Abducted

~ Chapter 6 ~

Present Day – Werewolf Investigation & Protection Agency (WIPA) Headquarters – Lincoln, Nebraska

             “How can we still have no leads on where these pups are or who has taken them?”  Captain Jacobson yelled as he slammed his fist down on the desk in frustration.  The other investigators in the office all jumped at his outburst.

             “Sir?”  Agent Michaelson asked.  “Which case are you referring to?”

             “Which case?  Which case you ask?  The case that has been plaguing us for eighteen years!  Sixty-Four werewolf pups have been kidnapped from six different packs!  And those are the ones we know about, there could be more!  We have to be missing something!”  Captain Jacobson yelled out at everyone in the room.

             “I’m not familiar with that case.”  Agent Michaelson responded.

             “That’s to be expected I guess, with all the fresh meat and no real experience that they’ve been throwing at me in the last few months.  I want all my good investigators back, but no, the powers that be have promoted them out of this department and stuck me with all of you!  How am I supposed to get these cases solved?!?!”  The Captain was on a tear.  “Alright everyone, listen up!  As of right now, the only case anyone in this department is working is this confounding abduction case.  We need to catch this scumbag or scumbags before another abduction happens!”  He bellowed.  “Joseph!!”

             “Yes Captain?”  Agent Joseph said as he jumped up from his desk at the back of the room.

             “Have all the case files pulled and put them in the conference room.  You will be on point since you have experience with the case.  Bring everyone up to speed ASAP and get working on this case.  I want everything gone over with fresh eyes.  We have to have something we can go on!”  The Captain instructed.

             “Yes Sir!  Michaelson and Shapiro come with me.  I’ll need your help with the boxes.”  Agents Michaelson and Shapiro followed Agent Joseph out of the room.  Once the got to the restricted file room, Joseph scanned his key card, pressed his thumb to the fingerprint scanner and held his eye up to the retina scanner.  A green light turned on and the lock clicked.  As the entered the room, the lights came on and a robotic voice stated, “you are now being recorded” through a speaker on the inside the door to the left.

             “I’ve never seen the inside of this room before.”  Agent Michaelson said.  “What do they even keep in here?”  He asked.

             “Cases that are high profile, where they don’t want information potentially leaked to the wrong person.  You require Level VII clearance to get in.”  Agent Joseph stated.

             “So, what’s up with this case?”  Agent Shapiro asked.  “I haven’t heard of it before either.  If it’s so high profile, how come we haven’t heard about it?  We’ve been here for months now.”

             “As the Captain said, this case has been haunting WIPA for eighteen years.  The last agents who were officially assigned to the case are gone from the department.  Agent Bert retired, Agent Colby was promoted and Agent Saxon was killed in the line of duty.  No one else was ever assigned to the case I guess.  You’ll find out more once we get to the conference room.”  Agent Joseph said.

             “How many boxes are we going to have to move up there?”  Agent Shapiro asked.

             “Here we are!  Everything on these three shelves is what we have to take up.”  Agent Joseph stated as he motioned with his arm to a large shelf.

             “You’ve got to be kidding me.  There must be over three hundred boxes on these shelves!”  Agent Michaelson exclaimed.

             “It’s a huge case.  There are carts over against that wall.  Keep the boxes in order.  They are all numbered.”  Agent Joseph instructed.  “I have to stay in the room since I’m the one with the clearance.  We will load the first carts together, then I’ll load more up while you take these to the conference room.  Let’s get this done as fast as we can.”  Agent Joseph said.

             They worked together to get all of the boxes to the conference room.  It took a couple hours and several trips back and forth.  Once all the boxes were in the conference room, Agent Joseph organized them in order and kept the six pack abductions separate from each other.  Once the room was ready, he called the team into the conference room.

             “Alright everyone, listen up!”  Agent Joseph said as he closed the conference room door and proceeded to the front of the room.  “As you can see from all the boxes, this case is very large.  This case started eighteen years ago when six pups were taken from the Raven Moon pack outside of Seattle, Washington.  This is the one and only time the abductors ever slipped up in the slightest.  However, it did not help us at all as the situation was not handled with law enforcement in mind..  We believe they were attempting to take ten pups.  We do not know how large of a group we are dealing with, however during this abduction, three of their people were caught by the Raven Moon pack.  Three pups were recovered from them.  Sadly, a fourth pup was found dead in the woods.  The three abductors who were caught all had a poisonous pill with them that was untraceable.  They ingested the pills while being transported to the holding cells at Raven Moon and were dead before they could be interrogated.”  Agent Joseph paused briefly as everyone absorbed the first bit of information.

“The Alpha of the Raven Moon pack was enraged that they couldn’t be questioned and burned the bodies beyond recognition.  Raven Moon tried to find the abductors and rescue the six children; however, they were unable to track them as the abduction was committed during a storm.  The rain washed away all tracks and scents.  The Elders were not notified that the abduction had taken place for seven weeks.  By that time, there was nothing they could do beyond what Raven Moon had already done themselves to find the pups.”  Agent Joseph looked around the room at the team.  They were all quiet.  He continued.

             “The second abduction happened at the Moon Stone Pack in Kingstree, South Carolina.  During this abduction, ten pups were taken.  Their warriors believe they were tailing some of the abductors when they drove their getaway vehicle over a cliff and plummeted into a raging river below.  There were no survivors of the crash.  No evidence was left behind by the abductors this time.  Again, the Moon Stone Pack tried to do the investigation on their own before alerting the Elders.  It was again too late for them to assist.”  Agent Joseph could tell the other agents were becoming upset with the facts.

             “The third abduction happened twelve years ago. This time they managed to abduct sixteen pups from the Opal Moon Pack in San Angelo, Texas.  This abduction devastated the pack as all the ranked pups were taken.  Adding to the pain of this abduction, the Alpha lost it in a fit of rage and slaughtered the majority of their pack warriors.  The slaughter made news headlines and the Elders were forced to intervene and the pack was disbanded.  Most of the pack members were absorbed by surrounding packs.  The Elders started an official investigation for this abduction but were unable to locate the pups.”

             “I remember seeing this one in the werewolf news when I was in high school.”  Agent David said.  “It’s what made me want to become an agent.”  Murmurs went up around the room as agents recalled remembering the slaughter case being in the news.

             “If I can continue.”  Agent Joseph said.  “Ten years ago, eight pups were abducted from the Blood Moon pack in Bangor, Maine.  The Alpha of Blood Moon remembered seeing the Opal Moon case in the werewolf news and contacted their Elders right away.  The Elders started an investigation and began linking the four abductions together.  When it became clear to them that they were out of their depth, they reached out for help.  WIPA was brought into the case at this time.  It took eight years for us to become involved.  The first three abductions were already considered cold cases by this time.  We were coming into the investigation behind the eight ball.”

             “The fifth abduction happened six years ago at Jade Moon, right around the corner from us in Omaha, Nebraska.  Jade Moon lost fourteen pups.  This is the first time we were involved with the crime scene.  We have a lot of information about it.  Photo’s, footprints, tire tracks, etc.  All of it led us to a lot of leads that ended up not working out.  I was personally at this crime scene.  I can tell you, we are dealing with a large group that is organized.  They act with precision.”

             “The most recent abduction happened two years ago at the Crescent Moon pack outside of Buffalo, New York.  Ten pups were taken.  Again, we were able to investigate at the crime scene.  We have no usable leads from this pack.  Crescent Moon was a relatively young pack at the time.  They were big on surveillance and had a lot of tech on their premises.  The abductors knew where every piece was and either disabled or damaged it all.  We couldn’t even get an image of them from what was left.”

             “These are the six abductions that we know about.  A total of sixty-four pups were taken during the abductions.  The pups from the first abduction will have had their wolves for a few years now.  This may be able to help us.  We still don’t know who the abductors are or where they could be.  All of the evidence we have is in these boxes.  There may be more abductions that don’t know about. Based on previous timelines, they are due to strike again at any time.  If we can somehow figure out where they are going to strike, we can hopefully get ahead of them and stop them.  And perhaps recover some or all of the previous pups have been taken.”  Everyone was silent.

             “Any questions?”  Captain Jacobsen asked the room.

             “How do you want us to go about this?  Are we going to split up the abductions or work on going through them all together?  Agent Michaelson asked.

             “I’m going to put you in six teams of two.  Each team will be assigned to one of the abductions.  You will have two days to do an initial review the information in your boxes.”  Agent Joseph said.  “I’ll coordinate between all the teams.  If you have questions, let me know.”

             “And I think it goes without saying, none of the files are allowed to leave this conference room.  No one is permitted to speak with the media regarding this case.  Everything is to run through Agent Joseph.”  The Captain commanded.

             “Yes Sir!”  Rang out around the room.

             “I want this case solved!  I want the people responsible for this brought to justice and the families who lost their pups to get them back and/or get closure.  Is that understood?”  The Captain said.

             “Yes Sir!”

             “Ok, Michaelson and David, you take Raven Moon.  Shapiro and Gomes, you take Moon Stone.  Ramirez and Fontaine, you are on Opal Moon.  Gads and Stephenson, Blood Moon is yours.  Nichol and Albertson, you get Jade Moon.  And Roberts and Nunez that leaves Crescent Moon for you.”  Agent Joseph assigned the case files as he made note of who was on each case. 

             “What about us, Sir?  Which case do we get?”  Agent Moore asked as she gestured to herself and Agents Stone and Giles.

             “The three of you, since you are the newest on the team will rotate through the six cases.  You will each get one day to review the files for each case, then work together to see what patterns we can establish that cross over between cases.  See what you can come up with.”  Agent Joseph said.

             “Ok, you all have your assigned cases, no get to work!”  Captain Jacobsen commanded.

             Everyone jumped into action.  The teams all started to go through their boxes of information.  Agents Moore, Stone and Giles were first sent on a run to the supply room to get chart paper and the portable easels and white boards.  The blinds in the conference room were closed so no one outside of the department could see what was happening.

Agent Joseph had gone to get coffee and lunch for the team.  When he returned, he was pleased to see the room was in a state of organized chaos as the team reviewed the files and started to hopefully put the pieces of a complicated puzzle together.