Sea of Dreams (The American Heroes Series Book 2) (45 page)

Lizzie looked at Blakesley, frightened. “Go where?”

Blakesley softened as she looked at Beck’s daughter. “How much did they tell you about your dad?” she asked gently.

Lizzie blinked back tears. “They said he was in Afghanistan,” she said. “They told me he was a hostage.”

Blakesley looked at Davis, appreciative that he hadn’t given Lizzie the full story.  It would only have frightened her.  Blakesley’s focus returned to Lizzie.

“He is,” she said softly. “I’m going to go to Afghanistan and see if I can ransom him. I’ve got the money.”

“Wait a minute,” Marshall was catching bits and pieces of the conversation.  “What’s this, Blakesley? What are you going to do?”

Marshall had been given the story by Davis when he had arrived earlier that evening, so he knew the details of Beck’s captivity.  Blakesley faced her father without reservation.

“I’m going to pay Beck’s ransom,” she took a defiant stance against the men in the room, who seemed to be very much against what she was suggesting. “Look, this isn’t your decision to make, any of you. Beck would do the same for me, or for any of you, so I’m not going to stand by while the Navy decides what they’re going to do in order to secure my husband’s release.  I’m going to go to that damn country and buy my husband’s freedom, and if any of you don’t like it, you can kiss my ass. I mean it. You’re not going to discourage me.”

Marshall listened to her speech before looking to Davis in a sort of helpless gesture. He knew how stubborn his daughter could be and he knew she meant every word. 

“She’s not bluffing,” he told the captain. “If she says she’s going to do it, then she will. So now what?”

Davis just grunted.  He turned away from the group, running his hand through his graying blond hair.  He had a situation on his hands and he knew it; there was no way he was going to talk Blakesley Seavington out of this.  In truth, he really wasn’t surprised.  He tried to think of how Beck would handle his wife but he knew the man would have just caved in to her. Probably the only way to stop her would have been to tie her down, and he wasn’t ready to do that. Not yet.  Finally, he turned to the group.

“Okay,” he surrendered somewhat. “I’ll tell you what; I’m going to Afghanistan in two days anyway.  I’ll take your offer to the general. You will stay here, nice and safe, and I will keep you updated daily. Is that acceptable?”

Blakesley frowned. “But I want to….”

Davis cut her off. “You can’t always have everything you want,” he interrupted. “More than that, Beck would kill both you and me if he knew you traveled half way around the world, into a war-stricken region no less, in your condition.  Do you really want to risk the baby like that? I don’t think you do.”

Blakesley looked uncertain for the first time. “Of course not,” she said quietly. “But I want Beck back and I’ll do whatever I have to in order to do that.”

Davis sighed faintly. “It’s my job to take care of my men,” he said softly. “You let me do this, okay? Do you seriously want to offer thirty million dollars?”

Blakesley nodded without hesitation. “All of it.”

Standing next to his daughter, Marshall blanched. “But that’s everything you received from selling the janitorial business,” he pointed out. “Blakesley, that’s everything. You won’t have anything left.”

Blakesley looked at her father. “None of that matters if Beck isn’t here with us. If I had more, I’d offer more. Don’t you get it, Dad? The money means nothing. Beck means everything.”

Marshall nodded reluctantly. He understood.  Kissing his daughter on the cheek, he looked at Davis.

“You heard her,” he said. “Thirty million dollars and not a penny more.”

***

Beck didn’t think he’d ever be so glad to see the ass-end of a C130 Transport.  At the Kandahar Airport, it waited in an extreme security area protected by the U.S. Military, and he boarded the bare-bones plane along with Davis, Anthony Solis, several more of his men, and Bill Hudson.  In fact, there were about thirty men accompanying him from the general’s compound all the way to the airport, about a three hour drive.

Beck’s only thought was getting home.  He’d spend almost four months away from Blakesley and now that he was free, he was sick to his stomach with the want to see his wife.  He’d been holed up in the general’s compound  up until that morning, when Davis had come to the lair demanding to negotiate with the general.  Davis had been surrounded by his own troops plus a platoon of Afghan forces that didn’t look like regular army.  Beck still hadn’t been able to figure that one out.  Davis had traveled like a king, spent two hours speaking with the general, and suddenly, Beck was free.  He didn’t know how or why, but he didn’t care.  When an American Humvee came for him in the fortified compound, he jumped in and off they went.

He hadn’t spoken to Davis during the trip, as they were in different vehicles.  They had just been trying to get the hell out of there before something really bad happened. Now that they were at the airport, he went straight for his captain as they boarded the aircraft.

“Beck,” Davis seemed very glad to see him. “You’re looking well, considering.”

Beck was looking well, considering.  He’d been treated very well, showered daily, had clean clothes, and ate regularly with the general. He’d been treated more like a guest than a prisoner. He had a reasonable amount of freedom but absolutely no communication with the outside world.  That part had killed him; no phones, no computer, nothing. Beck looked around at all of the men, the aircraft, the vehicles.

“Is this all for me?” he asked, incredulous.

Davis grinned as he found his preferred seat on the aircraft. “Did you think we were going to leave you there?”

Beck wriggled his eyebrows. “No,” he said honestly. “But what is all of this?”

“What do you mean?”

Beck pointed to the plane. “This,” he said. “Air transport, a convoy, and it looks like a couple of platoons. Did you come to bust me out?”

Davis snorted as he put on his seatbelt. “Something like that,” he said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Beck was still a little giddy from his swift release but he nodded. “I’m fine,” he noticed that Davis was digging into his gear bag and pulling out a cell phone. “How’s Blakesley? Does she know about all of this? You didn’t tell her, did you?”

Davis looked at Beck curiously, cell phone in hand. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Beck had his answer and his jaw ticked furiously. He sat heavily next to his captain. “You shouldn’t have told her,” he growled. “For all she knew, I was still on the operation. She didn’t have to know what had happened.”

“Are you crazy? You’re a hostage in Afghanistan and I’m not supposed to tell your wife?”

“No,” Beck nearly barked. “It wasn’t going to be forever. The general and I had an understanding and I’m pretty sure that I almost had him talked in to releasing me.  Oh, God, I can’t imagine she handled the news very well.  You shouldn’t have upset her like that. How did she take it?”

Davis put his hand on Beck’s shoulder. “Beck, I had no way of knowing when, or if, we would ever get you back,” he said. “Blakesley had a right to know. What did you want me to do? Wait a couple of years to see if we could negotiate your release and then tell your wife? I don’t think you’d want it to go down that way.  That’s not fair to her.”

Beck sighed sharply. He didn’t want to argue about it but he didn’t agree. “You didn’t answer me. How did she take it?”

“Terribly. How did you think she would take it?”

Beck rolled his eyes. “Oh, my God,” he breathed. “I didn’t want her upset, not now. Is she okay? Is the baby okay?”

“The baby is fine. Your wife is fine.  They need you home, not holed up in Afghanistan.”

Beck felt better to know that Blakesley and the baby, in spite of everything, were all right. He began to relax somewhat. “I would have gotten out, eventually,” he repeated. “I almost had the general talked into it.  I feel very strongly that he was going to let me go at some point soon.”

“But you couldn’t be sure.”

“Sure enough.” Beck began to put is seat belt on. “So what did you do? Threaten him with a rocket assault if he didn’t release me? Threaten to cut his satellite feed?  That man thrives on his television.  That probably would have done it right there.”

Davis shrugged, regarding the cell phone still in his hand. “Like I said, we had no way of knowing that.”

Beck’s thoughts lingered on his beautiful wife and the hell she must have gone through. It made him sick to think about it. “The general and I had very long conversations every night,” he muttered. “I told him I had a family and a baby on the way. He said he didn’t want to keep me from my family.  He also said I was a man of honor and he respected that. I really think I could have talked him into letting me go.”

Davis gazed at the man, wondering how much he should tell him about the lengths they went through for his release. He opted for all of it because he would find out eventually.  He may as well know now.

“I wasn’t going to wait for that possibility,” he said quietly. “So I ransomed you.”

Beck had no idea what he was talking about. “You
ransomed
me?” he repeated, shocked. “There was a ransom demand?”

Davis shook his head. “Not in the literal sense,” he cleared his throat, increasingly uncomfortable that he would have to explain himself. “Afghan warlords are into money and power.  The Navy wouldn’t officially negotiate with the general for your release, you know that.  They don’t deal with criminals, especially not like that, not in this military theater.  So I bought your freedom. I felt it was the only thing we could do; otherwise, you risked rotting away in that compound and we’d never see you again.”

Beck still wasn’t following him. “Bought my freedom? With what?”

“Thirty million dollars.”

Beck’s jaw dropped. “Thirty million…?” he sputtered. “Where in the hell did you get that kind of money?”

“Your wife.”

Beck would have bolted out of his seat had he not been belted in.  His roar was heard above the gunning of the jet engine as the plane began to taxi.

“What?” he bellowed. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

Davis put his hand on the man’s arm to calm him down. “She gave me the money,” he said as quietly as he could. “She liquidated every asset she had except for the house, the cars, and the girls’ college funds.  Marshall said she used all of the money she had from the sale of her janitorial business. Beck, if I hadn’t come here to negotiate, she would have come herself and there would be nothing I could do to stop her.  She was determined to come and buy your freedom.  Nothing in the world was going to stop that woman.  Would you rather have had her come to Afghanistan and not me?  That’s where we were heading, my friend.”

Beck was pale with shock.  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “So you came,” he muttered, suddenly feeling very weak and very ill.   He sank back against the chair and closed his eyes. “Oh, my dear God.  What in the hell did she do?”

“She bought her husband’s freedom,” Davis murmured. “You can’t get angry at her for it, Beck. She did what she felt she had to do.  She did it for you.”

Beck just sat there, dumbfounded. “But I’m sure the general would have eventually released me,” he said, despondent. “She didn’t have to… oh, my God, I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Hold it together, son,” Davis said softly, handing him the cell phone still clutched in his hand.  “Give her a call when we get in the air. Tell her you’re on your way home.”

Beck looked at the phone in the man’s hand a moment before taking it.  He held it in his hand as the plane took off, closing his eyes, seeing Blakesley and thinking about the huge sacrifice she had made for him.  Assets she had protected through her ex-husband’s trial were given up in a single day to buy his freedom.  Thirty million dollars.  He just couldn’t believe it.  It was the greatest act of sacrifice he had ever heard of, so deeply touched by her actions that he couldn’t put it into words.  That she would do such a thing for him had his senses reeling.

The plane hit altitude and Beck called his wife.  It was three in the morning in San Diego but she picked up on the forth ring.  She sounded groggy and pissed, but at the first sound of her voice in four months, Beck couldn’t hold back the emotion.  Tears streamed down his face as he greeted his wife.

Davis could hear Blakesley weeping from where he sat.

Beck woke up in an empty bed.  Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he lifted his head to look at the alarm clock, seeing that it was 1:32 pm.  His mind was groggy, like he had been drugged, and he fought through the cobwebs to recollect when he went to bed the night before.

His flight from Afghanistan had been a twenty-four hour affair, finally landing at Miramar Air Station near San Diego around midnight.  Blakesley and the girls had been there to greet him and it had been a sweet and joyful reunion, but by the time they got home and got to bed, it had been around two a.m.  Everyone had been exhausted. He’d been asleep almost twelve hours and he sat up in bed, shaking off the sleep, and got up.

Pulling on a pair of pajama bottoms, he opened the bedroom door to see three heads pop up from the sofa in the living room. Cadee, Crosby and Charlotte heard the door open, saw him standing there, and immediately screamed at the sight.  Beck grinned as they came charging over to him and he picked up Crosby and Charlotte, kissing their little cheeks.  He was able to set Charlotte down so he could hug Cadee, but Crosby clung to his neck and refused to let go.  As he tried to make his way into the kitchen with his fan club hanging on him, Blakesley appeared in the kitchen door.

Beck’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of her.  He hadn’t really gotten a good look at her last night because of the darkness, the fact that she was bundled in layers, and his fatigue, so he took a moment to drink her in.  Her belly was quite large now and she wore a big white collared shirt with leggings, looking about as adorable and pregnant as she possible could.   Beck made his way over to her with Crosby still hanging on his neck, tears in his eyes as he drew close.