Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Peyton
The preparations for the raid continued.
With the information gleaned from the compromised lab and security personnel, they had what they confidently felt was a reasonably accurate layout.
They rented an empty warehouse in Finland, about ten miles from the Russian border crossing closest to their target.
Nine days before the scheduled raid, which would happen on the new moon so they’d have the cover of darkness on their side, all the volunteers started congregating there to finalize plans and prepare.
Some of the people were from other shifter races. While they hadn’t been able to ascertain the identities of any of the prisoners, because the lab personnel they’d been able to talk to so far only knew them as numbers, they knew there was a possibility that others besides wolves were being held.
Aisling drew a chalk outline on the warehouse floor, not to scale, of the interior layout of the facility. She and Peyton had developed a plan and multiple contingencies.
Peyton stood next to her as he looked at the chalk diagram, his hands on his hips. “Don’t hesitate to call me out if you think I’m making a mistake,” he told her.
She snorted. “No worries. I will. Woulda’ done that a long time ago.”
Trevor’s crew was nearly finished converting the Lewis estate house into a rehabilitation center.
They had a full emergency clinic, staffing, and supplies.
Trevor had wanted to be part of the attack, but Peyton and Aisling both overruled him, knowing they needed to spread their leadership out, just in case.
Hence why Peyton kept Badger and Duncan back in the US. Ten more Targhee Enforcers, four of them Primes, would be part of the force and would arrive tomorrow morning. And Lowri, too.
Jake was currently inside Russia with two Primes from European packs and conducting a final sweep of the town for any additional personnel they might be able to compromise, as well as to verify all border personnel they’d encounter were compromised.
They would return to the warehouse later that evening with their final report.
All told, they would have close to seventy people from various packs all over the world as part of the attack force, all of them verified by Primes Peyton had personally met and checked out himself.
Not everyone would make entry. Ten would stay behind, on this side of the border, to assist in case any issues arose getting back across, including a Prime in case they needed to handle border troops.
“Honest opinion—how many do you think we’ll have to leave behind?” Peyton asked Aisling.
She grimly shrugged. “From Jake’s initial reports, it looks like the lab personnel are strictly siloed by job responsibilities.
No tellin’ exactly how many they’re holdin’ in the various restricted areas.
My guess is there might be upward of forty alive, and if we come back with ten still breathing, I’ll consider it a success. ”
Peyton shivered. “God, I hope it’s more than that.”
“Don’t wish that when we don’t know what state they’re in.
” She turned to him, her voice soft. “One of the worst days of my life, we were attacked on a patrol. The car bomb they set up had petrol and a kind of makeshift napalm in it. Three of our guys what didn’t get killed in the initial blast, they were beggin’ us to kill ’em.
Two of ’em lost both legs, and their uniforms and gear were melted to them in some places, and burned away in others.
Other guy lost one of his arms. They all sustained lethal burns. ”
She shook her head. “I will, to my dyin’ day, hear the sound of their screams an’ their beggin’,” she whispered. “There ain’t nothin’ someone can do to me worse than what I saw that day. If we hadn’t had medics there, I woulda’ done it for ‘em with my sidearm. It was that bad.”
She let out a ragged breath. “There’s no way they were survivin’.
No way. Our medics ended up shootin’ ’em so full of morphine that before the evac helos arrived, they were gone.
Our CO personally wrote up the report so it looked like they died first, and to account for the morphine they used, he said the med-pack was destroyed in the blast, so they didn’t get in trouble. ”
“Jesusfuck,” Peyton muttered.
“An’ I know fer a fact it ain’t the first time somethin’ like that’s happened in war.
So that’s a long way round of givin’ ye my opinion.
” She met his gaze, her mouth set in a grim line.
“I won’t hesitate to make a judgment call, if need be, of settin’ ’em free if they’re…
Well, if they’re lab rats and sufferin’.
But ye see, that’s why I insisted on usin’ the gas, too.
Not because I wanna be humane to the lab personnel.
Because if there are captives we can’t save and don’t have time to dispatch, at least they’ll go to sleep and never wake up.
Never feel a thing. And that might be the biggest kindness done to ’em in Goddess knows how many years. ”
“I’m sorry to put you in this position, but I’m glad you’re here.”
“Well, ye know what they say.” Aisling grimly smiled. “Eat, drink, and be merry, because tomorrow we might very well die.”
“Is that from the Bible?” Peyton asked.
She smirked. “Dave Matthews Band. Although I’m paraphrasin’.” She cocked her head. “Is it in the Bible? Have to admit I haven’t read the bloody thing. No use fer all the bullshit when my repeated experience is that hell’s right here on this fuckin’ earth, and it’s usually other people.”
Peyton snorted. “Very true. Although I haven’t read it, either, so I’ll trust your opinion.”
“Plus, ye know, I’ve never been much of a joiner.”
He laughed. “You were in the army.”
“Yeah, but that was outta necessity, wonnit? My da and brothers, they joined a movement that got ’em kilt, and they weren’t even doin’ anything.
Lookit Faegan, that cunt. Lookit that barmy, soddin’ Aussie.
Fuckin’ psychos. You know what you and Trevor have in common?
And others, yeah, but the two of ye especially—yer not megalomaniacal twats.
Yer truly in it for the common good first, for takin’ care of you and yers, not for profit or power.
That’s so damned rare now. Ye don’t care if people like ye, and ye only want the cunts to fear ye.
People trust ye, and ye don’t abuse that trust. Ye don’t force people to join up, and ye don’t hold it against them when they say nah, as long as they live and let live in their leavin’. ”
Peyton rubbed the back of his neck and desperately wished he were safely home, in bed, and it was Gillian rubbing it for him.
“I learned that lesson from Dad, who watched—and helped—Duncan successfully grow our pack and keep it prosperous. They left behind the violent ways of taking everything by force when they left the old country. And they learned that people are more loyal when they’re happy and trusting of their leader, and fairly compensated.
All they care about is that the pack can take care of them when and if they need it.
So that’s how I’ve run it—like a business. ”
She snorted. “Yer no toxic capitalist areshole.”
“Well, okay, how about saying I run it like a humanitarian nonprofit, if you prefer that analogy. Yes, we grow and make money. Except, ultimately, that money isn’t profit for profit’s sake, but to benefit the entire pack.
Everything we make is put back into the pack and its people.
Yes, we have a bank balance. We’d be idiots not to.
But we adjust that as times change, and we would spend it down in a heartbeat to protect our people. ”
She pointed a finger at him. “Exactly right. And I still say you an’ Trevor are rare in that respect. And if I didn’t trust Trevor, I never woulda agreed to this in the first place.” She scowled. “Although the way Faegan slipped through my paws, I’m honestly shocked Trevor still has trust in me.”
“You’re harder on yourself than anyone else is,” he assured her.
They studied the layout she’d chalked on the floor. There were two levels: the upper floor was where everything took place, but the lower level was the utilities plant area, where the generator, water and sewage pumps, cooling equipment for their computer servers, and other machinery were located.
“I still want a final drone flight over the site the night before we put boots in there,” she added. “No offense, but I don’t trust people. The intel might be solid, but it also might change. We need multiple contingencies.”
“Agreed. You tell me what you want, and I’ll arrange it.”
“I’d say I need a bloody stiff drink, but I’ll hold off on that until this is over with.”
“Once we’re all home safe, I’ll buy you a case of whatever you want,” Peyton said.
“Just hope ye get the chance to make good on that.”
Anyone they rescued from the lab would be loaded onto a chartered cargo plane parked at a small strip five minutes away and flown to Wales, with a refueling stop in Norway.
A smaller passenger plane would fly out the remaining team members who stayed behind to dismantle the warehouse operation and wait to make sure everyone else safely left the region.
Jake would be part of that team, since he fluently spoke Russian and Finnish.
Another team member who spoke Russian would fly out with the rescued hostages, in case they rescued people who only spoke Russian.
Because, apparently, that was a likely probability. Especially some of the children, who’d been born in the lab, according to the personnel they’d compromised.
The plan was for the Primes to basically put anyone they found into a sleeping state, although they had plenty of ketamine on hand in case there were Primes or others who were too dangerous to approach. They didn’t know the mental states of any of the people.