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PROLOGUE

Heath “Buck” Derringer

With a surname like Derringer, people always said he was destined for law enforcement or the military.

He’d opted for the second and ended up in the Marines.

Why?

He put that on the shoulders of the recruiter who’d talked to him when he’d walked into the office.

The Marines, he’d said, had made him into a man with a purpose. The kind of man who served his country and saved people from danger.

He’d had such conviction in his voice.

A purposeful look in his eyes.

Heath hadn’t been able to remember what the other recruiters had said.

The Marines had been his decision and not just for the first contract period. He’d gone in looking to be there for his twenty and then some.

He wanted to be a Marine for life.

And he almost got his wish.

The Osprey that they’d been on, lifting off above Kaneohe Bay, had suddenly stalled and broken apart, falling into the dark water of the bay.

Pieces of fire heated metal raining down around them.

The voices of his team, calling out into the darkness.

And beyond that dark water, the house lights from the residential homes along the coast and then the searchlights from the base.

Heath hadn’t remembered when he’d hit the water.

One moment he’d been buckled into his seat, feeling the plane shudder and twist around him.

He’d blacked out or something like that.

Coming to in the water just as it closed over his head.

Poured down his throat as he tried to scream.

But he pushed himself back up and out of the water, sputtering and coughing up the salty water of the Pacific Ocean.

He’d spat it up, most of it, before he’d managed to turn himself over onto his back and keep himself from breathing in more water.

He’d done what he could just to survive as pain started to spread across his back.

Every rocking swell of water felt like new slashes of pain across his back, like a blade rocking across his skin, cutting deeper, making the slashes wider.

Until he’d considered giving in, sinking below the water’s surface, and drinking in the salty water of the bay.

Considered it, but before he could make that decision, he’d heard a voice.

A thin, plaintive yell.

It wasn’t even a word, just a sound.