Her Baby's Bodyguard by Ingrid Weaver

had hoped we’d be on our way out of the country by now and there would be no need to mention this.”
    “Eva? We need to know what we’re up against.”
    “I know.” She pressed her cheek to Katya’s head. “Her father is Burian Ryazan, the director of the complex.”

Chapter 4
    “W ill you look at that? I don’t know how the old girl got this far,” Kurt Lang muttered, leaning under the hood of the truck. “Next time try stealing me a decent ride.”
    Jack directed the flashlight where Kurt was working. The shed was open on the south side, so they were spared the worst of the wind. Still, it was cold enough to numb his fingers. “Nah. I know how much you like a challenge.”
    “What’s wrong, Kurt?” Tyler moved into the shed, using his hat to slap the snow off his coat. He stopped beside Jack to peer over the fender.
    “For starters, the sparkplugs are covered in crud, and this air filter looks as if it took a mud bath.”
    “Maybe it did. The roads around here probably turn to soup when the ground thaws.”
    “And look at this slime.” Kurt drew out the dipstick and wiped it on a rag. “No one’s changed the oil in this crate since the last ice age.”
    Jack knew that nothing irked Kurt more than a poorly maintained engine, just as nothing pleased him more than the chance to tinker with one. He turned to Tyler. “Has Duncan picked up any chatter on the radio, junior?”
    “Nothing out of the ordinary,” Tyler replied. “Base has been monitoring the cell traffic around the complex, too. They’d let us know if it sounded as if anyone noticed our lady is missing.”
    Jack wasn’t reassured. In fact, he was getting increasingly restless. He looked past the truck to the strip of darkness that was visible at the front of the shed. There were only a few hours to go before sunrise. The snow was no longer falling, but the wind was whipping what was on the ground into stinging, horizontal sheets that limited the visibility to nil—not the best conditions for anyone wanting to travel a mountain road.
    Chances were good that the patrol they’d run into the day before had holed up someplace because of the weather, too, yet for how long? Eva had claimed that no one would notice her absence for at least a day, but Jack found that hard to believe. Too many things could go wrong. He didn’t know how the scientists at that place worked, but someone might decide they needed to ask Eva a question, or schedule a meeting or even hold a surprise fire drill. Maybe one of her neighbors would come over to borrow a cup of sugar. Any one of those scenarios could unravel her plan.
    Still, he didn’t think the alarm would have been raised yet, since she spent her nights alone. She hadn’t told him that specifically, but that’s what he figured since she did say no one would notice her bed sheets were gone, and she’d said she’d broken up with her baby’s father.
    If the man had been anyone else, the fact they were no longer an item would have been a good thing. But Burian Ryazan was no ordinary man. Intelligence had provided information on him, too. Ryazan was a brilliant, Nobel Prize-winning scientist who’d parlayed his distinguished looks and razor wit into pop-icon status in Russia. He’d been the guiding force behind establishing the fortified bioresearch complex in this next-to-inaccessible region of the Caucasus. He also had the political savvy to cultivate powerful allies, enough so that the complex got away with having its own little private army.
    In short, Ryazan was smart, powerful and behaved like royalty. As ex-boyfriends went, they didn’t get much worse. Eva was right to be worried.
    The rest of the team hadn’t been any happier than Jack when he’d broken the news to them. They’d known Ryazan would order a pursuit when he learned one of his scientists was missing. Things would go to a whole different level when he learned his child was gone, too.
    This was going to get real personal, real