Navy SEAL Noel

by Liz Johnson

  “Yes, sir. I’ll try.”

  But no promises. If it took a war to save Jess, he’d start and end it.

  *

  When three sharp cracks broke the air on the opposite side of the lush courtyard, Jessalynn McCoy fell to the lawn, dropping the box she’d been carrying and covering her head with both hands.

  “Up! Up!” The man with the large black gun slung across his chest, dressed head to toe in green camouflage, dug the tip of his boot into her ribs. She cringed, curling into the pain, her already labored breaths coming out in quick puffs. He hadn’t fired the warning shots, but she didn’t doubt that he was willing to shoot at anything. Even her.

  Pushing shaking hands beneath her, she glared up into the shadowed face of her guard, Manuel. He was charged with keeping her inside the compound and lugging a myriad of outdated scientific equipment to the room they’d deemed a laboratory. He frowned and spit toward her, barely missing her shoulder. She glared at him, jerking away from the spot next to her hand where the disgusting stream had landed.

  Manuel grunted, kicked her foot and pointed his gun at the broken beakers and hot plates scattered at her side. They didn’t need to speak the same language for her to understand what he wanted. When she didn’t move immediately, he wrapped his hand around her arm. Jess jerked it away, her skin crawling under the touch of his callused fingers.

  Why couldn’t they just leave her alone?

  Every morning they insisted on marching her from her cell of a room to the kitchen for a spicy breakfast and then pushing her from the storage shed to the lab and back, carrying supplies that had probably been upgraded about the time Louis Pasteur started studying biology.

  She didn’t bother voicing her complaints. What good would it do? She wasn’t a guest. She was a prisoner. And so she kept her mouth shut and her eyes on the exits, dreaming up wildly improbable escape plans.

  Realistically, she knew she’d never be able to get away on her own. She didn’t even know what country she was in. Even if she could scale an outside security wall and scramble over the loops of barbed wire and shards of glass without getting snagged, she had no idea what she’d face on the other side, or how she would get to help.

  She was stuck inside this steaming, muddy compound—with or without a personal escort.

  At least until she could figure out a plausible plan.

  Or until her dad sent help.

  Manuel shoved her shoulder, and she whispered, “God, please let him send help soon.”

  “Qué?” Manuel shook his dark hair off his forehead, his eyes boring into her.

  Jess swallowed and blinked, fighting the urge to look away. “Nothing.” She didn’t wait for him to push her again, but stooped to collect the scattered debris.

  The weight of the full box in her arms made each step through the dewy grass twice as hard, three times as slow. She was losing strength, her energy reserves depleting quickly from too much manual labor and too many nights with not enough sleep.

  She wasn’t about to risk more than just the essential catnaps at night.

  Someone had been poking around outside her room the night before.

  She wasn’t going to be asleep if they managed to make it in.

  Exhaustion was wearing her down, but she didn’t have a choice about setting up her lab, as ordered. Manuel seemed far too eager to use his gun, taking every opportunity to butt the barrel against her. Like a teenager given his first car, Manuel couldn’t wait to take it for a test drive.

  When they reached one of the nondescript gray, cinder block buildings that seemed to multiply within the compound, Manuel went to work on the large, padlocked metal door. It squealed as he pushed it open and motioned for her to follow him in.

  Jess stumbled over the four-inch step, her legs like overcooked fettuccine. With a clinking of glass, the box she’d been carrying landed on one of four black tables evenly spaced in the middle of the room. The table’s wooden legs slid on the cement floor as Jess fell against it.

  Manuel grumbled and motioned for her to rearrange the furniture.

  If they’d spoken the same language, she’d have told him that this high school chemistry class replica— complete with two full walls of counter space and one measly window—was more likely to cause them all to be killed than keep the Morsyni toxin safe until it was released.

  At least, she assumed that’s what they wanted her to do. Really, it was all a guess at this point. Manuel’s monosyllabic grunts and broken English had barely hinted at why she’d been attacked, drugged and dragged to…wherever this was. But it wasn’t a far jump to guess that it had everything to do with her research on the Morsyni toxin. Before three men in black ski masks had abducted her from the Southern California State University lab, they’d forced her to retrieve her sample vial of the powder. She had just one gram of the ultrafine substance, but it contained more than a trillion lethal spores.

  Which was enough to kill fifty million people. Or more.

  Jess’s stomach lurched at the very thought. Her research had all been targeted at better understanding the Morsyni, hoping to one day find a cure. Or at least a way to minimize its effects. But whoever had brought her here just wanted to twist her expertise and use it against… Well, she didn’t know who. But someone was a target, and she had been set up to be the arrow.

  Suddenly the humidity wasn’t the only thing making it hard to breathe. She pushed past Manuel and out the door, hoping that the narrow alley along the back of the cinder block barrack would provide enough air to lift the band around her chest.

  They could have only one reason for taking her, too. They needed someone who knew how to release the toxin without killing everyone inside the compound.

  Manuel shoved her shoulder, gesturing her back to the storage shed to get more supplies. “Move.” He locked the door and then resumed breathing on her neck. She shuddered at the stale odor, praying once again to be anywhere but confined by these compound walls with this man as her tail.

  She’d nearly worn the winding path to the shed into a muddy trench, but she kept her head down as she trudged toward their destination.

  They emerged into the courtyard, the afternoon sun steaming her skin through her cotton shirt. They had to be near the equator. Or possibly on the sun.

  Jess was nearly all the way across the courtyard when her foot disappeared into a mud puddle, and she lurched to the ground, landing on all fours.

  Manuel yelled at her, and she glared over her shoulder at him.

  “Ocho días.” He rolled his eyes in a universal sign of displeasure. “Sólo ocho días.”

  Eight days. Only eight days.

  Even she, who’d passed high school Spanish only because of her best friend, could translate that. Manuel expected to have to put up with her for only eight more days. It was too much to hope that he’d simply be replaced by a different guard at the end of that time or that she’d be free to leave then.

  Which could only mean one thing.

  She’d have served her purpose. In eight days, she’d be expected to release the toxin.

  And then she’d likely be killed.

  Unless she escaped.

  Something like fear and dread clawed at her insides, leaving a twisted trail of pain in its wake. She fought the sudden need to vomit, and gulped in great quantities of oxygen.

  “Up!”

  Pushing her hands into the mud, Jess made it to her feet, and her gaze fell squarely on a man in a tattered gray suit twenty yards away. Two armed guards held his elbows as he glowered at another one, who seemed to be in charge. The man in the gray suit turned a blank stare on her, his pale face cloaked in a five-o’clock shadow. And devoid of any recognition.

  But she knew him.

  She’d known him more than half her life, though she hadn’t seen him in years.

  At least…at least it looked like Will.

  Her heart leaped to her throat, lodging there as she tried to call out.

  Manuel stepped into
her line of sight, and by the time she’d scrambled to look around him, the familiar face had disappeared.

  Maybe the heat and humidity were causing hallucinations. Maybe she’d simply imagined him, hoping someone would come for her.

  But why would her mind conjure Will Gumble?

  “Vámanos.” Manuel nudged her toward the giant house that took up nearly half of a security wall. Its golden stucco walls and clay-tile roof were out of place among the host of intentionally unremarkable buildings in its shadow. It had to be home to the man or men in charge, although she’d yet to see them.

  She followed the path around the big house to the storage shed, pushing all thoughts of Will Gumble out of her mind. She had eight days—less, actually—to make it out of this place alive. And dwelling on her former best friend wasn’t going to rescue her. She had to find a way out on her own.

  TWO

  Jess huddled in the farthest corner of her cell, behind the bed where she’d managed to filch only a few hours of sleep the past few nights. The lumpy mattress and loose bedsprings stood like a sentinel between her and the doorway now, but they wouldn’t be much protection if anyone came in.

  She grasped the foot-long wrench she’d stolen off a maintenance cart three days before, holding it vertical and ready to swing if her worst nightmare crashed through that door. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the windowless room enough that she could make out the rotting slats of the lower part of the door by the crack of light seeping beneath it.

  Despite plenty of threatening noises every night since her arrival, no one had unlocked the bolt on the outside of the door. Not yet. But if someone did, she’d be ready for him.

  She crouched for what felt like hours, unable to tell the exact passage of time, but the transition from screaming pain to a dull ache to numbness in her thighs was better than a clock.

  In the loose haze between alertness and the siren call of sleep, her mind began to wander to the familiar face she’d seen that afternoon. Of course, it couldn’t possibly have been Will. She hadn’t seen him in ten years. She probably wouldn’t recognize him even if they sat face-to-face. The man had just resembled him. Dark brown hair and a jaw chiseled into a blunt point. From that distance, she’d only gotten the impression of dark eyes that probably bore no resemblance to the milk-chocolate ones she remembered. And the man who’d entered the compound today had worn a very dark, very handsome five-o’clock shadow. Will had never been able to grow much facial hair.

  Well, eighteen-year-old Will hadn’t, anyway.

  A gentle thud against the door sent her heart into overdrive, all traces of sleep tossed aside. She leaned forward, her grip on the wrench sending spasms through her fingers. Taking a shaky breath, she blinked into the darkness as the telltale rattle of a doorknob sounded. The inside lock held. But for how long?

  A shadow briefly blocked the light seeping beneath the door, the feet there moving soundlessly.

  She gasped for breath, the heavy, humid air like a wet towel draped across her nose and mouth.

  It was now or never. She could wait for the man to enter, to investigate the room and find her in the corner. Or she could face him with the element of surprise.

  She scrambled toward the entrance, the sound of her shuffling feet echoing against the cinder blocks no matter how she tried to muffle her steps.

  A hiccup surprised her, and she slapped her palm over her mouth to mute the obnoxious noise.

  The lock clicked, and she held her breath as she slipped behind the door, painfully swallowing another hiccup. The sound of her pounding heart seemed to fill the room as the flimsy wooden slats swung open, leaving a narrow beam from the courtyard security light spilling across the floor. The shadow of a broad man filled the gap. His movements silent, his motions sure, he closed the door after stepping inside.

  This was her only chance. Her only hope of protecting herself.

  If Jess could fight him off now, maybe word would spread that she wasn’t to be trifled with.

  The wrench weighed more than a school bus, and was almost as unwieldy, as she swung it toward his head. She had to knock him out, or at least to the ground. Then maybe she could even make a run for it.

  Just before the metal connected with the barely visible outline of his skull, he ducked and lifted an arm. The tool glanced off his shoulder, grazing his neck. In a flash he grabbed it, and before she could let go, he jerked it behind her back, leaving her arm twisted and useless. Fire screamed up to her kinked shoulder.

  He promptly cut off her shriek with a callused hand clamped over her mouth. His steely arm pinned hers to her side and pressed her body against his chest. She writhed and shook, trying to free herself, but the wall of muscle at her back didn’t even seem to register her struggle. Her frantic effort only made her lungs burn for the oxygen he was depriving her of.

  When her head began spinning in earnest, her muscles went limp and her fight ebbed away.

  Only then did she realize that the man was speaking softly in her ear, his whispered breath fanning the trembling muscles of her neck.

  “Jess, calm down. I won’t hurt you.” The words made no sense to her muddled brain, but they continued, quiet and assured. “Don’t scream. It’s all right. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  It wasn’t the words that made her sink into him, but the voice that, even after all this time, she’d recognize anywhere. Her eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on her that afternoon. Will Gumble was in this compound. In her very room.

  He must have sensed her acquiescence. He slowly loosened his hand from over her mouth and rested it on her upper arm. His firm grip was the only thing that kept her standing.

  “What are you—” Her words were little more than a frantic sigh as he spun her around. Pressing one finger to his lips, he raised his eyebrows and nodded toward the only other door in the room.

  He didn’t wait for her to agree, just steered her toward the bathroom and closed the door behind them.

  She yanked on the string above the sink, and the naked bulb over the cloudy mirror burst to life, bathing them in its yellow glow. Jess blinked against the sudden brightness.

  Will didn’t seem to have the same trouble. He immediately lifted the lid off the toilet tank and peered inside before running his hands under the white porcelain sink. With a finger he swiped around the edge of the mirror. Then he leaned forward until her nose was almost pressed to his chest, and he swiped his hand over the top of the door frame.

  He pulled back and nodded, as if satisfied. “It’s clear. There may be bugs in your room, so we should never talk in there. But this should be safe for now.”

  Scrambling to catch up to his train of thought, Jess surveyed the sink and mirror. How could he act so casual? As if it hadn’t been ten years since they’d spoken? As if he hadn’t just shown up in a foreign country where she was being held prisoner? As if the very sight of him didn’t make her knees weak with relief?

  “I thought I saw you—I thought that was you, but…” Her words were little more than a whisper despite his assurance that it was safe to speak. Her stomach pitched, fear and relief mingling with alarm and the echo of a remembered betrayal. But dealing with her emotions would have to wait until she felt steadier on her feet. Exhaustion and the ebbing of her fight-or-flight adrenaline rush had left her legs like jelly. She leaned into Will. He held out his arms, as though he knew just what she needed. As though he was still someone who cared about taking care of her, being there for her.

  But she didn’t want him holding her. She wanted answers. She wanted to understand what on earth was happening. Most of all, she wanted to silence the little voice in her head that kept saying Will’s appearance was simply a dream or hallucination.

  Yanking herself upright at the last possible moment, she shoved his chest with both hands. “You scared me to death! Why did you break into my room? What are you doing here?”

  His lopsided grin had always started with a little quirk to the left befo
re spreading across his mouth. And that hadn’t changed, even as he looked down at the tiny black-and-white-checkered floor tiles.

  He scraped his fingers over the black whiskers covering his chin. “Your dad sent me.”

  “My dad?”

  “Well, I couldn’t say no to my new XO, could I?”

  “So you’re still in the navy?” Oh, she sounded bitter—so much more bitter than she wanted to. Why couldn’t her words be flippant and nonchalant, as if it didn’t really matter that she no longer knew even the most basic things about him? He’d popped back into her life, and she didn’t want it to matter.

  But it did.

  Maybe because of the extreme situation.

  Sure. She’d just keep telling herself that.

  His smile flickered for a moment before he nodded slowly. “I am.”

  Forcing a chuckle, she said, “I figured when my dad realized I was missing, he’d send a SEAL team to bring me home.” At least she had hoped he’d do that.

  “Not a full team—he just sent one.”

  Her breath vanished, and she blinked twice.

  Will Gumble had become a SEAL. An elite warrior. The best that the United States military offered.

  What else didn’t she know about him?

  *

  Will crossed his arms over his chest. Anything to keep from reaching out for Jess again. From being rejected again.

  But he couldn’t pull his gaze from her face, all smooth lines and fair skin, except for the dark bags below her bloodshot eyes. Those were both probably recent additions. Most people couldn’t sleep much under this kind of stress. Just because he’d been trained to survive for days on catnaps didn’t mean Jess would look refreshed doing the same.

  Her hair brushed across her forehead and her eyebrows pulled together, leaving three vertical lines in the center.

  “Where’s the rest of your team?”

  “Stateside.”

  With stilted movements, she crossed her arms, matching his stance. Her gaze swept from his head to his toes and back again, her eyes shifting from pale green to the color of the sea in a typhoon. The scrutiny made him feel like a kid who’d been called into the principal’s office.