8. Evie
EVIE
The mountains grow steeper as we cross into West Virginia.
Towering pines cover the ridges, and mist clings to the valleys. It’s beautiful country.
It’s also isolated enough for dozens of people to die without anyone hearing the gunfire.
Caleb slows the SUV.
His gaze moves between the road and the trees.
“Problem?”
“Maybe.”
“You keep saying that.”
“There usually is a problem when I say maybe.”
I peer through the windshield. “I don’t see anything.”
“Exactly.”
“What am I missing?”
“The birds.”
I listen.
Nothing.
No chirping.
No insects.
Not even the whisper of something moving through the undergrowth.
The forest has gone silent.
“They’re here,” Caleb says.
He pulls the SUV behind a wall of overgrown brush and turns off the engine.
“We walk from here.”
“There isn’t another vehicle for miles.”
“I know.”
“You expected this.”
“I hoped I was wrong.”
I check my pistol, shoulder my backpack, and climb out beside him.
The air smells of pine and wet earth.
Almost peaceful.
If I ignore the armed men hunting us.
We haven’t gone fifty yards when Caleb raises one fist.
I stop.
He crouches beside a patch of soft mud and touches the edge of a boot print.
“Fresh.”
I kneel beside him. “Military tread?”
“At least six men. Possibly more.”
The impressions lead uphill in a perfect line.
“They didn’t try to hide their tracks.”
“No.”
“Which means they want us to follow.”
Caleb looks at me. “Yes.”
“So we don’t.”
“We still have to reach the station.”
“Through the trap?”
“We change the rules.”
He says it as if rewriting the rules of a carefully constructed ambush is merely another item on his morning schedule.
I follow him away from the tracks.
For the next hour, we climb across terrain steep enough to leave my legs burning. Caleb selects every foothold as though he has walked this mountain before.
He hasn’t.
He simply understands land the way I understand intelligence reports.
Every slope tells him something.
Every broken branch becomes part of a story.
When we finally reach a rocky overlook, he drops into a crouch.
Below us sits an old government communications facility hidden among the trees.
Chain-link fences surround several concrete buildings. Satellite dishes rise above the compound. Two guard towers overlook the perimeter, and a line of black vehicles fills the central yard.
I lift the binoculars.
“Oh.”
Caleb settles beside me. “How many?”
“Too many.”
He takes the binoculars and counts.
I watch his expression become harder with each number.
“Thirty-one outside,” he says. “Possibly twice that inside.”
“They were told to expect an attack.”
“They were told to expect Shadow Division.”
A low rumble rolls across the valley.
Three unmarked black helicopters appear above the opposite ridge.
They descend into the compound one after another.
Armed men pour from the first two.
Four guards emerge from the third, dragging a prisoner between them.
His hands are bound.
A black hood covers his head.
But even from this distance, Caleb recognizes him.
“Mac.”
I take the binoculars again.
Mac stumbles as one of the guards shoves him toward the largest building.
His movements are slow.
Unsteady.
“They’ve hurt him.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t sound surprised.”
“I’m not.”
Caleb’s voice is flat, but anger tightens every line of his body.
This isn’t the reaction of a man looking at a traitor.
It’s the reaction of a man looking at one of his own.
“We aren’t too late,” he says.
“How do you know?”
“Because he just arrived.”
A long black SUV enters through the main gate.
The guards immediately straighten.
The driver rushes around to open the rear door.
Walter Graves steps out.
Even from hundreds of yards away, I recognize the silver hair, perfect posture, and expensive charcoal suit.
The sight of him steals the air from my lungs.
“What is he doing here?”
“Making sure Mac doesn’t leave alive.”
Walter crosses the yard.
Then stops.
His head turns toward our mountain.
Toward us.
He can’t possibly see us through the trees.
But a slow smile spreads across his face.
He raises one hand.
And waves.
My blood runs cold.
“Caleb.”
“I see him.”
“How could he know exactly where we are?”
“The emergency code.”
“Mac?”
“Or someone using his access.”
Walter lowers his hand.
The radio on a guard’s shoulder crackles.
Every operator in the compound turns toward our mountain.
Thirty rifles rise at once.
I hear a sound behind us.
The quiet metallic slide of a rifle bolt.
Caleb doesn’t turn.
His hand closes around my arm.
“Don’t move.”
“How bad?”
“Four behind us.”
My heart begins pounding.
The compound below erupts with movement. Operators spread along the fence. Machine guns rotate toward the ridge. Teams pour from the buildings and begin climbing the mountain.
Walter hasn’t merely prepared for us.
He has choreographed the entire battlefield.
A voice carries through the trees behind us.
“McDougal.”
Male.
Calm.
Confident.
“I know that’s you.”
I barely move my lips. “Do you recognize him?”
“No.”
“But he knows you.”
“That gives me the advantage.”
I almost laugh at the absurdity. “How?”
“He thinks knowing my name means he knows what I’ll do.”
Caleb begins backing away from the overlook.
One careful step.
Then another.
I match him.
No questions.
No hesitation.
The moment we drop behind the ridgeline, he turns.
“Run.”
We race into the trees.
Branches slash across my face. Loose stones shift beneath my boots.
A man shouts behind us.
“Contact!”
Gunfire erupts.
Bullets rip through the trunks on either side of us, filling the air with flying splinters.
“They’ll hit their own men!”
“No,” Caleb calls. “They know exactly where we are.”
The shooting stops.
Caleb stops with it.
I nearly collide with his back.
“Isn’t that good?”
“No.”
Of course it isn’t.
Nothing Caleb says in that tone is ever good.
He scans the ridgeline.
Then I see it.
A tiny flash of sunlight against glass.
Caleb lunges toward me.
The shot cracks across the valley as he drags me behind a thick oak.
Bark explodes where my head was a heartbeat earlier.
“He almost killed me.”
“No.”
I stare at Caleb. “I was there. He definitely almost killed me.”
“He missed deliberately.”
“Why?”
“He’s adjusting for the wind.”
A second round strikes the tree lower than the first.
Closer.
The sniper is walking his shots toward us.
Caleb’s expression changes.
His breathing slows.
The exhaustion disappears from his face.
This is his world.
And somewhere across the valley, another sniper has just challenged him inside it.