The op was supposed to be simple. A snatch-and-grab of medical waste. The location was a designated receptacle outside a Bucharest clinic, packed with used test kits, swabs, and other biologics refuse from a day of testing for the virus. It was a goldmine of real-time data about new variants and community spread, and the pack had been "harvesting" in such places for months.
Orrin took the crew, as he did with any field work. They were three of them, invisible under the cloak of darkness and soiled uniforms of city sanitation workers. The truck was real, the papers fake. It was a smooth run.
And routines breed complacency, and the virus was a master at shattering routines.
As Orrin and Liv were lifting the taped containers into the compactor, a side door to the clinic opened. A nurse, pa
