BROCK
SUMMER 2009
We were strippingoff our gear after yet another training exercise when Foster said, “Before you boys head home, you are to report to the address I texted you tomorrow at 0900 with a fifth of liquor and a case of beer.”
Finlay groaned. He was a notorious skirt chaser, and he spent every minute not downrange trying togodownrange.
Foster arched his brow as he stared Finlay down. “You got a problem with that, Ryan?”
“No, boss. I’m good. I’ll be sure to bring the good shit,” Finlay replied as if he didn’t give a shit that we’d just lost a Saturday.
My day would be spent getting as shitfaced as possible anyway, so whether I did it with my brothers or alone didn’t much matter to me.
We were still waiting on intel and the green light to come down from on high about Adam’s rescue mission. The brass was still dragging their damn feet while our teammate was being held hostage.
I didn’t know what Foster had planned. Didn’t really give a fuck, either. I’d do as ordered, but if something didn’t happen soon, I’d be putting in for leave and reaching out to some of my private military contacts. Someone had to go get Adam, and if the United States Government wouldn’t fucking do it, I would find someone who would. Or do it my damn self.
I pulled up to the address Foster gave us the following day and found him sitting on the tailgate of his big-ass truck in the driveway at the massive beach house his parents owned. A couple of his wife, Julie’s German Shepherds with him—Greta and Otto—were running around the street, chasing one another, and fighting over a toy.
“Lieu,” I greeted him as I sat my donation to today’s drunk-fest in the bed of his truck.
Foster nodded silently, then said, “Jones.”
I nodded. We sat together, neither saying anything. Everything had been said already. Both of us were pissed as fuck to be sitting in Virginia with our hands tied while our teammate was fighting for his life as a prisoner of war.
The silence stretched out between us, only broken up by the dogs. We watched the dogs play for a bit, with Foster occasionally giving them a command in German. The dogs were fucking badass.
Foster’s wife, Julie, fucking amazed me. As if she wasn’t busy enough with five freaking kids, she raised trained tactical guard dogs, military spec ops canines, bomb sniffers, and drug dogs. You name it, she could teach a dog to do it. Matilda, the dogwe currently used on the team, was one of hers, and Greta had saved all our peaches a time or two.
Otto, the bigger of the two dogs came back to the truck with the rope and jumped in the truck bed, nudging me. Foster handed me a ball. I tossed it for the dogs and watched them take off down the street. The big dog shocked the fuck out of me when he launched himself out of the truck bed.
Foster whistled. “Nice throw. I thought you were a defensive guy, not a quarterback.”
I cocked my head at him, shocked he knew that. “Yeah. How…”
He laughed. “My dad is a huge fucking college football fan. You enlisting pissed him off. He hoped you would be heading to Texas or, at the very least, the Naval Academy.”
“I thought about it, but I knew what I wanted, and I didn’t want to put it off for four years,” I explained vaguely.
The Naval Academy, then the SEALs, had been the dream, but being a foster kid with no familial support made the Naval Academy a difficult road to travel, so I’d chosen the shorter route. I still got to where I wanted to be.
Some might’ve felt short-changed a bit, but I didn’t. If I’d gone to the Naval Academy, I wouldn’t have been in the right spot to meet Adam. And missing out on the greatest thing that’d ever happened to me was high on the suck list.
Another twenty minutes later, the other guys started trickling into the parking area in front of the house.
But as a few of them headed toward the path around the house to the backyard, Foster called, “Hold up!”
We all looked at him.
“Adam never misses an Army/Navy game if he can help it, so I thought we’d hang out and watch the game in his honor.”
The guys all looked as mudsucked as I felt. They nodded, and I hoped whatever it was I did passed as a nod as well. My headfelt wobbly, and my knees were weak. I swallowed. Bile churned in my stomach. I’d been so focused on pushing the brass and Mercer toward a rescue mission that I’d forgotten what day it was.
As we settled in for the game and started drinking, I was thrown back to another day. To another game. That day, it had just been Adam and me. We’d just finished our first deployment, and I’d moved into an apartment even though the Navy wouldn’t pay for off-base housing for single enlisted. Adam had thought I was nuts, but I had my reasons for needing privacy. Reasons I was forbidden to speak about.
FALL 2004
It was a rare day off from Green Team’s crazy as fuck training schedule. So, Adam and I grabbed some beer and steaks and settled in for a day of college football and day drinking. We were shooting the shit during the Army-Navy game when Adam turned to me, a question burning in his eyes. Somehow, I knew I wouldn’t like what came out of his mouth next.
