ONE
FLINT
The California sunbeats down on the Guardian HRS facility with the kind of intensity that makes asphalt shimmer and metal burn to the touch. I'm halfway across the compound, heading back from the range with cordite still sharp in my nostrils and the weight of my Glock familiar against my ribs, when my phone buzzes.
CJ's name on the screen. No message, just the summons I've learned to recognize after three years with Guardian HRS. Drop everything, come now, someone needs saving.
The paracord bracelet on my left wrist catches on my sleeve as I change direction, the worn green-and-tan weave rough under my fingers. I don't adjust it. Haven't taken it off in two years, not since the day I pulled it from the rubble in Kandahar and made promises to a dead man I couldn't keep. The weight of it reminds me what hesitation costs, what failure looks like when you're thirty seconds too late and the building's already come down.
I push through the main building's door into air conditioning that feels like a wall of ice after the heat outside. My boots are quiet on the polished concrete floors, the place designed with thekind of money that doesn't advertise itself but shows in every detail. Guardian HRS isn't flashy. We don't need to be. The people who need us know where to find us, and the people who should fear us learn quickly enough.
CJ's office is at the end of the north corridor, door half-open the way it always is when he's expecting someone. I knock anyway, two sharp raps, and push inside without waiting for an answer. He's at his desk, phone pressed to his ear, but he waves me in and points at the chair across from him. I take it, stretching my legs out and cataloging details while he finishes his conversation. There's a tablet on his desk displaying what looks like a bomb schematic, a physical file folder thick with papers, and two coffee cups that tell me he's been at this for a while. His jaw is tight, the muscle jumping in that way that means the situation is bad and getting worse.
He ends the call and tosses the phone onto his desk with enough force that it skitters across the surface. I wait. CJ doesn't waste time on small talk when something's burning, and whatever this is, it's definitely on fire.
"How fast can you get into the backcountry?" His eyes are sharp on mine, assessing. "Full pack, tracking scenario, rough terrain."
"Depends on the terrain. Give me six hours on anything in California." I lean forward, forearms on my knees. "What am I tracking?"
He slides the tablet across the desk toward me, and I catch it one-handed. The screen shows a personnel file, military record, and a photo that makes my breath catch for half a second before I lock it down.
The woman staring back at me has dark hair pulled into a braid, sharp hazel eyes that look like they don't miss much, and the kind of face that's more striking than pretty—strong jaw, straight nose, mouth that could smile or snarl with equal ease.
But it's something beyond the physical features that catches my eye, something in her expression that comes through even in a two-dimensional image.
Confidence. Intelligence.
A quiet strength that says she's been tested and didn't break.
Her eyes lock on mine, and everything in my body goes still—that recognition between predators, between survivors, between people who've walked through hell and come out breathing. She's beautiful in a way that hits me low and unexpected, dangerous in a way that makes my pulse kick up for reasons that have nothing to do with the mission.
I force myself to breathe, to catalog the response even as I shut it down.
This is a mission.
She's an asset who needs extraction and protection, not someone I should be noticing with this kind of intensity.
But my eyes keep returning to her face, to those hazel eyes that seem to look directly through the camera lens, and I'm aware of something shifting in my chest—recognition, maybe, or the beginning of something I don't have time to examine.
"Carolina Sutton," CJ says, and I drag my attention from her face to the text beside it. "Goes by Caro. Former Army EOD instructor, Fort Lee. Specialized in advanced trigger systems and counter-IED tactics. Honorably discharged three years ago after a training incident that killed one of her students."
I scan the details, absorbing them the way I've learned to process intel quickly and file it for later. She's thirty-two, grew up in Georgia, enlisted at eighteen, and went EOD after her first tour. Fast-tracked through instructor certification, earned commendations for innovation in device detection and disarmament.
Then the incident—a training exercise gone wrong, a student named Marcus Greer who got cocky and made a mistake thatcost another soldier his life. The official investigation cleared her of wrongdoing, but reading between the lines of the report, I can see she didn't clear herself.
"She's been off the grid for nine days," CJ continues. "Works as a wilderness guide for a company based out of Santa Barbara, takes groups into Los Padres. Her boss says she requested personal time and went solo into the backcountry. He doesn't know exactly where, just that she does this every year around this time."
"Anniversary of the training death," I say, connecting the dots. The date in the file matches up. She's out there processing, punishing herself with isolation the way some people do when guilt won't let them rest. I know the impulse. I've been wearing it on my wrist for two years.
"Yeah." CJ pulls the tablet back and swipes to a different file. "Here's why we need her. Forty-eight hours ago, the FBI arrested Marcus Greer—the same student from her training incident—attempting to place an explosive device at a water treatment facility outside Los Angeles. They disarmed it, started interrogating him, and he gave them just enough to realize he's got more devices out there. Plural. One already detonated at a remote electrical substation yesterday morning. Minimal casualties, but it's escalating."
My jaw tightens. "He's targeting infrastructure."
"That's what the FBI thinks, but it's worse than that." CJ's expression goes even grimmer. "The devices use a trigger system Sutton designed. Highly sophisticated, adaptive, and nearly impossible to disarm using standard protocols. FBI's best techs are stumped. They brought in ATF, consulted with Army EOD, and everyone keeps coming back to the same conclusion—they need the person who invented it."
"And Greer's talking in riddles," I guess, because that's how these things always go. The bomber who wants an audience, who has a point to prove.
"Exactly. He's dropping hints about the next device, but only someone who knows him personally would recognize the references. The FBI thinks this is personal for him. He's not just attacking infrastructure—he's attacking her." CJ meets my eyes. "They think he's trying to draw her out, make her face what her design can do in the wrong hands. Prove she was always dangerous."
