He studied the darkened yurt. Everything looked as it should. It was bathed in darkness, no lights to give the SEALs anything to fix on to. They were in full blackout mode for this op.

He circled the structure to the daylight basement door on the side. A few feet from the door, a large power meter was affixed to the exterior. The darkened shape was all wrong, however, and it took a moment for his eyes to register what the dark lump over the meter could be.

Next to him, Audrey let out a sharp gasp, then slapped a hand over her mouth.

He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her deeper into the cover of the woods. He acted on autopilot as his brain reeled. Only one action made sense in the moment: get Audrey to safety.

Once she was safe, he’d check the body that was slumped over the power meter.

Chapter Five

Lieutenant Chris Flyte needed to get his shit together. He took several deep breaths. There was no room for distraction here.

The sadistic trainers who’d come up with this exercise deserved a special place in hell. HALO jumps were risky enough, but executing them right before a storm, with their target being a thirty-five-degree lake, was a special treat.

No way was this a “generic” training as laid out by command. HALO jumps usually weren’t even allowed in this area, but they’d gotten special permission for this one exercise. They were practicing for a specific op that required a frigid lake HALO jump right before a storm.

And damn, but he couldn’t think of any mission that was worth that risk. Bin Laden had been dead for over a decade.

He stood in the open back of the plane and checked his gear with the rest of the team. Oxygen mask secured. Gear he’d need for the next five days packed in a heavy, watertight pack. Every inch of his skin was covered—protection from the balls of ice he’d meet when he dropped through the cloud layer that was between the plane and Lake Olympus.

As he went through the vital, lifesaving checklist, he also tried to box away Pam’s betrayal to a dark corner of his mind. He couldn’t afford to give her any of his headspace until after the training was behind him.

He should have withdrawn from this exercise, but that wasn’t exactly an option. He’d only learned his wife was having an affair two days ago and had zero time to process the utter destruction of his life before flying north to Whidbey.

For the last forty-eight hours, he’d been on autopilot, doing his job and trying not to think about the end of his eight-year marriage. And now here he was, ready to jump from twenty thousand feet into a frigid lake, all to rescue a fake hostage.

The only easy day was yesterday.