Chapter One
Ryland
A sudden squawk of alarm sounded directly in front of me.The quiet morning exploded into sound as a covey of startled pheasants took flight.
Damn!I was hiding in the thick brush off the side of the path, out of sight of my quarry, but right behind the fucking birds.One of the poachers turned, aiming a crossbow straight at the panicked birds.Straight at me.
Double damn.
I ducked low to the ground, hoping to avoid detection.My handgun was nestled in its shoulder holster, and a couple of my favorite throwing knives were strapped to my thighs but there were six poachers and one of me.Not sure why they were using crossbows instead of firearms.Maybe they wanted to avoid making any noise that might bring attention to their presence, but I couldn’t imagine who they thought might hear them on this deserted piece of dirt off the coast of British Columbia.
Even without guns, though, the odds were against me.I braced myself as the arrow arced its way toward me.
Moving to avoid the projectile wasn’t an option.I couldn’t afford to let the poachers detect my presence.My mission depended on them not knowing they’d been made.
The shooter had already turned back to catch up with the rest of the group when the sharp tip of the projectile sliced through the meaty outer part of my upper arm.I gritted my teeth as blood spurted from the wound.
Son of a bitch, that hurt.
Still, it was a lucky shot -- a flesh wound, even if a painful one.I’d had worse.Just one foot to the left and it would have gone straight through my heart.A broadhead arrow could prove fatal under the right circumstances.
The flapping of the pheasants’ wings made so much racket that it drowned out any noise I made as I lowered myself to the ground, grimacing at the red stain spreading on my sleeve.I needed to staunch the bleeding.Like it or not, the chase was over for today.
I glanced down at my watch.I was cutting it close.I needed to get back to my boat and report in.If William didn’t hear from me on schedule, he’d send the troops storming in to find me and that would blow any chance we had of learning what these guys were up to.
I leaned back against a moss-covered tree stump in the center of the bushes.The sound of the poachers joking amongst themselves as they retreated let me know my presence hadn’t been detected.
Well, at least that was a positive.
I’d been tailing these jerks for almost a week now, ever since an anonymous tip-off to the Operations Center had clued William in on their activity in this neck of the woods.When they’d landed on this island though, I was baffled.What could possibly be here that would interest an international ring of poachers?If they’d been farther north or on the mainland, I would have assumed they were going after bears for their saleable parts, a lucrative business these days.Bear gall was in high demand in the traditional Chinese medicine markets for its supposed healing properties.Bears were territorial creatures, though.On an island this small, the chances of finding more than one were slim, assuming you even found one.Hardly worth the effort of getting here.
Wincing, I shifted my weight slightly to take the pressure off my injured arm.I didn’t dare leave my hiding spot, not yet.I needed to be sure the poachers didn’t circle back.They were a nasty bunch, not above killing someone if they thought they could get away with it.
I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth against the pain lancing through my arm.The slow drip of water hitting the rocks beside me had a mesmerizing effect.Or was it the blood from the wound?
I pivoted my head to look at my injured arm.Despite the copious amounts of blood staining my shirt and the ground beneath me, the wound didn’t appear serious.The flow of the blood would have cleaned out any foreign debris, and the arrow had missed hitting the artery.
Yup, I’d definitely had worse.
Using my good arm, I pulled a knife out of the sheath strapped to my thigh and sliced a large swath of fabric from the front of my shirt to use as a makeshift bandage.A tight compress would staunch the bleeding long enough for me to make my way back to the mainland and get it taken care of properly.
I struggled to remove my belt, the worn leather creaking and groaning in protest as I pulled it loose.
It should not have taken that much effort.Maybe I’d lost more blood than I thought.Didn’t matter.I wasn’t dying, and the mission took precedence over a little discomfort.
The reason we had decided to investigate this group was the anomalies.This was one loaded group of badass poachers.Normally poachers were a solitary bunch, untrusting and cynical in the extreme.Finding two or three teamed together to go after larger prey wasn’t uncommon but teaming up like these guys were doing was totally out of character.
I’d been following them since they’d arrived from Hong Kong and met up with a local guide of questionable repute.It was evident that the meeting had been scheduled ahead of time.Prior to heading north, the five stayed at the Vancouver Airport Hotel for the night.That meant they had money behind them.They’d rented a Jeep and driven to their staging area, where they parked the Jeep in a forestry site lot on the coast.A fully stocked boat, complete with captain, was waiting for them, and they motored straight to this little island.
That was a considerable amount of effort just to reach this deserted piece of land in the Pacific Ocean.If not for the bug I’d managed to plant on one of the poachers at the airport, I would have lost contact with them.It was impossible to track a boat on the open ocean without visual sightings, so stealth required electronic solutions.
It would take someone with local knowledge to even find the island.It certainly didn’t show on international maps, and as far as I knew it wasn’t big enough to have a formal name, just a number on the navigation grid.That still didn’t explain what the attraction was, though.Given the people involved, there had to be some tie-in to the illegal poaching running rampant in this part of Canada.I just needed to figure out what it was.
I’d heard rumors one of the protected spirit bears inhabiting one of the small islands in this area.I knew they were extremely rare, but no one had been able to verify the story, and I put it down to a myth the locals used to lure tourists to the area.A quick Google search confirmed that the small population of spirit bears in this part of the world lived farther north, around Haida Gwaii.
Surely a group of international thieves would know better than to get taken in by such a blatant tourist-trapping lie?The parts from such a creature would be worth a devil’s ransom, but it would be difficult to harvest salable items from a myth.More likely, they were after something else, something valuable.But what?
I folded the soft strip of flannel from my shirt and placed it over the wound on my arm.The bleeding had slowed, a good sign.Gritting my teeth, I wrapped the belt around the makeshift bandage and pulled it tight.
