Long enough for the suspect to move.
Long enough for everything afterward to become something I still woke up screaming about.
Selection was supposed to prove that hesitation was gone.
Instead, every crack of thunder brought Seattle back.
And I was hiding something else.
Three days earlier, an elbow during combat training had smashed into my right cheekbone.
Every blink sent white-hot pain through my face.
My shooting eye blurred at the edges.
I was almost certain the orbital bone was fractured.
If medical found out, my course ended immediately.
So I lied.
Memorized the vision chart.
Hid ibuprofen in my duffel.
Adjusted my shooting position.
Vance knew something was wrong.
He just didn’t know what.
“You’re weak!” he shouted as I reached the final stretch. “You’re going to get somebody killed!”
I tasted blood where my teeth cut my cheek.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Then I crawled beneath the last wire and stood.
Mud poured from my uniform.
Vance stared at me.
I stared back.
Neither of us spoke.
Three hours later, I was hidden on a rocky ledge two hundred yards above an abandoned logging cabin.
The final assessment.
The Live-Fire Stalk.
Infiltrate unseen.
