FBI agent Sara Vaughn awoke with a start, her heart pounding against her chest. Darkness surrounded her and it took a second for her eyes to adjust.
Panic took hold. No, she was beyond that. She’d outgrown it.
She counted to three, taking a deep breath, then exhaled. She clicked on her headlamp. Tall, majestic evergreen trees stretched up toward the starlit sky.
The mountains. She was in the Cascade Mountains following a lead that her supervisor, Greg Bonner, said was a waste of time.
Sara knew better.
The sound of deep male voices echoed from beyond a cluster of trees to her left.
“Be reasonable, David!” a man shouted.
David Price was one of the three business partners who were on this mountain getaway. The other men were Victor LaRouche and Ted Harrington, and together they owned the drug company LHP, Inc.
Sara made her way toward the sound of raised voices.
She was proud of herself for managing to get on the trail guide team hired to lead them up Echo Mountain. This isolated spot in the Cascade Mountains of Washington would surely give the men the privacy they needed to solidify their plan.
Getting a dangerous drug into the hands of unsuspecting consumers.
“Why do you have to make this so hard?”
She recognized Vic LaRouche’s voice because of its Southern twang.
She stayed off the main trail, not wanting to alert them to her presence, and made her way through the brush. Edging around a large boulder, she stepped over a fallen branch in silence. She needed to stay invisible, hidden. Something she was good at.
The men were no doubt having this discussion a safe distance away from the lead guide, Ned, so as not to wake him. It didn’t take much to wake Sara. Even in sleep, she was always on alert.
“It’s not right and you both know it,” David said.
“It was an anomaly, a mistake,” Ted Harrington said.
“A mistake that could kill people.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” LaRouche said.
This was it—the evidence she’d been looking for.
She pulled out her phone, hoping to record some of their conversation. If she could catch them admitting to their plan, it would go a long way to proving she was right, that she wasn’t just an “overzealous” agent trying to prove something.
She crept closer, shielding herself behind a towering western hemlock. Digging her fingers into the bark, she peeked around the tree. The three men hovered beside a small campfire, the flames illuminating their faces. LaRouche and Harrington were tall, middle-aged men, older than David Price by at least ten years.
“I’m not in business to hurt people,” David said.
“We’re helping people, sport,” Harrington said, slapping David’s shoulder. “Letting them sleep like they never have before.”
“And they don’t wake up.”
“That hasn’t been irrefutably proved,” Harrington said.
“Even one death is too many.”
LaRouche, a tall, regal-looking man, jumped into the conversation. It grew into a shouting match, giving Sara the chance to sneak even closer. She darted to another tree, only ten feet from the men.
She clicked off her headlamp.
Hit the video record button on her phone.
And held her breath.
“I didn’t sign on for this!” David said.
“Majority rules,” Harrington countered.
“Then, I’m out. I’ll sell you my share of the company.”
Harrington threw up his hands and paced a few steps away.
“If you leave, stock prices go down,” LaRouche said calmly.
“I don’t care. Some things are more important than money.”
“Like your family?” LaRouche taunted.
“Is that a threat?” David said.
“Sure, why not?”
David lunged at LaRouche. Harrington dived in between them. “Enough!”
The two men split apart, David glaring at his partners.
“Calm down. Let’s talk this through,” Harrington said.
“Talk? You mean threaten me?” David said.
“I like to think of it as persuading you, David,” LaRouche countered.
“No, I’m done.” David started to walk away.
It seemed as if the conversation was over.
Then LaRouche darted around the fire, grabbed David’s arm and flung him...
Over the edge of the trail.
The chilling sound of a man crying out echoed across the mountains.
Sara gasped and took a step backward.
A twig snapped beneath her boot.
LaRouche and Harrington whipped their heads around and spotted her. They looked as stunned as she felt. The three of them stared at each other.
No one moved. She didn’t breathe.
Heart racing, she watched the expression on LaRouche’s face change from stunned to something far worse: the look of a murderer who was hungry for more.
“It was an accident,” Harrington said.
LaRouche reached into his jacket, no doubt for a weapon.
In that millisecond, her only conscious thought was survival.
Sara clicked on her headlamp and took off, retracing her steps over the rugged terrain. She was outnumbered and couldn’t
