Warming The Cold One - 23. Who's the real boss? Now, who's on first?

The elevator opened to the 17th floor vestibule and the group stepped out and walked over to the large desk. Things were set up to have five or six people well-spaced along the massive welcome area. Currently there was one person running back and forth organizing things while it appeared someone else was finishing the install of the last computer. The installer walked away toward the back as they approached.

“Good morning Matthew. How is everything going?” Hawk saw the man jump. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Matthew took a deep breath to restart his heart. “No, I should be sorry for not hearing the elevator ding. Please don’t tell the agency or Avery that I was too focused on this than what I was supposed to be doing.” The sound was almost a beg at this point. “I really need this job.”

Hawk smiled. “I understand how overwhelming this all is. I know Avery is happy to have you here so she can take a few hours off. You are doing fine.”

Matthew sighed. “Thank you, Sir.”

Tala chuckled to himself. Hawk shot him a look but turned back to Matthew. “I want you to meet a few people. This here is my brother, Tala, and his ma... husband, Jay. Then this person here is Bjorn.”

“It is very nice to meet you all. Are you going to be working here often?” Matthew grabbed a small tablet to make notes.

“Nice to meet you too Matthew,” Bjorn started. “I do have an office here. It’s the large one overlooking the lake.”

Matthew wrote it down and then looked up. “The really big office is yours?” He started to sweat. “I’m so sorry Sir. I didn’t know.”

“Calm down,” Bjorn soothed. “I was out of town for the last week. You couldn’t have known.” He saw Matthew relax a bit. “I’m glad you’re here and I think you will do great.”

Tala spoke up next. “I agree, you will do great. I have a deep down feeling you will grow into this job, and it just might transform who you are inside.” Hawk and Jay gave him a weird look, but Tala continued. “I don’t want you to panic since I don’t spend a lot of time in Ohio, but I am kind of the big boss.”

Matthew stammered a bit. “I th-thought that he was the boss.” Matthew motioned toward Hawk.

“Think of me as the day-to-day boss,” Hawk explained. “Tala is my boss as well as being my brother. He does a lot of work on the ground and in the field.”

“Enough with who is boss and when. I am curious to know a bit about you, Matthew,” Jay asked.

Matthew blushed. “Not much to tell. My name is Matthew Lowe. I grew up in rural North Dakota. I moved to Ohio a few years ago to attend Cedarville University. I am most of the way done with my MBA. I took a quarter off to get a quick break before I have to write my masters.”

Jay continued. “So why get a job here?”

“Well, I got a call from a temp agency that said they had openings for a temp to hire position that offered great benefits. It’s not often to find a job at $20 per hour to start.” Matthew looked around. “I don’t mean to sound rude but so far it hasn’t seemed like it’s been all that much work. I mean just setting up offices and the random person that got off on the wrong floor.”

“Matthew, what are you doing?” The group heard a voice yelling from the back. “Who are you talking to?”

Matthew spoke a bit louder and toward the back. “I was just talking...”

All heads turned as a woman came out from the door going behind the desk area. “I don’t think you should be talking on your phone while cleaning. The big boss’ group will be here soon.”

Tala stepped forward a bit to block the view of Bjorn and Hawk so just Jay and he were visible. He put his hand on Matthew’s shoulder to comfort him. “Avery, is it?”

Avery looked defensive. “Yes.” She her gaze turned toward Matthew. “You cannot have visitors here.”

Matthew started to stammer. “I di-didn’t.”

Tala squeezed Matthew’s shoulder. He whispered, “I got this.” He turned his attention back to Avery. “Matthew was nervous in his new job, and I thought it best to let him know how good of a job he was doing.”

“That is all fine and dandy, but he still cannot have guests in my office.” Avery turned toward Matthew. “Before I ask these men to leave, how are they so I can make sure they are not welcome here again.”

Matthew started to panic. He realized that Avery didn’t know who she was threatening to throw out. “Avery, I don’t think you understand what happened here.”

Tala gave Matthew one last shoulder squeeze and walked over to Avery. He put his hand out and smiled brightly. “Good afternoon, my name is Master Tala. This is Jay,” Tala indicated his mate. “We are here touring how the Operation Center was coming along. I heard there was a workhorse admin that was making sure that the front ran like a top. Is she in?”

Avery’s face went slack. “Um, hello Sir.” She saw behind Tala there was Hawk and Bjorn watching the scene unfold. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I’m just going to leave you in Matthew’s capable hands then.” She turned to leave.

“Stop!” Tala used a hint of his gift to make sure she didn’t walk away. “This was just a misunderstanding on all of our parts. Come back, please.”

Avery walked back over. “I am just so embarrassed. The stress has been so much. I just got help and I have to be protective of what people say around Matthew.”

Hawk walked over. “We understand. You are doing a great job and Matthew is going to be a big help. He is doing an awesome job getting everything finished while you get all the projects lined up.”

Avery relaxed a tiny bit. “Thank you, Hawk. I don’t want to be rude but I need to call someone back and finish up with the name card orders.” Avery fast walked back to the office she was in previously.

Hawk turned to Matthew. “I meant what I said. You are doing a great job. We are going to leave you it if you can grab the ID cards for Tala and Jay.”

Matthew walked over to the desk and picked up the sealed envelopes. “I believe these are what you were looking for.”

Hawk smiled. “They are indeed.” He opened the envelopes and handed the badges over to Tala and Jay.

Matthew saw when they put them on that they looked different. “I’ve never seen badges like that before.”

Hawk nodded. “I like that you picked up on that. To start, Jay’s badge is a little closer to the normal badge but has access to all of our areas as well as level 2 access to his father’s clan areas.”

“Level 2?” Matthew looked confused.

“I am the son of Master Tobias Whelan.” Jay waited for the shock to pass across Matthew’s face. “I could have full access as the Hier to the Celtic Clan but declined it. I did want my badge to have both clan marks.”

Matthew looked over to Tala’s badge. “What about that?”

Tala laughed. “You can see the full King’s Crest on mine since I am the only person to have all the clan marks. That is a long story but needless to say, I had to kick in some money to have a custom card made that had halo glitter on it too.”

Bjorn cut in. “Looking at my watch, we are short on time. It was nice to meet you Matthew, but my wife is going to be wondering why we haven’t already called her for the meeting.”

The four shook Matthew’s hand and they all badged in and went back to Bjorn’s office. Matthew went back to the office to check on Avery. He saw her on the phone, so he went back to setting up the last desk.

They sat down in Bjorn’s office and before Tala’s butt had rest in the chair the others were giving him a look. “What?” Tala questioned them.

“Your comments to Matthew back there.” Jay had a confused look. “It was like you knew something that we didn’t.”

Tala smiled. “I do. I saw he was an unturned immediately and since he is from the rural area of North Dakota I knew he had to be related to us.”

Hawk looked shocked for a moment. Jay saw the look and shook his head smiling. He padded Hawk on the shoulder. “Only Tala has the ability to find unturned family members here.”

“Who is going to tell him? I mean he is going to wonder what goes on around here,” Hawk mused.

“We don’t tell him anything right now. Let’s do some research first and see what we find.” Tala turned to Bjorn. “Can you pull his background check and see what we can find in the old council archives?”

“I’ll do my best. I will have to ask Rolf who to talk to about it, but I’ll spin it like you want research for your mother’s trip.” Bjorn grabbed a pad of paper and started writing down some notes so he could keep the story inline with what he needed other clans to think.

Tala turned to Hawk while Bjorn continued to write. “So what is the count up to now?”

“As soon as it hit fourteen, I had Kade put a hold on the submission form. It just has a message that due to a large influx of requests we had to slow things down.” Hawk grabbed a stack of folders that were sitting on the side table next to him. “I had Kade drop these in here before I left for the meeting so that we could look them over.”

“Anything interesting,” Jay asked.

“Not that exciting for most of them. Half so far are just small rural packs and a few that are nearer to small cities.” Hawk dug through the pile and pulled out two folders. “These two are the most interesting.”

Jay pointed to the top folder. “That one looks like it could have just been stapled together.”

“This is our winner for odd requests.” Hawk opened the folder to the bare minimum three-page request form. “It is a barely even a pack. Twenty wolves without a rep in North Carolina. I don’t know how they even were able to make the request as it was just internal. I have the researchers doing some follow-up.”

Tala nodded. He pointed at the very thick folder left in Hawk’s hand. “What’s the deal with the book?”

Hawk laughed. “This is a mega pack. They have over nine-hundred members that and live just west of Tallahassee. We have just as much information about them as we do the pack in North Carolina.”

“Then what is the book,” Tala questioned.

“They sent all the member names with the request. They do have a pack rep, but he is noticeably quiet and is not on any of the committees.” Hawk was interrupted by a knock on Bjorn’s office door.

“Sorry to barge in Hawk,” Kade apologized, “but I got a call that the Apalachicola Pack rep heard Tala and Jay were here and wanted to talk with them.”

“It’s okay.” Tala turned to Jay. “Should we grab a meeting room and hear him out? Might save us a lot of time researching.”

“Yes, we should.” Jay turned to Hawk. “Which room should we use?”

Kade answered before Hawk could even start to open his mouth. “Leave it to me. We set up the main conference room a couple doors down. It has a coffee and hot tea machine and I’ll have a pitcher of water and sweet tea brought up as well. Is a half hour to soon?”

Jay laughed as he could tell that Hawk was about to delegate it to Kade before he jumped in. “A half hour should be fine.”

A late thirties man walked in to the conference room about a half hour later. Jay and Tala stood up and shook his hand. “Thank you for meeting with me so quickly. I have been getting pressure from my alpha to make sure I didn’t miss your visit.”

“The pleasure is ours,” Tala smiled. “I am Tala, and this is my mate, Jay. Did you want some coffee or tea?”

“I’ll take a glass of that sweet tea.” The man sipped it. “I am Brayan Escobar. As you know, I am the pack representative for the Apalachicola Pack.”

“Nice to meet you Brayan. So why was it so urgent to see us,” Tala questioned.

“My pack has some information that some parties would be upset to know we had.” Brayan pulled a USB stick from his pocket and put it on the table. “This has scans of the newspapers when the Red Pack was attacked. It also has letters from some high up people on the council on who ordered it and why.”

“Most of that isn’t secret,” Jay started. “The Celtic Clan has most of that and more.”

Brayan smiled. “Yeah. My alpha has the originals and the letters that no one had thought to still exist. Orders from Lee to hunt down the Red Pack and how to cover it up.”

Tala gasped. “How do you know they are real?”

“They were addressed to one of my fourth great uncles. He had left our pack to marry a wolf in Tennessee. He made money by doing dirty work no one else wanted to do. They were found by his daughter in a box of papers when he didn’t come back. They were written in Vigenère code and signed by Lee himself.”

Jay grabbed the USB stick and put it in his pocket. “I’ll have my dad’s researchers look these over.”

“I do have another question for you,” Tala said. “Why with a pack as large as yours, doesn’t no one know anything about you?”

Brayan nodded. “We keep to ourselves because we don’t want anyone poking around our business. We have been working hard to build a strong pack of mostly American wolves.”

“I get it,” Jay explained. “Put on a façade that you are just a basic pack of mixed wolves.”

Brayan concurred. “We are in a unique position in many ways.” He saw he had Jay’s and Tala’s attention. “We have large numbers of American wolves that have done nothing but study and learn online. We can have fifty wolves here in a matter of days that are trained in anything that needs to be done.”

Tala looked at Jay. “I’ll talk to Hawk and get your application finalized today. Barring anything else, I’ll want to meet with your alpha very soon.”

Brayan looked excited at that comment. “Thank you so much. I’ll let my alpha know to expect your call.”

“Please do.” Tala and Jay got up. Brayan jumped up as well shook both Tala’s and Jay’s hand.

Tala found Hawk in his office. He started talking before he even sat down. “You are not going top believe what we found out.”

Hawk put the folders on his desk aside. “Must be juicy if you are this excited.”

“Well first of all,” Tala began. “We need to get that transfer request ready to go. They might be able to send us up to fifty college educated wolves to fill all our staffing holes.”

Hawk’s jaw hit the desk. “Fifty? Like five and zero?”

“Yes, fifty wolves. That isn’t all, either.” Tala took a deep breath. “He gave us a USB stick will scans of original verified letters from General Lee ordering the Red Pack destroyed.”

“Holy shit!” Hawk took a second to recover. “How?”

“They had a relative of the alpha line that moved away to wed. He did odd jobs for money and one of them was being hired to help lead the attack party.” Tala could tell Hawk was still reeling. “Jay is sending the scans to Toby to have them verified as we speak.”

“I guess I can let Kade and Avery know to slow the search for people,” Hawk mused.

“I guess so,” Tala chuckled. “I’m going to go call his alpha and discuss when I can fly down.”