Tales Of The Sazi 05 - Moon's Fury (20 page)

He nodded and did the same. "Adam.”

She repeated the word several times, making it sound more like
Aah-dome,
but it was close enough and he nodded.

Lucas closed the folder in front of him and turned around. He smiled at Ziri and said something in Mayan, with a much smoother, conversational tone than in the desert. He must have gotten some practice over the evening. It made her nod and move to the other side of the room and spin the television on the turntable away from them, so Lucas could sit down next to him and they wouldn't get distracted. Adam raised his brows and gestured toward Ziri with his head. "Anything new?”

Lucas let out a little frustrated sigh. "Not enough. She definitely saw something out there, but I don't know if dragging it out of her will do anything more than traumatize her. I'd rather find the information some other way if I can. I made some calls and found a small resort near her village that was willing to send a runner to let her family know about the accident, and that she's okay. I'm thinking we might want to keep her housed here for awhile. Sending her back would be an insult to her family, and I'm not willing to send her forward to her original destination. I can't take her along when I leave, so that leaves here.”

A thought occurred to him. "Any idea how old she is?”

Lucas nodded. "She's fifteen, although she doesn't look it. She's the oldest child, which is why she came here to find work. It's probably a good thing she didn't understand what was in store for her. Those birds probably saved her from a sweatshop where she'd earn pennies, or winding up in some pimp's stable.”

He certainly agreed. "Cara's sister, Rosa, has a daughter just Ziri's age. The father works for the post office, and Rosa has a part-time restaurant so she's able to say home with the kids a lot. If Ziri just spoke a little English, or even Spanish—”

"Actually, I've been working on that." He raised his voice. "Ziri.”

She turned her eyes to Lucas, and struggled not to flick them back to the brightly colored animation on the screen. "Can you understand what we're saying here?”

"A leetle…yes?”

He answered in Mayan and she went back to the program. "I've been spending time touching her mind, trying to implant words and some syntax. Sort of like a mental Berlitz course. She can carry on a simple conversation right now, but it'll be better by the time I leave. I'll talk to Cara about placing her with the sister until I get back. Good thought." He paused and then went serious. "So, what can I do for you, Adam?”

He swallowed hard and took another sip. "I…I think the council needs to find another alpha for down here. I don't think I can …
work
effectively with Car…Alpha Salinas." He tried desperately to keep his mind blank as to the reason and watched the other man carefully to see how he reacted. Lucas's face remained studiously blank. "Ah. Well, then you'll be happy to know that Cara dropped by this morning on her way to work with the same request.”

She did?
His jaw dropped and the coffee cup nearly fell from his hand. Rather than happy, Adam discovered it made him angry and…
hurt.
Didn't she think he had any control? Or was she questioning his ability to be a good pack leader? He noticed Lucas watching his reaction and pulled himself together, nodding sharply once. "Oh. Good. Then it's settled.”

The other man smiled slightly and raised up his cup. But before he took a sip, he said, "Not really. I told her no. She has my bottle of cologne, and that should help block her scent for the time being.”

Relief mixed with horror, and blended with …what? He didn't know and he couldn't even think to reply.

Lucas continued on as though he hadn't reacted, dropping the subject completely and moving to a new, or rather, an
old
topic. "Oh and, I've been doing some thinking since then about our discussion here yesterday. And doing some checking around, too. I was just about to make a call to another agent. I'd like you to listen in because it directly affects you." He reached out and put down the cup, then picked up his cell phone and pressed the down arrow until he reached the number he wanted. After three rings, the call was picked up by a man with a medium baritone. "Yeah? What's up, Lucas?”

"Can you catch a flight to Minneapolis today, Tony? I need your particular expertise to find out whether someone is telling me the truth about some questions I asked.”

Adam could hear the muffled reply of the man— presumably agent—named Tony. He must be new, since nobody by that name was with Wolven when he was an agent. "Hell yes! Anything to get away from these damned hundred-year-old files. The paper falls apart in my hands. Haven't you people

—and I use that term loosely—ever heard of microfiche or scanning?”

The chortle was nearly a growl, as though Lucas was indulging the man …barely. "Yes. And we dismissed the idea. Tapes can be stolen and so can data. File folders with brittle paper are more difficult to slip in a jacket pocket without anyone noticing. And it's tough to fit even a single page of parchment the size of the Declaration of Independence in a sock, if you know what I mean. Now, when you get to Minneapolis, you need to seek out the pack leader, Josef Isaacson. He's your mark.”

"Mm-hmm. And am I there for interrogation or enforcement? It's getting harder to get guns on a plane on short notice. That'll cost you big bucks.”

Adam's eyebrows rose, but he didn't comment. Since when did Wolven members need to use guns on pack leaders? And when did agents start dictating their own pay?

Lucas shook his head, as though the man on the other side of the call could see him. His voice was confident and commanding, with a hint of danger around the edges. It was as though he wore a different persona when talking to this agent. "No guns. I don't want you to do anything to Josef if you discover he's lying. He's out of your league, and I don't want him put down without council orders. I just want you to
overhear
a conversation between him and his Second, Adam Mueller, from two weeks ago. That's
Adam …
M-u-e-1-l-e-r. Write it down. It was a private meeting, in Josef's office, and they were discussing splitting the pack. I'm getting two different stories on what happened and so far, I'm believing Mueller." He nodded to Adam with that, and ignored his dropped jaw at the conversation. What in the hell was being discussed here?

"Don't let Isaacson know what you're doing. Specifically, I want to know whether he told Mueller to come to Texas this week. Oh, and if you can find out whether he later had any conversations with a Vivian Carmichael— leggy honey-blonde and all around scheming alpha bitch— I'd like to hear about that, too. If he does make you, keep him in place until I get there in about three days. Alive, but wounded is fine.”

"Should I take Bobby along with me? He's in a mood for …
wounded.”

Lucas appeared surprised and pursed his lips. "Agent Mbutu's in Chicago? Are he and Asri—?" He let the statement hang, as though not quite sure what to say.

Tony chuckled just as Adam smiled at the name. Damn. Robart Mbutu! He didn't know anyone named Asri, but he remembered the African chemist fondly. They'd shared a love of chocolate—even though the python agent could never fully enjoy candy because he tasted each ingredient separately, rather than as a whole. "Nah. Nothing like that. But his lovely wife doesn't do morning sickness very well. Asri …
suggested
he take a hike for a few weeks, so she didn't slice him up by accident—accidentally on purpose, in my opinion. He'd
hoped
the second trimester would be better, but…not so much.”

A burst of laughter from Lucas sounded both delighted and pitying. "Yeah, I wouldn't bet on that. The dragon women of Komodo weren't ever known for looking fondly on their mates until the eggs were safely underground. Morning sickness lasted all the way through the pregnancy. But don't tell him I said so. He's the one who wanted to
breed,
so he can find out the reason why there aren't many snakes or dragons anymore. Yeah, do take along Bobby. There's nothing Josef can throw that he can't handle. If you can hook him into the vision, that would be even better. Then there'll be no question if the council wants corroboration. Just don't make a scene or take anyone out. I don't want any loose ends with the pack or the public to clean up when I get there.”

The other man's voice had a questioning tone. "You're on the a la carte menu now, you know.”

"We'll discuss it when I get there. Just get moving and call me when you've got him in a secure location." Lucas pressed the end button without another word, or waiting for a response. Then he flipped down the cover on the phone and looked at Adam with raised brows.

"So, you might be winding up with the Minnesota pack, depending on what the council decides after hearing the evidence. Will that be more to your liking?”

He couldn't decide what to say or do and Lucas let him take his time. Finally, he fought his way around to the main question. "Did I just hear you put a
hit
on my pack leader? For crissake, he's going to know what you just said through the pack connection!”

Lucas nodded and took another casual sip, apparently choosing to ignore the roiling scents that rose from Adam enough he nearly choked on them himself.

"Not a hit. Not yet. And no, he won't have a clue what's coming. Let me give you a little background and bring you up to date on what your
pack leader
has been up to lately." He grabbed a file folder from the bed and tossed it into Adam's lap. "This is a statement I took last night from Vivian. After a little …
gentle persuasion,
she admitted Josef sent you down here for the express purpose of killing you. I'm not quite sure why she thought she'd be safe from the same fate, but she was pretty convinced of it.”

Adam was busy reading the statement, written in a bold, masculine hand that seemed to fit Lucas's personality. The words she said Josef called him—
traitor, motherless cur, murderer
—spun in his mind.

“The council didn't order you to be the Alpha here. They gave full authority to the pack leaders to make the final decisions. And Josef never talked to me, nor any other council member. I asked. No, you were sent here to die and, in fact, have been cut off from the pack for over a week. It's why you've been irritable and depressed. You've been pining for your pack mates. Fortunately for you, though, he had no way of knowing how lenient Cara is about strange wolves in her territory. I really didn't know either, until I met her." He sighed and shook his head. "But if Vivian wasn't lying …and I doubt she could

…then he expected you to be slaughtered for coming here, either by Cara or me. He knew I was coming here and had ordered everyone to stay away until I met with Cara's pack.”

Adam heard an almost eerily calm tone in his voice that betrayed none of the emotions swirling through his head. "He blames me for his son's death, and for the pack split. I'd suspected that, but he swore otherwise and I could never tell when he was lying, because of his natural scent.”

Closing the file didn't remove the words from his mind. He wasn't pack anymore. But he could swear he could still feel them, in the background. Were they only memories? Is that why he attached to Cara so completely and…
desperately?
And what did that mean for the other pack members who would be cut off before coming down here?

Lucas's voice was sad. "I'm starting to think Josef's gone completely insane over Tyr's death. It's happened before and, if so, then he's a danger to everyone up there. Tony Giambrocco is a new turn—

an attack victim who is gifted, or some might say
cursed,
with hindsight. He'll be able to tell me, and the council, everything that went on behind closed doors as though he was there.”

That perked Adam's ears. "You have a
seer
in Wolven now? And he can see the past? Wow, would that speed up case resolution!”

Lucas laughed with a trace of bitterness. "Yeah, but he doesn't come cheap. He has no loyalty to the Sazi, and trying to rein him in with discipline only serves to make him more stubborn, so we have to pay him better than the competition. He was a freelance assassin as a human, working for the Mafia and is a lone wolf—unable to be bound to a pack because of his mate. He's quite possibly the only three-day wolf to ever become an agent and certainly the only one with a per job fee arrangement. But he's not in Wolven just because of his gift, so don't piss him off when you meet him. He's turned bullets into a whole new kind of obstacle on the Wolven training course—one that's even impressed a few council members.”

A Mafia hitman seer who works for Wolven because it's the highest bidder? Bobby Mbutu married and about to become the father of
dragons?
"This sounds like the plot of a bad reality TV show. You sure you're not bullshitting me?”

Another laugh, but this one was amused. Lucas relaxed back into his seat. "You ought to hear what's happening in the
council.
It's a whole new world in Paris. But that's beside the point. For the moment, what I need you to do is work with Cara for the next two days and give me a list of people to bring back." He raised a hand to stop Adam's protest. "Just deal with it, Agent. If you can't stand to be in the same room together even after the cologne …and I
don't
want to know the details, then make the plans by phone. But I want a firm list of twelve families ready to take back with me by five o'clock on Friday—and you need to start making a decision …do you want to come back to join this pack or not?

If you say yes, then you're off the list to take over Minnesota if we need to replace Josef.”

Adam took a deep breath and nodded. Cut and dried, just that simple—at least for Lucas. But for two packs, the decisions he and Cara made could change the lives of a dozen people forever. "If you have to put Josef down, there's a chance that neither pack will follow me as Alpha. They're the same people, and they're loyal to him.”

Lucas shook his head lightly, with tiny movements. "People will follow any good leader, Adam. But leaders make mistakes. It's how you
deal
with those mistakes that determines whether they'll trust you enough to
keep
following.”