Page 4 of Ghost of Talon Mountain
Flashbangs detonate. The building floods with bodies—tactical gear, rifles, voices screaming commands.
"Federal agents! Drop your weapons!"
"On the ground! Now!"
The cavalry arrived.
I try to move, but my ribs scream protest. Everything hurts. I taste copper and defeat. My cover is blown, the op is burned,and all I can think about is whether we got enough for arrests or if these men will walk.
Hands grab me, familiar ones. Greg Voss, my handler, hauls me up with an arm around my waist. "Come on, Vale. We're getting you out."
"The photos...” I gasp.
"Later. Move."
He drags me through a side door as gunfire continues behind us. The cold November air hits my face like a slap, sirens wailing from every direction. Red and blue lights paint the warehouse district in chaos. DEA vans, ATF trucks, Chicago PD forming a perimeter.
Voss gets me into an ambulance. Paramedics swarm. Someone cuts my jacket away, peels back my shirt to check the body armor. The wire dangles uselessly, recording nothing but my ragged breathing.
"Ribs are broken," someone says clinically. "Possible internal bleeding. We need to transport."
The world goes gray around the edges, and I let it take me.
Waking up in the hospital is worse than the warehouse.
The room is too white, too sterile, and every breath feels like someone's driving nails through my chest. An IV drips clear fluid into my arm. Monitors beep a steady rhythm. Late afternoon light filters through blinds, casting stripes across the blanket.
Greg Voss sits in a chair by the window, looking older than his forty-something years. Next to him stands a woman I recognize from briefings but have never met in person—Assistant Director Marissa Keller, DOJ Organized Crime Division. Tailored suit, steel-gray hair, eyes that miss nothing.
"Welcome back," Voss says, but there's no warmth in it.
I try to sit up. Pain lances through my ribs, drops me back against the pillows. "Did we get them?"
"Ruiz and two others are in custody," Keller says, her voice crisp and professional. "But that's not why we're here."
Something cold settles in my gut. "My cover."
"Burned." Voss stands, paces to the window. "Someone leaked surveillance photos. They had your face, your name, everything."
"Who?"
"We're investigating." Keller's expression doesn't shift. "Someone inside the task force or connected to it. Until we identify the source, you're not only compromised, you're in danger."
The words hang there. Undercover work is all I've done for five years. It's what I'm good at, what I'm built for. Take that away, and what's left?
"So what?" Bitterness creeps into my voice. "You're benching me? Sticking me behind a desk pushing paper?"
"That's one option," Keller says.
Voss turns from the window. "Or you can quit. Walk away. No one would blame you after this."
Quitting. The word tastes wrong. Giving up on every woman in those photos, every victim I couldn't save, every monster still walking free.
"Or, there's a third option." Keller reaches into her briefcase, pulls out a folder, and sets it on the bedside table. "Alaska."
I stare at the folder. "Alaska?"
"The Wildlife Protection Division has been intercepting encrypted communications tied to trafficking routes through federal lands. Remote areas, hard to monitor, perfect for moving people off the radar." She taps the folder. "They need a forensiclinguist. Someone who can decode patterns, identify speakers, track networks. Someone with your skill set."
