Black Friday. Alex Kava

on the floor he turned on his wireless headset that fit close and tight over his left ear. He had strapped the small computer, just a fraction bigger than a smartphone, to the inside of his arm so he had both hands free and could still follow the green blinks on the computer screen’s map. He poked in a number on the keypad and then turned up the volume on his headset. In seconds he was listening in on the mall’s security guards exchange information and curses.

      “Where are the cops?”

      “On their way.”

      “How frickin’ long does it take?”

      This time Asante couldn’t help but smile. Their wait was his gain. And now they would warn him when it was time for him to leave.

      The food court reminded him of a sidewalk café in Tel Aviv after it had been bombed. It had been in his student days when he was still studying the art of terror. Where better to learn than on the eternal battlefield. Now he looked around at tables and chairs that were strewn and broken like piles of pickup sticks. The walls were splattered with a combination of Chinese dumplings, pizza, coffee, flesh and blood. The floors glittered with glass. The mist from the ceiling sprinklers added to the haze, dampening those who ran away and soaking those who couldn’t.

      Asante followed the green blinking light on his GPS system, tapping it twice when it malfunctioned and indicated that his target was right in front of him. He pressed several buttons before he realized the computer had not malfunctioned at all. Where he expected to see the young Dixon Lee, he saw instead a young woman. She was curled up behind an overturned table, close to the rail that overlooked the mall’s atrium.

      She was no longer moving, but she was, indeed, the source of the blinking green light.

       Son of a bitch.

      This was his errant carrier?

      Chapter

      11

       Newburgh Heights, Virginia

      Maggie left them to pack. She insisted they stay.

      “Please don’t let all this food go to waste,” she told them. “Gwen and I worked too hard to prepare it.” Then with a smile, “Okay? Please stay.”

      Racine had been the first one to promise though it came out in typical Racine style. “Yeah, no problem. I’m starving. It takes more than a little holiday carnage to keep me from eating.”

      It was enough to break the ice and make the rest of them laugh.

      Still, Maggie wasn’t surprised to hear the knock on her bedroom door. She expected Gwen had one last word to get in.

      “Come on in.”

      “You sure?” Benjamin Platt stood in Maggie’s doorway looking more like a hesitant schoolboy than an army colonel.

      “Yes, of course. Come on in,” Maggie told him, trying to hide her surprise.

      He showed her the little black doctor’s bag he had in his hand. It had become a familiar object over the last two months. Ben had made several house calls after Maggie’s quarantine at USAMRIID. Inside the bag she knew he kept a phlebotomist kit for taking blood samples and at least two vials of the vaccine for the Ebola virus.

      “Still carrying that around, huh?”

      “Ever since I met you,” he said.

      “I have that effect on guys.”

      His eyes narrowed. He was serious now, ready to put aside their usual witty repartee.

      “You’re not due for another shot of the vaccine until late next week, but considering where you’re going,” he paused, and waited for her eyes, “and what you’ll encounter, I think it might be a good idea to give you the dose before you leave.”

      That he was concerned made Maggie concerned. This was a doctor, who all the while she was quarantined and restless for results, kept telling her to slow down and wait, that they would deal with whatever it was when they found out exactly what it was. The “whatever” they were dealing with ended up being Ebola Zaire, nicknamed “the slate sweeper.” Maggie had been exposed but didn’t show any signs of the virus. The incubation period for Ebola was up to twenty-one days. It had been fifty-six days since Maggie’s exposure. That she knew exactly how many days was a testament to how seriously she still took the threat.

      “You don’t think—”

      “No, of course not,” Ben interrupted. “Just a safety precaution. Your immune system has been through a hell of a lot.”

      “Okay,” she said and started to clear a place for him to set the bag on her dresser. Her Pullman was spread out on the bed, almost packed. She’d learned a long time ago to keep the basic necessities already in the bag. While Ben prepared a syringe Maggie looked for a warm turtleneck sweater. She’d been to the Midwest enough times during this time of year to no longer underestimate the cold.

      “It’s snowing there,” Ben said as if he could read her mind.

      “Boot snowing or just snow-snowing?”

      This time he stopped his hands and looked up. “There’s a difference?”

      “Oh, big time. You haven’t been to the Midwest in the winter?”

      “Chicago, but no. It was spring.”

      “My first trip I only had leather flats. It snowed like eight or ten inches and the only place nearby to buy boots in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska, was a John Deere implement store.”

      “Let me guess, you ended up with bright green, size twelves?”

      “Something like that.”

      She rummaged through her closet and pulled out a pair of slipover boots that folded easily. When she turned back to her suitcase Ben was watching her, smiling.

      “What?”

      “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head but still smiling. “You’re just pretty incredible, that’s all.”

      She hoped the flush up her neck didn’t show in her face. She held up the boots for him to see as she placed them in the suitcase. “I knew eventually I could get your attention with my sexy footwear.”

      “I hate to disappoint you,” he said, setting aside the syringe and coming close enough to touch the back of his hand to her cheek, “but you managed to do that without any footwear at all. The first time I saw those bare feet in oversized athletic socks back at USAMRIID my heart skipped a couple of beats.”

      Maggie wasn’t sure if it was his touch or his rare and surprising admission that caused her own heart to miss a couple of beats.

      “A foot fetish, huh?” She tried to keep it light.

      “Big time.”

      Another knock on the door startled both of them. This time it was Gwen.

      “Sorry to interrupt. Your ride to Andrews is here.”

      Chapter

      12

       Mall of America

      The glass hadn’t plunged in as deep as Rebecca thought it had. It was bleeding but no major gusher. So no major arteries. She still had to pull the chunk of glass out.

       She could do this. Of course, she could.

      She had cleaned up and taken care of her share of wounds and injuries. Never mind that they were on dogs. Bites from other dogs, rips from barbed wire or abuse from owners. One of the dogs she helped treat had been hit by a car. All of the wounds were gross. No different than this. If anything, it should be easier when it was herself. No sad brown eyes looking up at her. If only her head would stop throbbing and her stomach would stop threatening to shove everything up or down.

      The