Bile burned like acid in his throat, and it took every ounce of his self-discipline to remain seated, to hold his tongue and not rage against the unfairness of it. One of the first lessons he’d learned as a SEAL was that life wasn’t fair. But this one stung. Bad.

He’d dreamed for years of bringing in, or bringing down, Abu Haddad. The smug son of a bitch needed his face blown off in the worst way. The Reapers had tracked Haddad to hell and back over there. They’d had too many near-misses to count with the slippery bastard. He and his guys had earned the right to be the ones to capture or kill Haddad.

“You three, go pack,” Kettering ordered briskly. “Your kits will be on the C-130. Raid the armory here as needed to supplement your gear.”

Kenny had the decency to meet Griffin’s despairing stare across the table and murmur, “Sorry, man. I’ll put an extra bullet in him for you.”

“You do that,” Griffin replied bitterly. Then, with slightly better grace, he added, “Good hunting, brother.”

“Will do.” Then Kenny was gone in a rush of premission adrenaline. The guy’s thoughts would already be turning to which weapons he wanted to carry. How much ammo to pack. It would be high-altitude terrain. Rough, rocky, and cold as a witch’s tit. Extra thermal underwear. A second balaclava to protect his face from frostbite. Altitude sickness pills. Sleeping pills for when the oxygen deprivation made sleep come hard—

Damn it all! Griffin wanted to be there in the thick of the action. Instead, he was stuck here with a pack of damned minnows who thought they could grow up into sharks.

“Grif.”

He looked up bleakly at Kettering. “Yes, sir?”

“If you can think of any intel that would help with this mission, go share it with the boys, eh?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

He pushed up from the table, irritated all to hell, and stomped across the street to the barracks, where Jojo, Sam, and Ken were already almost finished packing their shit.

Of the three stooges, Kenny had been on the teams the longest. Kenny had been fresh out of BUD/S, and Griffin had been coming off the layoff for his back when they both joined the Reapers. They’d been deployed together in Afghanistan and Pakistan at least a half-dozen times.

Truth be told, Kenny knew as much about Haddad as anyone. The guy didn’t need any tips from Griffin on catching the bastard. Kettering had said what he had about sharing intel to get Griffin out of the room. The boss didn’t want to listen to any more whining about being left behind and had given him something to do rather than sit around bitching about it.

Grif couldn’t blame Cal. But he didn’t like this. Not one damned bit.

“You got this, Kenny?” he asked his longtime brother.

“Yup.”