I’d taken so many damn voice and acting classes to rid myself of the twang, but I kept that Tennessee accent no matter how hard I tried. Foster and Rocket spoke ten-plus languages apiece; no matter what they spoke, they sounded like they were born and bred in the country. On the other hand, while I knew a handful of the dialects spoken in the area, with my accent hanging on like a hair in a biscuit, conversing with someone in any of the languages I was fluent in was a nightmare.
“Silence, again?” the voice asked as he grabbed the hood on my head, pulling my head up off the ground before shoving it away.
My head bounced off the stone floor again. Lights flashed, and my brain throbbed.
I’ll be lucky if I don’t come out of this fucking braindead.
Or just dead.
“Tell me what I want to know! Why were US troops at that house?” he yelled into my face.
I responded as I had to every question presented to me since being captured. “Senior Chief Adam DuBois. United States Navy. 3487439012. February twenty-first, 1983.”
He growled, backhanding me. His fist connected with my cheekbone in just the right spot to make my eyeball feel like it had been popped. Pain struck my face like lightning, radiating throughout my body.
“You will talk to me, American. Eventually, I will find the thing that breaks you,” he said in that same garbled, broken English.
Good luck with that.
“Do not fool yourself. Everyone has a breaking point.”He grabbed me by the hood again and pulled me into a sitting position.
I knew what was coming next. Electrodes to the sensitive areas of my body. It wasn’t the first time. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were just the electrodes, but they liked to add water to the fun and games. That was when things got real.
As my bound hands were dragged over my head and fastened to the pulley, I let myself check out. Even though I couldn’t see anything, I closed my eyes and let memories of better days float to me. It was like I was swimming or treading water in a sea of all the best memories and events I’d ever experienced, and they ebbed and flowed until one was enough to overshadow what was happening to me physically. The memory latched onto my psyche and took over.
SPRING 2004
The team had been gearing up for deployment for the last few weeks. It was one of our last nights in Vah Beach. We’d only just gotten here, and we were getting ready to leave.
I planned to get as much damn sleep in my own damn bed as I could. I was working my ass off to make it to Green Team. If things went well on this deployment, when I came home, I’d be heading to Tier One operator school.
Now that I was this close, I was doing everything I could to make sure I was up to speed on what we were heading into. I’d chatted with my counterpart, whose spot I would be taking when he rotated home, and I’d studied everything I could get my hands on about the region.
It wasn’t my first deployment as a SEAL. Rocket and I’d both been sent outside the wire a few times with a few different teams to fill in when a team member was undeployable. I still couldn’t believe my dream job was now a reality.
Mine and Rocket’s.
Brock and I had both joined the Navy on the fast track to this point. We’d walked side-by-side, saving each other’s asses every step of the way. I still couldn’t believe we’d both been chosen for the same BUD/S class, much less put on the same team upon graduation.
We were transferred to Vah Beach to fill a couple of spots on the same team, which shocked us both. The reason the team had two openings was scary as fuck. Any time an operator or any service member was killed fucking sucked, but when it was someone you knew, it really fucking sucked.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
I strode to the door and snatched it open.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked the asshole on the other side.
Rocket held up a thirty rack and a fifth, his eyebrow cocked. “Um, I live here motherfucker.” He pushed past me. “I forgot my key.”
Fucking Rocket.
He didn’t know the definition of moderation. It was all or nothing. He went all-out all the time. No stop.
“So much for getting some rest,” I laughed as Brock pulled out the shot glasses. He poured us both a couple of shots and popped the lids off a couple of beers.
“Fuck rest. We’re getting ready to head out for our last deployment before getting the nod for Green Team,” Rocket said as he held out a shot glass to me.
I took the glass, clinked it with his, slammed it on the kitchen bar, and yelled, “HOOYAH!” before I downed the shot.
