As Sheppard pulled into the funeral home’s parking lot, he settled on his headline. It was campy, but once people began to read his reporting the title would take on a whole new meaning. It would be shocking-not only because of the crime itself, but because of its alleged perpetrators.

Locking his car, Sheppard ran the headline through his mind one more time. Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

It was one hell of an attention-grabber. He just hoped the man who’d called him with the tip wasn’t wasting his time.

Chapter 9

MONTROSE, COLORADO

Though it wasn’t yet fall, there was a chill in the night air as Harvath stepped onto the pavement outside the small, one-building airport.

Leaning against a white Hummer H2 emblazoned with the logo of his Elk Mountain Resort was one of the biggest and toughest men Harvath had ever known in his life. Called the Warlord in his past career, Tim Finney had been the Pacific Division Shoot Fighting Champion. Adept at annihilating other men, most notably with his hands, head, knees, or elbows, Finney was one of the few people Harvath knew he probably couldn’t beat in an all-out street fight.

Finney towered over him by at least seven inches, was nearly twice as wide, and rang in at an amazing 250 pounds of solid muscle. Not bad for a guy in his early fifties. He had intense green eyes and his head was completely shaved. Despite his size and his reputation as an absolutely ruthless, no-holds-barred fighter in the ring, Tim Finney was a happy-go-lucky guy. And he had a lot to be happy about.

Nobody rode for free in the Finney family. Old man Finney, the family patriarch, was a tough SOB, and all of his kids had paid their own way through college. Tim had done it by bouncing at a string of nightclubs in Los Angeles, before his talents as a fighter were recognized and a private coach took him under his wing and steered Finney to the Pacific Division Championship of Shoot Fighting, the sport that would go on to give birth to the popular Ultimate Fighting series.

Tim Finney always had his eyes on the next mountain he wanted to climb, and if the mountain proved too difficult, he had a backup plan and another way of tackling it. He was the consummate, always-prepared Boy Scout.

He had worked in the family hotel business for several years and then set out to conquer another dream-establishing his own exclusive five-star resort nestled on more than five hundred extremely private acres in Colorado’s San Juan mountains a half hour outside Telluride. But his dream didn’t end there.

At the resort, Finney created a cutting-edge tactical training facility like no other in the world. It was called Valhalla, after the warrior heaven of Norse mythology.

Finney brought in the best set, sound, and lighting designers from Hollywood to create the most realistic threat scenario mock-ups ever seen. And then he did something extremely revolutionary; he opened it up not only to high-end military and law enforcement units, but also to civilians. He even advertised in the Robb Report, and that advertising, as well as the incredible word of mouth from his customers, had paid off, big time. His closely guarded guest registry read like a Who’s Who of corporate America, and of the sports and entertainment worlds to boot.

The success allowed Finney to take Valhalla to a completely different level-a level that was only whispered about in the most secure conference rooms of places like the Central Intelligence Agency, the Delta Force compound at Fort Bragg, and many off-the-books, black ops intelligence units throughout northern Virginia and places further afield.

Those in the know referred to Valhalla ’s spin-off as the dark side of the moon. Hidden well beyond the boundaries of Elk Mountain and Valhalla proper, the spin-off was benignly referred to as Site Six.

It had been called Hogan’s Alley on crack-a reference to the FBI’s mock town at their training academy in Quantico where they staged everything from bank robberies to high-stakes hostage standoffs.

Finney kept a small army of carpenters and engineers on staff around the clock year round. Many of them were ex-Hollywood people looking to get out of show business and put their skills to use somewhere else. The legend was that if you could get Tim Finney satellite imagery of your target, he could have a working mock-up built to train on within forty-eight hours, fourteen if time was absolutely crucial and nobody cared about wet paint.

In a low valley secluded by mountains on all sides, Finney’s Site Six team had replicated everything from Iraqi villages to foreign airports, embassies, and terrorist training camps. The detail and scope were limited only by a client’s budget and depth of intelligence regarding the target. And to Finney’s credit, he never allowed budget to dictate the training experience his client’s people would gain at Site Six. Finney was a true patriot and did everything in his power to make sure American military and intelligence personnel had the most detailed and realistic training experiences possible before they went to take down the real thing.

At the end of the day, Finney wasn’t in business to make more money. He already had plenty of it. He was in business to make sure his clients-whether they be guests at his Elk Mountain Resort, shooters who came to sharpen their skills at his Valhalla Training Facility, or real-life warriors who came to practice taking down mocked-up targets at Site Six before going overseas to do the real thing-got the best experience possible.

It was in that last capacity that Harvath had come to be acquainted with Timothy Finney and Valhalla ’s Site Six.

Based on a series of aerial photographs taken by a Predator drone aircraft, as well as some covert video shot from the ground, Finney and his team had mocked up a chemical weapons facility in Afghanistan that Harvath had been put in charge of taking out.

Every single member of Harvath’s team credited the training they engaged in at Valhalla and Site Six as having given them the edge that allowed their mission to be successful.

That training, along with Finney’s irreverent sense of humor, had cemented a friendship between them that had garnered Harvath not only a standing invitation to join the Valhalla/Site Six instructor team, but also a standing invitation to stay at the resort if he ever needed to get away from D. C. and his life as an overworked counterterrorism operative for the U. S. government.

Though Harvath probably could have used a five-star vacation right now, that was not the reason he was standing on the sidewalk outside the Montrose, Colorado, airport. He was here because in Timothy Finney’s never-ending quest to create more thorough experiences for the warriors who trained at Valhalla and Site Six, he’d recently developed an entirely new program that was once again making him the talk of the American intelligence community.