Desert Dark

Sixteen-year-old Nadia Riley has earned a place at Desert Mountain Academy, a selective, government-funded boarding school. The school is actually a covert CIA training program that prepares gifted students for clandestine operations.

Nadia arrives behind most of her peers and finds it hard to keep pace in Arabic, martial arts and shooting practice. Her assigned team for the campus contests, called survival courses, adds more strain. Her roommate Libby is friendly, but teammate Alan openly resents Nadia, and Damon seems more interested in flirting than in competing. Nadia also has a strong crush on the team leader, Jack.

When reports of a double agent on campus spread, Nadia's personal worries are pushed aside. She sets out to clear her name and learns unsettling things about the students around her. Each of them is keeping a secret, and one of them is the deserter.