by Sydney Addae
All eyes were on him. “Earlier I said to keep the information close and not share with the pack but thinking about this type of scrutiny everyone should be told. Parents will need to decide what to tell their pups. Increase security in our schools and pack lands.” He looked at Hawke. “Make sure our databases are impenetrable. Lock them down. Go as deep and high as you want, send those fuckers around the world to catch a disease they can’t shake.”
Hawke smiled and nodded. “Yes, Sir.”
“Will you run checks on our systems as well?” an Alpha asked.
“Yes. Jacques’ team will start today while Hawke's building his arsenal.” Silas exhaled. This was getting old. “We have access to a satellite and will do surveillance ahead of our exploratory teams arriving in Canada and Mexico. We haven’t had to use it for this purpose before, but we can.”
“Sir, it sounds as if you’re preparing for war,” Alpha Jayden said.
Silas looked around the room. “For the information, they demanded with a 30-day ticking clock, I have no choice but to prepare for war.”
AN HOUR AND A HALF later, Silas disconnected from his Alphas and sat back in his chair, looking at the faces in the room.
“We’ll cancel our trip, head out after all this is settled,” Tyrese said.
“No. That’s not necessary. Just be vigilant. They already know of my den, go and have a good vacation,” Silas said, not wanting to disappoint his daughters-in-law who had been talking about the trip for weeks.
“We can go anytime,” Tyrone said. “I can help Hawke lock down the database.”
Silas shook his head. “No. Go on the trip. There’s always a problem of some kind to deal with. No doubt when you return there'll be something else, something different. You’ll be refreshed and able to jump right in.” He looked at Jasmine for support.
She smiled. “We’ll be fine, Rone. Damian is coming to cover for Cameron. You and Rese go, have fun.” Her voice held a ring of finality that stopped the back and forth.
“War?” Storm said sitting forward in his seat, watching Silas. “You’d go to war with the United States?” He sounded incredulous and Silas knew he didn’t understand.
“They gave me 30 days to do something they know I won’t do and added a financial penalty. If they take it that far and if I have to, yes I will. Why do they want to know our numbers?” He paused and looked at everyone in the room. “One reason. To prepare a defense or offense against us. There’s no other reason. Plus, no matter what number I give them, they won’t believe me, why should they? So what’s the real end game here?” He looked at Storm.
“They want to destroy you?”
“No. But they believe the odds are stacked against them and believe they can even the playing field in case I or an Alpha decides to attack them.”
“Would you attack them? Would you order the pack to turn on their neighbors?” Storm asked.
“Not unless pack lives were at stake. If we’re going to be systematically eliminated I won’t lie on my back or wave my tail while they do it. I’ll take as many of the bastards as I can. Starting with those in positions of power first.”
“I see,” Storm said watching Silas. “Will this be settled before the wedding?”
“Storm, we’re always being watched,” Jasmine said. “They’ll know about the wedding, the people who attend and probably tag them as pack members. That can’t be helped. What we won’t ever do is give an accurate accounting, so they can use that against our most vulnerable.” She shrugged. “This may never be settled. It could be a ploy to rattle our cages, or to see how we respond, a game or it could be serious. We don’t know.” She held up her finger. “But they keep underestimating us and our determination to survive. Renee will have her wedding at the museum and it will be the one she’s dreamed of, believe that.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you,” Storm said.
“What did Miller and Crall say?” Angus asked.
“I’m waiting to hear from Miller, he was surprised. Crall is on leave until next month.” He asked Silas for a couple weeks off to spend time with his family and Silas had agreed.
“Anybody on the Joint Chiefs we can tap?” Angus asked.
Silas thought about it. “No one I can tap personally, Miller knows several of them and is our best shot at getting information.”
“Don’t they know he’s pack?” Cain asked.
Silas nodded. “Yes. But he’s got a high clearance and has a good relationship with a few of them. So far, they haven’t held it against him. If that doesn’t work, his hearing is excellent and the way we get the most information.”
“Got it,” Cain said.
“Is it possible they’ve recruited rebels? Rogues?” Abel asked watching Silas closely. “Might explain them having weapons.”
“Weapons? What weapons?” Tyrese asked sitting forward, looking at Silas.
Silas explained the migration and questioning of the rogues.
“The timing is suspect,” Angus said. “Maybe a quick flight up, touchy conversation and return to base are in order.”
“If I thought any of these guys knew much, I’d have sent you or Asia already. We need someone with Alpha status, the person who’s organizing them,” Silas said.
“Jackie mentioned a guy,” David frowned in concentration. “Judah? Joe?” he snapped his fingers. “No. Jonas. She and Quinn burned down a medical facility of his, he had a big operation. They haven’t heard much from him in the past year, it’s possible he moved and set up a base in Canada. Quinn’s uncle might know something about it or know someone who might know.”
“Jonas?” Silas said trying to remember Jackie mentioning him and couldn’t recall.
“I think he’s the one who wanted her to do something on his behalf, she said no, not sure what happened after that, if anything,” Jasmine said.
Silas couldn’t recall. “Look into that, David. Find out what you can about that guy. If he’s building a pack in Canada, I want to know about it.”
“Yes, Sir,” David said.
Hawke stood. “I have some ideas I’ve been wanting to test for a while. Our system is solid since we host our servers here and with very little internet access. What I plan to do is set up a few dummies, some trails that’ll counter hack anyone looking for information. I have a couple, but I’ll beef them up. Should be fun.” He grinned.
“Make sure my network is secure,” Jasmine said. “The women of the pack give us the first notice of trouble since I can’t link with them, the network is critical.”
“Yes, Ma’am. We own the cloud storage your network and the ones every Alpha uses, that was one of the first things I did before we set up the database for breeds. Most of the Alphas still don’t understand how it all works, but they’re good. I’ll run another system-wide check today, just did one four days ago. I try to do it once a week to make sure we haven’t been compromised.” He paused. “Personal information is on secure intra-net servers and cannot be breached.”
Glad for the reassurance, Silas nodded. “Thank you. Let me know if there are any problems.”
“One of the by-products of having a computer chip in your brain for so many years,” Asia said watching Hawke leave. “He processes information faster than I can talk. It’s annoyingly, sexy at times.”
Jasmine laughed.
Angus leaned forward. “With hostile packs forming in the places you’ve recently decided to ... consider expanding, there’s a thread there. I don’t think this is in reaction to what you’re doing because you can still pull the wolves of those rogues. Which means it’s possible they’re working for someone, possibly with some type of behavior modification device. What about the collars they placed on the Knights in Honduras? It interrupted their ability to communicate.”
“What?” Storm said, leaning forward. “How’s that possible?”
Angus gave him a brief update on the trip.
“They ran tests on soldiers? Enlisted soldiers?” Storm asked, frowning.
&
nbsp; “Yeah,” Angus said. “It wasn’t pretty.” He glanced at Silas and changed the subject. “It’d be nice to know in advance if there’s a chance for more surprises, that’s all.”
Silas and Jasmine had agreed not to discuss Honduras, it brought back too many bad memories. Maybe Angus forgot, or Silas hadn’t made it clear to his brother the subject was taboo around his mate, he’d correct that shortly.
“That’s a good point, any ideas?” Silas looked around the room at his inner team.
“I made some decent contacts at the Pentagon while we were there with the Knights,” Cain said, slowly. “I could ask around, see what’s going on.”
Silas nodded. “Do it. Also, find out about these random tests they’re now giving. Miller mentioned it but isn’t sure it means anything. My concern is if they have a device similar to what they used on the Knights, they may be able to discover who are pack members. From that, they may use them for testing and other things. I’ll pull them out first before I allow that to happen.”
“Bastards,” Cain muttered. “Harassing soldiers who only want to serve their country. Ought to be a law.”
“There is but they’re not obeying it.” Silas looked at Jasmine. “We haven’t thought of that.”
“What?”
“Using their laws against them.” He smirked. “Rone, get me the names of every person currently serving in any branch of government, every level. I want to talk to them.”
“What are you thinking?” Jasmine asked.
“Pack members are law-abiding, tax-paying citizens of this country whose rights may be infringed on. I’m going to alert them in particular to the likelihood of them being targeted and insist they record meetings, take notes, gather as much evidence as they can for future lawsuits. Also, I want them to corrupt the information if they can, mess up the samples so the results are false.” He smiled. “They think we won’t challenge them openly because we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”
“We don’t,” Jasmine said, frowning.
“No, and we won’t. What will the judges and juries see in the courtroom?” he looked at David and Tyrese.
“Humans,” Tyrese said.
“Citizens like themselves being targeted, and having their rights violated by big, bad, government,” David said.
“Exactly,” Silas said looking at Jasmine, waiting for her opinion.
“It’s a bold move,” she said.
“It’s offensive, just in case our people are targeted. If they are tested once, no problem. But if they’re called back in, tests intensify, we take them to court,” Silas said, digging in.
“Will they report to their Alphas? Or you?” Cain asked.
“The fastest way will be to contact their Alphas, especially if they need help,” he said, once again looking at his mate for her input.
“It feels good being on the offense for once instead of defense,” Jasmine said.
Silas smiled and kissed her briefly.
“I need to brief the women on what to look for,” she looked at him. “I’m thinking to notify them of the threat, add another layer of verification they’ll receive from their Alphas.”
“Sounds good,” Silas said, his beast preening from her praise.
She stood and placed her hands on his shoulders. “I really hope this is mostly talk and they don’t do anything stupid like use our people as test subjects again.” Her voice hardened at the end. “The next invitation we get to the White House, we should go. You may hear something, or I could...” she stopped. “I like the idea of offense, Wolfie. Let’s roll the dice, shake things up.”
He really didn’t want to go anywhere near that place, he might erupt in anger and start kicking asses left and right. “How many people can we take?” he asked Jacques.
“Take?”
“Like an entourage.” Silas looked at Jasmine.
She winked.
“I don’t know, I’ll ask. How many do you want to take?”
Silas thought about it. Hawke for sure. Asia. Angus if they were still here. Possibly, Mélange, since she had experience with this kind of jobs and Renee, wanted her to spend more time with him. He grinned. “Minimum of four would work.”
“I’ll dress in black like the male in the Matrix, coat and all. You’ll dress as his mate dressed. Sexy in black leather,” Silas told Jasmine.
“That would be so fun, totally unexpected. They have this warped view of us anyway, we could play it out.” She grinned. “It’ll make them think... well who cares what they think. Let’s do it.”
“I’m sure that’ll work.” Jacques looked at Silas, and then Jasmine. “What are you two planning?”
Jasmine’s smile brightened.
“We depend on you Jasmine to keep his beast mellow, I can’t imagine what would happen if both of you were flying free,” Angus said, with a slight grin.
“Order our outfits today,” he told her.
She winked and looked at the others. “Is that everything?”
“You tell us,” Angus said, his gaze flicking between the both of them.
Jasmine walked around the table. Asia stood and followed her out the door.
“Whatever you’ve got planned, count me in. I haven’t seen you this excited in a long time,” Asia said as they walked down the hall.
Jasmine nodded. “Okay, let’s get you measured.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
SILAS AND JASMINE LEFT the office three hours later to grab a bite to eat. General Miller hadn’t discovered anything regarding the testing. But promised to continue making inquiries.
Alpha Lyle, the pack attorney, discovered some trouble spots regarding old land deeds that were in the process of being challenged. Paperwork hadn’t been filed properly or the townships lost the deeds. It was a gray area and would be aggravating if there were no paper trails, but they shouldn’t lose the land. Silas had Jacques searching but wasn’t sure they had documentation.
Alpha Lyle didn’t seem worried. He believed they would win in court, if it went that far, because of how long Silas owned the property.
“I want this stopped as soon as possible, it sounds like a fishing expedition, use the software from Hawke to wipe your tracks. We don’t want them tracking you online through this,” Silas told him.
In an odd twist, the most troubling information came from David’s research into the rebel Jonas. Quinn’s Uncle Ramos and his mate, Antwan had quite a bit to say about Jonas, none of it good.
Jonas was well financed with investments in several businesses. He hired pack to work for him at sub-standard wages and kept them separated from everyone else. They weren’t allowed to speak to anyone outside of their pack. Recently, Jonas purchased hundreds of acres in Canada and had moved his pack there earlier this year. He recruited soldiers to protect his land, luring them with promises of wide open spaces and freedom for La Patron’s heavy hand.
Jonas saw himself equal to Silas.
Ramos believed Jonas’s intention was to create a national pack in Canada to compete with Silas in the states. He’d been spreading lies about Silas’ brutality and unreasonableness as an Alpha while painting himself as the perfect, nurturing Alpha that the Canadian wolves needed.
A part of Silas wanted to let Jonas have Canada if the wolves wanted him. Another part wanted to fight the wolf in an Alpha challenge because of the lies and deceit. It wasn’t his decision, so he put in another request to the Goddess to let her decide.
“David did good,” Jasmine said as they sat at the table.
“Yeah,” Silas said thinking of the meeting with Hawke later this evening. Hawke found some areas where hackers attempted to crack their system and he wanted to go over his retaliation plans with Silas.
“The research he did on Jonas was very thorough. Did you see how excited he was when he made his report?” Jasmine asked.
“Yeah.” When was Miller going to get back with them? Silas needed to know who was behind this foolishness. He suspected the White House, but it mi
ght be the Joint Chiefs.
“This may be his calling, you think?”
“Hmm?” he looked at her hand on his arm and then at her face. “I’m sorry, Sweet Bitch, my mind wandered. What did you ask me?”
“David really enjoyed digging for information on that guy, he was all lit up, that may be his calling.” She watched him.
Silas hadn’t given it any thought. People created reports for him all the time, but not his pups. Today, David became a part of the discussion and uncovered important information. The pup was smart and resourceful.
“Could be.” He didn’t want to encourage her. David was no James Bond.
There was a knock at the door. Jasmine looked at Silas. “It’s Renee and Storm,” he said. “I told them to come in.”
She nodded as the door opened. “We’re in the kitchen,” Jasmine said pouring another glass of tea.
“Hi, Mama,” Renee kissed Jasmine’s cheek and turned to Silas. “Daddy.” She grabbed a couple glasses from the cupboard and poured her and Storm tea. Storm waited until Renee sat and sat next to her. “Whew, the builders finally have the outside walls of the museum rebuilt, but it’s still going to take a while before everything’s back to normal,” Renee said.
A few months ago, an enemy blew up art museum where Renee worked. It had been a difficult time for everyone, especially the newly mated pair seated at the table with them.
“From what I saw it looks good,” her father said. “You’re doing a remarkable job with everything you have going on.”
“It’s been hectic for sure.” She looked at Jasmine. “Mom, can I talk to you for a minute?” Renee pushed back her chair and waited for her mom.
The two left, leaving Silas and Storm alone. “Is Renee alright?” Silas asked Storm.
“Yes, she’s fine, probably something about the wedding.” Storm hadn’t looked at Silas or Jasmine that much since arriving. For a brief moment Silas considered asking if everything was alright but decided against it. He really didn’t want to know anything too personal about his daughter and her mate.
They sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes.