Chapter 12
GABE
The hours crawl. Sarah's text said she's coming with help, but no timeline. Waiting has never been my strong suit—at least, not according to the restlessness thrumming through my veins.
Sixty-two hours left on Crane's deadline.
Mara moves through the lodge like she's preparing for a siege, which I suppose she is. Extra firewood stacked by the hearth. Security cameras checked and rechecked. Satellite phone charged and within reach. She's done this before—prepared for the worst while hoping for better.
"You don't have to stay," I tell her as she inventories the first aid kit for the third time. "Sarah and her team can handle...”
"Don't." She doesn't look up from counting bandages. "Don't ask me to leave. Don't suggest I'd be safer somewhere else. And definitely don't tell me this isn't my fight."
"It's not."
Now she does look up, green eyes flashing. "You showed up half-dead in my blizzard. I pulled you inside, patched you up, gave you a place to heal. That made it my fight, Gabe. The moment I chose you over the safe option of calling it in."
"Mara...”
"Besides." Her voice softens, just a fraction. "Where would I go? This lodge, this mountain—it's the only home I've had in three years. I'm not letting Crane or anyone else take that from me."
The words hit harder than they should. Home. Such a simple concept, yet it's been sliding through my fingers since the moment I woke up in Mara’s house with gaps where my life should be.
"Okay." I cross the room, pull her close. Her hands fist in my shirt.
"I'm not going anywhere," she says against my chest.
"Good."
Fifty-eight hours.
The satellite phone rings at 11:47 PM. Zeke's voice is low, controlled. "Got activity on the fire road, two miles out. Vehicle went dark—no headlights. Could be your people or could be trouble."
"How long until you know?"
"Giving them ten minutes to make contact on the secure channel. If they don't..." He doesn't finish the sentence.
Eight minutes later, my phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number:
Four coming in on foot from the northwest. Don't shoot. -S
I show Mara. She immediately moves to the window, peers into the darkness. "I don't see anything."
"You won't. Not if they're any good."
We kill the interior lights. Wait in the darkness, every sense straining. Crane's watchers are out there somewhere, which means Sarah and her team are threading a needle—close enough to reach us, invisible enough to avoid detection.
I watch as four shadows materialize from the tree line. They move like smoke, fluid and silent, each wearing what looks like some kind of thermal dampening blanket over their gear—the kind that scatters heat signatures into background noise.
A soft knock. Three taps, pause, two taps.
Sarah's face is barely visible under a dark knit cap as I open the door.
"Inside," she breathes. "Now."
They slip through the door. I close it behind them, and only then does Sarah lower her pack and pull back her hood. She shrugs off the blanket, her features sharp with focus and something deeper—recognition tinged with disbelief.
Our eyes meet across the darkened room.
For a heartbeat, the world narrows to just the two of us. Then she's moving, closing the distance in long strides, and suddenly we're face to face. She stops an arm's length away, her breath fogging in the cold air.
"Gabe." My name breaks on her lips, half-sob, half-laugh. "You stupid, brilliant bastard."
"Sarah." Her name feels right, even if I can't remember why. "I...”
"Don't." She swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand, and I realize she's crying. "Don't apologize. Don't explain. Just...” She closes the remaining distance and pulls me into a fierce hug. "God, I thought you were dead."
Over her shoulder, Mara watches from the doorway, her expression unreadable. I catch her eye, and she gives me a small nod. It's okay. I understand.
Sarah pulls back, professional mask sliding back into place as she turns to her team. "This is Rhett, Colton, and Alex. My team. Best operators I've ever worked with."
Rhett extends a hand. "Good to see you breathing."
"Jury's still out on that," I reply, shaking hands with each of them. "Depends on how the next two days go."
"Then let's get to work." Sarah's all business now. "We've got fifty-eight hours and a lot of ground to cover."
Sarah spreads files across Mara's kitchen table like she's dealing cards. Satellite photos. Personnel files. Financial records. The detritus of a three-week investigation compressed into manila folders and glossy prints.
"I've been digging since you disappeared.
" She taps a photo of a nondescript office building.
"Chimera Global Solutions. On paper, they're a legitimate private intelligence firm.
Off paper? They're the CIA's favorite deniable asset.
Covert ops, regime change, wetwork—if it's too dirty for official channels, Chimera handles it. "
"And Crane?"
"Vex Crane. Former Delta, went private sector eight years ago.
He's Chimera's fixer. The guy they send when negotiations fail and they need a body.
" She slides another photo across the table—Crane in tactical gear, face partially obscured.
"He's good. Patient. Methodical. And he's been hunting you for three weeks. "
Mara leans against the counter, arms crossed. "Why? What did Gabe take?"
Sarah's jaw works. "Evidence. Documentation of an off-books operation in Yemen that went sideways. Civilian casualties. Weapons transfers to terrorist cells. The kind of proof that would bring down half of Chimera's leadership and trigger a congressional investigation."
"A lie," I say quietly. "From the beginning."
"Not exactly." Sarah meets my eyes. "The operation was sanctioned. The CIA signed off. But when it went south, everyone scrambled to cover their asses. Chimera offered up a scapegoat—you. They blamed the civilian deaths on rogue actions, painted you as a contractor who went off mission."
My hands curl into fists. "But I knew better."
"You knew it was a setup. But that didn't stop the guilt." She pauses. "By the time you figured out the evidence was fabricated, they'd already frozen your accounts and put a target on your back."
"So I ran."
"You collected evidence first. Everything you could find. Then you disappeared." She pauses. "I've been trying to find you ever since. Following breadcrumbs, chasing dead ends. When Crane's team hit that safe house in Montana, I knew they were close. I just didn't know how close."
Fifty-four hours.
Alex sets up a laptop on the coffee table, pulling up surveillance footage. "Crane's got a six-man team. Standard tactical configuration. They've been rotating surveillance on the mountain access roads for the past seventy-two hours. Waiting for you to make a move."
"Or for the deadline to expire," Colton adds. "After that, they come in hard."
Mara shifts beside me. "What's stopping them from coming now? Why wait?"
"Plausible deniability," Sarah says. "Right now, they're just private contractors maintaining surveillance on public land. The moment they move on a civilian residence without cause, they risk exposure. Crane needs Gabe to either turn himself in or force their hand."
"So we have fifty-four hours to figure out where I hid the evidence." I scrub a hand through my hair. "Any ideas?"
Sarah's expression turns grim. "That's the problem. You didn't tell me where you put it. Said it was safer if I didn't know. Smart, but unhelpful."
"There has to be something," Mara says. "Some clue he left himself."
"The photograph," I say suddenly, pulling it from my pocket. The one of Sarah with the trail marker symbol. "When we found this, we thought the marker was just showing you the way to find me. But what if there's more to it?"
Sarah takes the photograph, studying it intently. Her fingers trace the edges, then she flips it over. "The inscription. If you've forgotten, she remembers. Trust her. And underneath...” She holds it up to the light. "There's more. Faint, like you wrote it in pencil first."
Alex leans in with a magnifying app on his phone. "Coordinates. Partial. 47.72... the rest is too faded."
"That's northwest Montana," Rhett says immediately. "Glacier National Park region."
"Three locations," I hear myself say. The words surface from somewhere deep. "I split the evidence. Never keep all your eggs in one basket."
Everyone turns to look at me.
"You remember?" Sarah's voice is carefully controlled.
"Not exactly. But it feels right. Like muscle memory." I close my eyes, reaching for the fragments. "One location close. One far. One... insurance."
"The package," Sarah says slowly. "Two weeks ago. No return address, generic packaging. Inside was a safety deposit box key."
"Anchorage," the word comes unbidden. "First National Bank. That's the second cache."
"And the first?" Mara asks.
I tap the faint coordinates on the photograph. "Grotto Falls. Primary cache. I buried something there."
"Which leaves the third location," Colton says. "The insurance."
The memory surfaces slowly, like something rising from deep water. "A dead drop. Old school tradecraft. Somewhere public enough that it wouldn't draw attention, permanent enough that it would last months."
"Where?" Sarah presses.
I shake my head, frustrated. "I don't know. I can feel that I set it up, but not where."
"Did you mail something to yourself?" Alex suggests. "Post office box?"
"No. Too easy to intercept." The fragments are there, just out of reach. "Somewhere that required a key, but not my name. Somewhere..."
"A locker," Rhett says. "Bus station, train station, airport."
That feels right. "Seattle. The Greyhound station. I used a fake ID to rent a long-term locker."
Sarah's face goes pale. "Crane knows about Seattle. He mentioned it once—said you'd been tracked there two months before you disappeared."
"Then he might already have it," Mara says quietly.
"But he doesn't have the other two," Rhett says. "We can still beat him to them."
"Not to the bank." Colton shakes his head. "Box requires ID and a key. The moment Gabe shows his face in Anchorage, Crane will know. He's probably monitoring financial institutions."
"Then we fake him out," Mara says. Everyone turns to look at her. "Give Crane what he thinks he wants. Make him believe Gabe's handing over the evidence at the falls. Meanwhile, someone else hits the bank."
Sarah considers this. "It's risky. If Crane smells the deception...”
"He won't," I interrupt. "Because I'll sell it. I'll bring the evidence from the falls. Make the handover look legitimate. By the time he realizes what's happening, you'll have already leaked the documents from the bank cache."
"You're talking about walking into a trap," Sarah says flatly.
"I'm talking about ending this." I meet her eyes. "One way or another, this ends at Grotto Falls."
The room falls silent. Outside, wind rattles the windows. The clock above the mantle ticks steadily, marking the passage of hours we can't afford to lose.
Finally, Sarah nods. "Okay. We do this smart. Rhett and Colton hit Anchorage at dawn—that gives them time to access the box before business hours end. Alex stays here, provides overwatch and coordinates communications. You and I go to the falls."
"I'm coming," Mara says firmly when I open my mouth to object.
"Mara...”
"We've been over this, Gabe. I'm not sitting this out."
Sarah studies her for a long moment, then nods. "Okay. But you follow orders. This goes sideways, you get out. Understood?"
"Understood."
We spend the next two hours planning. Routes. Contingencies. Fallback positions. Sarah's team moves with practiced efficiency, the kind that comes from years of operating in hostile territory.
At 3 AM, Zeke calls again. "Caleb Thompson just reported an attempted grab outside the Grizzly. Two men, federal bearing, tried to force him into a vehicle. He fought them off, but one of them mentioned your name, Gabe."
My throat tightens. "Is he okay?"
"Pissed off and looking for a fight. Holed up at the sheriff's office now because I won't let him go hunting. But Gabe—they're escalating. Whatever you're planning, you’d better do it fast."
After we hang up, Sarah's expression is grim. "Crane's getting desperate. Running out of time. That makes him more dangerous."
"Then we don't give him any more time." I look around the room at these people—Sarah and her team, Mara, even Zeke on the other end of that phone line.
People risking everything to help me fix my mistakes.
"We move at dawn. Hit the bank, make the exchange, and end this before anyone else gets hurt. "
"Agreed," Sarah says.
The team disperses to prep gear and catch a few hours of sleep. Mara and I retreat to her room. Neither of us bothers pretending we'll actually sleep.
She sits on the edge of the bed, and I kneel in front of her, hands on her thighs. "Tomorrow...”
"We survive tomorrow." She cuts me off. "Then we figure out what comes after."
"And if we don't?"
"Then at least we tried." Her fingers thread through my hair. "Better than waiting for them to come through the door."
I pull her closer, resting my head against her stomach. Her heartbeat steady and strong. Real. The one constant in all this chaos.
"When this is over," I say quietly, "I want to remember everything. Not just the missions or the evidence. Everything. Including how we started."
"The blizzard?"
"Before that. Why I ended up on this mountain. Why I chose to run here instead of anywhere else." I look up at her. "I think some part of me knew. Even with the amnesia. Knew this was where I needed to be."
She doesn't answer, just holds me tighter.
She kisses me then, soft and fierce and desperate. We don't make love. We simply hold each other in the darkness, drawing strength and comfort, preparing for whatever tomorrow brings.
Somewhere in the lodge, Sarah sleeps with her tactical gear within arm's reach.
Outside, hidden in the treeline beyond Crane's surveillance range, the Echo Ridge team maintains a cold watch—thermal dampening blankets wrapped tight, no fires, no lights, just three operators invisible to both eyes and sensors in the Montana night.
Fifty-three hours left on Crane's deadline.
At dawn, everything changes.