Page 33 of Jason Bourne (Seals on Fraiser Mountain #7)

Lane

T he north ridge loomed black against the stars when Jason slowed the truck and pulled to the shoulder. “They’ll be here any minute.”

Before I could ask, headlights appeared in the distance. Not one vehicle—three. Moving in tight formation, dust rising in their wake.

I knew those trucks.

Jason didn’t even have to say it as four men climbed out—Forest Reed, Huck Fraiser, Nate Hayes, and Rush Turner. Frasier Mountain’s quiet guardians, though everyone in town thought of them as just neighbors, friends, the kind of men you could call to help cut a tree or fix a roof.

I knew better.

“Lane,” Forest said first, dark eyes sharp as ever. “You got Harris?”

“He’s in a cell,” I answered. “But Marcie Turner’s still out there. Her phone pinged up here about an hour ago.”

Nate gave a low whistle. “Kid’s only sixteen, right? That’s bad.”

Rush shook his head. “Real bad.”

They all looked at me—not with doubt, but expectation. They’d seen me on that ship. They knew I could fight as hard as they could.

Jason’s hand brushed mine, steady. “You’ve got the badge, Lane. Your call.”

I squared my shoulders, the weight of every set of eyes pressing on me. “We sweep the ridge. Quiet, tight formation. If Harris has men up here, we don’t give them a chance to scatter.”

“Copy that,” Fraiser said with a grin. “Good to have you calling the shots.”

We fell into formation, boots crunching over the frosted ground, the beam of Nate’s tracker light sweeping the brush. I hadn’t realized until this moment how much I’d missed this—the silent coordination, the pulse of adrenaline, the way danger sharpened every sense.

“Lane,” Forest called softly from the front. He held something up.

A cracked cell phone, its screen spiderwebbed.

Marcie’s.

My stomach clenched. We were close.

Too close.

Because a second later, Rush raised his fist. He’d caught the sound before the rest of us—the metallic snap of a rifle bolt chambering a round.

We weren’t alone.