Heart of the Hunter Read online

  Morgan pressed a button on the table and another slide came into view. It showed the bodies of the men, blood-soaked and lying facedown on the muddy floor of the jungle, their hands bound behind them. “Two weeks ago, Dr. Gilroy made an excited call by comsat to the OID. He told his supervisor, Dr. Morrow, that he thought he’d finally located the Ebola reservoir. He was calling to report that the slides and samples containing Ebola were going to be sent out by airplane from the capital two days later.”

  Reid watched as the third slide appeared. It looked like worms, but he knew better. Because of his training, he knew he was looking at the deadly Ebola virus, magnified many times beneath the OID electron microscope.

  “This is the virus that Dr. Gilroy collected from a species of bird. One of the slides, probably broken by the terrorists when they overran the camp, was found jammed into the mud. The NBC warfare team discovered it later on a grid search of the area.”

  “Gilroy was hit shortly after the comsat call?” Turner demanded.

  “Yes, within a couple hours, from what the team estimates. The samples were gone, except for this broken slide. Luckily, Dr. Morrow was able to not only identify it, but to determine that the bird wasn’t a reservoir, after all.”

  “Any leads on the terrorist group? Any ID?” Turner asked.

  Morgan looked at them grimly. “Black Dawn.”

  Whispers started among the group. Hunter held his breath momentarily. Black Dawn. It made sense. He saw the worry on the faces of the officers at the table as they murmured in low voices to one another. He saw the sadness and anxiety in Morgan Trayhern’s icy features.

  “Most of you know a little about Black Dawn. We don’t know a whole lot, collectively,” Morgan continued. “It’s an international amalgam of terrorists. They come from all walks of life, all nationalities and both genders. One thing they share in common is the belief that the present-day governments of the world need to be toppled. Secondly, they are highly motivated, zealous, well-trained professionals from academia. This is no hothead, knee-jerk operation. They are a collection of cold, precise and careful thinkers planning meticulously what they are doing and how they are going about it. Their weapon of choice is black biology. Every law-enforcement agency and government in thirty countries is scrambling to try and connect the dots on this terrorist group. To date, we have very little to go on.” Morgan looked over at Hunter. “Do you have anything to add about them, Captain?”

  “They were implicated in the attack in Japan. It is believed that they have set up several small-scale scenarios in what was once known as the Soviet Union. The Kurds have paid the price, too. Black Dawn is utilizing any government that will cooperate in building several types of black biology weapons. One is a medium-range missile that can carry a warhead filled with a particular germ such as anthrax. It’s no larger than a suitcase and will kill tens of thousands of people. There’s another payload known as a UAV, an unmanned aerial vehicle. They can take something as nonthreatening as a single-engine biplane, fill the crop-dusting receptacles with anthrax and then fly it over a city, spraying it on the populace. These planes have already been flown, according to CIA reports. Pilotless, they are ground controlled by radio and fitted with a programmed computer.”

  “How much can they carry?” an army general asked.

  “Up to a ton can be delivered,” Hunter said. “And it could be dropped by a highly unsophisticated delivery system.”

  “Missile range,” Turner commented, “is known to be at least four hundred miles.”

  “And,” Morgan said, “as little as two pounds of anthrax can do a lot of damage.”

  Reid added, “Two pounds, if dispersed properly over two hundred and fifty acres, can kill everyone within that area.”

  “My God,” Turner said in exasperation, “and we thought nuclear war was the end-all nightmare.”

  “This is just as bad,” Morgan agreed. He shook his head and put another slide on the screen. “We’ve got problems. Black Dawn is gearing up. They want Ebola. I’m sure Captain Hunter would agree that Ebola is the virus of choice, would you not?”

  “Yes, sir, I would.”

  “Why?” Turner demanded. “Why not anthrax?”

  Reid shrugged. “Sir, Ebola has been proven to have mutated to the aerosol stage. That means that if I was infected with this virus, and you touched my perspiration, you would contract the infection. There’s scientific evidence to suggest that it’s also capable of being passed from one animal to another simply by breathing. In my outfit, we treat it as if it is completely aerosol active. Ebola has many advantages over sarin and VX nerve gas. Eight weeks after a victim dies, the virus has been found in the bloody mattress filling and fiber, alive and well. Not many viruses have that kind of half-life.”

  “Anthrax has a long life, too,” Morgan remarked.

  “Yes, sir, it does, but there’s medicine available that can stop it from killing you if we get to you in time. There is no antidote for Ebola. Once you’ve got it, you will die from it. No amount of antibiotics will save your life.”

  “So,” Army General Patterson groused, “you’re expecting that whoever we send over to Zaire will meet the same fate as that poor bastard, Gilroy?”

  “We are,” Morgan said grimly. “The OID is working with all the major scientific organizations, and there’s a stringent international effort among scientists to locate this reservoir for Ebola. This is such an important criteria that the OID is sending Dr. Morrow to Zaire in two days.” Morgan pinned Hunter with a dark look. “And you’re going to accompany her, Captain. Dr. Morrow is the assistant supervisor in emerging diseases at the OID. She took this post just a year ago. Dr. Gilroy was her assistant.”

  Reid grimaced inwardly as a color photo of Dr. Morrow was flashed on the screen. Compared to all the other lethal and harrowing images they’d just seen, she was like a breath of life being injected into the tension-filled room.

  Hunter tried to throttle his reaction to the mop of red hair that gleamed with gold and burgundy highlights. In the close-up photo, Dr. Morrow looked very, very young. The dusting of freckles across her smiling face and those lively green eyes that danced with laughter touched him. Deeply. Inexplicably.

  She had a triangular face, a broad brow indicating her high intelligence, her green eyes huge and set far apart. Reid liked her prominent nose; it had a bump on it. Most of all, he liked her wide, smiling mouth. There was such a carefree sense about Dr. Morrow, he thought as he studied the photo, noticing her hands stuffed casually in the pockets of her lab coat. Reid recognized the redbrick OID building in the background. He’d been there on a number of occasions for training, but he’d never run into Casey Morrow.

  Her winsome smile made his heart beat harder in his chest. She was part girl, part woman, he decided—tall, lean and wearing no makeup or jewelry at all. Of course, in her business, jewelry wasn’t something to be worn because it, too, could become infected. She looked so happy. Hunter found himself jealous of her joy. It had been a long time since he had been able to smile like she was smiling. As if she hadn’t a care in the world. Life hadn’t touched her— yet—to mar her, to make her serious or somber, as it had him.

  Hunter moved uncomfortably in his chair. Frowning, he placed his hand near his cap, which lay on the table. She looks like she’s eighteen. Young and naive. And that’s what she is—a kid. A kid who’s out for a lark in life. She wouldn ‘t be smiling if she knew what kind of a snake pit she was entering by going over to Africa with Black Dawn shadowing her—and my—every move.

  “Sir… ” Hunter began, his voice oddly rough with emotion, “with all due respect, Dr. Morrow is, well, a woman, and this situation is dangerous.”

  Morgan smiled thinly. “Captain, if my wife were standing here, she’d be more than a little miffed at your attitude.”

  Reid compressed his lips. “Sir, my response is not sexist. If I’m going out in the field, I’d at least like to have someone who can handle a side arm—”
/>   “She can, I assure you,” Morgan rumbled. He gazed up at Morrow’s photo on the screen. “She may look young and wet behind the ears, but this woman has faced death so many times it makes most of us look like weak sisters. You’ve heard of the hot zone, Captain?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s a lab specially built for working with the most lethal viruses we have on this planet.”

  “That’s right. Dr. Morrow is in the hot zone every week, Captain, handling some kind of deadly, infectious material. One wrong slip and she’s dead. She’s been doing this work for the OID for five years, and she’s still alive. Besides, she lost her fiancé to Ebola and she’s got a score to settle with this virus on that account.”

  “I understand that, sir,” Reid muttered, “but Black Dawn is not a virus and is more deadly. Judging from that slide of the two dead OID officials, I’d say they endured a lot of torture before their brains were blown out.” His eyes hardened, as did his voice, and he dared to look around the room. Reid knew he was way out of line, but his protective mechanism toward women was winning this battle inside him. “If Dr. Morrow is that valuable to the OID, then her knowledge of Ebola and other emerging diseases is too precious to risk out there in the jungles of Zaire, don’t you think?”

  His palms were sweaty. Hunter wanted desperately to rub them against his pants, but he didn’t dare. Somehow, his gaze kept ranging back to Dr. Morrow. The photo showed her standing outside under a blue sky with autumn leaves forming a colorful backdrop to a highly manicured green lawn. Bright sunlight enveloped her like lover’s arms, and the white lab coat she wore made her look more like an angel than a flesh-and-blood human being. Hell, she looked like an ingénue fresh out of high school, not a world-class virologist handling some of the most deadly material on the face of this earth. Reid couldn’t stop his protective mechanism from working overtime.

  Morgan gave him an amused smile. “I understand your concerns, Captain, but Dr. Morrow volunteered for this assignment. She knows the score and she’s got a score to even on a personal playing field. Normally, I’d never support sending out on a mission someone who had an emotional vendetta but I know Casey Morrow well and I know she won’t allow her own feelings to overshadow the mission’s important agendas. She also is a very courageous person. She deserves someone of equal courage. That’s you… if you want to take the assignment. With your background and degree in microbiology, you can double as her lab assistant, plus be her eyes and ears—her guard.”

  Reid wanted to add “dog” to the end of Trayhern’s sentence, but resisted. Barely. His heart was beating hard in his chest. And it wasn’t from adrenaline. He was scared. Him! Of all things! All he had to do was stare up at her larger-than-life image on that screen, and he felt his heart opening up as if doors were being flung wide open. In his thirty years of life, Reid had never experienced such a startling sensation. He was scared—of her.

  Wrestling inwardly to recapture his unraveling emotional response, Reid rasped, “Sir, I’m not questioning her courage. But there’s a big difference between a bullet and torture, and getting nailed by a virus.”

  With a slight shrug, Morgan smiled a little more. “Captain, I think Casey Morrow would probably take you to task on that last comment. Suffering is suffering. We agree that torture by Black Dawn is a risk. But it’s a risk she’s willing to take. We don’t question your credentials or your abilities as a marine.” His gaze became assessing. “And if I don’t misread your concern, my sense is you’re feeling protective about Dr. Morrow? Because she’s a woman?”

  Damn! Reid almost mouthed the word, but snapped his mouth shut just in time. Well, he’d heard that the legendary Morgan Trayhern could pin a man on his real intentions from a mile away, could read him like a book. And sure enough, Trayhern had effectively gotten inside him and read him dead to rights. Sitting up stiffly, Reid said, “Yes, sir, you’re reading me correctly on my concern.”

  “I know Casey Morrow,” Admiral Turner growled, “and I realize you don’t, Captain. She’s a capable woman. An incredible resource to us. Her knowledge about emerging viruses makes her one of our top people in the U.S as an expert on the topic. She’s a scrapper and a fighter. No, Captain, you’ve got a woman warrior on your hands, not a weakling, as you believe.” Turner pointed toward the photo on the screen. “She may look vulnerable and incapable of taking care of herself, but I assure you, she’s just the opposite.”

  Morgan chuckled. “Maybe another way to put this to rest is to say that no book should be judged by its cover, Admiral?”

  Turner pursed his lips. “Exactly, Morgan. Exactly.”

  Reid felt heat stealing into his cheeks. It was disconcerting at his age to blush, but that’s exactly what he was doing. Thankfully, the low lighting didn’t give his teenage response away—except to the sharp eyes of Morgan Trayhern, who glanced at him and then, mercifully, allowed his gaze to drift away.

  That was just his style, Reid thought with admiration, remembering some of the things his brothers had told him about Trayhern. Well, Reid had hoped to meet this famous man someday, but certainly not like this.

  Morgan moved back to the podium. His hands wrapped around the edges of the lectern. “Gentlemen, let’s give

  Captain Hunter some time to think this through. Shall we break for lunch? Captain, if you’ll come with me?”

  The silken tone in Morgan’s voice wasn’t to be confused with friendliness toward him, Hunter realized as he shot up out of the chair at stiff attention as the brass began to leave the room.

  Chapter Two

  Captain, there’s someone I want you to see,” Morgan murmured as he paused at a door leading from the main conference room they’d been meeting in minutes earlier.

  Quelling his disgruntled state, Reid nodded. “Yes, sir.” Compressing his lips into a thin line after Trayhern exited and quietly shut the door, Reid looked around the small alcove he’d been left alone in. Tossing his hat on the rectangular desk made from dark cherry wood, he placed his hands on his hips. Helluva fix to be in. A woman, of all things…

  Reid’s thoughts were interrupted by a swift, sharp knock on the door.

  “It’s open,” he muttered as he looked toward it. His eyes opened wide.

  “Ty!”

  Ty Hunter entered, his tall, muscular frame looking almost too large to fit through the door. He grinned engagingly. “Hey, Morgan said I’d find you fuming in here. He said you’d probably be pacing the floor like a caged lion or some such thing.” Thrusting out his hand, he shook Reid’s with a pumping action. “Good to see you. You look surprised to see me.”

  “You could say that,” Reid said, swallowing his surprise as his brother, who was just a year older than he, shut the door behind him. Ty wasn’t dressed like a man who worked as a mercenary for Morgan Trayhern and the government outpost known as Perseus. The navy blue blazer and tan chino pants looked casual, but Reid knew his brown-eyed, dark-haired brother too well to judge him by his clothes. Ty was dangerous and good at the undercover work he did. Reid had tried to get his brothers to remain in the service, but they’d all bolted at the end of their promised tour. Having met Morgan Trayhern, Reid could see why his brothers had swung their allegiance to this mysterious, legendary man. There was no doubting Trayhern’s obvious leadership and charisma.

  Releasing his hand, Ty moved his long, thick fingers around the collar of the starched white shirt he wore beneath his sport coat. “Give me jungle utilities any day,” he said with a grin as he went over to the coffee machine and poured himself a cup. “Coffee? Or maybe a stiff drink, from the look on your face?”

  Reid scowled. “Yeah, I could use some. And yes, a shot of whiskey is preferable, but under the circumstances, a no-can-do. Thanks.”

  “You’re not lookin‘ real happy, brother. Bad news?”

  “Travels fast, doesn’t it?” Reid said as Ty handed him a ceramic cup with a navy symbol on the side of it. “Thanks.”

  “Hmm, don’t mention it.” Ty poured a hefty dose
of sugar and milk into his own coffee. “I’m between assignments. Morgan thought he might need me.”

  Snorting softly, Reid watched his brother walk to the desk and sit down behind it. “Really?”

  Sipping the coffee gratefully, Ty eyed him over the raised cup. “He was right.”

  “I suppose you know all about what was discussed back in there?” Reid demanded, motioning with a thumb over his shoulder. He lifted the cup to his lips and gulped quickly, the coffee scalding his tongue.

  “Most of it.”

  “Why don’t you take the mission?”

  “Because I’m not as qualified in black biology as you are, that’s why. I know a lot about this area because Mom and Dad are both involved in it from different ends of the spectrum, but you’re the expert.”

  “Bull.”

  “Well, maybe a little,” he said, a grin starring to crawl across his wide, well-shaped mouth. “But Morgan has other plans for me, and I can’t take on two assignments at once. I was the one who suggested you. They ran a quick computer check on NBC specialists in the service, and your name popped up at the top. I told Morgan to get you in here. You’re the man for this job.”

  Glaring down at Ty, Reid snapped, “This is not a military assignment.”

  “True, it’s spook ops, no doubt about that.” Raising his arched, thick eyebrows, he studied Reid. “This will look good on your jacket. Should make major leaves really easy to come by after this little mission is completed.”

  With a roll of his eyes, Reid sipped his coffee more cautiously this time. There was too much glee in Ty’s dark, cinnamon-colored eyes to suit him. It was as if he knew something Reid didn’t. One thing Reid didn’t like was not knowing the turf he was standing on. That implied lack of control over the situation, and in his business, control was everything. It meant the split-second difference between life and death at times.

  Ty lost his genial, easygoing smile and sat up, his large, scarred hands encircling the mug of coffee sitting before him on the desk. “Okay, here’s the scoop. I know and have worked with Dr. Casey Morrow before. I warned Morgan that due to previous bad luck in your personal life with women, you really wouldn’t be all that thrilled about an assignment that engaged a woman as your partner. But Morgan really wants you for this assignment so he thought it best I fly down here and tell you that Casey Morrow is up to the job. She won’t be a pain in the ass to you, Reid.