Chapter 11 #2
"I lived it." Another file loads on screen showing dates of trafficking busts that failed.
"Every operation I've documented over the past three years, every raid that went sideways, every witness who disappeared before they could testify—they all have one thing in common.
Someone with access to operational details leaked information ahead of time. "
He leans over the table, studying the timeline. "How high up would someone need to be to have that kind of access?"
"High enough to see classified briefings.
High enough to redirect resources without raising flags.
High enough that questioning their decisions looks like insubordination rather than investigation.
" I pull up another file. "Tom was tracking financial connections.
Payments from shell companies to federal employees.
He couldn't prove who was receiving the money, but he documented the pattern.
His notes pointed to someone in senior FBI leadership, but not a specific name or rank. "
The laptop screen glows in the dim light, casting shadows across Finn's face as he processes what I'm showing him. Outside, wind picks up, howling through the canyon we just navigated. The sound carries for miles out here, bouncing off rock and ice.
I cross-reference Tom's financial data with my own investigation into the Alaska trafficking routes. Supply deliveries to remote communities. Federal officials traveling to supposedly inspect operations. Timing that correlates too perfectly to be coincidence.
Then I see it.
The name appears in three separate documents I've never compared side by side before.
Julian Montrose. Deputy Assistant Director in the FBI.
Direct oversight of multiple field offices, including the one that ran the Stormwatch operation.
Including the one currently investigating trafficking in Alaska.
My hands go still on the keyboard. The world narrows to those two words on the screen.
Julian Montrose. A name I've seen in briefings, in administrative emails, in the organizational charts that map the Bureau's hierarchy.
A face I've passed in hallways, nodded to at interagency meetings.
Someone I thought of as just another career bureaucrat grinding toward retirement and a pension.
He wasn't a bureaucrat. He was a predator.
Three years I've been hunting shadows. Following breadcrumbs and half-truths and leads that evaporated like morning mist. Wondering if I was chasing ghosts, if maybe I really was the negligent agent the official reports said I was.
If maybe Tom died for nothing and the corruption was just paranoia born from grief.
But it wasn't paranoia. It was real. And his name is Julian Montrose.
"What?" Finn asks, reading my expression.
"Montrose." The name tastes like ash. "Julian Montrose. He's the Marshal."
My voice sounds strange even to my own ears. Hollow. Like someone speaking from the bottom of a well. He moves closer, studies my face with the same focused attention he used navigating the canyon. Reading me the way he reads terrain.
I pull up the file I compiled on Montrose months ago.
One of three high-ranking officials I'd narrowed down as potential suspects.
Personnel file showing a thirty-year career with the Bureau.
Steady promotions, solid performance reviews, nothing to indicate corruption on the surface.
Travel records that initially looked routine—inspections, conferences, operational oversight.
But when I cross-reference the dates with my trafficking timeline, patterns emerge like images developing in a darkroom.
Every major shipment that moved through Alaska, Montrose was in the region within forty-eight hours. Every operation that got compromised, he'd had access to the briefing materials. Every witness who disappeared, he'd been in a position to know their location and protection details.
He had the access to leak information. Could sabotage operations before they began. Was perfectly placed to frame me when it all went wrong and three agents died.
Finn straightens, processing the implications. "Who's paying him?"
"I don't know yet. The payments go through so many shell companies and offshore accounts that I can't trace them to a source." I pull up the financial records, show him the pattern. "But someone is. Someone with resources and reach that make Montrose look like middle management."
"Can you prove what you do have? Can you prove Montrose is the Marshal?"
"I have financial records. Witness testimony.
Operational patterns. Tom's notes pointing to corruption at the senior executive level of the Bureau.
" I gesture at the evidence spread across the table.
"Individually, each piece could be explained away.
But together? Together they paint a picture that any competent investigator would recognize. "
"Will anyone believe you? You're a fugitive. Montrose has institutional backing."
"That's why we need to transmit this to the right people. Not just to law enforcement—Montrose has influence there. We need to send it to journalists, congressional oversight committees, internal affairs divisions at multiple agencies. Saturate the channels so it can't be buried."
Finn moves to the window, scanning the forest outside. "Satellite communication is possible from here. I have equipment for emergencies. But the moment we start transmitting, anyone monitoring frequencies in this region will pick it up. They'll have our location within minutes."
"How long would we have before they arrive?"
He turns back to face me. "Not enough time to pack up and run. We'd have to defend this position until help arrives."
"What about Zeke's team? Can we coordinate with them first?"
"I can send a coded message. Let him know our location and that we're planning to transmit. Give him time to stage backup nearby." Finn checks his watch. "It's almost midnight now. If I message him in the next hour, he could have people in position by dawn."
"And if Montrose's people find us before then?"
"Then we make sure they regret it." Finn checks his rifle, confirms the magazine is full. "This cabin has good defensive positions. Limited approaches. Anyone coming for us has to expose themselves to get close."
Dawn. Hours away in the darkness. Sitting in this hidden cabin with evidence that could bring down a Deputy Assistant Director and expose a trafficking network spanning three states. Time for Montrose's people to find us, to eliminate the threat we represent before we can transmit anything.
"Do it," I say. "Contact Zeke. Tell him we have proof. Tell him we'll transmit at first light when his people are in position to provide cover."
Finn nods and pulls out a satellite phone from the supplies. The device is bulky, military-grade. He moves outside to get a clear signal, leaving me alone with three years of investigation finally coalescing into actionable evidence.
Julian Montrose. The man behind the Marshal designation. The corrupt official who built a protection racket around trafficking networks. Who sacrificed federal agents to protect his income stream. Who framed me to cover up his crimes.
But there's something else. Something in the pattern of payments that bothers me. The amounts are too clean, too regular. Like Montrose is passing money up the chain rather than keeping it all. Like he's not the top of this operation, just the highest-ranking piece I can prove.
"He destroyed my career," I say quietly. "Got three of my agents killed. Made sure I took the fall for an operation he sabotaged. And he's been protecting trafficking networks for years because someone's paying him to do it."
I have his name now. Have the proof. Have everything Tom died trying to gather.
All we have to do is survive until dawn.
Finn returns ten minutes later, stamping snow off his boots.
"Zeke's moving people into position. He'll have a team staged three miles south of here by oh-five-hundred. We transmit at oh-six-hundred, right after first light. Gives them time to deploy if things go sideways."
I should feel afraid. Probably would if I had enough energy left for fear. But all those months of running, of gathering evidence piece by careful piece, of carrying the weight of dead agents and a murdered mentor—all of it has burned through normal emotional responses.
My hands stop shaking. The tightness in my chest releases. Everything narrows to a single point: survive until dawn. Transmit the evidence. End this.
Finn works through the cabin and the perimeter, checking defensive positions, setting traps, ensuring windows are secured and the like.
He pulls blackout material over the glass, eliminating any light signature visible from outside.
Tests the door locks, examines the frame for weak points.
His movements are efficient, practiced. A soldier preparing for combat.
"The chimney vents through baffles in the hillside," he says, more to himself than to me.
"Disperses smoke across multiple exit points.
No visible plume to track even in daylight.
" He accesses the weapons cache he's stocked here.
"Approaches are limited. Front door is the only ground-level access.
The roof is too steep and too well camouflaged for insertion from above. They'd have to come at us straight on."
"Which gives us the advantage."
"If we see them coming." He distributes ammunition, checks each magazine. "But Montrose and his people are good. They won't announce themselves."
I watch him work, recognizing the ritual.
The methodical preparation that keeps soldiers sane when violence is coming and you can't stop it, can only get ready to meet it.
I've done the same thing before raids. Check your weapon.
Test your comms. Review the plan. Physical actions that ground you in the present, keep your mind from spiraling into what-ifs and worst-case scenarios.
I organize files, encrypt backups, prepare redundant transmission packages. An investigator marshaling evidence. My own ritual, my own way of staying focused when the walls are closing in.
The stove ticks as metal expands from heat. Outside, wind shifts direction, carrying new sounds. Tree branches creaking under ice. Small animals moving through underbrush. The ambient noise of wilderness that never truly sleeps.
Or is that something else? Footsteps trying to mimic natural sounds? Equipment being positioned in the dark?
I catch myself listening too hard, reading threat into every variation in the background noise. That way lies paranoia and exhaustion. The assassin might be out there. Probably is. But we won't hear them until they want us to.
Finn finishes checking the defensive positions and returns to the table. We sit in the growing warmth of the stove, surrounded by evidence that could bring down a Deputy Assistant Director and expose a trafficking network spanning three states.
Hours until dawn. Hours until Zeke's team is in position. Time spent wondering if the professional will find us first.
I check the satellite equipment one more time. Everything's ready. The files are organized, encrypted, backed up in three separate locations. Tom's three-year-old breadcrumbs have finally led me to the truth.
Now I just have to stay alive long enough to tell it.