The words pierced his mind as if spoken by an unheard voice. It was a voice he knew well, one he felt compelled to follow.
A sour taste lingered in his mouth and his neck and shoulders tensed.
The story.
He tried not to think about it. Ever.
Yet it was always there.
He could still smell the gunpowder. Feel the breeze on his skin. Hear the deafening barrage of gunfire.
Some things never went away.
And now, the Holy Spirit called him to relive it yet again.
He collapsed into the closest chair, his body slumping as if his muscles had disintegrated and his bones were made of twigs. “Have you heard why transparency is so important to me?”
While he knew he hadn’t told her, it was possible she’d heard about it. His brother Caiden may have mentioned it. Or Sid. They both knew.
Kevyn stilled, her attention fixated on him. With slow movements, she leaned on the edge of her desk, bracing her palms against the faux-wood finish. “No. I thought it had to do with your religion.”
“That’s part of it, sure. But there’s a…” He exhaled a breath that vibrated through his chest. “There’s another reason.”
How was it that now, almost fifteen years after it had happened, he still struggled to talk about it?
Kevyn said nothing. Just waited with an unnatural stillness for him to continue.
“I was nearing the end of my second tour with the Navy. I was SWCC.”
Her eyebrows knit together.
Yeah. She probably wouldn’t know what that was. Most civilians didn’t. “Special Warfare Combatant Craft Crewman. We were trained to provide sea support to special ops, mostly SEALs, on covert missions.”
The confusion vanished and she nodded, indicating for him to continue.
Not that he really wanted to, but there was no going back now. “There were three of us from SWCC. One to captain and two to watch for and respond to threats. We were escorting an eight-man SEAL team on an extraction mission. The U.S. ambassador to Yemen had been visiting an unstable region to check-in on some humanitarian aid efforts when he’d been abducted by the Yemen Liberationist Army, a group of rebel soldiers seeking to set up their own political regime. One of their generals had a mansion on the coast and our intel indicated that was where they were holding the ambassador.”
He could still see the house, silhouetted dramatically in the darkness. No light, just the occasional bob of a flashlight beam from guards making their rounds. With everyone sleeping, it should have been a routine extraction.
Until Simon Winters had gone rogue.
“The SEALs deployed. My team remained in the boat per protocol. The SEALs found the ambassador, then one SEAL, a guy named Winters, decided he wanted to go after the general.”
Sweat snaked between his shoulder blades as a weight rivaling a corpse crushed his lungs.
“The mission was simple. Extraction. Do not engage unless necessary. Winters… I don’t know if he wanted the acclaim of taking down the general or what he was thinking, but he convinced one other SEAL to back him up. Then they went after the general.”
The corners of Kevyn’s eyes dipped. A curled fist rested against her collarbone as she watched him, surely suspecting what was coming next.
“I knew something was wrong when I heard the machine guns. It sounded like a whole army of them. Winters was grazed on his thigh and arm, but he managed to get out. His fellow SEAL wasn’t so lucky.”
His breathing quickened and the air felt depleted of oxygen.
“Somehow Winters made it back to the boat before the rest of the SEALs and the ambassador. By this time, the enemy was awake and actively trying to take us out. I manned one of our guns and my SWCC brother took another. Winters made it aboard and got behind the gun next to mine. We started laying down cover for the remaining six SEALs and the ambassador as they ran toward the boat.”
White knuckles pressed against Kevyn’s chest as her body went rigid.
“I don’t know if he slipped or what happened. But Winters was covering his team and his gunfire got too close. Took down two SEALs and the ambassador.”
Fire burned his throat. He could still see the men sprawled on the ground, still see the other SEALs stopping amid the heavy enemy fire to hoist their fallen brothers and the ambassador.
Never leave a man behind.
“We went home with three bodies that day. The fourth, the guy who backed up Winters, was never recovered.”
Eight
Kevyn tried to wrap her mind around the trauma Dak had shared.
While she’d never been in the military, or part of such an elite group, she knew they were tight. Loyalty ran deep. Failure cut deeper.
“When we got back to base and debriefed, Winters told everyone that I had been the one to kill the SEALs and the ambassador. I think he was trying to save face, but the captain saw the whole thing. He saw Winters lose control of his weapon. Saw Winters’ reaction to firing the fatal shots. Ballistics proved that the fatal rounds came from his weapon.”
A gray hue tinged Dak’s face and his jaw worked.
“I was cleared, but the stigma remained. I finished my tour, then got out. And all because of one man.”
Deception always brought back a slew of bad memories. This time, she was to blame. “I’m sorry.”
A single dip of his head acknowledged her apology. “Winters’ duplicity almost eliminated my team and his team. It resulted in the deaths of four other people. Permanently impacted the hundreds of family members and friends those people had. That’s why I hate dishonesty.”
Part of her wanted to argue that what she’d done was nothing like that. She hadn’t lied – she’d just not told him everything.
But
