Vlad dropped his pack where Samantha pointed and went looking for wood that wouldn’t smoke. He found it under a deadfall — spruce, killed on the branch, dry the whole way through.
They had walked since first light. His legs quit an hour ago and he wasn’t quite sure how he was still moving. Samantha picked the camp without needing to hunt for it — she was way out of his league on this stuff.
He dug a shallow pit with his heel, ringed it with rock, and built a small fire. Marcus watched him from a log across the clearing and didn’t offer to help. That was fine. Vlad didn’t want his help.
“Smaller than I’d like,” Marcus said.
“Yes.”
“It’s going to be cold up here.”
“Then sit closer.”
Samantha put a titanium pot on the fire without a word, hands shaking. Vlad looked at her eyes — she’d been up for over 24 hours and must be totally fried. She grimaced at him. He nodded at her, acknowledging what she had done to get them here.
Vlad found a gap in the canopy and propped the antenna against a rock until the link came up. He checked Seth’s phone — the flurry of early morning calls and texts to them, then it abruptly stopped after one more call to Nadia. Vlad knew Seth had a burner but he rarely used it. He wondered what Seth was up to.
Marcus had been quiet the whole walk. Now, with a fire and a place to sit, he started talking again.
“Three years,” he said. “You sat across a table from me for three years reading my email.”
“Metadata. Not your actual data.”
“Vlad, don’t try to —”
“Who you talked to. When. Not what you said.” Vlad fed a stick into the fire. “It is not the same thing. If it was, I would know all kinds of things you don’t want me to know.”
“You surveilled our investors.” Marcus kept his voice low so it wouldn’t reach Samantha. “You surveilled Seth. Without telling anyone. You lecture me about trust, but you did something deeply untrustworthy.” Marcus was animated now. “That is not ok.”
Vlad looked at him across the small fire.
“You want an apology.”
“I want you to understand what you did.”
“I understand it exactly.” Vlad tossed another stick in the fire. “You sent one text, in the clear, at three in the morning, to tell Seth that we had done something monumental. That text is why we are sitting here in the dirt. The metadata I look at is the only reason we got a head start on it.” He didn’t raise his voice. “You want me to say I’m sorry for the thing that is keeping you alive. No — I won’t do that.”
Marcus opened his mouth.
“Not tonight.” Samantha didn’t lift her head from the pot. There was nothing left in her voice. “I mean it. Not tonight.”
Marcus closed his mouth. He stared into the fire, then lay back against the log and pulled his cap over his eyes.
The pot ticked. Samantha handed it across; Vlad drank half and gave the rest back. After a while both of them stopped moving, Marcus first, then Samantha, curled on her side with the pack under her head.
Vlad stayed up. He was tired, but not exhausted yet. Someone had to pay attention in case something happened.
He killed the fire down to embers and let his eyes adjust. Then, he looked around and figured the way out of where they were. He’d been doing this since he was a little boy. The drainage dropped away south below the camp. If someone came up the trail he could take the drainage. If they were smart enough to watch it he would cross the ridge to the next one.
It was a good route for one person moving fast at night. He thought about getting up and taking it now.
He looked at Samantha, asleep, breathing slowly. He looked at Marcus, out cold, cap over his face — sleeping peacefully.
No. He was not going to take it. He would stay right here, with his partners. His chest went tight — not from men with badges, not from the camera on the tree above the Jeep, not from the unknown people likely tracing them. His chest was tight because he didn’t yet know the next move.