CHAPTER 40
The logging roadwas worse than Wyatt remembered.
He kept the truck in four-wheel drive and his speed down. His headlights cut through the dark in narrow wedges as the road climbed. Bare branches pressed in from both sides, scraping the sides of the cab when the trail narrowed.
This wasn’t far from their earlier staging area, but they’d had to turn off that road onto this smaller one.
The snow here was older and icier than in town—compressed into ruts by the vehicles that had come through ahead of them. He counted five sets of tire tracks in the frozen mud. At least that many had gone in before him.
A half mile in, the trees opened slightly, and the glow of portable floodlights appeared through the branches. He slowed and pulled to where a cluster of vehicles—two state police SUVs, a forestry truck, and a plain-sided van belonging to the state’s tactical unit.
He cut the engine before turning to Kori. “Stay close to me, and let me do the talking.”
Kori nodded without argument.
They climbed into the cold. The temperature had dropped another few degrees since dinner, and the air tasted like frozen pine and exhaust from the generators running the lights.
Thunder fell into step at Wyatt’s side.
He scanned the staging area as they approached. A command post had been set up at the tailgate of one of the state police trucks. Maps were spread across a folding table, a radio unit had been mounted on a portable stand, and two officers with headsets monitored the feed.
At the edge of the light, standing with his arms crossed and his eyes on the forest, was Graham.
Wyatt headed toward him and paused. “What’s the status?”
Graham turned. He took in Kori with a brief, measured look before returning to Wyatt. “Teams went in forty minutes ago. We have two entry points—one team took the logging road and a second came around from the ridge on the north side.”
“Any contact?”
“Not yet.” Graham’s jaw jumped. “It’s been a little too quiet if you ask me.”
Wyatt looked at the darkness beyond the floodlights. Somewhere out there, through the trees and up the ridge, was the cluster of buildings they’d seen from Garrett’s drone. The snow-covered rooftops. The figures moving in deliberate patterns between the structures.
He thought about the man who’d looked up at the drone.
That look had been calculating, not panicked. He almost looked as if he had a plan for exactly this scenario.
He’d already known what to do.
Wyatt turned that over and didn’t like where it landed.
He stepped away from Kori—not far, just enough that Graham could read his expression without her seeing it. Graham caught the movement and followed.
“What are you thinking?” Graham asked, keeping his voice low.
“That they saw the drone earlier, and they had six hours to get ready,” Wyatt said. “A group this organized doesn’t waste six hours.”
Graham looked at the radio on the command table. “Let’s hope you’re wrong.”
Wyatt hoped so too.
“Can you send up another drone?” he asked.
Graham rubbed his chin as he shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. They shot down our best one. The state is sending another one, but it won’t be here until morning.”
Of course . . .
He turned back to Kori. She stood where he’d left her, her arms folded and her eyes on the same trees he’d been studying. Thunder had moved to her side without being asked, and she hadn’t stepped away from him.
