Page 25 of Guardian of Talon Mountain

I scan the tree lines for over watch—any glint of glass, silhouette, or movement. Nothing. No snipers, no lookouts. Just the hush of snow-laden branches and that eerie quiet that follows a detonation. The minefield’s automated, not manned. That tells me plenty—whoever set this up has tech, planning, and the confidence to stay invisible. Too confident.

She grips my sleeve, urgency flaring in her voice. “If they’re mining access routes—setting up traps and sensors—then haul night’s coming fast. They’re clearing paths for transport, maybe even marking the perimeter to move product under cover.”

“Yeah.” My pulse is a war drum. “And we just tripped their early-warning system.”

We drag Nate’s snowmobile and the sled clear with gritted teeth and wordless effort, every muscle strained against resistance. Then we break out the snowshoes and begin to follow the wolf's track on foot for a half-mile across uneven snow crust to a shadowed ravine.

The silence feels watchful, every step breaking the stillness like a shout. Inside, tucked beneath a jagged rock overhang dusted in frost, sit three insulated crates—military-grade,reinforced corners, the kind smugglers use when they expect a fight. They're half-buried in wind-blown drift, no surrounding prints. Airlift drop—precise, practiced. Someone knew precisely where and when to place them for discovery. The scent of scorched ozone and bitter antiseptic clings to the still air, sharp as accusation.

I crack the lid of one of the crates. Dry-ice fog spills out.

Inside: Organ packets—vacuum-sealed, slick with condensation and labeled in Cyrillic. Pale tissue, unmistakably non-human, wrapped in sterile gauze and heat-shrinked plastic. The air inside the crate reeks of antiseptic and freezer-burnt flesh, a sterile violence that churns the gut. Ivory shards, each piece wrapped tightly in stained oilcloth. A sat-phone—blinking red—rests atop the cache like a waiting viper.

Bryn’s breath hitches. “This is tonight’s export, isn’t it?”

“Looks fresh enough.” I lift one packet—still pliant. “Collected yesterday at most.”

Wren crouches beside the crates, her breath curling in the cold as she snaps high-res photos from multiple angles, then logs coordinates into the GPS with brisk, practiced fingers. Her movements are clinical, methodical—the kind of calm precision that makes me trust every readout she hands over.

I pocket the sat-phone, its surface still warm from use, the blinking red light a silent dare. It's locked tight—encrypted, military grade—but salvageable. I’ll crack it. I’ve cracked worse. If this thing holds transmission logs or GPS data, it’ll bleed out the rest of their operation—names, coordinates, maybe even the chopper route. Every predator leaves a trail. This one just handed me a map.

Zeke kneels by the crate. “They’ll return for this at haul night. Forty-eight hours, based on pattern?”

Nate, leaning on a ski pole, grimaces. “Make it twenty-four. Weather turns ugly then. Perfect cover for a pickup.”

I thumb the lid shut. “Ex-mil contractors won’t risk storm hover time. They’ll prep the load here, then sled it to a chopper landing zone.”

Bryn points to the crate labels. “The boxes are numbered four of six. Two more caches east or south.”

“East is that smelter ruin,” Nate says. “Wide roof, flat ground.”

I nod. “Multiple insert points, re-welded shafts. Could hide a chopper.”

Zeke’s radio squawks—dispatch confirming visual and radar contact with an unregistered aircraft two nights prior, seen skirting the mountain’s no-fly zone. Russian tail numbers had been digitally scrubbed, but the silhouette and flight path match a Kamov transport chopper. Black-market favorite.

“That seals it,” he mutters.

My gut ices over. This may look like a poaching op, but it’s a war front in camouflage. Organ packets in cold storage. Mines rigged to rupture joints without killing. Long-range drones with infrared overlays. Whoever set this up is ex-military, and they didn’t forget a damn thing.

Bryn adjusts her sling pack and glares uphill. “We stake out the smelter tonight.”

“No.” I hook two fingers under her chin, make her look at me. “You stay tethered to me. Eat, breathe, move when I say.”

Her eyes flash sea-glass defiance. “You can’t leash me, Knox.”

“Watch me.” I turn to Zeke. “Nate and Wren will scout the shafts. Bryn stays inside my shadow.”

She huffs, defiance written in every line of her body, then shoves the tablet in my vest with a sharp motion. Her jaw is tight, lips pressed into a line that dares me to argue. I feel the tension radiating off her—raw, electric, almost vibrating through the cold. She doesn’t like being ordered around, but she’s notwalking away either. That means something. “Fine. Shadow, but I’m holding the light.”

I almost smile—almost. “Keep it pointed where I tell you.”

We load crates onto a working snowmobile; the runners groaning under the added weight. Wren doesn’t simply tuck the beacon inside—she wedges it dead center between the organ packets and the ivory shards, making damn sure the signal won’t be missed. It’s more than bait. It’s a beacon-shaped middle finger. Her lips press into a grim line as she slams the lid shut, sealing the trap with clinical finality.

As we roll out, I scan the snow. Fresh boot prints lead away from the drop—deep tread, angled with intent. The snow compresses unevenly beneath each step, betraying weight and direction, the stride long and deliberate. I kneel beside the trail, tracing the impression with a gloved hand.

The air smells faintly of old tobacco and something acrid—like engine grease and frost-bitten ozone—a scent I remember from nights when we waited to die on foreign sand. These aren't the tracks of a scavenger. These are a soldier's prints. And every step screams Reynolds—deep tread, custom sole. My gut clenches as I kneel for a closer look. Diamond-pattern heel, shaved at the edge—standard issue for evading infrared. My breath fogs the air. I’ve seen this exact cut before. Once. Reynolds. No doubt.

Reynolds used to shave the edges of his boot heels—standard military tread—specifically to ghost thermal imaging. I remember the first time he showed us how, back in the desert heat of Mosul, scraping the rubber with a razor blade like it was a ritual. That angled cut wasn’t just tactical—it was personal. It was his signature. And now it’s here, burned into the snow, unmistakable. The bastard’s alive—and he’s walking in my woods like they belong to him.

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