Navy SEAL Noel. Liz Johnson

almost imperceptible shake of her head. “Not yet.” Her voice had barely enough force to reach his ears.

      A rock fell in his gut, thudding heavily. “But they’ve threatened to?”

      “It’s more the leers and foul gestures. And the noises late at night. You know what I mean?”

      He nodded because he didn’t want to hear the tremble in her voice for another second. Some men—twisted men—took pleasure in frightening and harming women.

      Those men made Will sick.

      Others were just too self-centered to notice a woman’s discomfort in the face of crudeness.

      And Will knew a thing or two about the latter. At some point in history, sailors had earned a reputation for language and conduct unbecoming of gentlemen. And there was still a group of them determined to carry on that tradition. He’d even been one of them when he’d first joined up. Too arrogant to recognize his own impudence.

      But that was before he’d met L. T. Sawyer, Rock Waterstone, Jordan Somerton and the other men of SEAL Team Fifteen. Before he’d joined their ranks.

      Will wasn’t that cocky boy any longer. And he would do whatever it took to protect Jess.

      Stabbing his fingers through his hair, he snatched several quick breaths. His pulse slowed to almost normal when he closed his eyes and forced himself not to think about Jess in jeopardy.

      “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to make sure that you’re safe. Every night.”

      Drooping eyelids lifted with hope, but uncertainty still masked her face. “How?” she asked.

      “I’ll be right outside your door from midnight until the first movement in the morning. I won’t let anyone near you.”

      She wanted to believe him. He could see it in her eyes.

      But she wouldn’t forget that he’d once let her down. That he’d once promised to come back and hadn’t followed through.

      How could he convince her that he wouldn’t do that again?

      Cupping her cheek with his palm, he brushed his thumb over her cheekbone. “I never stopped being your friend. I just didn’t know how to be your best friend when everything was changing. But I swear to you, I’ll be here to protect you until you’re safely back in San Diego. In time for Christmas. All right?”

      She swallowed, her head lowering and lifting slowly.

      It was all he needed before he turned off the light and whisked her back into her bedroom. She fell onto the mattress, her head landing on a thin pillow. By the time he pulled a threadbare blanket to her shoulders, her breathing had already slowed.

      “How’s Sal?”

      Her voice caught him halfway to the door, but it was what she said that stopped him short. A fist around his throat choked his response, and he had to cough before he could even whisper. “He’s fine. He misses you, I think. But he’s fine.”

      “Is he married?”

      The fingers around Will’s neck squeezed even tighter, until his response was little more than a breath. “No.” He didn’t expound. Couldn’t manage to tell her that his brother was still hung up on her after all these years.

      Instead he closed the door behind him and slipped around the side of the small building. Tucked in the shadows, out of sight of the guards standing sentry over the compound walls, he squatted, ready to wait the night through. At least he’d have some time to formulate a plan to keep a madman from releasing the deadly bioweapon. Right now the best option looked as if it would involve some kind of escape.

      But Will wouldn’t be able to walk Jess out the front gate. And they had to get away without the extraction services of the United States Navy. There was a lot of land between them and the American Embassy in Panama City. A lot of cartel-controlled land.

      This was a foolhardy idea.

      And there was nothing he’d rather do.

       THREE

      Jess glanced at the heavy metal door—the only entrance to her lab—again. Still no sign of her new lab mate. Manuel, however, leaned on the doorjamb, one hand in his pocket, the other resting loosely on the black machine gun hanging from its strap on his shoulder. A black gas mask hung around his neck. Jess didn’t bother to tell him it was outdated and probably wouldn’t protect him from the toxin contained in a plastic vial.

      At least it was a sight better than the paper mask they’d given her. If they expected her to open the airtight canister containing the toxin, they’d have to give her better protective gear. At her lab back home, she’d had a full-body suit and her own oxygen supply inside a lab with double air locks.

      Clearly, her hosts in Panama didn’t care if she lived or died. They were just concerned with finding a way to disperse the small quantity of Morsyni over a wide area. Whoever the target was, she felt sorry for them. The effects of the toxin would be widespread and instantaneous, causing painful sores on the skin and even worse abrasions on the lungs. The airborne pathogen wouldn’t cause immediate death, rather its fingers would slowly constrict the lungs until they could inhale no more painful breaths.

      “Aye!” Manuel’s shrill call told her that his relaxed pose was only a facade. Apparently, she wasn’t unloading and cleaning the box of scientific instruments fast enough for him.

      “Time. It takes time.”

      “No time. Now.”

      Why? Why did it have to be done now? She bit her tongue before the words could escape. He only got angry when she asked him questions. She cranked up a Bunsen burner and set a beaker of water to boil, dropping in an unmeasured mound of NaCl, sodium chloride, better known as common table salt. Maybe that would buy her some time. At least she looked busy, and the swirling mist of dissolving salt gave Manuel something to focus on while she unpacked microscope slides and set about washing them.

      And considered her options.

      If she really wanted to release the toxin in aerosol form in this sort of lab, her best option would be to disassemble used tear gas canisters and repurpose them.

      But she didn’t want to release it. She wanted to destroy it. Except there wasn’t a way to destroy the powder without releasing the ultramicroscopic spores into the air. The lab didn’t have a detonation chamber, and the ventilation hood in the back corner wasn’t capable of containing such an acute toxin. Her best chance was to escape before the toxin was scheduled to be released, with the powder in hand. But could she keep stalling until Will found them a way out?

      Her stomach jumped at the memory of her midnight visitor. She’d been safe. If just for a few hours before he’d knocked softly on her window to wake her before leaving his self-assigned post, she’d rested. That morning her mind hadn’t been blank, her muscles not quite so sluggish.

      Will had protected her for the night. But could he keep it up until they found an escape?

      Three loud thumps sounded on the metal door, jerking Jess from her thoughts.

      “Safe?” Hampered by lack of English, Manuel asked with his eyes what he couldn’t express in words. If he allowed any toxin out into the compound, he would be dead before the Morsyni could take effect.

      She nodded. “Sí.”

      He cocked his head, as if to confirm her certainty, and she nodded again.

      The natural brilliance of the sun streaming through the open door blinded her after a morning under the painful glow of flickering fluorescent lights. Blinking into it, she could make out two forms. The easy swagger and relaxed movements of the larger man overshadowed the silhouette at his side.

      The door’s heavy metal clawed against cement before clanging shut and leaving the brilliance on the other