Page 35

Story: Austen

He shrugged.“He was serving his country.I wanted to be like him.It was rough on my mom, though.”He set down the glass.“Especially when I went to Afghanistan.”
“Oh, that must have been terrible for her.”
Hunter had gotten out of the Jacuzzi, dried off, and sat in the lounger beside Elise.“Yeah, Declan was still wet behind the ears when he deployed.I’ll never forget him showing up in A-Stan.Scared to death.Determined not to show it.”
Declan stared at him.“I wasn’t scared.”
“Sheesh, you checked your gear so much I thought you had OCD.”
His mouth opened, then closed.“I like to be ready.”
“Indeed.This is the guy who took language lessons.Learned Pashto.”
“Not well,” Declan said, his mouth pinching.
“Between that and volunteering for too many recon missions, I thought I had an overachiever on my hands.”
Declan looked at him then.Silence passed between them.
“I didn’t know you were in the military,” Austen said to Hunter.
“Yeah.I was with an MSOB group.”
“A Marine Special Operations Battalion,” Declan said quietly.
“We were part of Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command.We focused on direct action, special reconnaissance, and foreign internal defense.And Declan was one of my grunts.”
“Infantry,” Declan said.“We did the hard work.”He smiled, finally.
Hunter scoffed, shook his head, but grinned.“Someone has to dig ditches.”
She looked at Declan.“That’s what you did?”
He slid his sunglasses down his nose.“Hardly.We worked out of a COP—a Combat Outpost—with the MSOB team in the Hindu Kush mountains, setting up observation posts and doing long-range reconnaissance missions.Did you seeLone Survivor?”
“Yeah.SEAL team, right?”
“Yes.A long-range reconnaissance and surveillance team that got caught deep in Afghan country.We were that—small teams charged with gathering information to pass on to the big dogs, like Hunter here.”
“Usually those teams worked far behind enemy lines.Sometimes the goal was to set up ambushes or sniper nests.And they’d use friendlies to help hide us and gather information,” Hunter added.
Declan sighed, replaced his sunglasses, and looked at her.“Hence the Pashto.Helped to have passable knowledge.”
“They let you do that on your first deployment?”
“We were at a small FOB—a Forward Operating Base, and we were Marines,” he said.“Semper Fi.”
Belle arrived with a glass of lemon water for Hunter.“Thank you.”He took a sip.“I’m not sure why someone needs a Jacuzzi in the Caribbean, but I’m not complaining.”He set his glass down.“These guys were our eyes and ears.And they were trained for recon, so we relied on them.And our contacts in the villages.”
Declan nodded but looked away.
And again, the weird silence, just the sound of the boat motor, the splash of the waves, parted by the bow, streaming out into the wake in a frothy trail.
“How dangerous was that?”she asked quietly.“I heard the Taliban would execute anyone who worked with Americans.Even translators.”
“It was dangerous,” Declan said quietly.“War is dangerous.”He stood up.“I’m going to check on the hummus.”
She watched as he walked away, not sure what had just happened.