Everyone’s head swiveled from William to the Vikings on the screen, to me and back again.
William held his hand up in front of him.“No!At least not intentionally.I’m just saying the information is coming from your area so maybe you need to take a closer look at your operation.Is there any way someone can get access to your emails, or your cell phone?Any change in the way you cover your tracks?Is your new woman, the one that caused an emergency, still in the picture?You know better than to let pillow talk get out of hand.”
Pillow talk?No.Kimberly knew how much this meant to me.There was no way she would have betrayed me.Besides, I’d seen her face when we’d found that spirit bear with the arrow through its side.No.It couldn’t possibly be Kimberly.Still…
I looked around at the men in the room.They were my brothers in truth, closer to me than if they’d been brothers by blood.
“Actually, she’s more than in the picture.”
The shock on the faces was comical.
“What does that mean?”William’s brows were just about at ceiling level.
“In the picture implies a casual affair on my part, and my relationship with Kimberly is anything but casual.”I paused to glance around the room.“I intend to marry her if she’ll have me.”
“Marry her?You barely know her!”Danny stared at me with startled concern.
I nodded.“I know her well enough to know I don’t want to let her go.And I know she’d never betray me so you’d better look elsewhere for your mole.I just thought you all deserved to know where I stood.”
William shook his head, but a smile played around the edges of his lips.“I always knew you’d fall hard one of these days.I hope your trust in this Kimberly woman is deserved.Nevertheless, the leak did come from somewhere on the Pacific Coast, so I need you to try and figure out how.Any chance you could have been hacked?Or maybe Kimberly’s security needs to be beefed up?Not everyone is as paranoid as we are.”
I shrugged.It warmed my heart more than I’d admit to know my brothers trusted my choice of woman, sight unseen.That did leave one big question mark, though.
Where the hell had the leak come from?
I needed to change my passwords and check the security on all of my tech shit, starting with the cell phone.Maybe Jacques would have time to give me a hand with that.
“Okay.”William held up his hand and the room fell silent.“Here’s what we know so far.The group appears to have expanded operations from Hong Kong to Western Canada, mostly in the higher mountain ranges.We think they’re concentrating on bears.The main market for bear parts is Asia.On the other hand, Vancouver has a large Asian community so it could be they’re marketing their product without it leaving the country.”
He looked at each of us in turn.“We need a plan of attack.”
Max narrowed his eyes.“Yes, we do.We have no idea where that leak came from, and until we know for sure, we have to assume there could be hostiles still in the Port Heddy area.We need to be ready at a moment’s notice if something is going down in British Columbia.Sitting here in Montana isn’t going to do us any good if we get wind of something that far north.It would take us too long to react.We need to set up a staging area near where Ryland is operating.”
William nodded.“Good thinking.”He looked over at me.“Anywhere close to your stepsister’s place we could use?”
I thought for a moment.“There’s a small airstrip with a hangar building and a cabin just outside town.The owner works up in the oil patch north of Edmonton so he’s away most of the time and he rents it out to tourists.The real estate office in Port Heddy handles the transactions.If it’s not occupied right now, it would be perfect.”
William nodded at Jacques.“Make it happen.”
“On it.”Jacques’s fingers flew over the keyboard on his laptop.
“Ryland, you head back and keep your ears open.I’d let you fly with the team, but we don’t know where the leak is coming from, so for now it’s better if everyone sees you landing on the commercial flight.We do not want anyone tipped off that the team is in the area.Danny, Max, and Jaques, you three grab your go-bags and weapons and head over to the airstrip.”
“Booked and done.”Jacques looked up into my astonished face as he closed the lid on his laptop.“Everyone books accommodations online these days.I booked the place for two weeks, and noted we’d be coming in by air.We can always extend or move to an alternate space if we need to stay longer.”
William inclined his head.“Right.Head out.I’ll get hold of the air traffic center and file a flight plan.”
* * *
Kimberly
I pushed myself upright, shaking my head to try and clear the fog shrouding my thoughts.What the hell?I’d come to meet Ryland.He’d texted me.He told me to leave Diego behind, so I thought it was a romantic getaway where pets weren’t welcome.
Only when I arrived, it had been a deserted forestry parking lot, and Ryland wasn’t there.
Two men were, though.Heavy set, with thick accents.
They’d laughed at me, and I’d flashed back to that day on the island.I hadn’t gotten close enough to identify the men by sight, but the accent was unmistakable.
