“Sounds like a local,” Chief Petty Officer Williams said. “NSWC said they hadn’t employed any actors to play hostages in this exercise. We were assured there wouldn’t be any civilians in the vicinity.”

“That’s our assumption too,” Mock, the leader of the Fire Team that found the body, said. “Given the situation, we entered the yurt. The smashed electronics inside indicated it was the command center for the trainers. There was a lot of blood on one table, but otherwise, no evidence of the training team.”

Blood in the command center.

Rivera? Cohen? Both?

Chris knew Cohen, but not as well as he knew Rivera. But then, he and Rivera had been longtime teammates and good friends before they shared the worst day of their lives.

Rivera was the only other person on their four-man Fire Team who’d lived to share the memory. Was he gone now too?

No. No. Dammit all to hell. Fuck no.

After an hour passed with no sign of the last Fire Team, led by Commander Odent, another terrifying truth sank in: they were missing an entire Fire Team.

Six missing trainers. Four missing SEALs.

With resignation, Chris took control. Without Odent, he was the ranking officer and in command of the mission. “Mock, I want your team on reconnaissance. We have more than two hours left before daylight, and we need to know if everyone is being held in the lodge, or if the prisoners have been divided amongst the buildings in the lodge complex. We need a count of how many tangos we’re dealing with.” He turned to Williams. “I want your team to check out the inholding cabins closest to the yurt. Power and phones are down but the inholdings will have generators and fuel. We can use the fuel for improvised weapons. The cabins could have guns and ammo. We’ve got two dead bodies—one of whom is probably a resident of the area—and we’re missing six trainers and four SEALs. We’ll do whatever it takes to rescue our team, even if it means breaking and entering areas that were restricted from the training.”

Everyone nodded.

“It’s possible there could be more locals hiding in their cabins,” he added. “Be on the lookout for civilians and mercs.”

“Maybe the blood inside the yurt was another local, like the one outside,” someone suggested.

Was it wrong for Chris to hope that was the case?

Rivera lying in that hospital bed was far too fresh in his mind. Could the blood in the yurt be his?

He remembered Rivera’s steely calm when he woke in the hospital—he’d finally returned stateside after surgery in the US military’s hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. In Germany, he’d been delirious and asking for Lynn. But when he woke up in San Diego at last, Chris had been the one to tell him Lynn had been and gone while he was sleeping.