Soldier's Pregnancy Protocol

by Beth Cornelison

  His expression darkened again. “Where’s Alec? What’s happened?”

  “He let the men see him. He took them all on even though he was outnumbered.”

  Daniel’s brow puckered, and he shook his head in disbelief. “No, Alec would never—”

  She grabbed Daniel by the front of his shirt. “The senator’s guards overpowered him! They’re holding him hostage, and—” Erin’s voice cracked, and more tears spilled on her cheeks. “They’re g-going to kill him!”

  Daniel’s scowl deepened. “Why would Alec show himself and ruin the operation when he was outmanned?”

  Erin gave a hiccupping sob. “To save me. I made a noise, and they heard me. They’d started a search and…Alec surrendered himself. As a diversion, I’m sure. To stop the search. He offered himself up in my place.” She felt the tension that hummed through Daniel’s wiry, athletic body. She knew from the way he appraised her, then shifted his gaze to the warehouse, that Daniel’s mind was clicking, calculating even as she explained her culpability.

  Erin swiped away the tears that poured down her face. “I can’t let him die because of me, because of my mistake.” Clutching Daniel’s taut, muscled arms, she poured her heart and soul into her plea. “Help me save him, Daniel. Please!”

  Daniel’s chiseled face hardened again, and his gaze snapped with purpose. “Is the baby you’re carrying Alec’s?”

  Erin raised her chin, stunned by the question. Why did the paternity of her child matter now? “No.”

  Her answer seemed to surprise Daniel, but he nodded and gave the warehouse another careful scrutiny. “All right then,” he said, drawing her by the arm out of the alley and toward the street. “Let me take it from here. You’ve already done more tonight than any woman in your condition should.” He hailed a passing cab and pulled a wad of bills from his pocket. “Alec wanted you to be safe, so stay safe. Don’t make his sacrifice be for nothing. Understand?”

  Erin opened her mouth to argue, but Daniel grasped the center front of her throat and pinched. Hard.

  She gasped her shock and tried in vain to wrench free of his hold. But darkness closed in from the edges of her vision. Her head grew heavy. Then a black oblivion sank over her.

  * * *

  Alec fought the darkness that settled in his heart. He had to believe that Erin was safe or he’d go crazy. Right now, he had to give his full attention to the two powerful men waging a war of bravado under his nose. A war likely to land him in the crosshairs.

  “Enough waiting. We go,” Ramirez said, stalking toward the door.

  Senator White straightened uneasily and raised a hand. “Wait! LeCroix will be here. I’m sure of it.” White sent Alec a meaningful look. “Because we have something he wants.”

  Ramirez snarled reproachfully. “You have nothing. This one left LeCroix for dead in the jungle.”

  Acid and guilt gnawed Alec’s gut, and he raised a cool glare to Ramirez.

  The general snapped his fingers and crooked his head toward the door. His men readied to leave. “That is how these men work.” He raised his index finger and waved it. “Only numero uno. LeCroix will not come for Kincaid.”

  “Not even for revenge?” White taunted. “LeCroix’s the one who told me how to find Kincaid. He brought Kincaid out of hiding and delivered him here tonight.”

  A thread of doubt wound through Alec and pulled, cutting deep. Could it be true? He’d known someone inside the agency had compromised his location in order for White’s men to have sent the pickup chopper and set their trap. But Daniel?

  No. He refused to believe it. Daniel would never sell out.

  Ramirez strode back to Senator White. “Perhaps you were the one who was duped. I wanted LeCroix. You failed to deliver. Our deal is off. Your daughter will die.” Ramirez spun on his heel and stalked toward the exit. He gave a nod toward Alec and barked to his men, “Kill him.”

  Alec’s gut pitched. Where was Daniel? More important, was Erin safe?

  “Wait!” White shouted to Ramirez’s retreating back.

  One of the rebel soldiers aimed his Uzi at Alec.

  A loud pop ricocheted in the warehouse. When the soldier with the Uzi fell, confusion erupted among the ranks. The tension in the warehouse ignited.

  White reached inside his suit coat, drew a pistol and leveled it at Ramirez. Immediately, the general’s men fired. White’s guards returned fire.

  Chaos reigned. Curses shouted. More shots.

  Hands still bound, Alec tucked his head, rolled behind the aluminum desk near the door. He lifted his gaze to the rafters, searching. And found the man he expected.

  Daniel.

  Knife drawn, his partner slid down from the catwalk using the same rope Alec had used earlier. In two steps, Daniel reached Alec, then grinned at his friend. “Perfect timing as usual, Lafitte.”

  Daniel sliced the tape at Alec’s wrists. “I met your lady friend outside.”

  “Erin? Is she all right?”

  One of Ramirez’s soldiers grabbed Daniel from behind.

  Daniel ducked his head. Alec smashed his fist in the soldier’s nose, and the soldier slumped to the floor.

  Daniel snatched out a pair of handcuffs. “She’s safe.”

  “It’s LeCroix! Stop him!” White shouted.

  Alec exchanged a look with Daniel that said all he needed to know. He had his partner back, and it was time to get to work.

  Taking the Uzi from the fallen soldier, Alec crouched low and headed for the warehouse door. No one was leaving the scene on his watch. As Daniel dispatched one of Ramirez’s men, Alec took out the thug firing from the hull of one of the suspended boats. The exchange of gunfire continued in a confusing barrage. He wanted the senator and Ramirez alive, to stand trial for their crimes. He swept a shrewd gaze around the warehouse and spotted Senator White skulking behind a stack of crates to avoid the volley of bullets. Across the room, Ramirez stepped out from behind a concrete pillar and leveled a pistol.

  Daniel appeared behind the general like an apparition. With a tug on Ramirez’s arms, Daniel handcuffed the general to the same concrete post the man had used for cover.

  For a split second, Daniel’s eyes met Alec’s.

  The general was captured. Alive. Mission accomplished.

  Then Daniel’s arm shot up. Lafitte pointed his gun.

  Toward Alec.

  * * *

  A pounding throb in her head pulled Erin out of the black fog around her. Blinking, she took in her surroundings. A vehicle of some sort. It was moving.

  A taxi.

  She struggled to sit up, rubbing a sore spot at the front of her throat. And remembered.

  Daniel had used some strange pinch hold to knock her out. She straightened in the seat with a gasp. Alec!

  Erin rapped on the partition between the back and front seats. “Stop! Stop the car!”

  The driver shook his head. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Your friend paid me a lot of money and told me to deliver you to a hotel where you would be safe. He took down my driver’s number and swore to come after me if I didn’t do as he said.”

  Her friend? That remained to be seen. Could she trust Daniel?

  Her driver made the sign of the cross and shook his head. “I don’t want that man with devil’s eyes to come after me!”

  She banged the partition again. “Please, stop! I have to get help for Alec!”

  “Non, ma’am. I cannot.”

  Erin pressed her palms to her pounding temples and tried to think calmly. What would Alec do? Her heartbeat stuttered when she considered her best option—bailing from the moving cab. As it had in the warehouse, when she’d first considered her daring escape, a niggling fear wound through her. But her love for Alec, her fear for his life, silenced the doubts and bolstered her courage. The only thing she wouldn’t risk for Alec was her baby’s life. Anything else was fair game. Alec was her heart, her soul mate. She knew that now with certainty.

  Glancing out to the dark city streets, she watched
the historic buildings of New Orleans flash by her window. As they approached town, the cab slowed to make a turn, and Erin recognized the opportunity. Prepared.

  The next time the taxi slowed for traffic, Erin popped the door handle and leaned into the door.

  “Ma’am!” the driver shouted as she jumped out of the cab and stumbled to the curb.

  Without a backward glance, Erin ran. She searched the storefronts as she hurried past, searching for a business that was open. She needed a phone. Fast.

  Finally, at a twenty-four-hour laundromat, she found one of the last of a dying breed of pay phones and snatched up the receiver. Her first call was a brief one to 911. After reporting the crimes at the warehouse and making sure the police and an ambulance were dispatched, she hung up.

  She had another call to place. With shaking hands, she paged through the tattered phonebook hanging by a chain below the pay phone and found the number she needed. The office of Senator White.

  As expected, she reached an answering service.

  “I need to speak to someone on the senator’s staff immediately. It’s an emergency!”

  “Emergencies should be referred to the police, ma’am,” the operator said.

  “I’ve called the police. But Senator White is at risk, and I must get a message to him. Now!”

  After a brief pause, the operator asked her to hold.

  “This is Ralph Godwin, Senator White’s chief of staff. May I help you?”

  “Yes. You can give the senator a message.” Erin pressed a hand to her stomach and fought the wave of nausea swirling there. She had only to think of Alec, the man she loved and a hostage of the traitorous senator, to firm her resolve. “Tell Senator White that I know about his deal with Ramirez, how he jeopardized two undercover American agents and betrayed his country.”

  “What are you talking about?” the man on the line asked.

  Erin felt sure the senator’s chief of staff knew exactly what she meant. “Tell the senator that if Alec Kincaid is harmed in any way, I will go to the press, to the FBI, and shout his crimes to anyone who will listen.”

  With her emotions running high, adrenaline pumping through her veins, Erin was confident she could follow through on every one of her threats if anything happened to Alec.

  “Who is this?” the chief of staff barked.

  “Tell the senator I have proof of what he’s done, and that if he wants to find his daughter, Alec Kincaid had better be released immediately.”

  She slammed down the receiver before the stammering man on the other end could reply. Erin shook, inside and out. She’d laid the groundwork. Now she could only pray her plan worked.

  * * *

  Alec stared down Daniel’s muzzle for a splintered second. Then he dove, twisting as he rolled, and aimed the Uzi at the man Daniel had spotted behind him.

  “Freeze, Senator!” Daniel barked.

  White paused, turned. The man raised his hands and faced Daniel with a defiant glower.

  Lafitte’s returned glare was lethal, determined. Alec lowered his weapon. Daniel had earned this one.

  “You’re a traitor to our country,” Daniel grated. “A disgrace to your office.”

  White stiffened and narrowed his eyes. “So shoot me. What are you waiting for?”

  Alec furrowed his brow, curiosity plucking at him as he watched the emotional battle that played across his partner’s face.

  White backed toward the door, and Alec tensed, waiting for Daniel to take his shot. Around the warehouse, silence testified to the extent of Ramirez’s and White’s fallen or unconscious guards.

  White took another step toward the door.

  Sweat beaded on Daniel’s brow. His hand flexed and tightened on his weapon.

  “Lafitte?” Alec shifted, uneasy with what he witnessed.

  White gave an oily smile and turned the knob on the warehouse door. “You’re the best black ops soldier our country has?” the man scoffed. “Killing you would have been a favor to the nation.”

  When White opened the door, letting the damp cold of the night inside, Daniel fired. White crumpled, clutching his leg, howling in agony.

  A muscle in Daniel’s jaw jumped. “I’ll let the police and the press handle you. Your days as a free man, much less a senator, are numbered.”

  Alec released the breath he held and turned with a grin to Daniel. “Well, partner, looks like we—”

  Daniel lobbed a right hook and caught Alec in the chin. Alec stumbled back and fell on his butt. Rubbing his offended jaw, he raised a stunned look to his best friend. “What the hell’s that for?”

  Daniel aimed an accusing finger at him. “You almost cost me nine months of deep-cover and ass-breaking work!” He stepped closer and towered over him, his dark eyes blazing. “What possessed you to come looking for me? Every man for himself. Remember? What happened to your training?” Daniel’s tone scathed and abraded Alec.

  Sucking in a slow, deep breath, Alec searched his soul for a way to answer his partner. He’d asked himself the same question so many times in the past days with Erin. People were the priority, even at the cost of a mission.

  Perhaps he’d realized as much months ago when he’d started his search for his partner, even if he hadn’t been able to call his understanding by name.

  He met Daniel’s accusing glare evenly. “You’re my partner…and my best friend. My only friend. How could I not try to find you?”

  His answer clearly startled Daniel. Alec grinned, knowing how Daniel felt. Some of the things he’d learned about himself were shocking to Alec, as well. “Besides, I knew you’d do the same for me.”

  Daniel blinked, arched an eyebrow and gave him an arrogant look. “Oh? Think so?”

  “I know so.”

  The whoop of sirens and strobe of police lights filtered in from outside. The cavalry had arrived.

  The corner of Daniel’s mouth curled up, and he offered Alec his hand. “Still a cocky, overconfident son of a gun, I see.”

  Alec took Daniel’s hand and let his partner help him from the floor. Once on his feet, Alec tugged Daniel’s arm, pulling him into a bear hug. “Yep. Some things never change.”

  * * *

  Erin was a mess. Her emotions, spiked by pregnancy and adrenaline, were all over the map. Her clothes were dirty and tattered. She’d cried so hard in the past hour, her eyes had puffed until she could barely see.

  But nothing would stop her from getting back to the warehouse, getting back to Alec and finding a way to help him. She jogged down the dark streets of New Orleans, praying another cab would come by, but not waiting. She’d run the whole way if she had to.

  Alec. Please, Alec, be all right!

  Had Daniel been in time? Could he be trusted? It would kill Alec if Daniel had betrayed him. Like his mother had.

  Pain slashed a deep swath in her soul. More than anything, she wanted to give Alec the acceptance and loyalty he’d been denied all his life. The love he’d denied himself.

  If he’d only give her the chance.

  Her body ached from her descent from the warehouse and her lungs hurt from exertion, but she put one foot in front of the other, over and again, until she merely stumbled along the narrow city streets. Finally, by heading toward the river, she found Tchoupitoulas again.

  As she staggered around the corner and glanced up and down the deserted street, wondering which way to turn, an ambulance screeched by, sirens wailing. It turned a couple blocks down, where the strobe of flashing lights lit the night.

  Heart in her throat, Erin staggered to a run. She covered the short distance to the warehouse quickly and rounded the building to the back where the emergency vehicles were parked.

  She arrived in time to see a body bag loaded in the back of the coroner’s van. Bile rushed up her throat, and she gagged. Spun away. Threw up.

  Not Alec! God, please!

  The ground beneath her wavered, and she clawed her way back into control. Hold it together, Erin.

  “Ma’
am? Are you all right?” She felt a hand on her arm. “You shouldn’t be here. This is a crime scene and—”

  “Where’s Alec?” she rasped, cutting off the policeman at her side. “Is Alec all right?”

  “Who?”

  Before she could explain, the warehouse door opened with a loud squeak. Men’s voices filtered through the night, and Erin turned, searching for…

  “Alec!” she cried when his tall, dark form separated from the others.

  His head came up, his gaze finding her. She saw Alec mouth her name, his shoulders rise and fall on a deep sigh.

  Her own body trembled with relief, and her weary muscles gave out. She sagged against the policeman, and he caught her elbow before she toppled.

  She blinked away the sting of happy tears and only then realized Alec’s hands were cuffed behind him. A policeman shoved him toward a waiting patrol car.

  “No!” Reenergized by the fear that swamped her, Erin surged forward, breaking free from the policeman’s grip and running toward Alec. “Stop! You can’t arrest him! He did nothing wrong!”

  The cop who’d helped her caught her arm again and brought her up short. “Stay back, ma’am.”

  “No!” She struggled against his hold, gaining a few inches, but still a car’s length separated her from Alec.

  “Erin, don’t,” Alec called, and she froze. “It’s all right. I’ll talk to the authorities and straighten things out. They’re just doing their job.”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat, nodded. Alec would straighten everything out. She flashed him a brave smile. “I’ll get the rental car and meet you at the police station.”

  “No.”

  Her smile faltered. No?

  The cop behind Alec tugged his arm, nudging him toward the patrol car. When Alec said something over his shoulder, the cop paused, gave a jerky nod.

  Erin waited, her breath suspended in her lungs. “Alec?”

  He lifted his gaze to her, his eyes flat and barren of the emotion she’d seen the past several days. Her heartbeat stumbled, and a cold ball of fear knotted her gut.