CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
One Day Later
82nd Street Naval Base
San Diego, California
“I Don’t know how to tell you this, Denison. I’m terrible at this type of shit, and there is really no good way to break it to you. So I’m just going to tell you flat out. Lena Westlake is missing.”
“What?” he bolted upright in his chair, panic setting in before he had even processed the magnitude of what his commanding officer was saying.
“She was reported missing from her home by her brother, Philip Westlake.”
“Since when? I just talked to her yesterday morning.” He was shouting, completely unable to control the volume of his voice. Lena was missing. His Lena.
“He reported her missing yesterday evening.”
“Damn it to hell. What happened?” Jesse’s heart raced. He did not want to hear what his CO was about to tell him, but he had to. Part of him was hoping that all of this was some sort of a cosmic mistake or a twisted joke of some kind. Hell, he would take an extremely cruel joke over the harsh reality of Lena being missing. But he knew that Commander Dewitt would never joke about something like this.
“The local police department has not yet pieced together exactly what the hell went down. However, it seems that she was attacked and snatched from her house in Walvis Bay the day before her brother’s arrival. She was supposed to pick him up from the airport yesterday afternoon, but she never showed. He and his girlfriend took a cab to her home in Walvis Bay and found the house turned upside down and Lena gone. The front door was left wide open. Broken pieces of furniture were scattered all over the first floor. There were blood smears on the walls, and Ms. Westlake’s purse and cell phone were found inside of the residence.”
“God.” Jesse’s gut clenched. His heart sank deeper and deeper into his chest with every new bleak detail he learned. Glancing up at his commanding officer, he asked the question he was dreading to ask. “How much blood did they find at the scene?”
“Not a lot. Until the DNA testing comes in, we have to assume that the blood is hers—most of it at least—but there wasn’t enough indicating that she bled out there. Of course, that’s not to say that she’s still alive either.”
“Fuck.” Jesse could not believe that this was happening. He could not comprehend that someone had taken Lena away from him. The devastating reality that Lena was now back in the clutches of a murderous sociopath—a sick bastard who would undoubtedly not even break a sweat when he put a bullet through her brain—was unthinkable.
Jesse pictured her beautiful face the last time he had seen her. It had been during a Skype video chat session yesterday. He’d still been spending time with his family in Louisville. Wearing a light blue sundress, a wide grin, and smiling eyes, she’d taken his breath away. After their last conversation before he left Africa, he hadn’t expected to contact her so soon.
In fact, he had told himself that he shouldn’t contact her period. That doing so would just be sending the wrong signal, especially when he wasn’t positive about what he wanted. He had told himself that he needed time to make sure that he could fully commit to Lena in the way that she needed. He sure as hell didn’t want to mess up the unique friendship that they shared because he couldn’t make up his damn mind.
But in the end, he’d missed her too much. The happiness that lit up her face when she realized that it was him on the other end of the line had been priceless. He’d wanted to make it a habit to put that type of elation on her face on a regular basis. They had even planned for her to fly out to San Diego to visit him within the next few months. Now she was gone.
Images of Rose’s dead, broken body flashed through his head and intermingled with an equally horrific visualization of Lena bleeding out from a bullet wound to the head. Shaking his head, he tried to erase the brutal imagery of Lena being murdered from his mind. The unthinkable was now a reality.
“Are there any leads?” Jesse choked out, his voice a mixture of shock, despair, and an unyielding fury.
“Not at the moment. The house she lived in was secluded. Her closest neighbor was located a mile away from her, so obviously no one heard a thing.”
Squinting his eyes, Jesse thought of something. “What about her camera system? She had a security network. One of the cameras should have caught something. Did the police check the tapes?”
“The Walvis Bay police officers attempted to view the tape, but they found that the security gate was broken and the security camera was disabled. There was no usable footage,” Mark replied grimly.
“Damn it,” Jesse muttered under his breath. “I told her to get that gate fixed. I should have had it taken care of it before I left her.” He couldn’t keep his voice from shaking. “I should never have left her, sir.”
Mark coughed, clearing his throat. “Listen, I’m only telling you this now because I’ve been made aware that the two of you have been seeing one another. I know that this has got to be tough on you right now, but you’ve got to keep your head on straight.”
“We’ve got to take this case over, sir. We have to move on this fast. The local police department over there is a complete joke. They just don’t have the resources, sir.”
“Listen, Denison. We don’t yet know what happened to Ms. Westlake. For all that we know, she could have been the victim of a random burglary that turned bad.”
“What was missing?”
“What?”
“You said that it could have just been a random robbery, sir? What was missing from her home?”
“It’s unclear at the moment. Her brother had a difficult time identifying any missing items, but as you know, he doesn’t live at the house. At any rate, this crime just took place, Denison. The police are still investigating the crime scene, so they’ll have more information in a few days.”
A random robbery his ass. What were the odds of someone being snatched and victimized by a terror group for weeks on end and then only a few weeks later a victim of a random robbery? Jesse was not a gambling man, but it did not take an expert gambler to appreciate that the odds of those series of events being unrelated were slim to none.
“You can’t seriously believe Lena was the victim of a chance robbery, sir. That would be one hell of a coincidence given all that has transpired. And what kind of robber do you know removes the homeowner from the scene?”
Seething, Jesse tried his best to rein in his emotions. He would not jump up from his chair and slam a fist into his superior officer’s door. He would not kick a hole in his superior officer’s wall.
Never before had he experienced such an unruly amalgamation of rage and despair before. He wanted to rip someone apart limb by limb. He wanted to find the bastard who had abducted his woman and beat him into a bloody pulp. And Lena was his woman.
Clenching and unclenching his fists, he glowered back at his CO. There was no way in hell Jesse was just going to sit idly by and twiddle his thumbs for a “few days.”
Mark glared at him. “This is a delicate situation, Denison. And so far, there’s no indication AnSawar is involved in this in any way.”
“Well, if you believe that, sir, I have a couple of golden bridges in Arizona I’d like to sell you.”
“Look, the only reason why I haven’t ripped you a new one yet is because I understand where you are coming from on this. But you have to understand something too. I can’t deploy this SEAL Team without a specific directive from on high. And as of right now, there isn’t one.”
“Fine, sir. Take this as your official notice that I am requesting personal leave.”
“You just took your personal leave for the year.”
“I know, sir, but I’m requesting emergency leave to deal with a personal family matter.” The notion of Lena as family should have shocked Jesse, but it didn’t. He did think of her as family. And Jesse protected his own.
“Be smart about this, Denison. Do you really think that chasing shadows is going to help anyb
ody right now? Just what do you think you’re going to accomplish?”
Gritting his teeth so hard that he was probably wearing them down to the nubs, he somberly eyed his CO. “I’m going to find Lena, sir. I’m going to bring her home. And I’m going to kill the son of a bitch who took her.”
****
A sharp pain traversed its way through Lena’s brain. Her jaw ached and a dull throbbing radiated throughout her chest. Blinking her eyes open, she found herself lying flat on her back on a metal-frame twin bed, her left wrist handcuffed to the headboard. The only light in the tiny room was the meek illumination provided by a small lamp situated on a small table in the corner.
Lena was not sure how long she had been lying there unconscious, but she could remember everything that’d occurred up until that point. Hazel Eyes had captured her. But where he had taken her was just as much of a mystery as why he’d taken her.
What was he going to do to her? The seemingly endless list of horrendous possibilities made her blood run cold. It did not make any sense that they would target her again. She had explained to him weeks earlier that she only had a paltry amount of money compared to AnSawar’s demands of millions of dollars. No, there had to have been some other reason that he’d abducted her again.
Worry about the fate of her mother and brother was keeping her up at night. Her family could not have been taking her disappearance well. Philip had to have been beside himself, especially since he had probably seen the condition her home had been left in. She also wondered about Jesse.
By now, he had to have discovered that she was gone. He must be worried sick about her. Even though she had only known him a brief time, Lena had discovered that he had a protective streak about a mile wide. He saw himself as the protector of those he felt he had a personal duty for. She had gleaned that he now thought of her safety as his one of his responsibilities.
But as much as she trusted Jesse, deep down Lena recognized that he couldn’t save her from her fate now. She was sure he would do everything he could to try to do just that. But there’s no way that he could know where she’d be taken. She didn’t even know where she’d been taken.
The cold hard truth was that sometimes there just wasn’t a way to pull yourself or someone you loved back from the abyss. Sometimes, no matter how you lived your life, no matter how well you tried to treat other people, no matter how many theoretical gold stars you’d collected throughout the years—it just wasn’t enough. Right now, she was standing at the edge of life and death. And she was going to die.
The sense of loss that enveloped her caused angry tears to slip out from the corners of her eyes. Wiping the tears away with her free hand, she quickly scooted further back onto the bed when she heard the door to the room crash open.
“Ah, you’re awake. Excellent,” Hazel Eyes crooned out as he entered the room. Once he reached her, he pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the handcuffs. “How is your chest feeling? Do you have any pain? I do apologize for having to incapacitate you, but it was quite necessary. As you may recall you were acting extremely hysterical.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked, unable to keep a slight tremble out of her voice.
“I understand that you must think that I’m doing this just to be cruel. But really, that’s the farthest thing from the truth. This is strictly business for me, Ms. Westlake.”
“What do you want?”
“One hundred million dollars,” he answered, a dark smile on his face.
God not this same old crap yet again. “I told you this before, I don’t have that type of money,” she yelled at him, her patience completely worn out.
Hazel Eyes sat down beside her on the bed, only about a foot away from her. Lena moved her body away from him and as close to the wall as she could.
“I want to help you out of this predicament that you are in, Lena. I really do. But you have to help me out also. I have to get something from you in return—quid pro quo if you will. To help this process along, you can start by telling me everything you know about Corynx Seven.”
Lena blinked. “What?”
“Corynx Seven,” he repeated in an infuriatingly composed voice.
The name sounded familiar to her, but she was having trouble thinking clearly given her current circumstances. Searching the recesses of her mind, she finally remembered where she’d heard that name from.
“Do you know what I’m talking about?” he prodded her again after she didn’t respond to him.
“Yes, I know what you are talking about.”
“What do you know of it?”
“Corynx Seven was one of my father’s weapons manufacturing companies,” Lena replied. “He and his business partners closed the facility down back in the early 2000s—I believe due to financial reasons. Why are you asking me about it?”
Hazel Eyes gave her another eerie smile before saying, “Do you know what type of weapons the company manufactured?”
“All I know is that my father had a group of engineers who were working on a project using plasma technology.”
“You are an engineer yourself by trade, are you not?”
“I am a petroleum engineer. I’m not an aerospace or a mechanical engineer. I don’t have any experience in building weaponry.”
“But you are familiar with what plasma technology is, correct?”
“Well, yes.”
“Enlighten me.”
Lena clenched her teeth so hard that her teeth nerve endings practically ached. “Plasma is a fourth state of matter. It is distinct from gas due to its high ionization of electrons. It allows for an energy rich, highly ionized state of gas to be harnessed.”
“To be harnessed for what exactly?” he encouraged her, nodding his head. “What type of weapons can be created?”
“Under the right conditions, plasma energy can be utilized for any number of things, but it is most commonly used in televisions to create high resolution screens. It can also be used to obtain the ignition needed in a sonic air stream for hypersonic missile impulsion.”
He nodded his head in silent accordance. “Were you aware that at the time of your father’s closing of his Corynx Seven laboratory in 2007, he was attempting to employ the plasma energy for a new weapon?”
“No. I told you, I had no knowledge of much of my father’s business operations. I’m most familiar with his laboratories and factories dealing with petroleum.”
“Your father wanted to create hypersonic, long-range missiles using plasma to be purchased by the U.S. government,” he droned on.
“I suppose that could be correct. Like I said, I was not privy to the details of any of his Corynx Seven projects. What does it matter anyway? That facility was completely shut down years ago.”
“Humor me for a minute, Ms. Westlake. Do you know how powerful a plasma hypersonic missile could be?”
“Not very. Plasma missiles are not built for power, they are built for speed. If someone wanted the most powerful missile that they could build, they would just load a nuclear warhead on it.”
“Yes, well, nuclear warheads are hard to come by these days.”
“Pity,” she said, rolling her eyes. If she thought that she could not have been more creeped out by this guy, she was wrong. This line of questioning from him was both disconcerting and just plain weird.
“If you were building a plasma missile, what would the benefits be?”
“From an engineering standpoint, the two major advantages would be stealth and speed.”
“Why stealth?”
“Hypersonic plasma missiles travel at rates in excess of five times the speed of sound. In order to travel at such high speeds, the fuel source for the projectile must be extremely light. The lightness of this missile allows for enhanced maneuverability, makes them well able to avoid missile interceptors that would destroy them, and allows them to abruptly change course if the target shifts from the original coordinate.”
A wide grin spread across Hazel Eyes’ fa
ce. “Exactly.”
“So are we done with this little quiz of yours? Can I leave now?”
“What if I were to tell you,” he said, ignoring her request, “that your father’s sonic missile program was never closed down. At least not completely.”
“I would say that you were a lying sack of shit.”
He chuckled, obviously pleased with himself. “I do appreciate your spirit, Ms. Westlake. It takes a certain type of backbone to remain defiant in the face of impossible odds. But I am not lying to you on this point. I could not have been more transparent or more truthful than that. But I’ll repeat myself. Your father never shut down Corynx Seven.”
“You’re wrong,” she said, becoming more annoyed by the second. “The laboratory was demolished after its sale.”
“Your father never closed down the weapons program that embodied Corynx Seven. Instead, he kept it open with the same engineers and scientists, but at a different location and under the radar from U.S. government surveillance and interference.”
“And why would he do that? Just what would he have to gain from losing his only client?”
“It is not a complicated answer, really. Your father was simply greedy. You see, he became voracious in his quest for wealth. So insatiable, in fact, that he came to the conclusion he could make more money off this type of weapon on the black market, as opposed to selling directly, and exclusively to the U.S. government. He could make well in excess of three hundred million dollars with that type of weapon. Well, that is if he found the right buyer. Do you know how much groups like ours and governments like the one in Yemen would pay to get their hands on a long-range supersonic missile that could avoid detection by traditional U.S. defense mechanisms? No. Your father was indeed a highly intelligent man, and he recognized that he had stumbled upon a gold mine.”
Shaking her head, Lena dismissed his outlandish allegations. “No. That is bullshit. It is just not possible. My father may not be the nicest man on the planet but he is still a decent human being.” For the most part, she added silently. “He would know what type of damage a weapon like that could do in the wrong hands. He would never betray the United States like that.”
Swift Strike (SEAL Team 14 Book 2) Page 16