by Laura Day
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next two days are much the same. Ryker and Ronnie have dinner together before spending a few hours walking the grounds while softly talking or watching American television or a movie. Then they retire to Ronnie’s room for evening of soft touches intermingled with passion. The next morning brings a couple of workouts, one for the body and the other for the soul, followed by breakfast, and Ryker leaving with one of the CIA teams to work the city in search of Dr. Baker.
Ronnie continues to spend her days in the infirmary, reading to the Marines injured by the bomb blast during her second kidnapping attempt, weeping quietly when the second mortally wounded Marine finally succumbs to his injuries and dies.
Before these men put their lives on the line for her she didn’t think much of the military and was furious when she found out their research was being funded by DARPA. But she looks at the men and women of the service completely differently now. They are not the cold-blooded war mongers she once thought they were.
These are honorable men and women, willing to fight and die so others don’t have to. Each man in this room is here because they put their life on the line… for her.
Ronnie checks the time. Ryker should be back soon. She has just enough time to finish this chapter before he returns. It wouldn’t be nice to leave the Marines hanging, wondering how Mitch Rapp is going to escape certain death this time.
***
“Petty Officer Evan, are you clear on this mission?” Mr. Spreck asks at the end of his debrief.
“Yes sir,” Ryker answers as his heart sinks. The word has come down… if he can’t extract Dr. Julian Baker he is to make sure he is of no further use to his captors.
“You’re supposed to be the best, but I have to be able to trust you on this. I know you and Veronica Baker are seeing each other. Can I trust you to carry out your mission and not let your personal feelings get in the way?” Spreck asks as Colonel Hargraves looks on silently.
“You can depend on me, sir.”
Spreck looks at Ryker critically, trying to gauge the truth of the statement. “Can I? Look, I don’t blame you for fucking her. She is a serious honey and I would fuck her myself. But to me she would just be another piece of ass. How about you? Is she just a piece of ass to you?”
Ryker says nothing at first, not rising to the bait. “Sir, my relationship with Dr. Baker will in no way affect my mission.” He knows he didn’t answer the question, but fuck ‘em. Ryker watches as Spreck and Hargraves look at one another.
“You can do what needs to be done?” Hargraves asks.
“I can, sir.”
“What do you think? He’s your man,” Spreck asks Hargraves.
“He’s the best we’ve got. He’ll do what is necessary,” Hargraves says.
Spreck looks at Ryker intently once again. “Be ready to go on ten minutes’ notice. That means keeping your dick out of Veronica Baker.” Spreck stares at Ryker again then rises from his seat and silently exits the room.
Ryker doesn’t relax his parade rest, waiting to see if Hargraves is going to give him a ration of shit too. He was ready to leave and meet Ronnie for dinner when that asshole Spreck dropped this bomb on him. Hargraves continues to sit, watching him, until he rises and steps around the table.
“Evans… I went to bat for you with Spreck, but he’s right. Nothing in this place happens without Spreck and me knowing about it. Nothing. You’re getting in way too deep with Dr. Baker. You haven’t slept in your room in the last four days. This is more than just you getting some pussy.”
“Sir. Dr. Baker and I…” Ryker begins.
“Evans,” Hargraves interrupts. “Save the bullshit for someone that cares. The only thing I care about—the only thing—is that you do your job. This mission is to fucking important for you to be distracted. I meant it when I told Spreck that you are the best we’ve got, but if you are not one-hundred percent you need to tell me so I can find someone that is.”
“I can handle it sir.”
“Let me explain a little something to you Petty Officer… if you fuck up this mission because of a woman, your career is over. Do I make myself clear?”
Ryker swallows hard. Hargraves’ calm appraisal of the situation makes what he said all the more disturbing. “Yes sir, Colonel.”
“Then you had better be straight with me son, right here, right now. Can you pull the trigger on Dr. Julian Baker? Because if you can’t, I need to find someone that will. We can send in a shooter from the CIA if necessary.”
Ryker can feel his face flush. The fucking CIA? They operate like a surgeon with a chainsaw. “That won’t be necessary, sir.”
Hargraves steps in front of Ryker. “Don’t fuck with me Evans. I’m tempted to pull you off this mission as it is. The only reason I haven’t is because you’re the best we’ve got and we want Dr. Baker back, not dead. But if I can’t trust you, I will find someone that I can.”
“You can depend on me, sir,” Ryker says again.
“Prove it. Break it off with Veronica. Tonight. Show me that your head is in the game.”
Ryker grits his teeth. “Yes sir.”
Hargraves watches Ryker, finally satisfied he has gotten through to him. “Dismissed.”
Ryker comes to attention, fires off a crisp salute, pivots, and walks out of the room.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Over the last week Ronnie has gotten to know the routine pretty well. She sits in the common area nearest the motor pool so she can keep an eye out for when Ryker returns. While he debriefs, she moves to another common area he was to walk past on his way back to the guest facilities. When he is done with his debrief he stops and they have dinner together. Today is just like all the others, except this time he storms past the common area after his debrief without a sideways glance. Puzzled that he didn’t stop as normal, she rises from her chair and hurries into the hall. “Ryker?” He stops, but doesn’t turn. “Is everything okay?”
“No,” he says before he slowly turns to face her.
“What’s the matter?” she asks as she joins him, leaning in for a kiss.
He dodges the kiss and steps back. “I can’t see you anymore. Not for a while.”
“What? Why?” she asks, her heart sinking.
“I’ve been told I’m jeopardizing the mission by being involved with you.”
Ronnie is quite for a moment. She knew this might happen, knew that they could order him to stop seeing her. And, it appears, they have. She can feel her face harden. “So they’ve ordered you to stop seeing me?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
Ryker really does look miserable, but that doesn’t make her feel any better. “And you’re going to? Just like that?”
“Ronnie… I don’t have any choice.”
“The hell you don’t! You could tell them to go fuck themselves! They don’t own you, Ryker.”
He purses his lips as he steps forward and takes her by the arm. If they are going to have it out, better to not do it in the hall. “Let’s go in here,” he says, steering her back into the small common area.
She allows him to steer her into the room, Ryker kicking the chock from the door as they pass so it can swing closed. No one has ever dumped her before and the more she thinks about it, the more pissed off she is getting. “So just because Colonel Hard-on tells you to drop me, you do? Just like that?”
“Not just like that,” Ryker snaps. “You think I want to do this?”
“Then why are you doing it? Tell him to go fuck himself.”
“Ronnie, I can’t do that and you know it! Or you should. For this mission he is my commanding officer. If he says break it off then I have to break it off!”
“And if he told you to go out and fuck some whore on the street for information you would that too?”
“He wouldn’t do that!”
“But would you?” Ronnie asks, her voice low and threatening.
“No! Of course not!”
“But he tells you to kick me to
curb and you are perfectly fine with that. Is that it?” She is being unfair, and she knows it, but she is so mad that Hargraves is meddling in matters that don’t concern him she can’t see straight.
“Ronnie! No! I…”
“I tell you what, Petty Officer First Class Evans… why don’t you just go fuck yourself,” she snarls, and moves to step around him. She needs a minute to cool off.
He grabs her by the arm, holding her in place. “Ronnie! You don’t know what is at stake here!”
Ronnie shakes her arm free. “Oh yeah? Like what?”
Ryker pauses, not sure what to say.
“That’s what I thought,” she scowls, moving to step around him again.
“They have given me orders to shoot your father if I can’t extract him!” he whispers urgently, taking her by her shoulders.
Ronnie stops and feels herself go pale. “You bastard,” she mutters, low and dangerous, struggling to escape from his grip.
“Ronnie, you don’t understand! Wait Goddamnit!”
Ronnie stops struggling and Ryker lets her go. “So that’s it, then? You’re just going to kill my father. Better to see him dead than in the hands of terrorists? Well, I’m sorry if…”
“Ronnie, just wait a moment! Would you just listen for a minute?”
“Ryker, there is nothing you have to say that I want to hear. Just get the fuck away from me.”
“Ronnie, Goddamnit! Would you just listen! If I don’t break it off with you, at least for a while, they are going to get someone else. Then I…”
“We wouldn’t want that now would we? The great Ryker Evans can’t…”
“Ronnie! Shut the fuck up and listen!” he bellows. She blinks and steps back, but doesn’t say anything more. “If I don’t do this they are going to send in the CIA. They won’t hesitate to kill your dad. But I can get him out. I know I can.”
She ponders what he is saying, her anger at Hargraves cooling as cold dread seeps into her. “So you’re telling me that if you don’t stop seeing me then they are going to pull you from the mission?”
“Yes! That is exactly what I’m saying!”
“And if they pull you from the mission, you think that will increase the chances of my dad being killed?”
“Yes.”
“So you are breaking up with me to protect my dad? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Ronnie,” he says softly. “I’m not breaking up with you. But I just can’t see you for a few days. Not until the mission is complete. Then—if you still want to—we can go to that someplace more private.”
She thinks about it. She isn’t happy about this, but maybe it is for the best. Maybe he really is trying to protect her father. “You have to tell me something. I have to know. Will you kill my dad?”
“Ronnie, don’t ask me that.”
“I have to know Ryker. Will you?”
He stares into her eyes for a long time. “Not before I die trying to get him out,” he finally admits. Ronnie stares at him so long that he has a glimmer of hope that maybe she understands.
“I thought maybe we had something special,” she finally says. “Except for my dad, these last few days have been some of the happiest of my life. But I realize now, I don’t know you at all.”
“Ronnie,” he says softly. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s Dr. Baker, if you please,” she says as she steps around Ryker, opens the door, and leaves.
He stands silently in the room for a moment then gives a middle finger to the security camera in the corner. Let Spreck and Hargraves know about that, too.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ronnie throws herself across the bed in her room. She wants to cry but the tears won’t come. She’s in shock. In shock that her own government is going to kill her father for what they developed with government money. In shock that the man she thought she could trust with her life is the same man who will pull the trigger to kill her dad. How could she have been so foolish?
If she had known that her dad was getting money from DARPA she would have never worked on the project. And now, because of it, look at what has happened! Ronnie lies quietly on the bed, her mind a whirlwind of thoughts, staring into the gathering darkness until she finally falls asleep, not even realizing she hasn’t eaten since lunch.
***
Wednesday morning Ryker forces himself to get up and go perform his normal workout. He hadn’t slept much the night before and he needs something to shake off the cobwebs. The equipment is scheduled to arrive at the distributor today. If Mahmud calls the spooks can do their thing and maybe this will all be over today. Not a minute too soon either. He is ready to get out of this fucking country and never come back.
His normal workout takes forty-five minutes to an hour, depending on the day and the muscle group he is working. Today it takes two because he works himself to exhaustion, trying to clear his head. As he stands in the shower, letting the water pour over him, his thoughts are circling in an ever tightening spiral, tearing at him for his stupidity of having gotten involved with Ronnie in the first place. Looking back on the events, he isn’t even sure how it happened. It just sort of… did. There was no conscious decision, and he damn sure didn’t mean to—if not fall in love—at least become attached to her.
He doesn’t love her. Not really. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt to lose her. But he was falling for her, that much is true. He should have broken if off after that first night, when Hargraves had warned him off. But no, he had gone on being stupid, and just kept seeing her, knowing it was a bad idea.
He slaps the shower off. Serves him right for thinking with the wrong head. He just wishes he hadn’t hurt Ronnie in the process.
***
Ronnie picks at her breakfast. After missing dinner last night, she should be starving, but she has no appetite. She had slept on the bed fully clothed last night. Well, slept in only the most general terms. She had tossed and turned last night, drifting in and out of sleep, her thoughts troubled.
The problem is, she doesn’t know how to feel. Sometimes she is thankful that Ryker is willing to stop seeing her so he will be the one to go in for her father. Other times she is pissed off that Hargraves has put them in this impossible situation. Sometimes she is aghast that Ryker admitted to being willing to shoot her father in cold blood, but then that thought is tempered by the idea if he would tell her the truth about that, then he is probably telling her the truth that he is willing to die trying to get him out.
The only thing she knows for certain is that she and Ryker are finished. Whatever feelings she had for him are gone, stabbed through the heart by what he is willing to do. How can she ever care for a man that is willing to shoot her dad?
She pushes her eggs around on her plate. On the other hand, does that matter? If Ryker didn’t go, someone else would, and her dad would be just as dead. If he weren’t committed to the mission, willing to do what has to be done, the next man might be more willing to take the easy way out and not even try to extract him.
As she stares at her plate, looking for answers, she can feel the tears coming. She tries to hold them back, but they won’t be stopped. She quickly rises from her table, not clearing her meal, and rushes to the restroom, the door closing behind her just as she can hold the tears no longer.
Ronnie spends several minutes weeping softly, mourning the potential loss of her father… and the loss of the man she thought she knew.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Petty Officer Evans, please report to the motor pool immediately. Your mission is a go,” the young Marine says.
Ryker springs to his feet and briskly strides out of the mess hall, leaving his half-finished lunch behind. It is Friday, three days since he has last seen Ronnie and the two days after the spooks had planted their bug. Ryker and CIA have suspended their operations in order to not inadvertently alarm whoever might be picking up the equipment. Because of that, the last two days have been nerve racking as they waited to see if the b
ugged equipment would be picked up.
As he walks into the garage three black Suburbans are idling with their doors open. “What’s the plan?” Ryker asks the well-dressed man directing people to their cars.
“Our stalker car just called in that the bug is moving. It is tracking. You and Dr. Baker are in the middle car. Marines fore and aft for fire support if needed.”
“Dr. Baker?” he asks in surprise. “Why is Dr. Baker coming?”
“Orders. She is to inspect the lab after it is secured.”
“Fuck,” he mutters. Now he has two Dr. Bakers to worry about.