Granite Peak did not look too far away on a map. But the only way there was a U-shaped route through the Special Industrial Zone, and the road there was long and winding, not to mention badly washboarded from the floods a few years ago.
The road was neutral territory, and therefore the responsibility of the OPLU. The funds to repair it had long gone who knows where.
But that didn't really matter, as the Moon Goddess ironed the worst parts out, more or less. I was at the lead of a long convoy; the Stone River contingent was behind me; We had agreed to let the Moon Goddess go first as she was the most impervious vehicle to tyre blowouts.
I was travelling alone. The other fellow pack members involved had already gone out. We were running slightly late, due to congestion in the Industrial Zone.
We had passed the treeline some way back, and the rolling hills looked like they had been upended and carefully dipped in finely cut straw. We were very close to the border with Zirconia here, and occasionally the lie of the land would reveal a brief glimpse of stainless-steel fence, glinting in the late afternoon sunlight.
The serenity and the beauty of the landscape belied the atrocity that had occurred here. But that was the norm in these parts, unfortunately.
However, my mind could not be further from the scenery. I had seen one of the attackers, or at least I had seen someone who had been there.
We had spoken to the Zirconian forces, and they had responded to our responses for information in the usual curt manner. They had told us they had not seen anything suspect on the night in question.The re-enactment of the night was taking place tonight, as part of the investigation. We were retracing the steps that the rogues had taken, as far as the evidence could point to.
***
By the time we arrived, dusk was on the verge of falling. Granite Peak was located on the leeward side of a large rock outcrop, glowing incandescent in the dying rays of the sun. Around the pack territory, the remnants of the forest that once had coated the entire surrounding landscape, saved by the shelter of the outcrop against the extreme winds, cast their shadows onto the scene of the crime. Only one side of the territory abutted the rock face; the rest looked out onto the grassed rolling hills beyond. Sentry posts were obscured in the trees, and there were tripwires in the undergrowth.
Even though the orange glow of the sun still lit up the treeless horizon, the scene had already been lit up like a Christmas tree, as usual, with as many spotlights as the diesel generators could keep running, as seemed to be necessary for almost every nocturnal event in the werewolf calendar. I knew more than one pack that just used them instead of lighting a bonfire every full moon.
Also not in short supply was the hi-vis work gear. I was reasonably sure the Granite Peak pack was not several hundred people in hi-vis vests wandering around like a bunch of headless chickens, but oh well.
They were yelling at each other over something, as it usually transpired when three or more packs worked together on something. The yelling was too far away for me to tell what they were yelling about. I took a look around, before the sun set for good. They had taken quite a bit of care in beautifying their patch. There had been some serious attempts at landscaping. The buildings looked modest and unassuming, but well-designed.
***
Behind us there was a rumbling of tyres on loose gravel. A convoy of armoured vehicles hove into sight. They were painted black and had no markings. They looked almost overbearingly severe against the motley fleet we had parked wherever we could. I guessed this was the Thunder Falls contingent, who had been invited to observe the proceedings. They parked in a loose corral in the meeting place of the pack and got out. It had been made clear that Adlai would not be coming, but they had said little more than that; the conversation over the phone had been brief, in character with what we had seen of them so far.
Curt and to the point. Kind of like the Zirconians, really.
There were many faces I had never seen before, all severe and unsmiling. The only official of any rank who I recognised was Stevenson. Even in the fading, his figure was distinctive. There was not much I could tell beyond that, though. He conversed briefly with the people in charge - Lister and Tim. None of the others who accompanied him talked; they stood silently to the side, watching.
***
Sentry Post 9 was a simple wooden box mounted ten metres up a gnarly old oak, overlooking the road which marked the northern extent of the border. The walls were lined with foil to throw off heat detectors. There were two dozen others of the same design, dotted around the edges of the pack territory.
I sat inside with a pair of night vision binoculars, scanning the border road stretched out in front of me. All was quiet.
In the far distance I spotted the lights of an Interpack bus. The shuttle to the border ran almost 24 hours a day. This was 0105 night bus from the border crossing, carrying night shift workers to the Special Industrial Zone. There were just a few passengers.
As I was not in charge of the proceedings, I was not entirely sure what was going on. And nobody else except for a few of the exercise leaders seemed to, either. At the same time, the accord between the packs, thin at the best of times, was waning fast. Hopefully we would get it over and done with before it finally snapped.
At last, there seemed to be some movement. I could hear what I hoped was the sound of the wolves coming. Surely they couldn't be just walking in like that. We'd dispatch of them in no time. They'd get decimated. All of the sentry posts were placed so that there were no blind spots; this was something they had documented in the minutes of their own training exercises that we had recovered from their computers. There was no way they could have attacked in such force; if they had swarmed the pack defenses by sheer manpower they would have left a lot more clues on the ground, and there was no other path they could have taken without being seen.
There had to be something else. They had to have come from somewhere else. Where had they come from?
"Stop!" I could hear Lister yelling. It became obvious that something had gone wrong. There was some kind of mistiming or misunderstanding. People were yelling at each other. I could hear Lister, and then Thurgood. People seemed to be talking over others.
***
I decided to take a walk along the margins of the main part of the territory, beyond the glow of the floodlights. The exercise was quite obviously a lost cause. But maybe I could learn something, get a better understanding of the site. I also wanted to seek out the wooded area I had seen on the map, and look at the old pack house.
I climbed down from the sentry post and walked away from the commotion. There was little that could be done about it. The idea of holding such an event when we still had so little evidence was ridiculous, really.
Quickly, I had left the trees behind, and open space surrounded me on all sides. Not a blade of grass moved or made a sound on the desolate rolling hills that surrounded me, tinted bluish-gray by the moonlight.
The arguing continued in the distance. Lister was cussing someone out. The floodlights cast a dome of of light into the sky, blocking out the stars and illuminating the rocky outcrop behind. The tree cover picked up once again as I reached the place that had caught my eye on the map. Leaves crunched with each footfall. The grass made swirling patterns in the silver glow of the moon.
I felt a pang of fear when I sighted a dark figure at the edge of the territory. But I quickly realised it was only Stevenson. He was standing almost in the shadows, near where the old pack house used to be. The position of the tree branches reflected a ray of light that caught his silhouette. It was a prime spot; it afforded him a clear view of the valley down below.
His dark stare was inscrutable, as usual. But there was something in his body language, in the accents of his face in the faint glow of the distant spotlights, that lent him an air of assurance, satisfaction that I hadn't seen before.
He seemed relaxed. He seemed satisfied. But by what? He still had not noticed me. I stood there in trepidation, waiting for the inevitable moment.
My eye followed the sliver of light down his face, and down his body. The light seemed to reflect strangely on his hands. I realised for the first time he was wearing gloves.
He turned his head slightly. For a moment we stared at each other wordlessly. If he had been surprised, he did not show it. He merely acknowledged me with a small nod and went back to his observation. Unsure of what to do, I stood there for a moment, before I decided to continue my jaunt around the border, taking precautions not to cross paths with him.