Aztec Treasure Ch. 11-20
Julie buzzed me on the intercom. "Sir, there's a call on Line 2 from a Mr. Vic Knightly. He says it is urgent."
I didn't recognize the name, but it could be a new client. "I've got it." I punched the button for Line 2. "Christian Portman, Attorney at Law," I answered.
"Mr. Portman, my name is Vic Knightly. I'm the Beta of the Arrowhead Pack in Minnesota, calling at the direction of Alpha Rori King."
My stomach dropped; I knew they were werewolves, and I knew who they were the enemies of the Club. I tried to remain calm. "What can I do for you, Mr. Knightly?"
"Maria is in danger. The FBI's task force figured out your car registration scheme, and they know Maria is alive and the car she is driving. A team from Los Angeles is on the way, but they may not be the only ones after her."
"I see." No one but me knew where she was hiding out.
"I don't think you do, Mr. Portman. Some of the people looking for her will not respect attorney-client privilege. They might take you somewhere and fill you with drugs until you give up her location. These men have no qualms about using your family as leverage to get the information if they have to. You saw what happened to Julio; there are no lines these people won't cross."
He was confirming the CIA was after Maria and that I was in the way. "If I say I can warn her, under the law, I'm admitting I know her whereabouts. I don't. Even if I did, as her lawyer, I'm protected by my attorney-client privilege."
"That only matters who those who follow the law. These men don't give a shit about your law or your privilege, Christian."
"I still don't know where she is."
"I don't believe you, and neither will they when they take you. You made a mistake, Counselor. You know she's alive, which few people do." If they knew about my title transfers, they'd know her new name too. "Alpha Rori wants the innocent protected from what is going on in the country right now. If you happen to come across Maria in your travels, please pass along Alpha Rori's sanctuary offer within her Pack. She will protect her like her own children."
There was no way in HELL that Maria would accept that. "As I said, I don't know where Maria is. If by chance I were to speak to her, I can pass on your offer. Given the history between your Club and hers, I doubt she will want to accept your hospitality."
There was a pause. "It was never about Maria or the baby, Christian. Families are strictly off-limits for us and always have been. Besides, the Brotherhood had no beef with the Sons until they tortured and killed two of our members."
"We're a little past that now that, Vic. Chase ruined her life and killed her family."
"The government agency with the drone and the missiles killed her family, not us. The same people who did that Do whatever it takes to keep Maria safe." He gave me a direct number to call if I had any questions, then hung up.
Maria didn't have a phone; she had a computer but no email or social media accounts. It kept her safe, but it also meant that I couldn't warn her without going there in person. I hit the intercom for my secretary. "Julie, I need you to pick up my tuxedo from the dry cleaners right now," I told her.
"Yes, sir." It was a code I'd worked out with her months ago when I first put Maria at the cabin. She had an envelope in her purse; inside were directions and a note. If I turned up dead or told her to pick up my tuxedo, she was to open the envelope and do what it said. I trusted her to warn Maria while I took care of the rest.
Next, I called home. "Judy, take the kids and go to visit Grandma." She started to protest. "This is an emergency, Judy. Just do it. I'll catch up to you later." I told her I loved her and hung up.
I opened my safe and pulled out everything related to Maria and Pedro's estate, putting it along with the flash drive into a padded envelope I'd kept for this event. Sealing it up, I took it out and put it in the Post Office drop box at the end of the block.
I went back into my office, locked the door, and started clearing my schedule for the next few days. Ten minutes later, three men kicked the door open.
I'd waited too long to run.
Julio Salazar's POVDecommissioned Oil Platform #328, Gulf of Mexico
The smell of this place turned my stomach. Crude oil, diesel fuel, sweat, seawater, and urine all combined into a disgusting mix.
The guards locked me in this storeroom shortly after my arrival. Before I got tossed in here, one of the guys lit me up with a cattle prod. As I laid there twitching on the ground, a man in a lab coat clicked a metal collar around my throat. The collar was uncomfortable, with metal studs on the inside that pressed into my skin without breaking it. The purpose of the studs became apparent when I was able to stand again. "Prisoner 87, you will refer to me as Doctor. The collar you wear is similar to those used to train large dogs. Like an invisible fence, if you get too far away from the platform, it alarms. Unlike the invisible fence, the collar is filled with enough plastic explosive to take your head clean off."
That sucked.
"I hope you don't lose power," I said.
Doc continued. "The receiver is activated when one of the guards pushes this button on their belt, does this." He pressed the button, and the collar made a loud beep. "That is your warning. If you continue to misbehave, or the guard holds the button down, you get this." He pressed the button again, and my body seized up as the shock as the electricity shorted out my brain.
I woke up on the metal decking, drool running down my face as the pain of the shock wore off. The Doctor took the surgical tubing off my upper arm and gathered the blood samples in his left hand. "Feed him and let him rest. We'll start in the morning."
"Yes, Doctor," the guard said. He guided me to a metal hatchway and pushed me inside the cell. Another guard tossed in a sandwich in a paper wrapper, then they closed the door and dogged it down. I heard a padlock click closed on the outside. I walked back to the door, feeling around. The operating lever was gone from the inside of the door, so it didn't matter.
The only lights in the room came from the heavy steel grating in four places. Two of them were high on the wall, letting in air from the Gulf. The other two were twelve-inch-square drainage openings in the front corners. There was a water pipe with a pull cord over one of them, so it must be the shower. That would make the other the toilet, which the smell verified. I kicked at one, finding it welded to the steel flooring and beams, and the opening was too small to get through.
The rest of the room was solid steel. There was no getting out.
A welded steel platform held a thin mattress covered in a white sheet, a small pillow, and a wool blanket. Looking towards the dark ceiling, I could see the faint glow from the infrared emitters. The cameras covered the room and likely had microphones to listen in on me. "Nice place you got here. I love the décor." Sitting on the bed, I unwrapped the stale sandwich and ate.
They would make a mistake, and I'd kill them all.
Maria (Meztler) Gonzales' POVColorado
I ran out to the garage, buckling Maritza into the car seat and tossing her diaper bag onto the floor in front of her. I made three quick trips back into the house, zipping up the bags of clothes and supplies I'd kept ready for just this moment. I had my father's Glock in my hand as I opened the garage door, using all my senses to make sure no one else was around.
I dropped the pistol into the center console and started my Ford Escape. Pulling out to the road, I used the remote to close the garage door as I waited for an opening in the traffic. I'd thought a lot about which way to go; I figured trouble would come from the Denver direction, so I turned left and kept going west. It would take almost three hours to drive north to Laramie and pick up Interstate 80 if I went through Denver. Taking the back way on the mountain roads would take twice that long and bring me closer to the Pack, but it was worth the risk.
I hoped.
Ch. 12
DEA Special-Agent-In-Charge Frank Donovan's POVSomewhere over Nevada
As I talked to Claire Bennington from our seats on the Southwest Airlines flight to Denver International, I wondered how I'd never recognized how special a woman she was. I'd seen how intelligent and accomplished she was first hand. Her beauty was understated, hidden like her sense of humor behind her shy exterior. We'd been talking for hours, and I was fascinated. The more time I spent with her, the deeper my feelings became, and I wasn't alone.
She knew I was twice divorced, with no kids. The life of a DEA agent is tough on families, and my career was brutal. I started as an undercover agent, working the methamphetamine trade in the Midwest. My college sweetheart and wife number one lasted fifteen months. After that, I spent a tour in Mexico, then supervised field offices in Cleveland and Houston. Wife number two did better, three years, and I left her in Texas. I'd been in the Los Angeles office the last four years. I rarely dated; my most recent ones had been blind dates set up by my friend's wives. I was forty-two years old, jaded, and tired.
Claire's path was quite different. She'd grown up in North Dakota, where her parents had made millions off mineral rights when the Bakken Oil Fields came into production. Her older brothers were taking over the ranch, so her father sent her to college at the University of Minnesota to study accounting. Claire wanted to get out of the Dakotas and live a more exciting life than doing books for the ranch, though. In her junior year, she fell in love with Todd Coughlin, a student in Law School. He interviewed with the FBI, eventually getting an offer to join them for training as a Special Agent. It sounded so exciting, and the FBI was hiring accountants too. She adjusted her classes to specialize in forensic accounting while her boyfriend finished training. He got assigned to the New York Field Office, expecting to spend at least four years there.
New York was big and exciting and as far from the plains of North Dakota as she could get. Claire spent as much time with Todd as she could, given her classes and his job. She joined the FBI upon graduation and requested New York during training. It was going to be perfect; they could get married and raise a family together. When her assignment to New York came through, Claire flew up Friday night to surprise him with the news. She surprised him, all right; she found him in bed, having loud anal sex with his partner. His partner, Scott. "Jesus, that must have been a shock."
"It took a while to get over, but eventually, I figured it was for the best. Todd didn't have a loyal bone in his body. I was glad I walked in on him before I needed a lawyer to get me out of it." Her relationship gone, Claire begged to go anywhere else but New York. They agreed, and she spent four years at the Minneapolis office instead. Claire had gone after politicians, crooked lawyers, predatory companies, human traffickers, and tax cheats in her career. She found it rewarding, and she was good at it. After successful stints in four offices, she'd earned a promotion to Supervisory Agent of her accounting group in the Washington Field Office five years ago. Now thirty-four, the Task Force assignment was a good step towards Special-Agent-In-Charge status.
"Are you involved with anyone?"
She laughed. "I'm the Ice Queen of the office. I don't do office romance, I don't mix business and pleasure, and I don't listen to my Mom when she tells me to settle down and have kids before it's too late."
She was a little spitfire when she got going. She looked out the window as I wished this wasn't a business trip. I wished we were dressed casually for vacation instead of in our dark FBI suits. I wished we were spending the weekend getting to know each other instead of sharing her with an office of fellow agents on temporary assignments. I closed my eyes, dreaming of her bringing drinks out onto the deck as I waited for her in the hot tub.
"Drink, sir?"
I looked at Claire. "Juice for me, please."
"Two, please." The flight attendant handed me two packs of peanuts and started pouring orange juice into glasses. I passed Claire her snack, her fingers lingering just long enough for me to notice. I smiled as I took her juice and set it on her tray table. "You feel it, don't you? The connection between us?"
She nodded her head just before taking a drink. "We can't, Frank. I don't do workplace romances, no matter how much I like the guy. They never end well."
"My feelings won't go away when the Task Force goes away, Claire. While we are in the same office, I will keep our relationship strictly professional. When the assignment ends, all bets are off. It won't be a workplace romance because we aren't in the same office, department, or city. We'll be two people dating, that's all."
She didn't say anything in response, and soon we were descending into Denver International Airport. Special Agent Karl Steiner met us outside and updated us on the case. "My partner is in the parking lot and verified Portman's office lights are still on, and his car is in the lot. Care to tell me what he's done?"
If he was still in the office at seven-thirty on a Friday night, something was going on. "He's hiding someone I need to talk to," I answered evasively. "Let's go."
It was nearly eight when we pulled into the near-empty office park lot. Karl stopped next to his partner's Chevy, which was idling to stay warm in the back of the lot. "Any activity?"
"Nothing."
"Thanks for the assist, guys. We can take it from here; we'll make our way to the hotel on our own."
"My boss said to drive you around, so that's what I'll do," Karl said. He sent his partner home. "I'm going to grab some dinner, and then I'll wait for you out here."
"You may as well come up; you're intimidating enough, and he's probably going to tell us to get lost." The three of us walked through the lot, finding the lobby entrance doors locked. There was an intercom panel by the handle; I looked down it until I found "Christian Portman Law Office" and pressed the button.
It took twenty seconds for an answer. "Yeah?"
"This is Agent Donovan, DEA. I need to speak to you about an urgent matter."
The answer didn't come right away, and when it did, it wasn't what I expected. "My office is closed. Call Monday and get an appointment."
No lawyer would respond like that to a Federal Agent. Even when they told you to fuck off, they'd be professional about it. "Anyone else thinking something is wrong?"
"He didn't sound like a lawyer," Karl said.
"Press all the other buttons. Maybe we'll get lucky, and someone else is home who will open the door for us," I told Karl.
"I'll check the doors in back to see if someone left the door open," Claire said. She headed to the right while I looked for a number for the landlord. I was placing the call when I heard her yell. "FBI! FREEZE!"
Karl and I turned and ran for the back of the building, clearing leather with our Glocks as we turned the corner. Multiple gunshots rang out, one of them fully automatic. Claire came running back around the corner, and the bullets caught her in the thigh and hip. She was spun around and down into the bushes as I got to the corner.
Claire was moving, so I brought my pistol up and fired at the nearest man. My first shot hit center mass, the double-tap hitting his neck. He dropped as Karl took position behind a transformer, opening fire on the second man. Karl grunted in pain, dropping his pistol on the pavement as I got off an aimed shot that hit the man in the head. The third man ran the other way; no matter how much I wanted to pursue, I had two agents down.
"Caught me in the upper arm, I'll live," Karl said as he took his phone out. He started calling 911 as I moved over to my partner.
Claire was lying on her back in the mulch, with her small hand gripping her left hip as she cursed up a storm.
I quickly checked the two men who were down, kicking their guns away and making sure they were dead. I ran back to Claire's side, tearing off my suit coat and wrapping it around the wound in her thigh. "Hang in there, Claire," I told her as I tied it tightly to slow the bleeding. The shot to her hip was tougher to deal with; I took off my shirt, balling it up and using it to hold pressure. I could hear sirens. "Help is on the way."
I yelled and waved at the first police cruiser to enter the lot. Ambulances were rolling already, and more police arrived every minute. "Check the building, second floor, Christian Portman's office. I think these men were up there before we surprised them coming out."
The ambulance crew was loading Claire onto a gurney when a Denver Police Sergeant came over to me. "Portman's dead, and they were looking for something in his office," he said. "What a fucking mess."
I looked over at the two men behind the building covered with sheets. I handed the man my card. "I'll be with her at the hospital. When you identify those two or catch the third guy, I want a call. I don't care what time it is."
"You got it," he said. Karl was already gone since he was able to walk to the back of the second ambulance.
Claire was in a lot of pain as they wheeled her into the back of the ambulance. I held her hand the whole way to the hospital; it was pale and cold, just like her face. She'd lost a lot of blood.
Ch. 13
Homeland Security Consultant Frank Grimes' POVWashington, DC Hotel
"I need a drink and a back rub," Colletta said as she walked past me into our room at the hotel near the White House.
"You know what my back rubs lead to, love," I said as I closed and locked the door behind me.
"That's what I'm planning on," she said as she kicked her heels off. "We have a few hours until we meet the Secretary of Homeland Security. Help me?" I unzipped the back of her dress, lowering it down as she stepped out of it. Her body was in great shape for a person in the back half of her second century, and I couldn't resist a sniff.
"Hey," she said as she spun around, like that would stop me. I pulled down her lace panties, burying my nose into her scent. She hopped a little, smacking the back of my head. "We can't shower first?"
"No point in getting clean when I've got all these dirty plans for you," I told her as I wrapped my arms around her thighs. I stood up with her, and she squealed as I dropped her onto the bed. "Take that off," I told her.
I undressed quickly, tossing my clothes over the desk chair. Colletta sat up, her arms releasing the hooks on the black lace bras. I hardened in seconds as I saw her teasing me. She leaned back, cupping her firm breasts as she licked her lips. "That for me?"
"I am yours as you are mine," I said as I crawled onto the bed. I kissed my wife as I moved between her legs, the mate bond adding a connection far beyond any I'd had with a female before. I didn't have to wonder if her response was genuine; faking an orgasm was pointless with the mate bond in place. Instead, it opened up a new level of love and communication between us. I could feel what she did, giving me immediate feedback on how I was doing. I smirked a little as I pulled back, moving down to nip at the top of her breasts and nipples. Biting was a wolf aphrodisiac, and I could feel the change as it worked her up.
She moaned in pleasure as I kissed down her toned belly, finally settling between her legs and tasting her at the source. "FUCK, yes," she said as my tongue slid between her labia. I was relentless, driving her to one quick orgasm before pulling out the stops. I partially shifted my tongue, lengthening it so I could penetrate deep into her sex and swirl around. She grabbed my head and pulled me closer as I curled it back to flick her g-spot before plunging deep again.
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