Abandoned Treasure

Spider Monkey’s POV

Arrowhead Pack Home

Thursday, April 18, 2019

I’d been playing catch-up since I returned from exile on the West Coast. After the attacks on Cascade and Arrowhead, the Council voided my arrest warrant and granted me Trusted Agent status in Arrowhead. Rori said Vic and I were hacking the Council on her orders to expose illegal activities, and no one questioned her. Too many other things were going on in the Werewolf world.

I got on a private plane bound for Two Harbors late last night. Vic was waiting at the airport to take me to our new home. I was proud of him; he was the Lead Beta for Arrowhead. I was officially the Pack Beta for Information Technology. We caught up on sex, and I was back to work in the morning.

Our lake home was a burned-out hole, but Vic bought us a replacement. We took over the big house on the point that Coral and Keith Sexson vacated when they moved to Blue River. The back of our house faced northeast on the rocky point, while the northwest end had views of the whole lake from our spot to the right of Alpha Rori’s mansion next door. The lake still had ice, but not for much longer. Spring was coming fast, and snowmobiling season was ending. Another six weeks, and we’d be on our motorcycles again.

Beta Teri was gone, and I left the Pack primary server in her basement for now. Brian Steele, formerly of Banff and the Council IT group, ran that and the legitimate side of our computer operations. I’d ordered new equipment for our house when Vic told me to come home. The Geek Squad guys in Duluth helped me install it this morning. I had two servers installed in a basement room. One was a backup for the primary Pack server, and the other I’d use only for hacking. It took me all day to set them up and transfer files from the laptop and the removable hard drives I’d taken on our trip.

My upstairs office that looked over the lake was my new workspace. I had a big U-shaped desk with four powerful desktop computers, each with multiple large displays. I had big monitors on the wall that could show the news or any computer screen I picked. The windows were lined with reflective film to defeat surveillance, and all communications in and out were on secured lines. Hacking was still a Federal crime, and I didn’t want to get caught.

I didn’t see Vic or the Alphas much over the next week. Taking over the Beta responsibilities was hard enough without the dozens of wolves applying to our Pack. I helped by doing background checks and arranging temporary quarters. I hoped things would calm down, but ex-Chairman Coffey showed up. He evaded capture outside Duluth and bit a human. Vic arranged for all the unmated wolves in the world to meet at Arrowhead. It worked, and Deputy Brighton found his mate. I hosted overflow from the Alpha’s home in our home. Thank God our house came furnished!

Then Coffey forced Rori and the Pack to shift before a SWAT sniper killed him on live television. The Pack went into lockdown, and more people arrived to defend us. This time, it was the Brotherhood that filled our guest rooms. I stayed out of sight and focused on my hacking.

Colletta had worked a miracle since our Pack shifted on live television, negotiating an agreement that preserved our Packs and our rights to exist. I was relieved because even though I was still human, my unborn baby was not. My concern was whether the Government was going to abide by it.

The old Council was gone, and the Sons were too. The curious thing was the disappearance of Julio Salazar the day after the reveal. The Federal Marshals and FBI had no idea who took them. The men in the surveillance video had false paperwork, identities, and knowledge of Marshal Service procedures.

I still had access to the Task Force server, so I downloaded the most recent files, looking for anything they might have missed. Their investigation was getting nowhere, and I couldn’t find anything they missed. The men who took him left no fingerprints, DNA, or clear surveillance photographs. Facial recognition software was coming up with nothing. The paperwork looked real, and the badges and uniforms did not arouse suspicions. The vehicle looked right, and they disappeared into thin air.

This operation wasn’t easy to pull off. You needed careful preparation, highly-trained operatives, fake transport vehicles, and aircraft. The forgeries alone could take weeks to prepare, so the planning had to start before the reveal.

The only explanation was that they knew who Julio was and snatched him before someone else figured it out. The Cartels weren’t this sophisticated, and the men weren’t Hispanic. That pointed a finger at the Central Intelligence Agency. That wasn’t good news; the CIA servers were highly secure and compartmented. You almost had to know where something was before you’d have a chance to hack it, and their defenses were formidable.

Digging into the latest from the Sons of Tezcatlipoca Task Force, that ‘someone else’ who triggered the kidnapping was the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Arrowhead Reveal had them looking at the Sons in a new light. They figured out the senior leadership were all related, even marrying among themselves. If they were all Jaguar shifters, that would explain the inbreeding. And if the Presidents were werecats, cousin Julio still was.

When the Sons went to war against the Steel Brotherhood, the Task Force started looking into the backgrounds of both organizations. That attention soon spread to Arrowhead after the Sons attacked the compound twice. Chase made a deal with the Justice Department; we gave them everything they needed to take the Sons down, and they stopped investigating the Arrowhead Pack and our friends.

That was months ago, and recent events would have them looking more at Chase and his family. Multiple agencies wanted everything they had on our Pack after the reveal, and the Task Force had it. Information was power, so it didn’t shock me that they’d continued to add information to the folders on Chase, Rori, and Arrowhead. The investigation kicked into high gear with the Coffey events.

They had a whole index on “Family-Friends." Clicking on the index, I saw a recently updated folder named “Jaguar Shifters.” It led to a family tree with links to individual files; known dead had a (D) for deceased. Julio Salazar’s file was here, but there wasn’t much in it beyond his criminal history and gang affiliation.

Only a few Jaguar shifters were still alive. I started clicking through them, going to Maria Meztli’s file. She was hiding in the United States after surviving the Mexican drone strike that killed her parents. Her file linked her to the only other survivor listed, Maritza Correirra, ten months old and last seen crossing the border with Maria.

I clicked on the file for Maria, looking at the latest entries. As I paged through the investigation files, my stomach rolled. “That poor girl,” I said. I asked my husband to bring the Alphas. By the time Vic arrived, I had everything loaded on one of the Pack computers. I put the video of the Presidents crossing the border onto the 80-inch LCD screen on the wall and other files on my three desktop screens.

I heard running paws on the carpet and an excited bark as Rori pushed the door open to my office. She came over and put her nose into my crotch, taking a deep sniff. “Alpha! Cold nose!” Rori sat down as I scratched her ears as the men arrived. “The baby is fine. How is yours doing?”

“Good, but Rori needs to take it easy,” Chase said as he sat down. “Whoa. Who’s the jaguar?”

I quickly explained what I had found in the Task Force database. “When Arrowhead got outed, the Task Force started looking at the Sons to see if any of them were shifters too. Their Border Patrol rep found this video of jaguars crossing the border east of Nogales, two days before the Presidents got hung from the fence.” As we watched, the jaguars crossed one by one.

“So they figured out the Sons leadership is jaguars.”

“Yes. The Task Force is sure that the Correirra family members are jaguars. They assume the cats are like wolves and don’t turn humans. Julio is the only werejaguar male they know of. That’s why his disappearance is generating so much activity.”

“And the reason to bust Julio from jail in the first place,” Vic said. “Who has him? CIA?”

“That’s my guess, but the investigation is going nowhere,” I replied. “The guys who took him are real professionals and didn’t leave clues behind. The Task Force is looking hard into Maria Meztli, the 17-year-old daughter of the late Pedro Meztli, President of the Denver chapter.” I put her high school photo on the screen.

“Why look at her? The Sons don’t let women anywhere near Club business,” Chase replied.

“She’s a blood descendent of a Jaguar shifter, so she is one too. Then there is this.” I played the drone strike footage. “See the person near the cars? That’s Maria.” The Alphas flinched as the explosions filled the screen. “The little blur there is Maritza, taking off in jaguar form for the woods.”

“Jaguar children can shift at birth, unlike us,” Vic agreed. “How old was Maritza?”

“Six months.”

“A small cub, then. She could run a short distance and hide, and that’s about it,” Vic said. “Jaguar babies shift when their mother does, so why did she shift?”

“Her mother died in the airstrike, so it might have been the shock of losing her mother,” I said. “When the Mexican military arrived, Maria and Maritza were gone. The Task Force found this video a few days later.” I played the video of the border crossing, showing a jaguar crossing north. “The jaguar is female, and the bag around her neck holds a cub. It’s the two of them, Alphas. The pair disappeared back into the United States months ago.”

Chase leaned back in his chair as Rori’s rust-colored wolf laid her head on his leg. “They aren’t targets for us, Spider. We don’t go after innocent women and children.” Rori looked up at him, telling him something over the link. “If you can find her, we can offer her protection. It’s dangerous to be a shifter right now.”

“The Task Force is actively looking for Maria and will bring her in as a material witness.”

Vic shook his head. “If the CIA took Julio, they want Maria and the baby as well. They aren’t part of the treaty with the werewolves, so they have no protection.”

“Then we have to act fast.” I showed them the information the Task Force uncovered through the vehicle registrations. “Frank Donovan is on his way to Denver to talk to Mr. Portman. They believe Maria is hiding in that area.”

“Shit,” Vic said. “If the Task Force knows, the CIA does, too. If they want Maria bad enough, they’ll force the lawyer to give up her hiding place.”

The thought of a young girl and a baby in CIA hands was too much. “We can’t let them take her, Alphas. No one deserves that.”

“You’re right,” Chase said. “I need to let Mom and Frank know what’s going on; maybe they can work something through official channels to get her protection. Vic, you warn the lawyer that Maria is in danger.”

“Can’t we just tell Frank to leave her alone?”

“If only Frank Donovan knew, I’d say yes, but it’s not. There are others involved, and even Donovan doesn’t trust witness protection. If they can get Julio out of Federal prison, they can get to Maria. Vic, pass on the asylum offer. She’ll be safe with us.”

“I will, but I doubt she’ll trust us. You helped the Government take out her family, Chase. She probably thinks we want her dead as much as anyone.”

Chase scratched his mate’s ears. “Rori thanks you for finding this information and wants you to focus on locating Maria before anyone else can. Bring the Brotherhood in on this; they have a chapter in Denver who can help.”

I could do that. The Steel Ladies would help an orphaned teen and baby no matter who the father was.

I found out when Vic woke me up that the warning to the lawyer came too late to save his life. Frank Donovan got into a gunfight with the three men who killed the lawyer. Two FBI agents were injured in the battle. “Frank Grimes just met with everyone in Denver, I guess. Come on; I’ll carry you. No one will care if you are nude.”

Wolves had no issues with public nudity, after all. “Where are we going?”

“Your office.”

He walked us out of our bedroom and down the hall to my office. “It’s four in the morning,” I complained.

“I know.” He walked into my office, sitting in my chair while keeping me sitting cross-ways on his bare legs. I waved at Brian Steele as he sat in the spare hacking station. Rori trotted into the room first. Chase came in carrying a secure Pack phone. “Frank, I’m putting you on speakerphone. I’ve got Rori, Vic, Spider, Brian, Paula, and Bridgette in the room with me.” He set the phone on the desk near me, as everyone else had wolf hearing.

“I met with Commander Lindstrom and Frank Donovan at the hospital here in Denver. They agreed to stop looking for Maria and let us handle her instead. They are also going to stop looking for Julio.”

“How did you manage that,” Chase asked.

“Irene has good political instincts among her other talents. They will know their computers are compromised by morning, and the Task Force offices are bugged. Everything points to the CIA, but nothing that will stick. She knows accusing them is a loser, especially if the President signed off on the Julio operation.”

“Did they get Maria?”

“We don’t think the attackers got Maria’s location out of Christian before he died. The men spent another one to two hours looking through his office after the Medical Examiner’s estimated time of death, and they tore the office apart. If they did find something right before they left, only one guy knows about it. And that guy got shot during his escape.”

Vic put that together. “So if we’re lucky, she hears about the shooting and is smart enough to get out of her hiding place. The next best scenario is that she stays, but the bad guys don’t know where she is. The worst case is she stays put, and they have her address.”

“If it’s the latter, she’s likely on her way to be with Julio already.”

We talked about how to rescue Maria. Frank passed along the information needed to access a nationwide license plate camera database and the plate on the car she was using. We’d have to search for her hiding place while also looking for her car. We’d use the Packs and the Brotherhood in the hunt.

I was in the system and searching for hits on Maria’s car when Vic came back in with food for me. The data went back months, and we plotted each hit on a map. Then we did the same for Christian’s car. I put it on the big screen and leaned back. “Now, what do you guys see?” The data almost screamed out the weird location, west of Denver in the mountains. We sent people to search that area, and I worked until I was nodding off.

I was back in my office at ten and didn’t have to wait long for the next hit on her car. Maria fled west, then north, avoiding the Denver metro area. She was alive and on the run, and we needed to find her quickly.

I did find her house, but she was long gone. The next day, we traced Maria to her new hiding place in Grand Island, Nebraska. “She did well to hide as long as she did, but it’s crazy to go it alone with what we know!”

“Cats and dogs living together isn’t natural, and there are a lot of trust issues to get through,” Vic said. “Frank gave her money, a new driver’s license, and his contact information. He also warned her that her car was compromised. Maria will buy a different car and leave the old one. Frank wants to dump it near the Mexican border in Texas to throw the CIA off.”

That was a good plan, and we managed to capture the CIA crew that was trying to kidnap her. Maria refused asylum, leaving Nebraska and heading to Austin, Minnesota. We watched the two from a distance. For a few weeks, everything was fine.

Then, the Human Purity League put out their wanted poster. It showed Maria’s high school picture next to a picture of her carrying Maritza in cat form across the border. “DANGEROUS WERECAT RUNNING LOOSE IN USA, $50,000 REWARD.” We notified the Alphas and had an emergency meeting.

Frank Grimes and his team retrieved them and took out an eight-man CIA team that tried to intercept her. She and Maritza were soon settling into Pack life. And Pack life meant the pool parties! “That was FUN,” Maria said as they exited the pool. She’d tired Maritza out on the waterslide in their jaguar forms.

“How can you stand the cuteness?” I asked. “I wish our baby could shift like that.”

“I’ve never known different,” she replied. We had the moms, nannies, babies, and pregnant women in a big group near the kiddie section. Highchairs were between us as we snacked on pizza and chicken wings. “I can’t get over how cool this place is. Are all Packs like this?”

“Only those run by a Nygaard. Carson has a great setup in Casper now, Sawyer’s is under construction at the Donner Pack, and what Coral has planned for Blue River Pack blows this place away,” Lance replied. “The Pack House and this pool area cost almost five million to build, but it’s the focus of Pack life. Chase shared the windfall from the takedown of the Sons… Oh, crap. I’m sorry, Maria. I forget they were your family.”

“It’s all right, go on.”

He looked embarrassed. “You know that Chase helped take down the drug operation, right?” Maria nodded; it was on the news. “Chase and his brothers snatched millions in cash from a warehouse controlled by the Los Angeles chapter meant for the Cartel.”

“And I took millions more from Club accounts before the Feds could take it,” I added.

“You took my father’s money?”

“I did, thus saving it from asset forfeiture laws. I kept track of the amounts. Now that you are part of the Arrowhead Pack, those funds belong to you.”

“I have no claim to the Club accounts!”

“It’s part of your legacy, Maria. I’ve already spoken with the Alphas about this. We took you in to protect you, but we aren’t going to force you to stay with us if you decide to move on. You’ll have enough money to settle anywhere you want.”

“And if I stay here?”

“There are building lots along the lake if you want a home of your own, and those Harleys aren’t cheap. You can go to college, provide for Maritza, whatever you want.”

I could see hope in her eyes, and it felt good. She was a good kid.

We got busy again when Julio escaped from a CIA black prison in the Gulf of Mexico, and the President went to war against her lead intelligence agency. Julio was still at large, assassinating the fired CIA Chief a day later. I was watching the news when Vic got a mental call. “Baby, there’s someone here to see you. She says her name is Jade, and she first worked with you on a hack of the Sons chapter in Oakland.”

“Holy shit! What does she look like?”

“Your size and feisty. The guards say she’s a werecat, but it’s weird. Strange cat mixed with something else.”

“That’s her, but I didn’t know she was a cat! Can she come here?” It was freezing rain outside.

“I’ll check.” He did more sending. “Come on, they’re bringing her to the Alpha’s home.”

I needed to walk, and it was a short distance through the tunnel to their home. When she walked in, I squealed and hugged her as the tears fell.“Where did you disappear to?”

“It’s a long story,” Jade said.

Rori came over and gave her a sniff, as did the other wolves. Vic was puzzled by her scent. “What are you? And is that a mating bite on your shoulder?”

“Let me start from the beginning,” she said. The story would have been top-flight fiction before I learned of their world. My friend was a Clouded Leopard shifter, one of a handful in the United States. She was mates with a rogue werewolf, and her extended family included their children, mother, and a young snow leopard and her young one. Other than mating with a wolf, I didn’t see the problem. Arrowhead didn’t have problems with cats if they didn’t try to kill us.

Then she told the rest of the story. She and her husband were the ‘Oracle’ we’d heard about among the rogues. They ran a server for those outside the Pack system, regardless of species. It wasn’t until they talked about supporting the Sons that the atmosphere chilled. “What KIND of support,” Chase growled.

“Logistics, intelligence, and background on potential blackmail or extortion targets. Anything they needed for the drug trade, we had to get them.” She talked about how the Sons forced them to do their bidding.

“Did you have anything to do with the deaths of Easy and Peasy Ryder? Or the attack on Harleigh?”

“I didn’t have that kind of reach. The Sons had me join the DEA to get access to their computers. Trust me, I didn’t have a choice. One mistake and our family would end.”

Chase relaxed a little. “Why not come to us for asylum? Or ask Spider for help disappearing?”

“That wasn’t possible. Spider Monkey was human, and the Council would execute my mate without a trial.” Chase wanted to know who he was, but she wouldn’t say. “I’m not here for protection or asylum. I need your help.” The next part blew my mind. The Cartel expected them to supply ten shifters for criminal activities in the next two and a half months, or they would use her family instead. “They are too powerful, and they know too much. Running isn’t an option, and I can’t ask you to go to war for me.”

“Then why are you here, Jade?”

“You went to war against the Sons, but they had nowhere near the money and resources of the Sinaloa Cartel. I don’t want to see our kind working for the Cartels, so there’s only one answer that keeps us all safe.”

Vic stared at her. “What is that, Jade?”

“I help Spider Monkey and Frank Grimes take the whole fucking Cartel out.”