Deadly Desire

“Did you already make it?” he asked.

She’d debated with Tom the benefits of carrying and preserving the treatment versus replicating it once she got to her father. But in the end the quickest way to save lives was to bring it with them.

“Yes, I’m carrying enough of both to take care of everyone in the tribe my father’s living with.”

“How is it packed?” he asked. There was an intensity in those pale eyes that let her know he was analyzing every fact she gave him. And though she knew little of his reputation aside from the incident in Southeast Asia, she was impressed with what she saw in him as a scientist.

“Dry ice and Styrofoam. I have a couple of large backpacks that we should be able to get everything into. I also have some lab equipment, but that breaks down pretty small.”

“When do we leave?” he asked. The waitress brought their drinks and Mac took a long draw on his, draining half the bottle in one gulp. “Bring me another.”

The waitress nodded and left. Jane took a sip of hers, savoring the coolness as the beverage slid down her throat. “I’d like to leave first thing in the morning. The batch I brought with me is only good for seven days. So we have to move quickly.”

“No problem. Where’s the jumping-off point?”

“Puerto Maldonado. I scheduled a charter flight to leave here at 6:00 a.m.,” she said.

“Amazon basin makes sense. Are we going in by river or trekking?” he asked.

Jane couldn’t get a read on him. He watched her assessingly, which made her uncomfortable. The last thing she wanted to do was have another person she couldn’t trust at her side. Yet he’d been living in South America and working there for the last few years. He had information on the geography that she didn’t. Perhaps Meredith’s attitude was affecting her perception of Mac.

“Are you familiar with the area? I’m not sure which way would be faster.”

“If we could get a motorboat, that might be quicker. Do you know where the Yura are?”

“On the Cashpajali River. It’s a tributary of the Madre de Dios. I have a general area, but nothing exact,” Jane said. She had satellite maps and her GPS unit, but Jane didn’t want to reveal the exact location of the Yura camp to anyone. She wasn’t sure who to trust and didn’t want to endanger her father and the Yura by trusting the wrong person.

“Why did you contact R.V.?” he asked.

Now for the fun part. But he had to have guessed that there was some trouble in her office if she’d contacted them. People from the CDC and WHO usually didn’t have to ask independent contractors for help in their work. The CDC had teams in place worldwide and they mobilized quickly when there was a problem. Jane resented that Meredith hadn’t trusted her enough to outweigh any doubts about her father. “We’re short-staffed. There has been some backlash from the local government. They’re refusing to believe there is any outbreak in the Amazon.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea, but my boss doesn’t want to ruffle feathers and since the initial samples and work came from my father, she can’t really go public. She agreed to let me come here, but I only have a week.”

“That pisses me off. I remember when saving lives mattered more than reputations. That’s why I formed Rebel Virology.”

“I thought it was because…” Damn, she hadn’t meant to bring up the incident.

He arched one eyebrow at her. “I don’t talk about that—ever, understood?”

She nodded.

“Good. I’ll meet you in the lobby at five tomorrow morning.”

He finished off his beer and took the second one from the arriving waitress, then stood and left.

Well, he wasn’t exactly what she’d expected. That didn’t matter, though, she needed another expert with her. She just hoped the man knew his stuff.

There was something about him that made her instincts itchy. She’d keep her eye on him.

Chapter 3

Jane got off the elevator on her floor. She wished they’d been able to leave tonight but it was a two-hour flight over the Andes to the Amazon basin and Bob Jones, the military pilot who Angie had arranged to fly them, had refused to do it this late in the day. Bob was actually a friend of Jane’s father. Another face from the past. She looked forward to seeing him.

A man was in the hallway apparently having trouble figuring out the key-card system. Jane fixed a small smile on her face, prepared to do her good deed and help him out.

“Hola.”

The man looked up and Jane realized he was at her door. Which explained why his key wasn’t working.

“Excuse me, that’s my room,” she said in Spanish.

“I know,” he said, moving slightly away from the door.

She saw he had a gun. Panic raced through her and she screamed, which made the man wince. Her gut instinct said to run the hell away from him but inside that room was the only weapon she had to save her father’s life and many others’. She couldn’t leave it on the chance that he’d figure out how to get into her room.

Thank God for her formerly flabby thighs and the kickboxing class she’d been taking off and on for the last two years. If only she’d attended more frequently! Dropping back into what she hoped was a strong fighting stance, she waited.

The man gave her a look as if she was crazy and raised the gun. She lashed out with a crescent kick aimed at his weapon arm and hit him, hard.

His arm jerked out of position and a bullet ricocheted off the wall six inches from her. Dust got in her eyes and nose.

She sneezed and her eyes watered, but she didn’t stop. Pivoting around, she lashed out with a spinning hook kick to the head. He brought his hands up to block her, grabbing her ankle, then brought his elbow down hard on the back of her leg. Pain shot through her. She jerked her foot free and fell back.

Breathing hard, she pushed to her feet and put her weight on her injured leg. It was tender but would hold her. He rushed her and this time she used a side kick, putting all her power behind it. She hit him hard in the gut and heard him grunt on the impact. He doubled over. Jane brought both of her hands together and hit him as hard as she could on the back of his neck with her fists.

He fell to the floor. Jane kicked him one more time in the side. She hurried past him and fumbled to open her hotel door. Finally she jerked it open and rushed in, then slammed the door shut behind her. She locked it and threw the night-security chain.

She went immediately to the phone and called the front desk. Taking a deep breath she tried to lessen the panic which had been sweeping over her. She was safe now. Or as safe as she could be for the moment.

“There’s a man with a gun in the hallway trying to break into my room. He shot at me,” she said when they answered.

“We’ll send someone up immediately.”

Panic swelled in her throat. Pawing through her suitcase, she pulled out the hunting knife her grandfather had given her and stood ready.

Her blood pounded so loudly she couldn’t hear anything else. She stayed to the side of the door in the small bathroom, knowing a bullet could easily penetrate the hotel door.

She scanned the interior of the room and realized that everything was safe and untouched. Someone knocked on the door. “Hotel security, ma’am.”

She moved cautiously toward the door and looked through the peephole. The man standing there was dressed in the hotel’s colors and had its emblem on his left breast pocket. And a name tag on the right that said Pedro. She saw no sign of the man who’d threatened her with the gun.

She opened the door.

“Thanks for coming.”

“No problem. We take the security of our guests very seriously. Tell me what happened. By the time I got here he was gone.”

“He was at my door when I got off the elevator. I thought he’d mistaken my room for his, but when I spoke to him he turned, and I saw he had a gun.”

She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw some doubt in the security officer’s eyes. She thought the story sounded strange, as well.

“Then what happened?”

I screamed, she thought. But there was no way she was saying that out loud. “He shot at me.”

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“No. But the bullet hit over here,” Jane said. God, she couldn’t believe someone had shot at her. A trembling started deep inside her. The scientist in her recognized her body’s natural reaction to the incident now that the danger had passed. But she wasn’t ready to let that show yet.

Her leg throbbed and she wanted to sit down and put some ice on it. But she’d do that later when she was alone. She showed him where it had grazed the wall. He examined the area before radioing someone else. Her Spanish wasn’t up to his rapid-fire delivery so she had no idea who he’d called.

“We’ll keep an eye on this floor. I’ll continue to investigate this area.”

The elevator pinged five minutes later and another man stepped off. “Hola, Señorita Miller. I am Jorge, the duty manager, and I am here to make sure you feel comfortable staying at our hotel. We’ve called the police.”

Jorge swept her out of the hallway and into her room. He stayed there while Jane took the opportunity to wash her face and get the dust from the ricochet from her eyes. She tied her thick red hair back in a ponytail. A glance in the mirror showed she looked every one of her thirty-three years, plus a few more.

She closed her eyes but still saw that gun pointed at her. She opened them and straightened up her toiletries. She took comfort as she always did in the familiar. She started organizing her stuff. But her hands were trembling, and her makeup spilled from its bag all over the countertop.

She started gathering the items and stopped when she touched the brightly colored compact that Sophia, her college roommate, had given her for her thirtieth birthday. A picture from Pinky and The Brain covered the lid. It was silly and frivolous. Sophia had said it was to remind Jane that life wasn’t as serious as she liked to make it.

Thirty minutes later after talking to police and assuring the manager she wouldn’t hold the hotel responsible, she was ensconced in a suite on the concierge level with a guard out front.

Propping her legs in front of her on the long, low coffee table, she adjusted the ice pack and closed her eyes. She had a tension headache building, and she wasn’t sure she’d made the right choice in coming here.

She’d feel a lot safer once she was out of the city and in the jungle, where she knew what dangers to expect.

The new room was nice but Jane couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she saw her father’s face. The one from childhood that had always been lined with disappointment. She sat bolt upright in bed fighting the fear that she was too late to help anyone.

She climbed out of bed and turned on the lamp. Working had always been her solace. She took comfort in it now. Powering up her laptop, she checked for messages from Angie, who was doing some comprehensive research on where the virus may have started. Jane had warned Angie that she wasn’t working in her official capacity. Angie, who’d worked with Jane for six years, had said she didn’t care.

She’d asked Angie to run a check in South America on cases involving the symptoms that her father had described. Diseases didn’t have boundaries, and from her own investigation she’d discovered that the Yura didn’t stay just in Peru. They also roamed into Brazil. That made the potential areas for the disease to spread even larger.

She had an e-mail from Angie that read:

There has been no sort of epidemic outbreak in any South American country that mirrors the symptoms you are talking about. I did find a missionary from Bolivia who contracted something similar, bleeding and hemorrhaging. He died in a skirmish with prococa planters. His body was burned. I’m following up and waiting for the interviews that were conducted in that region on this case.

Damn. This didn’t sound good.

Jane sent back a reply thanking Angie for her work and asking her to check into the land clearing that was going on to make way for the first Peruvian National Highway. That was virgin territory and a virus could have been incubating there for years. The highway would run from Cuzco to the Amazon basin. Right now the only way to get there was by air or badly rutted roads.

She shut down her computer and repacked it in her backpack, then stood and stretched. A glance at her watch showed her it was almost five and time to meet Mac in the lobby. She changed quickly into clothes that would wear well in the jungle. Khaki pants and a T-shirt covered with a long-sleeved button-down shirt. She also had a hat her father had left behind when she was a kid, and all her of her supplies.

Her phone rang. “Dr. Miller.”

“It’s Mac. The front desk won’t give me your room number,” he said, his voice husky and low as if he wasn’t awake yet.

“I had some problems yesterday and had to move.”

She gave him her room number. “I’m on my way up. I’ll bring all my gear, and we’ll get organized.”

“Great. I arranged for a taxi to be downstairs in fifteen minutes.”

He hung up. She’d finished packing her personal items and was in the process of organizing the Styrofoam packs when he knocked on the door. She hesitated before letting him in. He entered the room as if he was in charge, dominating the space. She didn’t like the way he loomed there. A night’s sleep hadn’t lessened his outlaw look. He hadn’t shaved, but he had trimmed up his beard. His clothing was similar to what he’d worn yesterday.

“What happened?” he asked. He went to the coffeepot on the desk in the room and poured himself a cup.

Jane focused on her luggage and not on Mac. “Some guy attacked me in the hall outside my room.”

He put his cup down and crossed the room to her. He put one hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. I got away with just a bruise.” She stepped away from him and went to the two large camping backpacks she’d brought with her.

Mac moved next to her, taking one of the packs. “Do you know why he attacked you? Did he follow you upstairs?”

She shrugged, not wanting to remember any of what had happened yesterday. But she couldn’t forget the menace in the man’s eyes as he’d aimed that gun at her.

“No, he was in the hallway when I got off the elevator,” she said at last. “I think we should load our clothes in the bottom and use them for extra cushioning for the vials.”

“Okay. Was he targeting you?” Mac asked.

“The hotel security manager mentioned they’ve had a few small problems with thieves targeting lone female tourists over the last few weeks. So, no, I don’t think it had anything to do with me personally.”

He nodded. “Okay. What kind of vials do you have in here? Dry-ice packed, or did you dehydrate?”

“Dry ice. The Yura virus has already infected a portion of the tribe—I’m not sure how many—so I brought a treatment that worked in the lab.”

“Have you tested it on any subjects?”

“No. There wasn’t time. As I may have mentioned, my boss wanted the research stopped and me moved to something else.”

“What are you planning to do?”

“The treatment is only good for seven days. We’ve got six left. According to my research it shouldn’t take more than four to reach the Yura. I think my dad will volunteer to be a test subject. In the lab we started seeing results within two hours.”

“What about those not already infected?”

“Luckily the Yura virus is very close to Lassa fever. So I was able to manipulate a strand of the vaccine we have for that. As I said, it should be effective at preventing the rest of the tribe from contracting the virus.”

“Sounds like you’ve covered all the bases.”

The cab ride to the airport had been short but once they arrived they had nothing but hiccups. The guide she’d hired had left a message that he would be waiting in Puerto Maldonado. The pilot, Bob Jones, ran thirty minutes late and a government official almost refused to let them leave the private airport.

He’d double-checked all of her papers. Finally Mac had stepped in and called a contact he had in the government, and they’d been cleared to leave.

“Thanks,” she said when they were finally standing on the tarmac next to the plane for their flight to Puerto Maldonado.

“No problem. I was beginning to think I wouldn’t have much to do.” He took one of the backpacks and hefted it into the cargo area.

“Why?” she asked, watching his muscles bunch and flex as he moved. He was very different from Tom, who spent more time in the lab than he did either eating or working out. She was pretty sure she could bench-press more than Tom, but that Mac could probably bench-press her. She didn’t like it. She was used to being the strong one. It didn’t matter—this wasn’t a competition, she told herself. But when Mac reached for her pack, she pulled it out of his way and lifted it into the back without his help.

“Asks the ultraefficient, no-room-for-mistakes woman,” he said, with a wry grin.

“Are you teasing me?” she asked. Few people did, apart from Sophia. She seemed too serious for anyone joking with her. But Mac, whom she couldn’t get a handle on, seemed to see past her serious-scientist outer layer to the woman beneath.

“What do you think?” he countered.

She thought he was too cocky and too perceptive for his own good. But instead she said, “That we should get on the plane before something else goes wrong.”

“I agree. Who did you book the boat through in Puerto Maldonado?”

“A local tour company. They wanted us to stay overnight in one of the river camps but we don’t have time. I want to get on the La Torre as soon as possible. That’s why we’re parachuting in. We’ll take that upriver to the Madre.”

“Janey! I haven’t seen you in years,” Bob said as he approached them. He gave her a hug.

“Hi, Bob. Thanks for squeezing us in,” Jane said.

“No prob. Why has it taken you so long to come and visit your dad?”

“Work. You know how that is. You work all the time, too.”

“Yeah, but I’m a crusty old dude, you’re not.”

“Kind of you to notice,” she said.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, then climbed on board.

“Me, too,” Jane said quietly. She picked up her duffel bag and climbed in the seat right behind Bob. Mac sat behind her. A few minutes later they were in the air. The flight would take a couple of hours.

Jane liked the view from the air. The lush greenery of the Andes rose out of the low desert landscape that had surrounded them in Lima. Mac sat quietly behind her in the plane.

When the jungle finally appeared underneath them, Jane took out her GPS unit to see where they were. She determined they were less than forty-five miles from Puerto Maldonado. Almost there. She glanced over her shoulder at Mac. He was reading a copy of the New England Journal of Medicine.

She wondered what had brought this man to start Rebel Virology. He hadn’t been fired after that incident in Southeast Asia. All her life she’d studied behavior patterns, usually inside the small biosphere that was her lab. But she was enough of her anthropologist mother’s daughter to want to know why people behaved the way they did.

Especially when she was in a situation that she wasn’t certain she could control. As she was this time.

It was a big task, probably the biggest she’d ever taken on, but she felt ready for it.

The plane lurched. Damn. Jane gripped the armrests as Bob battled with the air to get them evened out again.

“Just an air pocket,” Bob said between his teeth, his concentration on flying the plane.

The plane dipped sharply. Mac sat up in the seat behind her. He put his hand on her shoulder. The plane was tossed about a bit more. Jane braced herself against the seat fuselage. Bob started cussing.

“Are we in trouble?” she yelled to Bob. He was struggling with the stick and watching the gauges. Jane waited, knowing he’d respond when he could.

“Something’s wrong with the engine,” he said at last. “Why don’t you two get ready to jump. I’m not sure if I can take you all the way to the target.”

“What should we do?” she asked.

“Don’t panic,” Mac said from behind her. He’d tucked his magazine away and was leaning forward, as well.

“I’m not. I’ve been skydiving since I was eighteen. And I did two parachute dives with the military when I worked in remote locations with a military team,” she said.

The plane jerked and a stream of smoke billowed past the window. “Are we going to crash?”

Bob turned around and looked at the two of them. There was something in his eyes that didn’t reassure Jane. “Not if I can help it.”

Mac finished fastening his chute to his back and then climbed over his seat to the packs that held the medicine. He passed them up to her. Jane worked quickly to tie the packs to another parachute, which would auto-release at a certain level.

“This is as close as I can get you.”

“I think you should come with us, Bob,” Jane said. The plane lurched again and sputtered.

“I’ll be fine, I’ll bail out if I lose control. Go while you still can,” Bob yelled.

Mac stood up and opened the door. The air rushed in and Jane closed her eyes feeling the familiar pump of adrenaline through her veins. Thank God they were already on the other side of the Andes. She didn’t relish the thought of having to trek down the mountain to get to the river area.

“I’ll go last,” she said, needing to make sure the medicine got out and to watch where it went.

Mac shrugged and stepped out of the plane. Jane pushed their packs toward the edge of the plane and then out. She turned around and waved to Bob before she jumped out of the plane.

She torpedoed her body and caught up to the packs, flying close to them. She’d lost sight of Mac. The chutes opened and slowed her descent.

Her feet hit the tops of the trees. She pulled them up but it was too late. She was knocked off balance and continued falling through the thick green canopy of the tall rain forest trees.

Her chute got tangled in the branches and she was held suspended over the floor of the jungle. The momentum of her fall caused her to rock back and forth. Her cheek stung where a branch had cut her face on the way down. She was about four feet from the ground.

She heard a loud boom and guessed that the plane had crashed. A few minutes later she saw smoke billowing up from the sky. Oh, my God. She prayed Bob had made it out okay. She should have insisted he jump when they did. She looked up for another drifting parachute, but only saw the smoke and sky through the high canopy.

She had her Blackberry in her pocket, but had left her change of clothes and food behind. There just hadn’t been time to get everything out of the plane. And the medicine had been the most important thing.

Her heart raced and her hands shook. She finally unbuckled her harness and let herself fall to the ground. Her injured leg gave as she landed and she rolled a few feet before stopping. When she got her bearings she looked up into the painted face of a warrior who held a spear with a sharp tip aimed straight at her.

Chapter 4

Jane gingerly got to her feet. Her leg ached. She had no idea how to defend herself against a spear-wielding native. The man’s eyes were calm, cool. She made eye contact with him but didn’t sustain it, not wanting him to think she was aggressive. After a minute he lowered his weapon but continued watching her.

His face was painted in broad stripes of red and blue. His eyes were a dark chocolate and his body was covered in modern clothing. Civilization had come to the Amazon basin and yet the old traditions remained. Jane was struck by the dichotomy.

She was still trying to deal with everything that had happened. She couldn’t believe their plane had crashed. Her hands shook and her mind was racing. The jump hadn’t been as bad as she’d expected considering they’d had to drop out before they’d planned.