Chapter 7 - The Shadows in the Pines
Julian’s heart slammed against his ribs like a sledgehammer as the dual beams of headlights illuminated the dripping pine branches overhead. Whoever was tracking them hadn't relied on highway cameras or toll booths; they had a thermal tracker or a satellite ping locked directly onto Emma's spare smartphone, which still sat powered on inside the center console of his abandoned sedan.
“Stay here, keep low,” Julian whispered fiercely, pressing a quick, desperate kiss to Emma’s damp forehead before sprinting silently back through the mud toward the car.
He wrenched open the passenger door, grabbed the ringing smartphone, and hurled it as far as he could into the pitch-black ravine. He slammed the door shut, dropping into a crouch behind a thick cluster of ferns just as a heavy-duty black SUV crept past the clearing, its knobby tires churning up thick plumes of mud.
The SUV stopped dead directly opposite Julian’s hiding spot. The engine idled with a low, menacing rumble, and the driver’s side door creaked open. A tall, broad-shouldered man stepped out into the freezing rain, wearing a tactical field jacket and holding a suppressed automatic rifle at the ready. It wasn't a federal marshal or a local cop; it was one of Marcus Vance’s private corporate enforcers—a ghost from the dark-ops underground who left no witnesses behind.
The enforcer scanned the tree line with a military-grade thermal monocular, sweeping the glowing green lens back and forth across the dark forest floor. Julian held his breath, pressing his back flat against the rough bark of a pine tree, his muscles coiled like a spring. If the thermal scope swept ten feet to the left, it would pick up Emma’s body heat radiating against the damp earth.
Suddenly, the enforcer’s radio hissed with static, and a distorted voice crackled through the speaker. “Target lost on the phone ping. Check the vehicle. The boss wants the hard drives recovered, and no loose ends left in the dirt.”
The tactical operative lowered his night-vision visor and began walking directly toward Julian’s sedan, his heavy combat boots crunching methodically over the wet twigs. Julian’s hand slipped into his wet coat pocket, closing around the heavy metallic casing of the stolen flash drive containing all of Marcus’s offshore laundering records. He knew he couldn't let this man reach Emma.
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As the enforcer reached out to pry open the sedan’s driver-side door, Julian exploded from the tree line like a coiled panther, tackling the larger man squarely in the midsection and sending them both crashing hard into the mud.
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