Warming The Cold One - 34. The Truth is Going to Leak Soon

“Welcome back,” Savannah said. “Just needed a drive around the area?”

“No,” Karla sighed. “I went to talk to my father and yeah. I ended up in a screaming match with my mother instead.”

“You don’t mean that shrew that lives just outside of town do you,” Savannah asked and then had a face of regret almost immediately.

“Yes,” Karla exclaimed. “However, you give all other shrews a bad name. She is the biggest bitch I have ever met.”

Ann put down the map she was looking over. “Whoa, I’ve never heard you talk like that before. What happened?”

“I went out there to be civil and let my family know that the truth was coming out soon. I was really hoping that we were going to be able to sit down and talk it out. That isn’t what happened and I’m kinda mad at myself for letting them get me angry.” Karla went over to the mini fridge under the TV and grabbed a bottle of water. “Is it wrong to want things to go right?”

Dalton stopped the car in the small parking lot just inside the gate of the airport. They all got out and started unload the couple of bags from the car. Dalton turned to Tala. “Okay, let’s get this call over with so I can go back and complain to Tucker.”

Tala looked at Jay and smiled. “You got it.” Tala dialed a number on his phone, and they heard a ringing sound coming from the car entertainment system.

Dalton fumbled in his pocket and found his phone and disconnected it from Bluetooth. “What? I’m busy.”

“I’m sorry, I’ll call back later when you are available,” Tala stated into his phone and then hung up. He could see that Dalton was still processing what happened and turned back to Jay. “He was busy and couldn’t talk right now. I’ll call him back later.”

“I see,” Jay said trying not to show any emotion. “You know how busy Bjorn was at first. There are a lot of things to take care of when you get an appointment like that.”

Tala turned to Dalton. “I’m sorry that you weren’t able to talk to him. He is a really talented person whom I think will do such an incredible job. Do you want me to have him call you when I’m able to get through?”

“No, that’s okay,” Dalton mumbled. “I think I’ll be too busy with a really big humble pie and a ton of crow.” He fidgeted for a few seconds. “I am really sorry. Maybe I should tell Tucker I don’t deserve this.”

Tala walked over and lifted Dalton’s chin to look his straight in the eye. “Stop doing this to yourself. I wouldn’t have agreed with and encouraged Tucker to choose you unless I knew you could do it.”

“But,” Dalton stuttered, “what if I blow up? What if I turn everyone against me and my pack?”

Tala huffed and did something he hated doing. “ENOUGH!” He let his ancient speak hang in the air for a moment. “I believe in you. Tucker believes in you. I don’t want to hear any more about this other than when you succeed, and you will succeed.”

“Yes, Master Tala.” Dalton bowed his head respectfully for a second and then grabbed Tala in a huge hug. “Thank you for believing in me.”

“You are welcome,” Tala smiled. “Now, go on back home and work with Tucker on the back-end stuff. There is a lot of paperwork ahead of all of us and I want you a part of the process.”

Dalton hugged Tala and Jay and then got in his car and drove off back toward the pack lands. Jay turned to Tala with a question. “What did you actually do?”

“I place a latent suggestion in his mind that should boost his confidence for a little while. It should also help with his anxiety disorder as well. That is the main reason he didn’t want me in his mind the first time.” Tala sighed. “I’ll make sure to let Hawk and Bjorn know that he’ll need to see a professional once he is settled in.”

Jay chuckled. “Think that we can get one sent up from Florida?”

Tala suppressed a laugh and turned to get on the plane. About fifteen minutes later, they were in the air heading toward the Apalachicola pack lands.

“I cannot believe this! Why are we getting blocked,” complained Cooper. “I have called every number I have, and no one will even acknowledge that we have money with them.”

“So have I,” agreed Dierdre. “Someone does not want us to know what is going on with this money. So, what do we do? Who can we call to get an answer?”

Olav gently tapped on the table to get the other’s attention. “I propose a three-pronged strategy. First, we call Hans and have him give us the accountant in charge of our money. Second, while we appear to be pounding sand the normal ways, we call the person who started all this and see if he can get us a contact. Third, we silently write an emergency order to have all the accounts frozen except for one. That account will be used to pay for things that cannot be postponed as well as payroll for those who cannot go without a paycheck. No dues will be collected but simply postponed.”

Cooper and Dierdre sat stunned for a second. Dierdre then smiled. “You are going to withhold their pay until they give us what we want! I love it,” she exclaimed. “But is it legal?”

Cooper grabbed his copy of the council resolution and contracts with PWC. “Normally, it would not be. However, if we have an emergency resolution, it is because then we can post legal notice that they have not provided the services they are contracted for as a fiduciary. We have evidence of that with the two audits.”

“I’m on board for number one and number three.” Diedre fidgeted in her seat. “I’m not sure about using Master Tobias to get what we want. Isn’t there anyone else?”

Olav sighed. “There is, but I don’t think we can get ahold of them.”

Cooper sighed as well. “You mean Faolan, don’t you?”

Olav nodded. “The one and only.”

Lisbeth and Carrie Storm were sitting at a folding table just outside a construction trailer for the retail plaza. They were going over what building will be where. “I think we are confirmed for Dangerpath. Just based on the fact that the guy’s boss is pushing it to planning.”

Carrie nodded and laughed. “I think we are indeed.” She pointed to a building across the parking lot from the grocery store. “Are going to plan for this being Floormart or Arrow?”

“I want to position that as Arrow,” Lisbeth replied. “I want to put Floormart over here.” She pointed at a section of land at the far end. “I don’t want them to feel too compressed.”

Carrie looked it over. “I see what you mean. That section is at a slightly different height. Should be put a small grass hill and concrete edging to keep the parking lots different?”

Lisbeth smiled. “That sounds okay, but I think it should be a slightly wider space with tiered trees and shrubs. They won’t miss parking that they never knew could have been there.”

“So, what are you thinking for this cluster of buildings? There has to be ten really small things there.” Carrie pointed to buildings in the opposite corner of the retail area.

“That is going to be the small business cluster,” Lisbeth responded. “I wanted to have space open for things. We can build those last as they are going to just be empty shells for a while. They just need to be able to be fitted with whatever is needed in the future.”

“Oh,” Carrie exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of that? I’ll make sure they have base connections for gas, higher voltage electricity and commercial sized plumbing.” She made some notes and turned her attention back to the area maps. “I am concerned about these roads behind here. Are the turns going to be too sharp?”

“I thought so too but the engineer said it should be fine as we are not putting a curb in these corners, and they are paved.” Lisbeth pointed at the corners that she meant. “Now we just have to figure out a hardware store. What do you think of Hai’s?”

“I’m sure they would be fine,” Carrie started. “However, why not just leave it up to the pack to decide if they want to do a local store instead. Sometimes big business is too big for a community.”

Taj was sitting on his veranda sipping on some tea when the phone beside him rang. “This is Taj.”

“They are getting close. I don’t think we can hold them off much longer,” the voice on the other end said.

“We knew they would make the connection sooner or later,” Taj replied. “Our finances are clear and have been for a while. It could mean that AIMS loses the contract, but we can influence who the new firm is and not totally be blind.”

“We have too many people imbedded in there to save them all,” the voice argued.

“I know it could be painful, but we will work them back into our group. I already have a plan for it,” Taj explained.

Matthew knocked on Hawk’s office door. “You asked to see me?”

Hawk looked up from his laptop and smiled. “I did. Go ahead and close the door and have a seat.”

Matthew closed the door and shakily sat down in a chair across from Hawk. “Did I do something wrong? I swear I can take care of whatever it is.”

“No, no, you haven’t done anything wrong,” Hawk said comfortingly. “I just wanted to discuss some stuff with you.” Hawk saw Matthew calm, so he continued. “As you know, my brother Tala as doing a lot of flying around to work with different groups to get them onboard with our clan. He called me today and asked me to speak with you about some information he got.”

“Okay,” Matthew replied tentatively. “What kind of information?”

“We’ll get to that. What do you know about what we do here? What does this council do,” Hawk inquired.

“I don’t really know,” Matthew answered.

“Take a guess,” prompted Hawk.

“I’m guessing something financial and maybe lobbying,” Matthew guessed. “The group that placed me here did say not to ask a lot of questions.”

“Not too far off, but it’s much more than that.” Hawk took a breath and decided to go for broke. “This is a multinational council that manages almost all the lycan packs in the world.”

Matthew laughed. “Good one. Now tell me the truth.”

Hawk got very serious. “I did tell you the truth. Everyone in this building has lycan heritage going back to the very beginning of life on Earth. They can transform at will into a wolf.”

Matthew started to sweat. “Um, Hawk? Why are you telling me this? Are you trying scare me? Haze me? Make me quit?”

“I’m telling you the truth because you deserve to know,” Hawk answered flatly. “In a very short period of time, it is going to be revealed to a large group of people that they have been robbed of their birthrights. You are one of those people as well.”

“Proof,” Matthew stuttered. “What kind of proof do you have?”

“You tell me what kind of proof you want. Do you need a history lesson, or do you want to see it for yourself? I can do both if you need,” Hawk offered.

“Sure.” Matthew tried to put on a brave face.

Hawk nodded. “Okay then.” Hawk stepped from behind his desk and stood over in the corner turned away from Matthew. He quickly let the transformation take him in a way that his clothes didn’t get torn. He walked over and stood next to Matthew’s chair.

Shock covered Matthew’s face. “What the hell? How is that possible?”

There was a knock on the door and Bjorn poked his head in. “Oh sorry, Hawk. I didn’t know you were in a meeting. Call me later.”

The door closed and Matthew returned his attention to the wolf. “Fine, you can turn in to a wolf and everyone knows it.”

Hawk walked back over to the corner and transformed back. He got dressed again and sat back down behind his desk. “If things were fair in life, you be able to do the same thing. However, life isn’t fair, and you were denied your abilities.”

“I still don’t understand where I fit into this,” Matthew stammered.

“I’ll try to give you the quick version. Around the time of the civil war, my family fled to the plains of South Dakota. Our pursuers followed us and basically wiped us out by killing all the older wolfs so the pups were not able to get their gift of transformation. I don’t know the full history of your family, but my brother Tala’s family had a similar experience. The goal was to remove the American Clan in it’s entirety. They almost did.”

“What did they do to deserve that,” Matthew asked.

“They had a disagreement about how the country was being ran from what we know,” Hawk answered.

Matthew started to look overwhelmed. “This is a lot to take in. I don’t know what to think.”

“It’s okay,” Hawk comforted. “How about you take some time to let it sink in. Maybe call your family. They might know more about this from old family stories. I also hear your Aunt Beth is worried about you as well.”

Matthew’s face twisted. “Aunt Beth? How do you know about my mom’s estranged sister?”

“Calm down,” Hawk motioned Matthew to relax. “Tala’s mother Karla is up in Amidon right now and she ran into Beth. They got to talking and she mentioned you were working for a large NGO in Ohio. Karla put two and two together and talked to Tala who talked to me. I guess she is really sad she doesn’t hear much about you.”

“Okay, I think I’ll call my dad first and see what he says. Maybe this will start to make sense.” Matthew got up and left the office with a dazed look still on his face.

A receptionist answers a ringing phone. “Thank you for calling Dickerson Family Law Center, how may I direct your call?”

Matthew stammers his response. “Can I speak to Lyla or Duane, please?”

“Just a moment, I’ll put you through.” The call clicks a few times and hold music can be heard.

About ten seconds later the music stops. “Thank you for holding, this is Lyla.”

“Mom,” Matthew squeaks into the phone.

“What’s wrong with you? You know you don’t call me at work. We have important clients,” Lyla scolds.

“I just really need to talk to you about something my boss asked me. It’s super important.” Matthew tried to sound insistent.

“Fine, what is it,” Lyla asked angerly.

“Well, my boss’s boss’s mom is in Amidon, and she ran into Aunt Beth, and I guess they got to talking, and it was brought up that I am working here, and that prompted them to ask me about our family history, and they asked if we were lycans.” Matthew told a breath. “I had to call you and find out what is going on.”

“Slow down, slow down Mattie.” Lyla interrupted. “Start again, but a little bit slower. What about your job?”

Matthew tried to calm himself down. “I’ll try to sum it up. The head of the floor I work on called me into his office and asked me if we are lycans and to call Aunt Beth because she misses me. Also, please don’t call me Mattie anymore.”

“What does Beth have to do with your work,” Lyla asked.

“It’s hard to explain, but the boss’s brother, who is also his boss, heard from his mother who is visiting in Amidon that she ran into Beth. They got to talking and Beth said that I worked for an NGO in Ohio. She put two and two together and called mostly to pass on that Aunt Beth wanted to talk to me since she misses us.” Matthew then awaited the fire from the other end of the line.

“That’s out of the question,” Lyla exclaimed. “Where does she get off talking about things without my permission? And furthermore, what business it is of your company? They have better things to do than hassle my son.”

“I think it is because they are very family oriented. I’m just guessing. But what about the question of us being lycans?”

“They have some nerve spouting that family-oriented crap. Corporations like that are just out to make money on the back of the employees,” Lyla said, letting the entitlement flow in her voice. “You tell your boss I said that too!”

“Please don’t ignore my question. What about us being lycans,” Matthew asked bluntly.

“I would never ignore your questions, Mattie. I just won’t answer stupid ones like that. Just put it out of your mind,” Lyla patronized.

“I see. Well, since you won’t answer me, I guess I’ll just call dad on his cell later tonight.” Matthew knew this would make his mom mad, but he didn’t care. “Maybe he will be able to tell me something. Like why you refuse to use my correct full name as I have begged you to.”

“You know better than to call your father for silly things. Just inform your boss to stay out of your personal life. And,” Lyla continued. “I trust you will not try to get in touch with Beth. I will not have you interacting with her.” Lyla hung up.

“That went well,” Matthew said before putting his phone back in his pocket. He was about to go back out to his desk when his phone rang. He pulled it back out and saw his half-sister was calling. “Hello Wanda.”

She spoke in a rush. “Good morning to you too Matthew. What did you say to your mother? She just started yelling and fuming about how she needs to find you a real job.”

Matthew sighed. “I call her to ask about something my boss told me. I was hoping it would be dad that answered.”

“Dad is in court today. What was it about? Maybe I can accidently get some answers out of her while calming her down.”

“Well, to start, his half-brother's mom ran into Aunt Beth yesterday and he said she wants to reconnect with us,” Matthew paused before continuing. Then my boss was giving me a very credible argument that he thinks our family are lycans.”

Wanda was shocked. “Did you say lycans? Like in werewolves? That’s all made up!”

“Sort of,” Matthew replied. “It is more like wolf shifters. He was very convincing.”

“What kind of place is that? Sounds like your mom might be right to find you a new job,” Wanda joked.

“I kind of work for the Lycan Council,” Matthew stated. He heard Wanda gasp but continued. “It does make more sense why I got this internship out of the blue if it’s true our family is lycans.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Wanda chastised. “No one in our family turns in to a wolf. I think that might have come up at a family reunion or as a by the way in case you didn’t know.”

“If I didn’t see for my own eyes that it was possible, I’d agree with you,” Matthew countered. “But please see what you can get out of my mom. I’ll call dad this evening and see if I can find anything out from him as well.”

“Just be careful,” Wanda warned. “You know how grumpy he gets after court.”

The plane touched down and they were taxied over to the private aircraft area. Jay turned his phone on and read the messages that streamed in. “It looks like our ride should be here already waiting.”

They walked down the stairs and saw a van sitting about 200 yards off with a bubbly woman waving them over. “My gracious, I hope you had a good flight,” she said in a very heavy Southern drawl.

“Yes ma’am, we did indeed,” Tala answered. “I’m Tala and this is my mate, Jay.”

She gave them both a big hug. “I’m Susan. I am the Apalachicola Pack Luna.” She opened the back doors to the van. “Go ahead and just toss your things in the back of the van and we’ll get goin’.”

“I didn’t know that they would make you pick us up,” Jay said as he was getting settled in and his seatbelt on.”

“Make me? I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Susan said a little shocked at the allegation she was forced. She pulled out of the lot and on to the road running next to the airport.

“Please excuse my mate,” Tala interjected. “He may have been born in Florida, but he just doesn’t understand the Southern mindset or customs.” He could feel Jay staring daggers at him. “You know, he didn’t know about sweet tea before we were visiting a pack up in North Carolina.”

Susan struggled to stay in her lane when she heard that comment. “Didn’t know about sweet tea, bless his heart. I hope you were able to teach him right.”

Jay froze when he heard that magic phase Susan uttered but recovered quickly. “Yes, I learned a lot,” Jay offered up.

“I knew you’d be smart as all get out.” She clicked a button on a remote attached to the visor and a gate started opening about three hundred yards down on the right. “Here we are. The pack lands of the Apalachicola.”

Hawk and Bjorn walk into the large conference room together and sit down next to Clay and Keon. “Have they shared any insights yet,” Bjorn asked.

Clay shook his head. “I think they are getting the reports printed right now.”

A younger man rushed into the room carrying a stack of bound reports. He set them down on a side table just before they all fell. He turned to Bob, “Capt. Kilmek, I have the reports. Is there anything else?”

Bob turned to him. “Thank you, please set the door on the way out.” The young man quickly left and closed the door. Bob turned to the rest of the people in the room. “May I have your attention. Please grab an incident report so we can begin.”

Keon jumped up and grabbed four copies and handed them out to his group before sitting down. They thumbed through it quickly and saw it looked very detailed. Keon kept reading as the rest of the group settled down for the start of the meeting.

“Please open to page one,” Bob announced, and he sat down at the head of the table.

Sgt. Colbert began reading the short introduction. “At 3:50 AM this morning, unauthorized access to the 17th, 18th, and 21st floors happened in a coordinated attack. The access was traced back to forged badges with patrol level access and a few extra access levels designed to silence alarms. Due to the setup of the access levels on these floors, those extra privileges actually sounded the alarms sooner than they would have normally. Central Badging has not found who made the badges or what has happened to them since the attack ended.”

“Thank you for the introduction,” Bob said and turned to the group from badging. “Have you made any headway into who was using the badges?”

The assistant director of badging answered the question. “Yes, we have a list of names of who switch back to their original badges, and they have been provided to security. We also have started to create new access groups on the backend so that we can migrate existing legitimate badges over to an encrypted system. There will be a requirement for anyone with a badge more than five years old to have it replaced. This is a slight change from the current six-year cycle. At that time, we will be using updated photos and new smart keys as the cover story.”

Aarne spoke up. “Will that move the timeline for badge reader replacements?”

“No,” the assistant director answered. “The new groups and keys will be supported on the existing readers. However, if the timeline is moved up, we are happy to work with your teams to ease replacement woes.”

Clay spoke up now. “I just wanted to confirm that all the readers on the American Clan floors are the newest model and won’t need upgrading.”

Aarne turned to Clay. “All the readers should be either the newest or next newest readers. Even the older of the two should be supported until at least 2025, as long as we don’t change the entire badging system.”

“I figured they were based on the stink our clan raised, but I had to double check.” Clay turned to the badging group. “We are willing to help you test out the new encrypted groups.”

“No need,” the assistant director replied. “It is actually your improvements that we are going to be basing the new groups on. Our team is impressed with the hacks you were able to make to close zero-day security holes and will be adopting most of those fixes.”

Bob addressed the room again. “The security teams have reviewed all the reports and we would like to thank you for attending. Does anyone have anything that needs to be added before we adjourn?”

Keon closed the report having read all of it closely and raised his hand to the surprise of the rest of his group. “Can anyone tell us how secure these changes will be? Who is going to be able to see the changes being made?”

Bob turned to Keon. “Where are you going with this?”

“It’s obvious that they want us to make changes to the security system. Who is going to be in a position to see what those changes are and how they differ from what is in place now? Who can read these reports,” Keon held up the bound report, “and see analysis of our badging and security systems?”

Sgt. Colbert jumped up angerly. “Are you accusing someone on my team to being a spy?”

“Yes, I am!” Keon opened the report and pointed to the copy of the system logs printed near the back. “Nowhere in the report does it show that you identified the person who was watching everything from within the system.”

“What are you talking about,” Bob asked. “What watcher?”

“On page 14 about half-way down. It shows all the logged in system watchers. On page 18, it shows who responded to the breach incident in the command center. There is one log in that never checked in to the incident.”

Clay flipped through the report and saw what Keon had found. “Hey, why wasn’t this in the findings?” He turned to Bob. “Capt. Kilmek, do you know who this user is?”

Bob flipped to the page and looked at the logged-in users. He paled. “I do know who that user is. However, it would be impossible for that user to be logged in. I revoked their access to the network center that morning and put them on leave pending review.”

“That someone has hacked the network then,” Clay said. “This is really bad.”

Aarne turned to Clay. “As the IT Lead for your clan, what do you think we should do?”

“We need to do a few things,” Clay replied. “First, we need to see what that login has accessed. Second,” he turned to Hawk, “we will need to file an official request to the council for an overall increase in security. At least level 3 or higher.”

Hawk nodded. “Bjorn and I will start the filing asap.”

“The last thing is I need to call Brandon and give him the bad news,” Clay looked dejected.

Bob noticed Clay was sad now. “What?”

“It’s always the leaders that take all the heat,” Clay explained. “This could cost him his job as he is the head of IT and the network was allowed to be hacked.

Aarne surprised everyone when he said a flat “No.”

“No,” Bob asked.

“Don’t call Brandon. He’ll cover up everything to save his job. We need to have all our ducks in a row first.”