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“And you put the lives of myself and four of my men at risk in the process.”
“That’s not very PC of you, Serg,” I say. “I believe one of the soldiers who dug me out was a woman.”
“Kid...” He leans forward. “I’m serious. Now, I can ship you back home today where you won’t see the outside of a cell until you’re sixty or… you can wise up and work for us.”
I wait for his stare to break but he never flinches. “What?”
He eases back in his chair. “You say our equipment is subpar.”
“Your equipment blows, actually.”
“So, fix it,” he says. “I’m sure you have a few ideas in that head of yours, right?”
“I might.”
He stands up. “You work for us, tighten our security, keep me and my men safe, and you won’t see a day behind bars.”
“For how long?”
His chin juts to the side. “You got somewhere else to be?”
“Don’t you?”
“Quite…” He reaches into his pocket and withdraws a key. “Let’s just say long enough for me to forget to ever ask you what the hell you’re doing out in the middle of the damn Afghani desert alone in the first place. Does that sound fair?”
My eyes scrape the floor. “Yeah, that’s fair.”
“Smart kid.”
He gestures for my hands and I raise them as high as the chain will allow.
“Come on,” he says, letting the open cuffs fall to the floor. “Let’s go meet my team.”
He leads me outside. I immediately hold up a hand to shield the sun from melting the fucking eyes out of my skull. I don’t know how they do it. Here I am in a white shirt and its done nothing to keep me cool since I got here while these guys walk around in outfits made of who-knows-what. Looks thick, whatever it is. I can’t imagine what these guys must smell like after a single day…
The camp is small, surrounded by nothing but desert on all sides. A large tent sits in the center with communications equipment stacked on tables and large generators to power them. There are three jeeps parked in a line on the far side next to a pair of very cringe-worthy porta-potties. On the opposite side, some soldiers sit around a long table with prepackaged food, enjoying a shade that I would very much like to get under.
We finally walk into a small barracks with about two dozen cots — two rows of twelve with an aisle between them. The tent overhead has been torn in several places and crudely repaired with duct tape. It must be downtime as most of the cots have body-shaped lumps in them. I guess you catch whatever sleep you can out here.
The air grows tense as we pass the occupied mattresses. Some soldiers stand to attention, but the sergeant waves them down. All of them stare at me as I pass by them and their faces tell me all I need to know about their thoughts.
Who’s this asshole?
Rhys stops at the back of the tent and my eyes instantly fall on the girl who helped dig me out.
She lies on her back with her neck propped up on a really uncomfortable-looking pillow with a very tempting bottle of water in her small hand.
“Team, this is Carson,” Rhys announces, his eyes scanning the four cots at the back.
I force myself to stop gawking at the girl to make eye contact with the other three. One gives me a smile. He helped me out and gave me water, so we’re cool. The others I also recognize but only because one kicked me to the ground while the other put me in cuffs as soon they laid eyes on me.
Not so cool.
All four of them stand up and Rhys steps to the side. “This is Rogers,” he says, pointing to The Kicker, a muscular man with buck teeth and black hair. His hand moves down the line to The Cuffer, yet another muscular guy except he’s got red hair and a cleft chin. “This is West — Fitzpatrick — and Fawn.”
Fawn. That’s cute.
“Sup?” I greet.
