The Werewolf of Marines Trilogy

by Jonathan P. Brazee

  “But if you need a meeting, then you get a meeting. So, what do you have for me?”

  “It’s about this mission for tonight. I can’t go.”

  Dr. Lowenstein never moved, but the air around him got decidedly colder.

  “And why is that, Corporal?” he asked, quietly, but Aiden could hear the restrained anger.

  Get it together! Don’t talk like an idiot!

  He gathered himself, then said, “Let me start again, sir. I mean that if I go, all sorts of bad shit’ll happen. Oh, excuse me, sir, I mean things will go bad. There’s this council, see? And they don’t like for others like me, I mean werewolves, to get too noticeable, and if I go to Gaziantep,” he said, slowing down to enunciate the city’s name as he’d practiced on the drive up, “there’s this tribe there, and they’ll eliminate me, you know, kill me, and—”

  Dr. Lowenstein held up a hand, cutting Aiden short. “You have the advantage of me, Corporal. I’m afraid I don’t know much about wwhat you are talking, and I want to know very much, so let’s slow down, take a deep breath, and start at the beginning. OK?”

  Aiden paused for a moment to regain his thoughts. Then he started to tell the director the very basics of the werewolf organization. On one level, he knew he was giving up the Tribe, and that would earn him an immediate death penalty. But if he didn’t take the bull by the horns, he’d either land in prison or still be killed by the Tribe simply for being who he was. And he really didn’t feel to beholding to the Tribe at the moment. He’d done nothing wrong other than having a crazy Tribe member bite him. Since then, he’d had to fight for his life against an assassin sent by a Council member, he’d been beaten up by two other werewolves, and he kept having to look over his shoulder. No, he’d say what he had to in order to protect his little circle of four.

  He didn’t tell everything, though. He was vague on some things, proclaiming ignorance, and he said nothing about Hozan or the fact that Claire, Keenan, and the colonel were or had been werewolves. But he stressed that he was an “unauthorized” werewolf and under a temporary stay of execution while his actions were being monitored, and any overt action on his part, particularly in places such as southern Turkey and northern Syria, would result in the stay being lifted and the execution carried out.

  “And what if we protect you? They can’t get into a vault at Fort Knox, for example,” Dr, Lowenstein had asked at one point. “I’ve seen posters saying that the Marines are like a fire hose in a case on the wall, with the glass only broken when there is a fire to start.”

  The thought of living in isolation like that, a tool to be unleashed only when needed, scared the living shit out of Aiden. His thoughts raced, but the best he could come up with was that he would be swarmed the moment he was released to perform a mission.

  The director also seemed very interested in the Council and the organization of werewolves. He wanted to know how many there were, how many were in the US (and in Russian and China), and where they met. Aiden pled ignorance again, stating that he was not a full-fledged member of the Tribe.

  “How do you know all of this,” Lowenstein asked, interrupting Aiden while Aiden was telling him about the Tribe.

  He’d been ready for this question and coached by the others, so he told to director that he was contacted haphazardly by members of the Tribe when they wanted him to know something. It seemed like a weak response to Aiden, but he was not going to offer Hozan up for dissection.

  Aiden didn’t think the director completely bought it, but the man let it pass.

  When Aiden was through, the director started in with very pointed questions that left no doubt in Aiden’s mind that the man had gotten up so high in the hierarchy on merit, not through politics. Aiden responded to some, gave a slightly bent answer to others, and pled ignorance on still more. Most of the time, when he’d pled ignorance, that was in fact the case. Dr. Lowenstein asked some questions that Aiden had never even thought to wonder about.

  Three grueling hours later, the director stopped. He sat behind his desk, his hands together and forming a tent by pressing the tips of one hand against the other, the tip of this tent pressed against his lips as he stared at the mentally exhausted corporal.

  Finally, he broke his silence by sitting back up and saying, “Tonight’s mission is cancelled. We have other assets in-country that can act. You will have no other missions for the near-term unless it is a case of national emergency. If that happens, we’ll have to deal with your Tribe as need be. I want you to go back to Fort Bragg and continue your training for now. I’ve changed my mind about coming down there. I’d like to see you shift, of course, but I don’t want to draw any more attention to you until we’re able to get a better grasp of the entire situation. Colonel Ward will remain my conduit to you and your training.

  “Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

  “Uh, no, sir. Nothing,” Aiden said as relief swept over him. “Am I dismissed?”

  “Yes, corporal. You’re dismissed.”

  As Aiden stood up, the director, with a completely new tone of voice, asked, “How is it, Corporal Kaas? What’s it like?”

  Aiden looked back at the man who held his life in his hands, only one of several who seemed to be in control of him, to be true. Instead of that fierce look of determination in his eyes, there was something else, something of wonder and longing.

  “Do you want to see, sir?”

  “Yes, I’d like that.”

  Aiden turned back into the inner office and took off his clothes. Unlike when he’d had to strip in front of Colonel Tarnition, he did not feel self-conscious. He looked the director right in the eyes and shifted, never breaking the gaze.

  The director’s eyes widened ever-so-slightly, but other than that, he didn’t move. For some unknown reason, Aiden took two long steps to stand right in front of the man’s desk and extended his paw.

  Without hesitation, Dr. Lowenstein took Aiden’s paw in his hand and shook it.

  “Thank you, Corporal.”

  Aiden didn’t know exactly what the director was thanking him for, but as he got back into his uniform and left the office where an anxious Keenan was waiting, he knew shifting and then shaking the director’s hand had been the right thing to do.

  Chapter 31

  Keenan saw the number on his cell and quickly excused himself from Areetha, going into the colonel’s, no his, office to take the call. It had been three weeks now, and he still had difficulty realizing that he was in charge of the office now.

  “What’s going on?” he asked Hozan.

  “They know, or think they know Aiden was your colonel’s patron.”

  Keenan felt like someone had punched him in the gut. Hozan had told him that this would be the case, but to get that confirmed was devastating.

  “They think?” he asked.

  “Well, the tests on the colonel’s tissues were inclusive, as they are calling it. The results don’t show a direct link to Omar Muhmood.”

  “They don’t?” Keenan said with a glimmer of hope.

  “No, but it doesn’t matter. They’ve conclusively identified the military link between the two, and they’re blaming the test results on cross-contamination by the hunter team. With the evidence presented, the entire Council had to vote to accept that Aiden was the patron of an authorized conversion.”

  “And?” he asked, afraid of the answer.

  “There were immediate calls for Aiden’s elimination, most made by Günter Wais and his allies. Nemir Muhmood, though, was able to gather enough support to have Aiden tested, as we planned. There was enough support among those in the middle that wanted an answer as to why Aiden can do what he’s done.”

  “Is this merely a temporary stay? Is Aiden safe?”

  “He is most decidedly not safe. All we have done is to buy him time.”

  “So he’s still going to be killed?” Keenan asked, dread overcoming him.

  “That is not for us to know, Keenan. Many things can change with
more time. Wais might honor our wishes by dying, or the research might reveal something of benefit to the Tribe. To live another week is better than to die now.”

  Keenan agreed with what Hozan said, but he wanted more for Aiden than a week. He knew he had an unbreakable loyalty to Aiden as his patron, but more than that, he respected him, and it wasn’t right that he be killed because some asshole member of the Council was playing politics.

  “I’ll tell you this, Hozan Kamaran Mardin. If the order comes down, I want you to tell me. I will take Aiden so far away and out of touch that no one will find him, no matter what the fucking Council has to say.”

  “I would expect nothing less from you, Keenan David Ward. Nothing less.”

  Chapter 32

  A day later, Aiden was sitting in an austere, but ever-so-refined office in the heart of La Jolla’s biotech district, waiting to meet with the evidently busy Dr. Lopez, the member of the Tribe who ran the clinic. This culminated a hectic 20 hours or so since Keenan had told him that the Council knew that he was the colonel’s patron.

  Mother-fucking asshole’s going to kill me even after he’s dead, he’d realized when Keenan had broken the news.

  With that confirmed, Plan B was in motion. Aiden had caught an early morning flight from Charlotte to San Diego via Houston, arriving at lunch time. Claire had wanted to accompany him, but the other three had nixed that, telling her that they didn’t need to be drawing any more attention to her, and she needed to keep up her Marine job as if nothing was wrong.

  As usual, the San Diego weather was close to perfect, but Aiden’s mind was on other things as he picked up the rental and made the 20-minute drive to La Jolla. The drive up I-5 was actually scenic, and the slightly acidic scent of the thousands of tall eucalyptus trees that lined La Jolla Village Drive and filled the campus of UCSD broke his feeling of foreboding. He wondered if the students walking around without a care in the world could really sense the eucalyptus in the air and if it affected their mood as well.

  Lost in this thought on how scents could affect werewolves as compared to humans, he forgot about his situation—almost. As soon as he pulled into the small research campus that was his destination, he was jerked back to reality.

  The low white building with the Spanish tile roof housed four different businesses. Aiden pulled into the visitor parking and walked up to Suite C. A small sign proclaimed the office occupied by WRI Genome Company, Ltd.

  He pushed the button bedside the door, conscious of the camera aimed right at his head.

  “Who is it?” a voice came over the speaker.

  “Lawrence Dodson,” he answered. “I have an appointment with Dr. Lopez.”

  There was a pause, then “Yes, I see you on the list.”

  The door buzzed, and Aiden pushed it open. There wasn’t a reception area, merely two chairs. Before Aiden sat down, however, the inner door opened, and a young, slightly heavyset woman in a white lab coat came out.

  “I’m Stacy Fordice,” the woman told him, offering her hand. “I’m one of Dr. Lopez’ research assistants. I’m also the duty greeter of our volunteers since Tabitha’s been on maternity leave, so here I am, greeting you.

  “So, consider yourself greeted.”

  Aiden didn’t know what to expect, but this wasn’t it, and he laughed despite himself. He knew her manner might be calculated to put “volunteers” at ease, but it was still effective.

  “Dr. Lopez is tied up at the moment, but I’m going to do a blood draw, clip a bit of your hair, and do a cheek swab, and he’ll meet with you a little later. So if you can come with me?”

  Aiden nodded and followed her into the inner lab.

  “New meat!” an older, balding man shouted out as he looked over some sort of lab equipment. “Don’t worry, young man, you should get out of here alive!”

  Stacy looked back at Aiden and rolled her eyes before opening a door into an office, although “closet” might be more accurate. The chair in the middle, however, was immediately recognizable with its large rotating arm rest. Aiden had given blood enough over the years to know what to do. He sat down, rolled up his sleeve, and put his arm on the rest.

  “A pro, I see. And what kind of creature are you?” Stacy asked as she wrapped the elastic band around his bicep.

  “Excuse me?” was all he could get out.

  I thought only Dr. Lopez knew what is going on, he thought to himself. She’s in on the real mission here, too?

  “Your background. Where are your people from?”

  “Uh, my mom’s in Las Vegas,” he offered, still confused.

  “Las Vegas? I mean your ancestors, where did they come from,” she asked, now sounding puzzled herself.

  “I don’t know. I mean, my mom’s family came from Eastern Europe, Poland, but I never knew my dad.”

  “Haven’t you done these tests before?” she asked. “Our volunteers usually know more of the ancestry.”

  “No, this is my first. I just answered an ad in the Las Vegas Craig’s list and took some pills for a month. Then they asked me if I wanted to come here for some DNA testing. I’m supposed to get $500 for this,” he said, relating the cover story he’d been told to tell if it came up.

  “That’s strange. Oh, well, nothing to me. It’s just we’re on the forefront of paleontological genome mapping, and we don’t get too many volunteers who don’t have a good idea of their background.”

  “Paleontological genome mapping?” he asked, curious despite himself.

  “Yes,” she said, her face lighting up. “We’re trying to map the human race based on their mitochondrial DNA to be able to trace back human migration and inter-breeding patterns, among other things. We want to trace back human history to the real Mitochondrial Eve, if we can.”

  “Mitochondrial Eve?” Adrian asked, confused.

  “Sorry, I know the idea that we can trace back through our mitochondrial DNA to the single woman in Africa from which we are all descended was largely debunked in the 90’s as other factors became evident, not the least that some small amounts of mitochondrial DNA can be passed from the father, but we’re looking for a valid path to accomplish the same basic task. We’re trying to map the history of mankind,” she said with the fervor of the converted. “And you’re part of the study.”

  Aiden could feel the pride in her voice as she explained in her work, and the idea of it intrigued him, too, above and beyond the werewolf aspect of it.

  “You’re going to feel a little prick,” Stacey said, leaning over his arm to insert the needle and draw.

  The blood started flowing, then quickly petered out as his werewolf healing powers closed the small wound.

  “That’s strange,” she said, trying to reposition the needle for a moment before giving up. “No matter, we’ve got enough.”

  She marked the vial, placed it in the white plastic rack, then picked up another longer tube, this one with an ultra-long Q-tip-looking thing inside.

  “Open up,” she said, using the Q-tip to rub against the inside of his cheek.

  As soon as he could close his mouth again, he asked, “And you can find all of that from my DNA?”

  “Not just yours, but from thousands and thousands of samples. And yes, we hope we will be able to do this far more accurately than the ancestry websites that will tell you basic generalities.”

  Aiden had to give the Tribe credit. If they were researching themselves as a people, then gathering up all this information would be the perfect cover. From his own internet sleuthing, Aiden knew that werewolves appeared on cave paintings 30,000 years ago in what is now France. From what Stacy told him, he could understand how this line of research might be able to reveal more about how werewolves evolved in the first place.

  Stacy took a clip of his hair and said, “All done. Let me take you to Dr. Lopez’ office, and you can wait for him there.

  And he’d continued to wait there. The elusive Dr. Lopez wasn’t making an appearance.

  Aiden looked at his watch
. He had a little less than two hours to catch his flight back. He could stay another day if he needed to, but he didn’t want Claire to worry, and he had to admit that he’d feel safer with her at his side.

  To kill time, he stood up and looked at the various wall-hangers. There were degrees from Northwestern and Columbia, certificates of excellence and achievement from a number of companies (most of which Aiden had never heard), an honorary degree from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and a photo of two men and a woman, one of the men probably Dr. Lopez, posing with President Bush in the Oval Office. The guy might be a member of the Tribe and doing research for it, but he was obviously a big player in the world at large.

  Aiden laughed out loud, though, as he suddenly wondered, though, just how many werewolves had been in the Oval Office.

  Tired of waiting and with nothing else on the walls to read, he was just about to poke his head out of the door to ask when Stacy stuck her head inside, instead.

  “I just got word that Dr. Lopez is still out, and he won’t make it back today. He said you’re free to go.”

  “He doesn’t need to talk to me?”

  “No, not really. We’ve got your samples, and he said he’ll email you with a few questions, but that’s it.”

  Aiden had a few things he wanted to know, but he realized that Stacy wouldn’t have the answers to his kind of questions. He shrugged and got up, thanking her before leaving.

  All this way to give three samples? Doesn’t make much sense. We could have FedExed them here.

  He checked his watch again. Depending on traffic, he thought he just had enough time to catch his flight home, so at least he’d be with Claire tonight.

  Chapter 33

  Aiden spent the next eight days on tenterhooks. He generally stayed at home until nervous energy sent him out to the gym. When outside his apartment, he was constantly looking over his shoulders, expecting a Council hunter team to show up. No one else had mentioned it, but to Aiden’s mind, if his samples were already collected and being tested, the Council didn’t really need him around anymore.