts.
“The bedroom,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” said Dean, putting his mouth on hers.
Something started to beep.
“Fuck,” said Charlie.
“Not now,” said Lia, pulling her straps up. “I told you the bastards were listening.”
Dean would have ignored the summons, but Lia had already donned her T-shirt, going to the video conference area and snapping on the send unit.
“We interrupting something?” asked Rockman. He wasn’t on-screen. The communications system in the trailer was part of the DoD network and arguably among the most secure in the world. Nonetheless, it wasn’t the NSA’s and therefore protocol called for communications from the Art Room to be voice only.
Unfortunately, the protocol didn’t play both ways.
“Hot steaming sex.”
“Great,” said Rockman. “We’ll roll tape.”
“Where the hell have you been?”
“We’re handling a difficult situation in Asia,” he said. “I can’t give you other details.”
“Tommy?”
“I can’t give you other details.”
Dean walked over to the area covered by the video camera.
“What’s the status of the disease?” Dean asked.
“Roughly two dozen confirmed cases, with a bunch more probables.”
“A bunch?”
“I don’t have the details,” said Telach. “Feeling better?”
“Much. How come I don’t have it?”
“We’re not sure. I can’t get into specifics.”
“Did you find Kegan?”
“Charlie, you have to remember that the communications system we’re using is not of the same caliber as our usual network.”
“Oh, come on,” said Lia.
“I have to follow the rules,” said the Art Room supervisor. “We have an update for you, and new mission data if you’re up to it,” said Telach.
“We’re up to it,” said Lia.
“We’re going to set up a conference call with some of Johnny Bib’s team and the bio experts, probably in about a half hour,” said Telach.
“You can do that, but you can’t tell us about Tommy or Kegan?” said Lia.
“Mr. Karr is all right,” said Rubens, coming onto the line. “We will give you a full update as soon as you’re on the secure network. Reactivate your communication devices and you can participate in the conference call.”
“Did Kegan make this thing?” asked Dean.
“The conference call will begin in thirty minutes,” said Rubens. “Be ready.”
“We will be,” said Dean, grabbing hold of Lia’s arm.
“The bacteria is definitely man-made, and was definitely designed to resist penicillin-related drugs,” said Dr. Chaucer. “Its transmission is through bodily fluids, or at least we’re guessing it is. The cat was a host. What we don’t understand is how it gets from the skin into the bloodstream, since there didn’t appear to be bites. But it’s not as contagious as, say, a flu virus would be.”
“Does that mean it wasn’t intended as a biological weapon?” asked Dean.
“Impossible to say. Frankly, if you were trying to use an agent like this as a weapon, you wouldn’t want it to be too contagious; otherwise you’d eventually die from it yourself.”
“Unless there was an antidote,” said Dean.
“Right.”
“And there is one.”
“We don’t know that yet, Charlie,” said Rubens.
“It still very possibly was an accident,” said Lester, who was speaking via a secure connection on a military aircraft headed back to the States. “We haven’t completed the autopsy on the cat, but the most likely course would
