by Jade Powers
When passion drove him to the highest reaches of love, Drake cried out in harmony with Hannah.
For the first time in ages, Drake awoke to the sun streaming through the curtains. Hannah’s eyes were open and watching him. She blushed and smiled at being caught, “Would you like breakfast?” Drake asked. He leaned over and kissed Hannah before rolling off the bed with a spring in his step.
“Sure,” Hannah said, watching while he strode around the room nude. Watching him, Hannah felt none of the awkwardness she might feel around a man. He was perfect.
She settled back down onto the bed and listened to the sound of Drake cracking eggs into the frying pan.
Chapter 13
TWO WEEKS LATER, AND Drake realized how deeply he enjoyed spending time with Hannah. He had just spent the morning with her while she went through treatment. When she went home for a nap, Drake dragged himself to the remote office he had set up.
Drake studied the reports from the Miami and Nevada offices. With the recent attack in Spokane, the corporation would post a loss this quarter. He suspected McFarland had made the move to steal his research without paying. He had ended that contract. McFarland could make someone else’s life difficult.
The answer to everything was simple and impossible. He needed to sell the company and get out, find a nice quiet place and a life with Hannah on a ranch somewhere. Maybe he and Sven could start up a business together in Montana.
A knock on the door broke Drake from his reverie. He didn’t often indulge in day dreams.
“Come in.”
Drake paused when the slight woman with her hair tied back pushed into his office. He had just seen Doctor Prudacheck thirty minutes ago during Hannah’s treatment. She asked, “Do you have a minute?”
There are times when you can see the truth coming. Sometimes it’s in the slight downturning of the lips or perhaps the slight wrinkle between the brow. Just that hint of something wrong. The warning hit Drake hard. For a moment he was afraid to answer the question.
With a wave of the hand, he nodded to the doctor, not trusting his voice.
“I haven’t told Hannah yet. She has such confidence in this treatment. I don’t want her to lose hope prematurely,” Marie started.
“What is it? Is the cancer coming back?” Drake asked.
“That is what the tests indicate,” Marie said. She leaned back against the desk, her stance defensive.
“Tell me what it is you don’t want to say,” Drake persisted. His well-honed sense of reading posture told him there was more. No matter how many times he’d told himself to be ready, he wasn’t prepared when Marie told him exactly what was happening.
“This form of cancer is aggressive. Her treatment in Colorado worked. I thought I knew what they were doing, but something is missing. I’m sorry, Drake. She was getting better, and now she’s getting worse. Hannah is at risk. The baby is at risk.”
“What if I can get her medical records from Colorado?” Drake asked. It was a long shot, but damn it, he had just opened his heart again. He wasn’t about to lose Hannah to an illness that she had beat.
“It depends on what is in them. It may be her body is losing the fight. If we could exactly mimic the treatments they were giving her, we might get her back to another reversal. Drake, what those Colorado docs did put her cancer in more than remission. She was beating it down. Now, she’s not.”
“Do me a favor? Don’t tell Hannah until the end of next week. I’m going to get those medical records for her, one way or another” Drake’s fierce scowl masked a deeper wound, a bottomless fear. He was full of bluster, but there was an iron resolve beneath the promise.
When he returned to the house, Hannah was napping. That should have been his first hint that something was wrong. In the past few days she had spent an increasing amount of time taking naps, but no matter how long she slept, they didn’t seem to refresh her. She was increasingly more tired.
Drake watched her for a moment. Her eyes were closed, and in repose, her face carried the utter peace of innocence. He wanted her to feel safe. He had to give that to her.
Leaning on the door jam, Drake watched. As if sensing him, Hannah opened her eyes. She grinned when she saw him. Drake joined her on the bed. “I’m sorry to wake you. I need to go. I’ll be gone a week at most.”
Hannah played with the bedspread, her fingers fidgeting with the tassels on the comforter. Her voice was barely above a whisper when she said, “Drake, I don’t want you to go.”
It was a hard conversation. He couldn’t say it was for her. He didn’t want to tell her why and set her back. He would have to settle on a half-truth. Drake said, “It’s only a week. I’m not looking forward to going. There was a time when I was unstoppable, but now I just want to stay here with you.”
Hannah smiled, but there was a nostalgic sadness to it, as if she knew something wasn’t quite right.
That smile sent a message to Drake, as clear as a water droplet. He asked, “Are you okay?”
“Drake, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I feel it coming back. The same symptoms are returning, and I don’t know how long I’ll last.” Hannah lifted her eyes, her steady gaze meeting his. He could see that she was steeling herself to be strong...for him.
He took her hand, feeling shattered in ways that he couldn’t even begin to describe. He would just have to bury the broken pieces deep in his heart until he could make some use of them. She was strong and vulnerable, sitting there with her honey hair resting on her shoulders.
The truth struck him. Drake said, “Hannah, I love you. I know this is a terrible time to tell you and I’m sorry it couldn’t come with roses and champagne and the whole works. I know you haven’t been feeling well the past few days. Dr. Prudacheck said you had been beating it in Colorado, but it’s starting to come back. I’m leaving to get your medical records from Colorado, and free the prisoners still kept there.”
Hannah took his hand, “I love you, too. Drake, I don’t know if the docs in Colorado were even treating me. I think you’re doing the right thing. I just don’t want you to think there is a miracle cure out there. If I give you a healthy child, I’m okay with what happens next, even if you don’t find anything that will help.” Hannah’s sad smile was more than Drake could bear. He stood and paced the room, wanting to punch something, wanting all of this grief to mean something, to coalesce into a miracle.
“Don’t give up. Please. Please,” Drake stormed around the room while he begged, and it made him seem that much more helpless.
Drake was a strong man, broad shoulders, muscled arms, a fighter. He had to know that physical strength didn’t always win out. Sometimes the body betrayed a soul. Hannah knew this better than anyone. It felt like utter betrayal when pains flared from her gut, when doctors saw things inside her that didn’t belong.
To think that her body manufactured its own demise just pissed her off. That felt so wrong and made Hannah as angry as sad. But no amount of fighting would beat something that sprang from her. It was like catching a cold. She didn’t know how to will this away any more than she did when she had the flu. But she wanted to.
Here was Drake, begging her to be okay. Pushing up from the bed, she stopped Drake in his tracks, wrapping her arms around him. His whole body was tense. Hannah said, “I’ll fight for us, for you, for the baby, for me.”
Her hug broke the barriers, her words settled his aching heart, and he buried his face in her hair. He wasn’t a man prone to tears, nor prone to despair. He smelled the shampoo in her hair and felt her arms around him, and his natural optimism regained its buoyancy. He said, “You’ll beat this. I’m going to figure out how they were treating you. If all goes well, I’ll only be gone a few days.”
“The place holding me was secure. Won’t they want to keep their secrets?” Hannah rested her head against his chest,
“We are planning a hostile takeover. This particular group is working above the law.”
“How is this escaping the
press?”
“We’re kind of like kids playing in the school yard after the teachers have gone home. No one’s really paying attention to us yet. Whether that continues depends on how much of a stink I raise. We covered up Spokane. If I attack, whoever runs Colorado will try to destroy everyone connected to my corporation. I have to be prepared for the worst.” Drake pulled a suitcase out of the closet and opened it in front of his dresser.
“How can one guy be so powerful?” Hannah asked.
Drake paced like a caged tiger, grabbing shirts and underwear. Even with his restless energy, he packed with the exacting organization that reflected his past in the military. He said, “It’s more like a network of powerful people than a single individual.”
“You have to stand up to them.” Having suffered personally at the hands of the shadow corporation, Hannah’s opinion was forceful.
“When I’m done with these people they will wish they’d never been born.” Drake’s threat was more than a string of idle words. Even though Hannah’s life had always been lived outside the circles of power, she knew certainty when she heard it. Sure, the University of Miami was filled with the kids of some of the upper crust members of society, but Hannah didn’t meet people like Drake Ward. He was powerful.
Hannah stepped into the kitchen and turned on the stove, intent on cooking a great breakfast for Drake’s send-off. Drake spent the morning getting in her way, once hugging her from behind while he stole a piece of bacon from the plate where it was draining. He had plowed full bore into danger before, but this time it felt real. For once, he had something to lose.
Drake tried to make breakfast as normal as possible. He avoided talk of where he was going and what might happen. Instead, he asked about Hannah’s classes and whether she would want to pick them up again after the baby was born.
To Hannah, the questions were optimistic. She swore she could feel the cancer crawling through her innards. Maybe active imagination, maybe the baby’s kicks and squirms, but something felt different. She answered optimistically, telling Drake that once she could afford it, she would take classes again.
And then he was gone. Hannah hugged him tightly before he boarded the private plane. She held her sorrow in and remained strong until Drake was in the air. Then Hannah cried. For so long she had been strong about the cancer and the baby, but watching that plane take off into the sky and knowing that the man she loved was heading toward danger broke her heart in a way that the cancer couldn’t.
She’d cried for herself a long time ago. Now she was crying for him, because she wasn’t even sure she would survive long enough to see him again. Life came with a variety of surprises.
Drake’s hired four dozen men from the Redrock Corporation in addition to the men he bankrolled. Drake withdrew his entire employ from the Nevada site. The convoy had been slowly working its way to Colorado. Drake met up with the convoy in Denver. Three of his company’s helicopters flew overhead.
The papers he held in his briefcase might prevent a hundred deaths in the next hour, but Drake was prepared for a cluster. He sat in the passenger seat of a black sports car. A mile behind, his small army followed. Drake hoped to smooth the way. A hostile takeover didn’t have to mean bloodshed.
The convoy drove north of Denver into the wilderness. They pulled into the gate. A bored looking soldier stood in the guard shack. He looked like a million other men guarding gates or collecting tolls across the country. Each vehicle would pass identification to the soldier. Drake was in the car that led the team. He leaned down and spoke to the guard from the passenger seat. He asked, “Is Colonel Evans on base?”
“You’ll have to ask his office, sir.”
Drake wasn’t about to be pawned off by a private. He said, “Ring the Colonel and inform him that I am here with fifty soldiers to renovate his lab. He should be expecting me.”
That last bit a lie. Drake hoped to hell Evans wasn’t expecting him. It would make the whole mission a thousand times harder. Drake’s plan to infiltrate the base, take the research, and set the prisoners free would depend heavily on the paperwork convincing Evans of his legitimacy before anyone else could question why they were there. The best lies bordered truths.
“Straight ahead and to the right. Park in the guest parking. Someone will meet you there and take you to Evans.”
Guest parking. At least this would be a polite overthrow. Once they parked Drake said, “Stay with the car. If I don’t come back within three hours or the convoy has problems, get Sven.”
“Do you think they’ll let me leave?” the soldier asked.
“We haven’t given them any reason to suspect us. I’m sure they will,” Drake said.
He strode into the building like a man who had been there all his life, like he belonged. If he felt a little sweaty around the collar, if his palms were a little slick, that was just part of the price in undercover work.
“Sir?” A young woman with short hair in dress uniform approached Drake.
“I’m here to see Colonel Evans,” Drake said. He added, “I understand this is short notice, but I believe the Colonel will want to see me.”
“Indeed he does,” the woman said. She didn’t salute, but then Drake was no longer in the military and not in uniform. “This way, Sir.”
She turned on her heel and clicked down the hall with the poised stride that a woman accustomed to heels possesses. Drake followed without speaking. The woman stopped outside the office. “The colonel asked that I send you in.”
If Drake expected a warm welcome or even a neutral welcome, that hope was dashed when he stepped through the door. Two men, armed to the teeth stood on either side of the colonel. The soldiers drew their weapons.
The colonel was a wiry little man with white hair on a weathered tan face. If there was a friendly bone in his body, it wasn’t in evidence at that moment. He scowled with an ugliness that put Drake on edge.
“Never thought you’d actually show your face here,” Evans said. He sat in absolute stillness the way a hunter waits for a deer to bound across the forest.
“I’ve never been comfortable with kidnapping,” Drake said. Sweat dripped down the middle of his back. He forced his shoulders to relax. It’s not like he could go grabbing for a gun when three men stood with weapons drawn. He added, “You might want to look at this before you decide I’m the enemy.”
Drake didn’t trust the soldiers. He handed the briefcase in its entirety still closed to Colonel Evans. He lifted an eyebrow, “You expect me to open that for you? Bring it to my desk, open it slowly.”
Colonel Evans drew his sidearm and stepped aside, granting Drake a view of a cherry wood desk with a large monitor on top. A few papers were scattered across the top, but otherwise, the Colonel kept a neat office.
Carefully, Drake stepped up to the desk. He lifted the briefcase to the wood, slowly settling it to the surface. He moved with precision, careful not to surprise the men with the big guns.
“You really think you have something there that will save your life?” Evans asked.
“I’m a United States citizen. Your oath is first and foremost to uphold the laws of this country. If I die here, it will be because you breached your oath,” Drake stepped back from the still-closed briefcase.
“Open it.” Evans said, “Unless you are afraid of what’s inside?”
“More afraid that one of your men is going to shoot me in the back out of a trigger-happy notion of what I may or may not have in the briefcase,” Drake retorted. He stood with arms crossed and spine straight.
Evans ordered his men to stand down. He kept his gun on Drake. Drake stepped to the desk and clicked open the briefcase. Inside was a small sheath of papers, stapled in the corner. He removed them from the briefcase and handed them to Colonel Evans.
Scanning the pages, Evans scowl deepened. His lips disappeared to a thin line as he read. “You have powerful friends. But you are positioning yourself to make even more powerful enemies.”
“And y
ou? Are you neutral in this?”
“Take him to the cells below,” Evans said. He carefully folded the paper and then stepped to a shredder next to his desk. As the paper disappeared into the bucket with a mechanical sound, he said, “I would not consider myself neutral. No.”
Drake’s ace in the hole was so much confetti. But it told him how deep the conspiracy went. He leaned down, closing the briefcase and said, “Are you going to kill me?”
“What do you think?” Colonel Evans asked.
It would be enough. The paperwork was more than a set of orders for the commander of the base. It was a test, a ploy to find out if Colonel Evans was above the law or following orders. He would be court-martialed if the whole mess came to light. In the meantime, the bug hidden inside the briefcase would give Drake’s men the information they needed to proceed.
Drake answered with ease, “I think you will rid yourself of me at the nearest opportunity. Regardless of McFarland’s orders, you can’t be in the position of having received those documents from my hand without not only destroying them but also killing the messenger, me.”
“General McFarland. He couldn’t wipe his ass if the military didn’t provide him a manual and instructions first.” Evans didn’t break from the scowl, although both of his men allowed small smiles to cross their faces for a moment. “Take him below. I need to make some calls.”
Walking between the guards, Drake noted when they passed two scientists wearing white coats and holding clipboards. The base’s cells were full. Drake knew this because he could hear murmuring as they discussed where to put him. The guard opened a cell three doors down the hallway to the left.
A kid not more than twelve sat on the bottom bunk of the bed near the corner. He was drawing an elaborate cartoon on one of those black spiral drawing notebooks with an HB pencil. He wore an orange jumpsuit.
