3. Ghosts in the Pines

The shadow passed the window and was gone.

Liam's hand closed around the pistol grip, the metal cold and familiar against his palm. He'd learned in the desert that shadows didn't mean anything by themselves — sometimes a shadow was just a shadow, a trick of light and exhaustion. But the desert had also taught him that the moment you stopped checking was the moment you died.

"Someone's outside," he said quietly.

Silas Creed didn't turn around. He was already moving toward the window, his footsteps silent on the rough-hewn floorboards despite his age. The old man moved like someone who'd spent decades navigating spaces where noise meant death — a hunter, or something else entirely.

"I know," Silas said. "He's been out there for twenty minutes. Showed up just before you did."

Ezra limped to the other window, peering through a gap in the curtains. His face, still pale from blood loss, was drawn tight with concentration. "Is it Vega?"

"No. This one's a man. Bigger, heavier on his feet. He's been circling the cabin, trying to get a look inside." Silas reached up and turned the kerosene lantern down to a dim flicker, barely enough to see by. "He's not law enforcement. Law enforcement would've announced themselves by now."

Liam's mind raced through the possibilities. Moreau — the fixer Ezra had mentioned, the one who'd buried a pipeline worker in a strip mine. Or one of his men. The private army that Pannox had built to protect its secrets.

"Can we slip out the back?" Ezra asked.

"In these woods, at night, with your leg? You wouldn't make it half a mile." Silas moved toward a wooden cabinet in the corner of the room. He opened it and pulled out a battered Remington rifle, its stock worn smooth by decades of handling. "Besides, I didn't invite you here just to watch you get shot in my front yard."

Liam watched the old man check the chamber and slide a cartridge into place with practiced efficiency. "I thought you were just a fire lookout."

"I'm a lot of things." Silas settled into a chair by the window, the rifle resting across his knees. "Fire lookout. Trapper. Conscientious objector. Ex-husband to two women who deserved better. And for forty years, I've been the last person living on this ridge who remembers what this country looked like before they started tearing it apart."

Through the dim light, Liam studied the cabin more carefully. It was larger than it appeared from outside — a single room divided into living quarters and a radio station, with a narrow ladder leading up to the lookout tower. The walls were lined with bookshelves crammed with field guides and geological surveys and thick binders full of handwritten notes. A topographical map of the Greenwood National Forest covered most of one wall, marked with colored pins that traced patterns Liam couldn't immediately read.

"This is more than a fire lookout," he said. "You're documenting something."

Silas glanced at him with those pale, winter-ice eyes. "I've been documenting the slow death of this watershed for thirty years. Every dead fish, every poisoned well, every cancer case in the valley below. The government doesn't keep records anymore — they defunded the monitoring stations back in the nineties. So I do it myself."

Ezra had crossed to the radio equipment, a bank of aging ham transmitters and receivers that took up an entire workbench. He was studying the dials, his fingers hovering over the controls. "Silas, I need to reach Helen Dorran at the Cascadian Independent. Can you patch me through?"

"Maybe. The ionosphere's been bad tonight — solar storm, they said. But I can try." Silas rose from his chair and moved to the radio, his earlier alertness giving way to something else — a focused, professional calm. "You two should eat something. There's venison stew on the stove. It's a day old, but it'll keep you moving."

Liam hadn't realized how hungry he was until the smell hit him. He ladled stew into two tin bowls while Silas worked the radio dials, the crackle of static filling the cabin. Ezra sat down heavily on a wooden crate, his injured leg stretched out in front of him.

"Your friend Silas," Liam said quietly, handing Ezra a bowl. "How do you know him?"

Ezra took the stew and held it without eating. "He knew my father. They used to fish together on the Poisonwood, back when there were still fish in it. After Dad got sick, Silas was the one who showed me the monitoring data. The benzene levels in the groundwater, the heavy metals in the soil. He'd been collecting it for years, trying to get someone to pay attention."

"And nobody did?"

"Nobody wanted to. The county commissioners are all on Pannox's payroll, one way or another. The state environmental agency had its budget cut by two-thirds. The EPA regional office is three hundred miles away and they're understaffed and overwhelmed." Ezra's voice was bitter, the voice of someone who'd spent years banging his head against a wall of institutional indifference. "Silas kept documenting anyway. He said the truth didn't stop being true just because nobody was listening."

Across the room, Silas was speaking into the radio microphone, his voice low and unhurried. "WH6-GFC calling KZ7-IND. Come in, KZ7-IND. This is Greenwood Relay. Over."

Static hissed through the speaker. Silas repeated the call, adjusting the frequency dial by fractions of a millimeter. Outside, the wind had picked up, rattling the cabin's shutters and masking whatever sounds the man in the trees might be making.

Liam finished his stew and set the bowl aside. His body was still wired with adrenaline, the animal part of his brain refusing to accept that they were safe, even temporarily. He kept glancing toward the window, expecting the shadow to return.

"It's not Vega," he said, more to himself than to Ezra. "She would have made her move by now. She doesn't strike me as the patient type."

"She's patient enough." Ezra had finally started eating, spooning the stew mechanically, as if food were just another kind of fuel. "She spent six months building a case against the last person who crossed Pannox. An activist named Marcus Cole. She gathered evidence, turned his friends against him, made him think he was safe. Then she arrested him at his daughter's birthday party."

"What happened to him?"

"He's serving fifteen years in Iron County Correctional. Arson, conspiracy, attempted murder. They said the device he planted could have killed someone. Never mind that he planted it at an abandoned warehouse with no one around for miles." Ezra set his bowl down. "The point is, Vega doesn't rush. She waits until she has every advantage, and then she closes the trap."

Liam thought about that. It fit with what he'd seen on the switchback — the calm, almost friendly voice, the patience in her movements. She hadn't been trying to kill them then. She'd been testing them, seeing how they'd react. Gathering information.

"So why send the man outside?" he asked. "If she's so patient, why tip her hand?"

Ezra didn't have an answer. But Silas, still hunched over the radio, spoke up without turning around.

"Because he's not one of hers." The old man's voice was flat. "Whoever's out there, he's working for someone else. And he's been out there long enough to know you're in here."

The radio crackled, and a voice cut through the static — a woman's voice, sharp and professional. "KZ7-IND receiving. Greenwood Relay, this is Dorran. Go ahead."

Silas handed the microphone to Ezra. "You've got five minutes, maybe less. The solar storm is getting worse."

Ezra took the mic, his knuckles white around the plastic casing. "Helen? It's Ezra Shaw. I'm at Greenwood Relay with a source. We have the Pannox manifest."

There was a pause, filled with static. Then Helen Dorran's voice came back, tighter now, urgent. "Ezra? Jesus Christ, I thought you were dead. They're saying you killed a security guard at the compressor station."

"That wasn't me." Ezra's eyes flicked to Liam. "There was a shooting, but I wasn't involved. I was forty miles away, planting a device at the intake valve. I can prove it."

"Prove it how?"

"Witnesses. The guy I was with — he saw the whole thing." Ezra didn't mention Liam's name, and Liam was grateful for that small mercy. "But that's not why I'm calling. We have the shipment records. The ones Marcus Cole was looking for before he got arrested. Benzene, hexavalent chromium, arsenic — all of it, Helen. Three years of manifests showing Pannox dumping toxic waste along the pipeline route."

Another pause, longer this time. When Helen spoke again, her voice had changed — the journalist's skepticism giving way to something hungrier. "Where are you?"

"Greenwood Lookout. But we can't stay here. There's a federal marshal named Vega who's on Pannox's payroll, and she's hunting us. Plus there's someone outside the cabin right now — we don't know who."

"Vega." Helen said the name like she recognized it. "She's not just on Pannox's payroll. She's their primary fixer. I've been tracking her for two years. She's connected to at least three suspicious deaths — activists, whistleblowers, people who got too close to the pipeline. The FBI won't touch her because she's got friends in the Justice Department."

"Then you understand why we can't just walk into a police station."

"I understand." Helen's voice was grim. "Listen to me, Ezra. The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in the Greenwood v. Greyhawk case in six days. Pannox has been pushing for a quick ruling — they want the pipeline approved before the end of the term. If what you have is real, it could change everything. But you need to get it to me before the court rules."

"How do we do that?"

"There's a town called Bitter Falls, about forty miles south of your position. Do you know it?"

Ezra's face went still. "I know it. My father lived there."

"There's a motel on the old highway — the Pinecrest. Room twelve. The manager is a friend. Get there by tomorrow night, and I'll meet you. Bring the drive." Another pause. "And Ezra? Be careful. If Vega is involved, this goes higher than we thought."

The transmission dissolved into static before Ezra could respond. Silas took the microphone and tried to reestablish the connection, but the solar storm had swallowed the signal. The radio hissed emptily, a sound like the ocean trapped in a box.

"Bitter Falls," Liam said. "That's the town with the cancer cluster."

"Yeah." Ezra's voice was hollow. "My father's town. My town, once."

"Can we make it by tomorrow night?"

"It's forty miles over rough terrain. With my leg, we'd need to move fast and not stop." Ezra looked at the window, where the darkness pressed against the glass like a living thing. "But first we need to get past whoever's out there."

Silas stood up from the radio and walked to the window. He stood motionless for a long moment, staring into the night with the patience of a man who'd spent decades watching for forest fires. When he spoke, his voice was low.

"He's still there. Same position, just beyond the treeline. He's not trying to hide anymore."

"What does that mean?" Liam asked.

"It means he wants us to know he's there." Silas turned from the window, his face unreadable in the dim lantern light. "He's not here to kill you. If he wanted you dead, he would've taken the shot when you were on the trail. He's here to watch you. To report back."

"To Vega?"

"No." Silas shook his head slowly. "If he were Vega's man, she'd have him pull back and wait for her orders. She's a strategist. She doesn't show her hand until she's ready to play it." He paused. "This one's different. He's working for someone who wants you alive. Someone who wants to know where you're going and who you're talking to."

Liam felt a chill that had nothing to do with the mountain cold. Someone else was in the game now — someone who hadn't shown themselves yet. It could be another branch of Pannox's security apparatus, or it could be something else entirely. A federal agency. A rival corporation. A player they hadn't even considered.

"There's something I haven't told you," Ezra said quietly. He was looking at the floor, his shoulders hunched. "About the drive."

Liam tensed. "What about it?"

"It's not just the manifests. When I was downloading the files from the foreman's laptop, I found something else. Encrypted files buried in a hidden partition. I couldn't crack the encryption, but the file names were all the same format — dates, followed by initials. CB. JD. MT."

"Initials for what?"

"I don't know. But the file sizes were too small to be documents. They looked like financial data. Transaction records." Ezra finally looked up, meeting Liam's eyes. "I think Pannox has been paying off more than just inspectors and local cops. I think those initials belong to judges. Legislators. Maybe even someone on the Supreme Court."

The cabin fell silent. Even Silas, who'd been half-listening while keeping watch at the window, turned to stare at Ezra.

"Jesus Christ," the old man said. "You're saying the bribery goes all the way to the capital?"

"I'm saying I don't know. The encryption is too strong for me to break. But if it's true, then the case we've been building against Pannox — the dumping, the cancer cluster, the cover-up — it's all connected to something bigger." Ezra's voice cracked. "And if Vega gets the drive before we can decrypt it, all of that evidence disappears. Along with us."

Liam stood up and walked to the window. Outside, the man in the trees hadn't moved. He could just make out the silhouette now — a large figure, broad-shouldered, standing beside a pine trunk with the stillness of someone who'd been trained to wait. He wasn't trying to hide, just as Silas had said. He wanted to be seen.

It was a message. I'm here. I'm watching. You can't escape.

"We need a plan," Liam said. "Silas, is there another way out of here? Something they might not know about?"

The old man stroked his beard, thinking. "There's an old mine adit about a quarter-mile behind the cabin. It connects to a tunnel system that runs under the ridge. The tunnel exits on the south side, near a dry creek bed. If you can get to the mine entrance without being seen, you can follow the tunnel through to the other side. It'll put you half a day's walk from Bitter Falls."

"A mine tunnel? Is it stable?"

"It's stable enough. I used to cache supplies in there during the winter, back when I was trapping. The timbers are old, but they'll hold if you don't make too much noise."

Liam turned to Ezra. "Can you walk that far?"

"I don't have a choice."

"Then we go now. While it's still dark." Liam checked the pistol at his back, the weight of it a small comfort. "Silas, can you give us a distraction? Something to draw him away from the back of the cabin?"

The old man smiled, a thin expression that didn't reach his eyes. "I can do better than a distraction. Give me ten minutes to set up, then slip out the back. Keep low and follow the deer trail to the north. You'll see the mine entrance — it's covered with a piece of corrugated tin. You can't miss it."

"Ten minutes," Liam said.

Silas moved toward the door, pausing with his hand on the bolt. He looked back at them — two fugitives, one wounded and one running on fumes, standing in the dim light of a kerosene lantern in a cabin that smelled of stew and old books and decades of solitude.

"Whatever happens," Silas said, "don't stop. Don't look back. And don't trust anyone you meet on the road to Bitter Falls. That town has a way of eating people alive."

He opened the door and slipped into the night.

For a long moment, neither Liam nor Ezra spoke. The wind moaned through the shutters. The lantern flame flickered. Somewhere in the darkness outside, Silas Creed was moving through the trees with a rifle in his hands and forty years of rage in his heart.

"We should go," Ezra said.

"Wait." Liam was still at the window, watching the treeline. "He said ten minutes."

"You trust him?"

"I trust him more than I trust anyone else right now." Liam turned from the window. "Which isn't saying much."

Ezra managed a weak smile. "You're learning."

They waited in the dark, counting seconds. The cabin creaked around them, settling into the cold mountain night. Liam's mind kept circling back to what Ezra had said about the encrypted files. Initials. Transaction records. A web of corruption stretching from the poisoned valleys of the Greenwood watershed all the way to the marble halls of the Cascadian Supreme Court.

If it was true, then they weren't just carrying evidence of environmental crimes. They were carrying a bomb that could blow up the entire political establishment.

No wonder Vega wanted them dead.

At nine minutes, a sound cut through the night — a single gunshot, sharp and close, followed by shouting. Liam recognized Silas's voice, raised in anger, and then another voice responding. The man in the trees. The distraction was working.

"Now," Liam said.

They slipped out the back door and into the darkness. The cold hit them immediately, a dry mountain cold that burned the lungs. Liam led the way, following the faint deer trail that wound through the pines, his boots finding the path by instinct as much as sight. Ezra limped behind him, his breath coming in harsh gasps.

Behind them, another gunshot echoed through the trees. Then a third. Then silence.

Liam didn't stop. He didn't look back. He kept moving, pushing through the dark, one hand on the pistol and the other outstretched to feel for obstacles. The mine entrance appeared out of the darkness like a mouth opening into the earth — a dark hole covered by a sheet of corrugated tin, just as Silas had described.

He pulled the tin aside and helped Ezra through the low entrance. Then he followed, dragging the cover back into place behind them.

The tunnel was cold and damp, smelling of wet rock and old timber. Liam flicked on a small flashlight he'd taken from Silas's cabin — a penlight, barely enough to see by. The beam illuminated walls of rough-hewn granite, supported by beams that had been cut from the forest a century ago. The timbers were dark with moisture, but they held.

"Which way?" Ezra whispered.

"The tunnel runs straight for about half a mile, according to Silas. Then it branches. We take the left fork. It exits near a dry creek bed on the south side of the ridge."

They walked in silence, the flashlight beam their only guide. The tunnel was narrow, barely wide enough for a man to walk upright, and the floor was uneven, littered with fallen rock and the rusted remains of old mining equipment. Liam could feel the weight of the mountain pressing down on them, thousands of tons of granite and earth suspended above their heads.

After what felt like hours but was probably only twenty minutes, they reached the fork. Left branch, as Silas had instructed. The tunnel began to slope upward, toward the surface.

And then Liam heard something that made his blood freeze.

Footsteps. Behind them, in the tunnel. Heavy, deliberate footsteps, echoing off the granite walls.

Someone had followed them into the mine.

He killed the flashlight. Darkness swallowed them, absolute and complete. He grabbed Ezra's arm in the blackness and pulled him against the tunnel wall.

"Don't move," he breathed.

The footsteps continued, slow and measured. Whoever was behind them had a light — Liam could see its faint glow reflecting off the tunnel walls ahead. The beam swept back and forth, searching.

And then a voice called out, echoing through the darkness. A woman's voice, calm and almost friendly.

"Carter. I know you can hear me. This tunnel doesn't go as far as you think it does. The exit on the south side collapsed three years ago. Silas doesn't know that — but I do."

Vega.

Liam's hand tightened on the pistol. Beside him, he could feel Ezra trembling, could hear the kid's breath coming in short, panicked gasps.

"I'm going to give you one more chance," Vega called. Her voice was closer now, the flashlight beam brighter. "Hand over the drive, and I'll let the kid go. He's not the one I want. He's just collateral."

Liam didn't answer. He was calculating distances, angles. The tunnel was too narrow for a firefight. If he fired, the bullet could ricochet off the walls and hit either of them. But if he didn't act, Vega would be on them in minutes.

Then Ezra spoke, his voice barely a whisper. "The detonator wire. In my pack. I still have it."

"What?"

"I rigged a small charge before they chased me into the woods. In case I needed a distraction. It's not big, but in a confined space like this..." Ezra's voice trembled. "It could bring down part of the tunnel. Buy us time."

"You want to blow up the tunnel we're standing in?"

"I want to block her path. There's a support beam about twenty feet behind us — if we can set the charge and get far enough ahead, the collapse will seal the tunnel between us and her."

Liam thought about it. It was insane. It was reckless. It was probably going to get them both killed.

But Vega's light was getting closer.

"Do it," he said.

Ezra fumbled in his pack, pulling out a small wrapped bundle and a length of wire. His hands were shaking so badly he could barely hold them steady. "I need light. Just for a few seconds."

Liam flicked on the penlight, shielding the beam with his hand. In its faint glow, he watched Ezra work — attaching the wire to the bundle, running the line back toward the support beam, his fingers moving with a practiced efficiency that belied his terror.

"Hurry," Liam hissed.

The footsteps were closer now. Vega's voice called out again, still calm, still patient. "You're running out of tunnel, Carter. And you're running out of time."

"Done," Ezra whispered. "Go. Now."

They ran. Liam dragged Ezra by the arm, pulling him up the sloping tunnel floor, his lungs burning. Behind them, he heard Vega's footsteps quicken — she'd realized something was happening.

They rounded a bend in the tunnel, and Ezra pressed the detonator.

The explosion was deafening in the confined space. The shockwave knocked Liam off his feet, slamming him into the tunnel wall. Dust and rock chips rained down from the ceiling. For a terrifying moment, he thought the entire tunnel was going to come down on top of them.

Then silence.

Liam coughed, choking on dust, and fumbled for the penlight. The beam was weak now, the batteries dying, but it was enough to see. Behind them, where the support beam had been, there was nothing but a wall of rubble — granite and timber and earth, collapsed into an impenetrable barrier.

Ezra lay on the ground beside him, motionless.

"Ezra." Liam shook him. "Ezra, wake up."

The kid groaned, his eyes fluttering open. Blood was trickling from a cut on his forehead, but he was alive. "Did it work?"

"Yeah. It worked."

They lay there for a long moment, breathing in the dust-filled air. On the other side of the collapse, there was no sound. If Vega had been caught in the blast, she was either dead or buried. If she'd been far enough away, she was cut off — forced to find another way around.

Either way, they had bought themselves time.

Liam pulled Ezra to his feet. The tunnel ahead was still intact, sloping upward toward the surface. Somewhere above them, the sun would be rising soon, painting the eastern sky in shades of orange and gold.

They walked. Step by step, through the darkness, toward whatever waited on the other side.

When they finally emerged from the tunnel mouth, the dawn was breaking over the southern ridge. The sky was pale and cold, streaked with clouds that looked like bruises. Below them, a dry creek bed wound through a valley of scrub oak and exposed rock, leading south toward a town that Ezra's father had died in.

Bitter Falls.

Liam turned to look back at the ridge behind them. The fire lookout was visible in the distance, a tiny dark shape against the pale sky. There was no smoke, no sign of fire. Whatever had happened after they left — whatever Silas had done to buy them time — it was over now.

"Silas," Ezra said, following his gaze. "Do you think he's..."

"I don't know." Liam turned away from the ridge. "But we can't go back to find out. We need to reach Bitter Falls before Vega does."

They started walking, following the dry creek bed as it wound south through the hills. The morning sun climbed higher, burning off the chill. Birds sang in the scrub. The world was peaceful and beautiful and utterly indifferent to their desperation.

After a mile, Ezra spoke again. "My father used to bring me here. To these hills. He said this was God's country. He believed that, right up until the end."

"What happened to him? At the end?"

Ezra was quiet for a long time. When he finally answered, his voice was raw. "He died in a hospital bed in Iron County General, sixty miles from his home, because the clinic in Bitter Falls had closed. The last thing he said to me was that he was sorry. Sorry for what he'd done to the land. He worked at the Pannox facility for twenty years, you know. He helped build the storage tanks that leaked into the groundwater. He didn't know what they contained. He just did his job and collected his paycheck and watched his friends get sick one by one."

"The poison doesn't care who it kills," Liam said. "It just kills."

"That's what I've been trying to tell people for three years." Ezra's voice cracked. "The poison doesn't care. But the people who put it there — they care. They care about profits, about stock prices, about quarterly earnings reports. They know exactly what they're doing, and they do it anyway. My father was just collateral damage to them. A rounding error."

They walked in silence for the rest of the morning. The dry creek bed led them out of the hills and into flatter country, where the scrub gave way to abandoned farmland — fields that had once grown wheat and barley, now overgrown with thistle and cheatgrass. The soil was thin and pale, eroded by decades of poor management.

By noon, they reached the old highway — a two-lane road of cracked asphalt that hadn't seen fresh paving since the mill closed. A faded sign at the intersection read BITTER FALLS — 15 MILES.

They followed the highway south, keeping to the shoulder, ready to duck into the brush at the first sign of a vehicle. But no cars came. The road was empty, as if the rest of the world had forgotten this place existed.

As the sun began to sink toward the western hills, they saw the town.

Bitter Falls was smaller than Liam had expected. A cluster of buildings huddled in a narrow valley where the Poisonwood River spilled over a rocky ledge — the falls that gave the town its name. The falls were grey now, stained by the same minerals that had poisoned the water downstream. A plume of mist rose from the cascade, catching the dying light in a faint, sickly rainbow.

Most of the storefronts on Main Street were boarded up. A gas station at the edge of town had a hand-painted sign that read NO GAS — NO JOBS — NO HOPE. But the church at the center of town was still standing, its white steeple gleaming in the evening light, and the Pinecrest Motel was visible just beyond it — a low cinderblock building with a flickering neon sign.

"That's it," Ezra said. "Room twelve."

They crossed the empty highway and walked into the town that had killed Ezra's father. The streets were silent. No dogs barked. No children played. The only sound was the distant rush of the poisoned falls.

At the Pinecrest Motel, the manager was waiting — a woman in her sixties with a hard face and kind eyes. She looked at Ezra like she was seeing a ghost.

"I heard you were dead," she said.

"That's what everyone keeps telling me." Ezra managed a tired smile. "Helen Dorran sent us. Room twelve."

The manager nodded slowly. "She's not here yet. But she left something for you." She reached behind the counter and pulled out a manila envelope. "She said to tell you the court date has been moved up. Oral arguments start in three days."

Ezra took the envelope with trembling hands. "Three days. That's not enough time."

"It's the time you have." The manager handed him a key. "Room twelve. Last door on the left. There's food in the fridge and a first-aid kit in the bathroom. I'll let you know when Dorran arrives."

They walked to the room in silence. The door opened onto a space that hadn't been updated since the 1970s — shag carpet, wood-paneled walls, a television that probably didn't work. But there were beds with clean sheets, and there was running water, and there was a lock on the door.

Liam sat down on the edge of one of the beds and let out a breath he felt like he'd been holding for days. Ezra opened the envelope and pulled out a sheaf of papers — court documents, news clippings, a handwritten note from Helen Dorran.

"She's been tracking Vega," Ezra said, scanning the pages. "There's something here about a connection to the Justice Department. A deputy attorney general named Marcus Thorne. Vega reports directly to him, and Thorne has been blocking the FBI investigation into the pipeline bribery for over a year."

"Thorne." Liam repeated the name. "Those initials. MT. One of the encrypted files."

Ezra looked up, his eyes wide. "If Thorne is on Pannox's payroll, then the corruption goes all the way to the attorney general's office. Maybe higher."

They stared at each other, the weight of what they were carrying settling over them like a shroud.

Outside the motel window, the sun sank below the hills. The neon sign flickered on, buzzing in the silence. And somewhere in the darkness beyond the poisoned falls, a federal marshal was regrouping, a private army was mobilizing, and the machinery of a corrupt system was grinding toward a conclusion that would bury the truth forever — unless two broken men with a stolen hard drive could find a way to stop it.