Ghost of Talon Mountain (Men of Talon Mountain #5)

Prologue

CHRIS

Talon Mountain, Alaska

Eleven Months Ago

Critical evidence. That's what the brief calls it. Documents hidden in a cache near the glacier pass—shipping manifests, financial records, names of everyone involved in the trafficking network from the ground up to whoever's running it from the top. Physical evidence we can use.

Get in, secure the cache, get out. Standard operation for a team that's been working this territory since spring. Except nothing about this feels standard.

It just feels wrong, like the mountain knows something we don't and is holding its breath, waiting to see what happens next.

The ice encrusted snow crunches under my boots, each step measured and deliberate.

My breath clouds in the pre-dawn darkness, dissipating into air so cold it burns going down.

Joel moves ahead, rifle ready, scanning the tree line with the systematic precision that kept him alive through two tours overseas.

Tate covers our six, quiet and solid like always, his presence more felt than seen in the dim light.

We've worked together long enough that words aren't necessary.

Hand signals. Eye contact. Synchronization built from trusting them with my life, again and again.

Joel raises a fist—halt. We freeze. He points to fresh tracks crossing our path.

Moose, maybe six hours old. Nothing threatening. We continue.

The cache is supposed to be two klicks northeast, tucked into a rock formation that provides natural cover. Easy approach. Multiple exit routes. The location makes tactical sense if you're trying to hide evidence that could bring down an entire criminal network… or if you're setting a trap.

That thought needles at the base of my skull, persistent and unwelcome.

Something's off. The coordinates came through official channels.

The source checked out—a courier who got cold feet, wanted immunity in exchange for the location.

The mission parameters are sound. But my gut is screaming that we need to turn around, get back to base, call this off until we can verify every detail one more time.

Gut feelings don't make it into official reports. They don't justify aborting a mission that could expose the entire trafficking operation. But in six months working this wilderness, my gut has kept me alive.

"Hold," I signal.

Joel freezes mid-step. Tate drops to one knee, weapon up. They don't question it. Don't ask what spooked me or demand justification. They just wait, trusting that whatever set off my internal alarms is real enough to matter.

The forest is too quiet. No wind rustling through the spruce.

No birds calling in the distance. Nothing moving except us and the slow creep of dawn light filtering through branches heavy with snow.

In six months working this territory, I've learned to read its moods.

The mountain has tells, same as any opponent.

Right now, it feels like the seconds before an ambush.

"Radio base," I tell Tate, keeping my voice low. "Confirm coordinates."

He tries. Keys the radio. Waits. Static answers. Not interference. Not weather. Just dead air where our encrypted channel should be humming with secure communication. It isn’t.

Joel catches my eye. One look is all it takes.

He knows what this means. So does Tate. We've been burned.

Someone cut us off. Someone who knew when we'd be out here, where we'd go, how to isolate us from support.

Adrenaline floods my system, sharpening everything into crystalline focus.

Shadows shift into threats. Sounds sharpen.

"Abort," I mouth silently.

Too late.

The first shot comes from the ridge. High-powered rifle, professional placement. The crack echoes across the valley as the round punches through Joel's throat. Blood sprays across white snow. He drops without a sound, and the forest erupts into chaos.

Muzzle flash from three positions. Coordinated fire. They're not trying to capture us. They're not trying to wound or disable. They're trying to end this fast and clean, leave no witnesses who can talk about what really happened here.

Tate returns fire, dropping behind cover as bullets chew bark from the trees around us.

His weapon barks steadily, controlled bursts designed to suppress and force the shooters to keep their heads down.

Splinters explode near my face. A round whines past my ear close enough to feel the displacement of air.

Move. The word thunders through my head with the force of survival instinct. Stand still and we're dead. Keep moving and maybe we have a chance.

Joel's down. Not wounded. Dead. The shot took him clean, and there's too much blood spreading across the snow for any other outcome. Tate's trying to reach him, crawling through snow that's turning red, but another burst of automatic fire forces him back behind a tree trunk.

"Martinez is gone!" Tate shouts. "We need to move!"

The pain hits before I register the impact.

Something massive slams into my side, spinning me around.

My legs go out from under me. I hit the ground hard, and suddenly breathing feels like swallowing broken glass.

Blood soaks through my jacket, hot against freezing skin.

The round caught me below the ribs, tearing through flesh and muscle.

Tate's beside me in seconds, dragging me behind cover.

"Stay with me, Chris," he says. His face is grim, focused. "You're not dying out here."

Another burst of gunfire. Closer now. They're advancing, closing the net. Professional killers who know their trade.

Tate fires back, one-handed, still keeping pressure on my wound. His magazine runs dry with a hollow click. He releases me long enough to reload, and in that instant, a round catches him in the head.

His body falls across my legs, heavy and still.

No.

The word doesn't make it past my lips. Can't make it past the pain that's turning everything white at the edges. Tate's gone. Joel's gone. I'm bleeding from my side, and the shooters are still coming.

Voices now. Calling to each other in short, clipped phrases. They're converging on our position. Coming to confirm the kill. Coming to make sure no one survived to report what happened here.

Move. The command cuts through the pain with desperate clarity. Move or die. Stay here and join Joel and Tate in the white.

My hands find purchase on frozen ground.

My legs don't want to work, but I force them under me anyway.

Every movement sends new agony through my side.

The world tilts and spins, but I'm moving.

Crawling at first. Then crouched. Then running in a shambling, desperate stagger that probably tears the wound wider with each step.

Behind me, one of the shooters reaches Joel's body. "Martinez is down. Confirmed kill."

"Bishop too," another voice calls. "Where's the third?"

"Find him. He doesn't leave this mountain."

I keep on moving. Crashing through the snow-laden branches, keeping low, using every bit of terrain for cover.

My lungs burn. My legs shake. The wound in my side screams with each jarring impact, but I don't stop.

Can't stop. Some blood marks my trail through the snow, obvious as neon, but the trees are thick here and I'm moving fast despite the injury.

Behind me, voices fade. They're searching the immediate area first, assuming I couldn't have gotten far in this condition. They're wrong. Pain is a distant thing now, shoved aside by survival instinct and the image of Tate falling across my legs.

My team is dead. Joel and Tate—gone. Not wounded. Not captured. Dead while I run like a coward through trees that blur past like accusations.

The thought wants to stop me, to turn back, to go down fighting like honor demands. But honor won't expose the mole who set this up. Honor won't protect my sister Bryn from whoever decided three federal investigators needed to vanish into the Alaskan wilderness.

So I run.

For three miles. Maybe four. Distance becomes meaningless, measured only in the rhythm of pain and the growing weakness in my legs. Finally, I collapse behind a massive boulder, pressing my back against frozen stone. My hands shake as I open my jacket to assess the damage.

The wound is bad. The round went through, which means no bullet to dig out.

But it tore things on the way through—things I need to keep functioning.

Blood soaks my entire left side. My emergency medical kit holds gauze, pressure bandages, clotting powder.

Enough to maybe keep me alive if I can get somewhere warm, somewhere I can actually treat this properly.

I pack the wound, gasping through clenched teeth as the clotting powder hits raw flesh. Wrap it tight with bandages that turn red almost immediately. My hands won't stop shaking. Shock, blood loss, cold—all of it catching up now that adrenaline is fading.

The radio crackles. I forgot I still have it clipped to my vest. A voice comes through, professional and cold: "Target three is wounded. Blood trail heading northeast. He won't last long in this condition. Maintain search pattern."

So they know. Know I'm hurt. Know I'm running on borrowed time.

They'll track me until I drop, then confirm the kill like they did with Joel and Tate, which means Chris Calder can't survive.

Not officially. Not in any way that creates a paper trail leading back to Bryn, to the investigation, or to whoever's running the trafficking network we got too close to exposing.

The decision cuts through the fog of pain, sharp and final. Disappear. Die on paper. Become a ghost the mountain swallows while the real work continues in the shadows. Because someone high up sold us out, and until I figure out who, everyone connected to me is a target.