Page 20 of Shadow Boxed (Shadow Warriors #2)

Capland was already sitting at the war table, his gold frame glasses sliding down his aristocratic nose. Two laptops sat open before him, as well as the clicker to the overhead projector.

“Cap.” Wolf greeted the tech warrior with a chin thrust and got to work on the coffee. “Pull up everything we have on the Stone Agers.”

As Wolf got the coffee going, Cap’s fingers flew across his right laptop. A collection of photos and maps leapt onto the overhead screen.

“Doesn’t look like we have much intel on this group,” Cap said, his head bent over his laptop.

His glasses slid down his nose; he pushed them back up and pinned them in place with a lean index finger.

“They’re a fluid group, with no apparent hierarchy, leadership, or headquarters.

They’ve claimed three terrorist attacks.

The sinking of a Japanese whaling vessel, the bombing of a US Oceanic aquarium during its peak orca and dolphin exhibit, and the bombing of a gold mine in Ghana.

They made no attempt to mitigate the fatalities.

Instead, they released a statement blaming the victims for exploiting Hokalita and the creatures that call it home. ”

Coffee cup in hand, Wolf sat at the war table and read the dossier on the overhead screen.

“Looks like they went to ground after the Ghana attack,” Aiden said after he returned with his steaming Styrofoam cup.

“Their MO has always been explosives,” O’Neill said as he pulled a Styrofoam cup from the stack beside the pot. “Their acquisition of the nanobot bomb is inconsistent with that.”

Wolf studied the lines on O’Neill and Aiden’s faces.

Exhaustion clung to the two warriors. Capland was the only one at the table without lines on his face or nursing a cup of pick-me-up.

No surprise. Capland didn’t drink coffee or energy drinks or any of the beverages so prevalent on base.

Wolf had never even seen him with a can of soda or bottle of kav’cha .

Wolf returned his attention to the screen. “They grew impatient. Strategically placed bombs will not rid Hokalita of humanity. The nanobots however, once released, would flash across Hokalita as quickly as the great fire and extinguish all human life.”

“And without impacting the vegetation or wildlife,” O’Neill agreed.

O’Neill’s comment niggled at Wolf. Did the bots affect creatures other than humans? He turned to Aiden. “In Karaveht, did you see any dead animals? Dogs? Cats? Even rodents or birds?”

Aiden frowned, then shook his head. “No, which now that you mention it, seems odd.”

“Maybe the little bastards were engineered to only attack people,” O’Neill said on a yawn.

“That seems likely.” Cap looked up from his laptop. The silvery blue eyes behind his lenses were laser sharp. “If we assume the bots were engineered as a weapon against humans, targeting other species would decrease the weapon’s efficiency.”

After several seconds of silence, Wolf clicked the remote to advance the page. “I see no names associated with this cell.” Wolf glanced across the table at his javaanee . “Did the Taounaha give you anything more? A name? Location?”

Was Benioko still the mouthpiece? Or was Aiden? Did Wolf serve two masters now? A shadow Taounaha, alongside a waking one?

“Yeah. Hang on.” Aiden pulled out his phone and scrolled through the apps. When he reached the notes app, he tapped the screen. “Said we should look into a dude named Malcolm Oura.”

Cap typed the name into the Shadow Mountain search engine.

Multiple hits came up. Cap scrolled them.

“None of these match our criteria.” He stopped at the first ID.

“Too old.” Scrolled to the next. “Too young.” Onto a third.

“Too capitalistic.” And then another. “Too poor.” Finally, the last ID.

“Too active online.” He sat back with a grunt.

“I’ll need to refine my search criteria. ”

O’Neill shoved back his chair and rose to his feet. “While you do that, I’ll reach out to my contacts. See what they can find out.”

Aiden waited until O’Neill walked out of the door before turning to Wolf with raised eyebrows. “You two seem cozy all the sudden.”

Wolf shrugged. “There is more to—” he bit back his former unfavorable title for the Warrior. Jie'van no longer suited him “—O’Neill than he allows others to see.”

It was Aiden’s turn to shrug. “At least he’s admitting to contacts now.”

Wolf cocked his head and swiveled his chair until he and his javaanee were face to face. There had been an odd note in Aiden’s voice, one hinting at secrecy. “What are you not telling me?”

At first, it didn’t look like his javaanee intended to answer, but then Aiden shifted, and his guarded face thawed.

“I don’t suppose it matters now that you two are buddies.

I’m ninety-nine percent sure that your new BFF was the contact who approached Benioko with Kuznetsov’s location.

My contact in USSOCOM believes O’Neill is, or was, with ODNI.

So, I asked the bastard to reach out to his contacts and see if he could get a hit.

Boom, next thing I know, Benioko had a lead. ”

The surprises just kept coming today. “When was this?”

The more Wolf thought about Aiden’s story, the more it made sense.

Benioko had been certain his information was correct. Yet he had no intel contacts himself—and the Shadow Warrior did not use waking world technology when advising his Taounaha . Everyone had wondered where the tip came from. Yet Benioko refused to say.

“Two weeks ago, give or take. Six hours before I went down, and you had to peel my ass off the walkway.” Aiden said after a healthy gulp of coffee.

The timeframe was right. O’Neill would have had five hours to hear back from his contacts and funnel everything over to Benioko.

Why hadn’t the warrior come forward and shared his intel?

Wolf frowned over that, and realized nobody would have believed him, which would have impacted the urgency of the mission.

Even though nobody had known Benioko’s source, they had trusted the Taounaha’s certainty enough to greenlight the mission.

This would not have been the case if O’Neill had come forward himself.

Wolf turned to stare at Cap, suspicion rising.

Aiden’s SOCOM contacts had tracked O’Neill down, yet Capland hadn’t?

Not possible. Capland’s spirit gift was technological information.

He was undoubtedly one of—if not the most—accomplished hacker on Hokalita.

Nobody could keep him out of their database: not the alphabet soups, not other hackers, no organization or government.

All of Shadow Mountain’s intel came through Capland’s spirit gift.

Yet somehow, he’d missed O’Neill’s dossier?

Not a chance.

“Something you want to tell me?” he asked mildly, his gaze hard on Cap’s face. The warrior’s stoic expression screamed that he knew he’d been exposed.

Cap shrugged and held Wolf’s gaze. There was no apology in his eyes. “The Taounaha ordered me not to look into him and to convince you I found nothing when you asked if I searched his name.”

Wolf was not surprised. Of course, Benioko had held O’Neill’s secrets tight to his chest. He didn’t ask Cap if he’d disobeyed and run a search on the enigmatic warrior. Cap would not have betrayed Benioko’s trust.

Aiden, who’d been glancing back and forth between Wolf and Cap, pushed back his chair and stood. “If that’s all, I’m gonna grab some grub.”

Wolf put a hand up to stop him. “That is not all. There is another matter to discuss.”

Aiden didn’t like that. His gaze chilled and narrowed. “If this is about the mouthpiece nonsense—”

Wolf stared back. “We can talk here, or in the cafeteria. Your choice.”

Of course, if they took this discussion to the mess hall, someone would overhear the conversation and soon everyone on base would know Aiden was the newly chosen Taounaha. Wolf watched that realization sink into his javaanee’s eyes.

A scowl spread across Aiden’s face as he slowly sat back down. “What the fuck do you want now?”

Wolf steepled his fingers and stared into the black gaze so like his own. “We need explanations from the elder gods.”

Annoyance spread across Aiden’s face. “Can’t help you with that.”

Wolf swallowed his exasperation. His javaanee excelled at stubbornness. A trait they shared.

“When Benioko approaches you again,” because he would, “ask him why our females have been gifted warrior spirits. Ask him what the elder gods expected of them and how they are meant to serve the Hee'woo'nee.”

Aiden rolled his eyes. “This request is a fucking test, isn’t it? You know damn well the answer to that question is not something my subconscious can provide. What the hell, dude—are you trying to find out whether I’m actually talking with your dead shaman?”

“No.” Wolf simply stared back. “I know you’re speaking with him. Your own words prove this truth. You, who have never heard the language of the Hee'woo'nee, echoed the words of the Taounaha, Kali words. A language you do not know.”

Aiden looked startled, then dismissive. “When did I—”

“You used the Kali term Tabenetha. This is not a word you know. The Taounaha would use this word. You would not.”

Wolf watched Aiden’s forehead wrinkle, watched the memory of his words, sink into his eyes, watched his gaze widen and fill with shock.

“I must have...must have heard it on base.”

Wolf didn’t argue. He just sat back and let the hook set and sink.