Chris walked in crimson, the goggles’ night vision painting the willow and aspen with a red and bloody brush. It was fall, the ground dry, and his steps would have been noisy but for the wind rasping the leaves, a wind that also brought him a rich breath of woodsmoke half a mile from its source. When he saw the windows, bright yellow in the infrared, as though the cabin’s log courses contained the devil’s own inferno, he crouched and considered the ground. 

The cabin stood in a meadow, uphill fifty yards from the edge of the wood. He could circle around to approach it from the north, but that direction lay the road, and even less cover. Probably it didn’t matter. It was dark, and few people were capable of reacting quickly to a determined attack.