The Caracorum River roared through the mountain gorge like a living thing. Black water churning over rocks with enough force to snap bones. Malik Vulov stood on the stone bridge, his breath misting in the frigid air, watching his men drag the American woman to the edge. She wasn’t fighting anymore.

  Three days of interrogation and minimal food had left her exhausted, her wrists zip tied behind her back, blood crusting on her split lip. Any last words? Vulkoff asked in accented English, his AK-47 slung casually across his chest. The woman, they knew her only as Riley, a aid worker who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time, looked up at him with those defiant green eyes that had annoyed him from the moment they’d captured her. “You’re making a mistake,” she said quietly. Folk laughed.

 “The only mistake was yours coming to my mountains.” He nodded to his men. Two of them grabbed her arms while a third cut the zip ties. No point leaving evidence on the body when the river would carry it hundreds of miles downstream. They lifted her over the railing. For a moment, she hung suspended above the churning black water 30 ft below.

 The spray misting her face. Then they let go. She dropped without screaming, hit the water with a splash that was immediately swallowed by the river’s roar, and disappeared beneath the surface. Vulkoff checked his watch. 30 seconds, 1 minute. The river’s current was brutal here. The water temperature barely above freezing.

 Even a strong swimmer would last maybe 2 minutes before hypothermia and oxygen deprivation took them. “She’s done,” one of his men said in Russian. “Good. Load up. We have the shipment to move.” They walked back to their vehicles, three SUVs with tinted windows, all carrying automatic weapons, and the kind of men who knew how to use them. Vulkoff had been running arms through these mountains for 8 years.

 Bodies in the river were just cost of business. What he didn’t know, what none of them knew was that the woman they’d just thrown to her death was Chief Petty Officer Riley Keaton, US Navy combat diver with 9 years of experience in underwater operations, trained to hold her breath for over 9 minutes in controlled conditions and currently very much alive beneath the black surface of the Caracorum River, counting seconds in her head while her body executed survival protocols drilled into her through thousands of hours of training.

 Chief Petty Officer Riley Keaton was 32 years old. US Navy combat diver with 9 years of service. Trained in underwater demolition, ship hull inspection, mine clearance, and long duration breathold diving.

 5’8 athletic build from years of swimming and dive training. Dark brown hair currently plastered to her head from riverwater. Green eyes that attracted every detail of Volkov’s operation during her 3 days of captivity. A scar on her left shoulder from a training accident during bud s basic underwater.

 D M O L I T I O N/ SEAL training that had almost ended her career before it started. She’d been on a classified reconnaissance mission in the Cauasus Mountains, posing as an aid worker to gather intelligence on arms trafficking networks operating in the region. The cover had worked for 2 weeks until someone had tipped off Volkov’s organization.

 They’d grabbed her from her hotel room before she could signal for extraction, had questioned her for 3 days, and had finally decided she was just an unlucky aid worker who’d seen too much. They’d been half right. And now, as the freezing water of the Caracorum River closed over her head, Riley’s training took over automatically. Her body had been submerged in water colder than this during Arctic warfare training.

 Her lungs had held breath longer than this during combat diver qualification. Her mind had endured worse stress during SE school, survival, evasion, resistance, escape. This was just another training evolution, except this time failing meant actually dying. Minute one. Riley let the current take her downstream away from the bridge, away from Vulov and his men.

 The river was pulling her down, tumbling her in the churning water. Most people would panic, would thrash and fight, would burn through their oxygen in seconds. Riley relaxed. She’d done countless river insertions during training, had been tumbled by surf bigger than this during amphibious operations. She let the current position her, waited for the chaos to settle into pattern. Her hands were free.

 They’d cut the zip ties before throwing her, which gave her mobility. She couldn’t surface yet. They’d be watching, waiting to confirm she was dead. She needed to get downstream, out of sight, then surface when they’d stopped looking. Minute two. The cold was the real enemy. The caracorum was fed by glacial melt, probably 45° Fahrenheit, cold enough to kill through hypothermia, even without drowning.

 But Riley had trained in water this cold. Her body knew how to respond. Shallow breathing before submersion to store oxygen, controlled heart rate to conserve it, muscle relaxation to minimize consumption. She found the currents pattern. Fast on the surface, slightly slower, deeper. She let herself sink to about 10 ft where the water was calmer and started swimming downstream with the current, adding her strength to the rivers, covering distance fast. Minute three. Her lungs were starting to burn.

 Normal people would be desperate for air by now, making fatal mistakes surfacing too soon. Riley’s training had conditioned her to recognize the stages of hypoxia, the oxygen deprivation that killed divers. Stage one was discomfort. This was just discomfort. She had six more minutes of trained capacity.

 She kept swimming, kept moving downstream. The river was carrying her away from the bridge around a bend. She needed more distance before surfacing. Minute four. The burn in her lungs was intensifying. Her body was screaming for oxygen. CO2 building up in her bloodstream, triggering panic responses. Riley pushed through it.

 She’d done this in warm pools, in cold pools, in the ocean, in training tanks. 9 minutes and 43 seconds was her personal best in a controlled environment. This wasn’t controlled, but she’d prepared for that, too. She found a large rock outcrop jutting into the current and wedged herself behind it, using it to anchor against the river’s pull. The position gave her a moment of stability, let her conserve energy while oxygen continued depleting. Minute five.

Back on the bridge, Vulov was getting in his SUV. She’s fish food by now, he said to his Lieutenant Saranov, who sat in the passenger seat with an AK-47 across his lap. “Even if she survived the fall, that water is 5 minutes to death. We’re clear.” Three vehicles pulled away from the bridge, heading up into the mountains toward the warehouse compound, where they stored weapons before smuggling them across the border.

 Eight men total, all armed with automatic weapons, all experienced soldiers who’d fought in various conflicts. They considered themselves professionals. They had no idea what was swimming in the river below them. Minute six. Riley’s vision was starting to tunnel. The edges of her consciousness were getting fuzzy.

 This was stage 2 hypoxia, impaired judgment, motor control degradation. She needed to surface soon, but not yet. Not yet. She released from the rock and let the current take her further downstream. The river was sweeping her around another bend. She couldn’t see the bridge anymore. Couldn’t see the road. Good enough. Minute 7.

 Her body was entering survival mode. Prioritizing oxygen to brain and vital organs, shutting down peripheral systems. Her fingers were going numb, partly cold, partly hypoxia. She needed air now. Riley kicked toward the surface, letting the current push her, adding her own strength. The black water above her was getting lighter.

 20 ft 15 10 minute 8. She broke the surface, gasping, sucking in air and deep controlled breaths despite her body’s scream to hyperventilate. Hyperventilating would make her dizzy, might make her pass out. Controlled breathing. 4 seconds in, hold two, 6 seconds out, reset the system.

 The river current was still pulling her downstream. She let it, using the flow to carry her to the bank. The shore here was rocky with scrub brush providing some cover. She grabbed an overhanging route and pulled herself out of the water. Her body so cold she could barely feel her legs, but she was alive and Folkoff thought she was dead.

 That gave her an advantage. Riley crawled into the scrub brush and assessed her situation. She’d been underwater for 8 minutes and 20 seconds, not a record, but impressive given the cold and current. Now she was out, but hypothermia was a real threat. She was soaked.

 The air temperature was maybe 50° and the wind cut through her wet clothes like knives. She needed to get warm, get dry, and figure out her next move. Her captors had taken everything. Her phone, her emergency beacon, her concealed weapons, even her jacket. She had wet clothes, boots, and her training. That would have to be enough. She knew where Vulkoff was going.

 During her three days of captivity, she’d overheard enough conversations to piece together his operation. He was moving a weapon shipment tonight. Russian military hardware being smuggled across the border to separatist groups. The warehouse was 15 miles up the mountain road, an old Soviet era facility that the local authorities either didn’t know about or were paid to ignore. Riley had been gathering intelligence on that exact shipment when she’d been captured.

 Now she had a chance to complete her mission and get revenge on the men who’d tried to kill her. But first survive. She stripped off her outer shirt, rung it out as best she could, and put it back on. Not dry, but less soaked. She did jumping jacks, getting her blood flowing, generating heat through movement.

 Her Navy training had included cold weather survival. She knew hypothermia killed through combination of cold and inactivity. Keep moving. Generate heat. Survive until you can get warm. After 10 minutes of exercise, she was shivering but functional. Cold was background noise now. She could work through it. She started moving up the mountain, following the road from a parallel position in the forest. 15 mi.

 She’d done longer movements during hell week. This was just another evolution. The terrain was brutal. Steep inclines, rocky ground, dense forest that grabbed at her wet clothes. her boots squaltched with every step, announcing her presence to any wildlife.

 But there were no people out here, just mountains and forest and the narrow road cutting through it. She moved in 20inut intervals, fast walk for 20 minutes, then 2 minutes of exercises to maintain body heat, then repeat. It was a rhythm she’d learned during survival training, a way to cover distance while managing cold exposure. After 3 hours, she’d covered about 8 miles. Her clothes were starting to dry from body heat and movement, though she was still dangerously cold.

 The sun was setting, temperature dropping further. She needed to reach the warehouse before full dark or she’d have to spend the night in the forest, which in her condition might be fatal. She pushed harder, jogging now despite the exhaustion, despite 3 days of minimal food, despite the cold that had settled into her bones. Pain was temporary. Failure was permanent.

 Her instructors had drilled that into her during training and it had become her personal mantra. The warehouse was exactly where she remembered from intercepted communications. Old concrete structure built into the mountainside. Three buildings forming a compound accessible only by the single mountain road.

 Two guards at the gate, both carrying AK-47s, both looking bored. The three SUVs were parked inside the compound. Riley observed from the treeine 500 meters away using techniques learned during reconnaissance training. She counted personnel. Eight men from the vehicles plus four more guards at the compound. 12 total, all armed.

 Against 12 armed men, her best weapon was surprise. They thought she was dead. That made her a ghost. She circled the compound looking for vulnerabilities. The backside bordered a cliff. probably why they felt safe with minimal rear security. The main gate was the obvious entry, heavily watched. But there was a drainage culvert on the east side, probably for runoff during spring melt.

 Riley moved to the culvert. It was 3 ft in diameter, concrete pipe that ran under the compound fence. She could fit barely. She crawled in, the pipe echoing with her breath, water seeping around her. She was already wet. Didn’t matter.

 50 ft of crawling in darkness, following the pipe by feel, came out inside the compound near a storage shed. She was inside. Now came the dangerous part. The storage shed held maintenance equipment, tools, fuel cans, spare parts, and helpfully a crowbar. Riley armed herself with the two-foot steel bar and moved toward the main warehouse. Through a grimy window, she could see the weapons shipment crates stamped with cerillic writing, Russian military markings, enough automatic weapons and ammunition to supply a small war, which was exactly what they were intended for.

Vulov was inside with five of his men conducting inventory. The other six were scattered around the compound. Two at the gate, two patrolling, two in the guard shack. 12 against one. Terrible odds for most people. But Riley had been trained by the best military in the world to do impossible things.

 She waited until one of the patrolling guards walked past her position, then moved, silent, fast. The crowbar caught him across the back of the head with a hollow thunk. He dropped without making a sound. She dragged him behind the shed, took his AK-47, checked the magazine. 30 rounds, one in the chamber. Now she was armed. One down, 11 to go.

 The second patrolling guard came around the corner 20 seconds later. “Olek,” he called softly, looking for his partner. “He found Riley instead. She shot him twice in the chest. Suppressed shots would have been better, but she didn’t have that luxury. The unsuppressed AK-47 cracked loud in the mountain air.” Everyone in the compound heard it. “Contact!” Someone shouted in Russian.

 “Perimeter breach!” The compound erupted into chaos. Men running from buildings, weapons up, searching for threats. Riley was already moving, using the storage shed as cover, firing controlled bursts at targets as they appeared. Three round burst into a guard emerging from the shack.

 Another burst at a man running from the warehouse, precision shooting, just like she’d been trained, but 12 men with automatic weapons was overwhelming firepower. Return fire sparked off the concrete walls around her, forcing her to take cover. rounds punched through the thin metal of the storage shed, creating shafts of light where bullets tore through. She needed to change the situation. The fuel cans in the storage shed.

 Old gasoline, probably for the generator, flammable. Riley grabbed three fuel cans, moved to a position with clear sight to the main warehouse, and opened fire on the cans she’d positioned. The first burst sparked fire. The second ignited the fuel.

 The third can exploded, spraying burning gasoline across the shed and the nearby fence. Fire, chaos, smoke. The explosion was bigger than she’d anticipated. The old gasoline must have been mixed with something more volatile. Flames shot 20 ft into the air, black smoke billowing across the compound. The storage shed became an inferno. In the confusion, she moved around the burning shed toward the guard shack, shooting at targets through the smoke. Another guard down. Another. The AK-47 ran dry.

 She dropped it, picked up a fallen guard’s weapon, kept moving. Inside the warehouse, Vulov was screaming orders. It’s an attack. Get to defensive positions. Where’s the perimeter team dead? Someone shouted back. Someone’s killing us. How many attackers? Unknown. Multiple contacts. They came from everywhere. Vulkoff didn’t understand yet. didn’t understand that it wasn’t multiple attackers.

 It was one woman who was supposed to be dead at the bottom of a river. Dimmitri Volkov’s lieutenant was more tactical. “It’s a single shooter,” he said, reading the pattern of fire. “Someone trained military moving fast using our confusion against us.” “One person can’t do this,” Vulov insisted. “One person is doing it right now,” Saranov replied. his AK-47 tracking for targets through the smoke.

And whoever it is, they’re good. Riley threw a flashbang grenade she’d taken from a guard. The disorienting explosion giving her 3 seconds of confusion to move across open ground to the warehouse. She came through the side door low, weapon up, acquiring targets.

 Two men by the crates, three round burst each. Down, one man by the loading bay. Burst down. Vulkoff and three others behind a forklift, firing back. Rounds snapped past her head. Close enough she felt the displacement. She dove behind steel drums came up shooting. One of Vulkoff’s men went down. Another took cover behind crates.

 Who are you? Vulkoff shouted in English, his voice tight with stress. Who sent you? Riley didn’t answer. She reloaded, smooth magazine change like she’d done 10,000 times in training, and moved to a flanking position. She was thinking three moves ahead now, positioning for the next engagement, reading the tactical situation like a chess game.

The man beside Vulov leaned out to shoot. She was ready. Three rounds center mass. He dropped. Saranov was smarter. He didn’t expose himself. Instead, firing blind around cover, forcing Riley to stay down. “Vulkoff, we need to retreat,” he called. “Whoever this is, they’re eliminating us systematically.

We don’t retreat from one person, Vulov shouted back, but his voice betrayed his fear. Just three of them left now. Vulov, Saranov, and one more guard. And one final guard somewhere in the compound. I know that shooting pattern, Vulov said slowly, something dawning in his voice. Military training. American military training. That fire discipline, those movement patterns.

 His voice changed, understanding hitting him. the aid worker. “But you’re at the bottom of the Caracorum River. I watched you drown. I timed it.” “I held my breath,” Riley said simply, stepping into a position where she had a clear shot at Dimmitri. “8 minutes and 20 seconds.

 Want to know how she fired?” “Demitri went down, surprise on his face.” Vulkov fired blindly around the forklift, burning through his magazine in panic. The controlled soldier gone, replaced by a man who realized he’d made a fatal error in judgment. When the click of an empty weapon echoed through the warehouse, Riley stepped into view, her AK-47 pointed at his chest.

“Drop it,” she commanded. He dropped the empty rifle, raised his hands. The last guard burst through the warehouse door, weapon raised. Riley heard him, spun, fired. He went down. “Just her and Vulkoff now. You’re American military, he said, hands still raised. Special operations. This whole time you were an operator.

 What are you? SEAL Delta Navy combat diver. And you made a mistake thinking you could kill me by throwing me in water. What now? You kill me? I’m unarmed. No. You’re going to tell me everything about your smuggling network. Every contact, every route, every shipment, and then you’re going to testify in an international court. I’ll never.

 You will. Because the alternative is I leave you here with evidence that you cooperated and let your bosses think you betrayed them. How long do you think you’d survive that? Bolov’s face went pale, he understood. She wasn’t just physically dangerous. She understood psychological warfare. Okay, he said slowly. Okay, I’ll talk.

Just the warehouse door burst open again. a guard she hadn’t counted. The driver still in one of the SUVs must have been sleeping. He had an AK-47 up, acquiring her as a target. Riley and Vulkoff both moved. She fired at the guard. Vulkov grabbed the pistol from Dimmitri’s body and brought it up toward her. She fired first. Center mass.

 Vulov stumbled backward into the crates of weapons he’d been so proud of and slid to the floor, the pistol clattering from his hand. or or that,” Riley said quietly, turning to confirm the last guard was down. She secured the compound, confirmed all threats were eliminated, and found a satellite phone in the guard shack.

 She dialed the emergency number for her unit, her hands shaking slightly now that the adrenaline was wearing off. “This is Chief Petty Officer Riley Keaton, serial number.” She rattled off her identification. “I need immediate extraction from grid coordinates.” She read the GPS position from the phone. Target compound secured. Primary objective achieved. 12 hostile KIA package ready for intelligence recovery.

 Chief Keaton, the voice on the other end said, shock evident even through the encrypted connection. You were marked as MIA, presumed Kia A 3 days ago. Your last known position was a hotel in I was captured, interrogated, and executed by being thrown off a bridge into a river. I survived. Long story. Send a helicopter.

 Chief, are you injured? Do you need medical? Riley looked down at herself. Wet, cold, bruised, exhausted, but functional. I’m hypothermic, dehydrated, and I’ve been awake for about 36 hours, but I’m mobile and the mission is complete. How long for extract? 2 hours. We’re launching from 2 hours. Copy. I’ll be here.

 She hung up and sat down heavily on a crate, letting herself feel the exhaustion for the first time. She’d survived being thrown in a freezing river. She’d held her breath for over 8 minutes. She’d hiked 15 mi in wet clothes through mountains. She’d assaulted a compound solo against 12 armed hostiles. Now she just had to stay awake for two more hours. She found a bottle of water in the guard shack and drank it slowly, letting her body rehydrate.

 found a jacket and put it on over her still damp clothes. Found food, some kind of meat pastry, and ate it mechanically, refueling. The compound was quiet now, except for the crackling of fire from the storage shed. 12 men dead. Not how she’d wanted it to go, but they’d given her no choice. Vulkoff could have surrendered. Instead, he’d chosen to fight.

 She thought about the moment on the bridge hanging above the black water. The certainty in Folkoff’s eyes that she was about to die. The feeling of falling, the impact, the cold darkness closing over her head, and then training taking over. Years of preparation for a moment like that, all condensing into automatic responses that had saved her life.

That’s what training was for. Not the easy days, but the impossible ones. The afteraction report took 3 days. Riley sat across from her commanding officer, Captain Helena Marquez, in a secure briefing room at the naval station. “Let me get this straight,” Marquez said, reviewing the report for the third time.

 “Vulkov’s men threw you off a bridge into a glacial river to kill you. You held your breath for over 8 minutes while swimming downstream in near freezing water. Then you crawled out, hiked 15 mi up a mountain while hypothermic, infiltrated a guarded compound, and eliminated 12 armed hostiles single-handedly. All while suffering from exposure and working with captured weapons.

 I acquired weapons from the hostiles, ma’am, and I wasn’t that hypothermic. Maybe mild stage one. Marquez stared at her. Chief Keaton, do you understand how insane this sounds? You were underwater for over 8 minutes. Most people would be dead from oxygen deprivation alone. Forget the cold. Ma’am, it was just training application.

 Breathold diving, cold water survival, land navigation, small unit tactics, improvised weapons employment, all standard combat diver curriculum. Standard. Marquez shook her head. The intelligence you recovered from that compound is going to dismantle a major arms trafficking network across three countries. The weapons you prevented from reaching separatist groups would have fueled conflicts for years.

 The documentation you found has already led to 14 arrests. She paused. We’re recommending you for the Navy Cross. Riley shifted uncomfortably. Ma’am, I was just completing my mission. Your mission was reconnaissance and intelligence gathering. You went above and beyond that. Way beyond. Marquez leaned forward. Chief, I need you to understand something. What you did isn’t normal.

 Most operators, even highly trained ones, wouldn’t have survived being thrown off that bridge. The fact that you not only survived, but completed the mission and eliminated an entire hostile force. That’s exceptional. With respect, ma’am, any combat diver could have done what I did. The training works maybe, Marquez conceded. But you’re the one who did it.

 And now I want you to help us figure out how to make sure more people can do what you did. I’m assigning you to training command. You’re going to help develop the combat diver curriculum, incorporate lessons from this operation, and train the next generation. Riley nodded slowly, teaching, passing on what she’d learned, making sure the next combat diver who got thrown off a bridge had the same automatic responses that had saved her life. Yes, ma’am. I can do that.

 3 months later, Riley stood in front of 40 combat diver students at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado, California. They were young, eager, exhausted from training, wondering if they had what it took. 3 months ago, she began, I was thrown off a bridge into a freezing river by arms traffickers who thought they were killing an aid worker. They didn’t know I was Navy.

 They didn’t know I was trained to hold my breath for 9 minutes. They didn’t know that water is where I’m most dangerous. She clicked to the next slide, showing the Caracorm River. Every skill you’re learning here, breathold diving, cold water operations, underwater navigation, physical conditioning, might seem like abstract training evolutions. They’re not. They’re survival skills that work in the real world.

 She described the 8 minutes underwater, the hypothermia, the 15-mi movement, the compound assault. The students listened with wrapped attention. The point isn’t that I’m special, she concluded. The point is that the training works. When those men threw me in that river, they thought they were solving a problem.

 What they actually did was put a trained combat diver in her natural environment and give her motivation. The river didn’t kill me because you, your instructors, had prepared me for exactly that situation. One student raised his hand. Chief Keaton, what went through your mind when you hit the water? Riley thought back to that moment, the fall, the impact, the cold darkness closing over her head.

 Honestly, I thought, “This is just like the training pool, except it’s colder and someone’s trying to kill me.” Then I started counting seconds and controlling my breathing, just like you’re learning to do. Training took over. That’s what training does. It gives you automatic responses when your conscious mind might panic. Another student. Were you scared? Terrified, she admitted.

 Fear is information. It tells you the stakes are high and you need to be at your best. I was scared when I hit the water. I was scared hiking up that mountain in wet clothes. I was scared going into that compound outnumbered 12 to1. But fear doesn’t mean you stop.

 It means you acknowledge the danger and execute anyway because your training has prepared you for exactly this situation. After the briefing, several students approached her. Chief Keaton once said, “I’ve been struggling with the breathold evolutions. My personal best is 4 minutes and I can’t seem to break through. After hearing your story, I’m going to push harder.” “Don’t just push harder,” Riley advised. “Push smarter.” “Sudy the physiology.

Understand what’s happening in your body at each stage of oxygen deprivation. Train your mind as much as your lungs.” The 9-minute breath hold I did in that river wasn’t just physical. It was mental discipline. Controlling panic, trusting training, work on the mental side, and the physical will follow.

Another student, a woman, approached hesitantly. Chief, I’m one of three women in this class. Some people don’t think we belong here, that we’re not strong enough for this kind of work. What would you say to that? Riley looked at her directly. I’d say that 12 armed men thought they’d killed me and were wrong. I’d say that physical strength matters less than mental discipline and technical skill.

I’d say that the river didn’t care if I was male or female. It only cared if I was trained. And I’d say that you wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t already proven you can do this. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Years later, after Riley had moved from combat diver operations to training command to eventually becoming the senior instructor for the entire program, she’d train hundreds of divers, preparing them for operations around the world.

 She’d develop new breathold protocols based on her experience in the Caracorum River. She’d create cold water survival training that pushed students harder than ever before. She’d build combat scenarios that prepared divers for the moment when everything went wrong. But she’d always remember the Caracorum River.

 The moment when Volkov’s men threw her off that bridge, so confident she was dead. The 8 minutes and 20 seconds underwater, fighting cold and hypoxia with nothing but training and will. The look on Vulov’s face when he realized the dead woman was very much alive and standing in his warehouse with a weapon. The lesson wasn’t about revenge or violence. The lesson was about preparation, about training so thoroughly that when the impossible situation comes, you have automatic responses, about understanding your environment so well that what kills others becomes your advantage.

Vulkoff had tried to kill her by throwing her in water. He’d failed because water was where she was strongest. He’d underestimated her because she looked like an easy target, an aid worker, a woman, someone who couldn’t possibly be a threat.

 He died because he didn’t understand that the quiet aid worker was actually a warrior who’d spent 9 years preparing for exactly the situation he’d put her in. That was the real lesson she taught her students. Never assume, never underestimate, and never ever try to kill a Navy combat diver by throwing them in water. That’s like trying to kill a fish by putting it in the ocean. The river had been Vulkoff’s weapon. It had become Riley’s salvation because she’d trained for it.

 Because she was ready. Because when the moment came, all those hours in training pools and cold water and underwater navigation courses had condensed into 8 minutes and 20 seconds of perfect execution. That’s what training was for.