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Red Moon: Revolution: Chapter 34

The time had come. Everything was in place. Months of preparation had gone into this operation. Caughey had left nothing to chance. He had set in motion the demise of the Coordinator long before he had approached the New Inquisition and the werewolves. He had his vast drug empires retrofitted into spy agencies. Dealers became informants, Cartels no longer busied themselves with war but began to listen to the words of the streets on where the Coordinator was hiding.

Bit by bit, for nearly a year, rumors came in. Most were false, nothing more than fantasies created from the tail end of a crack pipe, but all were investigated. Caughey feared the Coordinator even if he knew that he was winning. The mysterious man had a way with leaving behind a trail of bodies in his wake. No witnesses. He was doing it now. All the other Directors were dead or in custody, fleeing from this shadow man that seemingly knew everything about them.

Director McGannon had been on a state trip, under the guise of a diplomat for Sweden with a false name and everything. It was routine work to help build credibility for his cover while he waited for the war to blow over. He had dreamed of rising from the ashes and wiping out the traitors, but his dreams fell from forty thousand feet when the engines of his private jet suddenly gave way, sending him crashing into the Alps. Caughey hadn't even known about McGannon's cover until much later when McGannon's men had defected to him with this information. The plane had been cleared, checked and then checked again by engineers and technicians. The plane should have been fine, more than fine, in perfect flying condition, but it hadn't. There was no evidence that said the Coordinator was behind it all, but he knew.

Other Directors met similar, sometimes more gruesome deaths. One by one, they disappeared from the face of the Earth, found drowned in their pools, electrocuted by a shorted toaster or hit by a bus after its brakes failed at the exact moment the Director was crossing the road. One or even two accidental deaths could be the random acts of God, accidents, no more, but so many died too fast for it to be convenience.

Caughey survived by relying on those around him. His lieutenants in his numerous drug cartels had hidden from the governments of the world while still running their operations effectively. Caughey learned from them. He kept his traveling a secret to as many people as necessary and even then, he rarely made long term plans to be discovered. One day he would be in Columbia, the next day he would suddenly decide to visit El Paso and he would go, buying a small charter plane ticket to take him there. He also relied on his cartels to self-regulate while he focused all his efforts on finding and learning more about the Coordinator.

Where did this man come from? Records pulled from the Pentagon, thanks to untold millions in bribes revealed little, but once information from old KGB documents were added, a painting was slowly created.

Romanov Checkov was an orphan of Stalingrad. His parents were both killed during the early days of fighting in and around the city. He picked up a rifle and fought until the Germans were driven out. After, he helped rebuild. Once the war was over, he officially joined the Soviet army and served for twelve years before leaving to accept a job in the KGB. He was sent to America due to his ability to easily manipulate his accent where he spied and sent information back to the Soviet Union. He served until 1972 where he disappeared and was assumed to have been captured. He was disowned, and there were no further documents.

On the surface, this one document seemed benign, just another KGB spy. Another person, one of the millions that the Soviet Union kept track of. It was a complete record with a birth certificate and photos.

For a long time, it was just another document until another file was found.

Ron Brigs was a football player for the Univeristy of Kansas. He was on a full ride scholarship and was aspiring to be a reporter. He got what he wanted after the United States entered the war one year after he graduated and began to work for his hometown's newspaper. He left his job along with most of the young adult staff and signed up to fight. His background landed him in a position as a war correspondent. He was to follow the troops wherever they went and kept track of everything. He was assigned to the Big Red One and saw action in North Africa, Sicily and then D-Day where he was injured and sent home. He got his old job back and worked there until the war ended with the dropping of the Atomic Bombs. He worked there until 1950 where he tried to rejoin to report during the Korean War. Instead, he was sent to intelligence due to his college degree. He slowly worked his way into the CIA where he was sent to Russia as a spy. He vanished in 1972.

It seemed like another random document, complete with a birth certificate, passport, and diploma. It was another person who lived their lives, but this person looked exactly like Romanov Checkov. Exactly alike.

When Caughey found this, he had millions of documents scoured. Three more files were found with people who looked exactly alike, spanning different cultures and backgrounds, all ending up in the CIA, KGB or MI-6 where they then disappeared after 1972 which was when the Coordinator became known to the Inquisition because he allowed himself to be known. It was on July 2, 1972, that a man came to a random shack in the middle of the woods in France and stepped into it. It wasn't just a shack, but a hidden entrance to an Inquisition listening post. He walked in the day when Director Busely had been making an inspection. The Coordinator offered his services to the Inquisition for no price.

At first, he was refused, but then the Coordinator threatened to reveal the Inquisition's existence to the world. He produced more than enough credible evidence to go through with his threat. He knew more about the Inquisition as a whole than what a single Director was entrusted with. He had base locations, operative names and their exact location that day, where they were, what their mission was, but he also had information regarding werewolves. There was no choice. He was given a position of power, and that was how he came to be a member of the Inquisition, a parasite that kept its host alive, he was an ever-present threat that most learned to live with over the years as he held their secrets hostage.

Caughey had never trusted the Coordinator and had butted heads with him on multiple occasions. He was up to something, always scheming in one way or another. Even though his information and infinite flow of information helped with the war against the werewolves, Caughey had the suspicion that there was an underlying motive. He never learned what it was and after the betrayal that nearly killed him when that assassin had come barreling at him with a knife, only to be stopped by a guard that just managed to walk into his room after hearing some ruckus from the ground floor of the mcmansion in Northern California, he no longer cared. The Coordinator needed to be put down like the mad dog that he was and if that meant joining forces with his sworn enemies, the werewolves, then so be it. That was why Caughey shared everything he knew with the werewolves he was now sitting with in Berlin.

"Quite the story," Rommel said as he brushed his fingers across a beard he had been growing the past few days. A new look for the normally pristinely groomed man.

"Indeed." Caughey bowed his head. He was perfectly calm despite being surrounded by his former enemies. He had been around his fair share of werewolves and had studied them for his Guardian program. They were not known to attack randomly, especially a guest in their home. They were honorable which Caughey believed to be a weakness. 'Whatever must be done, will be done. At any cost,' was his motto and he had stuck by it his whole career. He wasn't about to stop now. "And I still have no idea where he came from originally. I couldn't find anything on him from before."

"We're not here to talk about where he came from," Dmitri said from his corner. He prefered to stand while most of the group sat. Trevor was in a chair in front of him where he could be easily protected even if the new Trevor was more than capable of defending himself.

"True." Caughey nodded and rested his elbows on the table. "We're here to talk about how to kill him." He cleared his throat. "I've managed to ascertain his location, a small weapons depot deep in the Amazon. He's holed up there with about thirty men and women. The rest have abandoned him."

"It'll be easy then?" Dmitri asked. He had faced dozens by himself, and this attack would involve at least a dozen werewolves in addition to the forty or so that Caughey had promised along with boats as well. "We go right in and take him out."

"No." Caughey shook his head. "Sure, his men will be easy to take out, he has none of my Guardians with him, but he does have one thing." He pulled out several photos from the folder he had brought with him and distributed them to those present. "Tell me, Dmitri, what do you see."

Dmitri picked up the photos. "They're the pictures of the Coordinator from when he worked for the KGB and CIA. What are you trying to show us?" He set them back down as Caughey plucked one more photo and handed it over. Dmitri looked at it confused. "It is the Coordinator again."

"How do you know that?"

Dmitri gave it one more glance. "It is the same person. He looks exactly the same as the other photos."

Caughey gave a sly smirk. "What if I were to tell you that this photo is recent, as in a few months before this war even began."

Any small conversations on the side stopped. The photo was passed around, and horror came to faces of the werewolves one by one.

"He hasn't aged a day between them," Rommel said.

"No." Caughey shook his head. "He's a werewolf. I've no doubt about it in my mind."

"If he's survived this long without us knowing, then he must be truly powerful." The Alpha spoke. "There are few rogue werewolves that have evaded packs for very long. To have gone unnoticed for decades, maybe even longer, it speaks volumes of him."

"He's dangerous, werewolf or not." Caughey was anxious. He had waited for so long to finally wipe the Coordinator from the face of the Earth. He hated how he took his beloved Inquisition and twisted it to his will. Sure, Director Brennan had taken many away and formed her own party, but she had done that out of necessity. The old Inquisition was a dogmatic and bigoted thing that needed change. Caughey had seen change coming for some time. He never would have guessed that it would have gone this way and would never forgive Brennan for what she did, but he didn't hate her like how he hated the Coordinator. He had made them pieces on his chess board to toy with for far too long. The damage was irreparable now. That was why Caughey had sworn to leave once this was done, he was cutting his losses at this point.

"Then let's find a way to put him down." Trevor finally spoke up, saying what everyone was thinking. He knew the least about the situation out of everyone there, but he had gathered up enough to know that the Coordinator had to be killed. He was a threat to the pack, to their lively hood and most importantly to Dmitri and their unborn child. He didn't care about the politics. That went straight over his head. He cared about family, and that was enough. "We know where he is. Let's get over there and go in."

Discussion after that was brief for there was an underlying fear that the longer they spent talking, even for a few minutes, they would get to Brazil and find an abandoned base. The Coordinator couldn't escape like he did in London, not this time.