Page 5 of Ghost of Talon Mountain
"You want me to analyze data in the middle of nowhere."
"I want you to hunt the people who are still out there." Keller locks her gaze on mine. "The ones who leaked your photos, who are running routes through federal territory, who think they're untouchable. This isn't a desk job, Vale. This is a different kind of war. Quieter, but just as important."
Voss adds, "And it gets you out of Chicago while we clean up this mess. Keeps you safe while we hunt the mole."
Safe. The word should comfort me, but all it does is make me feel like a coward.
I reach for the folder, flip it open. The first page shows a satellite image of mountains, endless forest, snow-capped peaks that look like another planet. Bold letters across the top: Talon Mountain, Glacier Hollow, Alaska.
The second page lists intercepts—coded messages, frequency logs, linguistic patterns matching syntax from known trafficking organizations. Some of the phrasing looks familiar, echoes of the Chicago operation. My pulse quickens despite the pain meds.
"How soon?" I ask.
"Take time to recover, then as soon as possible." Keller closes her briefcase. "Assuming you accept."
Not long to heal, to pack, to leave behind everything familiar and disappear into the frozen wilderness.
The warehouse. The gunfire. Women in those photos still out there, still being bought and sold. The bullet that should have killed me. The mole who burned my cover and might burn someone else's tomorrow. My ribs ache with every breath, my tongue throbs, everything hurts, but sitting on the sidelines while monsters walk free hurts worse.
"Alaska it is," I whisper.
1
SIERRA
Glacier Hollow, Alaska
Present Day
The bush plane drops me on a strip of frozen gravel that barely qualifies as a runway, and I'm already regretting every life choice that brought me here.
The cold hits like a fist the second I step out. Chicago winter didn't prepare me for this. Wind screams across the landing strip, cuts through my jacket, steals the breath from my lungs. My eyes water instantly, tears freezing on my cheeks before I can wipe them away.
"Welcome to Talon Mountain." The pilot, a weathered woman in her fifties named Ruth, tosses my duffel onto the gravel with zero ceremony. "Nate should be here any minute. You brought warmer gear than that, right?"
I look down at my supposedly winter-rated jacket, the one that cost three hundred dollars at an outdoor store in Chicago. "This was rated for negative twenty."
"Negative twenty with no wind." Ruth pulls her own parka tighter, fur-lined hood drawn up around her face. "Out here,wind chill'll take you down to negative sixty on a bad day. Today's mild."
Mild. Right.
The landscape stretches out in every direction, endless white broken only by stands of dark evergreens and jagged mountain peaks that look like teeth against gray sky. Everything is bigger here, wider, emptier than anything I've ever seen. No buildings visible except distant structures. No roads except tire tracks in the snow. No people except Ruth and Nate whenever he shows up.
And the silence. Even with the wind howling, there's a quality to the quiet that presses against my ears. No traffic. No voices. No sirens or car alarms or the constant hum of a city that never sleeps.
Just wind and wilderness and the sudden awareness that I'm more alone than I've ever been.
A snowmobile roars up the access trail, kicking up white powder. The driver kills the engine and dismounts in one smooth motion. He's tall, broad-shouldered, moving with the easy confidence of someone who knows this terrain. Dark hair, beard trimmed close, eyes that assess me in about three seconds flat.
Ex-military. I'd bet my life on it.
"Sierra Vale?" His voice is rough, no-nonsense.
"That's me."
"Nate Barrett. Wildlife Protection Division." He doesn't offer a handshake, just picks up my duffel and straps it to the back of his snowmobile. "You look cold."
"I'm fine."
