Warming The Cold One - 13. Office Space is a Problem

Hawk walked up to the building management office door and found it locked. He found a sign on the door that they were at lunch until 13:00. He looked at his watch and noticed it was 13:25. He tried scanning his badge on the security pad next to the door that said badge for entry if door is closed and it opened for him. He walked inside and closed the door behind him.

“Hello?” Hawk looked around at the empty vestibule area. “Is anyone here?”

An office door opened to his right and a guy that looked like he just woke up from a nap stared at him. “Dude, we are closed for lunch until 13:00.”

Hawk cringed inside as he hated being called dude. “I saw your sign on the door. It’s 13:25, dude.”

The sleepy guy perked up. “Shit, I’m in so much trouble. I am so going to get fired for sleeping on the job again.”

Hawk sighed on the inside. “I won’t tell anyone. What is your name?”

“Really? Thank you so much!” He sits down at the counter and logs in. “My name is Augustine, but please call me Gus. Only my mom calls me the horrific name in public.”

“Nice to meet you Gus.” Hawk walked over to the counter. “I’m not sure if you’re going to like meeting me but here goes. I need you to tell me where my assigned office is.”

Gus laughed. “You came all the way here to find your office. Why didn’t your boss take you to the room you are supposed to work in?”

Hawk took a breath. “I am the boss, and no one can find a listing of where my office is.”

“You’re the boss,” Gus mused. “You look just old enough to be an intern, but okay Boss. What is your name and I can look up your records.”

Hawk calmly replied still feeling like he was being treated as a nobody. “My name is Sir Haih Bia'isa, representative to the Boise Pack.” Hawk put a bit of sass at the end. “It might also be under Hawk as only my mother used my sacred family name.”

Gus typed for a few seconds. Finding nothing he started digging deeper into the system. “I’m sorry but I don’t see anything listed in here. Do you have your login ID?”

Hawk showed him the badge and the ID number printed on his instruction card from Rolf. “This is all the information I was given by Master Rolf when I arrived this morning.”

Gus shook his head. “This isn’t right then. All of the Celtic packs have ID numbers that start with a C not a U. Are you sure you are who you say you are?”

Both Gus and Hawk turned their head when the door clicked open and Björn walked in. “Did you want me to prop your door open? Everyone will think you are still at lunch?”

Gus quickly answered. “Yes sir, that would be wonderful. I’ll be with you in a few minutes. I need to finish up with this gentleman here.”

Hawk smiled, “no worries. I believe the person I was meeting is the guy your helping.” He turns to Hawk. “Good afternoon Hawk. Your brother was right. You do look like each other.”

Hawk walked over to Björn and tried to shake his hand. “It is excellent to meet you finally.”

Björn grabbed his hand and pulled him in for a bro hug. “Save the handshakes for the other lawyers.” He lets go and motions over to Gus. “He get you all taken care of?”

Gus answered with a sneer. “Who might you be?”

Björn’s smile dropped and his dander rose. “I am Master Björn Chase, is there a problem?”

Gus scoffed, “never heard of you. Do you need to know where your office is too?”

Björn took a breath. “No, I know where my office is. I was coming to meet with Hawk here as I had heard he was having office issues as I was having network issues. However, I think I do need to find an office now. You bosses office!”

Gus kept the same flippant attitude in his reply. “You don’t just get to ask for the boss when you don’t get what you want.”

Björn walked over and leaned across the counter. He held up his security badge in Gus’s face. “See this? It says I need your manager, right now.” Björn pulled Hawk’s badge forward from around his neck. “I believe his says the same thing.”

Gus leaned back and read the badges and his face paled. “I, I, um, yes sir.” He picked up the phone and dialed back to the manager’s office. “Good afternoon sir, I need some assistance at the counter.” Hawk and Björn heard some yelling over the phone. “I understand you are in a meeting sir, but...” Gus put the phone down.

Björn sighed. “Where is this meeting?”

Gus looked up and pointed down a secured corridor. Björn started walking quickly toward the door. Hawk turned to Gus. “Don’t worry Gus. I told you that you wouldn’t like meeting me. I don’t think you have to worry about lunch anymore, insulting one of the members of the Circle is a bigger deal.”

Hawk caught up with Björn right before he got to the meeting room at the end of the hall. “Stop Björn.”

Björn turned to him. “This is the second time today I have been dealing with these issues now. I’m a bit pissed.”

“I get it.” Hawk put a hand on Björn’s shoulder. “Let me take lead on this one and if I need help, I’ll let you know.” He winked and then opened the door on the meeting room.

Five sets of eyes turned to the door as he and Björn walked inside and closed the door behind them. A fortyish looking man jumped up and started yelling. “Who the fuck are you? This is a private meeting.”

Hawk spoke very calmly and assertively. “Ladies, Gentleman, I’m sorry to interrupt your meeting but I needed to escalate a building management issue and the fine young lycan at the counter was unable to assist me.” Hawk looked around the room. “Whom do I need to inquire with?”

The fortyish looking man walked over to Hawk and poked him in the chest. “You can’t just walk into a private meeting because the heat in your office isn’t right.”

Hawk grab the hand that was poking his chest and pushed it away. “Don’t touch me! I would dream of complaining about the heat in my office until you tell me where that office is at. So far, no one here seems to know and that seems a bit odd to me. So why don’t you tell me who you are and what you are going to do about it.”

The man laughs. “You don’t know where your office is at? You interrupt the planning and budget meeting to ask where your office is?”

Hawk smiles. “Yes, I am. So, who are you and what are you going to do about it?”

“I am the VP of Engineering and Building Management. I don’t deal in assigning are locating offices.” He turns to sit back down. “Get out on my meeting!”

Björn starts to step forward, but Hawk puts up a hand. “No. I don’t think you want to ignore my request if you want to keep your job.”

The VP jumps back up and gets in Hawk’s face. “My job is secure. Yours on the other hand won’t be. Who is your boss?”

Hawk turns and points at Björn. “I have two, but I only brought one with me.”

The VP laughs out loud and points. “He’s your boss but yet you are doing the talking?”

Hawk smiles again. “Yes, I am. I asked him to let me handle it and just to be here if I needed him. I will only ask this one more time. What is your name and how are you going to solve my issue?”

The VP sneers at Hawk. “I won’t. I’ll just get the both of you fired.” He turned and walked over to a phone in the corner. He picked it up and dialed a number. “Yes, this is Aarne Baxter and I need security to remove two people from the Building Management meeting room. Thank you.”

Hawk sighed and turn to Björn. “I think we are going to need to hire a new Building Management staff at this rate.” Hawk shook his head and looked sad.

Björn looked over at Aarne. “If things keep up, we will need a new IT staff and Building Management you mean.”

Two security officers badged open the door and approached Björn and Hawk. The lead officer did the talking. “Let me see your badges gentleman.” They hold up their badges to the officers. “These are different than all the others I have seen. What is this symbol?”

Björn started to speak but Hawk help up his hand again. “That officer is my family’s clan mark. It means Commitment. All American wolves share that trait and it is our guiding belief. My brother takes that as commitment to undoing wrongs. I take it as revealing truth.”

The office continued to read Hawks badge. “Sir Haih Bia'isa, Boise Pack.” He looked up at Hawk. “You’re a little young to be a Clan representative.”

Hawk answered, “my pack and my family have great faith in me.”

“I’m sure.” He started to read Björn’s badge. “Master Björn Chase, Cathlamet Pack. Were you on the senior council before it was broken up? You need a new badge if you were since only the Circle members and Clan Heads are called Master now.”

Björn looked at him with distain. “I am on the Circle.”

The other officer taps the lead officer on the shoulder. He looks over and see everyone else in the room pale in color. “Sir, I think we better leave these two gentlemen alone to finish their meeting with Mr. Baxter.”

The lead officer looks taken aback. “If Mr. Baxter wants them removed, then we remove them. No fake badges are going to stop that.”

Hawk turns to the second officer. “Thank you for trying. Is it Officer Griffin?” The officer nods. “If you can send a message to Master Whelan’s office that I am granting you protection in this matter. Code word is ‘rolo’ for the routing.”

Björn turned to the lead officer and read his name and rank off his uniform. “Sergeant Colbert, I think as Officer Griffin is leaving, you had better call your Captain to come in here.”

The sergeant chuckled a little bit. “If you say so...”

A few minutes later and tank of a lycan came through the door. His eyes landed on Björn. “Good Afternoon Master Björn, I didn’t know you went to budget meetings. You wanted to see me?”

“Oh, hello Captain Kilmek. I didn’t know you were back from vacation.” Björn noticed the color in Sergeant Colbert fade away.

Captain Kilmek’s face flattened. “I had to push it back and we leave this evening. So, what seems to be the problem?”

Hawk spoke up this time. “Well Captain, we seem to have a bit of a misunderstanding between Mr. Baxter and me. I have been having issues with office assignment and my escalation request got a bit out of hand.”

“I see.” Captain Kilmek mused. “Go on.”

Hawk explained what happened in the outer office and the interactions they had in the meeting room. “I know it seems a bit aggressive to barge into the meeting here. I suffer from a lack of fondness to being fed dog shit.”

Captain Kilmek turned to the still trembling table of people. “Aarne, when will his office be ready?”

“Bob,” Aarne started, “why is his office so god damn special. All the clans have offices they can use until a final assignment is made. They need to talk to their clan liaison.”

Björn smiled and turned to Hawk. “Well Hawk, as we hadn’t gotten all the staff figured out yet, I haven’t hired anyone for that. You up for it?”

Hawk thought for a moment. “For now, I’ll offload that to someone else later.” He turned to Aarne who’s face fell again. “I don’t usually talk to myself in public, but I still want to know where the American Clan offices are.”

Aarne trembled. “American Clan offices? They were never approved. I got an email that they weren’t needed. The work orders were vacated.”

Björn’s face turned sour. “Who emailed you?”

Aarne quickly answered. “Nobody emailed me. It was all automated and came from the executive approval system.”

Björn looked frustrated. “How quickly can you fix it and have my Clan’s offices ready? I already had to get my Clan’s network ID issue fixed earlier.”

“IT is just bits.” Aarne started to get scared. “I have to deal in actual building space. How many packs do you plan on having over the next couple months?”

Hawk chimed in before Björn. “The way my brother moves and the word of mouth power he has shown makes that hard to guess. I’d say five new packs and at least fifty packs will need new space in the next six weeks.”

Aarne turned to one of the women at the table. “Anja, how quickly can we get the 17th floor ready?”

Anja looked something up on her computer. “It would be a struggle, but I think we could have a crew in there to build out on Monday. The main suite needs some basic work done but that might take a day. If we allocate one person from each of the ten crews, they could have fifty-four more pack suites and a logistics hub done in about 5 weeks. Do we know who all will be moving?”

Björn answered. “The Boise Pack and Southern Arizona Pack that will need to move first. However, I need to make sure that the Cathlamet Pack gets up and running soon. It would look bad for the lead pack to not have an office to inquire to.”

Aarne looked to Anja. “Anja, can you get your team moving on this? Also, move anyone you have to move to get the lead office of the main suite move in ready by tomorrow morning.” Aarne turned to Björn and Hawk. “I’m sorry. I just followed the work orders and didn’t think anything of it. You didn’t deserve to be treated unfairly. I hope my actions now can make up for my attitude before.”

Hawk spoke with composure. “I accept your apology. We shouldn’t have gotten so mad at you as we know you didn’t cause this. I’ll talk to my brother to see if he can put some pressure on getting these backend issues fixed.”

Aarne stopped for a second and thought. He turned to Hawk. “You keep mentioning your brother. Do I know of him?”

Björn smiled and answered for Hawk. “Mr. Baxter, Hawk’s brothers name is Tala.” He watched Aarne faint on the floor and then turned to Captain Kilmek. “He took that better than I thought he would.”

The secretary looked over to the three men waiting. “Alpha Boehler will see you now. I trust you know the way.”

The three men walked down a short hallway and knocked on a door. When they got the okay, they opened the door and entered the alpha’s office.

The alpha greeted them as they walked in. “Gentlemen, I only expected two of you. Please be seated.”

The first man sat and began speaking. “Thank you, Alpha, for seeing us. I came along as I figured it would be faster to have one meeting instead of two.”

The alpha nodded. “Very well, lets get started then. I have a report that the three of you are off your fucking rockers.”

The second man squeaked out a reply. “Well sir, I guess you’d have to have been there.”

“Don’t talk back to me!” The alpha yelled. “I am ashamed of the three of you. Do you know what this will do to your careers? If three lycans cannot handle a half-wit celebrity, then what are you doing in the field?”

The first man answered boldly. “That half-wit is the head of the American Clan. You have heard what he did at the council?”

“Are you telling me you believe all the hyped-up stories from the council?” The alpha looked disgusted.

The third man finally got the courage to speak. “Alpha, it happened. Believe what you want, but Tala spoke to us like no one has ever spoken to me. He cared about our wellbeing and it was not fake. He told us things no one else could have. We are American wolves.”

The alpha looked surprised at the courage the three men had. “You are mutts and that is all you will ever be. Now do what you can to save your jobs and get out of my office before I banish the lot of you.”

The three men looked back and forth at each other and nodded in silent agreement. They turned to the alpha and the first man spoke. “I, Edward Montley, request to transfer to the Cathlamet pack effective immediately.”

The second man followed. “I, Sean Freeman, also request to transfer to the Cathlamet pack effective immediately.”

The third man quickly spoke up too. “I, Aaron Jones, request to transfer to the Cathlamet pack effective immediately as well.”

The alpha laughed so hard he almost wet himself. “Your requests are denied! You are all remanded to your homes until a meeting between the beta and myself can be held to figure out what to do to you. Now get out of my office.” The three men didn’t move. The alpha started to get angry. In an alpha voice he yelled. “I said get out!”

The three men sat there and realized that they should have been feeling something, but they didn’t anymore. They all three smiled at the same time. Edward was the first to speak. “Thank you for accepting our request, Alpha Boehler. We will be going home to pack and will be off your lands in a few days.”

The alphas anger rose even further. “How dare you! I will not let you play me for a fool. This will not stand.”

The three men stood up and walked out the door without saying another word to their former alpha.

Sean Freeman walked in the front door of his home and was ambushed by his wife. “What have you done?”

“Honey,” Sean quickly started to speak. “I did what was best for all of us.”

“Best for us? Do you know what is already being said? You not only got fired from the FBI but, not only that, you told off the alpha.” Sean could almost see smoke coming from his wife’s ears. She walked into the kitchen. “I got a call from my mother! My mother!”

“Can I just explain?” Sean ducked as a plate came flying at his head. “I already have another job in Washington.”

Sean ducked again as a serving platter came flying next. “Washington? What the hell is in Washington?”

“I kinda sorta changed to be in Master Tala’s pack and I have standing job offer. All I have to do is show up.” The plates stopped flying for a second. “Aaron and Edward are going with me. I think the other three guys that were with us might go too.”

She came back out of the kitchen and looked him dead in the eyes. “You’re serious aren’t you. I mean he really did change your mind that much.”

“Yes. I tried to tell Alpha Boehler, but he wouldn’t listen. All he would do is yell and then something broke inside me. I asked to move to Master Tala’s pack and then I just felt this freedom. It happened to the guys as well. We just knew that we had to do this. We felt a commitment to doing the right thing for our lives and our families lives.” Sean stepped over and hugged his wife. “I want the best for you and for our sons.”

She looked into his eyes again. “You better call our new pack and I guess I better get a moving company hired. Mother said the alpha is not happy and might not let us stay very long.

Sean sat down in his chair and he called a number that he had looked up earlier in the day. “Hello? Is this Lisbeth? I am doing fine, thank you. My name is Sean Freeman and I wanted to find out when I can start my new job. Yes, I’ll hold.” Sean sat on hold for about two minutes. “Yes, I’m still here. Thank you but he didn’t have to do that. I understand that he is a different kind of person. Thank you again.”

Sean’s wife came back into the room. “He has blacklisted us already. I can’t get anyone to help us.”

Sean stood up and smiled. “It doesn’t matter. The movers will be here in about thirty to help us pack. Tala already had them hired and just was waiting on me to call. He did the same for the others too.”

His wife looked relieved. “So, when do we leave and how long is the drive?”

Sean laughed. “We are not driving. All six families are taking the Clan jet as soon as we all get to the airport. A private security company will be here soon to help protect the house and our property.”

“What do we tell the boys,” she mused.

“The truth.” Sean looked to his wife. “The truth is what is right. That is my commitment to the world. I am going to do what is right.