Aztec Treasure

Spider Monkey’s POV

Arrowhead Lake, Northern Minnesota

My fingers flew over the keyboard as I shifted to my next task of the afternoon. The fun stuff was months behind me now; the money I’d stolen from the Sons of Tezcatlipoca accounts was long gone, donated to charities, or rerouted into Pack accounts. Chase had taken the material I’d gathered from the gang’s computers and turned it over to the Sons of Tezcatlipoca Task Force. The Feds had smashed the organization into oblivion, killing some members and locking up the rest on drug and RICO charges.

The fun with the Werewolf Council was winding down now. Jack Coffey was dead, killed by a SWAT sniper in the standoff outside our entrance a few days ago. Colletta had worked a miracle since our Pack shifted on live television, negotiating a treaty that preserved our Packs and our rights to exist. I was relieved because even though I was still human, my unborn baby was not. Vic was a werewolf and now the Lead Beta at Arrowhead Pack. I was his mate, and cyber warfare was MY contribution to the Pack.

I’d spent most of today working on the mystery of Julio Salazar, the Sons of Tezcatlipoca Master-At-Arms, and the only surviving male Jaguar. I downloaded the Task Force’s information first thing this morning, looking for anything they might have missed. It was frustrating because the FBI was pulling out all the stops on the investigation and getting nowhere. I couldn’t find anything they missed, and after five hours, I had no new information to give. The men who took him were ghosts, and that kind of expertise didn’t come cheap. From the video footage, they didn’t appear to be Cartel crews. I knew I’d have to try and search the CIA computers for clues, and those weren’t easy to access.

I looked out the window from my home office that looked over Lake Arrowhead. It was a large home, built by Coral and Keith Sexson before they went to Blue River Pack in Canada as their new Alphas. The back of our house faced northeast on the rocky point, while the northwest end had views of the whole lake from our spot to the right of Alpha Rori’s mansion next door. The lake was still iced over, but warmer and longer days would soon take care of that. The ice houses were all off of the lake now. The Pack owned a half-dozen of them, all stored in a shed until next December. Another six weeks, and we’d be on our motorcycles again. I couldn’t wait.

My hacking server and Pack backup server were in a well-protected room in the basement, but my office was the nerve center. I had a big U-shaped desk with four powerful computers running at once, each with multiple large displays. The primary Pack server was still in the home built for Beta Ron Carlson before he and Teri moved to the Monongahela Pack. While Vic and I were on the run after hacking the Council servers, Rori had brought in former Council IT Beta Brian Steele to handle the Pack’s computer needs. He had the legal side while I dealt with the not-so-legal.

I entered the FBI’s computer system through the backdoor login I’d added months ago. When the Sons went to war against the Steel Brotherhood, the Task Force started looking into both sides. The Brotherhood was clean but wanted revenge for their dead members. Chase and Rori got them to agree to let him handle it while they stayed visibly law-abiding and out of the way. I was able to hack into the outlaw biker gang’s computers and communications, giving Chase what he needed to make a deal with the Justice Department. We gave them everything they needed to take the Sons down, and they stopped investigating the Arrowhead Pack and our friends.

That was three months ago. Even though we had a formal alliance, we didn’t trust the FBI to honor the agreement; they were far too curious about Chase and his finances. Arrowhead was a known Werewolf Pack now, and government agencies wanted information on us. It was human nature; I didn’t think badly of them for it, but sometimes they needed their hands smacked when they reached for the cookie jar. If I saw evidence they were breaking the agreement, I’d tell Alpha Chase. He’d contact Frank Donovan of the DEA, now on the Task Force, and Frank would get the Task Force to back off. If that didn’t work, Chairman Consort Frank Grimes worked part-time for Homeland Security, and his mate Colletta chaired the Werewolf Council. Neither was shy of reminding the Feds of the terms of the agreement.

The first place I checked was the folder for the shared investigation files. I looked for those updated since this morning, starting with Salazar. Ten minutes later, I figured out the FBI made just as much progress as I did. None.

I went back to the file index, and something caught my eye. I hadn’t paid attention to the “Family-Friends” index because those people weren’t under active investigation. It had been a week or so since I looked. Clicking on the index, I saw a new folder under it for “Jaguar Shifters.” Julio Salazar was here, no surprise. Maria Meztli’s file was here, where before she was under her father, Pedro. Also listed was Maritza Correirra, who was now ten months old.

I clicked onto the file for Maria, looking at the latest entries. As I paged through the investigation files, my stomach rolled. “That poor girl,” I said. I wished again that I had a Pack link to talk to Vic with a thought, but I had to call him instead. “Vic, I need to show something to you and the Alphas.”

“He’s in a meeting with the Katahdin Alphas right now but should be done in five minutes.”

“Fine. Come to my office; it’s important.” I started downloading files to my flash drive, then exited the FBI server. By the time Vic came in through the tunnel to the basement, I had everything loaded on one of the Pack computers. I put the video of the Presidents crossing the border onto the 80-inch LCD screen on the wall and other files on my three desktop screens.

I heard the sound of running paws on the carpet and an excited bark as Rori pushed the door open to my office. She came over and put her nose into my crotch, taking a deep sniff. “Alpha! Cold nose!” She sat down as I scratched her ears, licking my face as the men walked into the room. “The baby is fine. How is yours doing?”

“Good, but Rori needs to take it easy,” Chase said as he sat down. “Whoa. Who’s the jaguar?”

I quickly explained what I had found in the Task Force database. “When Arrowhead got outed, the Task Force started looking at the Sons to see if any of them were shifters too. Their Border Patrol rep found this video of jaguars crossing the border east of Nogales, two days before the Presidents got hung from the fence.” As we watched, the jaguars crossed one by one.

“So they figured out the Sons leadership is jaguars.”

“Yes. The Task Force is sure that the Correirra family members are jaguars, figuring they are like wolves in that they don’t turn humans. It’s another reason why Julio’s disappearance is generating so much activity.”

“And the reason to bust Julio from jail in the first place,” Vic said. “Who has him? CIA?”

“That’s my guess, but the investigation is going nowhere,” I replied. “The guys who took him are real professionals and didn’t leave clues behind. The Task Force has people focused on Maria Meztli, the 17-year-old daughter of the late Pedro Meztli, President of the Denver chapter.” I put her high-school photo on the screen.

“Why look at her? The Sons don’t let women anywhere near Club business, especially female children,” Chase replied.

“She’s a blood descendent of a Jaguar shifter, so she is one too. Then there is this.” I played the drone-strike footage. “See the person near the cars? That’s Maria.” The Alphas flinched as the explosions filled the screen. “The little blur there is Maritza, taking off in jaguar form for the woods.”

“Jaguar children can shift at birth, unlike us,” Vic agreed. “How old was Maritza?”

“Six months.”

“A small cub, then. She could run a short distance and hide, and that’s about it,” Vic said. “Jaguar babies shift when their mother does, so why did she shift?”

“Her mother died in the airstrike, so it might have been the shock of losing her mother,” I said. “When the Mexican military arrived, Maria and Maritza were gone. The Task Force found this video a few days later.” I played the video of the border crossing, showing a jaguar crossing north. “The jaguar is female, and the bag around her neck is holding a cub. It’s the two of them, Alphas. The pair disappeared back into the United States months ago.”

Chase leaned back in his chair as Rori’s rust-colored wolf laid her head on his leg. “They aren’t targets for us, Spider. We don’t go after innocent women and children, cat shifter or not.” Rori looked up at him, telling him something over the link. “If you can find her, we can offer her protection. It’s dangerous to be a shifter on your own right now.”

I leaned back in my chair. “The Task Force is actively looking for Maria and will bring her in as a material witness.”

Vic shook his head. “If the CIA took Julio, they will want Maria and the baby as well. They aren’t part of the treaty, so they have no protection.”

“Then we have to act fast.” I showed them the information uncovered through the vehicle registrations. “Frank Donovan is on his way to Denver to talk to Mr. Portman. The Task Force thinks he knows where Maria is hiding, probably in the Denver area.”

“Shit,” Vic said. “If the Task Force knows, the CIA does, too. If they want Maria bad enough, they’ll force the lawyer to give up her hiding place.”

The thought of a young girl and a baby in CIA hands was too much. “We can’t let them take her, Alphas. No one deserves that.”

“You’re right,” Chase said. “I need to let Mom and Frank know what’s going on; maybe they can work something through official channels to get her protection. Vic, you warn the lawyer that Maria is in danger.”

At least they were taking this seriously. “Can’t we just tell Frank to leave her alone?”

Chase shook his head. “If only Frank Donovan knew, I’d say yes, but it’s not. There are others involved, and even Donovan doesn’t trust witness protection. If they can get Julio out of Federal prison, they can get to Maria. Vic, pass on our offer to protect her. She’ll be safe with us.”

“I will, but I don’t know if she’ll take us up on the offer. You helped the Government take out everyone she knows, Chase. She probably thinks we want her dead as much as anyone.”

Rori walked back over, putting her head on my leg. Chase translated for her. “Rori thanks you for finding this information and wants you to focus your efforts on locating Maria before anyone else can. Bring the Brotherhood in on this; they have a chapter in Denver who can help.”

“What do I tell the Club?”

“Stay back and watch because she’ll spook easily. If we find her, we’ll send the closest Pack to pick her up for us.”

I could do that. The Steel Ladies would insist we help a teen and a baby stay safe. “I’ll get right on that,” I told them.

Chase led Rori back out while Vic went over to the phone. The one he used was special; it went over the Internet, fed through multiple sites in a way that made it untraceable. I gave him Christian Portman’s phone number, and he made the call.