He grinned and tweaked her braid. “Gotta look out for the brat who always asked way too many questions.”

She swiped away another tear, remembering George’s curmudgeonly complaints the first time they met when she was eleven and full of questions about the Ozette village—an archaeological site she’d visited on a field trip with Roy’s “junior archaeologists” group. George had been one of the guides on the trip.

Finally, she and Xavier set out, leaving via one of the service doors, which spilled out into a side parking lot that was cloaked in darkness.

They moved silently as planned, heading straight for the culvert so they could cross the road without being spotted. The SEALs on scout duty were patrolling the area, ensuring they wouldn’t be ambushed when they were under the roadway.

They emerged and entered the forest. Audrey fell into her place behind Xavier. He had her gun, returned by the SEAL who’d used it in the battle for the lodge. Four bullets remained.

Audrey had the clip-on holster with a Glock that only fired Simunition, but she had more than a hundred rounds.

Xavier had traded the NVGs he’d gotten from the dead mercenary for the US military-grade ones the SEALs used. Most of their hiking would be in daylight, so Audrey, being unfamiliar with the equipment, had opted not to take a pair that would be better utilized by a SEAL.

If all went well, they’d need neither guns nor night vision. The most important items they carried were satellite phones—one in each of their packs.

If something happened to one of them, the instructions were clear: the other would continue on to the promontory, where they should be able to get a satellite signal once the clouds thinned.

Fingers crossed the new storm that had rolled in overnight would clear in the afternoon—around the time she estimated they’d make their destination.

Xavier alone would probably be faster, but this wasn’t the kind of hike one should do solo in this weather.

As agreed, they went hard at the start, trying to get as much distance as they could while night still clung to the mountain. But all too soon, they passed through the varying stages of morning twilight and the morning mist rolled in, a flat white shroud enveloping spruce trees that had sprouted before the Ozette mudslide five hundred years ago, growing next to firs that predated the birth of Chief Sealth—commonly known as Chief Seattle—around 1786.

This time of morning, in this remote place, it could be any century. No planes flew overhead. And to their great distress, no radio signals transmitted through the air.

It was just her, Xavier, birds, deer, and the occasional mountain goat. There were cougars and bears too, but as Xavier had pointed out on the first day, the bears were probably hibernating, and it had been several months since she’d spotted a cougar.