Bodyguard Lockdown

by Donna Young

  “Are you okay?” Sandra started, coming abruptly back to the present.

  Booker stood at her feet, his gaze narrowed, studying her face.

  “I’m fine. Just resting.”

  “Rest somewhere out of the sun,” he ordered. “The last thing we need to deal with is a doctor with sunstroke.”

  “I wasn’t planning to stay out here for more than a few minutes.” Sandra slipped off the rock and dusted off her caftan. “Besides, I’m properly covered.”

  “Come over here.”

  Booker found a few sticks. He stripped out of his caftan, tied it to the poles and created a small lean-to for them to rest beneath.

  “I’ll be back with some food,” he told her. “After we eat, we need to rest while the sun is hot. We’ll travel in a few hours.”

  As if on cue, her stomach growled. It had been two solid days since she had more than just some cheese and sweet bread.

  Sandra sat beneath the lean-to, enjoyed the breeze against her face, the warm sand at her feet.

  This is where she belonged. This was worth fighting for.

  Booker returned a moment later, brown bag in hand. “Dinner. Your favorite.” He dug into the bag and pulled out a jar. “Bread and peanut butter.”

  “Peanut butter?” A wide grin spread across her lips.

  “Seems Yesemie shares your obsession for this stuff. I found a secret stash in the back of his jeep.” A moment later he held up a loaf of bread.

  “How nice of him.”

  “Didn’t find anything else but some water.”

  “When you work in a warehouse, why do you need supplies in your car?” Sandra joked, knowing they wouldn’t get far with minimal supplies.

  As if reading her thoughts, Booker tipped up her chin. Gave her a soft kiss on the nose. “Don’t worry, Doc. We’ll figure it out.”

  “I know.” She smiled, holding the moment in her heart.

  With a wink, he stepped away. “You grab the bread.” He settled next her, unscrewed the jar top and unsheathed his knife. “He also left us a few machine guns and explosives.”

  “Lucky us.” Sandra laughed, then tore off a big chunk of the bread and held it up.

  Booker went still for a second, enjoying the soft, feminine sound as it rolled through her chest, caught on her smile.

  He scooped out some peanut butter and spread it across the bread in her hand, deliberately avoiding the touch of their fingertips.

  Greedy, she sank her teeth into it and closed her eyes. She ran her tongue over her lips to catch any extra.

  “Doc?”

  Her eyes opened. Booker stared at her mouth; desire burned hot and pure in his eyes.

  “If you keep eating like that, you’re not going to finish,” he warned, his voice low.

  A ripple of feminine pride and excitement trickled through her. For the first time in a long time, a few bars of her birdcage broke away.

  “Sorry,” she said and almost meant it. Covering a smile, she set her bread carefully in her lap and reached over to him.

  He jumped just a bit at the contact of her fingers on his.

  “Let me.” She took the knife from him. Before you hurt yourself, she wanted to add, but didn’t.

  “You know, there has always been a question I wanted to ask you,” she mentioned instead. She spread the peanut butter, folded over the bread and handed it to him.

  “Why not?”

  “Why not what?”

  “Why didn’t you ever ask, Doc?”

  “Seriously?” she scoffed. “We had so many secrets between us, Booker, I’d trip over them on my way from our bed to the bathroom.”

  Booker didn’t argue her point. Instead he took a bite of bread, chewed for a moment. “There never seemed to be a good time to work on us.”

  “We slept together, but we weren’t intimate,” Sandra remarked. “No hand-holding. No quiet, romantic evenings.”

  But with no resentment. Just too many walls. Too much responsibility. They were entrenched in their own paths.

  They were...her parents, she realized, surprised. Her father buried in his career, her mother in her duties as his wife.

  “And you want to know why,” he stated.

  “No, actually. I think I figured that one out myself,” Sandra answered truthfully. Somehow her inner radar gravitated toward a man she was comfortable with. A man driven by his past. While responsible and reliable, he was void of emotion. No, she corrected, a man able to suppress and control his emotions.

  A man like her father.

  “I always wondered how you got your first name.”

  “It’s a family name,” he replied, surprised. “Booker was my mother’s maiden name. She came from an affluent background. Her family was big on making sure all the descendants of the women carried their name.”

  “Booker?” Sandra frowned. “As in Francis Booker, heir to Booker Enterprises?”

  “The same.”

  Booker Enterprises was old money. Mayflower money. Been around longer than the Rockefellers. Most known for oil. They had their fingers in every major technical and urban industry.

  “Wow.” Sandra blew out the word. “But I thought... Quamar told me once...”

  “That I came from a poor background?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s because I did. On my father’s side.”

  “Your father?”

  “His name was Malcolm McKnight. My mother met my father on a drill site she was visiting with her father.” Booker took another bite of his sandwich and paused for a moment. “At the time, my grandfather, Samuel Booker, was interested in investing in oil.”

  “Samuel as in Sam the horse?”

  “Yes. He bought the rights to a drilling site my father worked on.”

  “That’s when your father met your mother.”

  Booker nodded. “They were sixteen. Just kids. But they fell in love on sight. The trouble was that my mother was an only child with only her father left to raise her. My grandmother had died when my mother was young. My grandfather had wanted my mom to marry into their circle.”

  “She was a bargaining chip?”

  “No.” Booker shook his head. “My grandfather loved my mother and wanted only the best for her. But when my grandfather forbade the marriage, she ran away with my dad.”

  Booker’s jaw tightened, holding back the resentment that his words, didn’t...couldn’t disguise.

  “My grandfather was furious. He disowned my mother the moment he found out. Then he proceeded to buy up as many oil companies he could and blackballed my father from the fields. Only those who knew nothing of my mother’s family or the story or disliked my grandfather gave my father a job.

  “We didn’t have health care. When I was ten, my mom caught pneumonia. My dad wanted to go to my grandfather and ask for help to pay for medical care but my mom made him promise not to. She died the next day, in my father’s arms.”

  “Promise or not, he should have tried—”

  “My father loved her until the day he died. I was eighteen at the time.” Booker tossed his sandwich away, wiped his hands on his thighs. “He got caught in the backlash of loose steel cable. It ripped him in two.”

  “Booker, I’m so sorry.” Her hand automatically went to his shoulder.

  “It happened a long time ago, Doc.” Booker shrugged off her hand, shifted back onto his elbows and stretched out his legs.

  She let her hand drop to her lap.

  “The funny thing is, he only lived a few minutes and was in a tremendous amount of pain,” Booker continued. “Yet he died with my mother’s name on his lips and a smile on his face. It was as if he’d welcomed death because he’d be with her again. He loved her that much.”

  “Their love must have been incredible. And so tragic,” Sandra murmured. “It reminds me of my uncle Bari and my aunt Theresa.”

  “The irony is, a few years ago, my grandfather took ill. His lawyers showed up on my doorstep. My grandfather wanted me back in th
e family. I closed the door in their face. And haven’t seen him since.”

  “Is he still living?”

  “Oh, yes,” Booker stated, his frown deepening. “He’s ninety-three and a stubborn old bastard.”

  Like his grandson, Sandra mused, sure that Booker wouldn’t appreciate the comparison.

  “He sends me letters. I return them unopened.”

  So many secrets. So much distance.

  “All of them?” Instinctively, she knew he wasn’t telling her the whole story. Why wouldn’t he just throw the letters away? Why take the time to send the letters back?

  Because the old man was his only family. At least sending the letters back maintained some kind of connection.

  For the first time she understood—the distance wasn’t only with her. He maintained the same detachment with everyone.

  Booker’s whole family had died on him. His mother, his father. Emily and their baby. His men.

  “Yes. I sent every one of the letters back.” Booker nodded toward her sandwich. “Eat your lunch. You’re going to need the energy.”

  “Doctor.” She pointed at her bag by her side. “Remember?” Still, she took a bite of her food. But this time the peanut butter tasted more like the sand around her feet.

  “In my experience, doctors are the worst offenders,” Booker retorted.

  “How many doctors do you know?”

  “Just one. Isn’t that enough?” he teased.

  “Funny.” With a smirk, she tossed her sandwich away, daring him to make a comment.

  Instead, he closed his eyes, taking a moment to enjoy the easy camaraderie they’d stumbled upon.

  She looked out over the desert, enjoying the simple blend of the cloudless sky and endless sand. “One thing Trygg did for me. He gave me a reason to come home after the trial.”

  Booker opened one eye, saw the relaxed features, the quiet, ironic smile across her lips.

  “You want to tell me what happened?”

  “You’ve seen the file.” She stretched out her legs and dusted the crumbs off her pants.

  “I’d like your version.”

  “All right.” He’d opened up about his family, she thought. She needed to do the same. “After I graduated from college, I got a job in Washington, D.C., working on a military research project under the direct report of General Trygg.”

  “CIRCADIAN?”

  “Yes,” Sandra said, frowning. “It worked at a rate of a thousand times faster then the average healthy body can heal.”

  “Super Soldiers,” Booker grunted. “Trygg’s specialty.”

  “Exactly,” Sandra agreed. “Although I didn’t know it at the time. My father had been informed of the research opportunity shortly after I left college.”

  “Who told him?”

  “He never said.” Sandra paused, thinking. “I interviewed with several individuals. Several or all might have talked with my father.”

  “Including Trygg?”

  “Trygg, Senator Harper, Kate MacAlister,” she admitted. “President Mercer.”

  Booker stiffened in surprise. “You interviewed with Jonathon Mercer?”

  “For over an hour. In his private quarters,” Sandra explained. “I remember being surprised at the extent of his knowledge of CIRCADIAN.”

  Booker wasn’t, but said nothing. Instead, he snagged a bottle of water from the brown bag. Took a long swallow. More to cover his anger than for thirst. “Your father’s social circle includes some high-powered company.”

  He offered Sandra the bottle.

  She swallowed a small amount and handed it back to him. “As a young man, my father studied in the States and graduated at the top of his class. He was recruited into government work almost immediately. I don’t know the projects, of course—they were all top secret. But he maintained his contacts even after he’d left the government and returned to Taer.”

  When Booker remained silent, she said, “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “No, you don’t,” he responded evenly, keeping his features deliberately blank. Omar Haddad had been a government operative long after he’d returned to Taer.

  “You’re thinking somehow if my father is involved, the reason might lie in one of those top secret projects he was involved in years ago.”

  “All right,” Booker lied. “I have to admit it’s logical.”

  “I would have pursued the job without my father’s help. I had my own reasons for wanting this serum to work, but I needed the funds.”

  “What reason?”

  “It’s personal.”

  “Too personal to share.”

  “I’ve lost family members, Booker,” she answered slowly, still not willing to trust him with the information on her brother Andon.

  She placed her hand on his arm for a brief second. “I can’t help believing I would save those I have left.”

  Booker nodded, understanding. “How did the project get away from you?”

  “Eventually I made a breakthrough and Trygg fired my boss, and placed me as the lead researcher. What I didn’t know at the time was that he altered my reports to suit his needs. Omitting information, falsifying test results.”

  “Who did he fire?”

  “Kate MacAlister-D’Amato,” she said quietly.

  “Why?”

  “Kate questioned every decision Trygg made,” Sandra stated. “And she had connections to back her up.”

  “Obviously, that made Trygg nervous.”

  Sandra snorted. “Trygg doesn’t get nervous. He got angry. And then he got rid of her.”

  “He would’ve killed her. You know that, right?” Booker asked.

  “Now I do,” Sandra replied. “He couldn’t easily, though, because she was so well connected.”

  “Trygg brought in Lewis Pitman?”

  “Yes,” Sandra said. “Kate tried to convince me to leave also, but I was Trygg’s shining star.”

  “You were young,” Booker observed. “Too young to lead a top secret, high-priority research project.”

  “I was naive and full of myself,” she corrected, her self-disgust palpable. “Kate went to work on another project, and I continued working on the cell reconstruction serum. You know the rest.”

  “And Trygg?”

  “I didn’t know at the time, but Trygg couldn’t have been happier.”

  “Fifty men died,” Booker said grimly.

  Sandra nodded. “Yes. Because of something I created.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Doc. Trygg is an unbalanced killer with a god complex,” Booker corrected her, the edge of his words cutting the air between them. “Those men died because Trygg murdered them.”

  “Why is Trygg afraid of you, Booker?”

  “Trygg decided to let me live. He sent me on a wild-goose chase. I know him. There isn’t a day that goes by that he doesn’t regret that decision.” Booker shoved the water back into the backpack. “And when I catch up with him, he’s not going back to prison. I’m sending him straight to hell.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Pitman followed Jim down the circular stairway to the main floor of the lab. “Is everything satisfactory, Doctor?”

  “Almost,” Lewis replied, pleased.

  The lab ran the length of the plane. Hundreds of square feet of fitted steel and white tile, Plexiglas and state-of-the-art technology.

  “The only thing missing are the cylinders,” Pitman advised him. “Have you located Sandra Haddad?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Do you know where she is at least?”

  “We know who she’s with,” Jim answered.

  “Who?”

  “Booker McKnight.”

  Pitman stopped at the base of the stairs, blocking Jim. “Senator Harper’s son-in-law?”

  “Yes,” Jim acknowledged. “But he will be taken care of soon.”

  “You realize it is harder dealing with a man bent on revenge than one who just wants more money?”

  “I understand the
man more than you think, Lewis. Booker McKnight was more than just military, or loyal. Those men trusted Booker and he let them down. They were his responsibility, his family,” Jim replied. “I’d be surprised if Booker didn’t go after Trygg. Hell, I’d do the same in his shoes.”

  “I’m not talking about his men, Colonel. I’m talking about his wife, Emily,” Pitman stated bluntly. “I told Trygg killing Harper’s daughter along with his men was an unnecessary risk.”

  “The general always weighs the options,” Jim prodded, keeping his voice even, his expression blank. “Emily Harper’s death was unavoidable. She snuck on the base to see Booker without authorization.”

  “Unavoidable? Trygg knew that Emily was on the base,” Pitman scoffed. “How long have you served under General Trygg? That man doesn’t do anything without a purpose.”

  “What do you mean?” Jim turned, backed Pitman up against the stairs.

  Pitman’s eyes widened. “I understand that circumstance made Emily’s death a last-minute decision, but it wasn’t unavoidable.” Fear made his voice shake. “When Trygg received the call up in the airplane that Emily crashed the gates, we hadn’t dropped the cylinder yet. I told him he needed more time to think it through. That killing Harper’s daughter would bring attention to our operation. He disagreed.”

  Jim’s jaw tightened. The trouble was he couldn’t trust Pitman. The man was a rat; he’d kill his own children to save his skin.

  “General Trygg understood the importance of the situation,” Jim said flatly, but was unable to dismiss the doctor’s theory. He stepped back, giving them both room—and Jim time to think over this new information.

  Pitman cleared his throat, used the moment to gain his composure. “Don’t get me wrong, Colonel. I agree with Trygg’s reasoning. Those who died did so for a good cause whether they knew it or not. Harper’s daughter was just another casualty of war,” Pitman acknowledged. “I’d just prefer it if Booker McKnight wasn’t lurking somewhere in the shadows.”

  * * *

  RIORDEN TRYGG STOOD at the opening of his tent and sipped his coffee, enjoying the bite against his tongue.

  It didn’t matter, jungle humidity or desert heat, Trygg drank his coffee strong and hot.