Chapter 14 - Cold Blood on Frozen Ground
The Bitterroot wilderness does not forgive mistakes, especially in November when the wind drops below zero. We moved through the heavy snow like phantoms, Claire scanning the ridges above with the hawk-like awareness of a seasoned combatant, while I struggled to keep my breathing quiet despite the burning agony in my lungs.
Our boots sank deep into the drifts, our breath billowing like white smoke. Half a mile from the house, Claire froze, raising a closed fist.
I stopped immediately, dropping to one knee behind a massive granite boulder. Fifty yards ahead, through the snow-dusted ponderosa pines, an operative in full tactical kit was sweeping a thermal optic across the ridgeline, his rifle resting on a shooting stick. He had cut off our primary route toward the county highway.
"He has overwatch," Claire whispered against my ear, her voice barely louder than the falling snow. "He’s communicating via encrypted UHF. If I shoot him, his vitals flatline on his team leader's HUD, and they converge on this ridge in sixty seconds."
"What do we do?" I asked, my fingers numb against the cold polymer grip of the P320.
"You stay here," she said.
Before I could protest, she slipped off her heavy coat, blending into the white background in her gray thermal sweater. She vanished into the underbrush, moving without snapping a single twig. I watched with morbid fascination as the mother of my child became a ghost.
She circled wide, using the natural dip of a dried creek bed to approach the sniper from his blind side. The wind roared through the canopy, masking the soft crunch of her boots.
Ten seconds later, she was behind him.
There was no battle. There was only the brutal, terrifying economy of professional violence. Claire leaped forward, one hand clamping over the operative's mouth while her other hand drove the ceramic blade directly beneath the base of his skull, severing the brain stem instantly. The man collapsed like an empty suit of clothes. Claire caught his rifle before it hit the rocks, gently lowering his corpse into the snowdrift.
She quickly reached into his tactical vest, extracted a ruggedized military tablet and his satellite radio, then whistled a low, bird-like note.
I rushed forward, my stomach churning at the sight of the blood steaming against the fresh snow.
"Look at this," Claire whispered, tapping the tablet's screen.
May you like
The screen displayed a live federal database query. It was stamped with the seal of the United States Marshal Service, Special Operations Group.
"It wasn't an underworld syndicate that found us, David," Claire said, her face pale as marble under the gray Montana sky. "The hit team was deployed from an off-the-books black site in Helena. The United States government sold my location."
