Chapter 1: September 2018

The air was full of anticipation as they circled each other. Rachel was less patient, moving in with a quick uppercut to Christopher’s stomach. She assumed he would see it coming. Hoped he’d be distracted by the taunting laughs coming from the other side of the gym.

No luck.

Christopher grabbed Rachel around the arms, restraining her.

“Life was easier when you didn’t see that coming,” Rachel teased.

“Still seems to work just fine on terrorists,” Christopher said through gritted teeth.

Rachel gripped his forearms, her nails digging into his skin, and pulled his arms tighter around her. Then she threw the entire weight of her body into a somersault, flipping Christopher onto his back and allowing Rachel to free herself in the process.

“You and your fucking gymnastics moves!” Christopher yelled, though he was laughing.

He got to his feet, his own counterattack landing a thunderous strike to Rachel’s ribs. She was momentarily winded by the impact, but she recovered quickly, launching a fierce barrage of punches at Christopher’s abdomen. He ducked and weaved, his reflexes sharp. Rachel, lean and agile, matched his determination with unwavering confidence. The sound of their fists meeting flesh echoed through the gym, punctuated by their controlled grunts. Without warning, Christopher lunged forward, aiming a quick jab at Rachel’s side. She swiftly sidestepped, countering with a low sweep kick that Christopher gracefully evaded. Their bodies moved in perfect synchrony—a dance of power and skill that was a testament to their nine years of training together as SEALs.

With a renewed burst of energy, Rachel threw a powerful punch aimed at Christopher’s jaw. He grabbed a hold of her hand, spinning her and pinning her arm behind her back before forcing her to the ground. She shifted and rolled her body, sweeping her leg around his so that they were both on the floor, wrestling for control. Christopher climbed on top of her, holding her down. Rachel’s heart raced. They were breathing deeply, drenched in sweat.

Rachel smiled up at him, her eyes sparkling. Christopher couldn’t help but smile back.

They knew each other’s strengths.

But she also knew his weaknesses.

As their eyes locked, Rachel used her hips and all her body weight to flip him onto his back, expertly pushing his own arms against his throat as he landed.

Christopher chuckled. “Why do I feel like you use that move in other sorts of situations too?”

Rachel winked and gave him a sultry pout as she pressed her thighs into his hips. “Imagining me in bed, are you?”

“Doesn’t have to be a bed.” Christopher flashed her a grin.

“Phone!” someone shouted from the other side of the gym. When neither Rachel nor Christopher broke their eye contact, the voice shouted again. “Commander Rachel Ryker!”

Sighing, Rachel glared over at their team’s inter-agency liaison, Lieutenant Ryan Raven Rhodes.

Ryan held up her cell phone. “You’ve been summoned, Skylark. Admirals are here.”

Rachel wrinkled her nose then looked down at Christopher. She was still straddling him on the ground. “Sort of in the middle of kicking Williams’ ass,” Rachel told Ryan.

“Looks like you already did.” Ryan gave Christopher a once over. “Get up. Conference room three.”

 “For fuck’s sake,” Rachel muttered. The last thing she wanted to do was sit in a meeting. Ryan had mentioned Admirals, plural. That couldn’t be good. “You’re in charge.” She pointed at Christopher. “Finish hand-to-hand combat training, then get the rest of the team up to speed on the situation in Afghanistan.”

“Yes ma’am.” He grinned before pushing her off him.

She fell onto the mat beside him and slapped him on the arm with the back of her hand. “Didn’t you learn in kindergarten that it’s not nice to push people?” They both burst out laughing.

“Have a fun meeting, Skylark,” Christopher teased.

Rachel leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling, mentally preparing for what she was sure would be a long and arduous intelligence meeting. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, knowing she tended to run her mouth during these things. The thought of listening to a group of old men who hadn’t stepped foot in the Middle East in over a decade was not a happy one.

The door to the conference room opened and her commanding officer, Admiral Paul Eastwood, Master Mission Commander for the Middle East Special Projects SEAL squadron, walked in. Rachel began to rise, but he gave her a quick wave with his hand, indicating she could remain seated.

“Ready?” Eastwood asked her.

“Maybe. Wanna clue me in a bit?” Rachel asked. She had no idea what they were going to discuss in this meeting other than time-sensitive intelligence. Something so time-sensitive that two admirals had flown from SEAL Command Headquarters in D.C. to Dam Neck Naval Base, just to see her.

“Emergency mission. Khost,” Eastwood said.

“Covert?” Rachel asked, excited by the prospect of going undercover in Khost, Afghanistan.

“Why the fuck else would you be here?” Eastwood gave her a wink.

“Alright, well . . . who else is coming to this meeting?” Rachel noticed the second admiral had yet to arrive. She had no clue which agencies or branches of the military would be involved. She looked Eastwood in the eye, knowing he’d catch her meaning. “Who am I in this mission?”

“You are Rachel Ryker, U.S. Navy SEAL, commander of the Middle East special projects squadron and team leader.”

“I know, but if we’re going covert . . .” Rachel shut her mouth just as the door opened again. Both Rachel and Eastwood rose this time.

“Admiral Leftwich, sir,” Rachel said seriously.

“Sit down,” Leftwich barked. He took a seat at the head of the table as his chief of staff, Captain Simms, took up post, standing at attention to the side of him. Leftwich handed a file to Eastwood then an identical file to Rachel. She casually flipped it open with her right index finger and skimmed the first page.

“Indigo’s deployment is getting pushed up,” Leftwich stated.

“I see that.” Rachel nodded, forcing her face to remain neutral. Her team—Indigo, the top covert ops team in the Middle East Special Projects squadron—was supposed to be at Dam Neck Naval Base in Virginia Beach, Virginia for training until November. Leaving in October instead wasn’t horrible though. “So, the CIA lost a USB stick with some sort of malware code on it?” Rachel asked, feigning innocence. She’d pretend that she didn’t understand the report, though still hoped Leftwich would notice her jab at the CIA.

“We’re not even five minutes into the meeting, and you’re starting with the attitude already?” Leftwich bellowed.

Rachel’s eyes darted to Eastwood, wondering if he was going to intervene. He was busy reading the report. Or at least pretending to.

 “You call yourself a SEAL, you may want to start acting like one. Show a smidgeon of dedication and loyalty to the Navy.”

Rachel fingered the trident pinned to her collar and looked at Eastwood again. “If I recall correctly, I kicked everyone’s ass all through BUD/S and got fast tracked through Green Team. Not to mention, I’ve deployed with my SEAL team for the past eight years.”

Leftwich sized her up. “Yeah, I know what you really are though.”

Rachel raised an eyebrow.

“There are a lot of secrets in this room.” Leftwich pointed back and forth between Rachel and Eastwood. “Secrets and lies and cutting corners. Eastwood may tolerate you. He’s all about keeping secrets too. You two and your joint operations, inter-agency bullshit.”

Rachel blinked twice before looking back at the report. “Well, if you’re so confident in this report, then I guess I’m taking my team to Khost. What does this code do?”

“That’s need to know.”

“It’s a malware code stored on a green USB stick,” Eastwood said. Leftwich glowered at him, but Eastwood continued. “It’s programed to hit Iran’s nuclear program. Their power plants.”

 “Don’t worry your pretty little head about the code. All you need to do is bring in Saad Ayad. Alive and with the USB stick.” Leftwich narrowed his eyes at Rachel. “So, you know Saad Ayad is personally responsible for funding at least fifteen terrorist cells and countless insurgent groups throughout the Middle East.”

Rachel focused on controlling her face. She didn’t know why Leftwich insisted on telling her information she already knew. She had Saad Ayad’s entire resume memorized and knew everything there was to know about the man, other than where he currently was. She waited as patiently as she could before interjecting.

“Alive?” Rachel wrinkled her nose and turned to the last page of the report, unable to hide her displeasure.

“Skylark, you and Raven are gonna be busy,” Eastwood teased.

“Busy? Saad’s just one guy. Shouldn’t take long at all.” Rachel shrugged casually. “We’ll get you what you need. Of course, it would help if I knew what information we were after.” Rachel flashed Leftwich an innocent smile.

“It clones their servers so we can monitor and track everything they do. Every keystroke, every data point,” Eastwood explained.

“For the nuclear weapons they allegedly don’t have?” Rachel joked.

“For their nuclear reactors.”

Rachel’s eyebrows knitted together. Cyber and tech were far from her areas of expertise. “Are you talking, like, military installations or . . .”

“Their entire fucking power grid,” Leftwich said, his lips curving upward.

Rachel pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose. “So whoever has that code essentially controls the light switches for all of Iran?”

“Or whatever country’s servers that program gets installed on,” Eastwood said, knowing she could connect the dots.

“Fuck.” Rachel’s eyes went wide. “So, Al-Qaeda now has a code with the potential to control our energy grid?”

Eastwood’s head dipped slightly to confirm.

“And Saad Ayad has this code on a USB stick?”

“Correct,” Leftwich said.

Rachel pressed her lips into a tight line and leaned back in her chair, contemplating the situation.

“Ryker.” Leftwich held her gaze, unwavering. “Your team will succeed at this.”

“Yes, sir.” Rachel nodded and watched as Leftwich stood and marched out of the room without another word.

“Skylark.” Eastwood gave Rachel a serious look once Leftwich was gone and the door slammed shut behind him. “He’s on my ass to pull you from the field again. He wants you at HQ where he can keep an eye on you, assuming he’s forced to keep you around at all.”

“Fucking piece of shit, misogynistic jackass,” Rachel muttered.

Eastwood ignored her comment. “If you don’t succeed, if anything goes wrong on this mission, he’s planning to use it against you.”

“That’s why it’s a capture and not a kill, isn’t it?” Rachel cringed, finally understanding why the mission was more complicated than it actually needed to be.

“Leftwich isn’t an idiot.” Eastwood looked straight into Rachel’s eyes, and she saw the faintest flicker of fear cross his face. “He set this up for you to fail. As much as I’d love to have you working for me at HQ, I know that’s not what you want, and I can’t even promise that’s where you’d end up if you fail this mission and Leftwich gets his way. You know he hates it when women are smarter than him. The fact that you’re–”

“Young? Hot? Well-liked by everyone?”

“Something like that,” Eastwood’s shoulders shook with silent laughter until his tone turned serious again. “Watch your back, Skylark. On the mission and with the social politics.”

Rachel bit the inside of her cheek,     forcing her face to behave. She needed to shut down her emotions. Anger, sadness, rage. None of those were acceptable responses. Not now anyway. Right now, she was SEAL Commander Ryker—tough, badass, and untouchable. Not physically and not mentally either.

“Take a minute, get your head straight, then go brief your team.” Eastwood closed the file in front of him, picked it up, and left.

Chapter 2: September 2018

“Where are we going, Skylark?” Christopher’s voice was as familiar as her own. It had been at her back, right behind her, for the past nine years.

Rachel turned from the bulletin board she’d been staring at and smiled brightly at him. “Your favorite place in the entire world, Hawk!” She gestured toward a large table covered in intelligence reports and maps.

Christopher moved over to the table, studying the map that Rachel had laid out for him. After a moment, she joined him.

“Khost again, huh?” He turned the map so that north was at the top from Rachel’s viewpoint, because of course he knew she would have a hard time turning the map in her head. He could always predict what she needed, even before she knew herself.

It was a city map of Khost. They had both been there before, and Rachel was confident that Christopher had already memorized the streets, including where the safe roads would be. Even though the city had technically been under U.S. control since 2001, it was still a Taliban stronghold.

Rachel shrugged. “I guess they missed us.” She dropped the intel report she’d received on the table in front of him.

Rachel handed him the intel report, the file peeled back to the first page, where the document outlined their mission to capture Saad Ayad. He looked up at Rachel, hopeful. “Please tell me I get to put a bullet in his head.”

“You don’t even care what Saad did this time to make him our target, do you?”

“No. He’s a terrible human being and I really, really want to kill him.” Christopher’s eyes widened with excitement.

“Our official mission is to capture Saad and deliver him to the CIA for questioning.” Christopher wrinkled his nose, clearly displeased. She chose to ignore him. “Leftwich assured me he knows where some stolen computer code is, but it doesn’t seem like the sort of thing he usually gets up to.”

“He’s usually too busy blowing shit up to worry about stealing intel from us.” Christopher’s eyebrows knitted together as he contemplated what Rachel was saying.

“Exactly.” It was the same suspicion she’d had when looking over the report with the admirals, but she was more at ease knowing that Christopher agreed with her.

Christopher clutched his lower back, which Rachel knew bothered him frequently thanks to an old injury. “In the spring and summer of 2008, when I was a Surface Warfare Officer, there were numerous car bombings in Kabul. We were looking for him, and not only did he almost kill us, but he kept getting away and planting more bombs, and then kept training more people to plant bombs . . .”

“Yes, I know. Can we please focus?” Rachel had heard the story of Christopher’s adventures in Afghanistan more times than she could count. She was well aware that Saad Ayad was personally responsible for the bullet that had lodged itself in Christopher’s lower back and that it bothered him more than he would ever admit. There was a fine line between documenting injuries in order to qualify for disability in the future and documenting too much and getting pulled from the team.

“Fine.” He crossed his arms over his chest, trying not to pout at Rachel’s lack of interest in his story. “What are you thinking?”

“Well, I know how badly you want Saad dead, so I decided not to disagree with Leftwich or his stupid report. So, for now, we pretend to do what the Navy says.”

“I’d prefer if I got to kill him,” Christopher noted.

Rachel shot him a sideways glance. “We will do our best to deliver him alive to the CIA, but, you know,” she gave him a playful wink, “all sorts of things can happen.”

Christopher looked at her, amused. She always made everything more fun. “What’s our in?”

“I think I can work with his sister,” Rachel said confidently. She turned toward the bulletin board she had been working on before Christopher joined her, turning it for him to see. Dozens of pink Post-its were pasted to the board along with a hierarchy of photos of Al-Qaeda’s most radical criminals, thin lines of strings connecting between them. Saad Ayad was at the center, and from there, the strings branched out to the names and faces of his network.

Rachel tapped on the photo of Saad’s younger sister, Amina Barech. “Amina is thirty-five years old. Married with five children. Three girls and two boys.” The photo must have been taken before she’d become a wife and a mother—at least a decade old, if Rachel had to guess. It had been taken before Amina started wearing a burqa, opting instead for a bright blue headscarf, and it was the only photo Rachel had been able to find that showed Amina’s face. She had perfectly plucked dark eyebrows that filled out her deep-set eyes and high cheekbones. Her hand was raised, as if trying to stifle the laugh that split her lips wide, a set of gold bracelets dangling from her slender wrist. She was beautiful. “She grew up in Saudi Arabia, but then moved to Afghanistan after her father and brother insisted she marry Imdad Barech, a rich businessman with ties to both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.”

Rachel couldn’t help but sneer a little bit at the mention of her husband. Amina had been used as a bartering chip in her brother’s grab for power as he tried to move his way up the Al-Qaeda hierarchy. Amina had no say in her life. No agency, no choices, no chance of escape. She was a victim, but Rachel was determined to change that.

“The mosque is probably your best bet to find her. More privacy. No men around,” Christopher said.

Rachel nodded in agreement. They both knew that being female was secretly one of her greatest assets since it allowed her to speak more freely with women, who, given the current living situation for women in the Middle East, were more than a little reluctant to speak with men.

Christopher turned his attention back to the map, and Rachel cocked her head, struggling to read the lines that crossed and bisected through the city. He looked up and met her eyes, then traced his finger from the small star of their safe house down to the city center, showing her what he was planning. “The mosque is in the middle of the city. It should be a thirteen minute walk from the safe house.”

“Specific as always.” Rachel beamed as his bright cerulean eyes locked with hers, causing her to feel instantly calmer.

“What the hell does that mean?” Christopher sounded slightly offended.

“It means, obviously, that a normal person would say it’s a ten-to-fifteen-minute walk.”

“But it’s not a ten-to-fifteen-minute walk. It’s a thirteen minute walk.” Christopher was obviously missing the point.

“Thirteen minutes and how many seconds?” Rachel teased.

“It depends on how crowded the sidewalk is,” Christopher said seriously.

Rachel pressed her lips together to stifle the laughter and jokes she knew were about to fly out of her mouth.

“We can get there and get set up in the safe house. I think you should go to the mosque on day one, then go every day. That will be your best bet for making contact with his sister, or anyone for that matter,” Christopher said. “Bring civilian clothes, and I’ll walk with you through the city so you don’t get lost or arrested or anything else.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. She knew Christopher was convinced she couldn’t follow basic navigational instructions. She had gotten lost once while on leave in Paris, and another time in Madrid. But to be fair, she had also been very drunk both times, and her cell phone battery had been too low for her to look up directions. The getting arrested part was an actual threat in Afghanistan though, since women currently couldn’t go out without being escorted by a male family member. And the ‘anything else’ part . . . Well, they’d had a few close calls her first time over there. Since Rachel was the first, and to their knowledge only, female SEAL, no one was used to wandering around the Middle East with a woman. It took a while on their first deployment with the team to work out the rules. She’d been young and especially brazen back then. As a former intelligence officer tasked with collecting intel from human assets, she was used to jumping into chaos, making sense of the situation, and shooting her way out if things went poorly.

 “Can you finish this?” Rachel asked, gesturing to the collection of documents scattered on the table. “We need to present it to the rest of the team in an hour.”

He looked at her and forced himself to keep a straight face, noticing how restless she was. “Yeah, I’ve got this.”

Christopher knew Rachel couldn’t sit or stand still for too long and guessed her meeting with the admirals had been a severe test of her patience. As always, Rachel had already more or less memorized every single piece of information. She knew what they needed to do and how to do it. All Christopher had to do was work out what route to take between various locations and plan the timeline. He did his best to ignore her and focus on the intel report in front of him, but his eyes darted to the other side of the room more frequently than he wanted them to. She was very distracting.

“What are you doing?” Christopher watched her out of the corner of his eye as she sat on the floor, playing with the ten-inch tactical knife she always kept in her boot.

“Checking if my knife is sharp,” she grumbled.

“Umm, I’m sure it is.” He turned his head and furrowed his brow. “Stop using your hand to check if it’s sharp. You’re gonna cut yourself whether it’s sharp enough or not. Just sharpen it before we leave.” He studied her for a moment longer, noting her suddenly sour disposition. “Maybe take a breath and chill?”

“I thought you were working?” Rachel asked with a tinge of irritation in her voice.

Christopher sighed and tried to refocus. Fortunately, he didn’t have much to figure out. The mission itself would be complicated once they got there, but the actual plan was simple: fly to Afghanistan, hang out, interact with the locals, gather intelligence, hunt down the target, capture the target, and extract the team.

Rachel had already outlined a very detailed plan for each step, leaving notes on pink Post-its throughout various pages in the mission report. He always found it interesting that she chose pink. Every single time. He had never seen a pack of pink Post-its anywhere on any military base except for Rachel’s notes. It was one of the few girlish things about her.

Sure, Christopher had noticed how beautiful she was. Drop dead gorgeous, if he was being honest. Stunning actually, with a radiant smile and sparkling emerald eyes. He’d thought it the first day they had met on the bus to start SEAL training together. Of course, everyone had assumed she was a nurse or someone from human resources. But he didn’t see her that way now. None of the men did. She was one of them, through and through. The only time they considered her sex was when it put her at extra risk during their deployment. Laws for women were strict in the Middle East, and Christopher, as well as the other SEALs, had gotten used to keeping her out of trouble.

Besides, Rachel knew about a hundred ways to kill someone with her bare hands. She was tough and smart and as respected as any military officer. Not only for her skills in combat or for her talent in military strategy and planning. Everyone respected Rachel because of who she was at her core. She had integrity, always the first one in and the last one out during any mission, and she would never ask anyone on the team to do an assignment she wasn’t willing to do herself.

“What are you pouting about over there?” He couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

“I am not pouting,” she insisted. Her wrinkled nose and pursed lips sure looked like pouting.

“Plotting how you’re going to dismantle the patriarchy?” Christopher teased.

Rachel raised both eyebrows and gave him a look indicating that he was correct. That’s what she was always doing—plotting and scheming ways to liberate every woman in the world from every sort of oppression. Her definitions of patriarchy and oppression were fairly broad too, so it was going to take a considerable amount of time, persistence, and bloodshed to accomplish. He was certain Rachel would die trying to accomplish those goals, and he was entirely certain he’d be right by her side, dying next to her, when the time came.

“Well, the rest of the team will be here soon,” Christopher said.

Rachel glanced at the clock on the wall. “Shit!” She jumped up and ran out of the room. Christopher shook his head, no idea where she had run off to or why.

Rachel returned a few minutes later with several pizza boxes in hand. “Morale boost,” she said, motioning to the pizza.

Christopher nodded. It was so like Rachel to think of that. Small things that would make a big difference to everyone as they prepared to leave their friends and family behind for a highly dangerous mission.

“Pizza!” Ryan called out moments later as he came into the room with Lieutenant Matthew Nightingale Johnson, the team’s medic. “Thank you, Skylark!” Ryan grinned as he reached for a slice from the box on top.

“You are very welcome, Raven,” Rachel answered.

“If we’re getting pizza,” Matt started, “I can only assume this isn’t going to be a fun mission.”

“Patience, Nightingale. All will be revealed shortly.” Rachel winked. Other than Christopher, Matt and Ryan were her two closest friends. The four of them were practically inseparable. Of course, being the only four officers on their team, as well as living on base together for such long periods of time, tended to help people bond.

Ryan quickly inhaled a slice of pizza. As a New Yorker, he couldn’t get enough of the stuff, even if he constantly complained about how terrible all pizza was outside of Brooklyn.

“Have you not eaten today?” Rachel wrinkled her nose, staring at Ryan.

“Obviously I have, but this is good. Which place did you get this from?” Ryan asked, brushing his nearly black hair away from his forehead with his fingers.

“Umm, the one just off base so they’d deliver, and I didn’t have to go get it,” Rachel said. Ryan gave her a thumbs up, his dark green eyes meeting hers momentarily before he started inspecting the other pizza boxes, investigating what his other topping choices were.

Matt stood to the side, smiling politely as he waited for Ryan to move. As a native of rural Kentucky, his southern manners made him seem quiet and shy compared to the rest of them. He was never one to turn down free food but knew better than to get between Ryan and pizza. He tried to hide his amused smirk as he watched Ryan sift through the pizza boxes, portioning out slices onto more paper plates. Moments later, Ryan handed him a plate with two slices of cheese pizza and one slice of pepperoni.

Their communications expert and Petty Officer Second Class, Aiden Blackbird Bennet, came in next. “Am I late?” He stared at Rachel with a concerned look on his face.

“If you’re late, then everyone else is really late,” Rachel said, gesturing to all the empty chairs.

“Right,” Aiden said, looking around. He noticed the pizza and nudged Ryan out of the way to grab a slice before sitting down. Ryan slapped his hand away then handed him a plate with three slices of sausage and mushroom pizza.

“Which one’s mine?” Rachel asked Ryan.

“You get whatever’s left since you’ll eat anything, and other people are more discerning,” Ryan explained.

Christopher flashed Ryan an irritated look and grabbed two slices of pepperoni—one for him and one for Rachel.

The rest of the enlisted men on their team trickled in, one after another: Michael Eagle Winters, their sniper; David Sparrow Hail, their explosives expert; Daniel Condor Hart, their tech guy; and Nate Crane Barnes, their drone operator. Next came Jason Vulture Andrews, Brendon Albatross Hayes, and Aaron Pelican Axelson, all of whom were vital to the team but had not chosen a specialization. Ryan handed each of them their respective plate of pizza as they came in.

Once everyone was happily fed, Rachel got started. “Alright guys, we’re headed back over to the sandbox.” She looked around the room at everyone. “We’ve got another one of those highly exciting joint CIA missions ahead of us. Apparently, we have a target that needs to be dealt with in Khost.” Everyone groaned, knowing where this was going.

“Not that I’m advocating for the spread of war,” Michael started, “but do you think we could ever go somewhere other than Afghanistan? It would be nice to see other parts of the world.” This elicited a lot of laughter from the group. They all knew the Navy was fond of telling people that joining up was their chance to see the world on Uncle Sam’s dollar, but the most any of them had seen was Afghanistan and Iraq, with the occasional venture into Pakistan or Syria. That was the downside to being on one of the most elite teams belonging to the Middle East Special Projects Division.

“I’m afraid not this time, boys. As y’all know, Khost is a densely populated urban environment with a high potential for civilian casualties, which we obviously want to avoid.” Rachel explained the extent of their mission—the malware code, the nuclear reactors, the bullshit capture-and-not-kill order. She pulled out her bulletin board and went through the hierarchy, ending on her and Christopher’s plan to use Amina to track Saad. “To summarize, he hates the West, he hates women, and he hates anyone who disagrees with him. Now, what questions do y’all have?”

“What is our actual cover? I don’t think computers is the answer,” Daniel said, trying to stifle his irritation. “Hawk, maybe you can explain it since we all know Sky doesn’t understand much past how to send a text or email.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “I’m not an idiot.”

Christopher cut her off before she could go on a tirade explaining everything she knew about technology, even if Daniel was right and it wasn’t much. “We’re allegedly partnering with the university in Khost and researching IT network design and security,” Christopher clarified.

 “That makes more sense. Thank you.” Daniel tried to hide his smile.

 “If we’re being covert and quiet, I’m guessing we won’t need too many explosives. What should I pack?” David asked.

“You shouldn’t need to bring too much. Like I said, the safe house should be stocked with what we need. If not, I’ll get you what you need.” She hated relying on the CIA for supplies, but they had the resources and manpower in Khost. Not enough manpower to get Saad Ayad themselves, apparently, but that was a whole different issue. “Any other questions regarding the mission, or should we move on to Share and Care?” Rachel asked. Share and Care was one of Rachel’s brilliant innovations that she implemented after taking over as team leader four years prior. She insisted that everyone have the opportunity to express their thoughts, feelings, and concerns in a supportive environment without being judged. “Okay then, just to recap. The rules of Share and Care are simple. We go around the room. Everyone has to say something about how they are feeling and what they are thinking. Let us know in advance if you just want to share, or if you would like feedback or help problem-solving from the group. No one comments on what anyone else says unless you have something positive and supportive to contribute. Before commenting, you must ask if it is okay with the person who shared that you comment. No one leaves or gets out of their seats until everyone has shared. No touching or trying to comfort anyone until we’re done. You sit in your feelings and you feel them. Good?” Rachel looked around again, trying to assess everyone’s state of mind.

“Good,” they all echoed back.

“I can go first,” Christopher started. “I, like Michael, am fucking sick of Afghanistan. Not that anywhere else in the Middle East is much better, but at least it would be a change of scenery. I hope we can pull this off quickly. It seems straightforward enough, if not slightly boring. And I would really prefer it if we could kill Saad Ayad instead of giving him to the CIA. In any case, I’m excited to get to work.”

 “I’m sad to leave Charlene again,” Matt said, referring to his girlfriend of five years. “Everything’s better when I’m with her, you know? But at least I have you guys.”

“I personally enjoy wandering around and talking to people,” Aiden said. “So, I’m looking forward to this mission. I promised my grandma we’d be back for Christmas though. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. Do you think I should call her?”

“Was that an actual question that you wanted someone to answer?” Rachel asked.

“Yes,” Aiden confirmed.

“We’ll be back for Christmas. Calm down,” Christopher told him. “But yes, call your grandma again before we leave.”

“Okay, I will. Like I said, I’m very much looking forward to making some new friends in Khost!”

“We aren’t going there to make friends,” Aaron said.

“Hey, what are the rules? Only nice supportive comments,” Rachel reminded Aaron. “Besides, you know Aiden can make friends with anyone. He probably will have a new BFF after this mission.”

“I’m just in a bad mood,” Aaron continued. “I got season tickets to the Stealers, and now I can’t use them, and Jen is mad that I spent so much on them.”

They went around the room, taking turns until everyone but Rachel had shared. She paused, looking down at the floor. “I’m excited to go, and unlike most of you, I hope it takes all the way through New Year’s so I don’t have to go home and see my family for Christmas.” They all knew Rachel lied to her family about her job. The fact that there was a female SEAL was so classified that even Rachel’s father, who happened to be an admiral, was kept in the dark about it. She looked around the room. “Anyone else want to share something?” The room was silent. “Okay, then I hereby declare this meeting over. See y’all for hand-to-hand combat training tomorrow at 0600.”