Page 34 of Savage Ranger Daddy

At 5:47 AM Brock's voice comes through. "Alpha lead in position. Visual on the south fork access. Road is clear. No sentries on this approach."

Another voice: "Bravo lead in position. North fire road approach. One vehicle parked at the gate. No occupant. Gate is chained but bolt cutters will handle it."

Silas: "All units, green light in two minutes. On my mark."

My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my wrists. I grip the pen tighter and keep writing.

"Green light. Go. Go. Go."

The radio explodes with coordinated chatter. Team Alpha moving up the south fork. Bravo breaching the north gate. I hear boots on gravel, voices calling clear, the metallic chunk of a bolt cutter on chain link. Then Brock's voice, steady through the chaos: "Alpha entering the main cabin. Door is unlocked. Moving in."

Silence. Three seconds that feel like thirty.

"Alpha lead. Main cabin is hot. Repeat, main cabin is hot. Crates everywhere. Weapons. Military-grade transport cases. We've got the cache. Proceeding to clear storage buildings."

Bravo team reports in from the north: "Two subjects detained at the vehicle staging area. No resistance. Both unarmed. Commissioner Tate identified. The second is unknown, checking ID now."

I write TATE DETAINED and circle it.

More chatter. Storage Building One cleared, empty. Storage Building Two cleared, more crates, smaller, labeled with codes I recognize from the Ridgeline manifests. Brock calls them out over the radio and I cross-reference against my notes. The codes match. Ridgeline Outfitters serial numbers. The same format from the shipping manifests I obtained six months ago. The ring's own inventory system, stamped on crates in a mountain logging camp.

"Storage Building Three." Brock's voice changes. It drops lower, goes flat. "All units. Storage Building Three contains... additional cargo. Requesting medical. Repeat, requesting medical to the camp immediately."

My pen stops.

Silas comes on. "Alpha lead, clarify. What's in Building Three?"

A pause. When Brock speaks again his voice sounds like it's being held together by force. "People. At least eight. Women. They're alive but they need medical attention now."

The radio goes quiet for a beat. Then Silas, his voice harder than I've ever heard it: "Medical is en route. ETA fifteen minutes fromHaven 7. Secure the building. No one in or out until medical arrives."

I stare at my notebook. The pen has left a dot of ink where it stopped on the page. Women. At least eight. In a storage building at a mountain logging camp. My article mentioned weapons and endangered wildlife. I never found evidence of human trafficking. Cal never mentioned it. None of my sources did.

The ring wasn't just moving guns through the mountains. They were moving people.

I write it down because that's what I do. I write it down even though my hand is shaking and my eyes are burning and the scope of what we've uncovered just expanded in a way that makes everything we've done feel both more urgent and somehow not enough.

The radio keeps going. Bravo team reports the north perimeter secured. Two more subjects detained near the fire road gate, both carrying. Weapons confiscated. IDs being run. No sign of Jeffrey Pruitt at the camp, which means he's either been warned or he's somewhere else.

No sign of the man I photographed at the Lucky Moon either. Voss, or whoever he is, isn't here.

At 6:22 AM Brock comes back on. "Alpha lead. Main cabin and all storage buildings secured. Total cache: estimated forty-plus crates of military-grade weapons, ammunition, and transport materials. Eight confirmed trafficking victims in Building Three, all female, all alive, medical is on-site. Four subjects detained, none matching the description of the primary target."

The primary target. The man at the top. The man I followed to the Lucky Moon.

He's still out there.

I flip to a clean page and start making a list. What we have: the camp, the cache, four detained subjects including Tate, eight rescued women, Ridgeline serial numbers confirmed. What we don't have: Voss, Jeffrey Pruitt, Alice Dermott, the full distribution network, and the buyers who were supposed to receive the shipment.

The victory is real. The weapons are seized. The women are safe. But the head of the snake is still moving.

At 6:40 AM the radio crackles one more time. Brock's voice, quieter now, directed at me even though the whole channel can hear. "Hazel. You copy?"

I press the transmit button. "I copy. I've got everything. Every word."

"Good. We're wrapping up here. I'll be back at the outpost within the hour. Stay inside. Stay with Eli and Chase."

"Copy." I pause. "Brock. The women. Are they okay?"