Artiface Of Strength Ch 12

There are only two chapters left after this one. Chapter 13 has been written and Chapter 14 is underway. Thanks to all of you who have ridden along with me; your support has made this happen.

I was asked about sequels. And my answer is a definite maybe. I have a couple of other projects that I'm currently story-boarding, so I may put my Were aside for a while.

Onwards!

*****

Chapter 12

Agent Brown was outside for well over an hour, evidently the phone call that he had made to his superiors had proven to be more complicated than he had expected it to be. Not that this was an unpleasant thing for anyone but Agent Brown, this delay had given Agent Edwards more time alone with John, Beth, and Ja-mul. Well, it wasn't true that they were completely alone; because while it was true that he was the only human physically present with the Were, everyone knew that he was wearing a wire and at the other end of the transmission, there were rooms full of Nation Security Agency people listening to their conversation. John didn't worry about them though, he knew the score. Every word spoken would be recorded, analyzed, and taken apart by the security agency, so he only spoke of inconsequential things. His only real worry was that he couldn't send to Ja-mul like he could do with anyone else in the pack, but then again, he was reassured by the realization that the old bastard usually knew what was going on before it happened anyway.

Edward had been complimenting the pack-made brown ale and he truly seemed to be enjoying himself. After a couple of pints of the stuff, he finally said, "You know... most existential threats to humanity show much less hospitality than you guys do."

John smiled as he responded, "We are no threat to human-kind. We've lived beside you since the People first came to this land. We've been here longer than the white-man, although your coming almost forced us to die out. Your way of life was much more deadly to us than we ever were to you. Worse yet, you Europeans saw us as something less than human, and decided to just sweep us away like you did to everything that you didn't understand. What you did to the People was nothing less than genocide."

"But Mr. Billington, you speak of the Native Americans as if you were one, and yet, you are clearly from European stock. I don't understand."

"Yes well, I suppose that I was born just as you, but I left all of that behind me a very long time ago. Since then, I've joined the People, and in any event, Ja-mul keeps telling me that my time is just about over. I suspect that you'll find that the next generation of Were will be of the People. I'm thinking that I was just a bridge back to where we were supposed to live."

"Am I supposed to understand any of that?" Edwards asked in confusion.

"No, probably not," John said with a beleaguered smile. "I think I'm just beginning to understand it myself."

There was a pause and Beth asked, "More ale?"

"Absolutely!" Edwards replied, holding out his mug. "This stuff is fabulous."

The conversation returned to lighter subjects after that, with the four finding that they had more in common with one another than not. If Edwards hadn't known that he was dealing with something that he had previously thought of being supernatural, he never would have suspected that these three were not exactly what they claimed to be, ordinary humans who ran several successful businesses between them. He didn't believe that anyone had anything to fear from these people. His supervisors though, they must have had a different opinion, for when Agent Brown returned, they all could see it written clearly on his face. Not smiling, Agent Brown said, "Homeland Security has agreed to meet with you in San Francisco, but they are insisting that all three of you accompany us immediately."

John sighed as he replied, "I suspected it would be like that; some things never change." Then he paused for a moment and said, "Sure, we will come with you, but we'll need to stop by the Resort on our way out of here. All of our legal papers are stored there in the fire safe and your superiors will want to see those."

Agent Brown readily agreed to this condition; although he was a little surprised when John didn't argue that they were being taken to a destination that he had previously approved.

To Beth, John sent,

"It's a good thing that you thought to keep Oliver and Stan on duty at the Resort. Once we get close enough for them to hear your sendings, tell Oliver to contact Jefferson and tell him that he is in charge of all of the Were now. There is no doubt any longer; I am being taken into custody and I am unaware of when I will be able to be in contact again."

"Why don't you tell him yourself, John?"

Beth sent back.

"There is no guarantee that I'll be able to, and besides that, we both know that your range is greater than mine. You women pretend that we men don't know, but believe me, we all do."

Beth raised an eyebrow at John, but she said nothing.

"Besides that,"

John continued,

"These bastards may be pretending that they are negotiating with us, and indeed, Brown and Edwards may actually think that they are doing just that, but their bosses just showed us otherwise. By dragging us away from our home, they've signaled that they are in control and that our rights do not matter. We are at war now, so make the call as soon as Oliver is within your range."

"Yes, John."

Meanwhile, the more paranoid analysts within the National Security apparatus had heard Ja-mul and John adamantly refusing to fly and leapt forward with their belief that the Were must be preparing to launch indiscriminate warfare upon the nation's air traffic. They took their conclusions to the White House, and the President made the only decision that made sense to him through his European lens; he ordered an immediate 'temporary' shutdown of all passenger travel within the American borders.

Within hours, the nation was in complete turmoil. The White House had been forced to admit that this was a fluorescent red-level terrorist threat, and that they were sorry that they could not say anything more at this time. The populace was, of course, terrified. But as the American people knew, there was no such thing as Werewolves, so the old bogeymen, Muslims or right-wing militias were blamed by most Americans. Demagogues of all stripes began shrieking from their towers, calling for invasions, or bombings, or mass arrests, or even a combination of all three, though few agreed on who or what the USA should attack first.

Amidst this insane over-reaction, Jefferson and his pack mates, as well as the four humans traveling with them, left their train at its very next scheduled stop. A convoy of S.U.V.s awaited them and soon their travel transitioned to the still largely unregulated highways. They had disappeared from the National Security radar.

Having heard John's orders from Oliver during the early part of his train trip, Jefferson began to make phone calls as soon as he was seated in the S.U.V., contacting every single pack in the Americas, giving them John's orders to arm themselves and disappear. Some Were faded into the woods, some disappeared into the teaming human cities, and some of them even hid in plain sight, certain that there was nothing that connected them to Were society. There may have been a number of different strategies, but all of them switched to their network of burner cell phones, and of course, even the older children were now armed and very dangerous. Homeland security would eventually be extremely upset when they discovered what they were up against.

The American Government, as it usually did, badly over-reacted to a relatively minor annoyance. Worse still, the N.S.A. remained in a locked-down state with regard to releasing information- even to their allies. The countries of North and South America all contained packs of Were, but since the Americans were not sharing information, none of the other nations had a clue that they might have a security problem. If any of the humans had known that Were existed, and worse yet, that they were able to send to one another, they might have begun to understand just what they were up against, maybe found some way to plug the leaking dikes of their security. But no human other than a few elderly shamans knew the real truth, so the wolves were now gone and worse yet; they were armed to the teeth.

The first hint of how completely the human security apparatus had been outmaneuvered came when an impressive team of lawyers beat the S.U.V.s carrying John and Beth to the Federal building in San Francisco. The sharks were armed with writs of habeas corpus and they were demanding to speak to their clients even as the vehicles pulled into the parking garage.

Now, a team of eight lawyers was far from unusual at the Federal Building, but this team was unusual in one serious respect. It contained a young lawyer name Jackson Keel, and he was more of a wolf than a shark, and he was well within John and Beth's sending range, and he was communicating with them before they were even out of the cars. He knew his client was in the building. He knew to ignore the denials from the nice people at the front desk, and more importantly, he knew the phone numbers of the local media, and that's when he and his team were also placed under arrest. Mind you, his men waiting outside of the building knew the numbers as well, and the press soon descended on the building with the sound and fury of an ancient fishwife.

As the press surrounded every entrance to the building with their microphones and their cameras, they were going live with reports that suspects in the terrorism plot were now in custody, while even more lawyers appeared in the courts, demanding that their clients be charged or released immediately. More writs were produced and every member of the press in all of America now knew the name of John Billington, though none of them made the connection between this John and the John Billington of Plymouth Rock.

Homeland Security wasn't happy. No, that is a serious understatement of just how unhappy the nation's security agencies were currently. They were spitting mad, and the heads of the agencies bristled with barely veiled anger; not only were they being asked to comply with their own nation's Constitution with regard to their prized captive, the hated national press were demanding instant answers from the White House. The men on the ground in San Francisco had lost all control of the situation; and while it was true that they held their man, but with the word out, they were now on a very real clock.

"How the Hell did they pull that off?" General Cleary shouted! "We had them in custody without firing a shot! We jammed electronic communication around them the entire time we had them. Do we have a leak? Do they have someone inside of the Government?"

"I don't know what else it could be, General," Colonel Armstrong replied angrily. "Look how quickly they moved: three entire

teams

of lawyers, flocks of those bastards from the press, there's absolutely no way to put a lid on this, we have no idea how many people they've got on the outside. I'll bet that they've already lawyered up, haven't they?"

"Colonel, from what I'm hearing, they are talking a lot, but they are careful not to say anything that we want to hear."

Way down under the complex, in the very comfortably appointed interview room, Agent Edwards had just said, "...but that would produce hundreds of gallons of ale per batch. What on Earth do you do with all of that ale? You don't sell it; where does it all go?"

Beth laughed derisively, "Where do you think it goes? The stupid men drink it!"

"But that's enough beer for several hundred men... and you say that you brew a new batch every month?"

John just grinned and said, "Our men are a thirsty lot."

Downstairs in the video war-room, one of the video analysts turned from his monitor and said, "I thought you said there were only about a hundred of them. There's no way that fifty men could put down that much beer and still function. If they really drink that much beer every single month, they must have a lot more men than we had thought!"

"Contact Anheuser Busch and check these numbers," another voice snapped!

"Yes sir, right away," one of the underlings replied.

John and Edwards continued to rhapsodize upon the wonders of micro-brewing for another hour or so before Beth hit her daily limit of listening to men talk about their toys and interrupted, "Agent Edwards, are they ever going to let our lawyers in to see us?"

"Why would you need lawyers," he responded with a smile.

"Because... despite your pleasant manner, we are obviously in custody here. You insisted that we accompany you immediately, and then you dragged us to San Francisco when we supplied several other options. And now, you've got us locked in here with you without counsel, so I'm going to say this clearly... "Release us, or produce our lawyers...now."

John grinned as he said to Beth, "You put up with this longer than I thought you would." Then, switching his attention to Edwards, he said, "You heard the lady, it's put up or shut-up time. You now have three options left: release us, give us our lawyers, or hold us and we've stopped talking. It's your choice, and by the way, I mean

our

lawyers, not some random idiot who you decide to bring in to 'represent' us. His name is Jackson Keel, and I believe that you are probably holding him in a different..." John glanced around the room meaningfully before saying, "cell." Edwards looked into John's eyes and accepted the inevitable. He nodded to John and left the room without a word.

"Now we wait," Ja-mul mumbled.

~~~~

"Look at this, Will," Florence said, holding out her smart-phone, "Looks like the Alpha is keeping things stirred up. All of the top stories are about the terrorism crisis and the mysterious John Billington who is now in Federal custody in San Francisco. According to this, they are even arresting his lawyers."

"Grandfather got his wish I guess." William responded with a sardonic grin. "He always said that he wanted to be in the middle of the action. I wonder how he likes it now."

"The Press is acting like that swarm of hornets that attacked us. They are going nuts asking when normal air-traffic will resume. Looks like the markets are going crazy as well; according to this, the Dow Jones lost about 20% of its value before trading was stopped for the week. Evidently the U.N. is pressing for answers as world-wide commerce is being affected."

"How much longer do you think we'll have to remain underground?" Tristan put in.

"I wish that I knew," Will answered. "Every single time that we've come in range of another Were, they've sent us the exact same thing. No one has been captured and everyone is getting bored and antsy for action."

"Maybe we should drive down to San Francisco ourselves," Florence suggested. "Get close enough to the building where they are being held so we'll be able to send with them. See what we can do to help."

"Beats sitting on our tails, boss," Tristan put in hopefully.

"The kids have memorized both of your numbers, Will," Florence said gently. You've trained them well, but now you can't do anything for them until they call. We won't need to be in Sacramento for that; San Francisco just isn't that far away."

"Yeah, you two are right, let's get going."

~~~~

Ja-mul was getting on John's nerves. He was unable to silently send with John and Beth to pass the time, and left without any access to the outside world, he was quickly going stir-crazy. For the last two days, he'd be alternating between both pacing their cell aimlessly, and chanting tonelessly during his meditations. John well understood that their holding cell was bugged, and while the idea that America's intelligence community was likely going insane trying to decipher all of the extinct tongues that Ja-mul was chanting during his meditations did hold amusement for John, the reality of being trapped in the same room with it was something else entirely. But fortunately for John, every single time that he found himself ready to explode, Beth would lay her hand upon John and murmur soothing words into his mind, generally before John himself even realized that he was close to losing it.

"He's got no one to talk to, John. This has got to be harder on him than it is on us. He is just as much of a social creature as we are, and the only word any of us is allowed to speak is, 'lawyer'. It would probably be better on him if they do separate us like you've been predicting. He won't feel the need to communicate so much without us actually standing here in front of him."

Of course, all of this was lost on the men in the surveillance room. Both General Cleary and Lt. Col. Armstrong knew they were running out of time, they had gotten word from on high; the State Department would be taking over if Homeland failed to generate any results. The President already made the decision to let commercial air flight resume earlier that day, and the White House was losing patience.

"We've got nothing from the language egg-heads?" Cleary demanded.

"None of the Caucasian Ph. D.s can quite place it sir, although they believe he is speaking several different languages, and stringing them all together."

"What about the real Indians?"

"All of the ones who we have played the recording for... they claim that they don't know either."

"Claim?"

"It's hard to say General; at first, a couple of them seemed to recognize it, but then they claim that they lost the thread of it."

"Do you think they are lying?"

"Frankly sir, we have no way of knowing. Most of these ancient tongues are long dead. The ones that we do understand never actually had written versions of their language. A couple of those elders who we brought in must have been at least a hundred years old. A couple of them didn't even speak English."

Cleary grumbled and then said, "What did we get from the beer people?"

"The brewmeisters all told us the same thing; that they were producing more beer than a thousand men could drink each month."

"And yet, our intelligence says that there are only about one hundred of them?"

"Yes General."

"So they have a hidden army?"

"Sir, I'm sure of it! Their suppliers verified their purchases, and they go back years."

"And you are sure that they were not bottling any of it?"

"No sir, not that we can see. They didn't even own any bottling equipment. The beer was either drunk by someone or it vanished into thin air."

General Cleary closed his eyes for a moment, rubbing his sinuses slowly, trying to shake the headache that had come with these three wolves. Finally, he spoke, "So...we are stuck. We have gotten nowhere and State is ready to step in and negotiate?"

"Yes General."

"Split them up. Give the old man to State. He clearly isn't the brains here. Load the other two up and fly them to Guantanamo. That may buy us some more time before the diplomats fuck this up."

"Gladly sir!" Armstrong said with a feral smile.

Just under an hour later, an armed team arrived to relocate the wolves. John merely nodded to Beth and then looked to Ja-mul and said in Abenaki, "Stay strong Di-yin, and may Xwun bless you with great amusement." Beth said nothing aloud, though she was already sending to all the Were who were within range, reporting that she and John were now being moved by an armed party of men.

Jackson Keel and his legal team were also still in custody, albeit in somewhat more comfortable surroundings, and he immediately started to relay orders to his team outside of the building. He let them know that the Alphas were now on the move and to make sure that every single member of the press knew it. His teams scrambled upon his word, and they were well-armed, not so much with weapons, but with a different sort of weaponry, cameras with telephoto lenses. Information was fed to the friendlier press teams, and reporters began to go live with their updates even before John and Beth had been ushered out of the building and into the three S.U.V. convoy that waited ready to drive them to the airport.