Crimson Moon - Never Cry Werewolf Part 8

"All right. I get it."

He eyed her and she stuck out her tongue at him.

"But here's the problema"we have to talk in code." She shrugged and began walking toward the shadows. "They have my apartment monitoreda"I can tell, and they did it before. Doc never talks straight on an open line, because with the big eye in the sky, they can intercept cell phone transmissions anda""

"Okay, okay, I get it," he said, holding up his hands and cutting her off.

"I'm not supposed to be involved in any investigations . . . directly . . . per se," she said with a sheepish grin. "I may have done something to, uhm ... set them offa"but I covered my tracks, so I won't be directly in the line of fire, I think. It's Madison's word against mine and the cameras don't lie soa""

Hunter frowned. "Baby, what are you talking about?"

"Nothing, really, I just want you to understand that and I don't want you to be worried about the political stuff going down with the military. All right?"

I won't be as long as you're not caged," he said carefully. "They should have no reason to take away any more of your freedom, especially if your contact will be feeding you valuable intel about the happenings that the a.s.shole with a coupla bars on his chest wouldn't be able to get in a million years."

"That could work," she said, laughing, and then looked away with mischief blazing in her eyes.

"Then I'll come pull you into a shadow, ravish you in the way of the wolf, and you can claim that some rogue just had his way."

He grinned a wide grin, and she laughed harder.

"What's an unarmed soldier to do," she said with a wink. "Travel well."

She blew him a kiss and stepped into a shadow. He remained watching the spot where she'd been and then closed his eyes to draw in her lingering sweet scent.

Great Spirit help him, if anything happened to her.

"This sucks!" Sasha walked out of the closet to see her bed flipped over and all her dresser drawers on the floor.

Seeing this in the morning just p.i.s.sed her off all over again. Before she called Hunter, she needed to calm down. Stepping over the mess, she glanced into the bathroom, only to see her medicine cabinet flung wide open and over-the-counter meds on the floor and sink. Tampons were flung everywhere, and a crushed box had a boot mark on it. She counted to ten as she went into the living room and just stood there. The wall unit was down, and the flat-screen television hadn't survived. Good thing Mrs. Baker had taken in her goldfish, Fred, who'd happily died of overfeeding at her handsa"most likely beat suffocating on the floor.

"I don't like you, either, you b.u.t.t-wipe," she said, beginning to right furniture. "But was all this necessary?"

She reached out and touched her silvery image, which was sitting in the only chair in the room that wasn't completely destroyed and watched it quickly merge with her body, hoping like h.e.l.l that anyone watching would think the flicker was just a digital transmission distortion.

But Sasha just shook her head as she stared down at the boot print on her sofa cus.h.i.+on. When she glanced at her small kitchen pa.s.s-though, it was obvious that any gla.s.s dish she owned was probably shattered. Small appliances, like her microwave and coffeemaker, were hammered on the floor. Every cabinet door was open and of course the neighbors probably hadn't heard a thing. All this because some guy got his a.s.s waxed in a parking lot. What a b.i.t.c.h.

A knock at the door gave her a start, and she was glad to have an eyewitness to this travesty. Only her guys or Doc would come over after something like this went down, and they were good company to have at a time like this. The pounding got louder and she hurried to open the door.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming." She threw open the door and froze, not expecting to see MPs.

"Captain Sasha Trudeau?"

She looked from one pair of mirrored aviator sungla.s.ses to the other. "Yes."

"You are hereby remanded to the custody of the United States Army."

CHAPTER 10.

She remained extremely calm on the entire ride to the base. Okay, admittedly it was a bad plan, and she had this coming. But there was information she'd wanted to try to get while down there in New Orleans, plus she knew in her soul that an entire squad had been sent on a suicide mission. If she could have saved them, she would have. Getting Hunter involved in all of that would have put a target on the man's forehead or possibly gotten him killed. And had he known she'd gone, the fight would have lasted all night long when there wasn't time for that. The only good thing she'd learned while away was that whatever had come for Sir Rodney had pa.s.sed through his system, and he swore an oath that he'd send his best purge specialists to check out Clarissa.

A hundred postbattle rationalizations fought inside Sasha's head on the very silent ride to the base. What the h.e.l.l had she been thinking?

The poor MPs who had come to collect her seemed as though they were ready to jump out of their skins. The scent of fear and adrenaline soaked their clothing, even though she'd come out of her apartment and gotten into the jeep like a model citizen. Still, she knew it wouldn't take much provocation for a man to get skittish and draw. Then that would get complicated, unnecessarily so. Therefore the best thing to do would be to chill until she could figure out what had happened. She was sure Colonel Madison didn't appreciate the save, rat b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

As the MPs processed her in at the base, the grim faces around her seemed as though they wanted a reason, any reason, to frag her on the spot. Then she realized she wasn't headed for the Situation Rooma"but rather a cell? Holy Christ... she hadn't called Hunter, and he'd have a cow.

"Can I speak to Doca"I mean, Doctor Xavier Holland, who was originally on thea""

"Ma'am, we are not authorized to bring any visitors or have any discussion about your incarceration."

The MP had cut her off and abruptly left. But ma'am... not Captain. WTF? Oh, so now that the word was out about her being a supernatural, she was no longer one of them? No longer had rank in uniform that she'd earned? Even more importantly, incarceration? Okay, now it was time for some answers. Yeah, she had violated an order, but she'd also come to the aid of men under fire, and had kept her commanding officer's a.s.s alive.

Sasha sat down on the cot and stared at the floor. After about an hour, judging from the drips of water beating the metal sink and fraying her nerves, General Westford arrived at the bars with Doc and Colonel Madison. Two armed military police escorts stood in the background. Sasha immediately got to her feet.

"I have only allowed you to talk to this animal as a courtesy," Colonel Madison said, pointing at Sasha.

"Now, wait just a minute," Doc countered, glaring at the colonel.

"This is a fine officer, not an animal. Have you lost your mind?" General Westbrook shouted. "You have no evidence!"

"I lost four good men in ways you don't want to imagine down there in the bayou!" Colonel Madison shouted. "I was there! She was there!"

General Westford and Doc looked at Sasha hard.

"You violated a direct order, Captain?" General Westford spoke through his teeth.

Doc closed his eyes.

"You lost four men because you wouldn't fall back when I told you the ent.i.ty out there wasn't anything we'd cataloged yet!" Sasha shouted, looking at Colonel Madison, clutching the bars. "We definitely need to talk, sir."

"Where were you last night?" General Westford said, anger burning in his eyes as he approached the bars.

"Trying to keep Colonel Madison and his men alive," Sasha said, her gaze steady on the colonel. "I knew they were walking into an ambush anda""

"Tell me how you knew?" Colonel Madison shouted. "She ate my men, she butchered them!"

Sasha shook her head in disbelief as General Westford walked away from the bars and dragged his fingers through his hair.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Captain?" Colonel Madison yelled. "Is that how you planned to get back your command, by murdering my men!"

Sasha just stared at him for a moment, unable to answer such a ludicrous charge.

"What are you going to do, waterboard her if she doesn't answer you?" Doc said, and then turned away to look at Sasha.

"If we have to, that's an affirmative, sir," Madison said, his voice dripping with hatred.

"I know you don't believe that," General Westford said, but his voice had much less force in it than Sasha had hoped it would.

Disbelief filled Doc's eyes and resonated in his tone. "Don't you speak until you get legal counsel, Sasha. This is bulls.h.i.+t."

"This visit is over," Colonel Madison said. "General, you were relieved of duty yesterday by the secretary of defensea"this is my post now. I was the one who saw men butchered, and after this suspect is interrogated under the laws sealed by the Patriot Act, as well as sanctioned by the Department of Justicea""

"Look at the tapes from my apartment, sir," Sasha said quickly. Her gaze shot from Doc to General Westford. "I know I've been under surveillance, but I bet he didn't know to what extent. I have nothing to hide and will fully cooperate. He is the one who would do anything to pin some horrific crime on me. This man trashed my apartment, came to a civilian location wearing a sidearm off post! Bring in a military tribunal, p.r.o.nto. Get someone to take my statement. I'll submit to a polygraph test, sodium pentothal, you name it, because I did not go after anyone. I did not savage his squad, I went down there to save them and to gather vital intel that he'd never get in a million years. Eating people? The thought is abhorrent, and I want out of here so I can help find who took out our men."

When Colonel Madison didn't immediately respond but glared at her with hatred, Sasha looked from him to the general.

"Whatever happened last night, I can account for being up in North Country and then, yeah, I slipped into a shadow and went down to New Orleansa"but fell head-first into a firefight. Before I even left to head north, though, and way before I even went to New Orleans, I stopped back at my apartment only to find Colonel Madison and one of his lieutenants tras.h.i.+ng it."

"That's a lie!" Colonel Madison shouted, rus.h.i.+ng the bars. "We were looking for evidence that woulda""

"You were angry, sir, because you baited a fight with a civiliana"my Shadow Wolf contact at Ronnie's Road Hog, where I bet I can give you a dozen eyewitnesses." Sasha turned to the general and continued speaking. "Colonel Madison then took the fight outside with an armed squad, he and four of his men. When the fight did not go as he'd obviously planned between him and the civilian, he drew on not only me but also my team, which consisted of two unarmed soldiers, Lieutenants Woods and Fisher, as well as three unarmed civilians." Sasha's gaze narrowed on Colonel Madison. "There-fore, if I am being held and charged with some unknown offense, I'd like to enter a formal complaint in the records."

"And that's why I know you killed my men in retaliation!" Colonel Madison shouted. "You followed us to New Orleans to butcher us!"

"That's a lie! I went down there to help you, because I knew by the way you led them against us in the parking lot that, if you took them to live action against supernaturals as unprepared as you were, people were gonna die. And they did!"

"What!" General Westford bellowed. "Open this G.o.dd.a.m.ned cell this minute, Colonel, or I'll have you sitting in a cell beside Captain Trudeau until we get to the bottom of this."

"Have you seen the remains that were flown back?" Colonel Madison shouted, spittle flying. "Let's go take a walk to the morgue, sir, and then you decide. And if she knew we had come to search her apartment for evidence of consorting with known targets of value, then she had reason to be further enraged and to ambush us! If she didn't do it, then she knows who did! There'a also the career aspect of thisa"to take out a squad before they've served one night would put her back in command as the most knowledgeable on the subject. This was sabotagea"treason!"

"In my professional opinion, General," Doc said loudly with a narrowed gaze, "I think this man is having a psychotic break and needs a sedative along with a thorough psychiatric eval for post-traumatic stress syndrome. Then again ... as the project leader for Operation Dog Star, I've seen men in combat who've hunted Werewolvesa"-seen them come back nicked, scratched, bitten, and acting erratic." Doc smiled a hard half smile as the MPs behind Colonel Madison backed up quietly and took the safeties off their weapons. "You might need to be quarantineda"testing could take at least a month to see how you respond under the next full moon ... it takes that long for the virus to set in."

"I wasn't nicked, and you know it, Holland!" Colonel Madison shouted.

"I don't know anything," Doc countered. "You were never examined to my knowledge."

"No, siree," General Westford said with a smirk. "But that does need to be added to the emergency report to the Joint Chiefs."

"This is bull," Colonel Madison said, wheeling around. "I'm clean!"

"You were the sole survivor of a brutal wolf attack," Doc said evenly, rage burning in his eyes. "Every man with you went down and was eaten, and only you. . . for some strange reason . . . liveda"with a full magazine of ammo still left. Interesting .. . curious, actually. We can test the contents of Captain Trudeau's digestive tract to find out if she ate one of your men .. . that might only take a day. But you'll need at least a month of quarantine. Care to wager aa""

"You know I wasn't scratched or bitten! We can go to the labs right now and I'll strip!"

"Doesn't matter. The infected generally heal immediately, the initial wounds are hidden, they have in-creased metabolic rates anda""

"Enough! I know what you're trying to do and it won't work!"

Doc Holland moved in close to Madison and spoke quietly enough that the MPs standing by couldn't hear him. "I've been in the military a long time, and I worked through all the bureaucracy long before your a.s.s was out of diapersa"so don't f.u.c.k with me, son. And if you ever pull a stunt like this against Captain Trudeau again, I swear you'll find yourself in a padded cell baying at the G.o.dd.a.m.ned moon."

Once tempers cooled, she was glad to be back in the Situation Room. It beat a jail cell. More important than any career jockeying or grandstanding, four men in uniform had died, along with two civilians. In the weeks to come, after all the forensic testing and PR damage control, there would be memorials, and families would finally have a chance to say good-bye. It didn't matter that Madison's men had trashed her apartment. They were still somebody's sons, husbands, and possibly fathers. Someone would grieve.

In the grand scheme of things, the offense of vandalism could have been taken outside and handled the old-fas.h.i.+oned way, and it truly hurt her soul that Colonel Madison actually thought she'd slaughter any human being. And for what, something as stupid as disrespect, tras.h.i.+ng some furniturea"things easily replaceable? Didn't he think she had enough humanity within her to respect life, all life? That was the part of it that simply blew her away, his complete incomprehension. Prejudice had blinded him, and the man had lost his grip on one core fundamental: No one deserved what had happened, especially not given the brutal nature of the killings.

A cool s.h.i.+ver ran down Sasha's spine. She sat back from the gruesome forensic pictures for a moment. All eyes were on her, except Colonel Madison's. But this time she addressed him with respect in her tone. Fear did strange things to people, and after what the man had been through, she was willing to extend a little compa.s.sion in his direction.

"Colonel," she said in a firm but gentle manner. "Maybe we got off on the wrong foot. We both have a job to do and love this country and want to protect the people in it. For what it's worth, I am very sorry for what happened to your men. I might not have had a chance to meet them under the best of circ.u.mstances, but they were ours. They stood up for the same flag. So I want you to know that, no matter what you may think of me personally, I will help you in whatever way you allow me to find out who did this. There are things crawling around down there in that swamp that deserve our respecta""

"Our respect?" Colonel Madison said, leaning forward.

"Our respect, sir, as vicious killing machines that know no bounds. I came in contact with the enemy on several occasions ... once, unfortunately, it was one of ours. My commanding officer, then, Captain Rod Butlera"and I had to put him down."

"Are you threatening me, Captain?" Colonel Madison said, eyes wild with a combination of rage and disbelief.

"No, sir, not at all. And I mean that, sir. I am just saying that I know what it's like to lose members of your unit. I know what this beast can do when it goes up against human flesh and bone. Your men were not prepared for that eventuality, sira"in my humble opinion. If you would allow me to share my expertise with you, I can possibly keep your replacement team out of harm's way ... but you have to allow me to do my job, sir."

"And just what is your job? You are so far out of line and out of order, Captain, that it is stupefying. You plan to sit here and tell me what your job is after you've been relieved of duty because of a failed missiona"of all the arrogance . . ." Colonel Madison shook his head and folded his arms over his chest. "You are so amazingly beyond redemption on this, I actually want to hear what you have to say, Captain," he added with a sneer, and then glanced down the table at Doc and General Westford.

"My job has always been to find and eliminate any threat to humanity, especially to the citizens of the United States of America, sir." Sasha didn't blink or stutter as she held Colonel Madison's gaze. "I know this enemy, sir. I know how it feeds, know how to track it. I have Native American contacts that have kept this predator at bay for centuries. I also know the political nuances among the various supernatural factions and nations. The regional dynamics are more complicated than those in the Middle East, if I may speak freely, sir . . . and if you go mucking around down there without a guide or without understanding the different species and how they attack, you will jeopardize your mission, your men, and possibly your life."

General Westford folded his beefy hands in front of him. "I think this recent development, along with all of its nuances, as the captain so aptly put it, needs to be reported to the Joint Chiefs."

Change within the military was an agonizingly slow process. Sasha sat with her team in their old offices at NORAD waiting on word from General Westford's meeting. As the old project leader with twenty-five-plus years of experience, Doc was able to sit in, at least. But the morale damage to her Paranormal Containment Unit had already been done.

Speaking in hushed tones, her team strategized career options while she watched the clock. She had to get a call off to Hunter soon or else he'd wig. Then there was the not-so-distant worry about his safety tugging at the back of her mind. They'd all seen their share of demon-infected Weres. If a rogue like Lady Jung Suk was on the loose or in attack mode, even a seasoned Shadow Wolf warrior had to be on guard.

"Screw it," Winters whispered. "If we all send in our resignations on the same day, what can they do? No-body has our level of expertise on the subject. Then I can set up a company just like that on Legalboom dot-com," he added, snapping his fingers. "It would be an LLC, a limited liability corp, and we could hub out of Denver, or better yet out of New Orleans, ya know. Properties are going for real cheap down there nowa"and we'd better hurry before all this paranormal media blitz drives the rentals through the roof. Soon everybody'll be trying to get an office set up down there."

"Right," Fisher said, pounding Winters's fist. "Me and Woods got the backup and security for clientsa" you know we come locked and loaded .. .'Rissa and Bradley can do the forensics, since they know all that dark arts c.r.a.p . . . same with Doc. Like, we so do not have to take this s.h.i.+t."

"Yeah, and what about the fact that they've got our apartments under surveillance," Woods muttered. "As a private citizen, I'd have my rights."

"In your dreams," Bradley said, slumping with his head in his hands. "The Patriot Act killed that. .. heard NSA even has some journalists on their lista" plus guys serving overseas. Remember that big scandal that broke on MSNBC where they were listening in on people's private conversations with their wives and girlfriends? They've got phone s.e.x on tape just for grins, as though that would produce any terrorist leads. So you know the boys in Homeland Security would tail us, given what we do."

"I am so screwed, man," Fisher said, dragging his fingers through his hair. "Like, dude, they really listen in on those conversations?"

"You should watch the news more often," Clarissa said with a sigh. "Or maybe read a few serious articles from time to time, Fish."

"That's what I have you guys for in my lifea"who wants to sit up late nights watching talking heads, 'Rissa? You're the researcher, not me," Fisher complained.

"Yeah, well, speaking of researcha"as much as this government gig p.i.s.ses me off with the way they've just shunted us aside, this is the resource mother lode." Clarissa blew out a breath in frustration, making a stray wisp of blond hair from her bangs float off her forehead. "h.e.l.lo . . . labs, ammo, the best research environment and technology a geek like me could ever dream of. That ain't gonna happen in a shack in New Orleans, guys. Any of you got investment capital? Do you have any idea what a real microscope costs, not to mention all the s.e.xy stuff we get to work with for free? We are in a recession, last I checked. And I haven't even begun talking about medical and dental. Face it, we're lifers."

"Stop being so negative, 'Rissa. You're giving me a case of the hives. We own expertise . . . like how many times do people quit their gig on a Friday and go back to work at the same desk for ten times what they made on a Monday? You have to negotiate a contract, take risks. h.e.l.l, if Blackwater can do it, we sure can."