“I’m so proud of you,” Anna exclaims as she releases me from her stranglehold.
I give her an extra squeeze before we break apart. It’s been weird, but over the last few months since Anna’s been working at Jameson, she and I have become pretty tight. I know some around the company probably think something’s going on between us, but that’s not the case. We’re friends—nothing more.
Really good friends. I’d say probably my closest in the Pittsburgh headquarters. My absolute best friend, Bodie Wright, works in the Vegas office where his wife, Rachel, runs the operations as Kynan’s second in command.
“How is he?” Anna demands, meaning Malik. “What kind of shape is he in? Is he going to be okay? What can we do for him?”
She peppers me with questions without pausing for a breath. I have to clap my hand over her mouth to get her to be quiet. Leaning in, I say, “I have to go debrief with Kynan. How about you and I grab some lunch together today, and I’ll fill you in on what I’m allowed to share. Okay?”
Her eyes crinkle, and she nods. I can feel her smile under my hand.
When I remove it, she murmurs, “All right.”
“And I missed you, too,” I reply affectionately.
Blushing, she rushes to assure me that she missed me as well. “I’m just so excited Malik was rescued, that’s all.”
I laugh. “I get it. We’ll talk at lunch.”
I move off from Anna, waving in at Corinne Ellery, our staff psychiatrist. Part of my debrief this week will be to talk to her. Kynan requires his staff to get mental health evaluations and therapy after difficult missions to cope with the stressors of the job. I’m quite sure we’ll be discussing my sense of pride and accomplishment when I put a bullet in the brain of the man who had been tormenting Malik, as well as that small part of my conscience that feels blackened by the same action.
Kynan sits in his office, head bowed over something on his desk. Since taking over Jameson Force Security, he rides desk more than he goes out on actual missions. I’m not quite sure how he does 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.