by Brian Cain
CHAPTER EIGHT
Greywolf paced the floor of the caverns, it was he that now bore the burden his father had so often lived with. Shielded from the experience of full frontal warfare by his father he had operated for most alone. He grappled with missing his mother and now Rose, in solitude the respect for his father depend, how had his father distanced himself from Bella, Jodi, the entire family, Greywolf had to refocus as the lines of law now stood with him. Very time he left the lair he was converted by the stealth of disguise, he had become a better actor than Hollywood headliners, but he yearned to be known in person as his father had for so long.
Greywolf slogged away in the gym, moving from machine to machine, toning his body, sweating, maintaining his performance. He ran the grounds of the manor, the gardeners dogs ran with him, Doberman's, they always stopped at their trained limits and returned to their turf. He ran the woods alongside the great Flaxmead, he smiled at his cry breaking the silence of the countryside. Greywolf entered the lair, he noticed time was getting shorter. He would have to cut corners with his fitness regime, he wondered how his father had fitted everything in, he grappled with delegation, but never faltered from his purpose.
In the communications room he watched the screen, not Rose but a myriad of information from allied sources, Henry Dowden entered the cavern, Greywolf could hear the familiar click of his walking stick on the stone floor. Dowden sat beside Greywolf and uttered a few words. "It worked, we have control of the planets nuclear arsenal should we require it."
Greywolf turned to him in deep thought, he looked into space. "I thought it would be easy, I was wrong."
Henry chuckled with a nod and a warming smile. "Mmm, I have seen your father struggle with the same thing."
Wolf looked at Henry. "Where is your family, you seldom leave here."
"All gone, the Second World War."
Greywolf looked blank, disturbed and troubled. "Why have I never asked this before?"
"We are family, you had your father as well."
"I'm having to tackle emotional problems I never expected."
"Your father is a hard man, but has a heart of gold."
"I understand that now, I run with that horse every day I'm here, and the dogs, they all give me unprecedented love, I feel a strange presence."
"There are rumours of you and the Cavendish woman."
"They aren't rumours, I've fallen in love with her."
"Ahh, and now the main event."
Greywolf looked lost. "Not sure what you mean."
"You had only meaning boy, no purpose, now you have purpose that has meaning."
Greywolf thought deeply for a few seconds looking at the wrinkles on Henrys face that made the map of wisdom. "Without your family your purpose was here."
"I don't want to see another family loose its entire being bar one, no matter where they come from."
"It was the Germans."
"It was the war boy, the Germans were the route cause you might say, things could have been done differently."
"The last world war was stopped with a nuclear weapon."
"And the next will start with one."
"Why me?"
"Your father didn't want control of the nuclear arsenal, he was a great believer in the balance of power. Take care in what you say, the walls have ears, we need focus on today, tomorrow we may be able to talk of things we need to know."
"The poor get poorer and the rich get richer, there is no balance in commercial democracy, the poor have been voting for the same people for decades, they're still poor."
"Commerce is a product of democracy, indeed I agree, after the First World War the rich harboured wealth and the suffering was without equivalence. As time goes on the rich creep ever closer to the same approach, it has become shielded by politics and nothing more than money. To some degree it gave your father an edge, he merely applied the same tactics selling what they wanted to them, protection from themselves."
Greywolf got up and paced up and down, his hands behind his back. "I've moved among these people, heard them make statements I deplored. So few relying on so many for so much, I don't approve, and never have."
"You are a product of changed times, not only do you understand it, you understand for things to change things must change and that has not been achieved as yet."
"I recently personally took out two king pins in Kuwait, only the chain has been broken, their purpose and domineer remain."
"This has been happening for a while now, they got used to it, the price of doing business."
"Exactly what I have been thinking, to make change we need ultimate power."
Henry shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, but he laughed. "And so life goes on."
"Fear has become part of business, things need to change."
"They'll find a way to drain the purse, private sector economic growth they call it."
"I see what my father means about war, although I have never to any great degree been involved in one. You strike at the heart of the oppositions military might, remove their ability to call the shots and instigate reformation."
"Humph, then comes the money."
"And that's where the buck will stop currently, get Scooter down here." Greywolf picked up a phone along side the computer station. "Scooter, to the operations room please."
Scooter was a huge man afro American negro, Greywolf saved him from the jaws of death in Saudi Arabia, he had been sentenced to death for spying, the Americans washed their hands of him for reasons of political convenience. A crack computer buff and espionage agent he had been involved in the development of the reaper and predator drone programmes. Another member of the elite functional with complete stealth, his ID and personal effects left in a burnt out building during an extraction operation operated by Greywolf led the authorities to believe he was dead. A patriotic American he was initially a prisoner of Greywolf's father, the CIA turned on his family in the US when they discovered Scooter was dead. Stanton made efforts to save his family but he was too late saving only his grandmother whom died not long after whilst living with Scooter in London. Scooter was left with no one, arrested by the British police Stanton pulled rank and secured his discharge. Scooter then explained his expertise and gradually became part of the elite, taking control of the drone infiltration programming project, it was the first time it would be used. Scooter had a broad deep growling American accent, he had been a heavy drinker and hard to control but had the utmost respect for Greywolf, and had been sat on his behind by the stocky comparatively short man on more than one occasion. Scooter was always nervous, stocky and plump he would move around as he spoke looking away, Greywolf was the only man he looked in the face. "You called for me sir." Henry got up and shuffled away down one of the many tunnels leaving the control room.
Greywolf smiled, stood up and put his arm around Scooter. "How many times have I told you not to call me sir?"
"You da man."
Greywolf walked Scooter toward a control station in the operations area, his arm around him. "We've been together for a long time, my father liked to see you because you were one of the people still alive among all this shit. We are your family and he demanded that we make sure you felt like you were, how have we done?"
"My Granma told me everyday, you da man."
Wolf chuckled. "Sometimes I found your grandma hard to understand, but I loved her."
"She come from Harlem, we didn't get good schooling, she got none."
"I'm going to ask you to turn a drone on your own people, not just anyone, one single person for starters."
"They took my mom, they took my daddy, they took my sisters and brothers, the left me to die, who you looking to kill."
Wolf lent on the side of the control station, he folded his arms. "Every day at four pm American time, a man comes out of the Wall Street stock exchange and gets into a limousine."
"William Ferrier, I been studying this man, just like you ask me."
"Bill, good ol Bill then goes where?"
"He not even on the board but he control all the seats, he then goes to two blocks to discuss things with senators and powerful people from industry."
"Yes, protected by the government, regardless of financial outcomes at the exchange he controls the distribution of profits for government and the powerful, moves the goal post so you just can't kick a goal."
"He's an evil man."
"We have tried to convince Bill he should change his ways, without success over a year now. Intelligence shows they have withdrawn from electronic communication and now meet daily to exchange information by mouth. We have infiltrated their meetings and they plot to make things worse, convinced they are free from ridicule or oppression. Courtesy of Islamic militants in the Middle East raising terror alerts a drone had been moved to Macarthur Long Island, armed. Take control of the drone, fly it down Wall Street at exactly four pm and take out Bill Ferrier in a time window of a minute or so."
"He be only a few seconds from the door to the limo."
"Not today, someone he knows well will be going in the door and stop him on the sidewalk for a chat."
"They'll scramble fighters when the drone is airborne."
"You get to know a little more now, your remote control of the drone will be unnoticed, when you log in your movements will be stealth, been doing it for years, its how we got you out of Saudi Arabia. Just do what you've been doing on the control panel for the last few years, difference is this one is for real."
"Good damn, you mean I can fly right down Wall Street and no one will know it's me?"
"I can guarantee it."
"Hot damn."
"I then want you to take out the same level operators in Russia, Germany, France and Britain."
"All of the stock exchanges."
"No just those ones, they're the only ones we are sure are cooking the books."
"They gonna crap themselves."
"Well, pretty please has gone without result, the information on the other targets are on the documents beside this control station."
Scooter sat down at the control station, began to study the information. "I got half an hour man, the first one is right here, London, two hours."
"I'll leave you to it." Greywolf walked from the cavern and into a tunnel, he vanished.
