Page 26

“Copy that, Zorro. End-ex, end-ex.”

Zorro reached up. Unclipped the stopwatch from its anchor.

Click.

Joker’s voice echoed in the room from above, flat.

Cold. Controlled. “Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles could’ve done that faster and cleaner.

” Judgmental silence. “Slow on approach. Slow clearing the hallway. Too. Fucking. Slow.” Joker leaned on the railing.

“D-Day on point. Let’s try to channel dangerous bunnies. Move.”

“Yes, sir. We’re on it,” Buck answered, too fast, too loud. Like he was trying to fill the silence before it cracked.

The hallway stretched long and hot.

Boots echoed.

D-Day muttered under his breath. Just enough for Zorro to hear, “What the fuck was that, Martinez?”

Zorro’s jaw tightened. The heat inside and out felt like a blast furnace. “Like you’re perfect, Nolan. Stop crowding my back.”

“Cut the fucking chatter,” Joker barked from the catwalk. “Stack. Goddamn it.”

“First run we’re working out the kinks,” Professor said from the back.

Zorro wasn’t so sure. They didn’t have kinks. Not at this level. He was going to chalk that up to a misjudgment in angle. “I might need a geometry lesson, Milo.”

Professor chuckled.

“Go,” Joker ordered.

They surged forward, and they did the same drill. But their rhythm was off, a stumble at the rear, a moment too slow when clearing a corner.

“Sloppy and slow.” Joker growled. “Run it again.”

They ran it again and again and again. Then with NVGs. Darkness cloaked the hallway like a second skin. Every sound doubled, tripled. Every boot scuff became a shout.

Zorro moved on reflex. Breathing. Shooting. Breaching.

But he was still off. Just a breath. One silhouette surged, and he double-tapped. Both rounds missed.

“Restack,” Joker said through clenched teeth.

There were shoving, arguments, and finger-pointing once out of Joker’s earshot. Low, menacing taunts, insults. As the morning progressed and the heat surged, tempers flared into the red, teamwork broke down, a brotherhood fracturing .

They rotated point, Zorro, D-Day, Buck, Blitz, Professor. Zorro lost count, now nothing but misery.

D-Day wrestled a mock-opponent to the ground, grunting, “Where’s your fucking off switch, LT? I swear, I’m gonna frag this whole building.”

From the end of the corridor, Joker’s voice drifted, bone dry. “Do it clean and I’ll sign the paperwork.” Zorro’s breath caught. Joker wasn’t mad. He was disappointed. That was worse.

“Five-minute break.” Joker barked. “Hydrate and get your shit together.”

Zorro leaned against the wall, sucking air, sweat pooling along his collarbone. Buck dropped beside him.

“This is fucking humiliating,” Buck panted, “What the fuck is wrong with all of us?”

“I don’t know,” Zorro wheezed. “I wish Bear was here.”

“I’m not sure even he could help,” Buck muttered.

“I hate you all,” D-Day amended, flopping against the opposite wall.

Professor appeared from the shadows like some pale-eyed ghost, notebook in hand. “You all sound like you’re dying.”

Zorro grimaced through his sweat. “Give it to us straight, Professor. Are we going to survive Joker’s private hellscape?”

Professor looked up, all quiet menace. “Statistically? One of you is going to cry.”

Buck wiped his forehead. “That’s gonna be Blitz. He stubbed his toe earlier and swore like his soul was leaving his body.”

“I heard that, asshole,” Blitz called faintly from down the hall. “I hope your next room has bees.”

Zorro’s laughter cut sharp through the heavy air. He stared at the peeling wall across from him, chest heaving. His vision narrowed to sweat drops on cracked tile. He could feel his pulse in his teeth.

Then Joker’s voice cut through. “One more run.”

Groans echoed like thunder.

But they moved.

Zorro pivoted left, cleared his corner, muzzle tracking. He was still too slow. He told himself it was fatigue, but he knew better. He was off.

He couldn’t shake the vision of Everly, distressed, crying, alone and dealing with something that had caused her to go silent. It was eating him alive.

Twenty seconds later, they flooded the room like a wave of wolves, Zorro low and fast, D-Day tight on his six. Buck peeled right, Blitz slid left. Tangos in the corners.

“Clear,” D-Day snapped, glaring at him. He grabbed him by the vest strap. “If you fuck up one more time!”

“Me? Everyone is fucking up,” Zorro ground out, his breath loud in his ears, sweat cutting a clean line down his temple, his plates already hot as hell against his spine.

Above them, Captain Rafael Leite stood with his arms folded, watching the American SEALs tear through each other, his eyes shuttered. His uniform stuck to his back. His face, however, remained unreadable.

“Run it again. I can do this all day,” Joker said.

They moved. Same hallway. Same angles. But now D-Day took point.

He dropped a flashbang at the threshold. The hiss-crack-bang rattled Zorro’s sternum, but he moved on reflex.

They surged in. D-Day was supposed to go right. First guy always went right. Zorro went left. Or tried to.

Too late.

They collided hard. Zorro’s rifle jammed against D-Day’s side. D-Day stumbled into his arc. The stack shattered . His finger was on the trigger. Standard grip.

The jolt forced the pad of his index finger down. Crack! Sick realization twisted his gut. The blank discharged, deafening in the tight room. Echoing off the walls like a real shot.

D-Day flinched. Blitz swore from behind. Even the BOPE operators above tensed.

Zorro recovered fast but the damage was done.

A flash of movement in Zorro’s peripheral. Two fast, helmeted tangos took advantage immediately.

They slammed forward, pinning both of them against the wall. Rifles trapped. Arms locked.

Muscle memory kicked in.

Zorro twisted, jammed his elbow into the mock tango’s chest with brute force, knocking the man off balance.

D-Day lashed out, knee, elbow, fist, fast.

Zorro ducked a savage right hook, felt the pressure snap past his cheekbone.

It was controlled chaos. Barely.

It should never have happened.

Breathing hard at the savage attack, Zorro used the stock of his rifle to clip the side of the tango’s helmet, knocking him away. When he was clear, he pulled his sidearm and blasted out several shots.

Then he turned to D-Day, who was up against the wall, his throat in the man’s grip.

Zorro slammed the butt of the rifle this time into the back of the man’s head.

He released D-Day and Zorro jumped on him.

He lost focus, lost his fucking mind. He’d discharged a weapon on his teammate.

He was the medic . The safeguard, and he might’ve just fucking shot his brother.

He pummeled the guy, his fists flying, his fury unchecked, his vision tunneled.

D-Day and Blitz pulled him off. He fought them.

Suddenly, Joker was there in the room. “All of you to the command center and sit your asses down until I tell you to move. Hydrate. Goddamn spectacle. We’re going to have a chat once everyone has cooled down. Move your asses now!”

The five of them entered the command center, chugging water. The BOPE guys were there, sympathy on their faces. The air conditioning felt so good, it made Zorro shiver, but it couldn’t cool the fire of shame in him.

“Hey, guys,” Migs said. “Everyone has a bad day.”

Joker walked in. “But when SEALs have a bad day, someone dies.”

Zorro’s gut twisted, and he looked over at D-day. The guilt was written all over his face. “It was my fault. I went the wrong way. Z isn’t to blame.” Suddenly everyone was talking at once and all four of them were taking all the blame and protecting him, covering for him.

Zorro looked at Joker. He was watching again, only this time, there was a sparkle in his eye.

Zorro sat up straighter. This wasn’t about chain of command.

It wasn’t about a reprimand, or even the Navy.

This was Joker, the man , teaching a lesson about loyalty the only way he knew how through fire and friction.

That only made Zorro angrier. He didn’t want to think.

Didn’t want to reflect. He just wanted to burn clean in what Everly had stirred in him.

Joker had a different view, and Zorro knew damn well they had just experienced the equivalent of log PT by a master tactician.

“You did that on purpose. You pushed us so hard we would break.”

“I just lit the fuse that was stuck in the dynamite after that run. Now the four of you can’t stop covering for Zorro. That’s what is embedded in you. The brotherhood. I just showed it to you.”

Captain Leite looked at Joker. “Ah, my friend, a true leader on and off the battlefield.”

Joker said nothing. Just watched his men, eyes steady, his silence speaking volumes.

Pride was carved into every line of his face.

Leite turned back to the BOPE operators, his voice steady.

“We’ve learned the lesson as well. Team over ego.

Rhythm over resentment. Silent correction over spoken reprimand.

” He looked at Joker again, this time not as a visiting peer but as a fellow warrior.

“We are honored by your SEAL doctrine. By you, as a leader. By your men…as the embodiment of what special forces truly means.”

Across the crowd of BOPE operators, murmurs rose. Nods passed from man to man. A few reached out with quiet shoulder squeezes and shared understanding.

Not for what the SEALs had done. But for what they were .

Men who put on their tactical black, stood shoulder to shoulder, and moved not for glory, not for medals, but for each other . For the hearts that all beat as one warrior.

“Okay, that’s enough schoolhouse rock,” Joker bit out in full LT voice. “Let’s get back at it, and this time, let’s fucking teach these guys how to do a kill-house right.”

“Hoo-yah!”

A sweltering hour later, the SEALs moved like ghosts, fast, brutal, efficient. Beside Zorro, Migs leaned against the wall, arms loose but eyes tight. His jaw twitched with every flash, every shout, every door slammed open.