I watch as the highway passes us by, Mississauga shrinking in the rear view mirror as we make our way into Toronto. She’s just finished her latest contract, and I want to treat her to a romantic mini-vacation before we head out to her parent’s house. It’s late, but I booked the swankiest place I could find on short notice, and though the area seems a little rough, the hotel is beautiful. I quickly check us in, my eyes roaming the white and gold lobby with appreciation. It really does deserve its name. The Grand.
By the time our elevator door opens on the top floor, I’m carrying Becca in my arms on the way to our room, and once inside, I tuck her into bed carefully, planting a kiss on her head as she snuggles into the sheets with a smile on her face, her eyes cracking open just enough to glance up at me lovingly.
“Night…” she says groggily before turning over, and I take a quick shower before slipping into bed with her. The military trains you to be able to fall asleep fast, so it’s only a few seconds before I drift off into a deep sleep.
I fire my weapon at the face that appears around the corner holding a woman at gunpoint. In a flash, he crumples to the ground before the rest of my team can even turn their barrels on him, and the Kurdish woman dashes away with a terrified scream, back outside the now-vacant complex that made up an IS compound.
“Clear,” says my second-in-command.
All of us hold strategic positions in the now-ruined command room. We wear black, masks over our faces that make us as invisible as our activities will be on all official reports. This Syrian night will leave no trace of our presence but the memory of what we’ve done in the minds of the local village’s people.
I strip my mask off and stride over to the table full of documents the enemy had out upon our arrival. The leader’s blood stains some of them, and I push his lifeless body from its chair so I can get a better look at the information.
We’ve been stalking this cell for weeks. Each operation requires more patience and stealth than any ordinary soldiers are trained to handle. We’re Navy SEALs. We do not exist, yet we’re everywhere, and when we strike, success is absolute.
Each of the men around me has been put through the most rigorous training the United States can offer. We’re towering specimens of our species, rippling with muscle that’s poised to react to anything at a moment’s notice, and every eye is scanning the room for unnoticed activity.
We are prepared for everything, because with missions as deadly as ours, anything can go wrong.
“It’s all here,” I say softly, glancing through the documents written in Arabic. “We were right. They’ve been moving supplies in through the northwest, hoping to take the city. But this was the serpent’s head. Good work, men.”
The rest of my squad gives the faintest of nods in acknowledgement, except for my lieutenant. He has his hand at his earpiece, and I can read his concern in his eyes.
“What’s the matter?” I ask. His eyes narrow, and he looks up at me with sudden alarm.
“Sir! Intel just reported in. They miscalculated. Russian special forces has this location on their radar, they’re going after the same target we just eliminated.”
“What?!” I snap, muscles tensing, my mind racing with the various strategies the Russians are prone to using for operations like this. “Notify our contact immediately, make sure they know w-”
My words are cut off as a flashbang grenade goes off behind us, and I’m blinded as my body’s reflexes force me to return to one of the cover spots I memorized on the way in here. Damn rookie mistake, and we’re out of time: the Russians are here, and they think we’re the enemy.
Bullets start flying the next moment, and I hear the sound of a body hitting the ground where my communications officer was standing a few moments ago.
I force my eyes to regain function, and I hear shouting in Russian as the shadow operatives spill into the room. The Spetsnaz are the Russian Special Forces. They’re quick, efficient, and trained under utterly brutal conditions. If either side wants to survive this, we all need to act quickly.
Our training kicks in, and we begin responding as a single unit. My squad mate nearest to me provides covering fire at the doorway where the shouting is coming from, and as soon as his assault rifle goes off, I move across the room, keeping low and in cover.
In the briefest of moments, I glimpse the Spetsnaz operatives firing at us. They wear ski masks not unlike ours, but I can identify their leader. He’s positioned at the most advantageous spot to dole out verbal and nonverbal commands, and his men operate like clockwork around him.
One of them is headed straight for my destination. He points his gun at me, but I’m faster, firing off a single round that puts him down.
“On your six!” one of my men shouts, and I whirl around at catch the wrist of the man driving a knife down towards me. The blood on his blade tells me he’s killed another one of my men. This operation is going south very quickly, and we need to move.
I clench my hand and shatter the wrist of my attacker, delivering a hard strike to his stomach. There’s no room for theatrics here. There’s a team full of killers who know this man intimately, and in about two seconds, their bullets are going to be filling my torso.
So I wrench the knife from the man’s broken hand and drive it into his eye, deep into the skull. The next moment, I’m low to the ground as bullets whiz by where I was a moment ago.
I hear the telltale metal clinking of a grenade landing to my right, just beside where one of my men is engaged in hand-to-hand combat with one of the Russians. I lunge for it, seizing the live grenade and hurling it out the doorway, where I see the leader shout at his men before they dive for cover. The grenade goes off with a bang that leaves all our ears ringing.
In the chaos, I stand up and plunge my dagger into the back of the skull of the man my squad mate is engaged with. I grab him and pull him to cover as the enemy leader reappears, his assault rifle raised and fury in his eyes.
I know what happens in situations like this. The leader’s ego is getting to him. He’s not going to be willing to back down in a situation like this. The idiot’s going to get more men killed on both sides than is necessary. I’ve got to make a decision, and I’ve got to make it quick.
Even as my men trade fire, I know the doorway is just a choke point we’d be filing into. There’s a single window in the room, but it’s exposed, and my men need cover. My hand goes to my vest as I crouch, and over our comms, I give the order to initiate a protocol my men know by heart.
By the time I’m pulling the pin out of the smoke grenade, my men are already disengaging from the enemy and retreating to the window. I lob the thing into the midst of the Russians, and before most of them can flip their goggles over their eyes, it goes off with a bang, and thick, dark smoke fills the room.
I’m going to be the last one out. No way in hell am I letting any of my men leave after me. One after the other, I confirm my men’s exit, but as I expected, not all of the Russians are blinded by the grenade.
A silhouette appears in the smoke, and I recognize the leader of the Russians immediately. I drop the knife of the man I killed, letting it clatter to the ground. My hand is poised to draw my own blade, but I want to give this bastard the chance to walk away from this unharmed.
I see his features more clearly as he steps closer. His face mask has been blown off by the grenade I threw back at him, and he’s bleeding from several shrapnel wounds. One of his eyes is clenched tight, and I can see blood running through the eyelid. I’ve just cost him an eye along with two of his squad mates. He’s a hardened older man with graying hair and a square jaw. I know this isn’t going to end peacefully. But I don’t want them to think we didn’t give them to chance to keep their lives.
“We aren’t enemies,” I say in Russian, keeping my tone even, but without a word, he lunges for me, his hand held tight like a spear aimed at my throat. I parry the maneuver and sweep his legs out from under him, but he recovers flawlessly, drawing his knife and swip
ing at my Achilles tendon with the blade. I roll away with the strike, but I feel the knife graze the thick leather of my boot. I was milliseconds from death. This guy is good.
“You made an enemy,” he growls as I draw my knife and meet his next attack. I catch his wrist, but this one won’t be so easily broken. Unfortunately for him, he finds the same unexpected toughness in me.
I bring my knee up and strike him in the diaphragm, and he takes the blow with a grunt. As I twist around to get a grip on his arm and end this fight before the smoke clears, I realize his other hand has gone for his pistol, and he brings it up towards my head.
Looking down the barrel of a gun is an experience you don’t forget. Time around you slows, and all you can focus on is that unfeeling cylinder of metal that might well be your ticket into the next word the next instant.
But my body isn’t like that of other men. Like a supernatural force, my reflexes spin me around, hurling the Russian over my back as the gun goes off right next to my head, and I’m utterly deafened by the sound.
I don’t stop to follow up on the move. My men are down the rope, and I propel myself out, grabbing onto the rope and racing to the ground.
Moments later, my men and I are rappelling down the building out the window, into the cool air of the Syrian night. Even as we do, we haven’t let down our guard. This isn’t a retreat. It’s a shift in battlefields.
As we expected, there are more of the Russians outside, and we find ourselves under fire the moment we’re out into the air. We return it, but even as we make our descent, one of my men takes a bullet to the chest, and the gurgling grunt that comes from him tells me he’s a dead man in hours if I don’t get him to medical attention soon.
Bullets are raining down on us as we reassume positions in the rocky outcroppings that once provided the natural defenses for this compound.
I have four men remaining out of my five, and I’m not about to lose any more.
“Hold this position,” I order my men before getting on the line with Intel. “We need an extraction, we’re coming out hot!” I can hardly hear anything out of my right ear.
The sounds of the bullets firing all around us are loud yet somehow muffled, dull pops, each one piercing the air with such deadly fury that I feel my heart pounding faster and faster, each boom shattering the air around me.
Our backup isn’t going to come. Another grenade hits the ground, and my men take cover. The blast sends shrapnel and sharp rocks flying everywhere.
Images flash before my eyes at a thousand miles a minute. I see the gun barrel pointed at my eyes again just as I hear the gunshot. I see bullets riddling my squad mate, his body hitting the ground as more ring out all around us. I see my own bullet hurdling into the Russian I killed, a man who wasn’t even supposed to be here. The faces of each of the IS insurgents flash by, the Kurdish woman, my men, the Russian leader. The barrel of the gun again, hammer hitting the back of the bullet as it rockets toward my face.
Another boom.
Becca’s voice is calling out to me as I wake up. I’m on my feet, heart pounding its way out of my chest as I hold onto the open window with both hands, knuckles white, eyes staring at the world outside as fireworks explode high in the air above and down on the street.
My pupils are dilated, and every muscle in my body is tense. My grip is cutting into the wood windowsill, and I’m just staring out into the world outside. I become vaguely aware of the cool air. I’m shirtless. Where are my fatigues? Where are my weapons? Why is Becca here?
“Adrian! Adrian, come away from the window!” Her voice is muffled like the booming sounds outside. I blink, covering my face, and as she takes a step forward towards me, I whip around, glaring at her.
There’s hardly any recognition in my eyes, and I have to fight my instincts tooth and nail to keep from attacking her. Like waking from a half-dreaming state, I’m still trying to figure out why I don’t hear shouts in Russian around me, my killing instinct fueling adrenaline that pumps through my bloodstream.
“Adrian, you’re—there’s no danger!” she says, her voice clear and loud yet somehow gentle. Becca. It’s Becca. My Bex.
My heart is still racing, and I blink hard at her, and I start to hear her clearly when another firework goes off outside behind me, and I move back to the bed, searching for… for something, I don’t know what. Maybe my gun, a knife, something.
I feel a hand laid on my shoulder, and without a second thought, I whip around and seize it by the wrist, glaring into the terrified eyes of its owner, her eyes just as wide as mine in the glint of the midnight streetlights outside.
Rebecca
I walk toward Adrian slowly with both my arms raised, my eyes wide and my heart hammering away in my chest as I stare down this heaving, riled-up beast of a man. I feel like I’m walking into a lair of wolves, approaching the pack leader to remove a thorn from his mighty paw. I can hear my own blood rushing rhythmically in my ears as I step closer to him. His calloused fingers are still wrapped around my fragile wrist, and I know it would only take a second’s movement for him to crush my delicate bones in his fist. He is a massive beast of strength and power, but there is a sheen of something akin to primal fear lurking behind his wild eyes.
“Adrian, Adrian, it’s me,” I murmur softly, gazing up into his face. His eyes start to soften slightly, but he doesn’t let go of my wrist yet. There’s a long silence, and just when I think he is about to let go and calm down, another round of bright red fireworks crackle and explode in the sky beyond our hotel room window. He lets out a bellow and pulls me close, shielding me with his huge, muscular frame as though to protect me from flying shrapnel or enemy fire.
“Watch out!” he exclaims as several more white rockets burst in the sky, the deafening crack causing him to push me to the floor and kneel down, still trying to physically protect me from some unseen, imaginary attack. I know what this is. I have seen it many times during my work as a NATO official. This is post-traumatic-stress disorder, and I know that while I am aware that the fireworks pose no threat to our well-being, Adrian has been thrust painfully back into the throes of war. In this moment, he cannot tell the difference between the explosion of a celebratory firework for Canada Day and the sickening crack of enemy fire.
“Adrian! Listen, come back to me!” I shout over the din of fireworks. He is crouched over me, his chest pressing against the side of my head. I can hear and feel his rampaging heartbeat. For all he knows, we are back in the desert, with gunshots and bombs going off left and right. Adrian thinks we are in imminent danger. And his first instinct is to shield me from it. To rescue me.
“Get down and stay down!” he orders, wrapping his arms around me tightly. I am suddenly transported backward, too, but not to the heat of battle.
I am propelled into the past, to when I first saw Adrian across the busy marketplace and our eyes locked, cementing that moment in my thoughts forever. Then I remember hearing his vehicle rolling down the dunes to the camp, where I waited for him one day to drop off a manila folder of classified information my NATO team had uncovered. Tactical information that would aid the SEALs in a mission I knew very, very little about. I had been waiting for over an hour, and getting very impatient, standing there in the blistering hot desert sunshine.
I remember seeing that desert-worn vehicle rumbling toward the camp, toward his tent where I was waiting for him. That vehicle had scratch marks all over it, barely a drop of paint left, and roared like a beast. But one thing it did have going for it was an old-timey radio and cassette player. And that day, Adrian was blasting a bootleg Joseph Castello cassette he had dug out of a pile of mostly-stolen goods at the bazaar a week prior.
As he pulled up and turned off the car, I heard the closing bassline of Walking Through Fire. I can distinctly recall the flutter in my chest as Adrian hopped out of the car, whipped off his dark shades, and sauntered over to me with a broad, charismatic grin. He was a showstopper, even then, even covered in desert dust and grime, s
melling of diesel fuel and commissary aftershave.
He had opened his mouth and said cockily, “Are you real or a mirage?”
Of course, I rolled my eyes at the time. But now, I would kill to get him back to that state of mind. I would do anything to bring Adrian back to the present moment, to make him feel real and safe again. To see that cocksure attitude straighten his shoulders and clear his foggy gaze.
So I do the only thing I can think to do. It makes no sense, but it’s my first instinct. And my years with NATO taught me many things, not least of which was not to question my instincts. Sometimes, when you’re in a crisis, the best thing you can do is the first thing you think of.
I start to sing, softly.
“When times are hard, and there’s nowhere else to turn,” I sing, hoping desperately that this will be the trick to bringing Adrian back out of his PTSD episode. It’s silly. It’s absurd. But right now, it’s all I can think to do.
“I keep looking through the licking flames and know it’s bound to burn,” I continue, singing louder, even though I can’t possibly reach the low notes like the singer could and I don’t try. “But I know you’re mine, waiting on the other side.”
Even though the fireworks continue to blast outside, illuminating the night sky with streaks of red and white, as I sing the next verse I can feel Adrian starting to freeze up, his muscles tensing and going still as he listens to me. I hope to goodness this is working, because I feel like more than a little bit of an idiot for doing this. I never sing except for in the shower, or occasionally to Maya. But if it works, then it’s worth all the potential embarrassment.
“And even though the fire marks my flesh, I know you’re mine, waiting on the other side.”
Adrian starts to loosen up, and I slowly, carefully turn around to sit in front of him as he kneels on one knee, almost like the position a man would take when proposing marriage. Every time a firework bursts in the sky, I can see him wince, physically shaken by the triggering sound. But now that animalistic rawness is gone from his eyes. He isn’t in fight or flight mode anymore. He looks softer, more like he’s still in the present moment. I watch as his distant gaze comes back into focus, his beautiful green eyes still trained on my own face while I sing.
Sights on the SEAL: A Secret Baby Romance Page 4