Navy SEAL Noel

by Liz Johnson

  He resisted the sudden urge to flex his arms against the seams in the sport coat to remind her that he wasn’t a boy any longer. This wasn’t about how much either one of them had changed. This was about getting her—and her bioweapon—back to San Diego. Back to a lab where they would both be secure.

  “Why’d you come alone? Don’t you usually stick together?”

  He lifted one shoulder. “Usually. But this isn’t exactly an authorized op.”

  The corners of her mouth turned down, confusion washing across her features. “What does that mean?”

  “I’m…freelancing.”

  “So my dad just asked you to rescue me, even though we haven’t seen each other since we were eighteen? He asked you to drop everything and come to…to—” she waved her hand toward the yellowing walls “—wherever we are?” She paused, staring hard into his eyes. “And you did?”

  For the first time in years, he didn’t know what to say, so he spit out the only word that came to mind. “Panama.”

  “What?”

  “We’re in Panama.”

  She clenched her slightly crooked teeth and shook her head, long brown locks falling over her shoulders. “That’s not— I didn’t mean… We’re in Panama? No, that’s not what… Why are you here?” Her words were a jumbled mess, and ended in a weary sigh. Not harsh, just confused.

  Truthfully, he wasn’t sure how to answer. But she deserved something more than a pat response. Taking a deep breath, he let it out through his nose before offering her what he hoped was a white-flag smile. “We were friends once. You meant a lot to me.”

  “But you disappeared. You never called or responded to my emails or even came back to visit. I had to find out from your mom that you’d joined the navy.” Her voice picked up volume as memories seemed to fuel her ire, and he pressed a finger to his lips. She immediately dropped her volume, but she couldn’t hide the vibrato of her voice. “You left, and suddenly you’re back when I need someone the most? I don’t understand.” Her hands shook and her eyes glistened as her emotions jumped to the forefront.

  True. Everything she’d said was true, but this wasn’t the time to rehash his immature stupidity. They needed to make a plan, but he had a feeling she was too exhausted to think tactically. That was fine—he needed at least a day to get the lay of the land, anyway. And meanwhile, she needed sleep and to know she was safe enough to truly give in to it.

  “Jess, I’m sorry. You’re right. I do owe you an explanation. But maybe that can wait. For now, can you trust me enough to believe that I will find a way to get you out of here?”

  “And the Morsyni powder?”

  “Yes. I’ll get you both out.”

  The features of her face were still pinched as she pointed toward the outside wall. “How? You can’t exactly climb over that fence. And there are guards everywhere. How are you going to get us out of here?”

  “I’m not sure yet. But I’ll come up with something. Just give me some time.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “We don’t have time. I don’t know what they’re planning to do with the toxin, but it’s going to happen soon. All day my guard has been muttering to himself that he only has to deal with me for eight more days. I think they brought me here to release the Morsyni. What if they get impatient? What if we don’t even have that long?”

  A slow grin spread across his face, and she stopped her frantic speech. “What are you smiling about?” she demanded.

  “Nothing.” But it wasn’t nothing. Jess had said we. She was going to stick with him. She trusted him enough to think of them as a team. And the rest of the trust he had to earn back…well, that would come with time. “I will find a way out, all right? And until then, I’m going to be by your side as much as possible. You just have to pretend that you don’t know me.”

  She uncrossed her arms and leaned against the sink, her palms resting on the lip of porcelain. It looked as if it took all of her strength to stay on her feet. “Why?”

  “The powers that be inside this drug cartel think they brought me here to help you release a bioweapon. They think I’m an engineer.”

  “But you’re not, are you? What do you know about science?”

  “About as much as I picked up in our sophomore-year chemistry class.”

  “So why do they think you can help me?” She squinted, the turning cogs in her mind nearly visible beneath the fair skin of her forehead.

  “A friend of mine in the DEA used one of her undercover contacts to spread my name—well, the name William Darrow—around as an expert on Morsyni, and this cartel took the bait. They hauled me in—just like they did you.”

  She blinked fast, pressing a palm against her forehead and swaying slightly. It was a lot of information to take in at one time. A lot to think about on severely limited sleep. He got that. “So we don’t know each other,” she finally said.

  “Right. They’re going to drag me to your lab tomorrow and introduce us. I need you to act like you’ve never met me before in your life.”

  “All right.”

  He rubbed his palm up and down her arm, either to steady her swaying form or to see if this time she’d accept his touch, his comfort.

  Definitely the first.

  Probably.

  No, it had to be the first because there could never be anything more than friendship between them.

  “We’ve got to stay under the radar and keep the guards off our scent,” he said. “Can you help me maintain my cover until we get out of the country?”

  “Panama.” Her tongue slurred the word, her eyes squinting into the space over his left shoulder.

  “Right.” With a gentle hand, he held on to her elbow, keeping her upright. Some of the tension in her face eased, and she leaned toward him slightly. “You need to get some sleep,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll try to work out a plan.”

  “What kind of plan?”

  Will glanced toward the ceiling, hoping to find answers there. But all he discovered were big patches of green mold marring the once white tiles. For a multimillion-dollar drug lord, whoever was running this cartel sure had let his compound fall into disrepair.

  “Probably something like tonight. I’ll break into your room and we’ll get out of here.” He rubbed his shoulder, which would have a bruise the next day. In a lighter tone, he added, “Maybe next time try not to hit me with your wrench.”

  The teasing was lost on her, but she nodded.

  “Listen, when we leave here, I need you to have the strength to run and the presence of mind to think on your feet. This sleepwalking bit you’re pulling isn’t going to cut it. You’ve got to get some rest.”

  Her eyes flew wide open, her head whipping from side to side. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” As soon as the words left his mouth, he recognized his stupidity. She’d been waiting for him, weapon in hand, when he’d crept into her room. She had been prepared for anyone.

  Because it might not be him sneaking into her room.

  His stomach rolled at the thought, bile rising in the back of his throat.

  He squinted at her, trying to guess what she’d endured at the hands of these monsters. Her guard had laughed at her when she’d fallen into the mud that afternoon. How much worse had it been? Will tightened his grip on her elbow, but she didn’t shy away, instead leaning more heavily against him. “Have you been— Has there been—” Words failed him at first, but he pushed on. “Has someone else come in here?”

  She gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. “Not yet.” Her voice had barely enough force to reach his ears.

  A rock fell in his gut, thudding heavily. “But they’ve threatened to?”

  “It’s more the leers and foul gestures. And the noises late at night. You know what I mean?”

  He nodded because he didn’t want to hear the tremble in her voice for another second. Some men—twisted men—took pleasure in frightening and harming women.

  Those men made Will sick.

  Others were
just too self-centered to notice a woman’s discomfort in the face of crudeness.

  And Will knew a thing or two about the latter. At some point in history, sailors had earned a reputation for language and conduct unbecoming of gentlemen. And there was still a group of them determined to carry on that tradition. He’d even been one of them when he’d first joined up. Too arrogant to recognize his own impudence.

  But that was before he’d met L. T. Sawyer, Rock Waterstone, Jordan Somerton and the other men of SEAL Team Fifteen. Before he’d joined their ranks.

  Will wasn’t that cocky boy any longer. And he would do whatever it took to protect Jess.

  Stabbing his fingers through his hair, he snatched several quick breaths. His pulse slowed to almost normal when he closed his eyes and forced himself not to think about Jess in jeopardy.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to make sure that you’re safe. Every night.”

  Drooping eyelids lifted with hope, but uncertainty still masked her face. “How?” she asked.

  “I’ll be right outside your door from midnight until the first movement in the morning. I won’t let anyone near you.”

  She wanted to believe him. He could see it in her eyes.

  But she wouldn’t forget that he’d once let her down. That he’d once promised to come back and hadn’t followed through.

  How could he convince her that he wouldn’t do that again?

  Cupping her cheek with his palm, he brushed his thumb over her cheekbone. “I never stopped being your friend. I just didn’t know how to be your best friend when everything was changing. But I swear to you, I’ll be here to protect you until you’re safely back in San Diego. In time for Christmas. All right?”

  She swallowed, her head lowering and lifting slowly.

  It was all he needed before he turned off the light and whisked her back into her bedroom. She fell onto the mattress, her head landing on a thin pillow. By the time he pulled a threadbare blanket to her shoulders, her breathing had already slowed.

  “How’s Sal?”

  Her voice caught him halfway to the door, but it was what she said that stopped him short. A fist around his throat choked his response, and he had to cough before he could even whisper. “He’s fine. He misses you, I think. But he’s fine.”

  “Is he married?”

  The fingers around Will’s neck squeezed even tighter, until his response was little more than a breath. “No.” He didn’t expound. Couldn’t manage to tell her that his brother was still hung up on her after all these years.

  Instead he closed the door behind him and slipped around the side of the small building. Tucked in the shadows, out of sight of the guards standing sentry over the compound walls, he squatted, ready to wait the night through. At least he’d have some time to formulate a plan to keep a madman from releasing the deadly bioweapon. Right now the best option looked as if it would involve some kind of escape.

  But Will wouldn’t be able to walk Jess out the front gate. And they had to get away without the extraction services of the United States Navy. There was a lot of land between them and the American Embassy in Panama City. A lot of cartel-controlled land.

  This was a foolhardy idea.

  And there was nothing he’d rather do.

  THREE

  Jess glanced at the heavy metal door—the only entrance to her lab—again. Still no sign of her new lab mate. Manuel, however, leaned on the doorjamb, one hand in his pocket, the other resting loosely on the black machine gun hanging from its strap on his shoulder. A black gas mask hung around his neck. Jess didn’t bother to tell him it was outdated and probably wouldn’t protect him from the toxin contained in a plastic vial.

  At least it was a sight better than the paper mask they’d given her. If they expected her to open the airtight canister containing the toxin, they’d have to give her better protective gear. At her lab back home, she’d had a full-body suit and her own oxygen supply inside a lab with double air locks.

  Clearly, her hosts in Panama didn’t care if she lived or died. They were just concerned with finding a way to disperse the small quantity of Morsyni over a wide area. Whoever the target was, she felt sorry for them. The effects of the toxin would be widespread and instantaneous, causing painful sores on the skin and even worse abrasions on the lungs. The airborne pathogen wouldn’t cause immediate death, rather its fingers would slowly constrict the lungs until they could inhale no more painful breaths.

  “Aye!” Manuel’s shrill call told her that his relaxed pose was only a facade. Apparently, she wasn’t unloading and cleaning the box of scientific instruments fast enough for him.

  “Time. It takes time.”

  “No time. Now.”

  Why? Why did it have to be done now? She bit her tongue before the words could escape. He only got angry when she asked him questions. She cranked up a Bunsen burner and set a beaker of water to boil, dropping in an unmeasured mound of NaCl, sodium chloride, better known as common table salt. Maybe that would buy her some time. At least she looked busy, and the swirling mist of dissolving salt gave Manuel something to focus on while she unpacked microscope slides and set about washing them.

  And considered her options.

  If she really wanted to release the toxin in aerosol form in this sort of lab, her best option would be to disassemble used tear gas canisters and repurpose them.

  But she didn’t want to release it. She wanted to destroy it. Except there wasn’t a way to destroy the powder without releasing the ultramicroscopic spores into the air. The lab didn’t have a detonation chamber, and the ventilation hood in the back corner wasn’t capable of containing such an acute toxin. Her best chance was to escape before the toxin was scheduled to be released, with the powder in hand. But could she keep stalling until Will found them a way out?

  Her stomach jumped at the memory of her midnight visitor. She’d been safe. If just for a few hours before he’d knocked softly on her window to wake her before leaving his self-assigned post, she’d rested. That morning her mind hadn’t been blank, her muscles not quite so sluggish.

  Will had protected her for the night. But could he keep it up until they found an escape?

  Three loud thumps sounded on the metal door, jerking Jess from her thoughts.

  “Safe?” Hampered by lack of English, Manuel asked with his eyes what he couldn’t express in words. If he allowed any toxin out into the compound, he would be dead before the Morsyni could take effect.

  She nodded. “Sí.”

  He cocked his head, as if to confirm her certainty, and she nodded again.

  The natural brilliance of the sun streaming through the open door blinded her after a morning under the painful glow of flickering fluorescent lights. Blinking into it, she could make out two forms. The easy swagger and relaxed movements of the larger man overshadowed the silhouette at his side.

  The door’s heavy metal clawed against cement before clanging shut and leaving the brilliance on the other side.

  The first man wore a brown military uniform, the buttons straining against his belly. The hunched shoulders and wary stance of the figure at his side practically made the smaller man disappear into the other’s shadow.

  Will stood there with all the presence of a sea monkey.

  Jess clenched her jaw to keep her mouth from falling open. This man, this fragment of a figure, was not the same one who had broken into her room the night before. He looked beaten. He’d been bested.

  Whatever they’d done to him…

  Her imagination shot to the worst possible scenario. If they’d found him sneaking back into his room, they wouldn’t have gently escorted him out of the compound. They’d have used their fists and feet or worse to make him do whatever they wanted.

  The night before, he’d been so strong, had filled her room with such power.

  He’d looked the part of a SEAL.

  But not now.

  It took everything inside her not to run to him, wrap her arm around hi
s slumped shoulders and ask if he was seriously injured.

  And then he caught her gaze with his own. And he winked.

  She sucked in a quick breath, the air catching in her throat, tearing a cough from somewhere deep in her chest.

  He was playing a part. The part. She should have realized that the cartel wouldn’t have believed the man in her room the night before was a scientist. That man was a battle-tested, steely-eyed warrior. And he had nothing in common with the figure standing before her now.

  Straightening her shoulders, she blinked away the rush of relief, focusing hard on the boiling salt water on the burner.

  Will’s guard shoved him hard, and he stumbled— convincingly—into the corner of the table. His grunt echoed and was only drowned out by the yell of Manuel’s partner in crime. Spanish words poured from his mouth faster than she could understand them, but he jabbed the barrel of his gun in her direction.

  Stomach turning to steel, she was suddenly unable to move as the round end of the weapon filled her field of vision. She heard Will’s shuffling feet move in her direction until she was suddenly staring at his back. He held up appeasing hands and nodded slowly. “Sí,” he mumbled, his voice sounding pained and unfamiliar. “Whatever you say. Yes. Sí.”

  Why was his Spanish so awkward? It didn’t make any sense. She knew that he spoke Spanish fluently. He and Sal both had learned from their mother’s mother—their abuelita—who had lived with the family for years.

  The guard grumbled something else, and Will just kept nodding and agreeing in a jumbled mix of Spanish and English words until the other man marched toward the door, his footfalls ringing into every corner of the cement bunker.

  Will turned his back to their guards. He offered her a flash of a smile and mouthed, Okay?

  She gave a quick nod of her head.

  “They want us to work together.” His voice was barely audible, and she leaned into him, resting her hand on his forearm, to catch the words. “Your guy is mad about what they’re having for lunch, so he’s going to leave early to try to sneak some leftovers from the cook.”