Oath of Honor

Wes wanted to erase the last vestiges of wariness in Evyn’s gaze.

She wanted to trace the line of her jaw, but instead she grazed her

fingertips over the back of Evyn’s hand where it rested on Evyn’s knee.

“Can we try that again?”

A moment passed and Wes held her breath. Evyn’s hand turned

over and their fingers entwined.

“How about we get you settled and I’ll go for pizza?” Evyn

asked.The heavy weight crushing Wes’s chest dissolved. Evyn’s hand

was warm and solid. She tightened her hold. “I’d like that.”

v

The day shift had all left hours ago, and the corridor outside the

Level 4 isolation lab was deserted. Her footsteps fell soundlessly on the

white tile floor as she made her way to the airlock at the end of the hall.

She pressed her palm on the identification plate and leaned down for

the retinal scan. The light above the passage flashed from red to green,

and the hydraulic door slid open with a faint whoosh. She stepped into

the UV chamber, the outer door behind her closed, and she slipped

on a pair of protective glasses. When she input her entry code on the

wall panel, a hum accompanied the pulse of UV, and the next door

in the chain opened. She deposited her protective glasses on the shelf

and passed into the inner isolation room, where she methodically went

through the routine of testing her positive pressure protective suit—

sealing the cuffs at ankles and wrists, zipping the neck, and attaching

the air hose to the one-way valve in the center of the back. She twisted

the dial and compressed air flowed in. The pressure on the wall gauge

held steady at 1 atm. No leaks. She closed the inflow valve and opened

the vents along the neck. Air hissed out. She was ready to go to work.

Removing her shoes, she carefully stepped into the bright yellow

suit and, after closing the seals, pulled on the calf-high impervious

rubber boots. She wore no jewelry to work, not even a watch. She’d

only have to remove it—she couldn’t risk any snag or tear that might

violate the PPPS. Even a microscopic rent in the isolation suit could

allow a contagion to enter, where it might be absorbed by her skin or

• 162 •

Oath Of hOnOr

inhaled into her respiratory system. The biological agents they worked

with inside the BSL-4 lab were either highly transmissible or uniformly

fatal or both. The suit was her only shield.

Once the suit was secure, she covered the fluid-resistant boots

with disposable booties, fit the head shield into place, and pulled on her

gloves. She wasn’t concerned for her safety. She was always prepared

for any emergency. Caution was a way of life for her, and she’d been

trained since birth to be composed under extreme circumstances.

With a bulky gloved finger, she pressed the entrance code, and the

chamber pressurized. The inner door opened and she stepped into the

lab. She nodded to a colleague working at a nearby station, sequencing

a variant of Ebola. After connecting an overhead airline to the suit’s

port, she made her way down the aisle, the line following behind her

like a colorful yellow umbilicus. She’d volunteered for the night shift

six months previously, establishing her routine, arriving a little early,

leaving a little later. Her colleagues appreciated her diligence and

her willingness to take the graveyard shift for longer than the usual

mandatory rotations. At her station, she booted up her computer and

retrieved the samples she planned to run on the gel plates that night,

along with a second rack of tubes. Over the past six months she’d been

carefully siphoning off micro-aliquots of avian flu stock, too tiny to be

noticed by anyone else, until she had a single test tube half-full of one

of the most virulent synthetic contagions ever produced.

When she left at the end of her shift, she’d slide the tube into a

fold in her suit beneath her arm and secure it in place with a strip of

the special adhesive they kept for emergency repairs if one of the suits

should be accidentally torn. Like a tire patch, the instantly self-sealing

adhesive would provide enough protection until the lab worker could

get to the decontamination chamber. Tonight, the lifesaving material

would allow her to secrete out a virus capable of killing thousands. She

wasn’t really interested in the deaths of thousands, however, only one.

President Andrew Powell stood for everything she despised—a

spokesman for the rich, a defender of the privileged, a champion of

those without morals or values. Her father had taught her and her

brothers and sisters the right path, raising them to be survivors. He’d

encouraged them to excel, schooling them at the camp with the children

of other survivalists, setting them on the path to positions where they

could someday make a difference. She’d always known she had a

• 163 •

RADCLYfFE

mission, and now she was going to fulfill it. She would help him make

his message heard—America for Americans—and now that a leader