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Firestorm

Defiance

Kain thought of a way to get into the F.O.X. servers and exercise command over its assets while he was driving to the family mansion in Kanata. When he was still a hacker he had created a number of backdoors into various agencies, including F.O.X. There was a false administrative accounts that allowed him the same privileges as the Director and the Chief of Staff, but the actions on that account was not logged or recorded anywhere. He had left it intact after he went legit in case he needed to get back into the network after someone like his former foe, the Long Guy, took it over. Kain did not think that was the case in this instance, but better safe than sorry. The fewer clues he left behind the less chance that the enemy would hurt Silver and Vikki's son.

The first thing he did when he got home was to grab his hacker kit from the vault and hook it up to an emergency satellite communications system that belonged to his dad's company. Unlike a hardwire or wireless system it could not be intercepted unless you placed a device directly between the antenna and the satellite. Since the antenna was movable Kain took the extra precaution of tuning it to a different satellite than usual, in another quadrant of the sky. It was a satellite that contained a router on the TOR system servers, allowing Kain direct access to the Dark Web.

He found his backdoor into F.O.X. and then he activated his administrative account. Using it he sent a message to the operations office of the Ottawa Airport. The message contained a code that required them to find him a seat on the first flight to Europe, with a connection to Denmark. He would pick up the ticket at the service desk as if he had reserved them through a travel agency. Then he downloaded a list of all the active agents, their locations and their current assignments onto a thumb drive and encrypted it so well that even he would be unable to hack into it if he forgot the password.

Kain then he switched to an executive account on the network of his father's business and searched through their European assets. Sure enough, they owned a data farm in Denmark that served all of Western Europe. They even had a condo in a villa nearby, with a protected hard line into the servers. He checked to make sure no one was in it already and then reserved it for a week in the name of one of the company executives.

The last thing Kain before leaving the Dark Web did was to send a message to a particular website, one that was not connected directly or even indirectly to any other site, one that could not be found by Google's web crawlers or with deliberate searches. This was a website whose address changed regularly, one that would block access to any computer associated with any government or law enforcement agency. One you could only get from a friend of a friend of a trusted colleague. His message contained of nothing but the address of the condo where he would be staying.

* * * * * * * *

Runs With Stick had more dreams, but none as vivid as the first one, and none that woke her up like the first one did. When she did wake up the room was still pitch black because of the sealed windows and she had to look at her watch before she realized that it was already mid morning. She rolled over and relit the lantern. Leslie was already awake, sitting on his sleeping bag in his underwear and staring at her with those spookily intense grey-blue eyes.

"Have you been up long?" She asked him.

"I don't know. I tried counting my breaths but I lost track."

Runs With Stick stood up stiffly and stretched. She took a step toward the washroom but stopped and looked back at the kit. "You have to go to the bathroom?"

"No. Thank you."

"Humph." She grabbed the bag with her spare clothes and disappeared into the smaller room.

After a quick shower and a change of clothes Runs With Stick felt reborn. The sleep she had after her initial nightmare had lasted longer and been deeper than any she had since she first met Bloedrye. She set about preparing them a breakfast of instant oatmeal and dried fruit. When they were done she let Leslie use the bathroom, although he turned down the opportunity to use the shower, and then re-secured the kit in the corner. This time she restrained his wrists and ankles prepared to put the muzzle on him too.

"I have to go out for a bit." She explained when he protested at the tightness and the smell of the muzzle. "And I can't have you straining your voice trying to call for help, not that there is anyone to hear."

"If there is no one to hear, then why are putting that smelly thing on me?" He said, whipping his snout from side to side so she could not slip it on.

She was putting it on because there was still a small chance that someone might come snooping around the property, and she had not had time to sound proof the windows, but she did not want to tell him that. He would cooperate more if he lost all hope, stopped thinking of her as a friendly EA, so she told him "It's your own sweat that you smell, so live with it, and I'm putting it on to stop all your incessant questions." And with that she grabbed his snout with one paw and pushed the muzzle over it with the other. Before he could shake it off she had buckled it in the back.

She put the garbage from breakfast and the night before in a plastic shopping bag and took it with her. Even though the cans were out of the kit's reach she did not want to get sloppy. She pulled into a fast food place and threw the bag into their garbage bin. Then she drove for thirty minutes in the opposite direction and found a strip mall to park in. There she opened the copper-lined box and reassembled Bloedrye's cell phone. She was two hours late checking in, and there were already twelve messages, half of them texts, the other half voice messages. She ignored them all and simply pressed the speed dial button for the one phone number in its memory - Bloedrye's. Before it could ring she put it on speaker and stuck it in a phone holder on the dash. By the time the first ring sounded she had the car back in gear and was on the move again.

The Persian feline answered almost immediately. "Where have you been? Where is the kit? What are you up to Sticks?"

"First of all, it's Runs With Sticks, not Sticks, not Runs, not RWS. Secondly, the kit is fine, healthy, safe and secured. Thirdly, you probably know where I am, at least while the phone is on, so why ask? Fourth, and finally, I've been out house hunting. I've taken advantage of your hospitality for too long already. I figured that Leslie and I needed a place that we could call our own. A form of insurance, if you will.

His voice, when he answered after a short pause, was smooth as corn silk and as deadly as nightshade. "Bring him back Sti- ... you ... you ... you rabbit you. Don't get any ideas that you can use him to get at Silver. You'll never be able to handle him on your own. Bring the kit to me immediately and I'll keep my promise to give you your revenge. Otherwise we'll hunt you down and take him from your cold lifeless paws."

"Bloedrye, honey, I thought that you said you would put F.O.X. after me? Could it be that you're afraid that they will catch me and retrieve the kit before your preparations are complete?"

The cat did not reply.

"You know what I think?" She continued. "I think that you need the kit to stay kidnapped as long as it takes your hench-creatures to finish their work. I think that you'd rather live with the fact that you don't have total control over the situation than risk exposure or delay by coming after us or by alerting the authorities"

"Be careful, rabbit, your insurance policy can be voided at any time."

"True, it is a short-term policy, but I think it will last long enough. Now I have to go before your wolves home in on me, so ta-ta for now .... and by the way, I'm a bunny, not a rabbit. I'm a member of the Cuni tribe ... and I - AM - NOT - PREY!" She hit the button to end the call and pulled the phone out of its cradle. With one paw she slid off the back and shook the battery out. Placing the parts in the isolation box she slammed the lid closed and placed it back in the van's console.

Yelling at Bloedrye had made her feel better but the mood did not last long. _ For someone who is not prey you are certainly doing a lot of running and hiding lately,_ she chided herself as she circled back to the house where she had left Leslie. She would give Bloedrye a day to cool off then call him back with a proposal. If things went well she would have her confrontation with the kit's father without having to resort to any soul destroying actions to lure him out. Then we'll see, she told herself, then we'll see.

She was almost in a good mood again by the time she got back to the house she was beginning to think of as the Methadone Mansion. Staying there was almost like camping a state park, where you still had to cook your food over a fire or on a portable stove but you could grab a shower and feel the kiss of cool porcelain on your bum when you had to go. She considered extending their stay, weighing the luxuries against the possibly toxic atmosphere. The next house she was planning on moving to was a rural property with a well and a septic tank and it had been unoccupied for so long that the owner had shut off both the water and the electricity. But it was clean and they could afford to spend the days on the main floor where they would be able to get some natural light.

She had decided that they would stay here another night and throughout the next day when she went into the basement and found Leslie tangled up in his chains in a corner. She had left only the battery-operated night light for him so she had to light the lamp before she unravelled him, examining the chain and the harness it was attached to as she went. Both showed fresh scratches, and the rough concrete at the base of the foundation was worn down as far as he could reach. Evidently the little scamp had tried to cut one or the other off, but neither had suffered any significant damage. It would take months to wear the links or buckles down enough to free him from the sturdy pipe that was embedded in the concrete. In addition to that, the muzzle she had put on him was soaked with spit, as were the wrist and ankle restraints. He had tried to lubricate them in an attempt to free his arms and legs, she supposed. Thank the Earth and Sun that she had secured them tightly, even though he would still have had the carbon-steel chain to deal with. It was a vain attempt, but a brave one none the less, considering the possible consequences.

This was not her first kidnapping, although it was her first child abduction. Everyone else she had detained for a period of time had been an active enemy of her people, drug dealers trying to peddle their poison, pimps out to seduce young does away from the safety of the tribe, criminals looking to set up shop in the tax-free havens of the nation. Runs With Stick had captured them alive to extract information from them, to find out who they worked for, or to trade them back to their organization as a ploy to draw more of them out of the woodwork. When those guests had disdained her hospitality by attempting an early departure she had reacted harshly and immediately with punishment, very painful punishment, as she had promised them that she would should they be foolish enough to try. And each time she found that one of them had tried to escape she looked deep into their eyes to see their true spirit before meting out the punishment.

In most she saw fear, panic and hatred. In some she saw defiance and courage, as well as hatred. In a very few she saw a quite determination to see the punishment through before going back to plotting other methods of escape. There was no fear or hatred in those eyes, just the acceptance of their current lot in life. Those were the ones that earned her respect, those which earned a quick death when the time came.

She looked into the kit's eyes as she removed his muzzle, leaving her paws dangerously close to his sharp little incisors as she did. His eyes, as cold and steady as she had heard his father's were, held just a hint of fear, mixed with a fair amount of anticipation. She had not threatened him with punishment should he try to escape, but had implied it when she restrained him. Clearly he expected some sort of consequence, but was not sure what.

She sat back on her haunches and stared at him until he blinked. She had to wait a considerable amount of time. "Now you know how fruitless it is to try to escape." She said when he finally did. "I was going to move us to somewhere nicer tonight, a place with windows, but now I think that we will stay here in the dark for another day." She lied.

She saw his look of relief that there was no physical punishment but noted that it soon turned into disappointment over staying in the dark basement. That was good, it gave her a lever. She had learned from dealing with younger cousins, nieces and nephews that children with active imaginations, like Leslie, were susceptible to fantastical fears. They may take most things at face value, but their juvenile logic told them that there had to be monsters in the world, otherwise how could you explain all the bad things they overheard on the news or in their parents conversations?

"If you are good for the next twenty-four hours we'll move to the nice place ... but if you misbehave again we'll stay here until the chemicals in this place turn you into a monster. Then no one will love you and you'll have to spend the rest of your life living in dark basements."

The distress in his eyes told her that she had guessed correctly even before he promised to be good and not try to get out of his bonds again. She felt relieved that she had not had to resort to physical punishment, but she still felt a twinge of shame for making him think that she would turn him into a monster. There are enough monsters here already, she thought.

* * * * * * * *

" ... and by the way, I'm a bunny, not a rabbit. I'm a member of the Cuni tribe ... and I - AM - NOT - PREY!"

You can't slam a smart phone, not more than once anyway, but being suddenly cut off had the same effect on Bloedrye. The phone he was using was built into the console of his command chair at the head of the twenty-one seat conference table, which had been moved to a rented warehouse in Ottawa at great expense. Since no one else had been in the room he had been using it on speakerphone and there was nothing for him to slam down in anger when the insolent lapin cut him off except for his fist, which he drove down onto the control console.

Two of the twenty-one chairs exploded, three were pierced by sharp objects and one dissolved in a shower of acid. Bloedrye ignored them and sat back to evaluate this turn of events.

The rabbit ... bunny, he corrected himself, still has the kit. _ She seems willing to cooperate with the original plan, to a point, but after that all bets are off. She kept the phone, although she had somehow neutralized the tracking devices, and had implied that she would be in contact again. So how does this affect the plan?_

It doesn't, he concluded. It was an irritant, her going off the reservation so to speak, but nothing more than that. He believed that her motivation for relocating was only to ensure that she kept control of the kit until she had her crack at Silver. That would not come until their preparations were complete and Phase III was initiated. After that there was no turning back, and nothing that F.O.X. or anyone else could do to stop them. Indeed, the world would be too busy coping with the collateral effects of Operation Firestorm to worry about who was profiting from it. From that point on he had no further need for the kit, and the bunny could do with him what she wanted.

But she could forget about any assistance from GHOST in dealing with Silver. Her punishment for having deviated from the plan was that she was on her own now. Not that he had intended to help her in any event; other than coordinating her attack with the withdrawal of his personnel from Canada he was not going to interfere in their fight - a fight that he had orchestrated.

So, as long as she does not do anything stupid, or get impatient, he mused, we should be able to move forward with the plan.

He checked the latest progress reports. The work of placing the initiators was proceeding according to schedule. Once it was done he could withdraw most of his agents from Alberta and Saskatchewan. The wolves here in Ottawa were sufficient to monitor activity at F.O.X. Headquarters, but he had no one left to put surveillance on the analyst, Algorath. He would have to contract it out, he decided reluctantly.

Bloedrye sent out a few messages, adjusted a few schedules and changed a few details in the plan. Then he sat back, satisfied that he had accounted for everything and compensated for the unforeseen acts of the bunny.

Just another day, he thought, _and then all we have to do is wait for the weather to do its part. _And that should not take too long, because as they say on the prairies, "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes and it will change."

* * * * * * * *

Silver and Vikki went to bed early that night and slept close together to feel each other's comforting warmth. But despite that neither of them slept well, each waking often from half remembered nightmares. When their alarm went off the next morning they rose and prepared for the day as usual, with the painful exception that they had no kit to get ready for school. Because of that they left the house early, and since they did not have anyone to drop at school they arrived at F.O.X. Headquarters an hour earlier than usual. It was in the parking lot behind the Headquarters building that they spoke their first words of the day.

"What are you going to tell the others?" Vikki asked as she closed the passenger door.

"I'm going to l them that we were called off for political reasons." Silver replied, closing his door but not bothering to lock the car. "I'll call a staff meeting for nine. As Senior agents you and Delores should be there, but until then play dumb." He did not care if their short conversation was reported to the creature going by the mane Silk as it would be normal to speak like that if they were cooperating fully. He just hoped that Algorath had gotten the hint the night before.

Silver turned towards the building and got out his pass card to open the executive entrance that led straight to his and the Director's office suite. Vikki walked around the building and headed for the combat range to burn off some of the frustration she was feeling. If it was empty she would set the control panel for one of the more difficult scenarios and blast away a few thousand dollars worth of animatronic enemies. If Rusty the Combat Instructor or one of the other agents were there she would offer to spar, although in the mood she was in she would have to take care not to kill them.

The first thing that Silver did on arriving in his office, a lonely office without his friend Tanner or Miss CC around, was to send out the invitation for the staff meeting at nine. Then he set the electronic locks on the doors to 'Do not Disturb', sat back in his chair and stared out the window. Only the Duty Officer could get into the executive suite now, and only after not getting a response by phone, email or intercom. Silver would be undisturbed until the meeting.

As nine o'clock approached the senior staff began to trickle into the conference room. They found that the catering section had delivered coffee and pastries and set them on a side table. They chatted in quiet tones, mostly about the events of the previous night, and speculated as to why the investigation had been called off. They were dying to get Vikki's opinion but she did not show until exactly nine, coming in from the direction of the Ops Centre a second before Silver arrived. Before any of them could speak he motioned for them to take their seats. Then, in the silence that followed he poured himself a cup of black coffee and took it back to the head of the table, where he plopped down in the Director's chair and took a long, slow sip."

"Our coffee has suffered since Muzzle left for Europe." Silver commented as he put the cup down on a cork coaster. "And speaking of him, the hospital reports that he is doing well, and they have some hope that Miss CC will soon come out of her coma. I'm not privy to all the details but apparently they have some new sort of therapy that looks promising."

The table erupted in cheers and a generally happy babble, but it soon faded to mumbling as the assembled agents and support staff wondered when they would have their revenge for the attack.

Silver ignored their discontented muttering. "Say Rusty!" He turned to the Academy Combat Instructor, "That's a pretty nice black eye you're sporting today."

The huge doberman shrugged and grinned sheepishly as he put a paw over an eye surrounded by discoloured flesh that was visible through the short fur. "Agent Ruby was particularly, ah, animated, during our morning sparring session." He admitted. "I had to use the safety word."

The others around the table looked shocked. The only time the safety word was heard when Rusty was sparring was when his hapless opponent used it. As one they turned and looked at Vikki quizzically.

She shrugged with one shoulder. "A lucky punch."

"With that kind of luck you should be playing the lottery." Delores commented.

Silver, a student of crowd psychology and past master of manipulation, had used the opening to bring the audience - for that was what it was considering the acting he was about to do - through several emotional reactions in order to make them pliant for what came next. He sipped his coffee again before speaking in a matter-of-fact tone.

"You are all aware by now that the investigation into the attack on our couriers was cancelled last night." Heads around the table nodded. "It's been called off by our political masters for, well, let's just say 'jurisdictional' reasons. And that is all I can tell you at this point. We cannot be involved in this matter, so given that there is nothing else on the horizon we will go back to routine operations. No one, and I repeat, no one, is to get involved in anything that might be connected to this incident without explicit orders from the highest authority. Is that clear?" His stern gaze swept the table, ensuring that everyone got the message that the subject was closed before he moved on.

A chorus of reluctant affirmation came from around the table.

"Good. Now, let's discuss the progress we've made with transitioning this site over to Agriculture Canada."

Silver launched them into a three-hour discussion that was so detailed and boring that half the staff suffered from symptoms akin to narcolepsy. Even the wolf Bloedrye had assigned to review the recordings nodded off twice. But he found nothing suspicious on the tapes, nor did any of the other monitors pick up anything other than discontented grumbling throughout the day.

* * * * * * * *

Kain had been able to catch an evening flight to London and from there he caught a flight to Copenhagen. He noticed the pair of badgers that were shadowing him at Heathrow, but he pretended not to. The same for the rat in Copenhagen that tailed him from the departure lounge to the car rental desks and out to the lot. He told the rental agent that he was headed for a seaside resort, but did not give the name. As he waited for the car to be brought around he saw the rat slide up to the desk and slip the agent a twenty euro note while they conversed in whispered tones. When Kain drove off he made sure to lose the rodent in the heavy traffic around the airport before heading to the village where his father's company kept a condo.

It was almost noon Denmark time, although it would still be early morning in Ottawa, when he entered the code on the key pad that controlled the door and let himself in. Having turned down the airline food in favour of sleep Kain was hungry, and he was happy to see that the pantry was well stocked with canned, boxed and frozen foods. He would have to go out later and get some fresh fruits and vegetables, but in the meantime some canned stew and crackers would do.

While the stew simmered he stripped down to his boxers and set up his gear, unplugging the PC that was already installed in the condo and hooked up his laptop in its place. As he suspected there was a fibre optic line that ran directly to the company servers in the nearby data farm. But before he plugged it into his laptop he added a few small devices of his own invention that would act as a last line of defence should anyone try to hack back into his setup. Once everything was connected he poured the stew into a bowl, grabbed a spoon and ate it while he connected to the network, to the dark web and then to his backdoor into F.O.X.

Hacking had not changed much since Kain had gone legit, and what new innovations there were he had kept up with through his IT security work for the Academy. He still designed hacking tools for assaults on enemy networks and collected useful ones that others had developed. He had stashed those tools in safe places around the dark web and he retrieved them now for his final assault on his employer's network. As he went he established a route through a dozen unattributed proxy servers using an equal number of false credentials. He did not do it to fool anyone at F.O.X. but rather to fool anyone else that might have hacked in and be monitoring the activity there.

Once inside he did a thorough check for other intruders. He did not find any, but that did not mean that there were none there, just that they were not using the Academy network to listen in on the folk there. They could have put a passive filter on the mail server but by the time he found one, if there was one, it would be too late to do anything to help Silver. Spectrum monitors would have picked up any active electronics, so they must be using passive recorders and transmitting in bursts at ultra-high frequencies, he concluded. Finding them would be a snap - if he was back at the Academy with all of the technical might of the Canadian government to draw on. It was going to be a little more difficult to do so remotely and secretly. How do you find listening devices when you can't listen in for them? He wondered.

An idea popped into his head. Maybe he could listen in to them, at least listen in for their transmissions. Kain accessed the administrative controls of the F.O.X. telecommunications system and turned on every speaker on every phone, intercom, computer and audio-visual aid. He disabled the input before he re-tuned them to a frequency range beyond that of bats, and then he altered a diagnostics program to monitor the fluctuations in the circuits on all those speakers. Now they were all passive receivers. The diaphragms would vibrate in sympathy with the specified frequency range and the minute pulses of electrodes they sent back up the line to the circuits would alter the levels of ambient static electricity in a pattern that could be deciphered with the right equipment and, of course, Kain had the right equipment.

Kain also tapped into the video surveillance network and set its equipment to capture any movement that coincided with activity on those frequencies. Then he moved on to his next problem.

He decrypted the file he had made of all the active agents and their whereabouts. It was a short list because F.O.X. was a small agency, and he could only trust those that he knew were loyal to Silver. From that list he crossed off Vikki Beausoleil and Gray Muzzle, Vikki because she was under duress as well and Gray because he was still on the injured list. It did not leave him much to work with.

Then there was the second problem - how to pass orders to them when the communications system may be compromised. Kain had to think about that one for a while. He could not trust anything electronic - the signals sent by the email system, the telephones, the video links and the radios in the field were all encrypted but only until they arrived at F.O.X. If there was someone on the inside or they had managed to get into the system on a legitimate account they could conceivably intercept them. And hadn't a few of the Ag-Can transition team been given access to the classified network? They had the clearance, sure, but who granted it to them, and were they checking up on them as thoroughly as F.O.X. did? Kain doubted it

Maybe I can send them a telegram, he thought wryly. But then he sat straight up. The thought had reminded him of something. The Academy had a teletype terminal. It was connected to an old Government system and the folks in the mail room, who were in charge of testing it every quarter, joked that it would still be ticking away after they were vaporized in a nuclear holocaust, but it would be only a test; no operational messages had come across it since the ice storm in the nineties had disabled all of the other systems.

It was an analog system that worked on pulses of electricity, older than the tone dialing system. It was encrypted at the terminal and, most importantly, it was not compatible with the F.O.X. network, and therefore not connected to it. But all the Canadian Embassies were, and that was where F.O.X. agents abroad got their orders from when the regular communications system was down or if it was unsafe for them to go to their residence.

He leaned down over the laptop and his paws flew across the keyboard as he checked the whereabouts of every stranger and anyone that could possibly be suspect. No one was near the mail room, not even the skunkette who worked there. She must be on a mail run, he supposed. He accessed her personnel records, looking for anything suspicious - financial trouble, a recent breakup or a new lover, any grudge against Silver or the Academy, but her record was clean. He did not know her very well himself. He had talked to her in the cafeteria a couple of times and once at the office Christmas party, where she had indicated once that she might be interested in something more physical than conversation. He had turned her down, as he did all the females at the Academy that came on to him. His quarterly trysts with Ophelia were enough for him, plus he would be one dead fox if he cheated on the deadly cloud leopard. He was not aware that there was a rumour going around the female staff that he was gay.

Could he trust her, he wondered? Back in the cold war, before the internet, the mail room staff used to be the most trusted of all the employees, since they saw all the messages that came through in the pre-computer age. Well, he told himself, there is only one way to find out.

There was no sense being shy about it. A test message to one agent would be enough to doom Silver's son if she was working for the other side. Kain composed messages to all of the agents he thought he could trust while he searched for a way into the teletype network. He finally found an old gateway on the phone system for those few rural customers still using rotary pulse phones. The gateway translated their pulses into tones and converted the analog signals into digital ones and vise versa. Kain could use it to communicate with the teletype, although it would be at the incredibly slow rate of 50 bauds, or about one character per second. But it was his only choice. Having composed the messages and matched them to the particular teletype terminals he wanted them to go to he hit the 'send' button.

While he was working on his messages his bugs in the system had been recording and translating burst transmissions. Rather than listen to them all he converted them into text files and skimmed those. While he reviewed the video feeds. In a short while he had pinpointed each of the devices that the Ghost agents had dropped and found the main transmitter. The outside cameras picked up a series of three vehicles that were being driven around the Academy in an unpredictable pattern to collect the transmissions. Using the data collected by the program he scrolled back in time and expanded the search until he had identified three wolves as the likely GHOST agents, for who else would want him out of the way? One was with the Ag-Can transition team and the other two were driving the collection vehicles. Given enough time, he should be able to track them down to their hideout ... but what to do about it once he did?

Kain was so involved in his work that he did not notice the door to the condo swing open behind him.

He could be forgiven for not hearing the lock disengage because it had not made a sound, having been injected with silicone gel before the keypad had been disassembled to override the entry code. Having used a flexible stalk with a lens on the end the intruder knew where everything was, and that Kain was alone. Still, the assassin waited in the darkness of the hallway until the door was fully open before springing into action, kicking the door closed at the same time in case some curious neighbour chose that particular time to pass by.

The attack was swift and silent. The assailant was hallway across the room before the door clicked closed, but that soft sound was enough to alert Kain. With reflexes honed from years of constant practice he threw himself back in the chair, pushing with his feet on the desk in an attempt to trip us his assailant as the chair tipped him to the floor. A grey blur passed above him, leaving him no target for his clenched fists or flailing feet. Before he could get up the chair he had just abandoned was swung around and down, pinning his torso and his arms. In that position and with the attacker's weight added to the heavy wooden frame he could not generate enough power or leverage to shake it off. He was trapped.

"You tried that trick the last time, in Ulan Bator." The words were spoken in a silken voice that caressed the ears while managing to retain its deadly edge. Icy purple eyes sparkled above a blunt snout. From behind a fluffy tail appeared and seemed to contemplate the captive.

"It didn't work that time either." Kain shrugged as best he could under the chair. "I thought it might catch you off guard if I tried it again."

"From where you were sitting you only had five options, four of which required only minor changes in my trajectory." His secret lover, the cloud leopard Ophelia Cassidy Sommer said as she swung gracefully off the chair and plucked it off of him. "The fifth would have at least given you a small chance to evade me."

Kain accepted the paw she offered to help him up as he ran the options though his head. He could only come up with four options - left, right, up and back - and he was sure that those were the four she could easily counter. What could the fifth option be? "You don't think that the desk would get in the way of that fifth option?" He asked hoping for a clue.

She laughed, and over her right shoulder her tail waggled as if it was laughing too. "You have no idea what it is, do you? I guess you are just going to have to think on it a while." Seeing his brow wrinkle in frustration she laughed again, but she slid up against him as she did, pressing her chest against his, letting him feel the hardness of her nipples through the thin material. Teasing him always made her horny, and they had been apart for two months now. She slid a paw between their hips and rubbed his groin. "Got a few minutes?" she breathed into his ear.

"What did you have in mind?" She responded by slipping a paw through the fly of his boxers to stroke his stiffening cock.

He took off his rimless glasses and placed them down on the desk so they would not get broken in the pending acrobatics. Both of them were at the peak of fitness, lean and lithe, and the sexual energy they saved up between rendezvous tended to explode violently at first. And despite the generous F.O.X. health care plan glasses in his prescription were expensive. Besides, he did not need them to see up close, and they would soon be very close indeed.

While she stoked him inside his shorts he peeled off her dark, skin tight top. She had not bothered with a bra. She released his prick long enough to toss the light weight material into a corner. Then he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her equally form fitting shorts and pulled them down over her round, muscular buttocks. She lifted one perfect leg after the other up and out. She had nothing on underneath them either.

"Is this all you brought?" He asked, twirling the shorts on one before sending them to join the top.

"I stashed a bag on the roof. And speaking of bags ..." She wrapped her paw around his throbbing testicles and pulled them through the fly, exposing them to the cool air of the condo. He shivered at the change in temperature, as well as the softness of her touch. Ophelia knelt down and took one and then both of his balls into her mouth while continuing to stroke him inside his shorts. Kain leaned back against the desk and dug his claws into the wood as he concentrated on keeping everything inside down there.

She released his balls after sucking on them for a minute and poked them back inside so that she could pull the cotton boxers down to his ankles. Before she could straighten up and continue driving him nuts he struck, bending in two and grabbing her hips to lift her off the floor, head down, facing away from him. His snout dove for the scented crack between her tail and her navel.

Ophelia did not resist, even though the stiff prick poking her in the back of the head was an invitation for her to turn and suck it. Instead, she folded her arms behind her to grab his thighs, transferring some of her weight there so his arms would not get too tired too soon. She let her legs go back too, over his shoulders, locking her ankles behind him. Her tail, as independent as always, wrapped itself around his neck and caressed his forehead as he quested with his tongue between her thighs.

Kain took a broad stance to better balance them both, which had the added advantage of airing his aching balls. He felt the pressure subside as he lapped and licked and sucked at the widening gap between Ophelia's legs. With her holding on to him like a circus performer his paws were free to roam about her torso - clutching a breast, squeezing a nipple, teasing the wispy fur under her arms, giving her clit a fleeting caress.

She writhed and wiggled, but made no serious attempt to evade his talented tongue until she was wet inside and out and her clit was straining for attention. She had given him ample time to cool down, and yet his cock was still hard, rubbing against the back of her head. She could not quite reach it with her mouth when she turned her head, not while her back was pasted aginst his torso, so she waited until his paws were about her waist and sprung into action. She unlocked her ankles and pointed her feet to the ceiling as she released his thighs and then threw her hips around, twisting in his grip until she was facing him. Like a good partner in the centre ring, he instinctively tightened his grip as she came around, freezing her in the optimal position. In the next instant she locked her thighs on his head, wrapped her arms around his waist, and swallowed his cock, all in one smooth movement. And through it all her tail never came off from around his neck.

Kain straightened up and took a step into the centre of the room, away from the desk. The muscles on his thighs stood out through his fur as he found the balance point and began to rock his hips back and forth in counterpoint to her bobbing head. Meanwhile his tongue was rubbing rough against her clit and his snout was half buried inside her as she ground her twat into his face. He had to suck air through the corners of his mouth to keep from passing out.

They kept that up for several minutes, her mouth sliding up and down his glistening cock, his tongue scooping spoonfuls of coppery nectar with each dip into her fleshy flower. When they both sensed that the conclusion was nearing he shifted his paws to her waist, crossing his arms so that they were on the opposite sides. When he was ready she unlocked her arms and legs and disengaged her tail. Then he spun her in mid air, bringing her head up to his. She deftly caught his hip with her leg and wrapped the other around his waist as she felt for the tip of his cock. When she found it she raised herself up and drove herself down onto it like a samurai making that final cut. She gasped as her clit came up against his pelvic bone. He moaned as the wet warmth of her cunt enfolded him.

Thighs strained and biceps flexed as pussy and prick pumped madly with no desire to delay the impending climax. It was not a time for finesse, but for raw power and animal violence. His digits dug into her flesh as her tail beat him on the side of the head. Her teeth latched onto one of his white ears where it poked out from the dark hair on his head. He cried out as his balls emptied. She bit down as her body responded to the flood of hot goo inside her. Soaked and sore and half exhausted, they nevertheless continued to pump and grind at each other for another two minutes before they collapsed on the floor.

They lay there for a time, trading small kisses and warm caresses, reluctant to disengage even though he was half limp and she was sticky from his cum.

"That was good," she said "but you did not summon me here for fun. I saw the messages you sent."

He was surprised. "How did you ...?"

"I spliced into the fibre optic cable. I figured that the only one that didn't run to the local service provider's junction box would be yours. Then I decrypted the feed with a portable algorithm generator, concentrating on key words you tend to use when you communicate."

"Clever girl."

She tweaked his pointy nose. "I learned from the best." She shifted her hips slightly, and felt him swell inside her. "Care to fill me in?"

"Oh yeah." He panted. "And then I'll brief you on the operation."

* * * * * * * *

The skunkette that worked in the F.O.X. mail room was named Bernadette, although everyone called her Bernie. She was the last remaining mail clerk in the Academy since most of the communication was now electronic. When she was away sick, which was rare, or on leave, which was seldom, Miss CC would sort the mail in her place. But Miss CC was out of action for the foreseeable future, so it was fortunate for Kain's plan Bernie was not sick or on leave that day.

Despite being alone the work was not demanding, leaving Bernie a lot of time to read her adult romance novels or pursue other pastimes. On this day she had already sorted and delivered the morning mail and had no new novels on her tablet so she was passing the time inside the locked mail room rubbing her clit through the open fly of her capris while she fantasized about being ravished by the Director, Tancred "Tanner" Williams. In her mind the great golden fox was naked and approaching her where she lay tied to the sorting desk, also naked, with all his muscles taut and rippling, including a particular one that she imaged was ten inches long and as thick as her forearm. She was well aware of the fact that the Director was gayer than Bank Street on Pride Day but it was a fantasy after all.

She had fantasized about most of the male agents and staff in F.O.X. over the years and had even fulfilled a few of those fantasies. The combat instructor, Rusty, was usually available when he was between marriages, or close to it. She had also had Silver a few times when they were both younger, and he still sent her a note and a flower on her birthdays. She had not bothered to approach Williams as she had heard about his orientation soon after arriving, but she had made several attempts to connect with Kain Algorath. She was pretty sure that he was straight from the way he mooned after that cloud leopard, Ophelia, when they were students together. But since her disappearance he had shown no interest in any other females - or males for that matter.

He must be suffering from a broken heart, she supposed, a tragic figure in a sad romance. In her fantasies about him she mended that broken heart - at least long enough for him to ravish her thoroughly once or twice, depending on when the afternoon mail came in.

She was just getting to the point where the Director discovered that he could be excited by a full-figured female with enough curves to hold on too when the sound of the teletype machine interrupted her daydream. Disappointed, she zipped up and walked over to the corner where the rarely used machine sat, believing that it was an unscheduled test or another mail clerk sending dirty jokes across the unmonitored system, something they could not do by email in this age of political correctness. But when she read the first few words the fur on her black and white tail stood straight out.

She was familiar with all of the code words, she had to be to work in that position, but she had never actually seen the one over-riding all other authorities used before, not even during the cold war when nuclear crisis occurred every time Reagan or Andropov farted. And that was followed by a codeword that meant that she was not to read the text of the message itself on pain of death - she was supposed to wait until it printed, tear it off, fold it over to hide the text, seal it in an envelope and deliver it, immediately and personally with instructions that they were only to opened in private. It was unheard of.

She considered calling Silver to confirm, but thought better of it. The codeword demanded strict compliance, and if she was suspected of deviating from those instructions it would probably be his job to deal out deadly punishment, or order someone else to do it. This could be a test, she thought, to see if I'm still loyal. The thought that they would need to test her loyalty was slightly offensive, she had dedicated her life to the Academy, and it was with determination that she processed the message.

In several Canadian embassies around the world several puzzled mail room clerks did the same thing, the only difference being that, when they were done, most of them did not lock themselves in their mail rooms like Bernie did and start fantasying about the F.O.X. Chief of Staff sparing their lives in exchange for a good ravishing.

* * * * * * * *

"I've never been given instructions on how to break into an objective before." Zac said as he entered the code that would neutralize the alarm system on the Kanata mansion that they had been given as an objective for the unforecast evening training.

"Me neither." Kyroo replied. "Although I haven't been around as long as you. Strange that we had to sneak out of F.O.X. too." Their orders had been to make sure that no one saw them leave the Academy, including the security guards. That meant they had to slip out like students who had not earned their evening passes yet. Kyroo thought back to how he had slipped out the night he met Ruth and wondered why her phone was out of service when he had tried to call her earlier, before the last minute assignment had come up.

"If it is any consolation," Delores, their team leader for the evening, piped up, "it's a first for me too, and I've been here seven years now, as long as Vikki, the Professor and Genghis. That's what we called Bill Hanlan and Agent Hu. My nickname was 'Babydoll'."

"I can see why." Zac said, admiring her blond hair and hourglass figure as they slipped inside the foyer of the mansion.

"What was Senior Agent Ruby's nickname?" Kyroo asked with interest. He still had a crush on Vikki and could think of several pet names that he would like to call her.

"We used to refer to her as 'I wanna be a Secret Agent Beausoleil' because she wanted into the Academy so bad it used to give her cramps." Delores replied as she scanned the doors leading out of the foyer for traps. "You two stay here while I go ahead and check out the video room we're supposed to go to."

Zac frowned. "You don't think that we should go first?"

"Naw. One of Silver's tricks is to leave you a clear path to your objective and then, just when it is in sight and your guard is down, he'll attack from behind. Keep alert and watch your six." She advised before she slipped through the decorative double doors.

Zac and Kyroo turned as one and each took a position on opposite sides of the front doors where they could look out through the cut glass panels and watch the approaches. After several moments of silent surveillance Kyroo cleared his throat and glanced sideways at Zac.

"Ahem. Say Zac, did you get a chance to watch those DVDs of Babydoll's before Joel lost them to the NSA?"

Zac kept his eyes on the lawn. "Most of them, yeah."

"You see that one 'The Prince and the Pauper and the Pussy'?"

"The one where she plays the princess that can only tell the fake prince from the real one when she yiffs them?"

"That's the one. It ends with that long three-way scene, remember?"

"Oh yeah. I always wondered whether they used trick photography for that or whether they hired twins. There was no computer generated graphics in the porn industry back then but those two doing her sure did look like the same guy."

"Yeah, that was one hot sequence." Kyroo said, hopefully. "Wasn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess"

"Ever wonder what it would be like ... taking part in a threesome like that?"

Zac barked out a laugh. "I'd rather it was two females and me."

Before Kyroo could reply the double doors leading into the mansion opened and Delores motioned for them to join her. They followed her to a large room dominated by a huge flat screen monitor and a number of speakers. She passed a slip of paper to Kyroo. "Here are the instructions to get onto the video conference for the exercise debrief. Could you set it up for us?"

"Sure." He set about turning on the monitor and connecting to the IP address indicted through the laptop the screen was hooked up to. When the screen lit up with an unfamiliar company logo he entered the code provided and the imaged changed to a text box advising them to wait until the video conference organizer connected them. The three sat down on a couch facing the monitor with Delores in the middle and her two subordinates on the ends. She put a paw on each of their laps and squeezed bulges she found.

"Think about it." She said, facing straight forward.

Kyroo held his breath, but Zac looked confused. "Think about what?" He asked, turning to her. But just them the screen lit up with a number of inset images.

"Shhhh! The conference is starting." And she gave them both a firm squeeze before placing her paws demurely on her own lap.

They had expected to see Silver's face on the screen, not other agents. Small inset screens showed them on the couch, Agent Hu connecting in from South Asia, the one-eyed sniper Dongo Fett, who was on assignment in Iraq, and Agent Geno with her mate, Senior Agent Ebony, or Marcel to most, checking in from Latin America. The middle of the screen was dominated by the face of Kain Algorath.

"I thought that you were on vacation?" Delores said with a frown on seeing that the younger Arctic fox was the host of the video conference. She was further perplexed by the text under his nose that indicated the feed was coming from Denmark. "Where is Silver? What is going on here?" Her demands were echoed by Hu and Marcel.

"Silver is still in Ottawa." Kain answered. "He and Senior Agent Ruby are under duress. Their son has been kidnapped by a group that I was investigating; the same group that I believe is responsible for the attack on Gray and Miss CC. Communications at F.O.X. Are compromised so I have moved to a secure location unconnected with the Academy. Silver has named me Top Gun and authorized Bastion."

Not having enough seniority to know the meaning of the particular codewords being used Kyroo and Zac looked at each other across the ample bosom of Delores and shrugged as the other agents all spoke at once.

"Top Gun? You?"

"Oh God, Leslie?"

"Bastion? He can't authorize Bastion."

"Poor Vikki. No wonder she's been so quiet today."

"Obviously I can't prove it." Kain said loudly, cutting them off. "And the fact that I had to hack into the servers to get you all onto this conference call doesn't help my case either, but hear me out before you decide whether I've gone rogue or crazy or whatever."

Everyone went silent. Delores and Hu turned to the image of the only senior agent among them and waited for Marcel to speak.

"Alright." The short, athletic black fox declared, wearing an expression eerily similar to the Silver usually wore when approached with a crazy idea. "State your case."

Starting with the two clues provided by Gray Muzzle - the words 'ghost' and 'firestorm' - Kain proceeded to explain how he had tracked the perpetrators of the attack across Europe to their base in Rome and how he identified some of their members. Hu interrupted to confirm that the information on the Indonesian tiger had proved to be true, and that it led to the identification of three other likely members of GHOST, including the lead tiger's deceased brother.

Kain detailed what he had learned since then of the criminal organization and their motives and then he put an out of focus picture of a creature that could have been a feline on the screen. It was dressed in a dark blue suit and its face was in shadow from a broad-brimmed fedora; there was no evidence of a protruding muzzle. There were no protrusions on the chest area either, leading them to believe that it was male. The only clue to species was the puffy white tail that it held before it in its paws, almost like he was petting it. In the photo he was walking toward a limousine where a wolf was holding the back door open.

"I think that this is their leader. In most of their communications they only referred to each other by numbers but a couple of unsecured text messages I recovered refer to him as 'Bloedrye' and 'The Persian'." They had also referred to their leader as 'that stuck-up pain in the tailhole', but Kain kept that to himself. "I'm still looking for records in the Interpol files for mention of him."

"If they do these things for profit why did they kidnap Leslie?" Delores asked. "Silver and Vikki aren't particularly wealthy and they don't have access to any large amounts of money."

"I think I know why." Kain switched to a satellite view of earth and superimposed a number of shapes that roughly covered most of northern Alberta and northwestern Saskatchewan. "I traced a number of their operatives to western Canada, more specifically the oil sand sectors, which I've outlined here. Shortly after they arrived there the companies that own the concessions began reporting activity on the borders of their holdings. But they soon stopped reporting because the activity was supposedly sanctioned by the Canadian Government. Surveillance photos I was able to, uh, acquire from their security systems confirm that the GHOST agents I tracked were planting a number of devices in the ground around the known oil sand deposits. Here's a picture of one."

The screen filled with a fuzzy image of a device that looked like a cross between a javelin and a missile launcher. There were several moments of silence as the assembled agents studied the picture.

Marcel broke the silence. "What the hell is it?"

The image shrunk as Kain's face reappeared on the screen. "As near as I can figure, it's an enhanced lightning rod. It's based on some renewable energy technology developed in Europe. Each has a control module powered by a solar battery. Not only will they attract the lightning, they can direct it." The image changed back to the satellite view of the two provinces. "They are hard to spot but they emit a weak signal. I've located over a thousand of them." The irregular shapes outlining the oil sand deposits disappeared by numerous dots that matched the previous overlay almost exactly. "Essentially they are going to harness the lightning and direct it at the oil sands, on a grand scale."

Geno chuffed in disbelief. "What do they expect to do, set the dirt on fire? That stuff is hundreds of feet below the surface in most places, and fires need oxygen to burn."

"Not necessarily." Kain replied. "I did not believe it at first either, but then I checked out a few cryptic references I had overlooked before." The screen changed again to show what looked like the inside of a small volcano. Creatures in silver protective suits on the edge gave it scale, showing the hole to be almost as big as a football field.

"One of the files I intercepted referred to the Door to Hell. It turns out to be a natural gas field in Turkmenistan. While drilling in 1971, Soviet geologists tapped into a cavern filled with gas. The ground collapsed, leaving a large hole. To avoid a poisonous gas discharge they decided to burn it off. They had hoped the fire would use all the fuel in a matter of days, but the gas is still burning today."

Geno opened her mouth to object. "Bitumen is not exactly as volatile as natural gas." She pointed out.

"No," Kain admitted, "but that's one of the reasons they needed that report they stole from our couriers. They wanted to compare the ignition level to other underground fuels - like coal. I found that at any given time there are hundreds if not thousands of unwanted coal fires raging or smouldering around the world. There are none in Canada at the moment but in the US they are burning in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Colorado and Wyoming." The image changed to a town with run-down, abandoned buildings with yellow hazardous material warning signs posted everywhere. "You may have heard of the one in Centralia, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town that had some thousand inhabitants at its peak. Now it's become a ghost town because a fire started in 1962 to burn garbage spread to a coal seam three-hundred feet underground and it has never stopped burning. At its current rate, it could burn for over two-hundred and fifty more years. Then there is Brennender Burg, Germany, where another underground fire has been burning for over three hundred years, and one in Australia that geologists estimate has been burning anywhere between five and fifteen Thousand years! Like I said, there are hundreds of them, and they are most often started by forest fires ... or lightning strikes."

There was a moment of silence while they took that in. "Where are they getting their oxygen from?" Geno asked, her brow wrinkled in concentration,

"The coal fires get oxygen through cracks and porous ground, mine shafts and vent holes. Once it gets burning it doesn't take a whole lot of oxygen to keep the fire going because the heat is retained so well by the surrounding soil, that's why the coal fires smoulder along slowly for decades instead of burning up in just a few years. But these guys don't want to wait that long. They have money in foreign oil futures, a good investment if we stop producing but not good enough to generate the kind of profits they like. Where they have most of their money is in land rights in the arctic and coastal regions, but not right on the coast, their property is all along line roughly seven to ten metres above sea level."

"What good does that do them?" Dongo, whose image flickered due to a bad connection, asked.

Kain sat back and looked up at the ceiling as he tried to explain. "Imagine a fire so large that the carbon dioxide emitted turned the earth into a greenhouse in just a few years. The temperature would rise in the region around the fire first, releasing the methane in the permafrost which would speed the process. Eventually the glaciers and the icecaps would melt, raising the sea level. Current coastal areas, the most heavily populated zones on the planet, would be underwater, and a new coastline would be created. Whole cities would have to relocate, island nations would disappear, folks would be forced to migrate inland and north as climate patterns changed. Whoever owns the rights to those lands would be richer than Midas.

Marcel scratched his head. "That sounds pretty far fetched. You got something to base that on?"

"I managed to acquire a copy of that Natural Resources report. The reason that they were looking into the ignition levels for the oil sands is because one of the proposed extraction methods is by combustion. They can burn the bitumen itself to create the heat needed to liquefy it, but it uses about ten percent of the oil in the process; not very good for profits. Then there is the oxygen problem. On the surface it burns between five and six-hundred degrees Celsius, which is plenty hot enough to keep the process going, but even though the ground is porous and there are lots of bore holes to let oxygen in there just isn't enough of the stuff at the depths of the main deposits; they have to inject lots more it to keep it burning, another detriment to profitability. But the report noted that oil sands are made up of sand particles surrounded by water, which is then surrounded by bitumen. They were looking at ways to turn that water into its component parts - flammable hydrogen and oxygen. Instead of burning the oil to melt the bitumen you burn hydrogen, using the oxygen to attain combustion. But they have not found a way to separate the water yet."

"Electrolysis." Geno injected.

"What?"

"Electrolysis. It's the most common method for separating water into hydrogen and oxygen. The only problem is that the electricity needed to do it uses almost as much energy than you can get from burning the hydrogen. It is an inefficient system."

Marcel was looking at her with his maw hanging open. "How do you know all this?"

"I used to hang around with the professor, Bill Hanlan, when I was an analyst. He likes to lecture when there's nothing going on." She turned back to the camera. "Kain, how much energy is there in a lightning bolt?"

"About 5 billion joules, enough to get a Chevy Volt across the country and back. I see where you're going. There is plenty of energy to break down the water if, say, they alternated the metal used in the poles to form alternating anodes and cathodes. The next strike would ignite the hydrogen and oxygen mix while producing more of the flammable gas. Summer lightning storms are common enough on the parries, but once they pass the reaction would end and the fire would reduce to a smolder. How would they sustain it?"

"You said that burning the bitumen would produce carbon dioxide, anything else?"

"There will be a lot of soot and steam, and ash from the burning vegetation."

"Like a volcano?"

"Yeah, I suppose."

Geno sat back and took Marcel's paw. "Have any of you seen the pictures they took of the volcano that erupted in Chile earlier this year? The ones where the ash cloud is all lit up by lightning?" There were nods across the screen an in the video room. The dramatic photos had been an Internet sensation. The combination of smoke, fire and lightning had evoked images of the apocalypse.

"A firestorm." Dongo commented.

"It's a common phenomena." Geno continued. "The ash cloud contains charged particles and the heat reacts with the cold air rushing in at ground level to create localized lightning storms. If they get the oil sands going by shocking them they will also produce the conditions to keep the lightning striking."

Another silence descended as each considered this fate.

With a heavy sigh Marcel said "What do you want us to do?" ceding control to Kain. "If the Academy is compromised they are going to know that we have mobilized."

"Not necessarily." Kain replied. "I can cover your tracks electronically. Your daily contact reports will occur as if you were still on station. The academy security logs will show that Delores and the others going in and out of the various buildings as they normally do, and even dock their pay for food and drinks at the lounge according to their established habits. I'll reroute everyone's cell phones through this network to make any trace on those numbers resolve to your home stations. I'll even plant a few reports on foreign intelligence services noting your continued presence there in case GHOST is working with any of them. But I can't bring any of you four back into Canada, the risk of tipping them off would be too great."

Marcel nodded in agreement. "Silver always said that a good deception plan is half the battle." He noted. "What about the rest of the plan?"

"They finished planting devices today. Most of the creatures have returned to the cities and booked flights to their home countries, presumably so they can disappear in the security of their local networks when the shit goes down. I want you, Geno, Dongo and Hu to take them out quietly. But the three tigers have remained out in the field, probably as security while they wait for the right weather conditions. Delores, Zac and Kyroo will have to deal with them as they disable the lightning rod array. The three wolves are still in Ottawa, one inside the Academy and the other two monitoring the listening devices from the outside, and I suspect that this Bloedrye character might be in Ottawa too. Once the oil sands are safe I'll get the word to Silver. I'm sure that he and Vikki will have no trouble dealing with them."

Geno looked worried. "But the wolves have Leslie. They'll hurt him if Silver and Vikki don't take them by surprise."

"No, that's the funny thing. Bloedrye hired a contractor to kidnap Leslie and hold him for them. She goes by the name of Ruth Pawstone. Here's a picture from Border Services from when she crossed into Canada six weeks ago." The face of a middle-aged female rabbit filled the screen. Everyone was so intent on studying it that none of the others noticed Kyroo sudden intake of breath and panicked look.

"There is not much on the official record, but from what I found she looks like a real piece of work. Father was an activist who disappeared at the Wounded Knee incident in the seventies. She became an enforcer for the Cuni tribe in the southwest US. Her preferred weapon was a meat cleaver and she has probably over a dozen kills to her credit, mostly lowlifes from the local criminal gangs and such. But she outdid herself when she went to work for Bloedrye. Looks like she took out the Education Assistant in Leslie's class with her cleaver in order to get close to the kit. Now she's on the run with him, but I'm pretty sure that they're still in the Ottawa area."

"She would want to be in case they have to send Silver some incentive." Hu said calmly. Kidnapping for profit was endemic in Asia and he had run across a few cases while gathering intelligence on international criminal gangs that might be a threat to Canada. The comment was not meant to be cruel but it got a reaction from several of the agents. Kain noted that Geno was biting her knuckle and Marcel looked stricken. They were both very close to Leslie. Even Kyroo looked upset, although as far as he knew the other arctic fox had not met the kit more than once or twice. Maybe he just has a soft spot for kits, Kain supposed, as he continued.

"I've been trying to trace her by monitoring the phone system GHOST uses to keep their calls off the commercial carriers, but their operational security is good and she goes off the grid whenever she is not using the phone they gave her. I tried going back to search for her movements before the kidnapping in case she visited the safe house she's using before the kidnapping but I had no luck. It's probably out of the main core away from any traffic or security cameras. If she had a personal phone and I knew the number I could try that, but I would have to find someone she had been in contact with first, and as far as I can tell she hasn't called anyone back home and she has no friends in Ottawa."

Kyroo had a small coughing fit but it was drowned out when Marcel, his voice catching slightly, said "So Leslie is doomed."

Kain shrugged helplessly. "I'll keep looking, but you know what Silver would say."

Marcel dropped his eyes. "Yeah. The mission comes first." Then he looked up fiercely. "But if any of the creatures you send us after has any information as to his whereabouts we'll get it out of them. And as soon as we can move freely we're going to track this Persian down." A chorus of agreement followed from the others.

Kyroo put up his paw tentatively and cleared his throat. "Can, uh, can I make a suggestion?"

"Go ahead." Kain told him.

"Three agents don't stand a chance trying to pull over a thousand poles while dealing with expert fighters like those tigers. No more than two agents would. I think someone should stay here to help locate where they are holding Leslie and be ready to snatch him back when we do. That will increase his chances immensely, and I'd like to volunteer for the job."

"You don't know Ottawa very well though." Kain pointed out to his fellow American.

"I knew it as well as anyone else available." Kyroo said defensively. "Delores is from out west and spent most of her time at F.O.X. in Russia and Zac has only been here since last year. I've spent several summers here and explored a lot since F.O.X. took me on."

Kain studied the other Arctic fox carefully through the video link. From the kid's expression he really wanted this, but that would reduce the team going west by a third. Before he could decide Delores spoke up.

"Kyroo is right about three agents not being enough to take out all those lightning rods." She said. "But I'm from Calgary and I have friends I can trust out that way. I have a plan to take care of the poles that will leave us free to deal with the tigers, and Zac and I can manage them between us, if we're careful. Let him stay. If Leslie died because I took Kyroo for backup I'd never forgive myself."

Kain was not quite convinced. "And if you die because you lacked backup?"

"Shit, Honey, I'll be asking whoever meets me on the other side to forgive me in that case."

Her comment was met with grim laughter. "Alright." Kain declared when it died down. "Kyroo stays behind to help find Leslie. Delores, I've got a small jet waiting for at the Carp airport. The weather is clearing up out west but there is a cold front moving in so get going as soon as you can. Marcel, Geno, Dongo and Hu, I'm sending you files on the GHOST operatives I've traced back to their countries. Get eyes on them and we'll coordinate with Delores when she is ready to make her move."

Delores stood up. "I can leave right now. We'll pick up what we need when we get there. I'll need you to send one of those authorization messages ahead for me though. You good to go Zac?" She added, turning to the younger wolf.

"Sure."

Delores told Kain who she needed the message sent to and then declared "We're off then. Kyroo, can you lock up and find your way home?"

"Yeah, I want to hang back and learn more about Ruth ... I mean this Pawstone character. Good luck."

She stepped up to him and gave him a hug and a not-so-chaste kiss on the mouth. "Good luck to you too ... and I'll work on Zac while we're out west."

But Kyroo seemed distracted. "Uh, yeah, thanks." He mumbled as Delores took Zac by the arm and led him out of the mansion. The rest signed out of the video conference after acknowledging receipt of the files Kain had sent them.

"Are we alone?" Kyroo asked Kain.

Kain glanced at something off screen but said "It's just you and me on the line." He waited a moment for Kyroo to speak but the other arctic fox just fidgeted with his paws. "What's up Kyroo?"

Kyroo peered directly into the camera. Kain thought that he looked stricken.

"I, uh, I think I have the number for Pawstone's personal phone."

The FOX Academy series:

Book I - The New Breed

Book II - The Werewolf of Odessa

Book II.5 - The Love who Spied Me

Book III - The Curse of the Yellow Monkey

Book IV - Wait for No One

Book V - Dawn of Vengeance

Book VI - Unnatural Selection

Book VII - Rogue Sword

Kain Algorath © Marcus X Light

Ophelia Cassidy Sommer © Devil Kitty

Joel Grigori © Joel the Lemur

Geno © Coyotek

Dongo Fett © Dongo Fett

Zachary Ember © EmberWolf

Gray Muzzle © Gray Muzzle

Ruth Pawstone/Runs With Stick © Bunners