Chapter 1 #2
I make another pot of coffee, measuring grounds the way I measure everything else—exact, controlled, no room for error.
While it brews, I run through weapons maintenance.
The HK416 first, fieldstripping it on the table with movements I could perform in total darkness.
Every part accounted for. Every spring checked.
Every surface cleaned. The ritual calms something in me that has nothing to do with actual weapon readiness.
The Glock 19 comes next, then the backup Sig. By the time I'm done, the coffee is ready and the sun has fully risen. Seven-thirty. The world is awake now, people going about their lives, thinking they're safe because they can't see the shadows moving beneath the surface.
I pour coffee and stand at the window again, looking out at the forest. Somewhere down there, in towns and cities I left behind, people are worried about mortgage payments and traffic jams. Their biggest threats are imaginary—what their neighbors think, whether their kids will get into good colleges, if their marriage can survive another year of quiet erosion.
They sleep in unlocked houses. Trust their governments. Believe the system protects them.
I used to be one of them. Before Crete. Before Kandahar. Before I learned that the system protects itself, and everyone else is acceptable collateral.
The satellite phone buzzes. Stryker's encrypted line.
"Kane."
"Status check." His voice sounds clear. Sober. Three weeks without a drink, and he sounds like a different man. Purpose does that. Gives you a reason to stay functional.
"Green. Perimeter's clean."
"Tommy's picking up Committee chatter. They're mobilizing assets west. Could be nothing."
"Could be everything." I watch a hawk circle above the tree line, hunting. "How's Sarah?"
"Stable. Rourke says another week before she's fully operational."
Sarah, the intelligence analyst who discovered the truth and nearly died for it. Another responsibility. Another person depending on Echo Ridge to keep her alive.
"And the recruitment?"
"Hayes is in. Thompson's still thinking. Mercer's working on him." Stryker pauses. "We're building something, Kane. Something that matters."
"Don't get philosophical on me."
He laughs, rough but genuine. "Three weeks ago, I was drunk in a mill waiting to die. Now I've got a reason to stay sober. That's worth something."
"Stay sharp. If the Committee's moving assets, they're planning something."
"Copy that. Kane?" Another pause. "You good out there? Alone?"
The question catches me off guard. I look around the cabin—the comfortable furniture, the weapons, the carefully maintained isolation that keeps me alive but doesn't let me live.
"I'm fine."
"That wasn't the question."
"It's the only answer I've got."
Stryker doesn't push. He knows better. "Check in at eighteen-hundred."
The line goes dead.
I set the phone down and return to the window. The hawk has found something—it dives with lethal precision, talons extended. A moment later it rises, a small rodent clutched in its grip. Efficient. Clean. No hesitation.
I've become that. Cut away everything except survival. No family to threaten. No friends to betray. No lover to use as leverage.
Just me and the mountain and the reflexes that keep me breathing.
It's enough. I tell myself it's enough.
The loneliness that gnaws at me in the quiet moments—that's just neural pathways firing in patterns evolution designed for tribal living. Ignore it long enough and it fades. Not completely, never completely, but enough to function.
Escape routes mapped and memorized. Supply caches positioned throughout the mountain range. False identities ready to activate. Money hidden in accounts that don't trace back to any name I've ever used.
Every contingency planned. Every variable accounted for.
The satellite phone buzzes again. Different tone. Priority alert.
Tommy's voice comes through tight with urgency. "Kane, we've got a situation. Geofence just triggered on that veterinary clinic in Whitefish. The one with the chemical detection."
My blood goes cold. "The dog?"
"Yeah. Odin. The vet who saved him—Dr. Willa Hart—she's on the move. And Kane?" Tommy's keyboard clicks in the background. "Committee assets are converging on her position. Multiple units. This is a kill operation."
I'm already moving, grabbing gear, loading the truck. "How long?"
"She's twenty minutes from your position on Highway 93. They'll intercept in thirty, maybe less. Storm's rolling in heavy. Limited visibility."
A civilian. A veterinarian who made the mistake of saving a dog that knows too much. Now the Committee is going to erase her like she never existed.
I throw the go-bag in the truck, check my weapons. The smart play is to stay here. Stay safe. Let the Committee clean up their own mess. Getting involved means exposure. Means risk. Means compromising the careful distance I've maintained.
The engine turns over with a growl. I'm already heading down the mountain.
Stryker was right. We're building something that matters. And what matters is the creed we carved into stone. Protect the innocent. First line. First priority.
The storm hits as I reach the highway, snow so thick I can barely see the road. But I know these mountains. Know every curve, every grade, every place where the Committee might set an ambush.
I'm ten miles out when I see the first muzzle flash through the white-out.
The veterinarian is about to learn that some choices you don't get to walk away from.
The storm swallows the truck as I push the accelerator to the floor. Somewhere ahead, a woman I've never met and her dog are about to die because she saved him.
I built these walls for a reason. I'm about to remember why they never hold.