Turquoise Guardian. Jenna Kernan

for causing that festering wound on the earth. He only wished he had been given free rein to kill as many as possible. But he was a loyal member of BEAR, and he would carry out his mission, with pleasure. He sat in a nondescript van before the loading dock of the Lilac Copper Mine, holding an automatic weapon with the safety switched off.

      His driver’s phone chimed, signaling a text.

      “They’re all in,” he said.

      “Give them twenty minutes to get to their desks,” said Ovidio.

      His driver cast him a look.

      “I don’t want to miss one who went for coffee.”

      His driver’s sigh was audible, but he said no more, granting Ovidio a few more seconds to savor the moment.

      His organization had supplied everything he needed: maps, head shots of each target, transportation and the automatic weapon he would use to kill every living soul in the procurement office of the Lilac Copper Mine. He didn’t know why. He didn’t care why. He just knew when and how.

      Today. By his hand.

      The twenty minutes ticked by.

      A smile curled his lips. The next hole that went in the earth would be for their caskets.

      “I’m signaling our man,” said his driver and began texting.

      The van was parked at the receiving bays.

      Ovidio had worked protection for his boss for years. Even had to kill a few people. But nothing like this. He licked the salt from his upper lip.

      In life, he believed, people mostly got what they deserved. Today was the exception. These people deserved worse. If it were up to him, he’d tie the owners of this monstrous mile-deep pit with their own blasting cord and toss them in with the next load of explosives. But his leader said they had bigger fish to fry. This time they’d make a statement that would not be buried on page six. One that the whole world would feel, and know that the earth mattered. That people couldn’t keep assaulting the earth with impunity and that...

      “You ready?” asked his driver.

      The loading door was opening. He needed to focus.

      “There he is,” said his driver and looked expectantly at Ovidio. “Hurry up.”

      He wondered if his driver would really be here when he came out or would just leave him. But leaving him was dangerous. He might tell what he knew. He never would, of course. He believed too deeply in their cause. Still, they might kill him. Shoot him the instant he came out that door. He didn’t care. At least his death would matter and they’d never forget him here in this miserable mining town.

      Ovidio checked his weapon and slipped from the van. His body tingled as he mounted the five cement stairs that took him from the bright sunlight to the shadows of the loading bay, the sensation reminding him of sexual arousal. Oh, yeah. He was getting off on it because he knew he was on surveillance now. And what would they do with only their rent-a-cops and crappy wire fences for protection?

      How long until they spotted him? In the hall? After the first shots?

      His conspirator stood holding the door and, as he passed through, relayed a message.

      “Ibsen called in sick.”

      “Address?”

      The man passed him a sheet of paper. Now Ovidio had to get out of here alive to get Ibsen.

      Somehow Ovidio thought after he told his commander at BEAR about the discovery made by the new purchasing clerk, Ibsen would know what was coming. Unfortunately it was too late to abort. Besides there was no way of knowing who in the office the clerk had spoken to about her discovery.

      Ovidio stalked into the corridor. Today he would write his convictions in blood.

      Ovidio continued toward his goal, inhaling the scent of machine oil coming from the automatic rifle heavy in his hands. He thought of the memorials and the anniversaries of the legacy he was about to leave behind. But this wasn’t his legacy. The removal of men who violated the earth—that was his legacy.

       Chapter One

      “I’ll be back soon.” Amber Kitcheyan stowed the last of the receiving slips she needed signed by her boss in her satchel as she spoke to their receptionist. Then she headed out from the receiving department in the Lilac Copper Mine’s administration building where she was a receiving clerk.

      Their squat building sat at ground level perched over the thousand-foot cavity, which was the active open-pit copper mine. Below them, a constant stream of enormous mining dump trucks wove up the precarious roads, hauling ore to the stamp mills in Cherub. The pit covered two-hundred acres and the tailing piles covered even more ground. To Amber, it looked like a crater left by some absent meteor.

      Amber always left by the loading dock as it was closer to the parking area. She stopped in the restroom for just a moment. Too much coffee, she thought as she left the stall. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror as she washed her hands, checking that her long black hair was all tucked neatly up in a tight coil. She wore nothing in particular that marked her Apache lineage because her face structure and skin tone did that adequately. The human resources had been happy to tick the box indicating they had hired a minority. She didn’t care. A job was a job and this one paid better than the last.

      But she missed her tribe and her sisters. And wished...no, she wasn’t going there. Not today.

      Amber tugged at the ill-fitting blazer she’d purchased used with the white blouse she wore twice a week. She slung the stylish satchel on her shoulder and headed out into the hall.

      On the loading dock she paused to slip her sunglasses out of her bag and swept a hand over her hair. February in Lilac was a good twenty degrees warmer than the Turquoise Canyon Apache Indian Reservation where she had grown up. She longed for a cool breeze off the river but now wasn’t the time to be feeling homesick. She stopped to find her keys. Amber didn’t like to bother her boss, Mr. Ibsen, at home, especially when he was sick. But as a clerk she couldn’t sign for a delivery this big. So she’d just slip out there, get his signature on the receiving slips and be back before the truck was unloaded.

      She had called from the office and got his voice mail and followed up with an email. It worried her that he had not replied to either and that, on the day after she mentioned the problem she’d spotted on the receipts to her boss, he was absent. And he knew they expected another delivery truck today.

      She could have them signed by Joseph Minden in finance, but the one time her boss had been absent for a delivery, she’d done just that and her boss had lost it. She’d never seen veins stick out of a man’s neck like that before.

      Minden was their CPO, Chief Procurement Officer, and Mr. Ibsen’s supervisor. Later in the day, Mr. Ibsen had explained to her about chain of command and threatened to fire her if she did something like that again.

      Then yesterday he had also shouted at her to get back to work. Amber was on shaky ground here, and she needed this job, what with the seemingly endless debt she was trying to pay down.

      She couldn’t afford to screw this up.

      She’d only been here a month and was still getting used to the copper mine’s policies. But she would not make that mistake twice because she needed this job for at least the next six months. Then the loan would be finished, and she could go home, if she wanted. The pit of her stomach knotted at the thought as mixed emotions flooded in.

      “Not now,” she whispered to herself and strode across the loading dock. The Arizona sky glowed a crystal blue, and the sun warmed the concrete pad beneath her feet. The temperature would rise rapidly, she knew, and then drop with the sun.

      She glanced at the deep navy van illegally parked before the receiving bay, then back at the sign that indicated parking there was prohibited. The driver