Page 4 of Securing Jane

The closer she looked, the more everything about the package screamed suspicious, and Jane had been through way too many training sessions about bombs and anthrax being sent through the mail to dismiss the package as nothing serious. If it was delivered to the rear admiral and something happened to him, Jane would never forgive herself.

Knowing she was supposed to clear the room, alert the authorities, turn off the air conditioning—just in case—and not touch or move the package until it could be examined, Jane began to set things in motion. This would delay all mail delivery for hours, possibly for an entire day, but it couldn’t be helped. If this was a bomb or a biochemical agent being sent through the mail, nothing else mattered, including her timetable.

But just as Jane turned to alert everyone they had to go into lockdown protocol, one of her employees pushed a large number of boxes and envelopes down the conveyor belt toward her. The box she’d just been examining teetered on the edge of the sorting table and, acting instinctively, Jane reached out to catch it.

Everything after seemed to happen in slow motion.

The box began to fall.

Jane caught it in midair.

The jostling of the box obviously detonated something inside, because the top flew off, and an orange caustic agent sprayed into the air, covering Jane’s face and arms.

She immediately began to cough and gag, but did her best to stay calm—the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life.

“Holy shit, Jane, what the hell?” one of her employees exclaimed.

“Don’t touch me,” she managed, her eyes squeezed tightly closed. Between coughs, she got out, “Code black. Call the naval police and initiate a code black!”

Thankfully, her employees knew exactly what to do. A code black was the highest level of emergency the mail room could declare. It meant there was some sort of chemical leak and all personnel should remove themselves from the immediate vicinity. Her office had trained for this exact scenario time and time again—but Jane had never thought she’d be contaminated.

Hearing everyone rushing out of the room, she pictured where she was in the sorting room and blindly made her way toward the wall behind her. She didn’t want to touch anything, because that could spread the contaminate that was all over her hands, but with every second that passed, it got harder and harder to breathe. She had to reach the decontamination station.

Her employees had all left, as they’d been trained, and she was on her own.

Feeling as if her lungs were going to explode, Jane coughed some more, then threw up on the floor where she stood. Everything hurt, and it felt as if her face was on fire.

Falling to her knees, she tried to get oxygen into her burning lungs. For all she knew, her skin was melting off. She couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t make it to decontamination. The only thing she could do was kneel on the floor and retch.

* * * *

Storm was reading a report about an increase in hostilities in a small country in Africa when his admin assistant stuck his head inside his office.

“Sorry to bother you, Sir, but there’s a code black in the mail room.”

“Fuck. Code black? Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes, Sir. The building’s being evacuated. We need to go.”

Storm surged up from his desk and headed for the door. All he could think about was the fact that Jane worked in the mail room.

It was only that morning that he’d decided to explore his interest in the shy contractor, but hearing there was some sort of biological threat in the mail room changed things drastically. Until he saw for himself that Jane was all right, he knew the feeling of concern and unease within him wouldn’t abate.

Jogging down the hall, Storm headed for the stairwell. He ran down two flights and instead of exiting outside, continued down to the basement level. He passed a few people coming up the stairs, but no one dared ask him where he was going or what he was doing. His rank sometimes had its benefits.

Someone had pulled the fire alarm, and the annoying sound of the bells ringing gave him an instant headache, but he ignored it as best he could and headed for the door to the mail room. He’d only been down here a handful of times, but he knew exactly where to go.

He pulled on the door—and frowned when it didn’t open. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, remembering that protocol demanded all doors be locked in case of an incident.

Standing there for a second, Storm debated what to do. It was likely Jane was standing outside right that moment with her employees, talking to the authorities and telling them what had happened. It was also likely the code black was a false alarm; there hadn’t been an anthrax or sarin incident in years.

But a little part of him, deep down, thought differently.

“Jane?” he yelled, his voice barely registering above the blaring fire alarm. “Are you in there?”

He put his ear against the door and waited, straining to hear something. Anything.

“Sir?” a voice yelled from his right. “You need to exit the building.”