Page 34 of The Story of Danny Rose

“Payne, you out there?” I heard Terrance call.

“That’s us.” I rose to my feet and motioned for Danny to walk ahead of me.

Once in the doorway, I spotted Terrance sitting behind his desk, and he gestured for us to come on in.

He leaned back in his seat and clasped his fingers over his stomach. “So this is the super soldier.”

“I don’t remember using the word super.” I smirked and walked over to him, and we shook hands over the desk. “Good to see you, boss.”

“You too, Emerson. Have a seat. I wanna hear all about this Danny Rose.” He had the file on his desk already, the one I’dfaxed over yesterday. “Born in 1970, huh? You’re only two years older than my son, and you’ve already racked up some medals.” He shifted his gaze to me. “Is it even worth sending him to Ecuador?”

Oh, we’d definitely send him there. “He wouldn’t accept being treated differently.”

All our recruits now went through their final selection at the training facility in Ecuador, and Danny would be no exception. The property used to be more of a low-key place for field training, but as of last year, it was the location one finally earned the title of operator.

“Glad to hear it,” Terrance replied. “But I expect him to pass with flying colors.”

Of course he did. With Danny’s résumé, the bar was set high.

“So what makes you wanna go private, Rose?” Terrance asked him.

Danny cleared his throat and sat straighter in his seat. “I believe I can get more done with less of an Army entourage on my tail, sir. And also, the money.”

He was honest.

Terrance chuckled and returned his gaze to the file. “I assume you like a good challenge too.”

“Definitely,” Danny confirmed.

Terrance hummed, and after a moment, he dropped the file on the desk before he leaned back once more.

“With your background, a standard interview is pointless,” he said. “I already know what you excel at. My question to you is…how do you view the world today? After your deployments and covert ops—and with current events in mind—do you see war on the horizon? In which case, where?”

Hm. Good questions. He’d asked me something similar when I’d joined, and I’d struggled to find a balance between what I genuinely believed and what the conspiracy theorist in mefeared. Call it a work hazard. I tended to see problems brewing everywhere.

Politicians talked about peacetime and treaties, and my coworkers and I at Hillcroft… We didn’t.

Danny shifted in his seat and hesitated. “Do you want me to be frank?”

“Always,” Terrance said with a nod.

I side-eyed Danny, very curious about his thoughts.

He cleared his throat. “The Middle East, in short.”

Terrance indulged him with a wry smile. “Give me the long answer.”

I smirked.

Danny chuckled and cracked his knuckles absently. “All right… I think something’s going on. Civil war in Yemen, an anti-West movement on the rise, the shit in Libya and Egypt, don’t get me started on Iraq, and in this region, I can count over twenty ethnic groups off the top of my head that hate each other to some degree, famine, everybody wants oil—including us—religious fanatics, and, let’s not forget, we left something behind when the Soviets and the US pulled out of Afghanistan. We thought we became the heroes to the Afghans when we helped them defeat the Soviets, but anyone who pays attention and actually listens to what the religious leaders and insurgents are saying…? We’re next on their shit list.”

Damn. A conspiracy theorist after my own heart.

Then again, they were no longer conspiracies. We’d never had so many scouts in the Middle East as we currently did. Same could be said for the CIA.

I shifted forward in my seat as I unlocked another level of interest in my boy’s mind. He wasn’t some soldier who just waited for orders; he kept himself updated on foreign affairs.

“So this is where you think your assignments would take you,” Terrance stated.

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