7. Cade
CADE
Wren Hollis places her footsteps with care. She looks before she trusts the ground, and adjusts quickly when the trail goes bad. She doesn’t stomp through the brush like she expects obstacles to move out of her way, and she doesn’t complain when the going gets rough.
You can learn a lot about a person out in the wilderness, and I’ve learned more about her than I should.
She tucks a loose piece of hair behind her ear when she’s concentrating. She doesn’t like accepting help unless there’s a practical reason for it. She pauses to collect her thoughts before making notes in her field book.
I’ve also learned Rhett’s voice gets lower when he talks to her, and Boone watches her mouth more than he probably knows.
And I’m worse than both of them, because Rhett can look at her and still think three moves ahead. Boone can smile at her and still keep one eye on the treeline.
I need distance to recalibrate.
Rhett and Boone are with her while she checks trail cams, but I cut north along a ravine that’s been bothering me since the day before.
It sits two miles off any marked trail, its rock walls pinched in close on both sides.
The bottom is littered with deadfall and loose stone, and it doesn’t invite foot traffic.
A game trail cuts across the slope above the ravine, faint but established. It’s a path for mule deer and elk to avoid the heavier brush, but something about it isn’t right.
Limbs have been twisted and snapped. Fallen branches have been dragged aside. Rocks have been moved out of the narrowest parts of the passage. The trail’s been widened in subtle ways that aren’t natural.
I crouch beside a patch of dark soil beneath a lodgepole pine and study the ground.
After a few minutes, I spot a partial bootprint.
It’s not fresh, but new enough for the tread impression to be clear, and it’s not a typical hiking-boot tread.
The pattern is a better match to tactical footwear, or something trying to look like it.
I take my phone out, then put it away. Instead, I reach into my chest rig for the compact camera I carry for route documentation. I capture the tread mark from a distance, then up close, then I find another.
I survey the deadfall in the narrowest part of the ravine with new eyes. Two downed trees are crossed over a tumble of rock. At first glance, it looks messy. Further scrutiny tells a different story.
The trees had fallen naturally years ago. Everything under them is too clean. Loose stone is arranged to mimic collapse, but it doesn’t match the slope. Needles and broken bark cover the top layer, but the debris looks uniform, not aged by time. There’s no older rot, no random scatter.
I circle wide, keeping my boots off the most likely approach line, and work my way to the uphill side. I don’t touch anything, I just look.
Beneath the rock and debris, a uniform matte green catches my eye, then a horizontal seam. The shapes are dusted with soil, but not enough to hide the fact that they’re manufactured. I spot a matching set as I circle around, and an old part of my mind comes awake.
Afghanistan had been full of places like this.
Concealed support caches close enough to be reachable, far enough from the main path to avoid accidental discovery.
Anything a moving cell might need, like food, ammo, radios, medical gear, and money, could be available without the need to carry it from point to point.
This isn’t Afghanistan, but human beings are human beings. People who hide things use the same logic all over the world.
As I broaden my circle and capture more images from a different angle, I find a flat stone, about the size of my palm, set on top of a larger rock near the widened trail. It doesn’t scream marker, but it wouldn’t be hard to find if you were looking for it.
And there’s pale residue on it, granular in places. Similar enough to what Wren found a few days ago that my pulse kicks hard once, then settles into something colder.
I photograph the rocks, too, then back away and lift my radio. “Prime, this is Smoke.”
Static hisses, then Rhett’s voice comes through. “Go.”
“Found something.”
After a pause, he says, “Define something.”
“Possible cache. Narrow ravine northeast of your location. Tactical tread. Possible marker with residue.”
The radio is silent again for a second, then Rhett says, “Status?”
“Undisturbed by me. Photographed. Holding security.”
“Copy. Grid.”
I read off the coordinates, picturing Rhett turning as I speak, reading terrain in his head, deciding on the best route.
“Any movement?”
“Negative. But the site’s been maintained.”
“Hold. We’re coming to you.”
“Copy.” I lower the radio and shift deeper into cover.
When Rhett arrives, Wren’s behind him, exactly where he’d want her to be. Close enough to control and far enough back to keep clear. Boone comes in from a wider arc, likely because he’d swept our route in.
People have said they found our triplet communication strange. To us, everyone else takes too long to say things.
Rhett looks at me once, and I give him two fingers low and left, then point toward the deadfall. Boone catches it too, his expression more like it used to be before he learned to smile for our clients.
Wren watches us, her expression wary as she realizes the day has changed.