With Rodriguez in custody, she was finally safe. She could hardly believe it. He couldn't threaten her anymore. Her secrets had been revealed, Rodriguez had been captured, and somehow she was still standing after all that. Sandra let the idea sink in while the men took care of business. She really hadn't expected to survive this deadly game, yet here she was.

The men put zip-tie cuffs around Rodriguez's hands and marched him up the stairs. He was out of sight faster than she could have imagined. She watched Matt confer with the members of the combat team a few yards away.

His mood was angry. She could tell from the sharp movements of his hands and the set of his broad shoulders. No doubt he was suspicious of her again. Finding her in Rodriguez's lair didn't look good. Even she knew that.

Would he believe her when she told him how she'd gotten here? She wasn't sure. She hoped he would. She hoped he'd give her a chance. Give her the benefit of the doubt. But even she had to admit her track record for telling him the truth wasn't the best. She wouldn't blame him if he didn't believe her. Trust was something you earned, and she'd done precious little to earn his.

She watched Matt issue orders to secure the rest of the property and search the house and grounds. The men scurried into motion, and Matt turned, his gaze searching the area until it landed on her.

She could tell by the way his muscles tensed that he was working himself up a good head of steam as he stalked the length of the basement to stand in front of her. He faced her, just looking at her until she started to fidget under his scrutiny. Those blue eyes pinned her, making her feel like a bug under a microscope.

"Now would you like to explain how in hell you came to be here?"

She cringed, knowing he wouldn't like what she had to say. Especially not in his current mood.

"I was tricked into leaving the building," she admitted. Boy, did she feel stupid admitting to how easy it had been to dupe her. "I got a call on my cell phone telling me that Mariana had been captured and was being held hostage by Rodriguez's men. I asked for proof they really had her and was instructed to look out the window on the northeast corner. The one by the secondary door on that side."

"You didn't think this was important enough to tell somebody?"

Oh, yeah, he was really angry, and she couldn't blame him. She just had to muscle through her explanation and hope he would understand.

"I was near the door already, so I went to the window and looked out. I saw someone in the distance, wearing a white lab coat. The person was about her size and struggling against the man holding her. I thought it was Mari. I really did. The man on the phone was pressuring me, telling me he'd kill her if I didn't come out right that minute. I was all alone on that side of the building. There was no one to tell and no time to waste."

"What the hell were you thinking?" He took her shoulders in his hands and shook her just once.

"I thought I should trade myself for Mari. They would only kill her and her baby. I couldn't let that happen when it was me they wanted."

"Noble, but stupid, Sandra. God!" He shook her again and let go, visibly trying to control his frustrated anger.

"I realized the minute I opened the door that I'd been duped," she admitted. "In my own defense, I wasn't thinking too clearly. Not after..." She didn't want to admit she'd been so affected by their argument.

Sandra didn't know what to say to make this situation any better. Her rescuer had turned into an angry tyrant, and she didn't know how to avoid his ire.

"That is it!" Matt sounded furious. "I am through watching you put yourself in danger. What the hell were you thinking, leaving the building alone? You were supposed to stay put. To stay safe."

He grabbed her around the waist and planted a kiss on her lips that shocked the breath right out of her. It was all out in the open now. All his fear for her safety. All his caring. All his love.

Dare she believe it?

"Oh, Matt." She gasped for air when he broke the kiss and hugged her close, nearly lifting her off her feet. His irritation seemed to have dissipated somewhat-or morphed into passion.

"I love you, dammit. How could you take such a risk? If they'd killed you..." His voice trailed off as he buried his face in her neck.

Oh, yeah, she believed him. Miracle of miracles-he loved her. The admission was too raw, too pure. He wasn't censoring himself. He meant exactly what he said.

"You don't sound too happy about it." She found the energy to joke.

"On the contrary." He rubbed his stubbly cheek gently against the side of her face, holding her close. "But this isn't the time or place." He lifted his head and eased his hold fractionally. "I have a lot I want to say to you, Sandy, but it'll have to wait until we tie up some of these loose ends." He looked around the basement at the men standing there, watching them.

Nothing showed on their faces-they were too well trained to betray their thoughts so easily-but Sandra knew they had to be speculating about her presence, and their commander's involvement with her. It made her uncomfortable to think they might disapprove.

Matt kissed her once more, and she put away any coherent thoughts for later.

"Uh, Commander," a throat cleared from the bottom of the steps.

Matt sighed as he dragged his lips away from hers. He didn't let her go, resting his forehead against hers. It felt so good to have her in his arms again.

"What is it, Sam?" He didn't even look in the other man's direction.

"Sir, Rodriguez is ready to go and the house is secure. We found an office chock full of documents pertaining to Rodriguez's research."

Now that was good news.

"Any sign of the list of frequencies for those little transmitters he's so fond of?"

He gazed into her eyes and stroked her hair with one hand, unwilling to let her go just yet. He didn't care who saw him holding her. She was his, dammit, and he wanted the world to know it. Such thoughts might have scared him before but not any longer. He was on the verge of something momentous here. Too bad they were in the middle of an op. Otherwise, he would have already carried her off to his cave and claimed her like the primitive man he was.

"Not yet, sir," Sam's voice broke into his thoughts, refocusing him. "John is interrogating the prisoner, but he's not being very cooperative right now."

"That'll change. Put Sarah on the task of searching the office and get Donna over here to assist. Bring her in through the woods along with the decon team. Once they clear the place we can call in the rest of the techs to help with the search. Is that all?"

"Almost, sir. Simon wants to know how you want to take Rodriguez back to base-loud or quiet?"

"Quiet," Matt answered at once. "Definitely quiet. We'll walk him back through the woods the way we came in. If he still has allies out there, I don't want them to know the doctor's been shut down until the last possible moment. We'll keep him under wraps as long as we can."

"Yes, sir." Sam headed back up the stairs.

"The ones who took you off base. How many were there?" Matt asked Sandy. He let her go and stood facing her. It was time to get back to work, despite how much he wanted to go on holding her in his arms.

"There were two of them. Both male. The smaller man wore the lab coat, and after they had me they weren't concerned about letting me see their faces. That worried me until they said Rodriguez wanted me alive. They couldn't kill me. He wanted to do it himself."

"They still could've hurt you." His gaze met hers, and he knew she understood what could have happened. "They could've hurt you real bad, Sandra. It was foolish to leave the building, no matter how pissed off you were at me."

"I know that. Heck, I knew it as I pushed open the door, but I thought I was trading myself for Mari. I didn't want anyone else to pay for my mistakes. I'm sorry, Matt. I shouldn't have kept secrets from you, but I was so afraid you'd never forgive me."

"A wise man once said, never say never."

"You're quoting James Bond at me?"

"Why not? Everything about this mission has a surreal quality to it." He shrugged. "But not the part about finding the love of my life."

"You really mean that?"

"With all my heart."

"I do, too," she said. "Love you, I mean. More than anything." Her voice dropped as his mouth lowered to capture her lips again in a kiss of longing, desire, and promise. There was no time to explore further, they both knew, but the kiss spoke of commitment and the future.

When he let her go, they were both smiling. And trembling.

"We'd better get out of here. There are a multitude of things to do before we can call this part of the mission complete." He held out one hand to her and she took it. It was symbolic. They were partners now. They'd face what came, together.

The team set out through the woods about twenty minutes later. Matt had decided he and Sandra would go with the group that would take their prisoner back to base. They all knew there still might be some zombies hiding out in the forest. Sandra would be going back to base after her ordeal, and he wanted to be certain she and the rest of the team, along with Rodriguez, got there safely.

Sandra had identified the casualties from the first floor of the house as the two men who had kidnapped her from the base. Both seemed to be hired guns, much like Leroy had been. Preliminary identification made by a quick and secure phone call back to the tech team on base confirmed they both had long criminal histories. Rodriguez was probably using their underworld contacts to do things in a less than legal manner.

Rodriguez had argued and fumed at being marched out of the house and through the yard until Simon had slapped a wad of duct tape over his mouth. Even so, he struggled as he was led along into the trees. Once he realized they were walking into the forest, Rodriguez seemed to give in. His sudden cooperation set the hairs at the back of Matt's neck on edge. Rodriguez knew something-or was planning something. Matt sent a quick hand signal to the rest of the team. Almost imperceptible nods answered his warning. The men had picked up on it, too. They were on guard.

Matt dropped to the back of the group, taking Sandra with him. His hand on her elbow tightened until she looked at him.

"Take this." He handed her his secondary dart gun. Her eyes widened and she barely suppressed a gasp of surprise. "Use it if you have to."

"Do you think there'll be trouble?" Her gaze darted around the gloomy forest, and she kept her voice blessedly low so that only he could hear her.

"Maybe. Best to be prepared." He tried to reassure her but knew he'd missed the mark. Oh, well. Better she be on edge than lulled into a false sense of security. "Just be sure whoever you aim at with those darts is already dead."

"I won't shoot anyone I shouldn't." She grimaced.

"Hopefully, you won't have to shoot anyone at all." He began walking faster in order to catch up with the team that had gone on ahead. It wouldn't do to become separated.

"Amen to that," she muttered, following his lead.

As it was, he was almost too late. He saw the movement behind the rest of the party before the rear guard did. Matt raised the alarm.

"Sam, behind you! Three tangos at five o'clock." Matt began firing even as the rest of the team sprang into action. Three ragtag, bloodstained, and disfigured beings moved steadily onward, their only goal to make more like themselves. To kill and maim and infect.

No more. They'd meet their end this night, and all the living people here-except Rodriguez-were immune. No more zombies would be made. Not if Matt had anything to say about it.

But the three creatures were followed by three more. Then even more came streaming steadily out of the brush. Everyone was firing now, even Sandra. Matt noticed that she placed her shots carefully, backing away as the zombies advanced on them.

"Where are they coming from?" Matt wanted to know. He asked the question aloud, inviting Sandra's input.

"Looks like a break in the kudzu vines over there. There's got to be something behind it. Maybe a structure of some kind where they hide out during the day?"

"Or maybe a cave. There are a few in this area." Matt kept aiming and firing even as he sorted through the puzzle.

He paused only to reload. Sandra took one carefully placed shot for every three or four of his. That was good. She was making her shots count. She hit what she aimed at. She just did it at a much slower pace than he and the rest of his men. Matt had plenty of spare ammunition in his combat vest. When Sandra finally finished the clip that had been in the pistol, he tossed her a few spares.

She was in retreat from the suspected cave entrance, as were they all. It took some time for the darts to work, and the creatures kept advancing until they disintegrated midstep. But someone had to get closer, to be certain none escaped the suspected cave.

Matt signaled for most of the team to move forward in a flanking maneuver. They'd take the fight to the zombies instead of waiting to be overrun. If they could overtake them at the bottleneck, they stood a better chance of controlling the battle and getting them all with little fuss.

"Sandra, stay back here with Sam and Rodriguez. Keep count of the zombie kills as best you can and try to make sure none of them slip away, but don't move away from Sam. Stay safe."

"Where are you going?" Panic flared in her eyes.

"We're going to try to stem the flow. Once they're out of wherever they've been hiding, it gets too far out of control. If we can get them at the entrance, we can control the action." He saw understanding dawn in her eyes.

"Be careful, Matt."

"You too, sweetheart. Stay with Sam and retreat with him if necessary." He kissed her quick before he left with the rest of the combat team.

Simon was across from Matt as they approached the point where the zombies were coming from simultaneously. They'd sent some of the men down the center as decoys, to lead the creatures away from the real angle of attack-either side of the exit point. It was an orchestrated play to gain time and a little distance from the zombies who'd been darted and needed time to fall. It also brought Matt and Simon closer to the fresh reinforcements that kept coming through the curtain of vines.

"We've got to get to the source and make sure we have them all," Matt said over the radio that connected him with the combat team.

"Where'd they get so many? Intel never reported these kinds of numbers," Simon groused.

"Look at them. They're newly made. Civilians, most of them. From the way they're dressed, it looks like Rodriguez was trolling a bar for new recruits."

Indeed, the women matched the descriptions of the missing persons reports-they were young and wearing jeans or short skirts. Their high heels were mostly gone, and their little colorful shirts were torn and bloodstained. Makeup was long melted and smeared, and jewelry sparkled from what was left of ears and fingers in a drunken, disturbing display.

The men were wearing civilian clothing but many looked like off-duty soldiers. A few others had biker tattoos and clothing that was now tattered and stained. Their hands were bloody and scratched, their faces gnawed away in some cases. It looked like many of the men had put up a good fight, but the contagion had taken them in the end.

"There's a popular road house not far away. It has a large, dark parking lot," Simon mused. "It'd be easy pickings to get the customers as they stumble out on their way home."

"Especially if someone was able to control the zombies they sent out to do the deed. Rodriguez's so-called improvement on the contagion allowed him to give simple orders."

"Like, 'don't let anyone out of the parking lot alive'?" Simon asked in a grim tone.

"Or like, 'build me an army,'" Matt agreed as they moved into position. "Rodriguez was gearing up for war. He probably made most of this little army last night. There ought to be a lot of missing persons reports today and for the next few days as people don't show up where they're supposed to be. You can't kill this many folks without someone noticing."

The team was almost ready to begin the next phase of the maneuver. By waiting to fire until Simon and Matt were in perfect position, they'd avoided drawing the zombies' attention. The plan was to let the rest of the team handle the zombies already out in the forest while Matt and Simon took positions to get them as they emerged from the vines. Eventually, the soldiers could contain the monsters in the bottleneck-or so they hoped.

However it worked out, all these poor creatures had to be dealt with. A speedy end was preferable, but the team would end it however it had to. None of this zombie army could be allowed to escape.

The soldiers set up the flanking maneuver and Matt gave the signal when they were in position. He and Simon opened fire at the same time, the rest of the team closing the gap in a pincer maneuver that cut off the fresh zombies from the ones they'd already darted, leading the doomed creatures away so they could disintegrate away from the new field of battle. They'd essentially cleared the deck to begin the battle again-this time on their own terms.

The men who herded the darted creatures away would keep them occupied until the last was a pile of goo on the forest floor. Meanwhile, Matt and Simon would be the first line of defense, sending already darted zombies on their way to the herders. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

After several minutes and a few clips of darts, Sam Archer approached Matt from the side.

"Where's Sandra?" Sam was supposed to be watching over her and Rodriguez.

"John showed up and took over so I could bring you fresh supplies," Sam explained.

Matt didn't spare the time to look at Sam, but he could hear the telltale metal tinkle of ammunition clips.

"Just in time, lieutenant. I'm nearly out of ammo," Matt reported, never taking his eyes off the creatures that kept pouring out of the small opening in the dense vines.

"I've got it covered, sir." He refilled one of the side pockets on Matt's vest with fresh clips even as Matt continued to fire.

"Trade places?" Matt nodded and dropped back so Sam could take his place.

So far, the plan was working pretty well. None of the zombies were getting past the choke point without being darted. From there it took some creative running by the other members of the team to lead the zombies away to where they could fall apart minutes later.

The vines were getting trampled the more creatures that came out of the small opening in the dense leaves. As the tenacious kudzu collapsed under the weight of so many shuffling feet, Matt could see the mouth of a cave clearly. It wasn't a large opening, thankfully, and allowed only one creature out at a time. But the cave beyond must be pretty large if the sheer number of zombies emerging was any indication.

The place didn't smell great. The air wafting from the cave entrance reeked strongly of both bat guano and death. The zombies didn't smell too good as their flesh aged. These were of relatively new vintage, but so many of them in one place didn't make for pleasantly scented air. The presence of what had to be a few hundred bats only added to the lovely aroma.