My body aches—lower back tight from poor posture, shoulders knotted with tension I haven't released in hours, eyes burning from staring at monitors until the blue light feels seared into my retinas.
But underneath the physical exhaustion is something else. A weight pressing down on my lungs that has nothing to do with the investigation and everything to do with the man currently hunting through shadows somewhere beyond these walls.
Micah will surface eventually. Ghost always does, appearing out of nowhere with intel and that quiet competence that used to make me feel safe.
And when he comes back expecting answers, I'll have to face what I've been avoiding since the moment he stepped into Echo Base.
The encrypted message is still on the isolated server. Still accessible. Still carrying protocols from when we believed in careful planning and secure communication and futures that didn't get destroyed by silence and abandonment.
I should delete it. Purge the dead drop system completely. Eliminate the connection that's supposed to be gone.
Instead, I close the monitors and head for my quarters. I'll be back in a few hours to continue the analysis. And when Micah surfaces, I'll have to face what I've been avoiding since the moment he walked into Echo Base.
7
MICAH
The rain started an hour ago, turning the Montana wilderness into a study in gray and misery.
I'm positioned behind a fallen pine a few hundred yards from the abandoned hunting cabin where Reeve set up his base. Cold seeps through my tactical gear despite the layers, but I don't move. Haven't moved in the past several hours except to adjust my scope when he shifts position inside the structure. Patience is what separates professionals from corpses, and I've spent enough years in the field to know the difference.
Through the thermal optics, Reeve's heat signature moves with measured precision—someone who knows he's being hunted but hasn't confirmed by whom. He's former SAS, recruited by the Committee after his discharge. The official story was medical retirement. The unofficial version involved executed prisoners in Afghanistan and brass who couldn't prove it but wanted him gone anyway. Webb chose him specifically for this assignment because Reeve doesn't fail and doesn't have moral boundaries that might complicate operations.
He's also smart enough to vary his patterns, change locations daily, and maintain security protocols that would make most intelligence agencies proud. Tracking him has required everyskill I learned during my time with the Agency, plus a few techniques I picked up operating in places the CIA pretends don't exist.
The cabin door opens and Reeve emerges, moving toward the tree line with purpose that suggests this isn't a routine perimeter check. He's meeting someone. I adjust position slightly, bringing my rifle scope to bear while maintaining cover behind the deadfall. The rain provides excellent acoustic cover but reduces visibility. I need to get closer.
I ease forward through the undergrowth, using terrain and natural cover to close the distance. My movement is glacial, measured in inches rather than feet, every sound masked by the steady drumming of rain on pine needles and saturated earth. I push forward until I'm within effective audio range—close enough to die if this goes wrong—then hold position behind a cluster of deadfall and moss-covered granite.
A figure appears from the opposite direction, dressed in civilian outdoor gear that's too new, too clean, too deliberately unremarkable. He's not local, not wilderness-experienced. His urban background shows in the way he's trying to approximate rural competence and failing at the subtle details only someone who lives in these mountains would notice.
They meet in a small clearing, standing close enough that the rain forces them to speak louder than they probably intended. The directional microphone I've had aimed at the cabin swings smoothly to capture their exchange, feeding encrypted audio to the recorder tucked inside my tactical vest.
Reeve pulls out a tablet, the screen glow illuminating both faces in the gray afternoon. The man leans in to study whatever's being displayed—tactical diagrams, looks like, along with mission planning and parameters. This is intelligence you only share when you're confident the recipient has both clearance and need-to-know.
This is Committee business.
I trigger the camera function on my optics, capturing images of both men and the tablet display. The resolution isn't perfect at this range in these conditions, but it's enough for facial recognition software to work with, enough to identify this contact and trace his connections back through the network.
Their conversation continues for several minutes. They're efficient, all business, with no wasted movement or unnecessary dialogue. Reeve gestures to something on the tablet and the man nods, makes a notation with a stylus. They're coordinating something, planning an operation that requires this level of in-person contact despite the security risk.
Then Reeve says something that locks every muscle in my body.
"Echo Ridge tempo has increased over the past quarter. Multiple engagements, all successful, minimal casualties. They're getting confident."
The man's voice is quieter, harder to capture clearly. Something about "...patterns we can exploit" and "...composition gives us leverage."
They know. Maybe not our location, but they have enough intelligence to be dangerous. Movement patterns. Mission frequency. Team composition. Details that should be impossible to obtain without access to our secure communications or direct intelligence from someone with knowledge of Echo Base.
Someone in our external network has been talking.
The meeting wraps up quickly after that. There's a clean handoff of what looks like a data card, a brief exchange of final instructions, then they separate. The contact disappears back into the tree line heading northeast. Reeve returns to the cabin, moving with that same measured caution.
I stay motionless for another twenty minutes, waiting to confirm neither of them circles back to check for surveillance.Only when I'm certain they're both committed to their departure routes do I ease backward through the undergrowth, retracing my approach path with the methodical precision that got me here.
Down the road from the cabin, I find the cache point where I left my vehicle—a beat-up Ford pickup that fits the local aesthetic perfectly. The recording equipment gets secured in a hidden compartment beneath the truck bed, encrypted and isolated from any external access. I can't risk the Committee intercepting this intelligence if they manage to compromise the vehicle.
I pull out my secure phone and compose the message I've been dreading since I overheard that conversation. The dead drop system Sarah and I established years ago. I haven't used it since I went dark two years ago, haven't contacted her through any channel because what could I say that would make the silence forgivable?
