Aztec Treasure Ch. 51-60

The Sons Task Force was a recent example of how out of control the Federal government could be. Even though the Steel Brotherhood was the victim, the FBI's Task Force went after Chase and his family. 'Warrants? We don't need no stinking warrants!' They used the CIA to listen to our phone calls, obtained our bank records, hacked our medical records, and intentionally failed to warn us of an upcoming attack on our Pack. It only stopped because Chase and Colletta used the information I'd found to reach a deal with the Justice Department, giving us recognition and immunity.

The table was a little shellshocked by the time they finished describing what happened on their trip. "The President is determined to root out this conspiracy, wherever it leads. She doesn't know who to trust outside of us; anyone who has been in the Washington machine was suspect. The President wants our assistance in the investigation. If we are to help, we will need everyone in this room to do it."

Wow. "You want us to go to Washington?"

Frank nodded. "There are multiple options I want to put on the table. The President would get you credentials, clearance, and access to the personnel and computer systems used by the Secret Service, CIA, and FBI. In the first option, we form our own Task Force and perform an independent investigation, using resources here and borrowed from American Packs."

Vic was shaking mad. "Frank, you just said the Deep State would not hesitate to take out anyone in their way. Are you seriously thinking about placing our Packs in the crosshairs of the US Government machine? What happens to us if they kill the President or she loses the next election? You've put all our chips on one number."

"Yes. It is the most straightforward option but the one with the highest chance of success."

I was not too fond of the idea, and I wasn't shy about saying it. "I'm not putting our child in danger by openly going after these people. What other ideas do you have?"

"We send a team to Washington to operate in secret. We monitor the workings of the Task Force, supplementing their information with our own. Like we did with the Sons task force, we look for actions or inactions that point towards members being part of the conspiracy. If we find anything, I pass it on to the President or someone she trusts."

I shook my head. "These people don't take a dump without scanning the bathroom for bugs, and they have aggressive computer technicians. We'd have to work from inside the building, probably from the computer rooms. It might be obvious if a bunch of us show up."

"And you'd need people in the Secret Service and CIA Headquarters, not just the Task Force," Claire Bennington said. "The Task Force will only have the data they've brought from the other computers. They won't know what was left behind. You need to crawl through those computers from the inside if you're going to uncover anything."

"And that means putting undercover agents into the agencies at great personal risk," Frank Donovan said. "That rules out Claire and Spider; they can't leave Arrowhead. It's too dangerous."

"I agree," Vic said. "We've got a great team here, but they need to STAY here and stay undetected. We still have enemies in the Cartels and the FBI. I don't want us adding more."

Colletta looked around the table. "Are you all in agreement?"

"Rori agrees as well," Chase said. "They stay."

Frank's shoulders relaxed. "I'll inform the President that the investigation the Task Force does will be the only one. The next question is this; should we get involved from here, or stay clear of the whole mess?"

Chase leaned back in his chair. "If they succeed in killing the President, we lose our best ally in the government. It's not possible to go back in hiding anymore. It is in our best interest to help her."

"I agree," Frank Donovan said. "I swore to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This conspiracy is the biggest domestic threat of our lifetimes."

"What can we do?"

"We work from the outside in," I said. "The Cartels, the CIA agents who tried to take Maria, the black site workers, and the weapons. If we uncover something, we act on it ourselves or pass it on. Either way, we aren't working for anyone but ourselves."

"If you can get us data Spider can't hack, we can do independent analysis," Claire said. "We can be a check on the official investigation."

"What would you need," Frank asked.

This part was easy. "Lots of people. I need more hackers, data analysts, investigators, forensic accountants, former field agents? They need to be discreet and trusted, though. It does no good if we get infiltrated."

Frank Donovan perked up. "Frank, you and I both know people with extensive knowledge of the Cartels. Good people, now retired, who know how to keep their mouths shut."

"A budget," Claire said. "The people we need won't be cheap, and they'll have to live and work here at the Pack, preferably in the Beta House."

"Money is the least of our worries," Chase said. "If I know our Spider Monkey, she'll turn a Cartel investigation into a moneymaking venture."

I had to smile at that; I was good at making other people's money disappear. "You do need a bigger pool," I said to laughs.

It didn't take that long to bring the team together. The Pack did a quick repurposing of the basement and my office, turning it into office space. We filled up our guest rooms, and others stayed in the Pack House or with other members. My team now numbered twenty-seven people, from young hackers I knew to retired agents.

Frank shuttled back and forth to Washington, bringing us updated information from the Task Force and carrying back our suggestions. He was the only person we dealt with directly; since he was still a senior agent in Homeland Security, there wasn't much he couldn't get.

It was a race for time, and I liked our odds.

Ch. 60

Lance Skollson's POV
Pigeon River, US/Candian Border

I took off running with the other wolves when we heard the frantic screams from downriver. "Keep an eye on Maria in case this is a trap," I sent to the other Pack members as we ran.

It was no false alarm. A frantic mother was working her way along the rocks, trying in vain to keep her son in view as the swift currents swept him downstream.

Five of us ran past her at full speed, staying to the trail well back from the river's edge. Suddenly, a voice pushed into my head, a voice I recognized. "GET BELOW HIM AND GET READY TO GRAB ME," Maria shouted into my mind.

I almost stumbled from the shock, as Maria didn't have a Pack link. It was her, though, and I glanced back to see her leap from a rock and into the river. "Maria went after the boy. We're only getting one chance at this, so keep going until we find a good spot to fish them out," I sent to everyone.

"We will get her back," Tony promised. We had to run almost a quarter-mile down the trail to get far enough ahead of them and find a good place. The river widened, with large boulders in the stream forming chutes between them. We shifted back, needing our arms and legs for this next part.

"Keep swimming towards our side. We're going out into the river now," I sent to Maria, hoping she'd hear. I could see her coming towards us with the boy held in front of her as she swam frantically across the current.

"I'm so tired," she said. "I don't know if I can make it."

My wolf didn't like this a bit. "My mate can do anything. I'll catch you, my love. Keep going a little longer." Mate? My wolf chuffed in agreement. She was OURS, and we would get her safe or die trying.

We formed a human chain stretching from the shore across the first stretch of water to the car-sized boulder. I was standing as close as I could to the fast water with my left arm held tight to the human chain. I could see Maria's brightly colored fur as she bobbed her way downstream, and I could feel the pain as she hit rocks. "Almost there, baby. Swim with everything you have, and I'll catch you."

"I'm sorry, Lance. I love you."

"Swim with everything you have." She was coming towards me quickly; I reached out as she shot by, grabbing at the fur on her neck. I caught the tracking necklace with two fingers, and I gripped that tight as their weight pulled me off the back of the boulder and into the water.

I ignored everything except the grips on my two hands. I could feel the others pulling us towards the shoreline, and I started swallowing water as I struggled to keep my head above water. I kept my grip as they hauled me up on the rocks. "We've got them," I heard, and that was when I finally let go.

I was on my hands and knees, catching my breath, as I watched the others carry the boy and my mate up onto the grassy riverbank. "Maria?"

"She's unconscious but breathing," Colleen said. "The kid isn't." I moved up next to Maria, cuddling up to her fur. The river was barely above freezing, and I knew she'd exhausted herself. I held her in my arms, trying to warm her as best I could.

"Starting compressions," I heard from farther up the bank. Glancing that way, I could see Monica starting CPR on the boy. He looked half dead; his face was blue except where the blood dripped down from his hair. I could hear another Pack member on a cellphone, passing information on the victims to the 911 operator.

"Timmy!" A frantic voice was coming from upstream, and I saw his mother running as fast as she could, with the human members of our group surrounding her. "Oh, GOD! TIMMY!"

The boy started coughing during the rescue breaths, spitting the cold river water out of his lungs. Monica rolled him on his side so the water could come out and verified he was breathing again. He started crying, and his Mom pulled him into her lap. "He's bleeding," she said as she checked him over.

Monica handed him a shirt as our people started handing out shirts to the naked werewolves. A crowd was forming, mainly tourists, and almost all of them had their cellphones out. "Hold that over the cut," she said soothingly. "An ambulance is on the way. We need to get him down the trail to the parking area."

"Thank you," she said. "You people, you are werewolves?"

"Yes, from the Arrowhead Pack," Monica said.

"That big cat saved my boy!" She looked over at Maria in cat form as one of the tourists helped wrap her son in a blanket. "Is she all right? Why didn't she shift back like you did?"

I answered as I pulled my clothes on behind a towel held by another Pack member. "She can't change until she wakes up," I said. "You should get going. Let Monica and the others help carry him down the trail to the ambulance."

She wasn't willing to let her boy go yet, but at least she started moving. Three of our people went with her, along with some of the tourists.

Tony was drying Maria with the towel as I finished dressing. "What do we do with Maria?"

"Take the blanket, we'll carry her down on that," I said. We set the picnic blanket next to her, carefully lifting her into the center. One of us took each corner, and we took off at a jog down the trail. I was getting more worried with each passing moment she didn't wake up. My wolf was going nuts, and I had to force him down to stay in human form.

"We're at the visitor's center now," Monica sent me a few minutes later. "There's a car from Customs/Border Patrol here, plus a Park Ranger. The ambulance is still twenty minutes away, so they are talking about putting him in the cruiser and heading south to meet them."

"That sounds like a good idea. What about Doc Olson?"

"Alpha Michael is arranging a helicopter to bring him up here." That was a better solution; I could just imagine the reaction if we brought a hundred-pound jaguar into an emergency room. "We've also contacted the group in Thunder Bay; they are on their way back with the van."

We finally got to the trailhead, running across the grass to the Visitor's Center. We brought Maria inside, setting the blanket down on the carpeting in the heated building. She was still breathing, but her pulse was weak, and she wasn't waking up.

Monica came in with her cellphone, which had Doc Olson on speakerphone. He guided her through doing the basic checks; we didn't find any broken bones, but there was a bump on the left side of her face where she must have hit a rock. It was a miracle she held onto the kid's jacket while getting banged around on the river. "Get me more towels," I barked.

One of the Brothers handed over a stack of souvenir Grand Portage State Park beach towels. We used them to dry Maria off as best we could, then covered her up with dry ones.

She still hadn't woken when I heard the helicopter landing on the grass next to the building. Doc Olson got out with his emergency bag while one of the warriors carried a stretcher. The rest of our group was here, and Chase had done what he could. Maria likely had a severe concussion, perhaps a broken skull.

It took them less than five minutes to get an IV going and load her into the helicopter. "I have to go with my mate," I told Chase.

"Give me your keys," he said. He tossed them to the Oxbow Lake warrior. "Go. We'll see you in a few hours."

"Don't mess up Maria's new ride," I told him. I ran to the helicopter, taking the co-pilot seat since Doc had the back with Maria. We lifted off, and I barely looked out at the spectacular scenery from my first helicopter ride. All I could do was look back at Maria and worry.

She woke up just before landing. "Don't move, and don't shift yet," Doc told her. "You're safe. We're in a helicopter heading to Oxbow Lake."

"Lance?"

"I'm here, love. You did it. You saved that boy." I smiled as I looked back at my mate. MY mate.

Doc talked to me over the headset. "Talk to her, Lance. I need her to stay awake."

"I am. I'm mind linking with her right now."

"Don't be silly. Jaguars don't have a mind link."

"Mates do," I said with a big smile. "You were so brave, Maria. You scared the hell out of me today."

"Sorry, not sorry," she replied. "You wolves can't swim like me."

We kept talking for the rest of the flight. Maria was lucky; her body was a mass of bruises from hitting the rocks, but x-rays were clear. Doc let her shift but put her on bed rest and concussion watch. I happily tended to my mate overnight and the next day until Doc said she could return home. She was disappointed not to be riding but understood why. She was still having headaches and dizzy spells, though the double vision had stopped.

The entire Arrowhead Pack turned out to welcome their hero home. As is so common these days, ten people started recording videos for every brave person who helped out. The videos went viral, although the broadcast versions blurred out our naked parts after the shift. The boy we saved and his mother was interviewed on television, thanking the "werewolves and werecat" who bravely went after her boy after he slipped off the rock into the roaring water. The news report even went back to the river, talking with them about what happened. Since I wasn't available, Chase talked about how proud he was of his Pack members and Maria for what they had done.

"Welcome back, Maria," Chase said as he embraced her.

I could sense something shifting, then Rori spoke over the link. "Welcome to the Arrowhead Pack, Maria," she sent.

"Thank you!" From the looks on everyone's faces, they'd heard her too.