Minefield [Black Ops Brotherhood 5] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Bella Juarez

  “Ahhh…Alex,” he heard through the door.

  Fuck me sideways! Alex felt his jaw drop and his cock spring to attention. In mere seconds his rock-hard dick was almost tearing through his scrubs. Dr. Vasquez was obviously in the throes of passion and he seemed to be the object of her fantasy. It took all the physical restraint he could muster to not open the door and come to her rescue once more. He closed his eyes and started to back away. God! I don’t need this now. He froze and his eyes flew open. Did she just say…faster? Fuck! She sounds so sexy! He didn’t dare let himself imagine what she looked like spread out and naked, waiting just for him.

  Alex heard soft coos from the other side of the door. Too late! His mind flashed a visual of Isabel spread out, tied down, naked, and him exploring every inch of her mocha body. He could picture himself flipping her over, raising her hips, and running his hands over the smooth skin of her nicely rounded ass. She would be begging him to fuck her. He would oblige her by shoving his cock so far into her pussy that it would bottom out in her cervix.

  Alex heard her sultry alto voice screaming in pleasure. He was almost over the edge at the images going through his mind because he’d love to hear her scream. He closed his eyes and shivered at the imaginary sense of relief fucking Isabel would give him. A thin door stood between him and probably the best fuck of his life, and he couldn’t help but resent how his life sucked sour ass about now. He took a deep breath and turned, walking softly away.

  * * * *

  Izzy stepped out of the shower facilities refreshed. She smelled coffee and knew the patients were being served breakfast. She walked into her office and logged into her computer to check on any chart updates. She completed office chores and decided to check on her surgery patients first. She stood and twitched when she saw Chief Richards standing in her doorway, staring at her. Where the hell did he come from? She hadn’t seen him much less heard him until now.

  “Chief Richards,” Izzy said.

  “I’m letting the three patients in observation go in a little bit,” he said.

  “I don’t see why not. There are no signs of infection. It would’ve shown up by now,” Izzy said.

  “And I would like to do one final lab on you, Doctor,” Chief Richards said.

  “Me? I’m fine now,” Izzy said dismissively. “Let’s worry about the other patients,” she said as she tried to pass him.

  “Isabel, I ended your therapy early so you could help us. Please, let me make sure everything’s okay,” Chief Richards said, filling the doorway, blocking her path.

  “I don’t think it’s necessary.”

  Chief Richards stood staring at her. She knew that look and resigned herself to his request because she didn’t want to piss him off and have him revoke her privileges here. He was the kind of macho-ass man to do just that.

  “Let me finish my surgical rounds and I’ll meet you in the lab after I’m done. Will that work?” she asked a lot more nicely than she felt about his demand.

  Chief Richards walked away without a word. Izzy went the opposite direction to the wards where her patients were located. The young SEAL whose ankle she’d repaired was asking to get back to work. That wasn’t happening for a while. He would be shipped home and into physical therapy. The lady she’d done the cesarean on was sleeping while her husband sat next to her waiting, holding their newborn son. The baby was fine and they’d be able to leave in a couple of days.

  Izzy went to the lab as promised. Chief Richards had his back turned to the door with his face buried in a microscope. She assumed it was the stains they had made yesterday. Not wanting to disturb him, she started to sneak away.

  “Come in, Isabel. I’m almost done,” Chief Richards said without turning or looking away from his work.

  How did he know I was standing here? Chief Richards was really beginning to creep her out. He moved without a sound and seemed to have eyes in the back of his head.

  “Are those the stains we made yesterday?” Izzy asked as she entered the lab.

  “No, this is a placenta sample,” Chief Richards said.

  “What?” Izzy asked.

  “Come here and look,” Chief Richards said, looking up from the microscope.

  Izzy stepped closer as Chief Richards moved out of the way. She bent and looked into the microscope.

  “Look in the upper left-hand corner,” Chief Richards said.

  Izzy focused the microscope and froze. She knew the familiar shape with the tail looped at the end. It was the pathogen.

  “You said this was a placenta sample?” she asked.

  If it was in the placenta of the woman that had just given birth, it meant that both mother and child were infected but neither was showing signs of the infection. She moved the slide slightly and focused the microscope again. The bacteria were being surrounded by some cells that seemed to be containing and neutralizing it. Izzy looked at Chief Richards, startled.

  “They’re not showing signs of being infected. How?”

  “Good question,” Chief Richards said. He walked to the chair where he was preparing to draw her blood. “Come on, let’s get this over with, angel.”

  Izzy rolled her eyes and pulled her long sleeve up. “My name is Isabel or Izzy or Dr. Vasquez. Not angel,” she said, sitting in the chair.

  A smile played on his lips as he set the bar down where she could rest her arm while he drew her blood.

  “Izzy? Is that a nickname?” Chief Richards asked.

  “Yes. My dad calls me Izzy,” she said.

  Why did I say that? Very few people knew her as Izzy. She wondered with some concern why she’d shared that with him and why if felt so comforting when he said Izzy. She studied Chief Richards as he tightened the tourniquet around her upper arm. He is a piece of work! When she saw him pick up the syringe and the big needle, she looked away. The sight of blood didn’t bother her unless it was her own. He was so gentle she didn’t feel the slight pinch as he started to draw her blood.

  “I call you angel because you remind me of one. Why does that offend you?” Chief Richards asked.

  “Huh!” Izzy grunted as she reinforced her defenses. “I get the feeling you call every woman you meet angel.”

  “Did you sleep well, Izzy?” Chief Richards asked.

  Izzy’s face flushed and her body warmed slightly at her memories of last night. She looked away before answering him. When she looked back he was staring at her intently, waiting for her answer. She suddenly became aware of her unexplainable physical attraction to this man again. He was looking at her as if he could read her dirty mind.

  “I slept fine,” Izzy said nonchalantly.

  “Good,” Chief Richards said as he released the tourniquet from her upper arm. “You’re still a little dehydrated. It was slow drawing your blood. I’ll have some Cytomax made up for you.”

  “What made you take a placenta sample, Chief Richards?” Izzy asked.

  “Alex, Izzy. I read an article a few months back in a journal and they talked about stem cells being harvested from healthy discarded placenta instead of the umbilical cord. They were using it to fight blood disorders. This pathogen attacks the arteries and organs. If we ran across the pathogen again, I was planning to use the cells to see what they did. I actually kept samples from both the placenta and umbilical cord. I decided to take a look at the samples before I started experimenting with them,” Alex said.

  “Is that when you saw the infection?” Izzy asked, applying pressure to the gauze Alex had handed her to stop the bleeding.

  “Yes. They’ve been exposed but not infected. I can’t understand why they aren’t showing symptoms of illness. I need to run some tests on the samples. I’m wondering if there’s a protein or some sort of chemical in their systems that’s not in ours,” Alex said, handing her a Band-Aid. Izzy discarded the gauze and struggled with the Band-Aid. He walked to her and took the tangled Band-Aid out of her sticky fingers. He started to replace it with a new one when Izzy yanked it out of his hand and tried
again. She didn’t want him to touch her because of the way it made her shiver. “Will you please let me help you?”

  “I don’t need a damn Band-Aid!” Izzy said, throwing the second one away in frustration.

  Alex grabbed her arm and quickly placed a Band-Aid on the now-bleeding hole.

  “Calm down, let me help you,” he ordered quietly but firmly.

  Isabel went still for a moment. She was acutely aware of him touching her again. She needed to redirect her focus away from him.

  “So, Alex, why aren’t they showing signs of infection?” Izzy asked.

  “I don’t know. I’d like to see what they’re exposed to on a regular basis. Like I said, I think we need to run a DNA comparison between us and them. Obviously they’ve developed immunities to the pathogen,” Alex said.

  “Maybe it’s the stem cells. Stems cells are blank cells waiting to be developed. Maybe it’s like you said, the cells are neutralizing something so it can’t develop,” Izzy said.

  “We need the father’s blood,” they both said at once.

  They released the patients being held for observation and visited the small family waiting in a more private area. Kashi was talking to the man when they arrived. Alex pulled him aside and discussed his lab findings with him. Izzy heard them discussing drawing the father’s blood and how to approach him. Kashi came around the corner and took the man outside.

  Izzy looked over the child carefully. There were no signs of distress or illness. She moved her examination to the mother, who was the picture of health considering she’d just been cut open and in labor for almost two days. She checked the baby once more. They needed to do a stick test. Maybe they could draw more samples from the baby that way. The woman was hooked up to an IV. Taking labs from her wouldn’t be a problem. Alex came around the corner and informed Izzy they’d been able to take samples of the father’s blood. He’d consented and had gladly given them what they wanted.

  “Should we take samples from the mother and child again?” Izzy asked.

  “I guess we could. Mom’s easy. We still need to do a stick test on the baby,” Alex said.

  “I was thinking the same thing, just to double-check,” Izzy said.

  * * * *

  Alex relaxed under the warm water raining down from the shower. He was winding down after a long ten-mile run. He knew from some of the mission planning he’d been involved with things were about to swing into high gear. They were still short on medical staff. He was supposed get trauma doctors, a radiologist, and an anesthesiologist. They could get into real trouble if the shit hit the fan with a bunch of wounded. He was considering asking Rock to send an infectious diseases doctor for just a little while. There’s so much out of my control. It was an uncomfortable place for him.

  Turning down the cold water, he let the hot water run over his tired body. Alex was planning to go to bed early so that he could get up and work in the lab undisturbed. There was so much he needed to do, document his discovery, check on supplies, set up schedules, and investigate the area where these tribal herders were from. He needed to do more research on stem cells and their potential therapeutic uses. He needed to talk to Isabel about what she’d discovered in the father’s blood work.

  Alex closed his eyes and stuck his head fully under the spraying water. Izzy…He smiled at the little nickname she’d let slip earlier today. His cock responded immediately to his recollections of last night and today. Today, they’d been working in the lab with some of the blood samples when a lock of her hair slipped from her ponytail. She couldn’t reach up with her hands so she’d tried to blow it away. When that didn’t work she’d tried to shake her head.

  Alex got tired of watching her struggle so he’d reached over and gently tucked her hair behind her ear. Izzy had reared back and frowned when he touched her. He didn’t say anything or linger. He had turned away and gone back to work. It was hard to concentrate when she was around because he kept hearing her soft, sultry voice call his name. He had needed to turn away when he touched her because he’d almost grabbed her, yanked that ponytail back, forced her face upward to him, and kissed her.

  Lusting after this woman would be dangerous. Every time he thought about her, Alex’s mind’s eye pictured her naked, restrained, and lying underneath him. He couldn’t get those damn sexy screams of hers out of his head. She was the kind of submissive he loved to tame, and Dr. Isabel Vasquez was a submissive whether she admitted it or not.

  But there was something very different about Izzy and Alex couldn’t quite place what it was. He’d blown past her trust issues in a day. Working her through them would take time. Her trust issues were obvious by the way she kept her distance and was always so confrontational. He knew he’d need to work hard to gain her confidence and get her to see what she was missing in her life. He shoved the idea out of his mind. He didn’t have that kind of time and he was on a mission. She would be a dangerous endeavor because he might not be able to walk away. Focus on something else…He needed to get her out of here. Maybe he would send her back to Kush and just make once-a-week visits to assist her with whatever she needed.

  Alex…faster…he heard her whisper. The effect was instantaneous as his cock surged and ached with need. He opened his eyes, and turned off the hot water. He inhaled sharply and squeezed his eyes shut when the cold water hit his body. He took a couple of deep breaths as he endured the shock of the frigid water. His self-torment was effective. His hard dick started to shrink. He finished up his shower and found his bunk, mentally preparing for tomorrow.

  Chapter 3

  Shindand Air Base

  156km East of Yazdan, Iran

  Near Iranian-Afghani Border

  April 21, 2009/0225 Zulu

  TSgt Cooper yawned as he moved his joystick along the lines of the map on the screen, grabbing shots of the area as he went. His drone was doing a CAP, or combat air patrol, along the border between Afghanistan and Iraq. Even though the areas along this part of the border were heavily fortified by Iran and the US, nothing ever seemed to happen along his CAP area. He and the pilot, Lieutenant Rodriguez, had another six hours of flying time before they brought Woody back home.

  Cooper’s mother and father had told him all those damn PlayStation games would never get him a real job. He thought with satisfaction how they were so wrong because his skills with a joystick and a controller had prepared him for one of the most elite jobs in the Air Force, drone operator. He manned the onboard cameras and navigation systems of the unmanned aircraft. His nerdy ways in high school with good grades and a couple years at a junior college before he joined the Air Force helped him get recruited for this job. While he sat in the relative safety of his building, he and the pilot would fly their drone that he nicknamed Woody for ten hours, doing CAPs all night long.

  It was a slow night. Usually these aircraft were manned thousands of miles away. Their particular missions were secret because they were being conducted by Special Operations Command, or SOCOM. Lieutenant Rodriguez and TSgt Cooper were doing reconnaissance flights over the border into Iranian airspace to watch this particular area. There had been an increase in activity in all of the observation posts along this area. TSgt Cooper didn’t understand why Iran had to have ninety observation posts and forts along a less than 200-mile section of the border with Afghanistan. Lord knew they never stopped anyone from going into Iran. The drone teams watched comings and goings all night and during the day.

  “Want some more coffee?” Rodriguez asked.

  “Sure, Lieutenant. You know me, strong and black like my women,” Cooper answered. The young first lieutenant switched the drone to autopilot before he stood. He walked to the coffeepot and poured two cups.

  “Did you see the new version of Halo was finally released?” Lieutenant Rodriguez asked.

  “Yeah, I just pre-ordered Arkham Asylum, and the new Call of Duty is coming out in November,” Cooper answered, taking a sip of his coffee.

  “Right before Christmas? You know it�
��ll be hell to get. Ain’t that always the way?” the lieutenant said, taking his seat.

  One of the warning alarms started sounding. This was nothing new because sensors on the drones were very delicate and they went off at the slightest indication of something unusual in their programming. He called up the electronic counter measure, or EMC, system on his computer and pointed one of the onboard cameras to the area the EMC system was warning about.

  “What the—” TSgt Cooper started.

  Before he could finish the phrase, a rocket launched from one of the observation posts west of Yazdan, Iran.

  “I’ve got a boggy heading 33.44 degrees north, 12.34 degrees east. Permission to engage?” Lieutenant Rodriguez asked the control center in Kabul.

  “What’s the origin of the boggy, Lieutenant?” control asked over their secure comm line.

  “Observation post number 311, northeast of Yazdan, Iran. It came out of Iran and has breached Afghani airspace and it’s heading for us. Permission to engage, sir?” Lieutenant Rodriguez repeated urgently.

  “Stay on it, Lieutenant. We’re watching it from here,” the command center said.

  “If we can’t shoot this shit down, what the fuck are we doing here?” TSgt Cooper demanded lowly.

  “Hell if I know,” Lieutenant Rodriguez answered, frustrated.

  “We have the trajectory. Wait for it, Lieutenant. It ain’t going nowhere,” command center said.

  “I’d like to have the practice, sir,” Lieutenant Rodriguez said.

  Cooper and Rodriguez followed the small missile to an empty valley, well a valley that was relatively empty, due east of their position by some forty miles. There was a nomad camp near the area where the missile landed and exploded harmlessly. Lieutenant Rodriguez circled and turned back for their CAP area. TSgt Cooper shook his head. This was the most frustrating part of their job, hurry up, wait, and then never mind. He decided to take a look in the review mirror and switched to the rear cameras for a look behind. He blinked as the camera came into focus.