Chapter 16

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Michael got off the phone from Sebastian and picked up the picture he was faxed. He had met Sebastian couple of years ago as a part of delegation that pentagon put together. Roma was a potential buyer of hardware and Roma was on the list labeled "Sell all you can without worrying."

Roma had indeed signed a sweet deal for military hardware, they had even thrown in training some of their folks on urban warfare also part of lesser known agreements were intelligence sharing and co-operation and that is where he had come in. He would be the point of contact on intelligence sharing for Roma.

He looked at the picture and put it in a file and got up to walk towards his destination. Sebastian had told him very little but also confessed that he knew very little. He has mentioned that this picture of a man called "Charles" was a person of interest for them and they had some intelligence that this Charles was planning something nasty, what they really wasn't sure. What they were pretty sure was that he was a US citizen, which was a concern.

He walked out of his office into the long hallway and pressed the button for the elevator and waited for it. Once he entered it pressed the button for basement. He was there in less than a minute. Once there he passed through a maze of hallways to reach a door. It simply had "Research" stenciled on it.

Once he entered the room, it was mostly empty with one table with a bunch of monitors and some computer hardware in one corner and a geeky looking technician keeping them company who stood up once he saw him enter.

"Mr. Bartley! How are you sir?" the tech greeted.It was not often that the top floor guys visited the basement dwellers. He would have just sent one of his minions. Which left to only one unsaid conclusion, whatever he wanted was important and possibly sensitive.

"I am good, how about you Jude?"

"Just perfect! How can I help you?"

Michael handed over that file to him.

"I need to find him"

Jude opened the file and looked at the sketch.

"A sketch?"

"Will that be a problem?"

"Not for this baby" he said pointing to his console.

Jude put the picture on a scanner bed and pressed the scan button.

The image slowly appeared on one of his monitors of the dual monitor setup of his desktop. Once the image was fully scanned. He asked "Any other Information?"

"Yes, US Citizen. Name, Charles"

Jude typed it in to his console and pressed enter.

The screen changed. His screen changed with a progress bar with title "Searching Databases"

A small text prompt below it showed "Currently searching: Social Security Database"

And the progress bar on the top displayed "1% complete"

The system would scan for anyone named Charles and compare their pictures with the sketch on the screen and would give a list of possible profiles. But it would take some time as it had to search through multiple databases with millions of entries.

"Tell me when something comes up" Michael said and stepped out of the room back in to the hallway to the elevator he just stepped out some time back.

As the doors of the elevator closed one could see on the hallway wall opposite to the elevator doors the seal of his agency. Eagle, Shield and the compass rose together formed one of the most recognizable images in the world.

The seal of the Central Intelligence Agency.

***

Alpha Nick was just retiring for the day when his beta interrupted his trek to his bedroom.

"Alpha, you have a phone call" he said.

"Can it wait till tomorrow" he asked hopefully, knowing that his Beta would not have come it him unless it was an important one. He had a very long day and was ready to crash.

"Sorry, Nick" Jeff added "I would not have bothered you if it was not important"

Nick nodded in understanding and started moving to his office as Jeff trailed behind him.

"Who is it?"

"It's an enforcer, from the world council" Jeff responded gravely.

Nick released a deep breath Shit! He thought. He knew this would happen someday but he did not expect it so soon. But neither did he expect the American council to sit back and twiddle their thumbs.

He entered his office and closed the door behind him for privacy. He picked up the receiver

"Hello, this is Alpha Nick"

Things, were going to get very interesting around here.

***

"We had three people serving in this room Roma" Adrian said, handing over a sheet of paper.

He had collected all the information she had asked in thirty minutes flat and was back with her.

"Here is their schedule" he handed over one more print out he had taken a few min ago.

"Ok" She said looking it to the print outs "I see only three girls allocated for room service, any particular reason?"

"All of them have not yet turned" Adrian answered. They had thought this through when they were clearing people for room service duty. The person had to be a female un-turned wolf. Why? Pretty simple she would be easier to subjugate, if needed with least amount of resistance. Females who had not yet turned would not have the strength or agility of a turned wolf or a full grown male werewolf. It was a tactical move on their part.

"How old are they?" she asked.

"All of them should be in their late teens Roma, I can pull up the info if you need" he offered.

She nodded and added "All right, I want each girl to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner tomorrow. I already see Evelyn in the morning and Amy in the afternoon so ensure we put in Ria for the night. Also I need detailed profiles on these three girls" she said referring to his printouts he had handed over earlier.

He nodded while she added "We might stay a few days longer, I want to get more headway on Charles as well."

"Ok Roma" he agreed and added "But I don't think Maxwell will be all that happy."

"Why?" she asked curious.

"His wolf has been acting jumpy, he want to let him out and he was hoping to leave"

"Maxwell can control his wolf" she dismissed his concern and added "I need him here as well"

He simply nodded, he knew that a trained werewolf can reign in his wolf pretty much all of the time, it was very rare that they broke out and took control and Maxwell was trained by the best.

"Anything else Roma?" he asked.

She shook her head dismissing him.

He got up and started walking towards the door but couldn't help himself and stopped and asked.

"Any reason why you are interested in these girls?" He had been burning with curiosity.

She looked at him and clearly contemplating, he could see clearly she was in two minds but she relented.

"There are a very few reasons, why one wolf can find a particular scent dominating all the other scents in the room while other wolves in the same room don't."

He took a moment to absorb the news, his eyes widened, his jaw fell open in shock as he connected the dots.

Holy Shit!