Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
“Cache three. Stone wash under the western ridge. This is where Wren filmed the handoff. Elk Run markets that as their sunrise ridge route.”
“Son of a bitch,” Boone mutters.
Cade’s pencil moves to a blue line drawn through a narrow pass that’s been on our permits for years. “They started running trips through here in October. We lost the Crown group two weeks later.”
I remember that call. We had a trip booked for four businessmen who wanted pictures with snow-dusted peaks and a story about how hard the wilderness tested them, providing it didn’t test them too much. They canceled two weeks before their trip, saying they’d found another outfitter with a lower rate.
Turner’s rate had been thirty percent lower than mine. I thought it was desperation or an attempt to buy market share, but now that I look at the lines on the map, the truth is clear.
“It was never about competition,” I say. “He didn’t undercut us because he wanted our clients. He wanted us gone.”
The fewer legitimate guides in the area, the less chance someone would discover what’s been going on. Now, thanks to Wren, we’re on to him.
I reach out to an old Army contact, and less than an hour later, when I’m working in the garage, my phone buzzes with a text that says, “You didn’t hear this from me.”
Then the phone rings.
Jason Reeve is on the civilian side now, but he was in Human Resources Command and is still connected enough to pull personnel files.
“Talk,” I say.
Reeve exhales. “Harlan Turner was commissioned through ROTC. Logistics branch. Captain when he separated. He had two deployments, one in Afghanistan, and one attached to a joint task force moving supplies through contested mountain terrain.”
“Decorations?”
“Bronze Star. Meritorious Service Medal. A few commendations. The man knew how to move supplies where they weren’t supposed to move, and he knew how to build systems that kept units well supplied in places where the terrain should’ve made it impossible.”
Cade and Boone appear then, as if I called them, though I didn’t make a sound. That happens with us sometimes.
Reeve keeps talking. “Six years ago, CID opened an investigation over missing assets. Weapons components, comms equipment, night-vision units, medical supplies. Some of it turned up later in private channels overseas, and some never turned up at all.”
“Did they charge him?”
“It was too muddy,” Reeve says. “Two witnesses changed statements, and one disappeared entirely.”
“Fuck.”
“The Army wanted him gone after that, so Turner took an other-than-honorable discharge rather than fight it. It kept him out of Leavenworth but ended his career. Since then, he was in private security contracting and logistics consulting, but nothing long-term. He was also tied to a couple of names I don’t like.”
“Any cartel ties?”
Reeve pauses, and that says something in itself. “There were rumors, but nothing concrete. It was more like channels that overlap with people who overlap with people. You know how that works.”
I do. Everyone is clean if they stand far enough away from the blood.
“And his outfitter business?” I ask.
“Elk Run Outfitters registered eighteen months ago.”
Eight months ago, after he’d built it up, Turner approached us with a partnership offer. He framed it as a merger that would benefit both our businesses, with shared resources and reduced overhead.
I thought he wanted our reputation, but it turns out he wanted to see if Wilder Outfitters could be absorbed quietly. Something about the man had rubbed me the wrong way, and I declined.
Then he started undercutting us.
“Anything else?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Reeve says. “Be careful. This isn’t some idiot with a few mules and a storage unit. If Turner’s doing what you think he’s doing, he’s going to be good at it.”
“Send what you can,” I say.
“I’ll send what won’t get me arrested.”
“That’ll do.”
“Rhett?”
The way he says my name tightens something in my gut. “Yeah.”
“You have federal support?”
“Some.”
“Get more. You’re going to need it.” When I don’t respond right away, he says, “Don’t make me attend your funeral just so I can tell your brothers I warned you.”
“They’d throw you in the hole after me.”
“Fair.” He huffs out a breath. “Watch your six.”
“I’ve got two men for that.”
My brothers heard everything Reeve said, and as soon as I get off the phone, Boone says, “Wren showing up with a federal badge and a field kit wasn’t in his plan.”
She’s not just a witness. She’s a threat to his entire operation.
“We need to tell her,” Cade says.
“We will.”
“Not a watered-down version.”
I look at Cade, and he looks back. He rarely challenges me, only because he usually doesn’t need to. We’ve never been a hierarchy in the way outsiders think. I lead because someone has to set the direction. Cade and Boone follow because they trust me, not because they’re built to be led.
When I’m wrong, they correct me, usually before I get us killed.