“Two of our guys didn’t come back.”

“That’s because they went through the valley floor,” I said.

“Kroll has remote cameras hidden in the pine trunks.”

“They use motion sensors that look like ordinary branches.”

“They are painted to blend into the bark, and they use cellular relays to send images back to the main house.”

“If you step within fifty yards of the creek, they know it before you even clear the brush.”

“But the ridge trail avoids the water entirely.”

I found a black marker on the table and uncapped it.

With a steady hand, I drew a line starting from the old sawmill on Route 9.

It wound upward, dodging the main valleys and staying high on the rocky shelves.

“This is the old logging road,” I said.

“The timber company abandoned it forty years ago.”

“But the ground is solid shale. It doesn’t leave tracks.”

“And it bypasses all of Kroll’s perimeter guards.”

Leo came closer, squinting at the line I had drawn.

“That leads straight to their primary distribution warehouse in Oakhaven,” he said.