Page 12 of The Story of Danny Rose

I shook my head. “Very rarely. I’m not saying it will never happen for you in the future, but I don’t think you need any further training in it. You’ve been camping and hunting all your life, eh?”

He inclined his head.

“Then I’d rather you picked up another language or learned what plants you can eat in Cambodia or Colombia.” Man, this steak was perfect. The baked potato too. “Those are the places Hillcroft will send you to. The Middle East, South America, Africa, certain parts of Asia.” I waved my fork at Danny, just as he sat down to eat. “Every soldier insistent on becoming a PMC has to shake the military mind-set. There’s no structure to what we do. We have our own survival techniques, and most of them are about blending in.”

The SAS was the best branch in the world for that, because they created gray men. We were called operators, not soldiers. Regular armed forces built machines who walked and carried themselves a certain way. The SAS shaped men into background features. Sure, we’d gone through all the physical training too. We had to be strong, agile, fit—the whole nine yards. But most of it was mental.

Which gave me an idea. “I know what you can do—and we can incorporate a physical aspect.”

The twins perked up.

“I’ll give you twelve hours, starting right after dinner,” I said, retrieving my wallet from my back pocket. “Here’s a hundred bucks.” I handed two fifties to River. “A more likely scenario is…let’s say, an extraction. You’re tasked with bringing home a diplomat from Venezuela. You have to spend the night inthe jungle, where you’re invisible, before you set your plan in motion.” I nodded to the lake and the forest. “I can’t give you a jungle, so an American forest will have to do. But when you set foot on this porch tomorrow at—” I checked my watch “—eight thirty, you gotta sell your personas to me. Become two men who blend in with the background, whom no one would suspect of smuggling a diplomat out of the country. We’re talking character history, dialects, names, personal information, your whole cover. Clothes, pocket litter, quirks, traits.”

River’s eyes flashed with determination. A challenge like this one was right up his alley. Reese tended to prefer the physical challenges, but he needed to learn this too.

“I’ll be asking questions,” I finished.

“What can we bring?” Reese asked. “Our sleeping bags?”

“I don’t know, can you?” I cocked my head at him. “Will that fit your cover story? Are you going to Venezuela as American hikers? I’m not saying that would be wrong—but you bring only what will go along with your character profiles.”

This would be a great test for the brothers, on more than one level. I hoped River would remember the SAS rule to keep shit simple. Don’t run if you can walk, rest when you can, eat when you can, take the easy route.

That was one of the reasons I didn’t want Danny in the private sector. He was wired to go the extra mile and show off. If I sent his detachment out on a ten-mile hike, he brought heavier gear to stand out. He always had to perform better than his peers.

I stopped with my fork in midair as something dawned on me. Danny wasn’t necessarily looking for the next compliment as much as he wanted constant approval. The boy wanted to be seen.

My chest tightened uncomfortably at the thought of him exhausting himself just to get noticed. Fucking hell, I had to do something.

CHAPTER 3

Shortly after dinner, I stood on the porch steps and watched River and Reese trail off into the night. They’d brought a few things from their duffels and stashed them into a plastic bag.

It was gonna be interesting to see what they came up with. Their options were limited, to say the least. No stores would be open before they were due back tomorrow morning, not counting the convenience store at the gas station half a mile outside town.

Hearing some shuffling and clanking behind me, I glanced over my shoulder to see Danny coming toward me with our dishes.

“I’ll wash these up in the lake,” he said quietly.

Now I had to figure out what to do about him. I scratched the side of my head as he headed down to the water’s edge.

He was staying; that much was clear. I had to ask him his intentions, and then I was gonna have to accept his response. If he wanted to go private…fuck, so be it. His choice. My hands would be kinda tied, though. I wasn’t sure I could trust anybody else to give him the right training.

I knew his background better. I’d seen him in action.

After everything I’d learned today, I wasn’t positive the Army was the right route for him either. It may have been his home for nearly a decade now, but he’d missed out on a lot, and the brotherhood and camaraderie between soldiers could never replace having someone to come home to.

Say I spent a year preparing Danny for a position at Hillcroft—God knew they would want to hire him—perhaps I could carefully nudge him toward creating a social life for himself in the meantime. While I doubted he’d ever been the outcast eating alone in the school cafeteria, nothing about his profile convinced me he had actual friends he spent time with.

Befriending the twins would be a good start. The three could learn a lot from one another. And I wasn’t always around. In the five months I’d been working with the twins, I’d been gone for a handful of week-long stints. Two weeks at the most. Simpler gigs.

“Join me in the cabin when you’re done, kid,” I said. “We should talk.”

He side-eyed me briefly over his shoulder—not all the way to make eye contact in the dark. “Okay.”

Since I hadn’t been inside yet, I grabbed my duffel from the truck first. Then I headed indoors and surveyed the surroundings. I was a little curious to find out if Danny had slept here one night already.

A lantern was lit on the kitchen counter. “Kitchen” being used liberally. It was a counter with two cabinets and a basin of water. I pulled back the curtain below and spotted all six of my two-gallon jugs had been filled with fresh water. As Danny had said.

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