but damn. The way she’d flushed was appealing as hell. And there wasn’t much he could do about his appearance at the moment. If the general wanted to meet with them immediately, that’s damn well what they’d do.
She hadn’t seemed put off in the least by six men in full gear coming in. Hell. She worked in the general’s building. She probably saw a steady stream of military men and women come through here. At the last second, she looked up at him again, and he smiled as her cheeks pinkened. He nodded but continued after his teammates. It’s not like he could stop and flirt when they were here on official business. He hadn’t arrived in Bagram to pick up women. He was in the middle of a mission.
Grayson and his teammates stashed their rucksacks in an empty office before their debrief with General Murphy. They saluted him as soon as they entered, and then stood around the room as he sat down behind his desk. “I’ve just been briefed on Sayed’s sudden disappearance today. To put it bluntly, this isn’t good.” the general said.
“Negative, sir,” Blake said. “The camp was very recently abandoned. The ashes in the fire were still hot. Our mission was to move in to the camp tonight, but with them already gone, my team and I would like to go door to door searching the village.”
“What makes you think he’s not long gone by now? Evidence suggests if they abandoned the camp that quickly, they could’ve known you were coming.”
“Their goal has been to harm Americans. We don’t believe he’s moved far from Bagram, sir.”
“Do you have intelligence indicating such?”
“We’ve seen the same reports you have, sir,” Grayson said. “The seven servicemembers who were kidnapped and killed were on patrol not far from base. The recent suicide bombings also were intended for the airfield—they just couldn’t get close enough to do damage and blew themselves up instead.”
“Yes. We’ve increased the perimeter our patrols use and ramped up the checkpoints.”
“I think he knew we were coming,” Blake said.
The general nodded. “The timing is no coincidence. The day a Navy SEAL team arrives in country, ready to move in that night, he disappears? I don’t fucking buy it.”
“So there’s an informant. A mole on base.”
“It’s a possibility,” the general said with a frown. “One that I’ll have to further investigate. The mission was highly classified. Only a handful of people are aware of your arrival. Even the men who drove you today weren’t fully briefed on why you were here.”
“They thought we were simply getting the lay of the land,” Ethan agreed. “They didn’t know we were SEALs.”
Blake eyed the general. “The most logical place for him to move, and to maintain control of the area and insurgents near here, is the village.”
“That hasn’t been his modus operandi so far. They’ve been hiding in caves up in the mountains.”
“Yet they’ve been moving closer,” Blake countered. “He doesn’t want to be far away—he wants to see the destruction. We’re requesting permission to search the village and bring him in.”
The general nodded. “Have your team ready to move in tomorrow at oh five hundred. I’ll send two Army Ranger platoons in with you to secure the area. This operation is bigger than your team’s original mission to infiltrate the camp and eliminate the target. There are women and children down there. Innocents.”
“Understood,” Blake said.
“I know you just got in today. Grab some food and get some rest since your original op has changed. You’ll move in at dawn. Dismissed.”
The six SEALs filed out of the office, grabbing their rucksacks before exiting the building. Grayson glanced at the desk where the secretary had been sitting earlier and frowned to see that she wasn’t there. Not that anything could’ve happened while he was here for a short time in Afghanistan on official business, but he wouldn’t have minded finding out her name. He couldn’t tell her that he was a Navy SEAL, obviously, but he’d hoped to at least exchange a pleasantry or two. She’d seemed slightly out of place compared to the other no-nonsense military types around here. A breath of fresh air. He chuckled quietly to himself. Since when was he a fucking poet? The last woman he’d casually dated had been a sexy waitress he met at a country bar. She’d loved to wear short skirts and flirt with all the sailors that came in.
This woman was as opposite from her as could be. She’d seemed shy.