Chapter 12 Marcus
MARCUS
Allegra’s pack rises and falls in a steady rhythm ahead of me. My gaze drifts down her pack to her legs, strong and sturdy and long in tight hiking leggings.
Every footstep accentuates the muscles in her calves, and I drag my gaze away. The kiss was a mistake. I don’t need that kind of distraction when I’m on a mission.
Today I keep my distance, walking behind and keeping my gaze on the surroundings when it isn’t straying to her taut legs and wondering how they’d feel wrapped around me.
Sweat beads on my forehead, and I scrub a hand down my face. I need to get a grip.
Allegra stops suddenly, and I almost bump into the back of her. While she checks her GPS, I turn in a slow circle, scanning the ridgeline.
We’ve been climbing higher into the mountains all morning, and the trail has left the forest behind. We’re following a ridge on our right and rocky terrain on the left. It’s exposed out here, and I don’t want to stop longer than I have to.
Allegra frowns at the screen and then lifts her gaze, peering at our surroundings.
“Need help?”
She gives an irritated shake of her head. “I can read a GPS.”
She’s gone back to being acerbic, and that suits me fine. She’s putting distance between us; only her acid tongue is like a moth to the flame for me.
“You sure about that?”
The look she gives me is pure irritation, but at least she’s looking at me. I cock my head and hold out my hand for her equipment.
She pulls the GPS toward her. “I know where we’re going,” she states. “I’m looking for the stream that’s meant to cut through here.”
“You mean the stream that’s around the next bend?”
Her eyes widen. “How do you do that? You sure you haven’t been here before?”
I shake my head, grinning. I’m not about to tell her my ears are so attuned to my surroundings I can hear the soft burble of a stream under the noise of our footsteps.
Or that I’ve noticed patches of moss on the rocks for the last ten minutes, or that there are more birds circling, which indicates a water source.
The only thing I’m guessing at is how far away it is.
“I was trained to see around corners.” I give her my best laid-back grin. “It’s a special ops skill.”
She rolls her eyes at me and turns towards the path. We get moving again, and the grin slips off my face as I glance up at the ridgeline.
I’m also not about to tell her about the skin prickling at the back of my neck. We’re being watched, and it’s by something bigger than the birds that swoop overhead.
We carry on, and sure enough, around the next bend is the stream Allegra’s looking for. She stops when she sees it and turns to me with her eyebrows raised.
I shrug. “Special skills.”
She shakes her head and continues until we reach a place where a flat boulder makes it easy to stop.
Allegra shrugs off her pack and gets out her sample kit, her laptop, and camcorder. She perches on the edge of a flat boulder and opens her laptop like we have all afternoon.
My gaze goes to the ridgeline, but there’s no movement. Still, I don’t want to stay here longer than we have to.
Allegra seems unaware of the danger, so I keep my tone light and playful—something I’ve mastered over the years.
“I’ll give you a hand.”
Allegra looks up at me as if she’s forgotten I’m here. “I’m your new assistant. While you talk to the camera, I’ll grab the sample for you.”
Her eyebrows pull together. “I don’t need an assistant.”
“Come on, I’d look good in a lab coat.”
A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, but she shakes her head. “I can do it on my own, Marcus.”
“I’ll wade into the river. It means you don’t have to get your feet wet.”
The half-smile turns into a frown. “I’m not afraid of getting my feet wet.”
And just like that, her defenses are back up. I’ve said the wrong thing, and she’s so damn bristly. Her focus returns to the keyboard, and it’s useless to try to help now. After a week on the trail with Allegra, I already understand her determination veers into stubbornness fairly regularly.
“Suit yourself. But don’t complain that you missed the opportunity to have the best looking research assistant in North America.”
“The most humble too,” she mutters.
While she’s recording her piece on the camera, I leave my pack and take only my MOLLE. It’s got a handgun and a knife and will help me move quicker. With a lighter load, I go to check out the ridge.
The cliff is steep here, but I recall passing a place not far behind us that might have decent footholds.
I don’t like leaving Allegra out of my sight, especially when she’s engrossed in her work. From experience, I know she’ll take her time doing the recording and taking the sample.
I pull the sensors out of my pack and set a perimeter that takes in the area where Allegra sits and both our packs. At least I’ll receive an alert if something or someone approaches.
Then, I head back along the trail until I find a place with a pile of rocks left by a rockfall that I can easily climb.
My boots slip on loose pebbles as I free climb the twelve-foot cliff face. I use my legs to push up from the pile of loose boulders and find holds for my hands. I’ve climbed all the crags on Wild Heart Mountain, and I’m up in the time it would have taken to secure a rope.
My shoulder protests as I pull myself onto the ridge, but I ignore it and roll to my feet, landing in a crouching position.
The ridge is uneven, with jagged rocks sticking up at awkward angles. I creep along it, keeping as low as possible with deliberate movements.
I’m as exposed up here as I was below, and my senses go on high alert, my heart only returning to a steady beat when I get Allegra in my line of sight.
She’s doing her piece for the camera, and she’s angled the camera so the ridge is in the background. I duck out of sight. The last thing she or I want is for me to be caught on camera.
I move further along the ridge, scanning the ground, the skyline, and down below, looking for anything out of place.
But the rocks are sturdy. There are no footprints here and no obvious signs of disturbance. I spin in a wide circle, but the sky above me and the rocks below are all there is. I rub the back of my neck, and the prickling is gone. Maybe I’m being paranoid.
I shrug off the thought. There’s no such thing as paranoia when you’re working as a SEAL. Thinking you’re being paranoid will get you killed.
I check my wrist device, and the perimeter markers display green. All is good.
I step away from the edge and pull out my sat phone and put in a call to Hudson.
“Marcus.” There’s an edge to his voice. “We found something.”
I crouch on the ridge, trying to find a comfortable spot between the sharp rocks. “Tell me.”
“Green Metals is owned by Future Enterprises.”
I rub a hand across my forehead, but the name doesn’t ring a bell. “And what’s the significance?”
“Future Enterprises is lobbying for mining rights in North Carolina.”
“And where does Green Metals fit in?”
“Green Metals is one of their subsidiary companies. It’s a greenwashing scheme to make them appear as if they give a shit about the environment.
They sponsor university research, but only what suits their interests.
Giving small grants to geology departments that will help their mining interests and withholding it from environmental research.
‘
My chest goes cold. There’s the connection right here. A multi-billion company that stands to lose if Allegra’s research proves they’re polluting the water.
“Shit.”
“It gets more interesting,” Hudson continues. “There’s unusual bank activity; large sums of money being transferred…”
Two things happen simultaneously; there’s a loud rumble of rocks falling, and my wrist vibrates.
I don’t hear the rest of Hudson’s sentence as I race to the edge of the ridge.
Allegra is standing in the water holding her sample up, and her eyes are wide with shock. My heart slides back into my chest. She’s all right. Then I follow her gaze.
On the boulder where she was sitting only a moment ago is a pile of rocks. There’s been a landslide. Straight onto the rock where she was sitting.
I swing myself over the edge of the ridge, feeling my hand cut open on the sharp rocks. I lose my grip, and my sat phone slips out of my hands. It bumps down the side of the cliff face, and I follow it, half climbing and half sliding until I’m at the bottom.
As I dash to Allegra, I pull my handgun from my pocket and put myself between her body and the ridge. My gaze scans the ridgeline as I keep my gun raised. Aside from small pebbles trickling down where the slide happened, there’s no movement.
“Are you okay?” I turn to Allegra, and her eyes are wide, but she nods.
“I was just sitting there.”
She’s shaking, and I take her arm gently. “We need to get moving. Pack up your things.”
She looks up at me, and her face is pale. I take her cheeks in both my hands.
“It’s scary and we’ll talk about it soon, but right now, I need you to pack up your things as quickly as you can. Can you do that for me?”
I’m leaving blood on her cheek, but the contact brings her back to herself. Her expression changes from fear to the steely determination I’ve come to recognize. She stands up taller, and I drop my hands.
“Okay.”
While Allegra stuffs her belongings into her pack, I examine the landslide. It’s too much of a coincidence to be an accident. Someone was waiting to trigger this. Someone was up on that ridge, and I didn’t spot them.
They’re a trained operator. We’re not dealing with an amateur here. We’re dealing with a company with influence that can afford to pay a lot of money to get a trained operative, someone like me. A mercenary. I have to assume they have the same skills I do.
But if they were watching, why wait until Allegra moved off the rock?
The answer comes to me. Someone briefed them to scare her, not to kill her. The thought provides little comfort. If they had wanted her dead, they could have done it.
“My laptop.” Allegra gasps, and my attention snaps to her.
Under the pile of rocks is the dull metal of her laptop, covered in a thin layer of dust. She pulls the rocks off it to reveal a dent in the top of it and the corner crushed.
Her look of dismay makes my heart ache.
“My notes” she says, and she can’t hide the dismay in her voice. “Months of data is in there.”
I glance upwards, wondering if someone is listening. If so, perhaps this is what they want.
Something lies beside the pile of rocks. I pick up her camcorder. It’s dusty but seems to be in one piece.
“Not all of it,” I say quietly.
While she finishes gathering her things, I get the sensors out of the ground. I find my sat phone at the bottom of the ridge where I dropped it as I scrambled down. When I pick it up, the front falls away, leaving an exposed chip and bent wires.
I press the on button, but nothing happens. The phone is completely smashed.
We’re on our own.