Again. Forever.
He’d seen the look in her eyes. Whatever bridge they had tentatively formed over the last few days had ruptured just as surely as Maria’s water had broken.
“I think I’m going to have the guys start calling you ‘Papa,’” Lopez said.
“No, you aren’t,” Brandt stated flatly.
However, that didn’t change the fact that Brandt was about to be a father.
A father. That so sounded like he was talking about his dad. Had he felt this churning of his belly at Brandt’s birth? Had he been as afraid and confused?
Of course his dad had actually loved his mom and they had been trying to conceive for five years before Brandt had made his appearance. Their “miracle baby” is what they’d called him. Even after the birth of his two sisters, he was still their miracle. What legacy could he give his child? How could Brandt be sure that despite the circumstances of his conception, his boy knew that he too was a miracle? And when was too early to start saving for a college fund?
Christ, a thousand thoughts competed for attention. Especially as the burner phone in his hand keep vibrating with each new text update. Maria was in full-blown labor. They’d let her start pushing. Dear God, it wouldn’t be long now.
His mouth went dry and his hands started shaking, actually shaking. He really wanted to chalk it up to all the trauma and drugs for the trauma, but Brandt knew it was because he was afraid. Perhaps more afraid than he had been in the cavern.
Wait, on second thought, maybe not quite that afraid, but pretty damned scared. Fighting was one thing, bringing a whole new life into this world was quite another.
Okay, on third thought, maybe he was more scared now.
Lopez made a fast left, across four lanes of traffic that had the green and skidded them into the St. Bartholomew’s Hospital ambulance bay. Brandt popped open his door and, oblivious to the jabbing pain in his side, hit the ER doors at a run.
As he passed by the nurses’ station he asked, “Maternity ward?”
“Third floor, follow the pink arrows!” a nurse shouted behind him, clearly used to panicked fathers-to-be.
He went to hit the stairs, but Lopez was right behind him, hitting the elevator button. “Dude, you do still want to be alive when you get there, right?”
Any other time Brandt would have scoffed, but adrenaline only got you so far.
The elevator chimed, sealing his decision. They boarded the elevator as Lopez hit the floor three button like a dozen times. In what possibly felt like the longest, slowest three-floor elevator ride in the history of mankind, Brandt shoved away everything that had happened over the last forty-eight hours. And then shoved some more, packing away all the feelings that had been stirred and churned. His focus had to be on Maria and the baby.
It had to be.
Once the elevator doors opened, Brandt charged out, following the pink arrows. A scream like a bull in a fight to the death resounded through the hallways. That had to be Maria. He burst into the room only to find an Indian couple looking at him strangely.
“Sorry,” he apologized, wishing he could unsee what he just saw.
A nurse escorted him to the door. “Who are you here for?”
“Maria,” he said. “Mrs. Brandt.” Which still sounded incredibly weird. Like he was talking about his mom or something.
“Oh, she’s already delivered,” the nurse stated, pointing down the hall. “You’ll find them in room three twenty-four.”
“Is he…” Brandt couldn’t finish the sentence.
“They’re both healthy as could be, dear,” the nurse reassured him.
He turned on his heel and rushed down the hallway, not believing he’d missed his own son’s birth. Sure he’d been saving the world, but come on.
Bursting in the right door this time, Brandt took in the sight of his wife, his almost painfully beautiful wife and baby. That tiny red squished face. His son. He was about to hurry over to the bedside when he caught Maria’s frown. Nor would she look him in the eye.
Then the blue blanket slipped from the baby’s shoulder revealing his chest, and the huge port-wine birthmark splashed across his dark skin.
It took a moment for Brandt’s brain to catch up with the sight before him. He knew that birthmark. Brandt turned to find Lopez in the doorway, looking extremely blanched.
That’s where he knew the birthmark from. Lopez.
A sharp biting grief gripped his heart. The child wasn’t his. He wasn’t a father. Then a crashing sense of relief washed the pain away. The child was Lopez’s.
Maria’s eyes blinked as she cringed, clearly expecting some kind of berating.
Instead Brandt smiled, beamed really.
He removed his wedding band and handed it to Lopez. “They’re all yours, buddy.”
For the first time since Brandt had known the corporal, Lopez didn’t have a snappy response. And Brandt was in no mood to wait for one.
He had someone to see.
* * *
Rebecca finished recalibrating the micropipette. After being dropped off at her apartment, she’d snuck out the back and headed to her laboratory, only a block away. This might be the last time she ever got a chance to test out her “smart” gene theory. She might have lost Brandt, but she wasn’t going to lose her research as well.
The lab had a thick layer of dust from the blast that took out the stairwell wall, but otherwise the room had survived the assault well. And luckily she had a backup to her microblade. But only one. She doubted after this last debacle that she would get more funding any time soon.
Settling herself, Rebecca sat down on the stool and rolled it forward to the microscope. She only had to extract a few nanograms of any DNA left in James’s bone. After everything she’d been through she didn’t think a nanogram was much to ask.
The bone was still perfectly aligned in the grips from her earlier attempt. Rebecca could see that pocket of what looked like preserved marrow. Carefully she raised the microknife, taking care that the low flow suction was working perfectly before she committed to making the cut.
Closing her eyes, she counted to three, then opened them again, her hand on the controls. Just as she pushed the lever, the lab door burst open. She didn’t need to hear the expensive tip break off, she felt it shatter.
With a fury borne of so much more than her experiment ruined, Rebecca turned to the door. “What the hell do you—”
Her words died in her throat as she realized it was Brandt. And he was smiling. That made absolutely no sense.
“The baby,” he beamed. “It’s not mine.”
“What?” she stammered. “That doesn’t make any…What?”
He stepped closer. “Let’s just say I don’t think I was the only soldier Maria was comforting that mission.”
Rebecca still didn’t understand. Maria had sworn the child was Brandt’s. She’d sworn it to Brandt. To her parents. To her priest.
“No,” Rebecca said, taking a step back. She couldn’t go there. She couldn’t get hopeful and then have her world crash down again.
“Yes,” Brandt said. “You know that birthmark of Lopez’s?” Off her nod, Brandt continued. “The baby takes after Papa.”
The child was Lopez’s? Not Brandt’s? That couldn’t be true, could it?
“We’ve got to wait for DNA tests, but then I should be able to get an annulment quickly once they are in.”
“Annulment?” Rebecca repeated, feeling about half a mile behind the conversation. “No, you mean divorce.” Which meant there would be no divorce. Brandt was just that Catholic.
Brandt closed the distance between them. “No, I mean an annulment.”
“But by church law if you’ve consummated the marriage then—”
He took her hand. “Consummated? I haven’t even given her a peck on the cheek.”
Rebecca’s mind spun. They had been married for months. Brandt couldn’t mean…
“Maria and I haven’t had sex, Rebecca. Plus she lied
about the baby. I’m getting an annulment.”
A sob she didn’t even know she was holding in broke free. Her hands flew to her mouth. She wanted to say so much but couldn’t come out with a single word.
“I’m in love with you, Rebecca,” Brandt said. “How could I be with anyone else?”
Not even his wife. She blinked several times, making sure this wasn’t a dream that would evaporate as soon as she woke up.
Brandt leaned past her to the shelf above her workspace and grabbed the engagement ring that had been sitting there so forlorn for so long.
“I think we need to put this back where it belongs.”
With only a slight wince he got down on one knee. “Rebecca, will you marry me?”
“Each time you ask me,” Rebecca choked out.
Brandt slid the gold, sparkling ring onto her finger. It felt even more delicious the second time. He went to rise, but struggled. Rebecca dropped to her knees, laughing, crying, still trying to believe he was truly hers again.
Then their lips met, and fire, as white and hot as magnesium, shot through her body. Oh yeah, he was hers.
Their kiss stopped abruptly as Brandt took in a ragged breath. “As much as I’d love to see where this is going…I think I might really need a hospital.”
Rebecca helped him up as blood stained his shirt. “And maybe some surgery, honey.”
“Yeah,” Brandt said, leaning into her, really leaning into her, nothing being held back this time. “Maybe that too.”
And Rebecca would be there, happily right by his side, never to be separated again. You know why? Because she was done with religious controversies. Done with historical mysteries. Really done.
To prove it to herself, as they as walked out, Rebecca hit the toggle on the microtome, grinding the tip into the sample, destroying James’s bone once and for all.
Goodbye, gunfights and magnesium fires.
Hello, wedding planning.
Epilogue
══════════════════
Undisclosed Location
9:46 a.m. GMT
Aunush roused, feeling the cool marble floor beneath her back. And the myrrh and frankincense? It smelled like faith incarnate. The sniper had somehow saved her and brought her home. She felt mildly guilty for deciding to sacrifice him, but it was hard to feel much of anything except relief.
Then she moved her arm to find a sticky pool beside her. A pool of blood. Her own blood. They had not even dressed her wounds. Her sniper had not saved her. He had condemned her.
Cracking her eyes open, Aunush realized she was surrounded by a circle of Disciples. Their long robes brushed the floor. Only the tip of their boots stuck out from beneath the fabric.
As she raised her eyes she found each of the women’s hoods back, revealing their faces. Aunush held back a sob. Had this been a disciplinary quorum, they would have had their features hidden far back within the folds of their robes.
No, this was an execution quorum. Aunush would have the chance to look into each of the women’s eyes before they condemned her to death. No great solace there.
“Aunush de Verante, you have committed the greatest sin against God,” the master’s voice resonated through the chamber. Her deep tenor filling the great hall. “You thought to know His mind better than He.”
The master knelt next to Aunush so that she might whisper harshly in her ear, “You thought yourself ‘She Who Sought and Found.’”
Aunush had no retort. No excuse. No rebuttal. Deep within every bone she had thought herself the one foretold. The one who would shepherd the Disciples’ Messiah into this world. Apparently her bones had been wrong.
“How do we know Aunush is not God’s agent in this?” High Disciple Havva asked.
The master raised her gaze to her fellow Disciple. “Because we know who the true shepherd is,” she said, then turned back to Aunush. “Her name is Dr. Rebecca Monroe.”
“No, no, no, no, no,” Aunush repeated, trying desperately to make the words true. That heretical whore could not be the Disciples’ John the Baptist. She just couldn’t be.
“Yes,” the master answered, smoothing back Aunush’s hair. “At least you will die knowing that all your efforts weren’t for naught. The Messiah will arise before the earth circles the sun.”
Aunush pulled tighter into a ball as the master presented her boot. The sight sickened Aunush. She’d only indulged the master’s fetish to further her position with the sect. Now that there could be nothing gained, why should she give the master such pleasure?
Spitting on the leather, Aunush took solace in only one thought as the master kicked her square in the teeth, shattering incisors.
Dr. Rebecca Monroe’s life would be far more pained than Aunush’s death.
# # #
COVERT
CHAPTER 1
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Brandt stopped as their new point man, Levont’s, hand balled up into a fist. Brandt didn’t even complete his step. He stood, balancing on one foot, waiting, listening for why the point man had called them to the halt.
Tension rippled through his muscles. Brandt shouldn’t be here in the steamy African jungle. He should be home, in the humid Southern summer, getting ready to marry Rebecca. But no, some tribe had to find a lost Nazi mine.
And not just any mine, but one with enough uranium to fuel a nuclear bomb. Hence the urgency of their mission, and why they hadn’t even disembarked from their plane in South Carolina before getting shipped out to the Congo. The nearest other rapid response team was in Turkey, busy on the Syrian border. Hence why Brandt and his team were needed here.
Levont’s hand relaxed, then snatched up into a ball again. Okay, that was enough. This was the fifth time they had stopped in as many steps. Once again, Brandt missed Svengurd. The tall Swede had been rock solid. None of this stop-start kind of crap. And even though Harvish was by no means a great point man, he had saved their lives in the end. So Levont had some pretty big shoes to fill, and just about now they didn’t seem to fit quite right.
Carefully, Brandt made his way past Davidson, Talli, and Lopez to come shoulder to shoulder with Levont. The dark-skinned man’s fingers swept from his eyes out into the jungle.
At first, Brandt didn’t understand what the man was looking at, until he spotted a hint of orange. Was it a flower? Then it moved, the color disappearing behind a wall of green. Guess Levont did know what he was doing.
“They’ve been tracking us for about a half a mile,” Levont whispered.
It didn’t make sense, though. If the figure was a member of the tribe guarding the uranium, they would have sent up the alarm, not quietly tracked them through the jungle, let alone while wearing orange, of all colors, while doing so.
Perhaps it was a curious villager? They didn’t have a single second to delay in searching for someone who did not want to be found. Not if Brandt’s team wanted to make their evac time. And Brandt very much wanted to get home.
With a nod, Brandt gave the order to move forward. Levont took point, but that orange color flashed again. This time, though, looking closely between the fronds, Brandt saw that it was a little girl tracking them.
He went to take a step forward, but the girl put a hand up, cocking her head to the south. Sure enough, the sound of footsteps drifted up from the path. His team abandoned the game trail and hid amongst the dense foliage.
Machine guns slung over their shoulder and dressed in jungle camouflage, soldiers ran past them. If the girl hadn’t warned them, they might have been discovered by a random patrol.
By the time the soldiers had trotted by and his team came out from the bushes, the girl was gone. Levont looked to Brandt. Should they try to follow the girl? They should, of course. She could raise the alarm back at the village. Although, somehow, Brandt didn’t think they needed to worry about that. If she wanted to get them caught, all she had needed to do was sit by and allow the soldiers to fin
d them.
Brandt indicated toward the village and Levont set out. Lopez, Talli, and Davidson passed by Brandt, each giving him a curt nod and approval to his decision. Not that he needed it, he thought as he brought up the rear. He didn’t run his unit on popularity, yet his men would still follow him into hell. Actually, if you factored in Rome and Jordan, they already had.
He hoped the Congo wouldn’t be quite that brutal.
The key word there was “hoped.”
* * *
The deck bucked and rolled under Rebecca Monroe’s feet. Rain lashed at her face, soaking her hair. She clung to the guardrail as if the metal could somehow save her. They were being hounded, and if they got hit before they made shore…
For once, it wasn’t a secret millennia-old cult they were running from, but an Arctic storm. One that threatened to ram them right into Iceland’s western shore.
Bunny stepped up next to Rebecca, pulling her hood around her face, clearly trying to keep her hair from getting drenched—a task Rebecca had long ago given up.
“We could still head back to South Carolina,” Bunny playfully suggested.
“I’ll take the storm, thank you very much,” Rebecca replied.
With a sigh, Bunny nodded. “Me too.”
You would think that, with her wedding less than a week away, Rebecca would be thrilled. And she was. She was thrilled to be marrying Brandt. The wedding, however? That was turning out to be as problematic as their escape from Jordan. Her mother-in-law-to-be was on a rampage to make Brandt and Rebecca’s wedding page-one news in Charleston.
Which meant that Rebecca had to fit into a dress a size too small by Friday. Which, apparently, meant no carbs or fats, even while surrounded by southern cooking. It just wasn’t fair.
“Heard from Brandt?” Bunny asked.
Rebecca shook her head. The boys had barely touched down from Uruguay when they were called out again, despite their all being on leave. They were supposed to make contact at 8am and 8 pm whenever possible. They had missed this morning’s call, though. It happened.
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