Chapter 38

"He coming round?"
"Give him space"
Hell what was all the shouting about? And where the hell was I? I hurt all over but nowhere in particular, did that mean I had managed to survive the blast? Steph where was she, I had to find her, she had to be alive and all right, I wouldn't survive without her now. I felt I couldn't breathe and I know my hands were trying to get to my face, but something wouldn't let me, was I trapped covered in debris? I concentrated on opening my eyes and looked up to see Santos and Tank staring down at me, as I turned my head a pain shot through me but to hell with the pain I needed to see my Babe.

"Ranger calm your self down, Steph's here with you"
She was here? Hearing that must have made me relax a little because I seemed to slip into a world of quiet and could almost feel my self floating, and I'm sure I was moving, but the pain wasn't as severe and could I feel a soft cool breeze on my face? Was I really alive or dreaming? Or had I passed to the other side, had we both died in that blast? I could still feel the taste of her on my lips and the feel of her body pressed against mine, I heard the words we'd said to each other, her voice as she pleaded for me to stay with her. A rollercoaster of images and sounds rolled through my head leaving the image of her blue eyes looking up into mine, her smile and laugh was the last vestige of those memories before I sank into a peaceful abyss.

When I next became aware of any of my senses it was the quiet voices surrounding me and the soft light enticing me to open my eyes that made me want to re-join whatever world I had fallen into. There didn't seem to be the pain I had experienced before, but I knew it was still lurking in the background. What had me doubting my own senses though was the feel of a warm body beside me. I slowly forced my eyelids open allowing a pale light to flicker across my vision, once focused I could see that the light was sunlight behind the movement of leaves, I had no idea where I was but at the moment that didn't matter, what mattered was laying next to me, was she alive or hurt badly? I had no idea of where we were the only thing that mattered right now was my Babe. I turned my head slightly and felt a rush of emotion take over, laying next to my shoulder was a mass of brown curls, I tentatively flexed my arm pleased that no pain came and then carefully allowed my hand to stroke through those curls. A movement had me stopping and there looking back at me were those bright blue eyes that I held so dear.

"You're awake"
"Seems I am"
"How do you feel?"
"A bit groggy but until I move I don't know"
"Blame Bobby for being groggy, he had to sedate you, you kinda went nuts after they got us out"
"What happened?"
"No idea, Lester said he was only going to tell the story once so I had to wait until you woke up"

"Are you hurt?"
"No, maybe a lot of bruises and aches, god knows how we managed to get out of there alive let alone uninjured"

I rested my head back on the pillow and tried to take in what she'd said and then slowly, starting with my toes flexed my muscles to determine if I had any injuries. My back and neck felt uncomfortable but I knew once I could move about that would go. I felt movement beside me and looking over saw that Bobby was helping Steph to stand up. He looked over to me and smiled and as he led her somewhere out of my sight shouted back at me.

"With you in a minute Ranger"

It was less than that before he was sat next to me on the bed.

"How you feeling?"

"Like I took a beating"
"Yeah well you probably did. You want to try to sit up?"

I nodded my head and using my arms to push me up brought myself up into a sitting position.

"How does that feel?"
"Just a bit light headed"
"Okay that should pass and then we'll get you to the bathroom"
Him saying that made me realize I did need to pee and accepted his help as I carefully brought my feet to the floor. I did stand up but a wave of dizziness had me sat back down, shit what the hell had happened to me? I made the move again pleased when my feet and head seemed to accept the movement and was soon leant against a wall emptying my bladder into the basin. I adjusted the joggers I now seemed to be wearing and again with Bobby beside me we made our way across the room and through a door. Now I remembered where I was, hell it had been years ago since I'd been here, so long in fact that I had forgotten all about it. But why were we here and who else was with us? I found myself being lowered onto a chair and a strong hot coffee put into my hands. Looking around I could see we were now on an open porch and that Santos was sat next to Steph with Jay on her other side, Ram and Hector sat opposite me and Bobby came with his coffee to sit next to me. Everyone was so quiet it seemed surreal.

"Okay so what the hell happened?"
"You up for this Ranger, you've only just woken up"
I'm sure the look I gave Santos gave him my answer.

"Well when that door shut I heard a locking mechanism slide across and I couldn't open it. I knew then something was hinkey so I broke protocol and radioed the rest of the team. Tank and Cal found the whole place was empty so we knew then it was a trap. Jay got worried about them using remotes so as soon as that chat with Carrigan finished he jammed everything for a three-mile radius. The room underneath you was quite small but there was a warehouse area under that so we rigged the floors. We knew where you were from using infrared so as those devises were about to blow we blew circles in the floors below you. Cal and Ram had set up the bag below for you to land on so that's how we got you out"

"How the hell you both managed to land so softly is probably because you were so tightly wrapped together and were unconscious"
Well that explained how we got out but why were we here and why did I feel like shit? I turned to Jay as he carried on the conversation.

"Not all of the devises went off, and on those that did only the timed incendiary part blew but it sure took out the top of the building, problem was what else was inside. They're using materials and putting together small nuclear devises, alarms went off for radiation, so we had to mask up and get rid of rid of any clothes we were wearing to be sure we didn't have any contamination on us"
Bobby was the next to add to the explanation.

"You became very agitated to say the say the least, I had to sedate the pair of you so we could get clear and be sure no one was affected"
"Why here?"
I could see that Steph was totally overwhelmed by what they'd just said so at least if she knew where we were she might feel more settled and safe.

"Last place anyone would even consider we'd be"
"Where is here?"
"Beautiful you are on an island off Central America"

I saw her eyes get wide and the way she looked around, it was probably still early morning so still moderately cool, at least for where we were.

"You mean I slept through another helicopter ride?"
"Paladin I'll keep my promise and take you up when you're awake"
The light humor seemed to set her at ease but I knew she would have lots of questions and so did I.

"Jay the devises that he set up?"
"Miniaturized nuclear weapons that are smaller, lighter and easier to transport and hide. I found particles of deuterium, and tritium, with helium. I don't know how the hell they managed it but when you combine the deuterium and tritium they form a lighter atom of helium, nuclear fusion, and that produces a hell of lot of energy and neutrons"

"Neutrons?"

I knew the effect of exposure to neutrons could be lethal, had we managed to stay away from it?

"Ranger I detected it, the two concrete floors shielded us and we're talking about low numbers they weren't there in high numbers, plus not all of the devises enabled the fusion to happen, he has the ideas and maybe the technology to build these things but he still hasn't got the mechanics worked out yet, I suspect he's still struggling to get the ignition temperature right"
"So what do people think happened then?"
"Well I tapped into a camera further away that was transmitting and it caught the whole explosion, I shut it down to make it look like the explosion got to it so we could move in and around the site, Santos?"

"Tank's back in Trenton and has raised hell with Ramos and Jemerez, Ramos hasn't been seen anywhere but Jemerez is shitting bricks. He said a car came to pick him up and there was Grizoli and Granaldy with him, they were told they were being taken to Bordertown but ended up somewhere near Hamilton where they were shown into a room at the back of a restaurant where Harry and Ramos were waiting. They were shown the video of you and Beautiful but some parts had been blanked out. He finished with the building exploding and a warning that they were next"
"So everyone thinks that Steph and I are dead?"
"The main players do, talk in town is that the two of you went away together"
"The parts dubbed out?"
"Did you refer to Carrigan by name?"

"Yes, so he still thinks no one knows who he is"

"We need to find this SOB and get rid of him and all the research and technology he has"

I sat back and rested my head against the back of the chair, closing my eyes, trying to think. We were always one step behind him, how the hell did we get ahead of him and put a stop to what he was doing? I felt the men leaving and then the dip of the chair as Steph moved in, without opening my eyes I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her to my side.

"Are you okay?"
"Yes, just thinking"

"How do we get ahead of him and find him?"
"Go back to the beginning"

I opened my eyes and looked at her, what was she thinking because it sure looked like she had an idea.

"Go on"
"We go pay a visit to his wife"
"Is she sane?"

"The medical records just said she was a recluse and in a residential facility"

"Where is she?"

"I can't remember now, not local, I'd need the research I had"

We each fell into a comfortable silence I for one was just savoring her closeness to me and thanking god that we had come out of that building alive and unhurt, that must have been one hell of an operation the men put together in such a short time, they really were the best of the best and I felt so lucky and humbled that their actions had saved us. We stayed there for at least an hour before we were interrupted by Santos and Jay; carrying a tray of food and cool drinks.

"Thanks guys this looks amazing"
As usual Steph could always find a positive thing to say even though the food was simple, bread and cheese with fresh fruit, she managed to get both of the men to smile back at her.

"Beautiful I know you, you're hatching something aren't you?"
"Who, me?"
"Yeah, you get this glint in your eyes and a small smile on your face, spill it"

"Well I thought if we paid a visit to Carrigan's wife she might know something, maybe even give us an idea of why he's doing it"
"It's worth a shot, you want me to go?"
"No, I think she'd talk to me"
"Ranger?"
"Find out where she is from Tank and then we'll decide"
"Okay, he should be talking to us soon, Hector has done a lot to make Rangeman invincible in terms of hacking and access but Tanks gonna use a SAT phone from another location with Hector bouncing it around the world a few times"
"When?"
"An hour"

"I'm gonna get a wash and freshen up, see if I can find some clothes"
I looked at what she was wearing and only noticed that she had on a very large T-shirt that seemed to go down to her knees, hell, I hoped she had something else on underneath it. Santos laughed as he watched me watching her.

"Sorry but we don't really have anything here for her to wear, we only had what was on the helicopter and what we found here"
"She'll manage, is it still as primitive as when we were last here?"

"Afraid so, at least no one has found the place"
I remembered when we had first come across this place, it was years ago and we'd been in Belize doing training with soldiers from the British army. I'd liked the feel of Belize, the locals spoke English and there was a laid back feel to the place but I still had a preference for somewhere totally isolated so I'd kept my eyes open for anything coming up for sale and at the time when this island came up I could just about afford it. It was totally undeveloped and a few of us had spent some time building the cabin from wood on the island. Then we'd brought out essentials over a few years. Once I finished with the regular army I'd been too pre occupied with finding a niche for myself in civilian life and I totally forgot about it, I mean why would I come to a place like this when I was so busy setting up Rangeman and when I could afford the luxuries of hotels, plus there was this curly haired brunette I needed to keep an eye on. Now that I had finished with the government contract and had enough money maybe it was time to add some better facilities. I wasn't too sure how Steph was coping being here, the water we used was re routed from a spring we'd discovered, into a holding tank but there was no hot water as such and there were only three rooms in the place, the toilet and wash area had been added on as an after thought. I saw her come back through the door and laughed at what she was wearing, I couldn't knock her for using her imagination.

"What, it was all I could come up with"

"Actually it looks kinda sexy"
She'd obviously found an old pair of joggers, probably Tanks, and had cut across the leg and cuff to form a tube of material which she had then used as a dress, it still made me wonder what she had underneath, there was certainly no evidence of a bra.

"So this place, who does it belong to?"

"Me"
"You!"

"Yeah I bought it years ago when it was really cheap, there's nothing here other than this cabin and as you know the facilities are a bit crude"
"I like it"
I looked at her totally at a loss at to what to say I had never thought she would say she liked the place.

"Don't get me wrong I got Lester to clear the room I slept in of bugs and I suppose because it gets hot the water isn't freezing, it's quite refreshing really, though washing my hair is a bit of a marathon but Jay just empties buckets over it outside to get the soap out"

"Why don't I show you around after we talk to Tank, though you'll need some sun cream on, maybe we have some somewhere"
I got up feeling easier than I had before, my muscles seemed to have warmed up and I didn't feel as achy as I had before, it was then that I noticed the bruises on Steph's arms and legs and bringing her closer placed kisses on them.

"They're okay and the aching has gone, you're in a far worse state than me"

As we went inside I could here the voice of Tank coming from the phone and we went and sat down next to Santos.

"Real quiet here though, how's the boss doing?"
"I'm here Tank, doing fine"
"Well thank god for that, we thought you and Little Girl were gonna be banged up real bad"

"Any news from the street?"
"No, Hector's been asking around, I'd say people are running scared, there's even mention of most of the bosses relocating"
"That won't stop Carrigan"
"No, Ramos flew out the day of the explosion, Harry and Granaldy have left town leaving Grizoli and Jemerez"

"Grizoli is too stubborn to think he can be out smarted and Jemerez has too much to lose if he leaves"

"Yeah I agree, otherwise everything is quiet, I put the word out that you and Steph were out of town so anyone she knows seems happy with that"
"I need you to go into Steph's search on Carrigan's wife, find out where she is and any updates on her"
"You think he might be there?"
"Not sure but Steph thinks that maybe talking to her would give us some answers"

"I'll send it to Jay, safer that way"
We disconnected after that, sticking to an unspoken rule of only having five minutes to ensure security and then I decided that maybe I needed to wash and find some clothes as well.

As I came out onto the porch Steph was sat looking out into the distance but she heard me come out and turned and smiled.

"You ready to play tour guide?"
"Yes, what about your feet?"
"I'll manage"
She probably would as most of the tracks were sand and we wouldn't be going very far. Taking her hand we walked down the steps and then followed a single track through the trees, it winded its way down a slight incline until the trees receded behind us and we had to climb a small sand dune. Once at the top she stopped still, looking out at the view, it was an amazing place and now I was looking at it I again appreciated it far more than I had when I was younger. We were looking down into a small cove with rocky outcrops at both ends and an expanse of white sand lapped by waves coming from an expanse of turquoise.

"It's beautiful"
With that statement she was down the dunes and heading for the water while I walked slowly behind her, she was like a kid who'd never been at the seaside before, running and splashing in the water but keeping a constant eye on me. She didn't go in far but when I eventually caught up with her she was soaking wet. Taking her hand we walked to the far end of the cove, in the water of course and then made out way back to the center where she just sat down on the sand her feet just being touched by the waves. Her cheeks were red and her eyes sparkled a breeze lifting her hair around her face, she looked like an angel with the sun settling on her. I couldn't help myself as I moved in front of her, I didn't care if I got wet, I needed to wrap my arms around her just to make sure she was really here with me. With my face by the side of hers I drank up her smell and the feel of her.

"Babe, I don't ever want to be without you"
"I know, I was so scared in that building, but I wouldn't have survived if anything had happened to you"
"Marry me Babe, when this is over, marry me and be with me forever"
"Is this the right place and the right time Mr Manoso?"
"It's the perfect place at the perfect time"
"Yes, I'll marry you, but even if we didn't I would never want to be away from you"
There was no need for any more words, and I let my actions show her that, I took her head into one hand with the other around her hips and brought my mouth to hers, I needed her so badly and I really didn't care where we were and it seemed neither did she as she slid her hands around and down my back, teasing and tormenting with her hands in the same way her tongue was teasing and tormenting my mouth. I lifted her onto my knees and slid my hands below the hem of the dress surprised when there was nothing there to act as a barrier to her skin, and in that moment her hand had pulled down the front of the board shorts I was wearing, slowly caressing my shaft and balls. As my hand went to her curls and folds I groaned at how wet she was for me and lifted her slowly to allow me entry. All the time I had focused my mouth on hers, but now I inched her dress down to reveal her beautiful pert breasts, laving at each nipple one at a time feeling them harden to hard points. Her movement increased as she ground herself against me and I knew she was about to come, I felt her hands at my nipples tweaking them and then all I could do was to hold her firmly as an orgasm shot through me, amplified by the tightening of her muscles around me, there were no screams only the sound of our moans and the waves lapping around us.

"I love you Carlos"
"Te amo querida"
"Shit we're in the middle of the beach"
"There's no one here to see us"
"But Lester or Jay or"
"Babe, don't worry'

I stood taking her with me, still inside of her and walked out through the waves into deeper water and proceeded to show her just how much I loved her.

We spent the day by the beach though I made sure we were under the shade of some trees whenever possible, the sun was stronger here than Steph would think. I'd been back to the cabin to collect some water and more bread, cheese and fruit so it was as the sun was disappearing that we eventually decided to make our way back. I felt relaxed and happy as we walked back but knew soon enough we'd have to get back to planning our next move. We timed it just right as Bobby was putting a meal on the table, rice and vegetables with some fruit no doubt growing here, it was simple but tasty and after tidying up we spent the evening reminiscing about our adventures on the island. I noticed that Steph was becoming quieter and as she snuggled against me she eventually fell asleep so carefully I took her into the back room gently undressing her. As I looked down at her body I was sobered by the bruises I saw there, was I the same? I didn't know and for me it didn't matter but it mattered that the man responsible for those marks was still out there, bringing a sheet to cover her up I returned to join the men on the porch.

"I hope you checked the room out for bugs, she wasn't happy to be sharing it the first night she was aware of being here"
"No, she's fast asleep"
"She okay?"
"Seems to be"
"I really don't know how the pair of you managed to get out of there with so few injuries"

"I saw the bruises on her"
"Yeah, your vest protected her to some extent and with you close together you protected each other but your back was open to flying debris"
"Santos I know this seems late in asking but just how long have we been here?"
"Three days since the accident"
"I was out for two days?"
"Yeah, you got caught on the head that knocked you out but then you were, err, difficult to manage, so I used a sedative. You actually slept for longer than I thought"
"Was Steph out cold as well?"
"To start with but then she was calmer, she spent all day yesterday laid on the bed with you"

"Have you heard from Tank Jay?"
"Yes, the wife is in a facility near Coosada, north of Montgomery in Alabama"

"Any idea why there and not closer to home?"
"No, none"
"I need to work out a way of travelling with Steph"
"You've got the Pardo ID"
"Yes Santos I have, but I'll need to do some changes to our appearance"
"I could fly the two of you to the Miami office"
"That would work, I'm sure we can get sorted out there and then drive up to Montgomery"
"When do you want to go?"
"Can you give Steph some daylight for the flight?"
He laughed as he remembered the promise he'd given her and to be honest I would need for her to be in a good mood for what I proposed. I said my goodnights to the men and went to curl up with Steph, tomorrow we had work to do to prepare for the next stage of our journey.