His heart ached thinking of Olivia and Carly and the severed finger that was now in his pocket. The zigzag pattern of the tattooed wedding band was a nod to Carly’s name: Carly Brown. She’d added Cohen to the end when she married Paul. When she realized Paul’s finger had been cut off because of his tattoo, she would lose it. Xavier wouldn’t tell her, but she was smart. She’d figure it out.

Where was Paul now? Was he bleeding out from that and other wounds? Was he a hostage?

Xavier had set up this training from beginning to end, selecting the lodge, planning the obstacles, even going so far as to undermine Audrey’s job to make it happen. Everything that went down in these woods was his fault.

A noise caught his attention. Barely discernible above the pounding rain, he’d heard a click—a mechanical sound unnatural in these woods. He grabbed Audrey’s hand and dropped, pulling her down with him. In the same moment, he pulled his flashlight—he didn’t dare use the gun in case it was a friendly—and directed the full white beam in the direction of the noise, uphill from them.

He caught a man wearing night vision goggles. The light would trigger the NVGs to bloom out—blanking the screen, giving Xavier a temporary advantage.

Xavier’s uniform had matte black infrared markers that glowed brightly through NVGs. Meant to signal friendlies with the SEALs, but in this situation, they would also identify him to the enemy. Lacking his own goggles, he didn’t know if this man was a SEAL or one of the unknown enemies.

The bullet that whizzed by answered that question. The rifle—probably another AK-47—had a suppressor, but Xavier caught the supersonic crack as it passed his head. Without a suppressor, it would have carried through the forest, alerting everyone with the distinctive sound of an AK.

No SEAL would take that shot before his night vision returned. And no SEAL would shoot upon seeing the friendly IR markers. Not to mention that the team didn’t have AKs with suppressors.

They’d walked right into the path of a tango.

“Stay flat on the ground,” he told Audrey as he flashed the light again, this time on strobe to disorient the sonofabitch. Then he took his own shot, wasting a precious bullet.

The loud bang echoed in the woods, audible above the rain.

He took her hand and pulled her downslope, crawling across the muddy ground. After they moved several feet, he fired another shot. Two bullets down. He couldn’t afford to shoot again unless a tango was directly in his sights.