“You one of those boys likes livin’ on the edge, huh? Well, won’t take more than thirty minutes to fuel her back up.”
“Great. Appreciate the assist.” He left the man to his work and walked a short distance to a patch of red dirt before pulling out his secure phone.
No new messages from his teammates. He hadn’t expected any. With the window on catching Wright closing, tensions were high, and every member of the JTT felt the pinch of their failure.
Classified as a highly credible threat, Wright had been designated the number one target of the United States Government and was the sole reason for the Joint Task Team’s existence. For the past two years, they’d been chasing their tails, casting multiple nets to capture the terrorist.
Every time they thought they were close, Wright vanished. Poof. Gone like smoke on the wind. No trail left behind. And now they were down to the wire. If this mission didn’t pan out, they were screwed.
A zealot with incendiary opinions on everything from politics to minorities to religion, Wright’s disturbing manifesto had thousands of ardent followers believing the hateful rhetoric he spewed.
Originally posted to the dark web and now circulating among chat rooms frequented by a growing number of disillusioned Americans, Wright’s extremist views had already incited many to perform heinous acts of violence.
A mass shooting at a mosque in Illinois, a pipe bomb at a Taco Bell in New Mexico, a riot at a country music festival in Minnesota—all resulting in death and trauma. All perpetrated by individuals or groups emboldened by the words of a madman whose real agenda remained unknown.
All just the tip of the iceberg.
Americans were killing Americans by the dozens and attributing their actions to Wright’s rhetoric. Didn’t matter the color of your skin, who you prayed to, the type of work you did, or the zip code you lived in—no one was safe.No one. And law enforcement agencies at all levels, local, state, and federal, were ill equipped to deal with the domestic threat.
Nobody knew who the fuck they were dealing with or what Wright’s motives were. And with the imminent arrival of a cache of weapons large enough to equip a small army, the next couple of days were mission critical for the JTT.
Fail and more people would die.
Maybe someone Chase knew. Maybe someone he loved. He couldn’t let that happen. He’d been raised by compassionate, civic-minded parents, who’d taught him to do the right thing. To stand up for himself and defend those who couldn’t protect themselves. To be of service to his community and his country.
For Chase, following his father’s example and enlisting in the military had been an easy decision. He believed with his whole heart all people were born equal. Believed in the preservation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In the sacrifice of one for the good of many. He wasn’t about to let a man as delusional as Wright tear down what so many others had died to protect.
Not if he could prevent it.
Chase glanced at his watch. He had another six hours flight time, then twenty-two hours overland by car, boat, and foot to reach his final destination. All for a one in four chance of being in the right place at the right time to capture a picture of the target the JTT was after.
That’sifWright intended to meet Victor Bodak face-to-face.Big if.Could be they were on another wild goose chase. Unfortunately, the only way to know for sure was to follow the intelligence they had.
Cody hadn’t been wrong. “Needle meet fucking haystack” pretty much summed up where they were at in their investigation. He hadn’t been wrong about Holly either. Chase needed to close off his affairs with his ex-fiancée. She deserved more than he’d been able to give, and he was an ass for letting things drag on so long.
Phone in hand for a reason, he flipped through his contacts. He had two calls to make before he showed his face in Seattle, and deciding to make the hardest one first, he pressed his thumb against the familiar number. Two rings later, a cheerful voice answered, “Hello?”
“Hi, Mom.”
CHAPTERFOUR
Forty-eight hoursand one awe-inspiring sunrise later, Chase felt every one of his twenty-nine years. Mostly in his back. Then again, spending the night sitting wedged in eighty feet up a ponderosa pine would do that to a person.
He conducted an inventory of his aches and pains, positive the vertebrae he relied on to keep his knuckles from dragging on the ground had fused together. He moaned and twisted left, then right, then stretched his arms over his head, each motion causing joints to pop audibly.
Despite his discomfort, there was no place he’d rather be on a lazy Sunday afternoon than outside, in the fresh air, smack dab in the middle of God’s country. Yeah. Didn’t get much better than this. Unfortunately, his time in the Canadian wilderness was quickly coming to a dead end.
When he checked his watch, his beat-up G-Shock told him he had less than four hours to go. If Wright didn’t show today, he wasn’t showing at all. One way or another, Chase would be back on terra firma by nightfall and at the Ross Lake cabin by midnight to collect his gear.
About to make like a ghost and disappear, no one would ever know he’d spent the last two days in Canada, let alone British Columbia. The whole time he’d been scoping out Cougar Canyon in the Okanagan Valley, he’d been off the radar.
He was so far off the grid, not evenhisunit could find him. Not that they were looking. Spread across North America, every member of his team would be hunkered down by now, eyes peeled for any sign of unusual activity.
On the lookout for Victor Bodak, Chase used his high-powered binoculars to make another sweep of the area. No change since his arrival. Men were staying at the lodge on the other side of Kalamalka Lake. A group of hunters by the looks of things, but no one he recognized as part of Bodak’s gang of international gunrunners.
He dropped his binoculars against his chest, disappointment making him restless. With every passing hour, the possibility Wright would show his face at Chase’s staked-out location diminished, and he hoped like hell one of his teammates had the motherfucker in sight right now.
No way to know for sure. No cell towers in this part of Cougar Canyon. Too remote.
