Unguarded Love

by KaLyn Cooper

  Because they had practiced so much in Quantico, she knew exactly where the infirmary was located.

  What she found upon arrival was the last thing she ever expected to encounter in an embassy under siege.

  Lady Harrier estimated the young woman’s age to be mid-twenties. Her red face and exhausted eyes told the first half of the story. Her feet propped in stirrups spread wide, explained Lady Hawk’s comment.

  The woman was having a baby.

  Baby. Baby. The word echoed in her mind as the edges of her vision darkened and closed in. Nita couldn’t breathe.

  She stared at the white sheet draped over long suspended legs and knew what was underneath.

  Lady Harrier started to turn around to leave. She had to get the fuck out of there. Right. Now.

  She didn’t do babies.

  Not since medical school rotations. Not since her lifelong plans to become a military physician were shattered in one shallow breath followed by a long exhale.

  “Good, Lady Harrier is here. She’ll take good care of you and your baby.” Lady Eagle’s statement froze Nita in place.

  She gasped in air. Not enough to clear her tunnel vision, but enough to circulate oxygen around her body and keep her on her feet.

  Her stomach clenched in fear, an emotion she hadn’t felt in years. She’d been in firefights plenty of times and had never been this afraid. She’d been stripped naked and beaten during a mission in Iraq and hadn’t been this scared.

  She looked at her shaking hands and wondered if her feet would move so she could run away.

  Get your shit together, Nita. Her mental chastisement helped…a little.

  She had a moral and legal obligation to take care of this woman…and the child inside her.

  She had the training and had actually delivered over one hundred babies while still in med school. But the unborn child inside the woman on the hospital bed frightened her to the point she could not move.

  Whump. Whump. Whump. The landing of the next helicopter shook the building. Lady Harrier hoped her teammates had gotten the young sergeant to the roof for evacuation.

  With that momentary distraction, she sucked in a much-needed breath.

  Lady Eagle stared at her. With her fingers hidden from the couple in the room, she used American Sign Language to ask if Lady Harrier was okay. Was she hurt?

  No. Not hurt. Just immobile.

  Physiologically, Lady Harrier could move. Psychologically, she couldn’t force her brain to make her feet step in front of the other.

  The woman on the bed moaned and rubbed her large abdomen. She pinched her face as she attempted breathing techniques taught during childbirth classes.

  “Oh, thank God you’re here, doctor.” The man wasn’t much taller than Nita, maybe five feet ten inches, but his grip was strong as he shook her hand. “I’m Ken Walker, the charge d’affaires, and this is my wife Diana. She’s the protocol officer here.” He gave Nita a half smile. “At least we were.”

  He pulled, and Lady Harrier had no excuse but to follow him back to the side of the bed.

  “She’s pregnant,” he added as though it wasn’t obvious.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Lady Harrier sniped before she could hold her tongue in check. Hoping they both let it slip, she asked the next routine question. “How far along is she?”

  “Thirty-eight weeks and two days,” Diana quickly answered.

  Whew. Nearly to term. The last thing Lady Harrier wanted was to deliver a premature baby.

  She placed her hand on top of Diana’s distended belly. Gently feeling for the position of the baby, which seemed to be head down and in position. God was looking favorably on her today. She wasn’t sure if she could perform a cesarean section with the limited surgical implements she carried in her medical kit. “Has her water broken?”

  “No, not like they showed us in the movie in the birthing class.” Ken took his wife’s hand and kissed the back of her knuckles. “You’re doing great, sweetheart.”

  Lady Eagle interrupted, “It looks like you’ve got this. I’m going to clear this floor.” She disappeared down the hall.

  Got this? Not really. Lady Harrier hadn’t had anything to do with a baby in years. That was by her choice. She wasn’t at all comfortable with babies. She’d rather face an armed terrorist than a tiny newborn human.

  Lady Harrier moved along with the expected questions. “How often are the contractions?”

  “They kind of come and go.” Diana spoke calmly and looked at her husband for confirmation.

  Well, at least the woman isn’t hysterical and screaming. Lady Harrier knew just how tough women were. She’d treated enough emergency cases of gunshots, knife wounds, broken bones, and damaged soft tissue from beatings that she was well aware of the pain levels that women could endure, practically without complaint. The woman in front of her wasn’t in any real pain.

  “They were coming about every fifteen minutes,” Ken noted, “but then they just stopped.”

  Thank fuck! Maybe I won’t have to do anything after all. Knowing what came next, Lady Harrier warned Diana, “I need to check you and see how far you’re dilated.” Quickly snapping on gloves, she moved down to the end of the table and sat on the rolling stool. “You’ll feel a little pressure as I insert my fingers into your vagina canal.” She was only dilated two centimeters and the cervical plug was still in place. With one hand on top of the bulge, she pressed gently on the baby to see if perhaps Diana was further along the process. Almost no movement in the cervix.

  Lady Harrier let out a long, slow breath. She closed her eyes. Thank you God and baby Jesus.

  Gunfire coming from the floor beneath them brought her out of her prayer. Through her earpiece she heard a report that the embassy Marines were clearing floor by floor, double-checking to be sure no one had been left behind.

  She stood and stripped the gloves off her hands. Removing her communication unit from her ear, she replaced it with the stethoscope. She smiled at the nervous couple, then announced, “I’m pretty sure you’re not in labor. I’m going to listen to your baby’s heartbeat just to be sure it’s not under stress.”

  She blocked out everything except for the rapid thumping in her ears, glanced at the large watch on her wrist, and began counting heartbeats. She wondered if they knew they were having a boy. She yelped in surprise when the unborn infant kicked at her hand.

  She lifted the stethoscope and shoved it back in her pack. Catching herself before she used the pronoun he, she announced, “Your baby has a healthy heart beat and isn’t ready to come out quite yet.”

  “What about the contractions?” Concern was evident in the father’s voice.

  Lady Harrier screwed the tiny comm unit back into her ear. “You need to get dressed immediately. We have to get you out of here.”

  If they could get her on the transport sitting on the roof, she could make it to civilization before having her baby.

  “Operations control, this is Lady Harrier. I have two and a half that need to be on the next flight out before this baby decides it wants to be born in Africa.”

  Chapter 2

  Daniel Callahan emerged onto the crescent beach then looked over his shoulder for the umpteenth time since leaving the tent encampment in Nicaragua. He’d crossed into Costa Rica a few miles back and instantly felt safer, even though few people paid attention to the lines drawn on paper maps.

  As he stepped onto the familiar white sand, calm washed over his body. He was home. Well, almost. The sand he walked upon was owned by his sister, Katlin, and their uncle Monsignor Francis Gilpatrick. Daniel, and their only other living relative, Uncle Tom, owned the property on the opposite side of the Callahan compound including the upscale resort hotel. But that was not his destination tonight.

  No, he and Uncle Tom would meet in the family owned, very private house that was once a small hotel, similar to an American-style bed-and-breakfast. Tonight’s meeting would not be a family reunion. He’d been summoned for a serious
discussion.

  His beloved uncle Tom Gilpatrick was also the deputy director of the CIA, Daniel’s boss, and his surrogate father since he turned twelve. His own father had been too busy gallivanting the world from embassy to embassy, climbing the military ladder all the way to the rank of Marine Corps Major General, to worry about the son he’d left behind in the United States. But his parents had taken Daniel’s precious little sister, Katlin, with them each and every move. Meanwhile, he had been left in the care of his paternal grandparents and the staff of the military school.

  Daniel didn’t have time to think about that pain in his heart. It was buried six feet deep, along with his father. Fortunately, being undercover in Nicaragua had been the perfect excuse why he hadn’t attended his father’s funeral four years ago.

  But the man who had filled that gap in his life was waiting for him up ahead. Daniel ducked under a long palm tree that extended nearly to the lapping Caribbean Sea. Using the tree as cover, he stood watching the moonlit beach for any motion, searching for any shadow that didn’t belong. The hairs on the back of his neck had tingled since he’d left his so-called cohorts stumbling drunk and chasing the many available women in camp.

  * * *

  Leaving that night had been nearly impossible. His instructions had been to tell no one of this clandestine meeting, not even his best friend, Santiago. He hoped Uncle Tom had given Rosita the night off so she wouldn’t ask about her son.

  Daniel slid soundlessly through a side door and was met by a gun to the head followed by a sigh of relief.

  “Next time, text me and let me know it’s you.” The man in his mid-fifties took a deep breath and holstered his gun.

  “I love you, too, Uncle Tom.” Daniel took his hand off the gun strapped to his thigh. “Now, why the fuck am I here?” He flicked off the light and peered through one of the side windows, tracing his path back to the tree.

  “Were you followed?” Concern wove through the older man’s words.

  “I don’t think so.” Daniel continued staring at the tree line. “I just have a gut feeling that the back of my head is in somebody’s crosshairs.”

  “Most likely it’s those fucking monkeys again.” Tom walked toward the wet bar in one corner of the large living room. He poured two fingers of eighteen-year-old scotch into heavily leaded crystal glasses. Picking up one, he headed toward the living room. They had done this often enough that Daniel knew the other glass was for him.

  Tonight, he needed it.

  By the time Daniel stepped into the seating area, his uncle had already made himself comfortable in an overstuffed chair. “What’s so fucking important that you called me here with zero notice?”

  As Daniel settled into the couch, he realized it was the same seat he had taken the night he had spent with Nita. Memories washed over him like sinking into a bubbling spa tub. Heat rushed through his body from his toes to his shoulders, light touches bringing every nerve ending in his skin to life. Seldom had he ever spent the night with a woman with all his clothes on. Yet, he had so enjoyed her intelligent conversation, snarky banter, and wit.

  “I’m sure you’re aware that the political structure in Washington has changed, again.” Uncle Tom’s words brought Daniel out of the recollections of one of the best nights he’d had in years.

  Daniel didn’t miss a beat. “I might live in a Third World shit hole, but everyone pays attention to the United States.”

  “What you might not know is that along with that political change, there’s been a dramatic swing in opinions toward the Nicaraguan government.”

  As his favorite uncle sipped the dark brown alcohol, Daniel noticed the pronounced worry lines across his forehead. The overhead recessed lighting seemed to reflect off more gray hair. Tom was two years younger than Daniel’s mother would have been had she not been killed in a car accident nearly six years earlier. He wondered if her naturally blond hair would have grayed, or simply turned a beautiful platinum. Katlin looked so much like her. She even had their mother’s outgoing personality, but his little sister had developed the same drive to succeed as their father.

  Daniel shook his head as though to clear it. This was a business meeting. He shouldn’t be thinking about family. Perhaps it was just being inside the house he and his sister owned—the place they had inherited from their parents—that brought back the longing for family. Every holiday, and several weeks during the summer, he would join Katlin and their parents in this house. They would be a complete family, for a while. All too soon he’d have to return to the United States, back into the guardianship of his grandparents and the strict rules of the military school he hated. Daniel would never put his children through that kind of life. No matter what, he would take his children with him. Although, right now, that was a moot point.

  “Son, are you all right?” Uncle Tom leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and a nearly empty glass in his clasped hands.

  No. He wasn’t all right…and probably never would be. “Just a little tired.” It was the truth. “I’m sorry, sir, you were telling me about the change that came with the last election.”

  “The new president of the United States doesn’t really care for his Nicaraguan counterpart.” Tom stared at the empty glass before getting up to refill it. “It seems the two men had a business run-in long before our new president had political aspirations. The Nicaraguan president didn’t like the idea of an American businessman mining gold, silver, and copper from his mountains.” Uncle Tom grinned. “But he didn’t mind taking all those American dollars to allow the geologic surveys.”

  “No, I wasn’t aware there was any connection between the two presidents, but it doesn’t surprise me. The Nicaraguan president isn’t known for playing nice.” Daniel thought for a moment then asked the million-dollar question. “So, what are you saying? Is the United States going to back a coup?”

  “There is a reason that you have been deep undercover for so many years.” Tom finished pouring another glass of scotch and returned the bottle to the well-stocked bar. “Let’s just say your boss, Cristobal Maximo, is about to become a very rich man, not to mention popular. We will be increasing our arms shipments through you, and thus him.”

  The look his uncle gave Daniel was all too familiar. There was more. And it wasn’t good.

  “General DeLeon Cortez is going to want to meet with your boss. Make sure that happens.” That was a direct order and both men knew it.

  “Is Cortez going to be willing to make a deal that Cris is going to want?” Daniel sure as hell hoped so.

  “Ever since our election, we’ve had some of our best special operators training General Cortez’s men in Honduras.” His uncle never raised his eyes from the ice tinkling in his glass.

  Why the fuck hadn’t Daniel been told about this?

  Before he could ask the question, Uncle Tom admitted, “It was need to know only and USSOCOM is only a half-step away from paranoia these days. General Lyon knows he has a mole.”

  Daniel connected the dots within minutes. “Is Katlin and her team in Honduras now?” Women had often played important roles in military coups around the world.

  Tom’s gaze met his, but the man said nothing. His silence was confirmation. The idea that his sister and her team, which included Nita, were only a few hundred miles away, excited Daniel. He might get the opportunity to spend more time with the brilliant woman with soft brown curls that framed her girl-next-door face.

  He really had to focus on the problem at hand.

  “So, the United States is going to kick out a standing president because of a business deal gone bad, five or ten years ago?” Daniel tried to wrap his head around the political reasons, not that it was really important. Like any other good government employee, he did what he was told and kept his mouth shut.

  “Fuck, no,” Tom shot back. “But it’s the reason the liberal press is going to splash all over social media. In truth, we’re trying to beat the Chinese to controlling the Nicaraguan Canal.”


  That piqued Daniel’s interest because Cris’s encampment was in the direct path of the canal that would connect the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. It was common knowledge that with the increased size of modern ships, the Panama Canal was too narrow for their passage. Then there was the fact that the country of Panama was not on the best of terms with the United States of America since the U.S.A. gave them back control of the aging monstrosity.

  “What happened to the Chinese billionaire who was funding the construction?” The last Daniel had heard, much of the pre-work had already been completed, and the next phase was to begin almost immediately.

  “I doubt you follow international finance as closely as Katlin, but in the past two years the Chinese economy has tanked, so those billions have shrunk considerably.” The corners of his mouth twitched up. “On the other hand, since the election the U.S. economy has taken bold steps forward. Our current politicians are more than willing to help Nicaragua connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, especially if we can have some control over who goes through that man-made channel.”

  Now it all started to make sense. When Cris had returned from earning a master’s degree in oceanography in the United States, he had been very vocal about the Chinese plan. A price had been put on his head, so he’d gone into hiding in the mountains along with hundreds of other highly educated men who disagreed with the current government’s policies. To protect themselves, and everyone else in hiding, Cris had learned military skills. That was one of the reasons Daniel was so readily accepted into the group. They could tell he was intelligent and offered the others training in survival skills. Cris was an avid reader and had immersed himself in books about military tactics. The man was a natural leader. In the four years Daniel had known him, Cris had practically transformed from a student activist to a calculating military tactician.

  Tom threw back the last of the scotch. “I’m exhausted, and I know you must be too.” He stood and set the empty glass on the coffee table. “I’d like you to spend the night here rather than over at the hotel. I have several more things I need to go over with you in the morning, but I need to catch a few hours of shut-eye first.”