“Come on. We all know I’m the media-ready one of the three of us women. Don’t get me wrong, Anna and Lily will make great special operators, but neither one of them would know how to be a poster child. And we all know that’s precisely what the Navy wants.”

Cal looked back and forth between Griffin and Sherri long enough that Griffin actually started to feel fidgety. Cal asked him without warning, “How long will it take you to make Sherri ready for BUD/S?”

Griffin frowned. “She hasn’t done the obstacle course yet, and she hasn’t passed the drowning evolution. Beyond that, I think she could be ready in a matter of days.”

Cal looked at the calendar that was his desk pad. “There’s a BUD/S class starting INDOC in two weeks. I’ll make the call.”

The reality of the end of his time with Sherri hit him with the weight of a sledgehammer. He was going to leave her behind to suffer through BUD/S alone while he flew halfway around the world to catch a terrorist. Which was as it should be. But damn it all, he was going to miss her.

She would move on. Become a celebrity. Forget about him. Find herself some pretty-boy movie star or up-and-coming politician to hook up with.

Griffin rose to his feet. There had to be at least a little whiskey left over somewhere in the instructors’ barracks from last night. He suddenly felt a burning need to tie one on. Hard. And without a pitcher of water and carbs to dull the effects of it.

Sherri rose as well, thanking Cal quietly.

Griffin reached for the office door to open it for her.

“Oh, and Griffin?” Cal said casually.

No, no, no. He knew that tone of voice out of his boss. Bracing himself for a direct hit, he turned to face Cal. “Yes, sir?”

“You’ll be going with Sherri to Coronado. I’ll see to it you’re assigned as an adjunct instructor for the duration of her BUD/S course.”

“What?” he and Sherri exclaimed in unison.

“You didn’t think I was going to throw her to the sharks without any kind of backup, did you?”

“But Haddad—”

“That SOB will wait. Right now, I need you to finish Operation Valkyrie. Get Sherri through BUD/S. Then we all can go back to our regularly scheduled lives. Trust me, the Reapers will get their pound of flesh out of Abu Haddad. But we’ll do it together. All of us. As a team.”

Griffin was startled by the fury vibrating in Cal’s voice. The man rarely showed emotion, and when he did, it was cold and tightly disciplined. He’d honestly never seen Cal like this. The man had a serious hard-on for killing Haddad.

Griffin knew how his boss felt. They were on exactly the same page.