Guide Me Home (SEAL of Fortune)

  This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons--living or dead--is entirely coincidental

  Guide Me Home copyright @ 2014 by Laura Day. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

  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. This 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?”

  Ryker is quite for a moment, trying to decide how to answer. “Yes. It’s true. Fortunately it didn’t come to that.”

  Julian smiles. “No. Fortunately not. Ronnie thinks you would have done it, too. Would you have?”

  “Yes.”

  Once again Julian smiles. “Thank you for telling me the truth. I wanted to tell you that I understand. I tried to explain to Ronnie that there are things worse than death. Being forced to create a bio-weapon would be one of those things. I wouldn’t have done it, but I suspect my death at the hands of my captors would be far more painful than at yours.”

  Ryker holds his tongue. He doesn’t know what to say to that.

  “May I ask you a personal question?” Julian asks.

  “I might not answer, but you can ask,” Ryker says.

  “Do you love Ronnie?”

  Ryker doesn’t answer right away, thinking over his answer. “No. But—before—I think I was falling for her. But it’s over now. I’m sorry I hurt her.”

  Julian nods. “I’m really sorry for what is about to happen. I know it must be hard. It would be like me having to work with my ex-wife. Except maybe worse. I can’t stand her.”

  Ryker smiles slightly. “It’s just a job. I can handle it.”

  Julian nods. “I’m sure you can. But Ronnie has been changed by all of this. I don’t know what has happened, but she isn’t the same daughter I left behind in Berkeley. Did you know she is down in the infirmary every day, reading to the Marines?”

  “Yes. That is very kind of her.”

  “Yes. Yes it is. But she would have never done that before. She wasn’t cruel before, but she seems to have… grown… from
this experience. She isn’t as self-centered as she was.”

  “Having your life threatened will get your priorities focused.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ryker explains to Julian about the attack at the hotel, where he had to use the armored embassy car as a battering ram to escape an attempted kidnapping. He then explains how less than a week later, another attempt was made on her person. The first attack Ryker thought was aimed at him, but when they took Ronnie the second time, that is when it became clear that Ronnie was the actual target of the first attack. A large dollop of luck had been involved in allowing him to snatch her back from her kidnappers the second time.