But even so, this had been Xavier’s fear at that time, that the team would engage with tangos and assume they were actors. They’d expect the enemy to shoot paint pellets. His greatest fear had happened within the first fifteen minutes of the op.

He tugged at her hand, and she climbed onto the bed. She wrapped her arms around him as he let out a gut-wrenching sob.

She did the only thing she could and cried with him, deeply grieving three men she would never get to know.

Chapter Forty-One

They received word midmorning that two bodies—those of Odent and Mueller—had been recovered. The search for Hobbs remained ongoing.

Hours after that, the final update confirmed Xavier’s greatest fear. Hobbs had been found in the lake.

With all three men accounted for, the focus on the search for Mikhail and any remaining mercenaries continued. The estimates for the number of mercenaries ranged from George’s count that first night when he identified a dozen, up to eighteen, as claimed by one of the men captured, while the other two men said there had been only ten or eleven. Given that George had been accurate in everything else, it was clear the mercenaries gave unreliable information.

The number of dead mercenaries was easier to calculate. The body of the man Xavier had encountered on the cliffside trail had turned up in the lake. That had been the first kill. Then there was the one he’d killed by snapping his neck, two. George had shot one with a match gun and taken out two with the explosive on the fishing boat, three, four, five. Add to that the one who died in the mudslide—six—and the one who’d attacked Audrey—seven—and the two killed in the lodge firefight—eight and nine. They’d also recovered the body of the man the captured mercs had claimed Mikhail killed, for an even ten dead.

Three captured.

Mikhail was the only one they were certain had escaped, as none of the three detained mercenaries had a wound to the shoulder. A balaclava had been found in a puddle next to Lake Olympus Road near Jeb’s cabin. The mask would be tested for DNA, but after being soaked in mud, it was unlikely to yield actionable evidence.

The forest was searched by law enforcement from every walk of life—federal, state, city, military, park, and tribal—on the assumption that up to five mercenaries could remain, but no other trace was found of anyone in the days immediately following.

Audrey was sent home after a full day of debriefing, but Xavier had to stay on the base to go over again and again every detail of the planning for the training, as they searched for the pieces that would reveal the mole who’d compromised the exercise.