Page 2 of Protecting Salvation

“You going in or not?”

Hurricane turned to the man who’d come to stand beside him. He was tall, probably six feet two, which was still an inch shorter than he was. His height had always intimidated people, but he knew nothing intimidated Jack Granger. The former SAS operator was known throughout the UKSF community as one of the best, which was why it was no surprise he’d managed to walk up to Hurricane without him noticing. He had no idea why he was here but didn’t ask either. The man would tell him when he was ready, so he answered the question instead.

“Not sure.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “I don’t think I fit anymore.” He meant metaphorically, but even physically. He was six foot three, and two hundred and forty pounds of pure muscle, which wasn’t a good fit for a three-bedroom terrace house.

“You’re a big bastard.”

Hurricane huffed a laugh and bobbed his head in agreement. It was something he was always aware of when dealing with others. He’d always been treated differently because of his size, and the fact that in his small hometown, he was one of only a few black children.

“Yeah, so people tell me.” Hurricane folded his arms over his chest and raised a brow. “You gonna tell me why you’re standing next to me any time soon?”

“You got a few minutes to talk?”

Hurricane glanced down at his bright white trainers, which stood out sharply against his dark brown skin. “I guess I have a few minutes.”

They began to walk down the street towards the park, and Hurricane let Jack lead. He was the one orchestrating this, and Hurricane was a patient man, letting the silence sit between them. Five boys around eight years old were playing football and they turned to watch them warily. He was pleased to see that in kids so young. The world was a dangerous place and sometimes all you had was that gut feeling that wouldn’t settle to warn you of danger.

He and Jack sat on a bench, the other man stretching his legs out in a relaxed manner, or so it looked but Hurricane could feel the awareness in the way he watched everything around him as if cataloguing the threats and constantly evaluating them.

He focused on the kids as the smaller one ran for the goal which was jumpers and bags made into goalposts. They reminded him of him and his friends doing the same thing at that age and the easy joy. Those friends had moved on. Married with kids and it was something he wanted for himself one day, but not yet. Now he didn’t know what he wanted or where to go. His life had been the RAF and flying since he was old enough to remember.

“I heard what happened to you. It was a shit call.”

His shoulders tensed, every muscle in his body going taut at the feeling of loss the reminder caused him. It was a shit call but he couldn’t do anything about it, and he’d learned that things you couldn’t change, you had to let go of, no matter how hard and he was trying.

He shrugged, not giving anything away. “Yeah, it was, but what can you do?”

“You could come and work for me.”

Hurricane cocked his head to look at Jack who was watching him for a reaction. “Explain.”

Jack smirked at his one-word demand, but Hurricane didn’t return it, he wasn’t in the mood for bullshit.

“I’m setting up a team, a shadow team to be more precise. Some former military. Some, shall we say, people who need a second chance and have a very interesting skill set. I need someone like you to round the team out.”

“Someone like me?”

“A pilot. Someone with your skills who can fly whatever we ask. Someone who can follow orders but isn’t afraid to have his own mind and make his own decisions and trust his gut.”

Hurricane mused over that for a moment. The chance to fly again was enticing but he needed more information. “You’d be running it?”

Jack shook his head. “No, I have someone else lined up for that.”

“And what do they think about you hiring someone with my medical details?” He was sick of hiding that and would rather be upfront now and end it than get involved and it go sideways later.

“They are aware. As far as we’re concerned, this is your decision to make. It’s your body, so any risks are yours. That isn’t to say you won’t have our full support and we’ll have a discussion about it if you accept and make sure something is in place.”

Hurricane nodded, as a tiny kernel of excitement and hope unfurled inside his chest. “You said it’s a shadow team. I’m guessing you mean ghost ops, black ops kind of thing?”

“Yes, all your social media and background would be wiped. As far as the world is concerned, you didn’t exist. We’d have to write you an entirely new legend.”

Hurricane smiled at Jack using the word legend. It was a very spook thing to say and he wondered if there’d be any on his new team. Not that he’d accepted yet, but he was definitely interested. “Not to be a dick, but I’m hardly the kind of guy that blends into the background.”

Jack linked his fingers and let his hands hang between his spread legs as he looked around again. Hurricane followed his gaze and didn’t see anything until Jack whistled and two men stepped out, seemingly from nowhere. One was a huge blond with long hair that he recognised as Gunner from his Eidolon team and the other was Reid. Neither man was what you’d consider slight. Reid was covered in tattoos and built, and Gunner had long blond hair and looked like an actor from a Viking movie.

Yet they’d been there this whole time and he hadn’t spotted them. He chuckled as he crossed his ankles and leaned back on the bench. “Point taken, but isn’t the fact that I missed them a concern for you?”

Jack shook his head. “No, I trained them and you’d be put through an intense training program that makes the military special forces look like amateur hour.”