"We've got to protect your children,"
she sent back.
"We can't let them grow up to be like those people, but it wouldn't be healthy for them to see me killing either. The sight of it would remain, and they'd remember that blood for the rest of their lives; we have to temper our vengeance with mercy for the children if we can. Burton has to pay, but we can't make the children pay his debt."
"First things first," William replied grimly. "We'll find out what he knows, and then we'll decide what to do about it."
And as they rode to Sacramento, the explosions began. Every pack in the country struck, all of them at more or less the same time. As it got dark, the nation's power plants went up in smoke, as did its water treatment facilities, rail lines, satellite towers, bridges, and even a few of its aqueducts. The targets were picked with care; none of them were selected with the intent of injuring the humans who had taken their Alpha, instead, the targets were picked to inconvenience and to terrify the populace, and it worked all too well.
Dozens of simultaneous attacks took place throughout the country, both in urban and in rural areas nationwide, and the attacks had most of the populace crying out in mass terror almost immediately. For years, the nation's politicians and media had been conditioning their citizens to panic early, and to panic often; the nation's people had been living in an irrational state of fear ever since the attacks of 9/11, and the Were took full advantage of this weakness in the nation's psyche. If the humans were going to let acts of terrorism terrify them, then the wolf society would be more than happy to accommodate them, wolves were well versed in attacking an opponent's weakness.
Of course, the armed forced were quickly deployed around the nation's assets, but as usual, a standing army moves too slowly, tending to arrive after it was already much too late to do anything but manage the mess left behind. The armed forces spent most of their time rebuffing the local survivalists and militias who were eager to participate in the turmoil, and reassuring the frightened populace who were not. The military never sighted any of the attackers; the wolves always struck quickly and then faded back into the populace. Modern armies were very good at managing areas of ground and protecting buildings from visible enemies, but as both Afghanistan and Iraq had proven all; they are almost useless against insurgencies where their enemies wore no uniform and looked like the rest of the population.
Shots
were
fired and some people
did
die, but none of the deaths directly involved the Were. Most of the deaths came from the so-called 'friendly fire' incidents that surround any war zone; most of these generally involved one group of armed men mistaking another group of armed men for the werewolves that they'd all seen on television.
The rest of the world looked on in growing horror as the always militaristic Americans were once again turning their guns upon each other. It was not lost on the rest of the world that these attacks were
only
taking place in the United States and nowhere else, when it was becoming pretty clear that borders meant very little to werewolves. Surely, they reasoned, there were wolves both in Canada and Mexico, and yet, these wolves were taking no actions whatsoever. Behind the scenes, these governments were trying to figure out how to reach out to their own Were, desperately hoping to avoid the conflict that was taking place within their large neighbor's borders.
While all of this was happening, there was only one single pack of Were sighted by the human authorities. A small unit in Wyoming was in the process of detonating the main power feed that supplied Cheyenne, when a large number of local police arrived, but the wolves had easily, almost effortlessly taken the policemen into custody without any casualties whatsoever. The policemen were treated with deference and were eventually left trussed up, but undamaged, in the backs of their squad cars. Jefferson had been quite clear when he'd issued commands, other than whatever Florence decided to do, there were to be no deaths...yet.
Burton was doing the same thing that almost every American was doing that night; he was watching his television set with growing alarm, but then again, he knew something that most Americans did not. He knew that the Were had reason to want his head. He'd seen what everyone else in the World had seen, his jet, clearly marked with his company's logo, right in the middle of the biggest story of the century. Everyone else had seen two distressed looking Werewolves reassuring themselves with a romantic kiss, and then being shot to death by a deranged man armed with silver bullets, but Burton knew the rest of it as well. He knew why those werewolves been on that jet, and his mind spun with greater and greater dismay with every explosion that took place across America.
Yes, the American people now knew about the silver bullets; one of them had passed through the lovers and lodged within one of the network cameras. It had immediately been dug out of the unit and presented on live television before the army had even had the time to clear away the bodies. The talking heads all agreed, the myths were correct, silver did indeed kill them!
As Burton continued to watch his screen, his private phone began to ring, and he knew that this was a
really
bad sign for him, there were not ten people in the entire World who had his number, and almost all of them were connected to the security establishment in one way or another. He didn't answer the phone right away however, he knew better. He knew what these men wanted and he knew the questions that they would ask. Burton was going to put off answering those questions for as long as was humanly possible, the longer he waited, the more he'd know. He'd already gotten some good news with the media reports that all of those involved in the kidnapping had been killed. He knew that if Armstrong were dead, he still might have some vestiges of plausible deniability left, at least to the United States Government. The Were would be another matter entirely.
Burton was a smart man, and he'd started to make the connections. If John Billington and his wife were werewolves, then their daughter certainly was a wolf as well...and she'd be pissed. What was it that the news people had said? The kidnappers had been torn limb from limb? He wondered how his deal had gone so wrong, so quickly. The largest vein of silver on Earth and it was right directly under those damned Indians' land, and now it turns out that these are werewolves instead of Indians.
He'd never have believed a word of it if he hadn't seen the video for himself, but now he began to see why Armstrong had kept that information to himself. Burton knew that he'd have thought the Colonel to have lost his mind if he'd shared it. Maybe he could still make some sort of a deal? If the werewolves didn't kill him without waiting to talk, maybe there was still a way out? He knew that William would want his children back, and now that both of them were safely out of the country, Will might have to bargain. It wasn't much, but Burton knew that he was out of options, so he picked up the phone and made the only call that he could make.
It was dark in the nation's Capitol now, very dark. Night had fallen and in many parts of the city, and fires burned brightly. There had not been much looting in the city yet, that wasn't why the fires burned; these fires were for warmth, and for light. Jefferson's pack had been extremely successful in destroying power coming into the city. They should have been successful, many of them worked for the power company. They'd been preparing for this day for decades.
The power was still on at the White House however; its generators took care of that. The President and his advisors had enough light to sit in the situation room and glumly listen to the reports as they came in, one disaster striking after another.
"Mr. President, they are making us look like amateurs, they are making one successful strike after another. They've done massive targeted damage in every single place that they've hit. They appear like ghosts, destroy their targets without fail, and then, they fade back into the general populace. It's amazing that the death toll has been so low. Not to mention... that the deaths that have happened can't really be attributed to them."
"Josh, the media is reporting deaths all over the country, and yet, you say the death toll is low?"
"Sir, the deaths are mostly coming from militias and survivalists shooting at one another, or worse yet, shooting at the army. The weekend warriors are out in force, and they are driving our men crazy. They've constantly been getting into the way; making things worse; and shooting at almost anything that moves."
