Page 93 of Battle Mountain

“I hope I don’t need to find out,” Eisele said as he slipped it into the back pocket of his scrubs.

Joe used the flashlight feature on his phone to illuminate the generator in the cellar. As he reached down for a silver toggle switch on the side of the unit, he caught a glimpse of a large bundle of some kind on the floor in the back of the cellar. He shinnied around the machine and got closer to it.

He recognized the bundle as a military-grade body bag. Joe didn’t have to guess what he’d find inside, but he squatted down and reluctantly unzipped the top. Inside was Spike Rankin’s pale white face and half-open eyes. There was a perfectly round puncture wound in his ear.

Shaken, Joe closed the body bag and returned to the generator. He quickly flipped the switch, and it rumbled to life, filling the cellar with sickeningly sweet diesel fumes. Then he got out of there as fast as he could and returned to the lobby.

Bare bulbs in fixtures suspended from the ceiling had blazed on. He hadn’t even noticed where the lights were when he was first there.

Joe opened the laptop and the screen instantly illuminated. He was both surprised and pleased that it wasn’t password protected. The desktop display was a photo of three ragged-looking soldiers in a tropical setting. Joe had seen Axel Soledad when he, Nate, and Geronimo had confronted him in Portland years before. In the photo on the laptop, Soledad was younger, slimmer, and obviously on active duty.

Then he studied the graphics on the screen. It was an AppleMacBook Air, so he was somewhat familiar with it. Marybeth had the same model.

He located a folder on the desktop that readOperation October Surprise. Inside the folder were Word files. He clicked on one calledRoster.

It was a list of twenty-two names divided into two columns. The column on the left was headed “Fodder” and the column on the right was headed “Vets.”

Of the sixteen names under “Fodder,” six had been crossed out. Joe read through the column twice. There were names like Bree, Hadid, Emi, Stephen, Gumoor, Tashia—people with decidedly younger names. None of the individuals were familiar to him, and he wondered why they were labeled as “Fodder.”

The six names under “Vets” were intact, and they consisted of what Joe assumed were nicknames, such as Sergeant, Marshall, Gunny, Double-A, RPG, and MRAP.

Then he clicked on a PowerPoint folder and turned on the projector. The white sheet was suddenly filled with an aerial photo of mountain terrain. Joe studied it for a moment before recognizing it as Battle Mountain. Summit was located on the top right corner. On the bottom left was a property that looked like an oasis created within the sea of timber: manicured grass lawns, a uniform series of small structures, and a larger facility squarely in the middle.

Joe advanced to the second slide. It was the same aerial photo, but this one had graphics overlaid on it. Two arrows, one red and one blue, stretched from Summit through the forest and over the top of the mountain. Halfway down the other side, the blue arrow stopped at what looked like a long north-to-south granite ridge that poked up through the trees. The red arrow continued througha break in the ridge and was aimed directly at the property, which was now labeledB-Lazy-U.

“Oh no,” Joe said aloud. “This is their battle plan.”

As he said it, Eisele came back into the lobby from outside. He said, “Thank you for turning on the lights.”

“Look at what they’re planning,” Joe said, pointing toward the sheet screen. “They’re going after the Centurions.”

Eisele studied the image. “It makes more sense to me now. This is what Soledad was talking about this morning. See that ridge where the blue arrow goes? That’s where Rankin and I got jumped by the bad guys, including Double-A.”

“Speaking of Rankin,” Joe said, “I found his body outside in the cellar. I’m really sorry to tell you that.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Eisele said, looking down at the tops of his boots. “It really makes me sad, though. He was a really good guy.”

Joe nodded in agreement.

Then Eisele looked up and grinned.

“What?” Joe asked.

“You were right. They have a communications room. I found it inside the old cabin right next to this place. And look what I found.” Eisele handed a fully charged satellite phone to Joe.

“They took all the rest of their radios or whatever,” Eisele said. “All they left was a bunch of empty charging stations. But they did leave this.”

—

Eight miles awayand over the summit of Battle Mountain, Axel Soledad navigated his three-wheeled ATV through tightly packedtrees. He’d deliberately stayed in the rear of his strike force since they’d left Soledad City.

The vets led, followed by the activists. Soledad stayed behind all of them for several reasons.

The first reason was because he didn’t like the optics of him riding the ATV while the others were on foot. He wantedthemto lead, knowing that because of his injured legs he had no choice but to use the vehicle.

The second reason was that he was worried that some of the activists might decide to bolt before they were in place on the ridge. He wasn’t worried about the vets in front. They were on a mission.

But already several of the activists had complained to him about the long march and the blisters that were growing on their feet from their boots. Plus, they didn’t like having to pack their heavy rifles and day packs. If one or two of them decided to turn back, others might join them. But since he’d be directly in their path on the way back, he was confident he could dissuade them. And if that didn’t work, he’d threaten them with their lives.

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