Dougal gave him an apologetic look. “I may no’ be much help to you. I’m lucky if I’m able to stay awake for more than a few hours at night. The blasted sun here is always up.”
Howard smiled. “You could use that as an excuse for not reporting in. Then maybe Angus would send more men.”
Dougal tilted his head, his eyes narrowed. “Is that why ye stopped returning his calls? So he would be forced to send us?”
Phil scoffed. “You jerk, you had us worried about you. Why didn’t you just ask for help?”
“If I asked, Angus could refuse.” Howard leaned on his staff. “Any chance of getting more guys here?”
Dougal gave him an irritated look. “Angus will have smoke coming out his ears.”
“Then he should come and help,” Howard suggested.
“He’s busy coordinating three other missions right now,” Phil grumbled. “A lot has happened since you left for vacation.”
Howard frowned. After the skirmish with Rhett in Montana, everything had seemed to calm down. “What’s going on?”
“We’re still trying to find Russell,” Phil began. “J.L. and Rajiv went to China to hunt for him.”
“That’s good.” Howard had often wondered how Russell was doing. The former Marine and newly turned vampire had gone AWOL in China after their last mission there. As Russell’s sire, Angus probably felt some responsibility for him. Everyone assumed Russell was hunting for Master Han, the evil vampire who had left him in a vampire coma for forty years.
“There was an outbreak of murderous Malcontents in Albania,” Phil continued. “Angus sent some guys there to help Zoltan track them down.”
“I see.” Howard knew that as Coven Master of Eastern Europe, Zoltan was charged with the task of protecting mortals in his jurisdiction. It wasn’t a job he could always do alone, so he often requested help from Angus.
“And then we got an urgent request from President Tucker,” Phil muttered. “And when the government asks for our help, we have to comply.”
Howard nodded. Now that the president knew about vampires and shifters, he and the CIA were likely to make many such requests in the future. “What is it this time?”
“Seven American tourists taken hostage by a drug cartel in Mexico,” Phil explained. “The president asked us to locate them and teleport them out. The only safe way to do it is to have a vampire for each hostage. So that’s seven more Vamps. Carlos went with them as their day guard and translator.”
“Now ye ken why Angus wasna pleased with yer antics,” Dougal said. “He’s short on manpower. He had to call me away from my station in Texas.”
“I understand.” Howard had hoped for a bigger team, but he could manage with only two more. “If you both join us, then we’ll have a team of six. The three of us. A journalist and good friend, Harry Yutu, in Anchorage. And two young were-bears from the island, my twin cousins, Jimmy and Jesse.”
“What’s the plan?” Phil asked.
“We call it Operation Three Little Pigs,” Howard replied. “We’re attacking three of Rhett’s houses. Our first target was one of his fishing cabins. We removed everything from inside, stashed it in our trucks, then huffed and puffed and knocked the walls down. It wasn’t too hard, since it was just a shack.”
“That was yer house of straw?” Dougal asked.
Howard nodded. “Some hungry cubs on The Paw are enjoying the food, and an old woman got a new wood- burning stove she was needing. My grandfather is very happy with his new rod and reel.”
Phil crossed his arms. “You probably left your scent behind. Rhett will know it was you.”
“My cousins left behind some deer and squirrel carcasses. The place will be a magnet for hungry animals. There’ll be a lot of scents there by the time Rhett discovers it.” Howard took a deep breath, then continued, “Last week, we tackled the house of sticks, Rhett’s vacation home on the coast of the Kenai Peninsula. We emptied it so we could give all the stuff to some needy were-bears, then took a few axes to the stilts and watched the house slide down the bluff and break apart on the rocks. Most of it floated out to sea.”
“I like it.” Phil grinned. “And the house of bricks?”
“It’s log and stone, actually. One of Rhett’s main residences.” Howard glanced up at the sky. “We’ll hit tomorrow night when the moon is full, and Rhett and his minions are away from the house on their monthly hunt.”
“He’ll leave behind a few guards,” Phil warned.
“That’s why I wanted more men. If they discover us invading his home, there could be trouble. I was hoping to get a few Vamps on our team so we could use your mind control or at least teleport away if we need to. We could really use your help.” Howard extended a hand, palm down. “What do you say? Are you in?”
Phil gave them a wolfish grin. “Yeah, I’m in.” He slapped a hand on top of Howard’s.
Dougal snorted, then rested his mechanical hand on top of theirs. “Aye, I’m in as well.”
Chapter Three
The following night, Howard drove a black SUV toward Rhett’s house. After turning off the headlights, he eased down the narrow road for the last few miles. When he spotted the sharp curve ahead, he pulled over and stopped. A quick glance in the rearview mirror assured him they hadn’t been followed. In the backseat, his seventeen-year-old cousins, Jimmy and Jesse, snored away. Phil was dozing, too, in the passenger seat.
It had been a long trip from Paw Island. They’d left early in the morning, with Dougal safely doing his death- sleep in the dark basement of his grandfather’s house. After a short ferry trip from the island to Port Mishenka, they’d caught the bigger ferry to Anchorage. At a local diner, they met his old high school buddy, Harry Yutu, who worked as a reporter for the popular local tabloid,
After dropping Harry off at the newspaper office, Howard had driven north toward Fairbanks. It was just after 11:00 p.m. now. The full moon had risen, but the sun still lingered on the horizon. He turned off the engine.
Phil woke with a jerk and quickly looked around. “Are we there?”
Howard pointed at the two-lane road that curved to the right then disappeared from view. “Rhett’s estate is a mile down there. I reconnoitered it about a week ago. He had one guard at the gatehouse and four more watching the exterior of the house. All mortals, so they’re probably working tonight while the werewolves are forced to shift.”
Phil nodded. “They’ll be off in the woods, hunting. Unless they’re Alpha like me, but I doubt Rhett allows any of his minions to gain that much power.”
“I’m hoping they stay in the woods. We’ll be in deep shit if they discover us.” That was the main reason Howard had wanted more Vamps on his team. If they were attacked, the Vamps could have teleported them away. Without that emergency exit strategy, they had to count on the plan working without a hitch.
Phil gave him a curious look. “You and your cousins don’t need to shift tonight?”
“Different species, different rules.” Howard dropped the car keys in his jacket pocket. “To stay healthy, we need to shift at least once a month, but it doesn’t depend on the moon. We can shift at will.”
“Oh.” Phil was quiet for a moment as he scanned the woods. “I knew you could shift whenever you wanted, but I figured you were an Alpha.”
“No such thing in our culture. Or I suppose you could say we’re all Alphas.” Howard slanted an amused look at the werewolf. “I guess that makes us superior—”
“Ha. We’re not the ones on the verge of extinct—” Phil stopped himself. “Sorry.” Frowning, he turned to Howard. “If Rhett does like my father, he’ll have a bunch of pack members here for the monthly hunt. If they catch the scent of were-bear, they’ll come after you and your cousins.”
“Worried about the three little bears? How kind of you.”
