“No takers?”
Trav enters the room, and his presence alone demands attention. It’s in the confident way he carries himself. It probably helps he’s a six-five walking wall of muscle. “Who’s up for an extraction job?”
I raise my hand … that’s holding my beer. Damn it.
“No,” Trav says.
Zeus, Atlas, and Ghost raise their hands.
“Get your gear,” Trav orders. “Wheels up in thirty.”
“Where’s the op?” I ask. “I’ve barely had anything. I’ll be sober in no time.”
My boss looks at his watch. “Fair point. Where we’re going, you could keep drinking for another five hours and still be sober by the time we get there. Get your stuff.”
Yes, this is exactly what I need.
The whooshing sound of helo blades relaxes me. It’s one of the few things that does. It centers me. It symbolizes either safety or imminent danger. It’s an adrenaline hit or an adrenaline crash, and that’s the shit people like us at Mike Bravo live for.
Every man strapped to this Hawk is here for a reason, and it has nothing to do with the nature of this op or our innate reflex to follow orders. It’s the thrill. The high.
All I know is I’m thankful for the SNAFU from some government, top priority, classified team. I get to see some action and throw up a big double bird to the man while I clean up their mess.
“Ten klicks out,” Trav says in my earpiece.
Here we go.
We do a last equipment check, and I tug on my harness as I prepare to rappel to some random rooftop in the hostile country of Udoola in North Africa.
The night is a blanket of darkness, but it’s not like helicopters are known to be quiet. Chances of arriving unnoticed are slim to fuck all, because when you’re called out to a deserted village in the middle of nowhere, there’s nothing but nighttime covering you.
The intel we received says a US black ops team fucked up their mission and were taken down by the Muharib extremist group. The Muharib has supposedly since moved on, but that intel is eighteen hours old, and we have no idea how many men are left to rescue or how many Muharib soldiers are waiting behind to kill us too.
When the government sends you on a suicide mission, you better hope you hit your mark, or that’s how you end up here—relying on private contractors to save your ass. Because how else can the military justify a rescue crew for people who technically don’t exist on a mission that never happened?
Trav’s behind the controls of this Hawk, and his calm and commanding presence has a way of reassuring me everything will go smoothly. We train for this. We’ve done it a billion times. But there’s always something about the real thing versus a training op. Death is a whole lot more real out here. And I live for it.
“You’re up,” Trav says.
Atlas and I move toward opposite sides of the helo.
Zeus triple- and quadruple-checks my harness and ropes and gives me a thumbs-up, and then does the same for Atlas.
“Holding,” Trav says, giving us the go-ahead.
Backing up, my feet hit the edge of the platform, and I lean outward, ready to rappel.
“You all know what to do if I don’t come back,” I say.
The voices echo in my ear. “Wipe your browser history.”
“Perfect.” With a mock salute, Atlas and I make our move, jumping in sync and rappelling as fast as we can without slamming into the rooftop and breaking our ankles.
We’ve done this maneuver countless times, and it’s flawless.
We’re unclipped half a second later and running for cover before any insurgents have a chance to take us out.
We hit the stairwell and flatten ourselves against the wall to get our bearings, but the break is short. If there is anyone lurking around this place, we’ve put on a show for them, and now we have targets on our heads.
Atlas waves me forward. He’s built like Trav, and it’s surprising a tank like him can even fit through the narrow stairwell.
I’m one of the smallest on the team. I’m strong as hell but in a tight and agile package. It makes me fast. Atlas is the opposite. He’s an ex-SEAL and is as wide as he is tall. He looks like a mean motherfucker, but the opposite couldn’t be more true. He’s probably the nicest, most caring guy on the team. Don’t get me wrong, if it comes down to him or you in a fight, he will end you with a snap of his fingers as easy as Thanos, but in general, you know, aside from all the killing, he’s a decent guy.
Maybe I should tell him to put that on his dating profile to spruce it up a bit. He’s a hopeless romantic, wanting to save his damsel in distress … or whatever the male equivalent of damsel is.