Chapter 17: Gearing Up for the Wild
The pursuit of the "Wolverine" consumed a significant portion of Elias Thorne's strategic bandwidth, even as the intricate dance of power continued in Montreal. Finding a near-mythical figure in the vast Canadian wilderness was a far cry from manipulating urban gang politics. It required a different set of resources, a different mindset.
Dr. Finch, with his enhanced intellect, continued to be the linchpin of the information-gathering phase. He devoured every available map, every obscure journal, every trapper's tale, creating a surprisingly detailed probability matrix for potential sighting locations based on terrain, reported resource availability (game, fresh water), and historical patterns. The area west of the Manicouagan Reservoir remained the most promising, specifically a rugged, largely unexplored region known colloquially as the "Serpent's Spine" due to a series of jagged, interconnected ridges.
"If he exists and maintains his preference for isolation, Mr. Thorne," Finch concluded, tapping the highlighted region on a topographical map pinned to the wall of his dedicated research room, "this area offers the densest cover and the fewest incursions. The last credible, albeit anecdotal, sighting aligns with migratory animal patterns leading towards these highlands for the summer months, which are now approaching."
Elias understood this was a long-term, high-risk, high-reward endeavor. He began to quietly divert funds, not from his property income which was carefully accounted for, but from the less traceable proceeds Mickey O'Halloran acquired – a small percentage of which Mickey now "voluntarily contributed" to Mr. Thorne's "special projects fund" out of a mix of Goblin-esque desire to please and sheer terror of Thomas MacIntyre.
The first step was reconnaissance. Sending a team blindly into the Serpent's Spine was foolish. He needed aerial observation. Commercial flight services were available, but expensive and too conspicuous for his purposes. He needed his own eyes in the sky, metaphorically speaking, or rather, someone who could guide such eyes.
He thought of Anya Petrova. Her Archer-enhanced vision was unparalleled. If she could be positioned to observe, even from a chartered bush plane making legitimate-seeming survey flights, she might spot something others would miss – an unusual heat signature, a non-natural shelter, disturbances in the foliage inconsistent with animal activity.
But Anya was an urban operative, an artist turned marksman. The deep wilderness was another beast entirely. He needed someone with wilderness survival skills, someone who could potentially lead a small ground team if aerial reconnaissance yielded a promising lead.
This brought him back to Thomas MacIntyre. Before becoming a groundskeeper in Montreal, Thomas had served in the British Army, seeing action in some of the Empire's more rugged colonial frontiers. He knew his way around the wild, knew how to track, how to survive. His Barbarian strength would be an asset in such terrain, but it was his forgotten soldiering skills Elias was now most interested in.
"Thomas," Elias said one evening, as they reviewed security reports for his properties. "Your time in the King's service... did it involve much... wilderness work?"