Code Name: Ghost - Sawyer Bennett Page 0,73
wonder if I should schedule an appointment, but my excitement to get back to normal outweighs professionalism. I tap on the door to Kynan’s office—a brief glance through the glass walls tells me he’s alone. Not necessarily interruptible as his head is bent over documents on his desk, but again… too excited not to come to his office unannounced.
His head lifts when he sees me through the glass and beckons me in with his hand. “What’s up?” he asks as I open the door.
I slide in, shut it behind me, and take a seat before his desk. “Corinne has released me to full duty.”
He seems neither surprised nor delighted by this, his face an impassive blank canvas.
“And so,” I drawl, waiting for him to come to the same conclusion I’m going to put forth. “I’m ready for an assignment.”
Kynan straightens in his chair, then immediately sinks back down into it. He puts his elbows to the armrests and steeples his fingers together in contemplation, his eyes never leaving mine. “And you believe you’re ready to get back in the thick of things?”
“I’d prefer you not coddle me on my next assignment,” I reply, not quite answering his question but putting forth my own expectations. “I need you to trust me.”
“And do you trust yourself?” he queries.
His question irritates me. It’s something Corinne would want to know as part of her assessment, but he’s the boss and I get why he’s asking.
“All I can tell you is that after a lot of reflecting, listening to you and others, and talking things out, if I were in the same exact scenario as I was in Syria, I would trust my training and my gut instincts, and I’d act in the same manner as I acted then.”
The point being, even knowing I could have probably saved Jimmy and Sal by moving to their rear and being vigilant, it wasn’t the right move and I know it now. I would have battled the clear fight in front of me as my training and instincts told me to do.
Now Kynan has to believe that.
He gives me a solid nod of acceptance and leans forward again, flipping through a stack of folders on his desk. Finding what he’s searching for, he opens it up and scans the first page. “I’m sending a group down to Ft. Bragg tomorrow. The Army is going to let us join them in some MFF training operations. I want you to go as, given your background, you’ll be a good resource for leadership.”
I struggle to not let my face break out into a wide, goofy grin because the part of me that thrives on danger, speed, and adrenaline is already chomping at the bit for this opportunity. MFF, or military free fall, is a tactic used to insert Special Forces troops into enemy territories in as covert a way as possible. It allows for aircraft to fly above the range of where surface-to-air missiles can shoot them down, but it provides added danger to the men who must jump out of said plane at extremely high and dangerous altitudes. We’ll most likely be practicing both HALO jumps—high altitude, low opening—and HAHO jumps—high altitude, high opening.
The HAHO jumps are my favorite, meaning the parachute is pulled within seconds of the jump, allowing a soldier or marine to fly silently for miles—sometimes up to thirty to forty miles—to reach an insertion point. It requires skill, solid use of GPS and terrain navigational skills, and a whole fucking lot of luck. It’s what makes it so exciting.
“We have a potential mission coming up soon that will require a free-fall insertion,” he says, and my joy at jumping out of planes plummets.
Oh, not that I’m not still excited about that—it’s just the mention of the word “mission” has me going into hyper-alert, super-focused mode. I want him to know I’m ready, willing, and able to meet whatever the demand may be.
“Some American tourists have been kidnapped in Colombia,” he says.
“The ELN?” I ask.
He nods. The Ejército de Liberación Nacional—or National Liberation Army—is known for kidnapping tourists and carting them around the jungled countryside until ransom is paid. “Some rich banker out of Dallas and his family wanted a thrilling jungle adventure for their vacation. Well… they got it.”
“When do you think this will go down?” I ask, because there doesn’t seem to be a rush seeing as how he wants to send me on a free-fall training operation.
“These guerilla groups know how to extract the