SILENT WATER: THE BREAKING POINT

PART 1: THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE

 

The sound of a human bone snapping is distinct. It is not like the crack of a dry branch under a boot, nor is it like the hollow pop of a knuckle. It is wet, dull, and catastrophic. It is a sound that vibrates through the teeth of anyone standing close enough to hear it.

And in the combat pit of Coronado, surrounded by three hundred silent Navy SEALs, everyone heard it.

But before the sound, there was the silence. And before the silence, there was the heat. And before the heat, there were the ghosts of three dead boys who never made it home.

My name is Rivers Galloway. At least, that is what the nametape on my chest says. That is what the roster on Chief Harlo’s clipboard says. To the forty-seven men suffering alongside me in the surf and the sand, I am just the “girl from Logistics.” I am the diversity quota. I am the quiet, unremarkable recruit who counts inventory and shuffles paper.

They do not know that “Rivers Galloway” is a construct. They do not know that my hands, currently trembling with feigned exhaustion, have dismantled weapons in the dark in Jordan, stabilized gunshot wounds in a helicopter over Colombia, and silenced sentries in places that do not exist on any public map.

They do not know that I am not here to pass their training. I am here to hunt a predator.

ELEVEN WEEKS EARLIER

The Pacific Ocean at 0400 hours is not water; it is liquid ice designed to strip the soul out of a body.

We hit the surf in darkness. Forty-seven bodies, locking arms, shivering so violently that the vibration traveled down the line like a current. The instructors screamed through bullhorns, their voices distorting over the crash of the waves.

“Get wet! Get sandy! Nobody quits until the sun comes up!”

I stood in the middle of the formation. Being in the middle is an art form. If you are in the front, you are eager; you draw the eye of the instructor looking to break a hero. If you are in the back, you are weak; you draw the eye of the shark looking to cull the herd. But the middle? The middle is gray. The middle is invisible.

I let my shoulders slump just enough. I timed my breathing to appear ragged, shallow. I let the cold water induce a shiver that looked uncontrollable, even though my core temperature was regulated, my mind perfectly clear.

Beside me, a kid named Lumis was hyperventilating. He was tall, gangly, all elbows and knees, with the kind of innocent face that usually doesn’t last a week in places like this.

“Breathe,” I whispered, barely moving my lips. “In through the nose. Hold for three. Out.”

Lumis looked at me, eyes wide and terrified, salt water dripping from his lashes. He nodded, trying to find the rhythm.

“What did you say, Galloway?”

The voice boomed from the ridge above us. Chief Harlo. He was a good man, hard as granite, but he was watching me. He had been watching me since day one. He didn’t know who I really was—only Admiral Cross and a few high-ranking spooks knew the truth—but Harlo had instincts. He knew something about my geometry didn’t fit the physics of a rookie.

“Nothing, Chief,” I shouted back, adding a crack of desperation to my voice. “Just trying to stay warm.”

Harlo lowered his binoculars, lingering on me for a second too long, before turning his gaze to the far end of the line.

That was where he stood.

Krennic. They called him “Bulldog.”

Even in the freezing surf, Krennic looked comfortable. He was built like a tank turret, thick-necked and heavy-browed, with eyes that possessed a flat, reptilian shine. He wasn’t shivering. He was grinning. He was surrounded by his sycophants—Vetch, Durl, a few others who mistook cruelty for strength.

I watched Krennic shove a smaller recruit, a guy named Pulk, deeper into the water. It was subtle, disguised as a stumble, but I saw the mechanics of it. The shift of weight, the deliberate drive of the shoulder.

Pulk went under, sputtering. Krennic laughed.

I cataloged the movement. Aggression level: 4. Target selection: Opportunistic. Witness presence: Disregarded.

I wasn’t here to stop him. Not yet. I was here to build a file. I was here because three months ago, a trainee named Marcus Yeldren died of “cardiac arrest” caused by dehydration. Two weeks later, Jamal Okoro fell from a cliff when his rappel gear “failed.” A month after that, Ethan Paredites drowned during a night swim.

Three accidents. No witnesses. But the pattern was there, written in the autopsy reports I had memorized before I ever set foot in California. All three dead men had been outcasts. All three had been targeted by a specific group of peers. All three had complaints filed against Krennic that had vanished from the system.

I wasn’t here to be a SEAL. I was here to be the reckoning.

THE MESS HALL: WEEK 4

The smell of the mess hall was a unique cocktail of industrial bleach, reheated carbohydrates, and desperate testosterone. We had twelve minutes to consume four thousand calories.

I sat at the far end of a metal table, alone. Isolation was part of the cover. Logistics specialists are boring. They don’t have war stories. They don’t have charisma. They eat their rice, stare at the wall, and fade away.

I ate methodically. Chew fifteen times. Swallow. Hydrate. My eyes were unfocused, staring at nothing, but my peripheral vision was capturing everything in high definition.

I saw Vetch smuggling an extra bread roll. I saw Lumis rubbing a stress fracture in his shin, trying to hide the wince. And I saw Bulldog holding court three tables away.

“Hey! Ghost!”

The voice carried over the clatter of trays. Krennic.

I didn’t turn immediately. A civilian would turn. A predator waits to see if the threat is genuine. I counted to two, then looked up slowly, blinking as if pulled from a daydream.

“Yeah?” I said.

Bulldog smirked. He was leaning back in his chair, taking up enough space for two men. “Vetch says you used to be a paper pusher. That true? Inventory management?”

The table went quiet. This was the game. Find the weak link. Poke it. See if it snaps.

“Logistics,” I corrected softly. “Supply chain optimization.”

Krennic laughed, a harsh, barking sound. He slapped Vetch on the back. “You hear that? Supply chain. We got a girl here who knows how to count bullets, but she’s gonna cry the first time she has to catch one.”

“Better than counting bodies,” I thought. But I said nothing. I just looked down at my tray.

“What’s the matter, Galloway?” Krennic stood up, walking toward me. He moved with the heavy, rolling gait of someone who owns the room. He stopped right behind my chair. I could smell him—stale sweat and aggression. “Cat got your tongue? Or are you just realizing you don’t belong here?”

He leaned down, his mouth close to my ear. “Diversity quota,” he whispered. “That’s all you are. Admiral’s pet project. You won’t last past Hell Week. And if the ocean doesn’t take you… maybe something else will.”

It was a threat. Thinly veiled, but a threat.

My pulse did not elevate. My hand did not tighten around my fork. In my mind, I was already running the simulation. Strike to the throat, collapse the trachea. Knee to the solar plexus. Drive the fork into the subclavian artery. Duration: 3 seconds. Outcome: Fatal.

But the mission was surveillance. The mission was evidence.

So I did the hardest thing I have ever done in my career. I shrank. I hunched my shoulders. I let my eyes dart away, submissive and fearful.

“I’m just trying to eat,” I mumbled.

Krennic chuckled darkly. “Pathetic.”

He shoved my chair as he walked away, jarring me forward. I didn’t push back. I watched him go. I watched the way his crew looked at him—with fear and awe. I watched the way Lumis looked at me—with pity.

Enjoy it, Krennic, I thought, taking another bite of rice. Add it to the tab. The bill is coming due.

THE CLIFFS: WEEK 7

Sleep is a currency in BUD/S, and we were all bankrupt. But I didn’t sleep.

At 0200, when the barracks were filled with the snoring and whimpering of broken men, I slipped out. I moved through the shadows of the compound like smoke. The sentries were bored, looking outward, not inward.

I made my way to the cliffs overlooking the training beach. This was my sanctuary. This was the only place I could take off the mask.

I stood on the edge of the rock, the Pacific crashing sixty feet below. I closed my eyes and dropped the “Rivers Galloway” persona. My posture straightened. My muscles uncoiled.

I moved through the Kata—a sequence of strikes and blocks from a system that doesn’t have a name, taught to me by a man in Tel Aviv who had no fingerprints.

Snap. Pivot. Strike. Recoil.

My movements were sharp, cutting the air. I wasn’t just exercising; I was recalibrating. I was reminding my body that it was a weapon, not a punching bag.

I finished the sequence breathing easily, the salt air filling my lungs. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small, black notebook.

I clicked my penlight on, shielding the beam with my hand.

Entry: Day 49. Subject: Krennic, J. Observation: Escalation confirmed. Target shift from Pulk to Lumis. Incident: Obstacle course, 1400 hours. Krennic “accidentally” kicked loose a support on the cargo net while Lumis was climbing. Lumis fell 10 feet. Minor contusions. Assessment: Testing boundaries. Next attempt will be higher. More dangerous.

I looked at the words. They were clinical, but the rage behind them was hot. Lumis was a good kid. He wanted to serve his country. He didn’t know he was swimming in a tank with a shark.

I flipped back a few pages to the entry about the dead boys. Yeldren. Okoro. Paredites.

“I see you,” I whispered to the ocean. “I’m watching him.”

I tucked the notebook away. I had enough evidence for a court-martial, maybe. But Krennic was slippery. He had alibis. He had fear on his side. If I went to the command now, it would be his word against the weird girl from Logistics. He would walk. He would get recycled into another class, and he would kill again.

No. I needed something undeniable. I needed him to commit an act of violence so public, so flagrant, that no amount of lying could cover it up.

I needed him to come for me.

THE ARENA: EVALUATION WEEK

The tension on the grinder was thick enough to choke on. Evaluation Week meant brass. It meant officers in crisp white uniforms sitting in the bleachers, judging our souls.

Chief Harlo paced in front of the formation.

“Gentlemen,” he barked. “And Galloway.”

He paused, letting the distinction hang in the air.

“Today is Close Quarters Combat. We have visitors. Admiral Cross is in the stands. Do not embarrass me. Do not embarrass this command. You will pair up. You will demonstrate technique. This is not a brawl. This is about control.”

My stomach tightened. Not fear. Anticipation.

I looked up at the bleachers. Three hundred heads. SEALS, instructors, visiting officers. And in the center, Admiral Cross. He wore his stars like armor. He looked at the formation, and for a microsecond, his eyes locked on mine. A microscopic nod.

Permission granted.

We marched into the open-air combat pit. The sand was baked hot by the afternoon sun. The bleachers rose on all sides, a coliseum of judgment.

Instructor Mason, a former DevGru operator with a face like a hatchet, stood in the center.

“I need two volunteers,” Mason said. “Attacker and Defender scenario. Who wants to show the Admiral what they’ve learned?”

Krennic’s hand shot up. Of course it did. He lived for the audience.

“I’m in, Chief,” Bulldog shouted.

Mason nodded. “Alright, Krennic. Pick your partner.”

Time seemed to slow down. I could feel the heat radiating off the sand. I could hear the seagulls circling overhead.

Krennic turned. He didn’t look at Vetch. He didn’t look at the big guys. He scanned the line, his eyes predatory, looking for the easiest kill. He wanted a highlight reel. He wanted to humiliate someone in front of the Admiral.

His eyes landed on me.

A slow, ugly grin spread across his face.

“I’ll take Galloway,” he said, his voice booming to the back rows of the bleachers. “Let’s see if Logistics taught her how to take a hit.”

A ripple of laughter went through the ranks. Vetch snickered. Even some of the officers in the stands smirked. A 220-pound bulldog against a 140-pound paper pusher. It was going to be a slaughter.

“Are you sure, Krennic?” Mason asked, his voice flat.

“dead sure, Chief,” Krennic said, cracking his knuckles.

I stepped forward. I didn’t look at the crowd. I didn’t look at Harlo. I walked into the center of the pit and stood five feet from the man who had murdered three of his brothers.

“Rules of engagement,” Mason recited. “Medium contact. Takedowns allowed. Submission ends the fight. Do you understand?”

“Hoo-yah,” Krennic shouted.

I just nodded.

Mason stepped back. “Begin.”

Krennic didn’t assume a combat stance. He just walked toward me, chest out, hands low. He wasn’t treating me like an opponent; he was treating me like a prop.

He closed the distance, invading my personal space. He leaned in, dropping his voice so only I could hear.

“You’re a joke,” he hissed. “Look at them laughing at you. You think you’re a SEAL? You’re nothing. You’re a target.”

I stood perfectly still. My arms hung loose at my sides. My breathing was deep, rhythmic. I was accessing the ‘Switch.’ It’s a mental trigger I installed years ago. When the Switch flips, empathy turns off. Pain turns off. The world becomes a geometry of breaking points.

“Say something, bitch,” Krennic growled. “Or are you going to cry?”

I looked him in the eye. For the first time in eleven weeks, I let him see it. I dropped the mask of the scared logistics girl. I let him see the bottom of the well. I let him see the darkness that lived in the places I had been.

His smile faltered. Just for a fraction of a second. He saw something in my eyes that didn’t belong there. A shark realizing the seal is actually a mine.

But his ego was too big to stop. He raised his right fist.

It wasn’t a sparring punch. It wasn’t a demonstration technique. He pulled his arm back for a haymaker, a blow meant to shatter my jaw, knock me unconscious, and end my career in front of three hundred witnesses.

“Nighty night,” he sneered.

He threw the punch.

The crowd gasped. It was too fast, too hard.

But to me? To me, he was moving underwater.

I saw the rotation of his shoulder. I saw the weight shift to his lead foot. I saw the trajectory of his knuckles.

Target acquired.

I didn’t step back. I stepped in.

My left hand flashed up, parrying his wrist, deflecting the force just enough to clear my face. At the same moment, my right hand snaked out, capturing his elbow.

I wasn’t blocking. I was locking.

I pivoted on my heel, using his own forward momentum against him. I spun, clamping his arm across my chest, turning my back to him, creating a fulcrum with my own body. His arm was now a straight line, his elbow resting against my ribcage, my hands securing his wrist and tricep.

It is a simple mechanic. The elbow joint is a hinge. It opens one way. It does not open the other.

If you apply ten pounds of pressure against the natural bend, you get compliance. If you apply fifty pounds, you get a dislocation.

I applied everything.

I rotated my hips, torqueing my entire body weight down and around.

CRACK.

The sound was like a gunshot.

Krennic didn’t scream immediately. There is a delay, a split second where the brain refuses to accept that the arm is now bending backward.

He froze.

Then, the air left his lungs in a raw, guttural shriek that tore through the silence of the arena.

“AAAAHHHHRRRGGGHHH!”

He dropped to his knees. I stepped away, releasing him. His arm flopped uselessly at his side, bent at a sickening forty-five-degree angle in the wrong direction.

I stood two paces back. My hands returned to my sides. My breathing was steady.

The silence that followed was heavy, absolute, and terrifying.

Three hundred men sat frozen. Instructor Mason stared at me, his mouth slightly open. Chief Harlo had stopped halfway to the pit, his face pale.

Nobody moved. Because in that moment, looking at the man screaming in the dirt and the woman standing silently above him, they all realized the same terrifying truth.

I was never the prey.

I was the trap.

PART 2: THE WEIGHT OF A NAME

 

The scream died down to a wet, jagged whimpering, but the silence in the arena did not break. It stretched, heavy and suffocating, like a tarp pulled tight over a crime scene.

Medical staff were sprinting across the sand now, their boots kicking up dust, their voices sharp with urgency. “Compound fracture! Get the splint! We need a stretcher, now!”

They swarmed over Krennic like white ants. I didn’t look at them. I didn’t look at the man writhing in the dirt, clutching the ruin of his arm. That problem was solved. The threat was neutralized.

I looked at the stands.

Three hundred faces stared back. I saw confusion. I saw fear. But mostly, I saw the processing delay—the lag time between seeing something impossible and accepting that it had just happened.

Instructor Mason approached me. He moved differently now. Before, he had walked toward me like an instructor approaching a subordinate. Now, he approached me like a bomb disposal technician approaching a suspicious package. His hands were visible. His gait was cautious.

“You want to tell me what that was, Galloway?” he asked, his voice low.

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t Galloway anymore. The construct had shattered the moment I applied torque to Krennic’s elbow.

From the top of the bleachers, a movement caught my eye. Admiral Cross was descending.

The crowd parted for him like the Red Sea. He didn’t rush. He walked with the terrifying calm of a man who controls the weather. He came down the stairs, stepped onto the sand, and walked straight to the edge of the pit.

He looked at Krennic, who was being loaded onto a stretcher, weeping, his face gray with shock. Cross didn’t offer sympathy. He offered a stare that could peel paint. Then he turned to me.

“Trainee Galloway,” Cross said. His voice wasn’t shouted, but it carried to the back row. “Or should I use your actual designation?”

The silence became physical. It pressed against my eardrums.

“Cipher.”

The word hit the bleachers like a physical blow.

I saw the reaction ripple through the officers in the front row. Heads snapped up. Whispers erupted like sparks in dry grass.

“Cipher? No way.” “The contractor from Jordan?” “I thought that was a myth.” “That’s Cipher?”

I stiffened. Just a fraction. It was the only emotion I allowed myself.

“Status report,” Cross demanded.

I looked him in the eye. I didn’t salute. Civilians don’t salute, and Cipher is neither military nor civilian—Cipher is a category of one.

“Threat neutralized,” I said, my voice flat. “Target Krennic engaged in an unauthorized lethal escalation during a training exercise. I intervened.”

“You broke his arm in front of three hundred witnesses,” Cross noted.

“I calculated the force required to stop the assault,” I replied. “The bone failed before his ego did.”

Cross stared at me for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.

“Chief Harlo,” Cross barked, not looking away from me.

“Sir!” Harlo materialized at his side.

“Secure the area. No one leaves. No one calls home. Complete communications blackout until I say otherwise. I want a full debrief in the secure facility in twenty minutes.” Cross gestured to me. “You’re with me.”

I walked out of the pit. As I passed the stretcher, Krennic looked up at me. His eyes were glassy with morphine and shock. He looked at me, and he didn’t see the weak girl from Logistics anymore. He saw the predator. He saw the thing he had been trying to poke with a stick, not realizing it was a sleeping dragon.

I didn’t look back.

THE INTERROGATION ROOM

The room smelled of stale coffee and secrets. It was a windowless box in the admin building, lit by fluorescent tubes that hummed like angry hornets.

I stood at the end of the metal table. Admiral Cross sat at the head. Two agents from NCIS—a man with a scar on his knuckles and a woman with hair pulled back so tight it looked painful—sat opposite him. Chief Harlo stood by the door, arms crossed.

On the table lay three thick files.

“You blew the operation,” the male agent said. He was angry. “We needed another week to build the RICO case against Krennic’s ring.”

“You didn’t have another week,” I said.

I reached into my pocket—still wearing my sandy, sweat-stained fatigues—and pulled out the black notebook. I slid it across the table.

“Page forty-two,” I said. “Read it.”

The female agent opened the book. Her eyes scanned the page. Her expression hardened.

“Target: Lumis,” she read aloud. “Escalation timeline accelerated. Krennic has isolated him. Verbal harassment has transitioned to physical endangerment. Predicted lethal event: Hell Week, Day 3.”

I placed my hands on the table.

“Krennic wasn’t just a bully,” I said, my voice cold. “He was testing me in that pit. But he was also rehearsing. If I hadn’t stopped him, if I had played the victim, his confidence would have peaked. He would have killed Lumis during the surf passage on Tuesday. He would have held him under just long enough to look like a panic drowning.”

The room went quiet.

“I stopped the clock,” I said. “Three men are already dead. Yeldren. Okoro. Paredites. They died because nobody stopped the clock. I wasn’t going to let there be a fourth.”

Admiral Cross leaned forward. “So you sacrificed the operation to save one recruit?”

“I closed the operation,” I corrected. “Krennic is broken. Physically and psychologically. He’s currently in the med bay realizing his career is over. He’s weak. He’s terrified. Send these agents in there now. Tell him you know everything. Tell him Vetch is already talking. Krennic will fold. He’ll give you Vetch, Durl, and the supplier who sabotaged the rappel gear. You’ll have your RICO case by dinner.”

The NCIS agents exchanged a look. They knew I was right.

“It’s messy,” the male agent grumbled.

“War is messy,” I said. “Justice is messy. But Lumis is alive. That’s clean.”

Cross sat back, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. He picked up the notebook.

“You were supposed to stay invisible,” he said softly.

“I was invisible,” I replied. “Until it mattered.”

THE BARRACKS

While I was debriefing, the MPs were moving.

I wasn’t there to see it, but I read the report later. They hit the barracks like a hammer. Vetch was pulled out of his bunk, screaming that he had rights. Durl was found trying to flush a stash of steroids down the latrine.

The illusion of Bulldog’s empire crumbled in minutes. Without their leader, the pack turned on itself. By the time the sun set, four trainees were in custody, and the rest of the class was sitting in stunned silence, trying to reassemble their understanding of reality.

I was allowed to return to the barracks one last time to collect my gear.

The room was silent when I walked in. Forty men stopped what they were doing. They stood by their bunks, staring.

There was no whispering this time. No snickering.

I walked to my bunk—the one in the corner, the one they had all ignored for months. I packed my bag efficiently. Fold. Roll. Stow.

I felt a presence behind me.

I turned.

It was Pulk. The kid Krennic had dunked in the ocean on day one. The kid who had tried to be nice to me in the mess hall.

He looked at me, his eyes wide, searching my face for the girl he thought he knew.

“Is it true?” he whispered. “Are you… are you really her? Cipher?”

I zipped my duffel bag. I slung it over my shoulder.

“My name is Rivers,” I said. “For now.”

“Did you know?” Pulk asked. “About Lumis? About all of it?”

“I knew.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

I looked around the room. I looked at Lumis, who was sitting on his bed, looking pale and shaken. I looked at the empty bunks where the predators used to sleep.

“Because you had to see it,” I said. “You had to see that the biggest threat wasn’t the cold water or the instructors. It was the man standing next to you.”

I walked toward the door. The sea of men parted for me, giving me a wide berth. It wasn’t fear, exactly. It was respect. The kind of respect you give to a live grenade.

“Hey,” Pulk called out, stopping me at the threshold.

I turned.

“That logistics stuff,” he said, a nervous smile tugging at his lips. “Did you really do inventory management?”

I looked at him. I thought about the safe houses in Beirut. I thought about the weapon caches in Venezuela.

“I managed inventory,” I said. “I just dealt in a different kind of stock.”

I walked out into the night. A black SUV was waiting for me on the tarmac. The engine was running.

PART 3: THE ENDLESS WINTER

 

THE HOSPITAL

Bulldog lay in the hospital bed, his arm encased in a fixator that looked like medieval torture equipment. Pins, rods, screws. The doctors said he would keep the arm, but he would never do a pushup again. He would certainly never hold a rifle.

He stared at the ceiling. The morphine made the room spin, but it couldn’t drown out the voice of the NCIS agent sitting in the chair next to him.

“Three counts of negligent homicide,” the agent said, flipping through a file. “Conspiracy. Assault. We found the text messages, Krennic. We found the payments to the rigger who cut Okoro’s rope.”

Bulldog didn’t speak. He was thinking about the pit. He was thinking about the way I had looked at him.

It wasn’t the pain that haunted him. It was the indifference.

He had spent his life needing to be the main character. He needed to be the hero, the villain, the boss. He needed eyes on him.

But when I broke him, I hadn’t looked at him with hate. I hadn’t looked at him with anger. I had looked at him like he was a leaky pipe that needed to be capped. I had treated him like a chore.

That was what broke him. The realization that to the real monsters—the quiet ones—he was nothing.

A tear leaked from the corner of his eye and slid into his ear.

“I want a deal,” he whispered.

THE MORNING AFTER

The sun rose over Coronado, burning off the marine layer.

On the grinder, the remaining trainees of Class 224 stood in formation. There were gaps in the ranks now. Empty spaces where the rot had been cut out.

Chief Harlo stood before them. He looked tired, but his back was straight.

“Look to your left,” Harlo said. “Look to your right.”

The men looked. They saw each other. Really saw each other, for the first time.

“You are here to become SEALs,” Harlo said quietly. “But being a SEAL isn’t about how much pain you can take. It’s about who you protect. You let a wolf live among you for eleven weeks. You let him eat your brothers. And it took a ghost to show you the truth.”

He walked down the line, stopping in front of Lumis.

“You’re alive, son,” Harlo said. “Earn it.”

Lumis nodded, his jaw set. “Hoo-yah, Chief.”

Harlo turned back to the ocean. “Hit the surf.”

The class turned and ran toward the water. They moved differently today. Tighter. Together. When Lumis stumbled, Pulk grabbed his arm and hauled him up. No one was left behind.

The ghost had left the building, but the lesson remained.

TWO WEEKS LATER

The heat of California was a memory.

I stood on a tarmac in Romania, the wind cutting through my jacket like a razor. The sky was the color of a bruise. It was snowing—hard, dry pellets of ice that stung the skin.

I adjusted my rucksack. My paperwork said my name was Marin Codrianu. It said I was a transfer from the Military Police. It said I was average, unexceptional, and boring.

I walked toward the barracks of the training facility outside Bucharest. This was a joint task force selection—NATO allies, Eastern European special forces hopefuls. Hard men from hard places.

I entered the barracks. The smell was the same. Unwashed bodies, gun oil, and anxiety. It smells the same in every language.

I found my bunk. I sat down and began to unpack.

“Hey! New girl!”

The voice came from the other side of the room. It was deep, booming, and arrogant.

I didn’t look up immediately. I finished folding a pair of socks.

Then I turned.

He was standing by the woodstove. Huge. Shoulders like a bear. He was holding a bottle of vodka that was definitely contraband. He was surrounded by three other men who laughed too loudly at everything he did.

His name was Ionescu. I had read his file on the plane. Two complaints of excessive force. One suspicion of hazing that had been swept under the rug.

He walked toward me, grinning.

“You look lost,” he said in Romanian. “This is for operators. Not for little girls.”

He kicked my rucksack. It slid across the floor.

The room went quiet. They were waiting to see what I would do. They were waiting to see if I would break.

I looked at the rucksack. I looked at Ionescu.

I let my shoulders slump. I let my eyes widen in feigned fear. I made myself small.

“I… I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I’ll move it.”

Ionescu laughed. “That’s right. You move it. And keep moving it until you’re out the door.”

He turned his back on me, dismissing me as a threat. He went back to his crew, back to his bottle, back to being the king of his little hill.

I walked over to my rucksack. I picked it up.

As I bent down, I slipped a small black notebook out of my pocket. I opened it to a fresh page.

Target: Ionescu.

Status: Active.

Pattern: Confirmed.

I looked at the back of his head.

I see you, I thought.

The world is full of Bulldogs. They are loud. They are cruel. They think that because they are the loudest thing in the room, they are the strongest.

But they are wrong.

The ocean is silent before the tsunami hits. The predator is silent before the strike.

I put the notebook away and sat on my bunk, staring at the wall, blending into the gray.

I am the silence.

And the water is rising.