Page 6

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely.” Tanner grinned. “Maybe it’s over. Yes. I bet it is. Blake’s gonna return me to full duty.”

“I hope so, but you don’t really know. I mean, he said to report to him ASAP, but—”

“Forget the but’s, Olivieri. I’m on my way back to duty. I know I am.”

Tanner’s smile turned into a grin. He held up his hand. Chay hesitated, then high-fived him. Then Tanner swung away from the ocean and ran towards the STUD compound.

CHAPTER TWO

The compound sprawled over a forty acre stretch of what would have been prime Southern California real estate, but the land Camp Condor sat on was untouchable, a gift donated by a patriotic billionaire who also just happened to be a former STUD. His massive beach house, all glass and stone set on a low rise, was now the admin and classroom building.

There was no class in residence, so the place was quiet. If there’d been a class going through its sixteen-week training session, men would have been sweating hard and generally working their asses off.

Downtime was rare for STUD newbies.

Tanner remembered what his four months here had been like.

The weeks he’d put in at Condor had been as tough as any he’d lived through during BUD/S at Coronado. Tougher, maybe, because at BUD/S, you were working your tail off to prove yourself worthy of becoming a SEAL. Here, you were already part of the best-specialized ops force in the world, which meant the obstacles you had to overcome to become a STUD were even more difficult.

There were some guys on campus, a handful rehabbing the way he was, others taking advanced courses in everything from Arabic to esoteric forms of close-quarter combat with poetic names that suggested ancient Asian lineage. After Tanner had been schooled in several of those methods, he’d decided the fanciful names were meant to distract you from the reality of being taught how to put your opponent down, up close and permanent.

He greeted a couple of people, but he kept moving.

Blake was about to return him to the land of the living.

Why else would he want to see him?

Tanner ran up the four steps of the admin building, paused on the porch just long enough to tuck his socks in his pockets and jam his bare feet into his boots, then opened the front door on a foyer that probably still looked pretty much the way it had when the place had been its billionaire donor’s weekend retreat. Italian tile floors, high ceilings, chandeliers that would have looked right at home in Versailles.

The captain’s offices were to the right, the classrooms to the left.

Tanner’s first morning here, Blake had shown up to welcome them. They’d been a small group, twenty hard-bodied, hard-eyed men exchanging wary glances. A couple of guys knew each other. Tanner and Chay, for example.

They’d all jumped to their feet when Blake entered the room.

He’d waved them back into their seats.

“We don’t stand on formalities here, gentlemen,” he’d said. “We’re equals, no matter what our rank.” Then he’d grinned. “Except, of course, for me.” They’d all laughed and relaxed a little, which Tanner figured had been the point of the mild joke. Then Blake had turned serious. “Welcome to the Special Tactical Units Division of your country’s armed services. In other words, STUD—and yes, that’s one hell of an acronym. It’s also accurate. A stud, according to the dictionary, is a rivet. It provides strength and purpose to the whole. It is also a term for a stallion, and stallions are known for having courage as well as heart. We will expect you to have it all, gentlemen. Strength. Purpose. Devotion. Courage. And, perhaps most of all, heart. Show us those qualities and we will welcome you into the toughest, smartest fighting force in the world. Show us you lack even one of those things and you’re gone. Coming in second best here is not an option. Clear?”

The oldest recruit among them, a SEAL who was ancient at the age of thirty, had jumped to his feet.

“Clear, sir,” he’d said.

They’d all shot to their feet, barking out “Clear,” but Blake had held up his hand.

“You’re not loud enough, gentlemen. I want to hear a decisive answer.”

“Clear, sir,” The men had roared, and Blake had grinned and dismissed them.

And Tanner was now about to give that response to the order he’d been waiting for. Are you ready to return to your unit, Akecheta? Blake would say, and Tanner would salute, smile and bark out the word that was already on the tip of his tongue.

Was he ready? Man, was he ever. He could hardly wait.

Tanner strode down the marble-floored hallway toward his captain’s office. This time next week, he and his unit would be in—well, in a place where American forces were not supposed to be, but they’d been in lots of places where American forces weren’t supposed to be.

Not officially, anyway.