ChapterTen
Chris zoomed in the magnification on his NVGs. The tires on the SUV were flat, and those were definitely bullet holes piercing the gas tank. Rivera and Cohen had gone all out to make this exercise look and feel real. This didn’t look like a beater SUV given to the Navy to use as a prop. It looked like it was maybe two or three years old. No big dents indicating it had been in any sort of wreck.
Must be a lemon. Or seized by the feds. However it ended up here, it looked strangely authentic. Like this was some horror flick where a group of teens find themselves trapped in the woods with a chainsaw-wielding psychopath.
“You think Rivera planned this to be like one of those murder-mystery dinner-party things?” Jonas asked. “Like, we’re given clues and we have to solve some sort of puzzle?”
“If this was meant to be some sort of mental challenge, they could have saved a lot of money and just sent us to an escape room,” Phelps said. “No need for the fricking HALO jump and cold swim. Or being out in icy rain at all.”
It had taken them hours to traverse the forest, making their way slowly up and around the north end of the lake, skirting Kaxo Falls and crossing the creek upstream where the valley was narrow and the water ran fast and deep. Rain had pummeled them along the entire journey in an unrelenting downpour. Why couldn’t this rainforest be the sultry tropical kind?
Just his luck that when the Navy sent him to a rainforest, it was in the Pacific Northwest. In January.
This was rapidly becoming one of his least favorite places.
“I dunno, man. This shot-up vehicle… It doesn’t feel right,” Jonas said. “It doesn’t fit the scenario we were given on Whidbey.”
Jonas had a point. Their orders were to infiltrate the lodge and extract two hostages, one female, one male, no further description. It didn’t matter if they killed guards in the process. The only thing that mattered was getting in and out with the unharmed hostages without anyone sounding an alarm.
This wouldn’t be easy, as they would need extraction via Sea Hawk—which required time. They had to radio for the helicopter and wait for it to fly in from a ship off the coast. No word on whether or not they could expect a real Sea Hawk in this exercise, but Chris doubted it. It would be damned expensive to have a ship and helicopter staged off the Pacific coast for the entire five-day training.
The fact that this was a hostage rescue mission had Chris wondering at Rivera’s planning here. Few people knew what had really happened in Belarus on that horrible day twenty months ago.
But Chris knew, and he’d filled in the gaps in Rivera’s memory for the hours after he was shot.
Was this crazy training Rivera’s reaction to that nightmare? Was he running a simulation looking for a better outcome?
That really wasn’t possible. And Rivera wouldn’t waste Navy resources. Naval Special Warfare Command would never sign off on such a thing.
But still, one of the hostages was a woman.
What did this shot-up SUV have to do with the hostage scenario? They couldn’t take the hostage out by road, rendering the vehicle useless to them anyway. The mission commander had been specific on that point—exfiltration had to happen by air.
Chris snapped a photo of the license plate of the SUV. Could be important for the test. A clue for the murder-party game.
A gunshot sounded. Distant, but close enough to be heard over the pounding rain.
What the hell? The shot had sounded real.
His gaze returned to the bullet holes in the gas tank. No one—not even the trainers—had real guns with real bullets on this exercise. That was the National Park Service’s first stipulation, and the Navy had agreed. It was standard practice for all trainings in Washington state parks as well.
And it couldn’t have been a hunter’s rifle. Hunting wasn’t allowed in Olympic National Park, and they were miles from state forest or Department of Natural Resources lands.
“That wasn’t Simunition,” Huang confirmed in a whisper. “Who the hell is firing real bullets out here?”
They retreated deeper into the woods. They needed better cover if they were going to figure out what Rivera and Cohen had cooked up to FUBAR this operation.
Xavier managed to pop his shoulder into place before doubling back toward the cabin. The joint throbbed, but training kicked in, and he focused on his next step and every sound in the stormy forest. Nothing would stop him from getting back to Audrey.
Even though he’d taken a circuitous route, it went a lot faster with night vision. He’d almost reached his goal when he saw the first sign that someone else had cut through these woods. Footprints in the soft mud—fresh given the amount of rain filling the treads. In another two minutes, the prints would dissolve altogether.
SEALs knew better than to leave prints, even ephemeral ones. These prints made an unmistakable statement: two mercs were headed straight for the Jamison cabin.
The urge to run and storm the place was difficult to fight, but exposing himself before he knew the situation would only put her in more danger.
He moved through the woods like a wraith until he met the blackberries they’d cut through earlier. He parted the thick, thorny vines with gloved hands and worked his way forward until he could just see through the last layer of vegetation. The west wall of the cabin was ten feet away. This was the wood-chopping area, with a sturdy lean-to that covered a cord of wood stacked high. A bolt rested like a table in the middle of the three-walled shelter, ready for the next round of splitting.
A few feet from the lean-to was a woodbox at the side of the cabin. With plenty of wood stored in the sloped-roof shelter, why did they need a woodbox?