Lightning Strike to the Heart-4
345 Words
He knew how he must look. The slight shell-shock of someone fresh back from the front suddenly surrounded by the bounties of America. Unless they were one of your buddies, you just left guys like him alone until they were back up to speed.
The room shifted.
The noise level didn’t change.
But there had been something. It was the sort of thing that only a trained operator would probably notice; the feel had altered.
He started hunting for the source and it didn’t take long to spot. Nine new arrivals— soldiers who moved like operators. But it wasn’t just that they were Special Ops; you couldn’t get a drink within fifty miles of Fort Bragg without running into some form of top soldier.
Hal blinked a couple of times to bring them into sharper focus.
It wasn’t just that they were Delta, though they were unquestionably from The Unit.
There was also a strange energy about them, as if every step they took was suddenly their first.
A new class had graduated from the Operator’s Training Course. Nobody else moved that way; that impossible bravado generated by finally knowing that for a fact, you are one of the very best warriors on the planet. There was an electrical charge that sizzled off their every step.
He should go over and buy them a round, but he hated giving up his corner table.
He should…
A tenth soldier walked in, moving with that same impossible confidence.
The only woman among them, he’d know her anywhere even though her hair was shorter, because only one woman possessed the finest a*s in the military.
And when she turned and spotted him? That smile lit him up like one of those lightning bolts had finally caught him.
That’s why she’d disappeared off the grid and out of MSST; she’d gone for Delta Selection and made it through the six months of OTC.
He could feel the smile on his own face. Unit Operator Teresa Mann looked as if she too had been struck by lightning and it looked damn good on her.
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