Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57237 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57237 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Christ. I exhaled a laugh and shook my head.
EPILOGUE
November 15th, 1998
“We have movement at the foot of the mountain!”
Thank fuck, the scouts had reported back.
It was a cold morning in northern Ecuador, with fog cradling the entire mountainside, and Sid and I had been up all night, replacing flares when they burned out. We just didn’t have anything else to welcome recruits home in a thick fog like this one. Following your compass was one thing, but after the hellish journey they’d been on now, we wanted to make sure they were greeted by proper signs of life at the top of the hill.
For three weeks, Sid and I—along with our crew of four field assistants—had waited to find out who was going from recruit to operator. The final selection included six exams and one two-week-long survival test in some of the harshest conditions. Minimal supplies, no partner, no MREs.
James had advanced quickly this year, so he’d become the fifth recruit to make it in this year’s class of potential graduates. Once he was done, if he succeeded, Terrance was sending him to San Diego, where he’d train with a helicopter crew. He was already a pilot, but we sure as hell didn’t deploy Hueys at Hillcroft. Our extremely small fleet of aircraft consisted of modified civilian models. Aside from the passenger planes, we had one helicopter in California, one in France, one in Germany, and two in Cyprus.
Nine times out of ten, we hitched a ride with US or British military when we were overseas. Depending on the assignment, we sometimes stayed on their bases too. Kind of like River and Reese would do soon.
In a few months, Terrance was shipping them to Qatar.
I couldn’t lie; I wasn’t wholly comfortable with it. I’d grown to care for the little shits, and I wanted them under my supervision.
Even Danny had frowned when Reese had announced the news. He liked to view the twins as his kid brothers.
I checked my watch and crossed the courtyard of our facility, a low brick building that functioned as its own fence to the helipad at the center. The rest was just gravel—and some mismatched lawn chairs and a grill in one corner.
The building was a leftover property in Arthur’s father’s will. There was room for dozens of people, and the areas included a mess hall, classrooms, a rec room, supply closets, shower rooms, and offices.
To this day, nobody knew the initial purpose of the property. It’d been left unused for several years until Arthur one day decided we could utilize it for training. And, as of last year, the official place to graduate.
Sid came out of the section where we had our field office. “Did I hear Ben?”
I nodded. “Scouts reported movement at the bottom.”
“Someone’s comin’ in fast.”
It better be my boy.
We trailed down to the main entrance and opened the gate, before we stepped outside of the property, where we had nothing but patches of grass and then the tree line. Right then and there was also where the hill slanted.
It was a steep climb up to get here, and the air was much thinner.
I nodded to Ben, who stood ready with his radio and a medic bag.
Sid sipped his morning coffee, and I sighed internally. I should’ve brought my cup too.
Come on, baby. Don’t make me worried.
This was what everything boiled down to. Granted, I’d missed him an absurd amount, but I hadn’t feared for his safety. Danny was so far ahead of everyone else that I’d decided I had nothing to worry about as long as he returned first with all four of the markers they had been ordered to collect in the jungle. If he didn’t…? That was when I’d get scared. That was when I’d pack my own bag and begin my search for a hotheaded needle in a haystack.
I folded my arms over my chest, knowing the last climb took a while.
I wasn’t nervous. I wasn’t nervous one bit. My heart was beating faster because of the thin air.
Deep breaths.
It was going to be him. He’d worked so hard for this, and he’d made such good progress with his temper too. Sure, he had bursts of anger like anyone else, but he was learning how to control himself.
Besides, an exercise in survival was a walk in the park in comparison to some of the other fields. Danny was an excellent tracker, hunter, and survivor. Four thousand acres of jungle weren’t going to stop him.
“There will be nothing professional about this reunion,” I said. Sid could consider that his only warning.
He snorted a chuckle and took a swig of his coffee. “I wasn’t expecting that anyway.”
All right, good.
I checked my watch incessantly over the next half hour, and I thought back on when I’d run the course myself. Down was obviously the easy way. That didn’t take more than fifteen minutes. Up, however? In addition, it wasn’t just one mountain followed by flatlands. The foot of this peak led to a small river delta, plenty of thicket, and then things went downhill once more. And the recruits were coming from all the way down—two weeks’ worth of ups and downs, to be accurate. No trails or anything. Just rough terrain all the way.