“Sorry? You again what?”
Aiden tried again with the same result. Kashmala began to look concerned, as if her lack of understanding was her fault.
“Big problem with Council,” he said, cutting back on what he was trying to get across.
“Council? Problem?”
“Yes! Problem. Kill me,” he said, drawing his finger across his throat while wondering if the gesture conveyed the same meaning among the villagers.
She turned to say something to Zakia, which turned into a small discussion. Zakia ended that by shouting out and searching for someone in the village.
“Sorry my English no good,” Kashmala said, her face downcast to the ground.
Within moments, Qalandar walked up with loose robes for Zakia, Kashmala, and Aiden, for which he was grateful. Qalandar spoke with Zakai for a few moments before turning to Aiden.
“Kashmala thinks you are to be killed by the Council. Is this true?”
“Yes. I am to be executed as a rogue. They say I turned a human without authority.”
“Did you do as they said?”
Aiden knew he could lie, and they’d have no way to check on him. But he was going to ask them for a favor, a huge favor, and he didn’t want to start with a rotten foundation.
“Yes, I did. Three times.”
Qalandar rolled his eyes, then spoke to Zakia. They went back and forth for a moment.
“Who did you turn and why?” Qalandar asked.
“One was my friend. I tried to save him. He was the one who approved the airplanes that saved your village from the others,” he said, hoping to remind them of the debt that on which he wanted to collect.
Qalandar narrowed his eyes at that, and Aiden hoped he hadn’t overstepped some sort of bounds.
“One was an accident, and one stole my blood to turn himself.”
He wasn’t sure how the colonel had become infected, but that seemed like the most logical explanation.
Several other men and women came forward to listen in. As Qalandar spoke, others interrupted with questions. For such a simple statement, it sure garnered more than its fair share of discussion.
Kashmala stepped close to Aiden and took his hand.
“I help you,” she whispered into his ear.
Zakia stepped forward, dragging Qalandar with her to face Aiden, their eyes inches apart.
“This one you turned, he helped save us?” Qalandar translated.
“Yes. Without him risking his career, I could not get the airplanes.”
“Then we owe two honor debts? To you and this man?”
Aiden nodded, refusing to look away from Zakia’s gaze. Finally, she nodded, and stepped back.
“So what do you want, Aiden Kaas?”
This is it, he thought. It all relies on what they decide.
“My request is a big one, but it is righteous. Please listen to all of it before you decide.”
Around him, the entire adult population of the village crowded in to listen to Aiden’s request.
Chapter 40
Thirty-two hectic hours later, the C17 landed at Ramstein Air Base. The “Follow Me” pickup led it to a secluded hangar where it parked and waited for the huge hangar doors to close before the passengers debarked.
Aiden led the 11 villagers off the big plane, Kashmala dogging his steps and remaining close. Leewekhel only had 23 adults in the entire village, so 11 represented a huge commitment. For generations, the villagers had remained isolated in their mountain home, so this was a huge sea change for them and something Aiden wasn’t sure would happen. Hampered by his inability to speak Pashto and having to speak through Qalandar, he’d somehow managed to both recall a debt the village owed him and convince Zakia that it was time for them to assert their rights within the werewolf community, removing any further threat of elimination as a feral tribe. He had the impression that it had been a close thing, but in the end, Zakia had granted his request and had asked for volunteers. Kashmala had immediately stepped forward, as had another 14 or 15, but Zakia had limited the number to 11, not wanting to leave the village too weak to defend itself.
Aiden still didn’t know who had decided to attack the village the year before, but he owed him or her a thank you. Without that threat, he doubted he would have received any cooperation.
With the volunteers anxious to start, Zakia had insisted that Aiden eat and rest first, something he knew was needed despite the time crunch. He used the time to give his small group the plan. It was difficult to get across concepts at odds with werewolf nature, particularly with the language barrier and Qalandar’s obvious disdain for anything that smacked of new. But he hoped he’d managed to get the basics across.
The dozen had shifted to lycan, and with the remaining villagers gathered to watch, departed Leewekhel for the long trek back to Bagram. It had been a weird but fulfilling run, with eleven other lycans silently running alongside of him—but always with Kashmala so close that they often brushed shoulders.
As a varg with Claire, there had been a decided lack of sexual energy. As a lycan, with Kashmala running alongside of him, the air fairly danced with it. He hoped it was just a biological difference between vargs and lycans and not some deep-seated reservations he had about Claire. That possibility scared the crap out of him. He wasn’t sure he could survive without Claire in his life.
Twenty miles outside of Bagram, they’d shifted back and put on the robes they’d carried in small woven packs on their backs. Within thirty minutes, a blue truck slowly made its way down the deserted road, one headlight on, the other off. Aiden stepped out to flag it down. The driver never looked at the team as they quickly piled in. The truck made it back to the base, was waved through without an inspection, and taken to a waiting C17. Aiden wasn’t sure how Keenan had managed all of that, but he was grateful that this part of the plan, at least, had been accomplished without too many problems. He didn’t want to jinx it, but the word “clockwork” came to mind.
At the foot of the airstairs, Claire, Hozan, Keenan, and several men and women in Air Force uniforms waited. Aiden wanted to rush down the stairs, but he took his time, not wanting to fall flat on his face.
At the bottom, Claire gave him no choice. She embraced him in a huge hug, threatening to suffocate him. Behind the two, Kashmala moved in closer, staring intently at them.
Aiden had told her he was engaged now, and she seemed to accept that—as a simple fact, not as an impediment. He’d never told Claire about Kashmala, however, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He’d never done anything with the Pashtun woman, but he’d certainly been tempted, and the thought of admitting that to Claire was not something he was eager to do.
After Claire broke her hug, Aiden reached over to shake Keenan’s hand.
“I see you had a handle on this side of things,” Aiden said.
“It wasn’t easy. Lowenstein accepted the situation, but he wanted to go in full bore with SOCOM leading an assault.”
Aiden’s hair stood on end when he heard that. It was only at that moment that he noticed the armed airmen standing near the hangar doors and people-sized exits in both the front and back of the hangar.
“You told him that would be a mistake, right? That would alienate the rest of the Tribe? This is between Wais and me, and—”
“Yes, I told him,” Keenan said, holding out a hand as if to slow down Aiden’s onslaught of questions. “I told him and told him, and it finally sunk in—especially after I said that would jeopardize any of us serving voluntarily again.”
“Us? So you told him?”
“Yes, I had to.”
They had discussed revealing that he and Claire were also werewolves, and Aiden had left it up to Keenan to make the call. He’d try to keep it secret, but if he needed to, he’d tell Dr. Lowenstein.
“OK, we figured that might be necessary. So now SOCOM’s out?”
“Not completely. It’ll be only us going in, but we’ll have two SEAL teams and a flight of Pave Hawks stand
ing by.”
“No MARSOC?”[121] Aiden asked, a little disappointed.
“No, why?”
Aiden had full respect and admiration for the SEALs, but he was a Marine, and he’d been out of the Marine loop for a year. He’d just liked to have had Marines on call if they were needed.
“No matter,” he said, brushing off his question. “And what do we owe the good doctor for all of this cooperation?”
“He wants a sit-down with us, and by us, I mean the collective us.”
“Not surprising. And what does Hozan say?” he asked, tilting his head to where his friend was shepherding 11 Pashtun villagers through a line in front of several tables where it looked like each was being issued a passport. Keenan hadn’t even known the number nor names of the villagers who were coming, but Aiden didn’t doubt that the paperwork would pass any scrutiny, if it came to that.
“And how do we get there from here? How far is it, anyway?”
“You and Hozan have a rental car,” Keenan said, pulling a set of keys out of his pocket and tossing them to Aiden. “The rest of us will be taking a bus. It’s about 350 klicks, maybe two-and-a-half hours or so.”
“Two-and-a-half hours? For 350 klicks?”
“You’ve never driven in Germany before, I see,” Keenan said with a laugh. “Speed is a way of life on the autobahns. Some guys would make that trip in well under an hour.”
Aiden shuddered at the though. He was a combat vet, and he’d been in some serious shit, but the thought of belting down a highway at 200 kilometers an hour was more than a little frightening. One mistake, and that’d be all she wrote.
“OK, so say three hours,” he said while looking at his watch. “What time is here?”
“Eleven-thirty-six.”
“So we have, what, six-and-a-half hours?”
“Yes, give-or-take.”
“Good. We’ve got some time. I’m not sure I got through to our troops there,” Aiden said, pointing at the villagers. “I want to take Hozan as a real translator and do some rehearsals. I want to make sure we do this right, or all of our asses will be grass.”
Chapter 41
It had taken Aiden slightly over two hours to make the trek to the small village on the Rhein. The allure of speed, with other cars blasting past him, had been too big of a temptation, and he’d given in. He was on his way to answer a summons from someone who wanted him dead, so what was a little speeding along the way going to do to him?
The village was small, the houses about what Hollywood might use as a set for a German WWII movie. Most were white with brown trim. The very modern Esso filling station, with its bright red illuminated sign, smack dab in the middle of town, however, broke the image. The On the Run attached to it increased the disconnect with the other building in the village. Aiden didn’t have to know what an On the Run was as the look screamed out convenience store, so Aiden and Hozan went inside to grab something to eat and drink while waiting for the appointed time. Calories, even convenience store calories, were a good idea when shifting was on the docket.
Surprisingly, though, the hot-doggish sausages were delicious, and three of them, washed down with a pompelmo (whatever kind of fruit that was) San Pellegrino, were more than satisfying. Better than that, they were good enough to keep Aiden from fretting about what was ahead of him.
Thirty minutes after arriving, the big tour bus with the rest of their party drove past on its way to the base of the hill just outside town upon which perched the castle. Many of the old castles in Germany had turned into tourist destinations, but this was private property, guarded by armed security. Aiden thought it odd that the security would let a tour bus disgorge passengers at the gate, but Hozan assured him that none of them needed passes of any kind to get inside. The mere fact that they were of the Tribe was enough, and no one would check identities. The fact that the Leewekhelians, as Aiden had started to think of them, were feral would never be an issue. No one would think to do an investigation on that. The hold of the Council over the Tribe was tenuous at best among much of the population, and any attempt to require IDs of some sort would not have been welcomed by the independent-minded werewolves. Most werewolves accepted the Council to look after major, overarching policies and to police up rogues, but Hozan had told him that over 80% of all werewolves had never even been to Germany and the castle.
Aiden was worried about Claire and Keenan. Both were new kreuzung, and while the village werewolves were in new territory, his fiancé and friend also had the fact that they were not that practiced as vargs.
“Calm down, cub. They will have no problem entering,” Hozan said, obviously noting his nervousness.
“It’s not the getting in I’m worried about. It’s the getting out.”
Aiden drained the San Pellegrino and slammed it on the standing table, earning a disapproving look from the lip-pierced, blue-haired young lady behind the counter.
“Come on, let’s go outside,” he told Hozan.
The two left the On the Run and wandered through the few side streets before reaching the mighty Rhine. It had to be 200 meters across, a dark mass of water making its way inexorably to the sea. The castle above them had guarded the river approaches for centuries, but the river didn’t care. It had been flowing longer than humankind, longer than werewolves existed, and nothing that happened up in the castle in an hour would make one bit of difference to it.
Aiden picked up a rock and flung it out as far as he could. It plunged into the water with a plop of finality, never to be seen again.
Neither man said a word; they simply watched the river flow by as they killed time.
It seemed to take forever, and at the same time, it had come too quickly, but Aiden looked at his watch and simply said, “It’s go-time.”
Chapter 42
They drove the VW up to the base of the mountain and parked it in the lot at the side of the road. A number of other cars, from a beat-up Fiat to a Maybach were in the lot. The Maybach didn’t surprise Aiden. Werewolves had long lives, and the accumulation of wealth was reasonable. But the rusted Fiat was a surprise. Maybe he’d given in to the Hollywood version of vampires and werewolves as rich aristocrats, but whoever was driving that Fiat evidently missed out on the riches. Aiden realized he didn’t know much about the Tribe other than what Hozan had told him and what he’d observed with the feral Leewekhelians. He hoped that lack of knowledge was not about to come bite him in the ass.
Despite Hozan’s assurances, Aiden was surprised when the guard didn’t bat and eye as they entered the castle grounds. He’d expected to have to justify his presence, telling the guard that he’d been summoned. Evidently, though, the guard was one of the Tribe who could sense other werewolves, and nothing else was needed.
From below on the river, the castle had looked picturesque and impressive. As the two climbed the winding path to the front gate, that impression faded somewhat. There had been obvious later additions, additions what didn’t quite match the overall look. Makeshift repairs had been made with seemingly little concern for appearances. Still, it was a big building.
The portcullis leading into the castle proper was open, and from the looks of the opening mechanism, it hadn’t been closed for years. Aiden and Hozan just walked in. Two people were in deep conversation while sitting on a bench in the courtyard, but no one else was present. Aiden figured that most would be heading to the arena to see if he’d show up. As in Imperial Rome, a little blood-spilling tended to pique the interest of the masses.
Hozan seemed to know where he was going, so Aiden just followed, taking everything in. It was cool inside the stone walls, but with a drafty hint that winters might not be that pleasant. There were a few rugs hanging, and the first room they’d entered had several paintings on the walls, but the ambiance of the place was interrupted by bare electrical wires running along the ceiling and what looked like Ikea furniture scattered among older antiques.
Focus! Who cares what interior decorator had at this place?
>
They entered a good-sized room, the stone walls covered two-thirds of the way up with wooden paneling. Several others were in the room, sitting and talking. A couple nodded at the two of them as they entered, but no one said anything. Hozan moved to two empty chairs and sat down, motioning Aiden to take the other one.
Aiden sat and immediately started to fidget.
“Easy!” Hozan whispered, not looking at him.
On the side table, several magazines were stacked. Aiden took a look, then picked up an old National Geographic. He flipped through the pages until an article on termite colonies caught his attention. He was actually getting into the article, when the others in the room started to get up and leave. Hozan put a hand on his arm, stopping him from getting up as well.
“Wait.”
Aiden just wanted to get it over with, one way or the other, and he heaved a sigh of relief when Hozan finally nodded and stood up. He followed his friend and mentor back into the hallway and down to where a door led to the side. Two of his villagers were already there, on either side of the door. They smiled as him, but said nothing.
“You know what to do, right?” Hozan asked him.
“Yes.”
Now if I can actually get it done.
Hozan pulled Aiden to him in an embrace and said, “Go with God, Aiden.”
Hozan wheeled away and quickly hurried off.
Aiden gave the two villagers a double thumbs up, then opened the door and ducked down the low passage. It was dark, lit by a single hanging bare bulb, but he didn’t need much light. Half-crouched, he made his way to the end where a man stood, looking officious.
“And who are you?” the man asked.
“Aiden Kaas. I’ve been summoned.
“So you came,” the man said. “Brave, but foolhardy. I’ll let the Prime Alpha know you’re here.”
The man lifted up the handset on a rotary-dialed telephone and dialed.
The Werewolf of Marines Trilogy Page 57
