by Laura Day
“Better now. I can’t thank you enough for what you did. I have never seen anything like that. Except in the movies.”
“Yes. Thank you… Ryker. Thank you for everything,” Ronnie says quietly.
She's still trying to sort out her feelings for Ryker. She had thought she was over him, but now… maybe not. He keeps saving her, or her father. But then there are things that she just can’t overlook. Like telling that fucking kidnapper to go ahead and shoot her father. The man hadn’t, and that was probably his plan all along, but hearing him say that so calmly, like he didn’t care at all… that’s a hard thing to swallow.
“All part of the job, sir.” Ryker says, carefully avoiding eye contact with Ronnie. He still wants her… but it appears she is lost to him forever. “I’m sure the powers that be will want to debrief you. But after that, you and your daughter should be on your way back home.”
Julian smiles at Ryker. “Thank you again. If you ever get out to Berkeley, I expect you to look me up. I want to buy you a beer.”
Ryker smiles, gives a quick nod of his head, and leaves.
Julian watches Ryker leave then turns to Ronnie. “So what’s the story with you two?”
“What?” Ronnie asks in surprise. “What do you mean?”
Julian smiles at his daughter. “Ronnie… I haven’t lived sixty-six years without learning a few things. I see how Ryker looks at you.”
Ronnie flushes furiously. “It’s nothing Dad.”
“Uh-huh,” Julian says, but doesn’t press.
***
It takes three days before Dr. Julian Baker is fully debriefed. Ryker has reported to Colonel Hargraves each morning, asking if his orders have come through. Hargraves is sympathetic to his desire to leave, but his orders haven’t changed. He is still attached to the mission, even if the mission is technically over.
With nothing else to do, Ryker hangs out with the off-duty Marines or hits the gym. Anything to keep his mind occupied and off of Ronnie. He has severed his attachment to her, but the lingering sadness of what he thought he had remains.
The Marines have accepted the Navy puke as one of their own after the op. One of the female Marines has even made her willingness known, without being pushy. Ryker debated taking her up on her offer, and she 's certainly pretty enough--prettier than the other WM Devil Dogs--but he isn’t quite ready for the comfort of another woman’s arms.
Not yet anyway. He just wants to go back home to Norfolk and get back to his routine.
Tuesday morning he reports to Colonel Hargraves as he has each morning since extracting Julian. “Any new orders for me sir?”
“These came through last night,” Hargraves says tapping the sheet of paper in front of him. “I know you are anxious to get back to Little Creek, but I have new orders for you.”
Ryker can feel his heart sink, but he pulls himself to parade rest. “Yes sir, Colonel.”
Read on for an excerpt from the sequel, Guide Me Home
Now, a sneak peek at the sizzling sequel:
Guide Me Home
CHAPTER ONE
Ryker Evans, Petty Officer First Class, United States Navy, stands at parade rest, waiting for Marine Colonel Thom Hargraves to give him his new orders. He has just completed his mission in Beirut, Lebanon, and he is ready to go home and forget he was ever here. But it looks like the Navy has other plans.
The mission had gone well. Even though he hadn’t found the missing virus, he had successfully rescued Dr. Julian Baker, Ph.D., unharmed from Syrian terrorists. Without Dr. Baker to encode the virus with the target DNA sequence and design a payload for the virus to deliver, the missing vials of the genetically modified virus are all but useless.
The problem isn’t the mission. The problem is Dr. Baker’s daughter, the other Dr. Baker. He had become emotionally entangled with Dr. Veronica Baker, Ph.D., and things hadn’t gone well. After saving her from a kidnapping attempt he had, despite knowing better, acted on the attraction he was feeling for her and they had become lovers. When she later found out that he had been ordered to kill her father if he couldn’t extract him, she hadn’t taken the news well. And who would? Colonel Hargraves and Mr. Spreck had put him a no win situation and Ronnie had dropped him like a bad habit.
He hadn’t fallen head over heels for her—they had only been lovers for a week after all—but making love to the single most beautiful woman he has ever met each night had quickly cemented his attraction to her. An attraction based on much more than just her heart stopping beauty. So, yes, he will get over her. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t still hurt when she emotionally kicked him in the balls. He has spent the past five days licking his wounds, the last three waiting to be relieved and shipped back to Little Creek, Virginia, so he could put this whole sordid mess behind him. But, despite all he has done here these three weeks, the Navy is asking still more from him.
“Evans, officially you have been ejected from the country for your role in the killing of the six terrorists,” Hargraves begins. “Officially you will be boarding a plane home this afternoon and flying back to Little Creek. In reality you are staying and a Marine will be rotating home in your place. You are persona non-grata. But we need you to find the missing vials of the virus.”
“Sir, how am I supposed to move about if I am officially not here?”
“The Lebanese don’t know what you look like so you will be free to move about. The CIA will provide you with papers for your new identity. But what you won’t have is the support of the embassy. It couldn’t be helped, but the embassy has gotten a black eye from this fucked up mess of a mission. The Lebanese know we ran some form of covert operation from the embassy and, understandably, they are pissed off about it. So from this point forward, other than logistical support, you are on your own. I would like to bring in some more troops to help, but the Lebanese would shit kittens, so that that option is off the table.”
“Permission to speak freely, Colonel?”
“Granted. What’s on your mind Evans?”
“Sir, how do they expect one man to find five vials that are small enough to hide in my pockets? This is unreasonable.”
“The spooks are going to help as much as they can. They are still interrogating the prisoners from the lab. But all they can do is feed you information and supply you with leads. Our hands are really tied on this by the State Department. You know how the diplomats think. They don’t have the first fucking clue what the real world is like and they think everyone should just play nice. Personally I think the Lebanese should be grateful we didn’t take out the entire fucking block with cruise missiles.” Hargraves grins nastily. “But that’s just me.”
Ryker feels his jaw tighten. “How long do they expect me to look for this needle in a haystack?”
Hargraves mentally winces. “Until the vials are found.”
Ryker grits his teeth. Fuck that! He has two years left on his tour. Let them try to keep him here after that! “Is that all, sir?”
“Not quite. This afternoon a specially-equipped van will be arriving on a C-147. It will be equipped to test any samples you may find to determine if you have in fact found the missing virus.”
This just keeps getting better. “So now I’m supposed to find the stuff and become a geneticist too? Sir,” Ryker grumbles, his tone dangerously close to insubordination.
Hargraves lets Evans’ tone pass. He would be pissed off too if he were in his shoes. “No. Spreck is talking to the Bakers right now, trying to convince one or the other of them to stay.”
“Why would they do that, sir? What’s in it for them? Why can’t the Pentagon just send out someone to do this?” Ryker asks, getting his attitude under control.
“It is my understanding that there aren’t a dozen people in the world that can properly identify the virus with one-hundred percent certainty. Two of them are right down the hall. We have limited options and having one of them stay is our best bet.”
“It should be Julian,” Ryker says firmly. “He
is the virus expert.”
“He’s also over sixty-five years old.”
Ryker purses his lips in annoyance. Ronnie could do the work, but having her so close would be... difficult. “This shouldn’t be strenuous work.”
Hargraves nods. “I understand. Better than you think.”
CHAPTER TWO
“No fucking way! We’re not doing it!” Ronnie shouts, rising out of her chair. If this Spreck asshole thinks they are staying here for one minute longer than they have to, he has another thing coming.
“Dr. Baker, please sit down,” Mr. Spreck says calmly.
“I’ll do it,” Julian says softly. This mess is mostly his fault anyway.
“Dad! No!” Ronnie cries as she sits down again. She just got him back!
“Ronnie, I have to do this. We created this. We can’t allow our work to be corrupted by being twisted and used as a weapon. We can’t!”
“Dad! All the fail-safes! The virus will likely die before they can undo all of those to make a viable weapon.”
“Are you sure? Are you willing to bet the lives of millions of innocent people on that? We don’t know how long the virus will survive in suspension. It could be dozens of years. We just don’t know.”
She fumes. Her dad is right. This was the first virus than lived even a day. Who knows how long it could last. “Look, dad, they don’t need us. Just let them irradiate everything that they even suspect is our virus and…”
“And how would you like it if someone burst into our lab, took our work, and destroyed it? Ronnie, sweetheart, I can do this. Go home. Put the lab back together. Work to get our materials released.”
“But… Dad…”
Spreck decides to move this along. He would have preferred Veronica because she is younger, but Julian will do if that is all he can get. “Thank you Julian. We will of course pay…”
“No, dammit!” Ronnie cries. “No! He can’t!”
“Thank you, Dr. Baker,” Spreck says, looking at Ronnie. “I will arrange to have you flown home on the next diplomatic transport…”
“No!” Ronnie shouts again. “I’ll do it! I’ll do it instead of him, okay?”
“Ronnie,” Julian begins. “I can…”
“No. It’s alright dad. I can do it,” Ronnie states in resignation. “You’re the head of the research team. You have to go. The team needs you more than they need me when we have to start over. If we start over.”
Mr. Spreck waits a moment, but the lengthening silence indicates the matter is settled. “Very well,” he says, turning his attention to Julian. “I will have you flown out on the next diplomatic flight, then a private flight to Berkeley. I will have all your research returned to you and a new, more secure lab set up. I want you to continue your research. But this time, we will make sure you are protected.”
“Why?” Ronnie sneers. “So you can take our work and make your own weapon?”
Mr. Spreck looks at Ronnie. “No… So perhaps you can cure my daughter. She has leukemia.”
Ronnie can feel herself flush. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Mr. Spreck nods once. “Despite what everyone thinks, we are people, too. I love my daughter as much as your father loves you. I will do anything for her. That is why I asked to be assigned to this case. I wanted to get you and your father back together. I have a vested interest in seeing you succeed and I will do everything I can to help you.”
“Yet, you would have let Ryker kill my father.”
“I ordered Ryker to kill your father if he couldn’t extract him, yes. As much as I love my daughter, her life isn’t worth millions.” Mr. Spreck looks at Ronnie for a moment then looks at Julian. “Thank you both,” he says before rising and walking out of the room.
“So Ryker was going to kill me if he couldn’t get me out? As he should,” Julian murmurs softly.
“What?” Ronnie asks loudly in surprise.
“Ronnie, Spreck is right. My life is not worth millions. I would have killed myself before I created a weapon for them.”
“I told them that!”
“So what’s the difference? Would it matter who pulled the trigger?”
“It would have mattered to me!”
“Ronnie… I would be just as dead. I would rather have someone like Ryker kill me cleanly, with one shot, than have to try to do it by hanging myself… or use some other equally gruesome means.”
Ronnie is flabbergasted that her own father would say something like that. “And what if it had been me that had been kidnapped?”
Julian pauses, tears welling in his eyes. “I would have grieved for you forever.”
Ronnie can feel her mouth fall open. “You would have let them kill me?” she asks in shock.
“Yes,” Julian says softly, his eyes swimming in tears. “You are my single greatest achievement. I would pray it wouldn’t come to that, but if it did, even you, Ronnie, are not worth the lives of millions.”
Ronnie sits in stunned silence. Her own father would sit back and allow her to be killed? “I can’t believe you said that,” she breathes softly.
“Do you want to be the cause of the death of millions?”
“No, of course not. But…”
“Nor would I. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing that I had perverted our work and made something designed to cure disease into something that can be used to kill millions. Maybe billions. I would rather die.”
Ronnie sits and thinks about what her father said. He’s right, of course, in the abstract. But that doesn’t make it any easier to hear. “You’re right,” she finally says softly. “But I can’t bear the thought of you being killed. Of being shot down in cold blood.”
“We all die eventually, Ronnie. I would rather go before my name is placed in the history books with Pol Pot and Hitler.” Julian pauses for a moment. “Is that what happened between you and Ryker?”
Ronnie feels her face harden. “That was nothing Dad.”
Julian smiles softly. “It was obviously something to Ryker. I noticed it the moment you walked into the lab. How he looks at you. Then again, in the infirmary. He is trying hard to hide it, but he cares for you.”
“He can go fuck himself!” Ronnie snaps, surprising herself at the heat contained in her words.
Julian pats his daughter on the hand, then rises. “Okay. Just don’t make a decision that you will later regret.”
Ronnie watches her father walk out of the room, the door swinging closed behind him. She spends a long time sitting silent and alone in the room, staring into space and thinking.
CHAPTER THREE
Ryker walks out of Hargraves’ office, his mood dark and brooding. He is proud of his service to his country, but the Navy is asking a lot of him. A hell of a lot. He is walking by one of the debrief rooms when the door opens and Julian steps out, admonishing someone inside about regrets.
“Good morning Dr. Baker,” Ryker says.
Julian falls into step with Ryker. “Are you ever going to call me Julian?”
Ryker smiles as he slows his pace in deference to Dr. Baker. “Someday, maybe. I haven’t seen you around.”
“Yeah. The CIA has been grilling me pretty hard. For a while there I thought they believed I had something to do with my own kidnapping. Those guys, I don’t know why, but they make me nervous.”
Ryker chuckles. “Yeah. They can be intense sometimes. I understand they have asked you to stay and help with the search for the virus.”
“I offered to stay but Ronnie talked me out of it. She’s staying instead.”
Ryker can feel his heart sink even lower, but he nods. “That’s good. I need the help. I don’t even know which end of a microscope to look through.”
Julian smiles and puts his hand on Ryker’s shoulder. “Can I talk to you a minute? In private.”
“Sure… so long as you understand that there is no truly private place in the building. Do you want to go outside?”
“No. I understand the need for security. T
his isn’t secret. It’s more… personal.”
“Okay. You want to follow me to my room or would you like me to come to yours? Yours is probably nicer.”
“Then let’s go to my room,” Julian says.
Ryker follows Julian and notes he is in the guest suite directly across from Ronnie’s. Julian swipes his card and opens the door, stepping aside and holding it until Ryker enters.
“What can I do for you, Doc?”
“I had an interesting discussion with Ronnie this morning. Is it true that you had been ordered to shoot me if you couldn’t rescue me?”