by Ciana Stone
"It was the spring of 1991," Wiley said and leaned back in his chair. "I was twenty-three years old and had been a SEAL for two months. This was during the Gulf War. We were deployed, not to the Gulf but to the Black Sea. Our mission was to intercept and destroy a freighter coming out of Odessa. Intelligence had been received that it was transporting plans on a new level of technology in artificial intelligence."
Wiley closed his eyes and in his mind was transported back in time.
Two days they'd been on the boat. Not a ship. A freaking boat, in seas with swells big enough to have even their team leader looking like he was about to toss his cookies. Wiley tried not to show his excitement or his fear. This was his first real mission, and he wasn't going to screw up. Lucky for him, the rolling of the boat didn't affect him.
At least not at first. When the storm hit, his stomach started to lurch, but the deafening thunder and searing bolts of lightning sizzling through the air gave him far more to worry about than his stomach.
One of the SEALs yelled and pointed. Sure enough, a ship was visible during the flashes of lightning. The team leader struggled to get their boat turned to intercept the vessel. It seemed to take an inordinately long time before they were parallel to the ship, rocking and bouncing in the waves.
Mounting the ship proved to be yet another protracted process. Only five of them would go aboard. The team leader would stay with the boat. Wiley was the last to reach the deck of the ship. Thanks to the storm none of the ship's crew was on deck. As long as the SEALs were careful, they shouldn't be spotted.
And their objective was simple. Rig the ship with explosives and send it to the bottom of the sea. Whatever was on board would be destroyed in the explosion. The team set about their job, working in two-man teams, leaving the fifth to keep watch.
That fifth man was Wiley. The SEALs made it to the hatch. While four positioned themselves on either side, the fifth man, Wiley, grabbed the handle and was surprised to discover it had not been secured.
He took the point, descending the ladder as the others watched. There was no movement or sounds, and he motioned the others to continue. They needed to reach the lower level to set the charges. Just as they neared the hatch, a door opened. The man who stepped out took one look and started shouting.
Wiley acted without thinking, and in a matter of seconds, the man was unconscious on the deck. By that time other voices were heard and the sound of feet pounding as men ran. One of the SEALs, a guy named Joe, was already on COMM with their team leader.
He barked to his teammates. "Take them out and fulfill the objective."
That was all they needed to go into action. Wiley had never imagined how deafening it was when gunfire sounded in a ship. Their weapons were equipped with suppressors but their opponents' were not.
They fought their way to the hatch, taking out anyone who came at them. Wiley guarded the hatch as the others descended. He heard gunfire, but it was short-lived. Then there was silence.
Minutes ticked by. Finally, his team returned. "Shit and get, bro." Joe clapped him on the shoulder, and a split second later, a man appeared in a doorway down the hall, holding a child.
"Please." He reached out with one hand. "Please, my child. Don't hurt my child."
His accent was so thick, it was hard to understand. What was not hard to discern was his fear for the little girl who clung to him. Wiley looked at Joe. "We can't leave her."
"And we can't take her."
"Please," the man implored them. "I will take whatever fate you decree but do not doom my child."
"Let's go!" One of the other SEALs yelled.
"Leave them." Joe barked and jogged down the corridor toward the hatch to lay topside.
"Please," the man begged Wiley.
"Johns, get your ass up here!" The order came through his COMM and Wiley realized he was running out of time before the first of the explosives detonated. He had to move and fast, or he'd put the entire team at risk.
"I can't." Wiley couldn't look into the man's eyes. "I'm sorry."
"She will die." The man said. "Please."
It was probably a mistake, and he might get them both killed, but he couldn't live with that on his conscious. Wiley grabbed the child who fought and cried for her Papa. The man kissed her on the top of the head and then pushed Wiley from him. Wiley ran, clutching the child to him.
He made it to the rail before the first explosion rocked the ship. He knew the plan. Disable the engine first and five minutes later scuttle the ship. There was no time for anything but to jump. So he did.
Wiley opened his eyes, needing to pull himself out of the past. "Somehow I lost my grip on the child when we hit the water. The storm was still raging above us, but the sun was rising, so visibility was better. Joe, my buddy, shouted from the boat and pointed.
"I spotted her, flailing and trying to stay above water and yelled,"Here kid! I'm here." Miraculously, she started churning her arms, trying to swim toward me."
Wiley looked over at Reese, who was watching him with tears in her eyes, but a stoic expression stamped on her face. He smiled at her. "When I reached her, she didn't panic, she just did what I told her, and we managed to get back to the boat.
The past claimed him again and forced him to relive more of that time.
Luck was on their side, and they were nearly a mile away when the first explosive vibrated the boat and lit the dawn sky. The little girl clinging to Wiley looked up at the inferno and tears poured down her face.
When she turned her gaze to Wiley, he'd never seen such bone-deep grief as what was on her face. "Papa."
It was the most heart-breaking two syllables he'd ever heard, the raw anguish in that child's voice. He wasn't the only SEAL in the boat, wiping at his eyes.
They all knew. They'd just robbed this child of her father. "My Papa," she whispered with her gaze locked on Wiley. It nearly broke his heart. So much pain and loss for someone so young and yet something burned in those eyes. Something he didn't understand.
Desperate to communicate, he pointed to himself. "Wiley."
She stared at him for a long time then pointed to herself. "Katya." She pronounced the name as kaht-yah
"Katya?"
She nodded, and he pointed again to himself. "Wiley. Wiley Johns."
Katya nodded again and pointed to herself. "Katya Sokolov."
Every SEAL in the boat looked at her. Grisha Sokolov was the scientist being transported on the ship. The one reported having plans for a new level of artificial intelligence that would change the world, or at least modern warfare.
They all knew we were screwed. If they turned Katya over to the government, she'd be held like a prisoner, even though she was only a child. Her life would be spent as a captive. She wouldn't merely go into the system to become a number in a database. She'd be erased. No one would ever know she'd existed. No matter that they could be court-marshaled or even prosecuted, they'd taken enough from the child and wouldn't take any more."
Mathias looked at Reese as she reached across the table for Wiley's hand. They shared a look that he wouldn't intrude upon any more than merely being present. Reese leaned forward to kiss Wiley's hand and then released it to turn and face Mathias. When she spoke he heard something in her voice he'd not heard before, a faint accent.
"I'm Katya Sokolov, and my father was a brilliant man who saw patterns that are invisible to almost everyone. He did have the beginnings of something marvelous but wasn't on that ship for any reason but to escape to a place where we would be safe, and the knowledge he possessed would not be taken and used to do harm. He left to protect me because that's where his data was stored."
"Pardon?" Mathias blurted.
"Every day I sat beside Papa as he worked, scribbling his formulas and designs. He had me look at everything he did, study it until I knew it better than the eyes of my favorite doll. I stored information much like a video recording and could access any data that was input into my mind.
"I became th
e vault for his work because it was the one place no one would think to look. Every night he burned the papers he'd written on that day because it was unsafe to keep them, and the data was safe as long as I lived."
Reese looked at Wiley for a moment then continued. "Wiley and the other SEALs kept their promise to protect me. Wiley's father had died the year before and his step-mother, Melody needed someone to love. Wiley took me to her."
Mathias saw Reese's expression soften and while he'd thought her beautiful before, that softness transformed her into breath-taking. "The first time she hugged me, I felt it. Absolute acceptance. No strings, no conditions. Just acceptance. And love.
"I was with Melody until she died. She developed heart problems, and when I was fourteen, she became increasingly weaker. I pleaded with her to go to the hospital, but she said she didn't want to die that way. I was terrified. I didn't know where Wiley and Linc were and there was no one else. Just me and Melody."
Reese glanced at Wiley before continuing. "For six months I took care of her, washed and fed her and sat beside her, listening to what she wanted to tell me and holding her hand. One morning I woke, feeling her tugging at my hand. I had slumped over and had my head propped on my free arm on the bed. When I sat up and looked at her, I knew."
Mathias's own eyes filled with tears when Reese's overflowed. "There was—a light about her like she'd already earned her wings. She smiled and told me she loved me, and I had been her dream come true. She'd prayed for a daughter, and God had brought me to her.
"I was just a kid, and I felt this awful fullness in my chest and fear crowded my mind. Melody was my mother, my friend, my protector. She was everything to me, and I could barely breathe at the pain that gripped me. I knew the pain of loss and didn't think I could bear it again.
"I love you, child," she whispered. "Always."
"I love you, mama," I spoke those words in Russian because I'd first spoken them to her in that way and so she understood. She smiled at me and then..." She paused to clear her throat and tight back tears. "Then for a moment I saw her as she once was. Young and beautiful and filled with goodness and light.
"Then she was gone."
Mathias longed to reach out when Reese covered her face with her hands and sobbed, but he was afraid to overstep the bounds of their relationship. He blinked back tears of his own and saw Wiley swipe at his eyes and pick up the narrative.
"I got a call from Linc. He was deployed and, on a mission, and didn't get word about his mother until she was already buried. Reese found all the life insurance information, called the funeral home Melody had chosen and made sure Melody was laid to rest in the manner she'd requested.
"Then child services stepped in. By the time Linc and I arrived, it was too late. Reese was in the system, and we weren't getting her out. Hell, we couldn't even explain who Katya Shaw was. She'd taken Melody's name, claiming to be the child of a dead relative who was staying with Melody.
"We screwed up and lost her. She was placed with a foster family. I managed to see her once, at the school she attended. I told her I'd do everything I could to try to get her out of that place, but she said she was okay and had everything under control."
He looked at Reese. "She lied. That bastard started raping her the day she was placed there, and the woman did nothing to stop him. She didn't care. All they wanted was the money, and none of the kids they fostered would dare speak up against them. They were all too afraid.
"All but Reese. Six weeks later, the man died from drinking poisoned whiskey. The wife was charged with murder, and all the children were taken from the home. All but Reese. She was in the wind."
"Linc and I searched for her for a year, and finally, I'm ashamed to say, we just gave up. I never stopped thinking about her and how we failed her. It was one of the biggest regrets of my life.
"Five years passed, and while I was home on leave, I met Linc in Massachusetts. He was seeing a lady who was in one of the doctoral programs at MIT, and he wanted me to meet her.
"We were walking across campus, headed for the meeting when I saw her, walking perpendicular to us. I stopped dead in my tracks. It couldn't be. How would I ever know what she looked like? It'd been too long. But still it nagged at me, so I yelled out. "Katya!" She stopped and looked around.
"The moment she saw us, I saw recognition take shape on her face, and she started running toward me."
Wiley stopped and smiled at Reese. "Of course, by then, she'd found a way to change her identity to Reese Quinn, finish school and earn a scholarship."
"So, the bit about being skin and bones in high school—" Mathias said
"True." She interrupted. "I was. Like Wiley said, I found a way. By the time I was sixteen, I was an emancipated minor with a new name, renting a room from an elderly woman, Tessa Quinn, who needed assistance due to ill health and not enough help from a system she'd supported her entire life. I kept house, cooked and worked part-time to help pay for her meds.
"She died a few months before I graduated high school. I used the money she left me in her will to get to Cambridge.
"And that, as they say, is that."
"Except it's not, is it?" Mathias asked. "What your father gave you. You used it, didn't you? Built on it and that's why someone blew up your house."
"I had a feeling there was more to you than just a pretty face and hot body, Mathias Gray Horse. You're right."
"Reese." Wiley's voice held a note of warning, but she waved it off.
"No. He deserves to know all of it."
"Which is?" Mathias asked.
"That I did use the knowledge gained from my father. But not in the way his country meant for it to be used. I saw another application. I told you that I watch bees, looking for patterns. Do you remember?"
"I do."
"I needed to be able to not just see, but understand bees, their actions and motivations and what drives them. There are patterns that display these things, and I can use them to program drones."
"Drones?"
"Yes, bee drones that to all appearance look exactly like real bees. If I can program them to mimic real bees, then we can have artificial pollinators to help fill the void created by our species of live pollinators being killed off and humanity will never lack food."
Mathias was shocked. "That's—brilliant. But can you really do that?"
"It's what we've been working toward. Why I'm here."
"Then why would someone blow up your house."
Reese shared a look with Wiley before responding. "Because there are people who'd like to get their hands on the technology for other means."
"Like?"
"They want to weaponize my work."
"They?" Mathias asked and looked at Wiley.
"Yeah, our military and others. She's made it clear she won't create the programming to drive the technology for killing, and our government has acquiesced. At least for now. Others have not."
Mathias nodded. "So, what now? With your house gone there's no data to take."
"I never kept anything tangible there."
He frowned in confusion, and she tapped her forehead. "It's all here."
"But no one knows that, right?"
"So far, no, but they'd have searched before they blew up the place and finding nothing will leave them with two options—try to figure out where I'm hiding my research, so they can take it or—"
This time it was Mathias who interrupted. "Or take you and force the information from you."
"Ding ding, we have a winner," Reese said without the least bit of humor. "So, you might want to rethink your involvement with me. Both of you."
She looked at Wiley. "You have a family to consider, so please don't argue. Separating yourself from me is the smart move. In fact, the smart move is for me to disappear."
"No." Mathias shocked himself and saw the surprise on both their faces.
"No," he said more softly. "I mean, you don't have to really go. You just have to make it seem like you've gone."
"Stay here. Continue your work."
"I can't do that."
"Why?"
"Because it puts you in the crosshairs."
"I'm volunteering, Reese."
"You can't do that, Mathias. I won't put you in harm's way."
With that, she got up and walked out of the back door. Mathias watched then looked at Wiley. "I'm guessing you have an opinion as well?"
"I do."
"Then let's hear it."
"You won't like it, and we'll have a hell of a time trying to convince her to do it."
"I don't really like any of this but tell me anyway."
Ten minutes later, Wiley left, and Mathias walked out of the back door. He spotted Reese standing at the edge of the lake. He'd do everything he could to convince her to go along with the plan, because it was, in his mind, the best chance they had to keep everyone safe.
And keeping them all safe had become his mission.
Chapter Eight
Reese didn't move or even look his way when Mathias walked up and stood beside her. "I guess you and Wiley have it all figured out."
"Maybe."
"What gives the two of you the right to decide for me?" She looked at him.
"We want you to be safe."
"Do you even know who I am?"
"Yes, and no. I know you're brilliant, driven and stubborn. I know you were a Ranger and worked for the government in more than an official capacity. I know you've lost more than most and I know you don't trust easily."
"And?"
"And I know you want me."
"That's just sex."
"No. As much as you'd like me to believe that right now, it's not and you do us both a disservice with that lie."
"Then what would you have me say, Matty?"
"The truth."
Reese looked out over the water, blew out a breath and spoke. "You've heard my truth, my story. I lost my mother before my Papa and I fled. I was made to watch as men came into our home and demanded that my father turn over his work. They ransacked our house, looking for anything that would tell them what he was working on. When they couldn't find it, they tied my mother to a chair and put a gun to her head.
