Midnight Fever (Men of Midnight #5)(19)

Mike shook his head violently. "No!" he gasped.

She sat back on her heels, desperate. What to do for him?

He placed the flash drive in her hand, curling her fist around it.

"Too late for me," he wheezed. His chest expanded uselessly as he tried to draw in air.

"Wait!" Kay's shocked brain started into motion again. She scrabbled in her jacket pocket, where she remembered she'd put the cheap conference pen that had been handed out with the conference binders. She stripped the internal tube away, leaving the exterior. On a side zipper of her purse were her house keys, attached to a series of small, useful tools. Screwdriver, file and-yes!-a tiny but sharp knife. None of it was sterilized, but that was the least of her concerns right now. Right now, Mike needed to breathe. 

Mentally, she went through the steps as she pulled out the knife blade. Tilt Mike's head back, trace with her finger down the Adam's apple to a point an inch below it, make a short, deep horizontal incision in the trachea, put a finger inside the cut to open it, insert the pen and blow.

She cradled the back of Mike's neck with one hand, holding the knife above his throat. She was so busy preparing for the tracheotomy that she wasn't looking at him, just at the point of his throat where the incision had to be made.

He reached up, held her hand still with surprising strength.

"No." Every muscle in his body was straining. His voice had no air behind it. She had to lip read. "It's the virus."

She froze. The virus?

Priyanka had been sure that Bill had been working on a weaponized form of one of the deadliest viruses on earth, the Spanish flu virus. The virus that had killed fifty million people in 1918.

This virus would be worse by a factor of a hundred.

But her face was still wet with what had been sprayed in Mike's face. She must be infected, too, though she felt nothing. How was that? Mike was the only one suffering.

Kay met Mike's dull eyes. He wasn't even struggling anymore. In his eyes, she saw the truth. He was dying. It was an animal recognition that predated civilization-the hard truth was that Mike couldn't be saved, and he knew that. He beckoned with trembling fingers. She bent down to him.

There was a knocking noise in his chest, terminal secretions collecting in his throat and upper chest. The death rattle.

His eyes were fierce, locked with hers.

"Run," he gasped, pushing the air out. "Hide."

His entire body convulsed, legs shaking, hands trembling, horrible choking sounds coming from his mouth. And then silence. And then he died. The life force simply left his body and she was holding onto a husk, a shell of a very brave man.

Kay couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't think. She looked around for help for a second before admitting to herself that nothing and no one could help Mike. All she could do was safeguard the information he and Priyanka had both given their lives for.

Why wasn't she dead, too? The whole point of a weaponized form of Spanish flu was that it would be quick-acting, immediately fatal. She should be on the ground as well, just like Mike, drowned by the fluid in her lungs. She wasn't. She didn't even feel short of breath. She didn't feel anything, except terrified. If it were to act on her, she'd be dead already.

Clearly, for some reason, she was immune.

Her scientist's mind tried to figure that out, reason out by what kind of mechanism she could be fine and Mike on the ground, dead. But she couldn't think straight above the drumbeat in her head. Run run run!

Kay stood on shaky legs, glad she'd changed into flat shoes. She would have fallen on heels.

What to do?

Her thoughts were slow, like molasses. Shock, she knew. She even knew the hormones that coursed through the body after shock. Adrenaline. Norepinephrine. Cortisol. Hormones that were supposed to provide heat and fuel to the muscles to flee. But flee where? She was quivering with the need to run and hide, but had no idea how. And no idea where.

There was no one in the alley. All sounds were eliminated, an effect of shock. Going out onto the street would be the obvious thing to do, but there were enemies out there. There was a drone. She glanced up, then looked straight back down. The drone could be above her right now and she couldn't see it. It could be photographing her right now. Whatever the drone had done to Mike, it could do it to her, and all of this-the courage of two brave people who'd lost their lives-would be for nothing.




       
         
       
        
There was no way she could stay out in the open. She pushed the door open and stepped inside a storage area and stopped, unsure where to go.

What to do?

All options were bad. She couldn't stay and she didn't know where to go.