Page 44 of Silent Target

“Which means they want us to follow.”

Caleb looks at me. “Yes.”

“So we don’t.”

“We still have to reach the station.”

“Through the trap?”

“We change the rules.”

He says it as if rewriting the rules of a carefully constructed ambush is merely another item on his morning schedule.

I follow him away from the tracks.

For the next hour, we climb across terrain steep enough to leave my legs burning. Caleb selects every foothold as though he has walked this mountain before.

He hasn’t.

He simply understands land the way I understand intelligence reports.

Every slope tells him something.

Every broken branch becomes part of a story.

When we finally reach a rocky overlook, he drops into a crouch.

Below us sits an old government communications facility hidden among the trees.

Chain-link fences surround several concrete buildings. Satellite dishes rise above the compound. Two guard towers overlook the perimeter, and a line of black vehicles fills the central yard.

I lift the binoculars.

“Oh.”

Caleb settles beside me. “How many?”

“Too many.”

He takes the binoculars and counts.

I watch his expression become harder with each number.

“Thirty-one outside,” he says. “Possibly twice that inside.”

“They were told to expect an attack.”

“They were told to expect Shadow Division.”

A low rumble rolls across the valley.

Three unmarked black helicopters appear above the opposite ridge.

They descend into the compound one after another.

Armed men pour from the first two.

Four guards emerge from the third, dragging a prisoner between them.