Stone Cold (41 page)

He knew there wasn’t much time before Dr. Rich
ards and his Al-Qaeda connections would probably find out about the ink and its role in decoding the microchip data. The scientists would try to keep the secret but weren’t trained like soldiers to withstand torture. He hoped they’d be able to hold out until Conall and the special operations team rescued them.

He saw Dr. Richards walk toward the door.

“Let’s not waste anymore time. From what I can tell Dr. Hamilton is their leader and without him, they’ll probably crack fairly easily, if they know anything at all. We have to find him. He must’ve figured out I’m not really one of them and is hiding.”

The ten operative
s and Dr. Richards left the lab but Dr. Hamilton waited a good five minutes before he dared to move beyond the safety of the secret room. Fortunately, it had gotten dark outside and he was able to find his way to the nearest army base without being seen. He needed to make a call that would get the ball rolling to find Conall and get him back along with the special operations team as soon as possible.

Chapter
34

When
Eden heard that Conall and Hannah had finally met and gotten engaged, she was furious. Feathers flew when she came home.

“Where’s my baby brother?”

She burst through the door without a greeting for anyone as she walked through each room looking for him.

“Oh there you are. What’s this about you proposing to Hannah when I didn’t even get a chance to meet her and give you my opinion first?”

Conall looked up with an amused expression on his face, slowly opening and closing his eyelids as he waited for her to finish her tirade.

“Hi
Eden. It’s so nice of you to drop by. Hannah, I don’t believe you’ve had the privilege yet of meeting my sister Eden.”

Eden
stopped dead in her tracks and cautiously whirled around in the direction Conall was looking.

“Hi
Eden it’s nice to finally meet you. Conall has told me so many nice things about you. I feel like I know you already.” Hannah stood and extended her hand toward Eden.

Eden
had begun to turn red from embarrassment as she extended her hand to shake Hannah’s.

“I’m, really, sorry about that. I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just the overprotective big sister and I think I’m going to shut up now.”

“He told me that about you too but I’m not offended. I’d probably do the same thing if I had a younger brother. Especially one as gorgeous as this one.”

Hannah had walked over
to Conall and was sitting on his lap.

“I’m
sure there’ve been a lot of girls trying to get him over the years and I don’t blame you for wanting to make sure they’re the right match for him.”

Eden
had relaxed and found a chair to sit in as the redness in her cheeks began to subside.

“I think I might like her already Conall. Finally a girl who understands where I’m coming from.”

“I could use some help with my wedding plans if you’re up for it.”

Eden
smiled at Conall as Hannah took her by the arm and led her away into the next room. There was work to be done and no time to waste with the wedding only two months away.

Much to
Eden’s surprise, the two girls bonded right away.

“I’m so glad Conall never gave up on finding you again. He nearly made the biggest mistake of his life when he got engaged to the girl who
se name we won’t mention.”

“I don’t mind if we say her name. I know he didn’t really love her and probably wouldn’t have married her even if he’d never found me again. Besides, I was engaged to someone else too. Someone I
probably wouldn’t have married either.”

“That’s
one of the things I really like about you. There isn’t much that you let bring you down is there? You seem to have a way of seeing the bright side of things – even when there doesn’t seem to be a bright side.”

“It may seem like it comes naturally to me but it doesn’t. Honestly, it’s taken me my whole life to get to this point.”

Eden was looking at her in amazement.

“We
definitely have so much to learn about each other.”

“Well, when I marry your brother I’m sure we’ll be spending a lot of time with the family so we’ll be like sisters in no time.”

Hannah took a sip of her bottled water and she caught Conall smiling at her as he came into the room.

“What’s got you smiling so big right now?”
Eden wanted to know.

He was amused by something he foun
d endearing about his fiancee.

“The first thing you should know about Hannah is that she
won’t drink water if it’s not bottled.”

They both looked at Hannah and she smiled in acknowledgement.

“I know it seems weird to other people but there’s something about the smell of tap water that makes me want to gag. I think it might be the chlorine or something.”

“Her pantry
is full of stacks and stacks of bottled water. She’s even swayed me to participate in her ban on tap water.”

Conall grabbed her to playfully hug and kiss her as she protested his advances.

“You’ll thank me some day when you’re spared from some terrible disease that’s found in tap water. You mark my words.”

“I’m just teasing you Hannah. I love your little idiosyncrasies. They’re endearing to me. It makes you you.” Conall continued to give her kisses as he buried his face in her neck.

Eden rolled her eyes in envy no doubt and continued to pour over the wedding plans laid out in front of her.

*****

The next two months seemed to fly by. The wedding day had arrived and everything had come together as planned.

Hannah and Conall said their vows
and afterward, they celebrated their union with nearly two hundred of their closest friends and family. All of the heartache and disappointments over the past ten years melted away like the ice sculptures at their reception. Through it all they couldn’t stop staring at each other and thinking about what was to come later that night when they were finally alone as husband and wife.

“Do you think anyone would notice if we left right now and went to our hotel suite?” Conall teased.

“Uh yeah, I think they’d notice that the bride and groom had suddenly vanished.” Hannah teased back.

“Besides, we’ve waited this long. Another hour or so isn’t going to kill us.”

Conall rolled his eyes as he kissed Hannah for the thousandth time that day and that was only the beginning.

“Maybe it won’t kill you but I’m dying over here.”

They were in the center of the dance floor having the time of their lives when Conall was unexpectedly approached by a soldier in uniform.

He handed Conall an envelope and asked him to step into the hallway to read it right away.

He looked at Hannah and she motioned for him to go. He followed the soldier until they were out of sight. A minute later he returned to the dance floor. With a smile on his face, he grabbed his bride, twirled her around, and dipped her toward the floor.

They didn’t talk about the contents of the letter until
some time later when they were in their room.

“So you may as well tell me what was in the letter.
What do they want from you?”

Conall pulled her down to sit next to him on the edge of the bed.

“After tonight, we’re going to have to postpone our honeymoon for a little while.”

Hannah could feel his hands shaking in hers.

“I had a feeling you were going to say something like that. Where are you going and what will you be doing?”

Conall hesitated. He didn’t want to tell her too much.

“It’s a covert operation. I have to go back to Iraq but I can’t tell you what it’s about – not yet anyway.”

Hannah’s heart skipped a beat.
She’d been through this before.

“When do you have to leave?”

“First thing in the morning.”

She smiled
and he smiled back and they couldn’t take their eyes off of each other. There was nothing more to be said about it so why waste any more time.

“Well then we better get b
usy. At attention soldier and that’s an order. We’ve got about seven hours of alone time and I don’t want to waste a minute of it.”

They couldn’t undress each other fast enough.

Chapter 35

She wanted him to be there. She was aroused by the smooth skin of his naked body touching hers, warmly pressing up against her in the early hours of that balmy spring morning. The intoxicating smell of his cologne mixed with his natural scent caressed her nose until she could take it no longer.

“I love that you’re here.” Her
words were barely audible as her thoughts went to the night before.

Her
senses were quickly awakening from a few hours of blissful sleep and she eagerly turned to face her new husband, ready and willing to submit to him again.  As her eyes opened she sadly realized her thoughts and feelings were imagined, phantom feelings left over from their passion filled wedding night. He was already gone and the only thing she had left of him or so she thought was his scent on her skin from the night before. Little did she know it was to be the beginning of a journey that could change the way life existed on Earth.

*****

He didn’t want to leave her. He was aroused by the smooth skin of her naked body touching his, warmly pressing up against him in the early hours of that balmy spring morning. The intoxicating smell of her perfume mixed with her natural scent caressed his nose until he could take it no longer.

“I love you
so much I’ll always be here.” His words were inaudible, only thoughts in his mind, remembering the night before.

His
senses were still highly charged even after a few hours of blissful sleep and he wanted to eagerly face his new wife, ready and willing to fulfill her desires again.

As
he sat on the plane, his eyes opened and he sadly realized his thoughts and feelings were imagined, phantom feelings left over from their passion filled wedding night. He was already gone and the only thing he had left of her was her scent on his skin from the night before. He had a feeling he was headed for what was to be the beginning of a journey that would alter the course of his life forever.

As he stepped off the plane, all of the memories of war came flooding back - the stench of something rotten in the air, the heat, the dust, the barren terrain.

There was no time to think. Conall
was immediately greeted by Ryan and the special operations team. Within minutes, they were taken to the building that contained the HBOT lab.

Dr. Hamilton was there, sitting at a table,
nervously fiddling with a string of paperclips. Conall could see that he looked stressed beyond belief.

“Oh Conall, thank God you’re here. My whole team is being held hostage and all of our work was stolen.”
He stood and grabbed Conall in a death grip hug.

“I just heard about it last night and I’m so sorry. We’re going to try our best to get them back and find the microchips.”

When Dr. Hamilton finally released his grip, Conall sat down at a table with the other men. It was his job to lay out the mission.

“
Let me see all of the documentation you have so far on the captors and anyone else who might be involved.”

He
was handed a stack of about ten folders and began looking through each of them as the men briefed him on what they knew. Each folder contained a picture of the operative and any known background information.

“I’m curious. Who’
s the mole?”

Dr. Hamilton
couldn’t contain himself.

“His name is Dr.
Blake Richards. He took Dr. Reinhart’s place when he succumbed to a rare bacterial infection before we came back from our leave.”