Rock the Cradle: An Mpreg Romance (Silver Oak Medical Center Book 6)

by Aiden Bates

  Morna gestured to him, graciously allowing him to go first.

  The well was dry, or at least the well had gone dry up to this level. The ladder going up to the door was new, though, and it was steel. Mal lowered himself down quickly.

  Halfway down the well, he saw an opening to a small room. The room had probably once been used to store valuables during times of strife. Now it was being used to store something much more dangerous.

  He slipped inside. Yes, this was it. He recognized what he was dealing with immediately. This was the dedicated machine he needed. It wasn't connected to the Internet in any way. Someone wanting to get into it, and to crack its secrets, would have to physically access it.

  Like Mal, right now.

  It wasn't anything special. It was just a standard laptop. The passcode took him three seconds to crack. The person setting this up had counted on physical security, not electronic. Mal pulled a flash drive out of his pocket and set the machine to download all files. Then they set back to wait.

  Mal's phone beeped at him, the noise echoing from the hewn walls of the chamber like a gunshot. He jumped, and then he pulled out the phone. "Awesome," he said with a sneer.

  "What is it?" Morna turned to him and tilted her head to the side.

  "We've got company. Coming in from the top. I don't know if they're local or outsiders, but the place is getting raided." Mal passed his phone over to her."

  "Shit." Morna glanced at the laptop. "What if we take that piece of crap with us?"

  "It won't work. For one thing, most of these systems are set up to self-destruct if they're removed from their location. We want that, but not until we've secured the data." Mal wiped a bit of sweat away from his forehead. "We have to wait. It's all we can do."

  Morna made a face. "You couldn't have told me that the place was getting raided?"

  "How was I to know the place was getting raided?"

  "I don't know, maybe one of those alphas you keep picking up?"

  "Oh my God, Morna, I don't date alphas. They're dangerous!" He shook his head. They kept their bickering to a whisper, so they could hear if they were in any danger, but Mal truly wanted to bash his head against the wall sometimes. If he had a word of advice to anyone else interested in being involved with a global insurgency, it would be not to take a job with their sister.

  The door at the top of the vault swung open. "I see an aperture." The speaker was male, American, and white by the tone of his voice. His tone had that clipped tone military men use when they're on the job.

  "Roger that," said another voice. "Scanning. Seems to be a tunnel, maybe an old well."

  Crap.

  "Possible escape route, Sarge?"

  "Check it out." This voice was older, more grizzled. Possibly a smoker.

  Morna prepared her gun just as the footsteps rang out on the ladder.

  A ping told Mal that the flash drive had finished downloading. "Well, here we are." He took his flash drive and hid it in his things. Then he took another one and uploaded a virus into the machine.

  It started to smoke.

  Morna rolled her eyes. "Good thing we're not trying to surprise the bastards, isn't it?"

  "Oh my God, would you please shut up?" Mal stood up.

  A man swung into the room, gun drawn. He wore full U. S. Navy battle dress uniform. He had a chiseled jaw and piercing green eyes. "Hold it right there! Reach for the sky!"

  Mal snorted. "Has it occurred to you that we're in a cave, sailor?" He tried not to think about nibbling along the sailor's jawline. He didn't have time for that today. Besides, he didn't want anything to do with the U. S. Government, not today or ever.

  Morna shared his feelings on that subject at least. "Could you maybe not flirt with the sailor while we're in a cave that's filling up with toxic smoke? Please and thank you."

  The SEAL would have killed them both with his eyes if he could have. "I said reach for the sky! Put the weapon down!"

  Mal looked over at Morna. "Stow the gun, Morna. You know how these Americans get. Their fingers get so itchy on the trigger finger."

  The SEAL's eyes bulged. "Sarge?" he bellowed. "I've got two suspects in here. Seem to be Irish nationals."

  "Irish, huh?" A tall, tan man with salt-and-pepper hair strode into the cave. If this guy wasn't an alpha Mal would eat that flash drive. He made Mal want to bend at the knees. "What in the hell would the Irish be doing with Al Qaeda?"

  "Oh for God's sake, we're not with bloody Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda isn't even part of this." Morna shook her head. "Where have you people been getting your intelligence, Cracker Jack boxes?"

  "Morna, what was I just saying about Yanks and their trigger fingers?" Mal sighed. It was going to take some doing to get them out of this one. If these guys weren't SEALs he'd never recognize one again. SEALs were trouble. That wasn't to say they couldn't be beat, but it would be tricky.

  "Yeah yeah."

  "I think you folks are going to have to come with us." Sarge narrowed his eyes at Mal and Morna. "We're going to have a nice, long chat."

  "I don't suppose there will be whiskey involved." Mal figured he might as well play up the stereotype. It might lull them into a false sense of security.

  And if not, it might get him some whiskey.

  "Afraid not." Sarge put his hand on his sidearm. "But there might be a nice long vacation to an island in the Caribbean for you."

  "Oh good." Mal managed a weak little smile. "Hey Morna?"

  "Yeah, Mal?"

  "Next time I get to plan the logistics."

  "No way. You'll run us right through every male strip club in Barcelona just for the hell of it."

  Mal looked up at the ceiling. "Okay, true. But we still won't be sitting here with trigger-happy Americans waving ballistic overcompensations in our faces, yeah?"

  "Good point."

  Sarge clapped his hands, just once. "I suggest you both get your asses up that ladder before you find out just how trigger happy these Americans can be."

  ***

  Trent's boots clanged against the U. S. S. Syracuse's metal deck. He directed himself toward the brig, as he'd been directed, but he didn't have to like it. Sarge was giving the orders on this mission, and Trent didn't go against orders. He was too well-trained for that.

  Their two oddball prisoners sat in separate cells. The girl, whose flame-red hair had been cropped into a pixie cut, mostly sat there with a pissy look on her face and complained to the other one. She was the picture of innocence, or she would have been if she hadn't been found with three handguns, four knives, and three hand grenades.

  In Europe. Christ. But it was the Americans who were trigger-happy.

  The guy was a little bit different. His hair was a little less flame-like, a little more of an auburn color, and it stood up from his head like he'd spiked it. Like the other one, he wore black. On him, it highlighted his narrow, sculpted physique. Trent had to try not to look. Suspects shouldn't look like that, damn it.

  He lounged on his bunk like a cat and responded to his counterpart with barbs of his own, but he moved like a cat and he watched everything around him. He'd been armed, too, but less heavily. He noticed Trent as soon as Trent walked in the door, as if something in him was drawn to the presence of an alpha.

  Omega.

  Trent exhaled sharply and tried to ignore the intrusive thought. He was on a mission and Ginger here was a suspect. He'd been trained to get above his baser urges, damn it.

  He turned to Sarge. "You asked for me, sir?"

  "Yeah. It's time to start asking our guests some questions, but I don't trust them. I think there need to be two of us in the room." Sarge looked over to the two cells. "What do you think?"

  "Sir." Trent did not want more contact with these bickering Irish people who hated America and Americans. He wanted to hit his bunk after a long and fruitless mission. He would do as Sarge ordered, though.

  "Grab the guy, first. We'll see what we can get out of him."

  Trent obeyed, although
he thought Sarge was barking up the wrong tree. Sarge had a blind spot when it came to omegas. Maybe it came from age, or from geography. Sarge thought omegas were soft, pliant, agreeable. He saw Ginger Bread here, recognized his omega nature, and nothing else mattered. He didn't see the guy's sharp eyes following them around. He didn't see the guy's sneaky little smile.

  They walked into tiny room set aside for interrogation. It wasn't, properly speaking, an interrogation room. Most ships didn't have the luxury of an interrogation room. They had a room, though, and it was gray and dismal. It would work.

  Ginger Bread stood out against the battle ship gray paint like a flame.

  Sarge took a seat at the table, and Trent guided Ginger to a seat in front of him. Trent remained standing behind the prisoner, so he could act quickly in case of emergency.

  "I'm sure you know why you're here." Sarge sounded affable enough. He even looked affable, if you liked your men bearded and battle-scarred. Trent didn't think Ginger was dumb enough to fall for the act.

  "I'm still waiting on my whiskey. I'll take rum, though." Ginger's lips curled into a smile.

  Sarge rolled his eyes, but he smiled. "Fine. Trent, would you mind grabbing a bottle out of the cabinet?"

  "Sir?" Trent blinked.

  "It's medicinal." He winked and turned to Ginger. "Technically, alcohol isn't allowed on Navy vessels. We are allowed to carry some for medicinal purposes. Since we caught you in an Al Qaeda base, armed, sabotaging evidence, yeah. I think you could use the fortification."

  Ginger smirked. "Very generous of you, Sergeant." He held out his manacled hand. "You can call me Mal."

  Sarge chuckled. "That was easy." He shook Mal's hand while Trent fetched a bottle of rum. "Of course, that's just one of eight names we found for you in the system. Why that one?"

  Mal blinked, nonplussed. "Well, it's me name. The one me mum gave me. And we told you before, the facility wasn't Al Qaeda. It was Daesh. They don't play so nicely together these days." He accepted the paper cup of rum Trent put in front of him. "Thank you kindly." He turned to meet Trent's eyes and curved his lips into a seductive little smile.

  Trent blushed.

  "We have reliable intelligence that says otherwise. Of course, you're right in the middle of it, so I guess you'd know." Sarge watched Mal carefully.

  "Oh, I wouldn't say I'm in the middle of it. The guy who gave me the information is. He's not such a bad bloke."

  "For a terrorist?" Trent snorted. "Tell me another one."

  "Oh, big boy, I'll tell you anything you want to hear." Mal winked at Trent. "Seriously, though. The man in question is not a terrorist, but some of his relatives are. That's how I got the information, anyway."

  "And you didn't bother to vet it with anyone." Sarge's smile was indulgent, paternalistic. It was also a lie.

  Mal didn't know that, though. Mal didn't know Sarge. "Oh, I vetted it." Mal sipped his rum. "Listen, gentlemen. You can believe me or not, but that was hardly a base. It was just a machine. It was a server room, basically, for a relatively low-tech solution."

  "According to you."

  "Well yeah. I'm the one I trust." Mal smiled, brilliant and beguiling.

  Sarge reached down onto the ground. "Your backpack contained a laptop. Open it up for me."

  Mal opened it. The wallpaper was a scene from a gay porno.

  Trent's face burned. Sarge looked away. "Young man, that is repulsive. Pass me that machine."

  Mal's face was the picture of innocence as he passed the laptop over.

  Every file turned out to be gay porn.

  Sarge drummed his fingertips on the table. "I have a theory." He reached down into Mal's backpack and pulled out an impressive variety of sex toys. Trent was fairly certain that some of them weren't even physically useable. "Would you like to hear my theory?"

  "I suppose you're going to tell me your theory." Mal supped from his drink.

  "My theory is that no one sits around and uses a bodyguard, multiple false identities, and multiple weapons of his own to guard a porn and sex toy collection." Sarge made a face at Mal. "You want to try again?"

  Most people quailed when they got that face from Sarge. Most people wouldn't have tried to pull one over on him in the first place. Then again, Mal had been found messing around in an Al Qaeda bunker in Spain. It was probably safe to say he wasn't most guys. "I think," he said, swirling the rum around inside his paper cup, "I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to prove that there was anything at all besides porn on that laptop. And are you really all that suspicious of a single omega's sex toys, Sergeant?"

  Sarge curled his lip. "Get him out of here."

  Mal chugged back his rum. "Can I at least bring the toys with me?"

  Trent grabbed him and dragged him back to his cell. "You shouldn't flirt with Sarge," he said, keeping his eyes straight ahead and not on the hot body underneath him.

  "Why?" Mal snorted. "Too much of a straight arrow?"

  "No. Because he's married. His husband's pregnant with their fifth kid back at base." He leaned down into Mal's ear. "This whole team? Alphas."

  Trent had expected Mal to cringe, or flinch, or something. Instead, he just gave that feline little smirk of his. "Isn't that interesting?"

  Trent locked him away again, and then he returned to Sarge. "What do you think, sir?"

  Sarge stared at the door the man had just gone through. "I think there's a lot more there than meets the eye, that's for sure. Who carries six sex toys around the streets with him?" He picked one of the toys up. "These are unused. This one still has the price tag on it."

  Trent grinned, in spite of himself. "Seriously? You're kidding. That's… kind of brilliant, actually."

  "What do you mean, brilliant?" Sarge scowled.

  "Think about it, sir. So many people have ideas about omegas. He throws a few toys into his bag, fills his laptop with porn, and all the security agent or the border patrol guy can think to do is to close that bag up and go wash his hands. He could probably smuggle a whole kilo of heroin in that backpack and no one would ever know."

  Sarge nodded slowly, stroking his chin. "You're not wrong. Here's the thing. Of the eight different identities linked back to that set of fingerprints, none of them are linked to heroin. We've got Malachi O'Donnell, Demetrio Torres, Ignacio Felix, so on and so forth. They're all just normal guys. And they're all living and working around Europe right now."

  "Wait, right now?" Trent sat down across from Sarge. "Because I know he's in the brig. I saw him in the brig.

  "You did. And someone else is seeing him sitting in a cafe in Istanbul, in a restaurant in Beirut, and working in a clinic in Gaza too. He's probably been in all of those roles. No one seems to know who he really is, or was. What they do know is that large sums of money go missing from some exciting accounts when he's around." He pulled out a file. "After the Bank of Ireland Tracker scandal, money was mysteriously rerouted from the bank to a series charities, who routed the money to a series of other charities and so on and so forth until the money was 'donated' to people who'd been scammed."

  "Robin Hood, I see."

  "That clinic in Gaza is now being funded by a major anti-Palestine lobbyist in the US, much to his chagrin. Every time he tries to stop the charges, he springs another leak. Money for food aid to Syrian refugees is getting funneled through Beirut, and money for people fleeing ISIL through Kurdistan through Istanbul. Which, for the record, Ankara is none too pleased about.

  The only thing we have to go on is that set of fingerprints."

  "Which might be hacked." Trent tapped his jawline.

  "Could be, but I doubt it. You saw how well he played us. Played me." Sarge chewed on his fingertip for a second. "I guess it doesn't really matter. We know he's probably not Al Qaeda. It's a European problem, I'm tempted to just let Europe have at it. Call Interpol and let them have done with it."

  "Right now, sir?"

  "No. Wait until we get to port. We'll worry about it then."

  Trent accep
ted his dismissal. He didn't think waiting was a great idea. These guys were smart, and resourceful. He'd rather transfer these prisoners to European control as soon as possible and have done.

  He retreated to his bunk. His teammates were all joking and laughing, but he couldn't join in. He was too worried about what these prisoners were going to do next.

  When he got the call in the middle of the night, that they'd escaped the brig and stolen one of the life rafts, he knew the other shoe had dropped.

  Turn the page to get your preview of Infectious Love! It is the first book the Silver Oak Medical Center Series!