it… giving up the thrill and the adrenaline rush, especially since Kynan is known as the biggest adrenaline junkie in the entire company.
I knock on his open door before entering. His head comes up, and he gives me a welcoming smile. It’s not the first time I’ve seen him since Malik’s rescue. He met us in New York when our commercial flight landed on the last leg of our journey back from Syria. First and foremost, he was there to see Malik and welcome him back on home soil. He had not a single bit of embarrassment over the emotion he showed as the two men hugged. I’ll admit to being a bit misty-eyed myself, but I’d quickly blinked it back.
“Ready to debrief?” I ask.
It’s part of Kynan’s job to meet individually with each team member to get a rundown of exactly what happened on the mission from start to finish. He’ll be meeting with the other guys today and tomorrow, but, since I’m team leader, he’ll start with me.
“Sure thing,” he replies, pushing slightly away from his desk and leaning back casually in his office chair. I take a seat opposite his desk, settling into it.
Kynan doesn’t hold a pen or pad before him. He’s clearly not going to type notes on his laptop as I speak. All he’s doing is listening, and I expect he’ll write a report from memory later.
I also expect it will be bare on the details because while Kynan manages to get away with a lot of things under the nose of our government, his company was specifically prohibited from mounting a rescue mission in Syria. Relations are just too tenuous to go in without the cooperation of the Syrian government, but that was something Kynan had no intention of doing. It’s one of the reasons I admire him so much—he does whatever it takes to ensure his team’s safety and return home.
It takes me about an hour to lay it all out. We infiltrated the area where we were told Malik was being held. That cost Kynan twenty-grand to an informant, but the man had provided actual coordinates in the desert, which saved us a lot of time and energy. We dropped in a few clicks from where Malik was being held and snuck over land in the dead of night, using the glow of moonlight to lead the way.
We were lucky to find a small ridge made of sand and stone fifty yards from the hole in the ground where Malik was. We waited for hours to see what would happen while his captors joked, laughed, and ate roasted goat around a small fire they’d built.
And then, our break came. One of the men brought Malik out. I confirmed it was him using night goggles, and he’d looked awful.
“I’ll take the one who has Malik,” I had whispered to Merrit, who was positioned on his stomach, the same as me. We both had our Barrett M82 rifles resting on tripods. “You take the other.”
We put eyes to scopes, centering in on our targets. My crosshairs were on Malik’s captor’s head, dead center of his forehead. I knew Merritt—who was also a Navy SEAL like me—would be the same.
“On the count of three,” I whispered, then counted backward.
Three… two… one.
My bullet hit first, and I remember seeing the confusion on Malik’s face as the man’s head exploded next to him. A millisecond later, the other man was dead, too.
Kynan interrupts my accounting. “See Corinne today.”
“Got it,” I replied with a nod.
And that was all that needed to be said to have my mental health checked out. I know some guys balk at such a thing, but not me. I’m a big believer in keeping my mind as healthy as my body, particularly since I’m making a career out of this line of work.
Kynan has some follow-up questions. When we’re done, we shoot the shit about irrelevant stuff, and I know he’s happy to have me back.
Until the next mission.
Before I leave his office, I ask, “Got any recommendations for a nice restaurant where I could score dinner reservations tonight?”
Kynan’s eyebrows shoot high. Not only have I never asked such a question, because I’m a fast-food kind of guy, but it also implies I’m going on a date, which is shocking.
His expression smooths out, and he makes a few suggestions. Enough to get me started on planning this date. He never asks me for details, which is good… I hadn’t planned on sharing as