Page 85 of Easy, Tiger

He fires twice more in rapid succession, forcing Owen to stay pinned down. The man's military training shines through in controlled breathing and a steady aim despite the blood loss from his wounded arm. But he's focused entirely on the immediate threats, tunnel vision narrowing his awareness.

I rise from behind my cover, tranquilizer gun raised. Thirty yards, with a quartering wind from the left. The dart gun lacks the range and accuracy of a proper rifle, but it's close enough.

"Nico!"

He spins toward my voice, the rifle swinging around, but the tranquilizer dart catches him center mass before he can bring the weapon to bear. The ketamine works fast—his fingers loosen, the rifle clattering against stone as his knees buckle.

"What—" His words slur as he pitches forward onto the granite.

Owen emerges from cover, zip ties already in hand. "Nice shot."

"Halsey loaded it perfectly." Owen secures Nico's wrists and ankles while I hover nearby; the man's breathing is even, but his eyes are rolled back. "How long will he be out?"

"Hour, maybe four." Sadie appears beside us, checking Nico's pulse. "Depends on his body weight and tolerance."

Halsey wraps her arms around herself, watching Owen work. "He made me patch his arm when he drove us up to this shelf, right before he put a gun to my head and called you. Held the pistol on me the entire time I worked. That's the only reason he continued standing after losing that much blood. We also can’t forget about all the maps at his camp. Documentation going back years."

"Then we need to see what he's collected." I shoulder Nico's rifle, ejecting the remaining rounds.

Owen drifts away, radio held to his ear, and I catch fragments of the call. "Dave, it's Owen. We've got an injured hunter up near the old logging junction, unconscious, and something that resembles a major wildlife trafficking operation at his base camp. You're going to want to see this yourself and probably bring backup." A couple of seconds pass. "No, I'm serious. Bring state police and the FBI. This is bigger than us."

Owen rejoins us, pocketing the radio. "Dave's mobilizing."

Halsey grips my arm, her voice frantic. "Nolan, Broddi is hurt. Nico shot him near the logging junction before he grabbed me."

I turn to my sister. "Sadie, take a team to the logging junction. Get Broddi to your wildlife rehabilitation center for Amelia to work on, then direct the others back to Dad. Make sure everyone's accounted for after all this."

"What about him?" Halsey nudges Nico with her boot.

"We'll deal with him after we secure his evidence." In the quiet alignment between us, I recognize the same determination that fueled her through the entire ordeal. "Ready for one more hike?"

She tugs her jacket collar higher against the wind, snow crystals catching in the dark curls escaping around her face. "Lead the way."

We use Nico's own snowmobile to haul him back down the mountain. His camp sits exactly as we left it after last night's struggle, the same small clearing ringed by pines, gear scattered across trampled snow from Halsey's earlier visit and my fight with Nico before that. Owen hauls the unconscious hunter off the back of the machine and drops him beside an overturned camp chair with considerably less care than he'd accord a sack of grain, then paces out of earshot to make a call.

While we wait, Halsey and I work fast, sorting through what remains. The Pascal correspondence and the Phase Two folder are secure; Sadie found her discarded backpack in the snow next to Broddi and brought it up to us before taking him to the clinic. What's left is everything else, and we need it to tell a very different story by the time Dave arrives.

Kneeling at the cold fire ring, I get a fresh blaze going with dry tinder from Nico's own supplies, flames catching quickly in the wind. "The transformation photos, the loose vials of blood and fur samples, and anything mentioning shifters directly, we bury those or burn them right here," I say, already throwing a stack of surveillance prints into the growing fire. Ripping the blinking body-cam right off Nico's vest, I crush it under my boot before tossing it into the embers. Next, I grab the laptop and external hard drives from the tent, smashing them against a boulder before tossing the shattered components into the flames. Halsey pops the SD card out of his expensive camera, snaps the plastic in two, and flicks the pieces into the hottest part of the fire to melt.

"We need to make absolutely certain there is zero evidence of the enclave, digital, DNA or otherwise, before the police arrive. Iago is already sweeping the perimeter and the logging junction downslope to clean up Broddi's blood and scrub any non-human tracks."

"But the locked case with the teeth, fur, and personal belongings taken from the other enclaves," I point to the metal box Nico was so proud of, "pack those in a spare rucksack for Iago. We're taking them with us. We'll return them to their proper packs ourselves so they can be laid to rest, far away from federal labs."

Halsey agrees, shoving the locked case into the canvas bag before extracting incriminating photographs from a folder and tossing them into the fire instead of leaving them for federal eyes. "And my case? The Pascal files?"

"Those stay front and center. That's the whole point. We want them digging deep into wildlife trafficking and academic fraud. Nothing that points anywhere near the mountains behind us."

"Dave's twenty minutes out," Owen reports, rejoining us and pocketing his satellite phone. "State police and FBI are another hour behind him. Told him we found an injured hunter and what looks like a major trafficking operation. That's all he needs to know for now."

I survey what's left on the tables once we've finished. We left his financial ledgers, shipping manifests, and crates of mundane poached animal parts—bear gallbladders and exotic pelts—he used as a front for his real obsession. The maps of migration routes are still spread across every flat surface, complete with red pins marking locations across three states. The evidence is laid out plainly enough for anyone to read. Nothing here alludes to anything but greed and an obsession with ordinary, illegal poaching.

The next twenty minutes crawl by in tense suspense; Nico stays unconscious by the fire ring, Halsey paces off the last of her adrenaline, while Owen guards the access road. When the sound of approaching vehicles finally cuts through the mountain air, diesel engines grinding up the rough road Owen carved out with his ranger truck, all three of us stop moving at once. Dave Morrison emerges from the lead vehicle, his forest service jacket ironed despite the early morning chaos, followed by two state troopers whose reactions suggest they're not entirely convinced this isn't an elaborate prank.

"Owen, what the hell have you found this time?" Dave's gaze sweeps the camp, taking in the surveillance equipment and scattered documentation.

"Wildlife trafficking ring," Owen replies. "Been operating across state lines for years. Our suspect's unconscious from a tranquilizer dart—he was armed and holding a civilian hostage."

One of the state troopers approaches the evidence tables, his eyebrows climbing toward his hairline as he processes the scope of Nico's operation. "Geez, this is bigger than anything we've seen in the region."