Flint (Guardian Hostage Rescue Specialists)

Chapter 1 Flint

ONE

FLINT

The California sun beats 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 the kind 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 that cost 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."

I look at the photo again, at those hazel eyes that have seen too much.

She went into the wilderness to process her guilt, and now the past is coming for her whether she's ready or not.

The irony would be bitter if it weren't so damn predictable.

You can't outrun what haunts you. I learned that the hard way.

"Timeline?" I ask, already running calculations in my head. Los Padres is big, thousands of acres of rugged terrain. If she's been off-grid for nine days and her boss doesn't know her exact location, finding her is going to take skill and time we might not have.

"Device three is estimated to activate in approximately twenty-two hours based on Greer's pattern.

Could be less. FBI's working on narrowing down the location from his clues, but they need Sutton's expertise to disarm it.

" CJ stands, moving to the map of California mounted on his wall.

He taps the area around Los Padres National Forest. "Her company says she usually works in this region.

Her vehicle's been parked at the Alameda Trailhead for eight days.

Rangers confirm they haven't seen her, but that's not unusual—she knows the backcountry and tends to avoid the main trails. "

I study the map, the vast green expanse that could hide someone who doesn't want to be found.

Eight days is a long time to be alone out there.

She'll have established a pattern, found water sources, and set up camps in defensible positions if she's got any tactical sense.

And based on her file, she's got plenty.

"You want me to find her and bring her in." It's not a question.

"You've got SERE training, you've tracked HVTs through worse terrain than this, and you're the best tracker on the team.

" CJ turns from the map. "I need her found fast, Flint.

And I need her willing to help. She's been out of the game for three years, probably dealing with PTSD from the training incident.

You're going to have to convince her to face the exact thing she's been running from. "

I think about the bracelet on my wrist, about the weight of guilt and how it shapes everything you do afterward. About how hard it is to trust yourself again when you've failed someone who counted on you. I might be the right person for this job, but not for the reasons CJ thinks.

"I'll find her," I say, standing. "Twenty-two hours gives me time if I move fast."

"Helicopter's being prepped now. You'll have a satellite phone, an emergency beacon, and full briefing materials on Greer and the devices." CJ hands me the file folder from his desk. "Read this on the flight. And Flint—she's going to be resistant. She left this world behind for a reason."

I tuck the folder under my arm and head for the door, but his voice stops me before I clear the threshold.

"One more thing. The FBI has reason to believe Greer had help with the devices. At least one partner, possibly more. If he knows where Sutton is—and he might, given how obsessed he seems to be—they could already be looking for her."

The implications settle into my gut like lead. I'm not just tracking her. I might be racing someone else to find her first, and that someone wants her dead or captured for leverage. The timeline just got tighter.

"Understood," I say, and let the door close behind me.

Twenty minutes later, I'm in a helicopter, pack secured between my boots and the file folder open on my lap.

The pilot lifts us into the air, and the facility drops away beneath us as we bank toward the mountains.

I can see the coastline from here, the Pacific stretching endlessly blue, and inland the green-brown expanse of Los Padres rising into ridges and canyons that could swallow a person whole.

I open the folder and start reading, committing details to memory the way I've done a hundred times before on mission prep. Marcus Greer, thirty-four, a former Army EOD specialist, was dishonorably discharged after the training incident that killed Private Noah Parker.

Greer blamed Sutton for designing a device that was too realistic, too dangerous for training purposes.

She blamed him for arrogance and failure to follow protocol.

The investigation sided with her, but Greer's career was over either way.

He went dark after discharge, dropped off the radar for two years, and resurfaced six months ago in Los Angeles, working construction.

FBI thinks he spent the missing time radicalizing, building connections, and planning this.

The device schematics are complex, elegant in a way that makes it clear Sutton knows her craft. The trigger system is adaptive—it learns from disarmament attempts and adjusts its parameters to counter them.

It's brilliant and terrifying, the kind of innovation that saves lives when used for training but becomes a nightmare in the wrong hands.

Reading her design notes, I can see the mind behind it: precise, creative, always three steps ahead.

She thought through every angle, anticipated every approach.

That same mind is now the only thing standing between Greer's devices and mass casualties.

There are photos of her in the file beyond the personnel shot.

One from Afghanistan, standing with her unit in dusty fatigues, that slight smile playing at her mouth.

One from her teaching days, demonstrating something to a group of students, her hands moving as she explains.

One more recent, maybe a year old, from the wilderness guide company's website.

She's in hiking gear, standing on a ridge with mountains behind her, and the smile is gone.

Her eyes look distant, haunted by things she can't leave behind.

I close the folder and look out the window at the terrain passing beneath us.

The helicopter follows Highway 101 north before cutting inland toward the mountains.

The landscape shifts from coastal scrub to oak woodland to the denser vegetation of the higher elevations.

Los Padres is a patchwork of ecosystems, from chaparral-covered hills to pine forests to rocky canyons where water carves through limestone and sandstone.

Good country for someone who wants to disappear.

The pilot's voice crackles through my headset. "Five minutes to LZ."