“Yeah, you don’t always get along with all of your teammates, there are always personal differences. Differences of opinion, people who get on your nerves, guys who always feel like they have something to prove, that always have to one-up you. Sometimes, straight-up assholes. But even if you don’t see eye-to-eye, you still trust your brothers.”
Kyle took a deep breath. “But, this was different. See, our new leader wasn’t used to leading a team in the field, he was used to being Stateside mostly. And he didn’t share anything with us, from fresh intel to his personal life. I mean, we aren’t going to sit around like we’re at a slumber party and braid each other’s hair and have a pillow fight.” He quirked up the corner of his mouth and she matched him. “But, you need to know something about your leader, something personal that makes him human. That’s how you build trust.”
“Yeah, exactly. I do that with new clients, to gain trust.”
Kyle nodded. “Well, he wasn’t giving usanything. And he wasn’t asking us anything either. I mean, you ask that shit. You ask if somebody is married. You ask if they have a kid. You ask if their parents are okay, if they’ve got brothers or sisters.”
Arden was nodding vigorously.
“And he didn’t. He just did not give a shit about any of us.” Kyle shook. This was harder than he thought it would be. Way harder. It was like his body was right back there, staring that motherfucker in the face, straight into his soulless eyes. Not a moment had passed between then and now and nothing mattered—not what Kyle had done or didn’t do—nothingmattered.
Arden squeezed his hand. “Come back to me,” she whispered.
“Thank you.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. “So I think we were all really uneasy about this mission. Buck always let us know exactly what we were going into, down to the smallest detail. He told us stuff he wasn’t supposed to tell us, but that’s what kept us alive and safe. That’s what brought all of us back home each time without any major injuries.
“So here we are flying in this helicopter, the rotors roaring over our heads, either looking at each other or not looking at anyone at all. I had Camo right next to me as usual. And my boy could sense all of our unease. He was usually pretty calm, nothing ever ruffled him. He knew the drill. He was excited. He loved going on missions. My boy is a true soldier. But even he was looking around and he kept trying to get up and pace, which was totally unusual for him. I held onto him for his own safety. And, if he showed his own unease, he would just feed into this destructive loop of uncertainty.
“So we got to the site and we rappelled down. Everything went as it should. Our objective...” Kyle paused. He was breaking a silence he didn’t have the right to break. Everything was still classified. But damn it, he knew he could trust her. “We’d done similar missions before, but this just felt different.
“We hit the ground and we start off toward the target. Just a two-story pile of rock and a couple of outbuildings. But there were some big baddies in there, that’s what they told us. The plan was to scorch the earth—just rain fire on them. And our team’s objective was to confirm that these were the guys we wanted, then call it in and stick around to pick off any squirters—”
“What’s a squirter?”
“Squirters are runners. Anybody trying to escape.”
“Got it.”
“What I didn’t like, what made my hackles rise, is why if they had such stellar, waterproof intel, they were sending in a team to confirm. Why didn’t they just bomb the shit out of the place without us? But they insisted that if we saw anyone,anyonecome out, we were to shoot them. No prisoners. I wasn’t the only one who wondered about that. We all did. So, Camo and me were scouting ahead, making sure no one was hiding in wait for us. Camo would have stopped and let us know. You’ve seen the nose on him, and what he can do. Even now. But nothing, nothing at all. The mission was going almost too good.”
“And that’s when you know something’s going to go wrong,” Arden said.
“Exactly. And it did.” Kyle hung his head.
“We approached the compound. Nothing unusual, really common for this area. We heard a few animal sounds—sheep or goats. No dogs though. Which was good; Camo didn’t need to be tangling with another animal. The goats would be distracting enough.
“So, here we were on this ‘picture-perfect’ mission, all getting into place, surrounding the building. There were some lights on inside and we could hear men’s voices talking. Even some laughter. My Farsi is pretty rough, but from what I could hear, it sounded like they were actually having a pretty good time. That’s the part I hate too, I mean, you wanna come up and you want to hear them talking about killing infidels, and slaughtering soldiers, and putting an end to the Western world. But it’s not always like that. Still, you have a job to do. It’s them or you and that’s all there is to it.”
So many civilians didn’t understand that their freedoms depended on soldiers like him. But not Arden. She watched him without any sort of judgment in her eyes and without any pity as well. That was a mercy.
“As we approached, Camo stopped. Hesitated. At first, I thought maybe it was the goats, that they had taken his attention away from the mission. But he wasn’t even looking at them. He was intently focused on the main building. But in a way that didn’t say,man, I can’t wait to sink my teeth into some bad guys. It was like he was thinking about this, considering whether or not he wanted to go through with the mission. Now, some people think dogs are stupid. And all I can say is that they’re stupid for thinking that. Camo is smarter than some people I’ve met. And he’s thoughtful. He’s not about to let his team, his two-legged brothers, get into trouble. And unlike some people’s opinions, he’s not some mindless war dog that’s going to attack anything and everything that moves. Camo would never do that.
“So when he hesitated, I hesitated too. And I radioed to my other teammates what was going on. We were all in agreement that we needed to reassess this mission. Sounds fucking crazy, doesn’t it? Basically letting a dog tell you what to do?”
“Hey, I’ve had Camo for three weeks, and I think I would let him be the designated driver.”
Arden’s attempt at lightening the mood helped a little bit. She was listening, she was taking him seriously, but she also knew how hard this was on him; that was apparent.
Kyle gave her a smile. “Yeah, yeah you do get it, don’t you? So when I radioed to the other guys, of course, our leader was listening in. And he let us have it. How can you stupid fuckers let a goddamned dog tell you what to do? I told you to get the fuck in there and neutralize the target. This compound better be fucking ours within the next hour, or I’ll have all your asses for insubordination.”
“I have no idea why you wouldn’t trust this asshole,” Arden said.
“HehatedCamo.”
Arden shook her head. “Never trust a man who outright hates dogs.”
That earned her a new smile. “So we had a dilemma. We had a dog who could probably smell every fucking molecule of every person for a ten-mile radius, and he was telling us something wasn’t right. And, we had a brand-new team leader who wasn’t even on the ground with us, who had no idea what was going on. But, if we didn’t listen to him, we were royally fucked the minute we got back.”
Arden stroked his cheek. “That’s an impossible situation. You could lose your lives right there and then, or you could lose everything once you got back,ifyou got back.”
