Page 6 of Burning Justice (Chasing Fire: Alaska #6)

All that mattered was that they’d saved her.

He hadn’t wanted her to know that the cost to get to her had been so high, but she’d found out pretty quickly.

She knew what had happened to him, but neither of them needed the reminder of it right in their faces.

Not when they were still so far from finishing this.

Grizz’s advice to swallow his pride wasn’t totally off base, but the guy didn’t know how much they all had at stake in this. Sanchez had to focus.

All of them did.

Once she found her father, they found the canister, and this whole thing was done…then Kane would see what was left between them.

Mitch called out orders to cut a line and clear the brush from beside the highway while he and Hammer lit a backfire to starve the blaze of fuel.

The fire would be here within a few hours, driven this direction by the wind. When that happened, if the flames found nothing to consume, they would die out.

It was their job to make sure that happened. To draw a line. Here and no farther.

Kane heard a truck to the north. A cement truck rounded the corner in the distance and headed their way. “Car!”

Raine gave him an odd look.

“You didn’t do that when you were a kid? You’re playing in the street with your friends, and then a car comes and you all move to the sidewalk for a second?”

Raine said, “No.”

“Well, what did you do when you were a kid?” She was one of the few Alaska natives on the team. Born and raised in Copper Mountain. “If you didn’t hang out with your friends.”

“I went to school. My mom worked, so I figured out how to make my own grilled cheese sandwiches.” She swung her Pulaski at the ground and dragged it through the tangled roots that would provide a network the fire would travel along unseen.

The cement truck buzzed past, riffling his hair and flapping his shirt against the wound on his side. Even through the bandage it smarted.

Up the shoulder of the highway, Sanchez watched him.

He lifted two fingers. She turned away and went back to her task.

Saxon dug his shovel in the dirt. “Keep trying. Maybe one day she’ll forgive you.”

Kane wanted to argue, but he wanted her to forgive him. Not that he thought he’d done something wrong. It was up to him who saw his scars.

“Hammer has his own reasons for wanting to come across as invincible.”

Kane glanced over at Saxon. “Says the guy who walked away from a plane crash.”

Raine said, “Actually, I think he was carrying Neil.”

Saxon rolled his shoulders. “All part of the job, ma’am.”

Raine shook her head. “You macho guys.”

“Admit you feel safer with us around.”

Raine said, “Only I after I point out that there were no run-ins with gunmen, helicopters, and absolutely no land mines before you guys showed up.” She held up one hand. “I’m just saying.”

Kane glanced at Saxon. “She might have a valid point.”

“That’s the stuff that makes life fun.”

Raine shot an odd look at Saxon and went back to her work.

Kane swung his Pulaski, ignoring the pain in his side.

“Just answer one question for me,” Raine said. “If these guys have one canister of this stuff ready to go, can’t they go ahead with the plan? Why has nothing happened?”

Kane said, “You want them to destroy crops in the Lower 48 and ruin the US economy? I’d rather we stop the person behind this and whoever is funding them.”

“Right. But I’m saying, it’s been a couple of weeks. Whoever has that can…what are they waiting for?” She shrugged.

Saxon jumped on his shovel, driving it into the dirt. “Who knows why? Could just be they’re waiting for the heat to die down. I’m just glad it’s giving us time to keep working the problem.”

Kane had been thinking about that last night, sitting on the hill. Trying to keep his thoughts from straying to Sanchez. “I think it’s that fail-safe. The one Dani told us that Sanchez’s father mentioned.”

“Isn’t that what would stop it from going off?” Raine asked.

“Sure. But if Sanchez’s father told these guys that there’s a code he has to enter or something like that, then they’d need the code before they could use it. So maybe having the canister isn’t enough.”

“That would mean they don’t have her dad to give them the code,” Saxon said. “Or he refuses.”

“Either way.”

Saxon said, “Either way, we still have no idea why they haven’t set it off yet. The FBI is on the case, and Alaska State Troopers. Everyone is looking for the guy who has the canister, and we have no idea who it is.”

Kane glanced over, shooting his friend a look. One Saxon would understand. Because maybe they did know who it was that had the canister.

Raine said, “Who is he, anyway?”

Kane was going to have to lie. Again. About something else.

One day he was going to crack and just start telling everyone the truth about everything. Who cared about the fallout? And there definitely would be plenty of destruction.

Especially when Sanchez found out he loved her.

Cue explosion.

“Guys?”

Saxon said, “We aren’t sure.”

Which only meant they had an idea. But Kane had more than an idea.

He’d seen the guy with his own eyes weeks ago and hadn’t believed it then. But now that they knew Jeremiah Redding had been involved in this, it was clear his whole family would be too. That meant Elias.

After all, an operation like this? It had the Redding family written all over it.

Chinese funding. The economy at stake. Money laundering through foundations like the Northern Lights Higher Education Fund.

A massive operation that involved dirty Feds and illegal land grabs, secret compounds and the dangerous testing of chemical compounds.

Yeah, they’d seen it all before.

But that’d been halfway across the world and several years ago.

This? It was practically in their backyard.

And it stank of Elias Redding. They all knew it was him—most especially after his cousin had been here in Alaska just weeks ago. Jeremiah was dead, so of course Elias had come to clean up—or continue the mission.

Their former teammate.

Their brother. Their friend.

The teammate who had betrayed them.

Now it was up to them to make sure he didn’t betray this country.