Chapter Two
Zodiac’s close-quarters battle training facility was a maze of plywood walls and doorframes that got rebuilt every few weeks so nobody got comfortable with the layout. Today’s CQB configuration was tight. Narrow hallways, blind corners, rooms that opened into each other through shared walls. The kind of setup designed to punish hesitation and reward speed.
Isaac was already inside.
The first threat was waiting around the corner. He knew it was there before he saw it. The geometry of the room demanded it. He came through low, weapon up, and put two rounds center mass into the rubber-coated dummy before his next breath. The reactive target rocked backward on its base and reset itself, already waiting for the next shooter.
He was already moving. Narrow corridor, blind left turn, the kind of hallway where hesitation got you killed. He didn’t hesitate. Cleared the turn, swept the next room, found the second dummy against the back wall. Two more rounds. Clean.
Ian was running the course with him, taking the left side while Isaac took the right. They’d done these enough times that the communication was shorthand. Ian’s voice came through his earpiece. “Left clear.”
Ian’s side was done. Isaac swept right. The last room was the worst kind of problem. A half-wall blocked his sight line, which meant he had to step fully through the doorway and commit to the space before he could see what was in it. No partial entry, no slicing the angle from the threshold. All or nothing.
He went all.
The threat was tucked tight against the wall at an angle that punished anyone who came through the door expecting center-room placement. Isaac adjusted, fired twice, and held his position until the silence confirmed he was done.
“Time,” Ian called.
Isaac lowered his weapon. His pulse was running hard, his breathing steady. Sweat traced a line from his temple to his jaw. Every nerve ending was still lit up, still scanning for the next corner, the next decision. His whole body was tuned to a frequency that had nothing to do with the plywood walls and reactive targets around him and everything to do with the part of his brain that didn’t care about the difference between training and the real thing.
He didn’t want it to care. He wanted to run it again. Despite having run it twice already today.
He walked back through the course to the staging area where Ian and Ryder Sutton, who’d come onboard with Zodiac about eighteen months ago, were already reviewing the timer. Ryder had his arms crossed, head tilted, studying the numbers with the expression of a man looking for something to argue about.
“Four seconds off your best,” Ryder said, like he was delivering bad news at a funeral.
Isaac waited a beat. “And two seconds off yours. So?”
“So I’m still faster.”
“On an easier lane.”
“Oh, it’s the lane’s fault now.” Ryder looked at Ian. “You hear this, boss?The lane was easier. The plywood was nicer to him.The targets liked him more. So much boo-hooing I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“Both lanes are the same difficulty,” Ian said without looking up from his clipboard.
Ryder spread his hands. “There you go. Same difficulty. I was just faster.”
Isaac rotated his shoulders. “Run my lane next round. We’ll see.”
“Can’t wait.”
Ian made a mark on the clipboard he still insisted on using despite the fact that every other person at Zodiac had moved to tablets years ago. “Both of you are fucking slow. Reset for round two. Isaac, you’re on Ryder’s lane. Ryder, take Isaac’s.”
“Happy to prove my point,” Ryder smirked.
“Happy to watch you try,” Isaac said. He liked Ryder, he really did. But he’d be happy to beat the pants off the other man.
Ian rolled his eyes. “Less talk, more both of you moving your asses.”
They swapped positions. Two other guys from the team, Micah Reeves and Burke Navarro, were already resetting the targets and adjusting the moveable walls for the next configuration. The course was never the same. You didn’t get to memorize your way through a real building you’d never accessed, and you didn’t get to memorize your way through this one.
Isaac checked his magazine, reloaded, and settled into the ready position at the starting mark. He rolled his shoulders and let everything else fall away.
The buzzer sounded. He moved.
Ryder’s lane was tighter. The first corridor doglegged left, then immediately right, forcing a transition between shooting hand and support hand if he wanted clean angles. Isaac made the switch without slowing. Two rounds on the move, thenthrough the door into a room where the second target was mounted high and to the left, mimicking someone on a staircase.
