Moon Called (28 page)

I hid my satisfaction. The more powerful the wolves believed Bran, the safer he was.

We rode with Christiansen and his grandsons for most of the way, me as human and Samuel in wolf form. He'd shifted again at my house because other wolves can sense the change.

David dropped us off about a mile from the site with directions on how to get there. The idea was for me and Samuel to sneak up on our own. Then I'd see if I could wriggle my way through a hole in the side of the warehouse where Adam and Jesse were being kept, and Samuel would rendezvous with Adam's pack and wait until they were called in.

Adam and Jesse were being held at a tree farm, nestled in the rolling lands just south of Benton City, a small town about twenty minutes outside of Richland.

Though the tree farm was closed, there were still acres of trees unharvested. I recognized various maples and oaks as we passed, as well as a few pines.

A huge pole building, obviously the warehouse David
had told me about, was nestled well behind the manufactured home. The house was boarded up, and there was a Realtor's sign beside it proudly proclaiming it SOLD.

Samuel at my side, I crouched in a ditch surrounded by a thicket of Russian olive and gave the place a good looking over. From where I sat, I couldn't see any vehicles, so they were probably all parked on the other side of the warehouse.

Christiansen had told us that the tree farm had been purchased by a local winery that intended to use the land to grow grapes. Since they wouldn't plant until the coming spring, the whole thing—house and warehouse—was supposed to be empty until then.

The Realtor's sign told me that one of Adam's wolves had indeed betrayed him and gave me a name.

I pulled out my cell phone and called Darryl's number. By this time, I had it memorized.

“Have you gotten in touch with John Cavanaugh, yet?” I asked. John Cavanaugh was one of the wolves I didn't know very well—he'd been at Warren's for our council of war.

“We haven't been able to locate him.”

I heaved a sigh of relief that Darryl ignored, still lost in his irritation at not being told exactly what we were doing. He wasn't happy at having to follow Samuel's orders, either.

“As
instructed
, I'm not leaving messages on answering machines. That means we are going to be short a lot of people.”

“I'm looking at John Cavanaugh's name on a Realtor's sign outside of the tree farm where they're holding Adam,” I told him.

There was a long pause.

“I see,” he said thoughtfully, and hung up. Not one for long good-byes, our Darryl, but a smart man. John Cavanaugh wouldn't be called for this rescue—or any other. Maybe it should have bothered me more that I had just signed a man's death warrant, but I'd wait and see how Adam and Jesse came out of it before I felt sorry for Cavanaugh.

Beside me, Samuel whined softly.

“All right,” I told him, and began disrobing. It was cold out. Not as cold as Montana, but too chilly to do anything but fling clothes off as fast as I could—while being careful not to stick myself on the Russian-olive thorns. I folded my clothes, somewhat haphazardly, and turned off my cell phone.

“You don't have to wait for me to get in,” I told him again.

He just stared at me.

I heaved a put-upon sigh, then I shifted. Delightfully warm again, I stretched, wagged my tail at Samuel, and headed out for the warehouse. It was still daylight, so I took a circuitous route to avoid being seen. I was aware of Samuel trailing me, though I never saw him. Quite impressive considering his coloring—white is good for a Montana winter, but winter in eastern Washington is usually gray and brown.

One corner of the aluminum side of the warehouse was bent up, just a little, right where Christiansen had told me it would be. I had to work at it, but I got inside at the cost of a little fur. My nose told me that another coyote and several smaller critters had used the same route within the past few months. If Gerry or one of his wolves caught my scent, hopefully they'd just think another coyote had gotten in.

The interior of the warehouse was cavernous and no warmer than it had been outside. Somehow, though Christiansen had said I wouldn't have any problem finding a place to hide, I'd expected it to be empty. Instead it was filled with hundreds, maybe thousands of crates, pallet-sized with three-foot-tall plywood sides, warped by moisture and wear. The crates were stacked three high on racks that reached to the ceiling, maybe thirty feet over my head.

The air smelled musty. As I looked around, I saw there was a sprinkler system set up and drains in the floor. It made sense, I suppose. When the warehouse was full of trees, they would have had to keep the plants moist somehow until they shipped them.

I found a stack whose bottom crate bore a sheet of paper that said
“Hamamelis Virginiana—Witch Hazel 3'–4'.”
It
was empty, but the astringent smell of the shrub still clung to the gray wood. I could have hidden inside the top crate, but I'd be easy to see while I was jumping in or out. Instead, I curled up on the cement between the bottom crate and the metal exterior wall, as safe as I could be under the circumstances.

The plan was for me to wait for one of David's sons to come and get me. They were going to “do the extraction” (David's words) at night, which was still a few hours away.

Gerry had been having problems with Adam. Even with the tranquilizer, they'd found that having guards in the room they were keeping him in made him too agitated. They remembered the way he'd broken through their restraints at his house, so they did their best to keep him calm: that meant most of the time he and Jesse were alone with a guard outside the room. Gerry's scent bothered Adam enough that he'd had to stay out of the warehouse entirely.

Although we weren't getting Jesse and Adam out for a few hours, I could go in with them and do my best to get Adam ready to be rescued.

We'd argued about that. David had wanted me to wait until his man was on guard duty near dusk, but I didn't want to leave Adam and Jesse alone any longer than they had to be. David thought the risk of discovery was too high.

Samuel settled the argument. “Let her go. She's going to do it anyway, and this way we can reduce the risks.”

David hadn't been happy, but he'd bowed to higher authority—and better judgment. Samuel was right. I wasn't about to let Adam and Jesse wait around without protection when I could be there with them. Gerry was the only wolf who would know my scent, and he was staying away from the warehouse. All the other wolves would just assume I was a coyote, and there were lots of coyotes around.

I still had to wait for escort, though, which might be a long time coming, but it was safer than having me wander
around looking for where they were hiding Adam and Jesse.

It is impossible to stay in the state of readiness while waiting motionless. Eventually I fell into a light doze that lasted for maybe an hour before the newly familiar smell of John-Julian woke me.

I crept out cautiously, but he was alone, with my pack over one shoulder. He didn't talk to me, just turned and threaded his way through the crates to a section of the warehouse that looked as though it had been offices. Like the crates, they were stacked one atop the other, three high.

He climbed the stairs to the middle tier, where the far door had a bright and shiny dead-bolt lock that made it stand out from the others. When he turned the bolt and opened the door, I darted inside and stopped.

No wonder Gerry left them with only one guard at a time. There was no chance either Jesse or Adam would escape on their own.

Jesse was lying on a bare mattress. Someone had wrapped duct tape around the lower half of her face, covering her mouth, hair, and neck. Getting it off was going to be nasty business. Handcuffs held her wrists together, and a climber's rope secured the handcuffs to the two-by-four bed frame. Her ankles were bound together and tied to the foot of the bed, making it impossible for her to do much more than wiggle.

She stared at John-Julian with dull eyes—and didn't seem to notice me at all. She was wearing pajamas, probably what she'd been wearing when they'd taken her, those soft cottony plaid things with a T-shirt top. On the white underside of her left arm was a bruise so dark it appeared black rather than purple.

Adam was seated in a chair obviously made by the same style-impaired carpenter who'd thrown together the bed frame. It was crude, made of two-by-fours and lag bolts, though I don't suppose they were worried about style. Heavy manacles, just like something you'd expect in a wax
museum or medieval torture chamber—held his wrists onto the chair arms and a second set held his ankles to the chair legs. But even destroying the chair wouldn't free him because there were enough silver chains wrapped around him to have funded the local school system for a year.

“Gerry won't come here,” said John-Julian to me. Adam opened his eyes, just a bare fraction, and I saw that his irises were yellow gold and blazing with rage. “His presence has the same effect on Adam that my grandfather's does. Not even the drugs are enough to keep Adam calm—so Gerry will stay away. Our man is only on guard for another five minutes. The next one is the enemy; but after that, Shawn, one of our men, takes over for a two-hour shift.”

John-Julian continued giving me information I already knew, repeated to make sure I understood. “Shawn'll come in to help you as he can. The guards are supposed to stay downstairs, except when they first come on shift. But you need to leave both of them bound until Shawn takes over guard duty in case they don't. There's one guard watching the prisoners, and there are four men on patrol over the property. One of those is supposed to just walk around the outside of the warehouse. There's electricity and satellite TV in the house, so most of them are in there when they're not on duty. No one really expects Adam's pack to find them this soon, so they're not on high alert.”

David's men were doing the lion's share of guarding the prisoners because Gerry didn't have many people he could trust with a helpless fifteen-year-old girl—that not being a talent much in demand in the world of crazy mercenaries and lone wolves. David said that Gerry had paid them to stay and work guard duty. Gerry seemed to believe that David wouldn't work against him as long as he was paying them.

While John-Julian was talking, I glanced around the room, which wasn't exactly bursting with places to hide. As long as they didn't come all the way in, I could conceal myself behind the door or in the big, sliding-door closet—
some clichés are clichés because they work. There was no reason for the guards to search the room as long as Adam and Jesse were still there.

Jesse finally stirred as she realized he wasn't talking to her. She twisted awkwardly until she got a good look at me, then made a harsh noise behind her gag.

“Shh,” he told her, then said to me. “You've got about four hours. We'll create a diversion—not my job, but you'll know it when you hear it. Your job is to get these two down the stairs and into the room nearest the big garage door. Grandpa will find you there, and we'll escort you out.”

I nodded, and he set the pack he carried on the floor.

“Good luck,” he said quietly, and left, locking the door behind him.

I shifted as soon as the door closed and opened the pack, pulling out underwear, a dark T-shirt, and a pair of old sweats. I dressed, put on my shoulder harness and slid my SIG into it. It was chambered and ready to go. I'd brought my foster-father's Smith & Wesson, too. It was too big for a shoulder harness, and I couldn't fire it as often, but the .44 magnum bullets packed more punch than the 9mm. If everything went right, I wouldn't have need for either.

I heard someone coming up the stairs and realized that I hadn't heard John-Julian go down—which was pretty good for a human. Assuming that this was the new guard, I grabbed my pack and hid in the closet, the SIG back in my hand. The closet had a sliding door, but I left the side farthest from the door open, just as it had been.

I could see Jesse jerk against her ropes as someone turned the bolt and threw open the outer door.

“Hey, pretty thing,” said the guard. I could smell the garlic he'd eaten recently, and something unhealthy and sour. He wasn't a werewolf, but he wasn't anyone I particularly wanted around Jesse either. “I'm here to take you to the bathroom. If you're nice to me, I'll even let you eat something. I bet you're hungry by now.”

He walked over to Jesse and I had a perfect shot at his
back. The temptation to take it was made stronger by the panic in Jesse's eyes and the smell of fear that washed off her.

Adam snarled, and the guard drew his gun and turned toward him. He pulled the trigger and Jesse made a horrible, disbelieving sound. I had my gun out and was tightening my own finger when I realized that the gun had made a soft pop rather than a bang—it was an air-powered tranq gun. If he'd had a werewolf's hearing, I'd have had to shoot him anyway because I couldn't help the gulp of air I'd taken when he shot Adam.

“That'll keep you for a while,” he said, presumably to Adam. He holstered the gun and bent over to work on the knots at Jesse's feet. If he'd turned around, he could have seen me—just as Jesse did.