Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
One month later…
Blackridge Security facility, outside Hope, BC.
The interior door opened on a soft whoosh, the dim light from the emergency exit sign casting deep shadows along the adjoining hallway as Captain Coulter Barrett shoved the code reader and lock picks into his back pocket.
Third damn door he’d had to bypass, and he hadn’t even reached the facility’s server hub.
Footsteps sounded parallel to him, a large figure crossing up ahead, the man’s shadow projected on the floor, stretching out toward him before vanishing as he continued down the hall.
Coulter shouldn’t be there. Not because it was illegal. Because he was putting his career — his life — at risk. But because she wouldn’t want him to be.
Coulter pushed down the punch of grief, the echo of her voice in his head, following the corridor down two more junctions, then up three levels. He paused at the top of the stairs, glanced at the map his best friend Troy Thompson had sent him, a flash of pain tightening his chest.
It had been three days since Coulter had received the call regarding Troy. Mugging, the officer had said. A tragedy, just like Neve’s training accident. The kind of loss that clawed at Coulter’s soul. Threatened to destroy him from the inside out. And he’d bought it.
The reports.
The photos.
The dog tags they’d handed him along with that fucking folded flag. Her fifteen years of service pared down to one moment he couldn’t erase.
Couldn’t fix.
Until Coulter received an encrypted message from Troy the day after he’d died...
“If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead... It’s about that team that died in Bralorne… Neve’s team...”
And in a heartbeat, everything had changed.
Coulter tucked the thoughts away. He only had a limited amount of time before the files Troy had saved in his dead-man packet triggered an internal alarm and the system purged them.
Before any chance at proving both Neve and Troy had been murdered, vanished.
Coulter checked the location, then struck off. Steady. Confident. Barely glancing down branching hallways as he headed for the main server room. The kind of tunnel vision that got good men killed. Except a part of him didn’t care. Prayed for some kind of altercation.
An ounce of payback before he slipped into the abyss.
The hum of the HVAC played in the background, the occasional scuff of boots on concrete breaking the quiet as he neared the room. He stopped across from the doorway, waited for the camera in the far corner to pan right, then slipped out, swiping the keycard Troy had sent him through the slot.
The light blinked red, then green, the lock tumbling over with a soft click.
He pushed the door aside, slipped in and closed it before the camera panned back.
The scent of stale coffee and ozone clogged his throat, the temperature about five degrees cooler.
He headed straight for a small desk positioned against a bare patch on the far wall, slid into the chair, then hit the keyboard.
The screen winked on in a flash of blue light, Blackridge’s logo positioned in the center, the cursor blinking in a login box beneath it. Off to the side, a timer started counting down, his window quickly closing.
Coulter typed in the password Troy had given him, watched the cursor spin before the screen faded into the company’s server desktop, rows of folders lining the right side. He scrolled through the names, looking for the right file only to stop on the one titled Operation Bralorne.
A cold sweat slicked his skin, dread punching him low in the gut as he clicked the icon — opened the contents.
Dead.
That’s how he felt.
Hollowed out as he stared at the images plastered across the screen. Neve’s team frozen in time-stamped frames, the earliest taken six weeks before the incident. What looked like pictures from a telephoto lens, maybe a drone.
He traced his finger along the curve of her jaw, guilt slamming into him like a fist. The lost time. The broken promises. How he’d finally realized she meant more to him than the endless deployments.
That it was time to make her, his priority.
He closed his eyes, let the pain sharpen into a razor’s edge. That fine line between vengeance and justice. He clicked through more images, cataloging the files — maps and grid lines, communication frequencies, aerial photos of the Bralorne area, a large circle drawn around one choke point.
He slipped a thumb drive into one of the slots, dragged the files over as he ran through more reports, stopping when he found a list of operators, various medical stats overlaying their photos.
He scanned down the file, located the name Troy had mentioned in his note.
Peter Ramsey.
Founder of Blackridge Security and Troy’s boss.
The guy was former JTF2 — had served twelve years before being discharged under claims of ethical violations.
Troy had discovered financial discrepancies while preforming a routine audit of the legal side of Ramsey’s business — uncovered the dark half the man had hidden away.
And Ramsey had killed him for it.
Coulter stared at Ramsey’s face. Studied the lines and shadows until he knew he’d be able to ID the guy from nothing more than a glance, so that when the time came, he’d take the shot.
No hesitation.
No remorse.
Neve’s voice whispered in his ear like a damn angel on his shoulder. Reminding him of his oath. His honor. But morality had a way of bleeding out. Dying, just like she had.
The computer pinged, the sound jerking him back. He removed the drive, tucking it in his pocket as he shut everything down — replaced the chair. The images looped inside his head, Troy’s words mixing in.
Someone paid Ramsey millions to hunt them. I don’t know why. I don’t know who. But this proves it wasn’t an accident. Find out and finish this.
Coulter tapped the drive through his pocket. While he didn’t have all the answers, he had enough to start — to take the hunt to Ramsey.
He tamped down the rage burning beneath his skin as he listened at the door before slivering it open. An uneasy silence enveloped the floor, the occasional noise bleeding through. Proof Coulter wasn’t alone.
Footsteps tapped nearby, a radio crackling out a blast of static before it cutoff. Coulter froze, listening for movement — stepping back inside and closing the door when the hairs on his neck prickled. He slid behind the door, his Sig palmed in his left hand, tactical knife within reach.
Shadows moved past the frosted window, disappearing off to the left. Silence hung heavy in the air, every sense dialed in.
A scuff, then the door busted open, nearly slamming into his head as it bounced off his forearm, swung back. Two men in black gear barreled in, their steps seemingly carrying them farther than normal.
Coulter slammed the door shut behind him, opting for his KA-BAR as he stepped into the fray, caught one guy in the side, knife slipping between the edges of his vest, sinking into his torso with a wet slap.
His buddy took a swing, missed, stumbling back when Coulter kicked his knee. Bones cracked a second before the guy’s leg buckled — dropped him onto the floor with a dull thump.
The first asshole hissed out a breath as he teetered on his heels, shaking his head, then lunging forward, throwing punches as if the knife had simply glanced off him.
His partner recovered, joining in, using that leg despite the way his kneecap pointed to the right.
What looked like an obvious dislocation.
Coulter countered their strikes, landing punches that would cripple other men, cursing when they simply bounced off. He ducked low, took a crushing blow to his ribs, his next breath hissing out on a wheeze.
He shoved down the pain, managed to beat them back — open up a bit of space.
He flipped the knife, tossed it, pegging one asshole in the neck.
The guy’s breath hitched, mouth gaping open as he lurched back, folded onto the slick floor.
His partner didn’t blink, reaching for his weapon as Coulter drew his Sig, downed him with a double tap to the head.
Pain throbbed through Coulter’s ribs, arms aching from the hits, everything spinning.
He rifled through their gear, searching for some indication on how they’d brushed off the injuries without blinking.
Similar to something he’d seen in the field during his last deployment — an injectable that had enabled one of his men to keep pushing after getting shot in the side.
But that had been elementary compared to the strength and stamina these men had displayed.
He paused at the watch on the guy’s wrist. His medic had slipped something less sophisticated on his teammate’s wrist to transmit the data. Though, that didn’t mean this device was connected.
He shoved it in his pocket regardless, grabbed a radio and a couple canisters before stumbling to the door, jerking it open, sweeping the hallways with his Sig. A door opened and closed off to the right, another radio clicking amidst the silence before shutting off.
He headed left, quickstepping down the hall, boots silent against the concrete floor. He stayed in the shadows, hugging the walls, checking for cameras before darting across an open corridor — busting into the stairwell.
He cleared the area above with a single sweep, then descended, dropping two more men with head shots when they burst through the lower level, looking up as if searching for him.
An alarm shrieked overhead, strobe lighting filling the stairwell.
Some guy barked out orders over the radio before it went dark.
Shouts rose above him, boots pounding down the stairs, a few rounds sparking off the metal rails. He bypassed the next exit, stormed through a maintenance door on the right, a blast of heat slapping him in the face, diesel and burnt oil coating his throat with every shallow inhale.