Navy SEAL Noel. Liz Johnson

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ days ago she was working late in the lab. The security alarm went off about oh one hundred, and when the guard arrived, the lab had been ransacked. Jess and her bioweapon had vanished.”

      Fire shot through Will’s forehead and he covered his face with his hands, praying this was some sort of sick joke. But the XO sat in equally stunned silence, as if this was the first time he’d spoken the truth aloud.

      Massaging his temples, Will growled low in the back of his throat. “Who took her?”

      “The DEA thinks that it’s a Panamanian drug cartel.”

      “And they want what?”

      McCoy’s face crumpled in silent agony. Just seeing it made Will’s chest hurt, and he clawed at his T-shirt, searching for air, the smell of alcohol and perfume catching in his throat. He could picture Jess’s bright grin and the mischievous twinkle in her eyes. But he could not picture her in Panama, fear etching her facial features until they were unrecognizable.

      This was a hoax. Someone was playing a cruel joke.

      His Jess couldn’t be at the hands of some drug cartel. She was safe and sound. And probably long-ago married to someone who actually deserved her.

      Except the tortured voice of a father unable to save his only child wasn’t easily conjured. It carried with it the pain of broken hearts and lost dreams.

      Sean McCoy wasn’t tricking him. He was a man in need of help.

      Will closed his eyes, pursed his lips until they almost touched the tip of his nose and released a pent-up breath. “Let me guess. They want to use the pathogen and need someone to release it for them.”

      “A friend at the DEA says there’s a bitter land war going on down there between two cartels. Bringing in a biological weapon seems very in character. Unfortunately, since they’re only attacking each other rather than targeting civilians, the DEA isn’t interested in getting involved, as long as it’s not crossing over our borders.”

      “Doesn’t kidnapping an American count as crossing our borders?”

      He shook his head. “They can’t definitively prove who was behind the abduction. And they’re about as eager to poke around drug cartels as a mouse would be to wake a snoring bobcat.”

      “What about the government? Why don’t they send a team down to extract her?”

      McCoy closed his eyes. “There’s not enough intel to know exactly where she’s been taken. They’re searching all of Panama right now, but the jungle is dense, and it could be weeks before they have enough info to send in an extraction team.”

      The captain’s unspoken words hung between them. Jess didn’t have weeks to spare.

      With folded hands pressed to his wrinkled forehead, Will pinched his eyes closed. Someone had to go after Jess. She wouldn’t survive for long after the cartel got what they wanted. Once she’d served her purpose, they would have no need for her.

      His middle clenched, as if he was preparing for a blow from an opponent in the boxing ring. The truth hit harder than any fist.

      The cartel would dispose of her. Soon.

      He’d always thought he’d have a chance to end their decade of silence. And a bunch of drug-slinging bioterrorists weren’t going to take that chance from him. He owed her an apology, and he would make sure he had a chance to deliver it.

      Pressing flat hands to the tabletop, he gazed into McCoy’s haunted eyes across the table. “What is it you want me to do?”

      Another sigh. Another droop to the wide shoulders. “The United States Navy has no official jurisdiction in this situation. Officially, they have no information about it and absolutely no plans for a rescue attempt.”

      “I understand.”

      “Do you?” Bushy eyebrows pulled together, and a flicker of something akin to hope appeared in the captain’s hazel eyes, so much like his daughter’s.

      “Yes, sir. I’m going to need approval for a short leave of absence.”

      For the first time that evening, the corner of McCoy’s mouth quirked upward in a true smile. “Done.”

      “I’ll be out of touch. Completely.” He stared hard at the older man, wishing he could come right out and tell the tough truth. But now that Will had agreed, McCoy needed to set up some plausible deniability. The captain couldn’t know the details. If a superior officer started asking questions, he’d have to tell the truth. No details meant no lies.

      The XO hadn’t asked Will to do anything. No orders. Not even a suggestion. Just a conversation in a seedy bar far from the base and further from their norm. No one would recognize them enough to pinpoint that this was the night their lives changed.

      But they were about to.

      “I understand,” McCoy said.

      Eager tension built in his legs, and Will nodded toward the door. “I’d better get going.” He slid across the bench and zipped his jacket as he rose.

      The captain followed his movements, trailing him between the pool tables and into the starlit parking lot. Gusts of fresh air were like a lifeboat to a man who didn’t know he was drowning. The sweet scent of the breeze wrapped around him, and he took deep breaths through his nose until his mind was clear of everything but the mission ahead of him.

      “Thank you.” The older man’s voice was lower, more gravelly.

      Will nodded, but didn’t directly respond. Instead he said, “Please let her husband know that I’ll do everything I can.”

      McCoy shoved his hands into the pockets of his blue jeans and cocked his head to the side, his ear almost to his shoulder. “Her husband?”

      His palms suddenly sweaty, Will rubbed them against his pants. Was McCoy just pulling his leg or was it possible that she’d never settled down? Jess marrying someone—anyone—else had been the reason for ten years of silence. Was it possible she’d never gotten married at all?

      The questions running through his mind must have been broadcast on his face because the captain let out a low chuckle. “Oh, Jess quit dating about the time you disappeared.”

      Will nodded, confusion mixing with an unnamed emotion in his chest and leaving him speechless.

      “She said she’d rather focus on her education. I tried to talk to her about it, but she didn’t have much to say on the matter. I wish like fire that her mother had been around for that. She’d have known what to say. Instead I bumbled through, and Jessalynn told me not to worry about it, so I let it go.”

      The words tumbled around Will’s mind as he tried to make sense of them. Finally, they reemerged as a question as smooth as sandpaper. “Then Jess is—she’s not—she’s never gotten married?”

      “No. She’s not married.” The captain offered a fraction of a grin. Maybe it was just a twitch, but it sure looked like more. Like an invitation to be a man instead of running like the boy he’d been all those years before.

      McCoy СКАЧАТЬ