Page 24 of Protected By The Green Berets

“I need a favor from you.”

“What kind of favor?” I snapped.

The three men sitting with Colby all but snarled at my harsh response. Zinnia was also scowling at me. Something slammed into my shin and I had to fight not to curse as the pain radiated up my leg. She’d fucking kicked me. It wasn’t hard to see the demand there in her eyes.

Shut up and let me do the talking.

Under normal circumstances this mission of ours would have been spearheaded by the Agency. The only reason we were given any kind of control was as a favor to our General. He knew if he wanted our team on this mission I needed to have a level of control and leadership that wouldn’t be typical with most joint missions with the CIA.

That meant that this—especially anything concerning SSG Harris—was her case. We were here to make sure she didn’t get hurt and to complete the mission however needed. Because of that, I heeded her not so subtle warning and let her speak.

More than that, there was the bigger picture at hand. Clearly this was no longer a rescue mission. This was now a negotiation between Z and Colby, a conversation that the men were not invited to. This was between them, and all of us had to keep our mouths shut and let them settle it. The level of control needed to restrain myself was agonizing.

“What kind of favor?” Zinnia asked, turning back to Colby. Her voice was a lot softer when she was speaking to the other woman.

“I’ll tell you everything we know. What happened to me,” the men sitting next to her shifted at that, “what we know about Roj, everything.”

“In exchange for?” Zinnia prompted.

“I need you to convince the Army to stop looking for me.”

Zinnia’s eyebrows shot up and she looked between the four people sitting across the table from us. “You want me to have the Army sever your contract with them?”

It’ll never happen.The Army didn’t work that way. Shit. The American Government didn’t work that way.

“Yes. I want to stay where I am and not be considered AWOL. I don’t want to have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life, wondering if some special ops team,” she gave me a droll look, “is going to come steal me away only for me to end up in some federal prison for abandoning my duties.”

I watched Zinnia from the corner of my eye. There was zero chance that she was going to be making this decision alone. We were a team, anything we did, we did as one unit.

Zinnia looked thoughtful, then those beautiful green eyes settled on me and I met her gaze head on. Without looking away, I asked Colby, “You’ll answer all our questions?”

“Yes.” That’d come from the man who seemed to be the leader of their little group.

Brandon was sitting a few chairs down from all of us, listening with rapt fascination. He was only the middleman in all of this.

“If we do this,” Zinnia said, speaking up again, breaking eye contact with me. “No one can know. It stays between all of us here.” Her eyes landed on Brandon. “Not even the rest of your team can know.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because the more people who know, the more risk we’re found out. I’d have to make her disappear. If the Government found out I did that, I’d be sharing the cell with her at Fort Leavenworth. I don’t feel like being imprisoned in a military holding facility any more than she does.”

“We already tried to make her disappear,” the man across from me snapped before Brandon had a chance to respond.

“Rafe,” Colby said, placing her hand on his forearm. It seemed to calm him. “Let her speak.” When he remained silent, Colby gestured for Zinnia to continue.

“That means a portion of my work is already done then,” Zinnia said, addressing Rafe’s comment. “She already has a new identity. One that neither the Army, nor the Agency know about. I would have to scrub out any rumors about you being alive and present my findings to both organizations.”

We were all picking up on what Zinnia was saying. Just so there wasn’t any question, she clarified. “I’d put in my report that you were killed in the line of duty. That you were in the building with your team when it exploded.”

Colby sucked in an audible breath, but she nodded. “And you think that would be the end of it?”

“Oh yeah,” Brandon told her. “No one would question it. Your file would be put in the vault never to be seen again. Z is one of the best. They’d trust her findings.”

Zinnia smiled at him, then focused on the others again. It had helped having Brandon vouch for her. Colby and her group didn’t know us. She was taking a huge risk even meeting with us. They obviously trusted her.

I cleared my throat and gave Zinnia a pointed look. She nodded, then asked, “Do you mind if we take a second to discuss this?”

“Of course not,” Colby said at the same time that one of the other men growled, “Yeah, we do.”

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