Warming The Cold One - 43. The Records Need Review

“Good morning. This is the 17th floor reception desk for the American Clan, Avery speaking, how can we help you today,” Avery said as she answered the ringing telephone.

The female voice sounded relieved. “Good, it’s you. This is Livia.”

“What are you doing,” Avery asked. “I thought I told you two to stop calling me.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Livia said dismissively. “I’m calling to find out if you have heard from Dillian.”

“No,” Avery answered angerly. “I have not heard from Dillian.”

“Shit,” Livia exclaimed. “No one has seen him since he left the office yesterday. They found his car broken into but no sign of him anywhere.”

Avery sat up straight. “Are you serious? What happened?”

“We don’t know. They questioned a few people when they came in and filed a missing person's report,” Livia answered.

“Okay, so what do we do,” Avery commented.

“Just hang tight, I guess. Let me know if you hear anything,” Livia said questioningly.

“I will,” Avery assured her. “Gotta go; I see someone coming.”

Keon stood up from his desk to grab a document from the printer when Clay walked into the office. “Good morning, Clay, what brings you up here,” he asked and turned to greet him.

“There were some strange system requests that came from here in the last few hours. I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything weird going on,” Clay replied.

“Ah,” Keon said. “Well, yes there are some weird things going on. I was doing a project at Hawk’s request that involved some unusual searches and backend queries.”

“Oh, really,” Clay said intrigued. “Do tell.”

“Not mine to tell,” Keon replied. “You’d have to ask Hawk if I can share that right now.”

Clay started to get annoyed. “I am the head of IT for our clan. I think that I should mean something.”

Keon didn’t back down. “I was given a task, for my eyes only, by the number three lycan in our clan. If he says I can fill you in, then I will. Until then, I will not.” Keon turned to go back to his desk. “If you will excuse me, I have to finish the setup tasks for the incoming teams from Florida.

Clay just stood there slack jawed for a few seconds and then headed back to the elevator to see Hawk.

Kade looked up to see Clay walking briskly to Hawk’s office. “Good morning, Clay. How can I help you today?”

“Is Hawk in? I need to ask him about something,” Clay answered.

“Give me just a second,” Kade replied and typed a message into an internal chat program. A few seconds passed and he looked back up at Clay. “He said he has a few minutes right now. Go on back.”

Clay walked into Hawk’s office and Hawk pointed to a chair. “Before you say anything, I have my reasons.”

“But,” Clay started.

Hawk gave him a shut off look. “Clay, you work eighteen hours a day doing all the jobs no one else wants to do on top of still helping the building systems team here and there. I could not ask you to do what I needed done with a clean conscience.”

“Okay, I accept that,” Clay resigned. “Want to let me in on the issue?”

“Information leaks,” Hawk said plainly. “We have a mole that was passing information about our people to an unknown party on the 8th floor.”

“Say what,” Clay gasped.

Hawk described what Clay had found in the phone records and emails. “I hope you understand I am proud of Keon for not even telling you about this investigation.”

“I do now,” Clay sighed. “But what would the Saharan’s be doing? I do know the room you are talking about, and I know it is for sure not empty or disused. I’ll keep my ears open and let you know. Please let Keon know he can talk to me anytime if he needs help. I can do things as an admin in the system that isn’t in the public logs.”

“Thank you, Clay. I’ll let you know if those skills are unavoidably needed,” Hawk smiled.

Dillian came to on a cot in a darkened room. His head pounded and he was still sick to his stomach. Slowly, he turned his head to one side and saw the room was a more normal cell that didn’t have any isolation effects. He turned the other way and saw a bucket and a damp towel. Dillian slowly tried to sit up and was glad the bucket was in reach. He used the towel to wipe his mouth and continued to try sitting up for a few minutes.

A half hour later his head had stopped pounding so hard and he didn’t feel the need to puke any longer. He slowly stood up and found himself steady on his feet. He walked over to the wall with a door and looked out the window through the bars. He saw a young man sitting facedown snoring. He carefully called out. “Hello?”

The guard woke up and saw Dillian at the barred window. “You are awake. Are you feeling okay? We put a bucket, so we didn’t have to clean up after you.”

“Thank you, it was very useful,” Dillian said while the guard grimaced. “Where am I? Why am I here?”

“What do you remember from last night,” the guard asked.

“Not much,” Dillian replied. “I remember glass breaking behind me and something hit me. I woke up in an isolation cell, but I couldn’t tell you anything else from that as my mind didn’t register much. Next thing I know, I woke up in here extremely sick and nauseous.”

The guard half smiled. “That is actually really close to what happened.”

“Why am I here,” Dillian asked.

“My boss didn’t tell me much. Just to watch you,” the guard answered. “I’ll call him and see what he wants me to do.” The guard walked away from the door and made a phone call.

About twenty minutes later a man in a pastel green suit walked into the cell area. He turned toward Dillian and smiled. “Hello Mr. Burns. It’s good to see you awake and not making messes on my pristine cell floors. Are you ready to talk?”

Dillian walked over to the barred door. “I guess, why am I here?”

“A man that is trying to make improvements to the conditions of the council has asked me to request you stop making trouble.”

Dillian looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

The man ignored Dillian comment and continued. “You were not able to answer my questions last night so I will ask my questions again.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Dillian insisted.

“Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. It is not my concern what you know. I am still required to extract answers from you.” The man grabbed a clipboard from the table by the door. “Shall we begin?”

“Who do you think you are,” Greyson screamed into the phone. “You have no right to move my pack from its land.”

“I am acting on behalf of the land trusts interests,” Duane replied calmly. “It is just legal notice that the trust is giving you a period of one hundred and twenty days to move your pack from trust lands. The timing of the lease of your business address is aligned with that date and we are prepared to renew your lease with only a small increase in yearly cost.”

“I will not allow this. You have no right,” Greyson continued to bluster.

Duane focused his voice to channel only a small part of his restored silver tongue. “Alpha Greyson, I will only say this one time. Do not yell at me for doing my job. I was hired by the land trust to be its real estate lawyer. I have provided you with a more than generous time period for your pack to move and am allowing your bar to remain. If you do not wish to agree to these terms, I am already approved to formally open eviction proceedings on behalf of the trust. I don’t want to do that because of the small amount of respect I still have for you.”

“How dare you try to use your devil gifts on me,” Greyson seethed. “I’ll see you in court.”

Duane popped his head into the conference room. “By the way, Greyson is a bit upset at the letter I sent him.”

“Oh,” Tala said with fake surprise.

“I was way too generous with my offer, but he still isn’t agreeable to the terms. I’ll give him a day or two to rethink it before I file formal eviction in court,” Duane smiled.

“You are too generous,” Tala agreed. “I trust you though and that pack isn’t in the way yet as we haven’t even begun building our forming the real pack for this area.”

“Are you getting close selecting a design,” Duane asked.

Matthew looked up from the plans he was reviewing. “We are. Tala and Jay agree with this design here. I was just adjusting some of the scaling to make it fit the area and elevation.”

Jay could see that Duane was surprised. “He understood planning right out of the gate. I guess he helped plan out the twenty-first floor at the council building and had input of what the layout would be if we took over floors eighteen through twenty.”

“Matty, I didn’t know you knew all of that,” Duane exclaimed.

“I was always reading all the books and magazines that were laying around growing up. It was something to do when you were in meetings and Mom was busy with Wanda. I guess I learned more than I thought I had,” Matthew explained with an embarrassed blush.

“I’m proud of you,” Duane said. “I look forward to saying the final plans and seeing when it’s built.” He turned to leave. “I need to talk to Lyla about getting the filing ready just in case Greyson decided to go nuclear and forces this to court in less than one hundred and twenty days.”

“Why so long,” Tala asked.

“I lined it up to when his lease is up on the bar. I offered to allow him to keep the bar, but I don’t think that is going to be a possibility anymore.” Duane threw up his hands and went to find Lyla.

“Red Lake Community Network, how can I direct your call,” the receptionist answered the phone.

“I need to talk to the land office,” Greyson replied.

The receptionist sighed. “I’m sorry sir, I think you have the wrong number.”

“I see, this is regarding the pet department,” Greyson said.

“Understood,” the receptionist quickly said. “Please hold.”

The phone clicked a few times and a deep men's voice answered. “This is Jens.”

Greyson put on a fake smile and tone to his voice. “Good morning, this is Greyson calling. I’m having some issues over here.”

“Greyson,” the man pondered for a second. “Oh yes, I remember you now. You are the lame alpha that has an inactive pack.”

Greyson did his best to keep up the act. “Thank you for remembering me. I’m calling because the land trust out here is trying to run us off our land. We pay a lot of money to your pack to be here.”

“Really? I didn’t know we still did that sort of thing anymore,” Jens said knowing that it was exactly what his pack did. “Tell you what, I’ll have my lease manager give you a call. He can go over everything with you and see what we can do.”

“Thank you,” Greyson said and heard a dial tone before he finished speaking. He pulled out his phone directory and found the pack member on call in his legal department. The phone rang a few times before it picked up.

“Hello, this is Melissa,” an older woman answered.

“Hi Melissa, this is Greyson,” he replied.

She perked up, “Yes Alpha. What can I do for you?”

“I need your team to review where we stand legally on our land lease for both the pack and the bar. The local land trust is causing some issues and I want to get ahead of this, quickly.”

“I’ll get the team on it right away,” she answered quickly.

“Wonderful,” Greyson exclaimed. “I do have a piece of advice though. Try to do your research without talking to the trust or the Red Lake Pack for as long as possible. I want an unbiased point of view.”

“Yes, Alpha!” Melisa quickly hung up to gather her team.

“I don’t understand,” Karla said to Duane and Lyla. “The records that the trust has do not show there were leases of property the size needed for Greyson’s pack.”

“Do you have the records here,” Lyla asked.

“I think I do. Savannah and I were going over them when we met on my first day here.” Karla pulled out a four-inch think binder and flipped to the section for Amidon. “See here is shows all the leases on the land at the time of reacquisition. The land for Greyson’s bar is part of the retail core lease block. Then in this section,” Karla flips to the pack listings, “there are no listings of any packs in the area at all.”

“Do you think the records are incomplete,” Lyla asked.

“The records here are scans of the original due diligence documents from the Saharan’s themselves,” Karla explained. “I don’t think the clan knew the sub-pack was here.”

“I wonder if Greyson isn’t getting screwed over then,” Duane mused. “What if Greyson is paying the Red Lake Pack money for his leases and they in turn are supposed to pay the trust. But, instead of giving the trust all the money, they are just paying the lease for the bar and keeping the rest?”

“I think we should find out,” Karla smiled.

Karla received a recorded message when she called the property company on Greyson’s lease. “Thank you for calling the Red Lake Real Estate Group. Our office is closed for lunch. Please leave a message and we will return your call as soon as possible. Beep!”

“Good afternoon, my name is Karla Taylor, and I am taking over as the new point of contact for the Great Plains Community Land Trust. My records on the properties you have leased from us seem to be incomplete and I wanted to reach out and make sure I have everything in order. I see a restaurant & lounge, a general use land agreement, and two retail stores and I wanted to make sure those were the only things. If you could call me back at (701)555-0155, that would be wonderful.” Karla hung up the phone with a smile and went to find Tala for the next part of her plan.

“I know that look,” Tala exclaimed when Karla came up to him.

“I’d say I don’t know what you’re talking about, but in this case, it is very much true,” Karla replied. “I was having a discussion with Duane and Lyla, and I came up with a plan only a son could love.”

Tala sighed. “What did you do?”

“So far,” Karla stressed, “I have only inquired with the real estate arm of the Red Lake Pack for business information. What I want to do, I need your help with.”

“Am I really going to love it,” Tala asked.

“I want you to make some calls and see if you can stir the pot at the council that we might be questioning why there is a sub-pack of Red Lake on our lands that are not supposed to have any packs on them.” Karla smiled. “Told you you’d love it.”

Tala shook his head and looked at the floor. “I’m not sure I love that. I’d more prefer to ask for a member list so we can recruit for the real pack that is going to be in this area.”

Karla lifted Tala’s head and found him grinning. “I taught you so well.”

“Thank you for calling the office of the American Clan, how may I direct your call,” Avery answered the phone.

“Hello Avery, this is Tala. Can you connect me with Bjorn’s office,” he asked.

“Right away, Master Tala. Please hold,” Avery said and transferred his call.

“This is Bjorn,” Bjorn said.

“Hello Bjorn, this is Tala. Why did Avery connect me directly,” Tala inquired.

“My assistant is out today so I set it to directly forward to me,” Bjorn explained. “I don’t think she even knows.”

“Maybe,” Tala pondered. “Well, I called because I need your help stirring the pot a bit.”

“Stirring the pot? Do tell,” Bjorn replied.

Tala chuckled. “I need you to ask Ulrik what he thinks about our situation in Amidon. Finding a sub-pack on trust land that isn’t supposed to be there. Forbidden rituals done on its members with ancient speak to silence them. Things like that.”

“Oh, is that all? Why not have me accuse him of stealing all the council’s money too,” Bjorn asked in a joking manner.

“I guess you could, but I can’t back you up on that,” Tala answered. “Better stick to the things I can prove.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Bjorn sighed. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“Bjorn! What do I owe the pleasure,” Ulrik asked as he motioned for Bjorn to sit down.

“I got some distressing news earlier and wanted to ask you about it,” Bjorn answered.

“Ask away, please. I’m always here to help,” Ulrik said with concern in his voice.

“Well, Tala ended up having to get involved with the land trust issues. I guess there are some major issues that needed to be solved so he decided to add some reinforcements,” Bjorn explained.

“Issues,” Ulrik asked. “What kind of issues?”

Bjorn played up looking confused. “There looks to be at least one illegal lease of property in North Dakota and rumors of abuse of pack members. We didn’t even know there were packs on the lands there.”

Ulrik looked confused as well. “Packs on trust land? The rules were set a long time ago when the council agreed to let the Celtic clan make a trust. No wolves were allowed there at all. Whose pack is there?”

“I guess they claim to be a sub-pack of Red Lake,” Bjorn replied.

Ulrik froze. ‘No, no, no,’ he thought to himself. He sighed and opened a drawer in his desk. He pulled out a small bottle and took a large chug of it before putting it back in the drawer. “Sorry, just the thought of more issues coming from Red Lake drives me to drink. What is Greyson up to now?”

“Why do I think you know more about this than you are letting on,” Bjorn asked.

“I do and I don’t,” Ulrik answered. “I have known that Greyson was always a bit unorthodox in his thinking. He was never a good alpha. When the old alpha of Red Lake finally got tired of his antics, he fought him in an alpha challenge. The stakes were whomever yielded would control the other alpha. Red Lake won and absorbed Greyson’s pack as a sub-pack. I wasn’t involved in it directly, so I didn’t know where Greyson had gone.”

“From the information I received, Greyson has been paying his lease to Red Lake and in turn Red Lake was supposed to be paying the trust,” Bjorn started before getting interrupted.

“Wait,” Ulrik said. “Are you saying that Red Lake is supposed to be paying the trust lease money for space in the trust lands?”

“Yes, that is what I am saying,” Bjorn answered.

Ulrik looked out the window. “Damn it Jens!” He turned back to Bjorn. “I’ll help get this taken care of. I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t think you did. But there is more,” Bjorn said.

“What more could there be,” Ulrik asked.

“We have evidence that at least one of the members of Greyson’s pack had a ‘ritual’ performed on him,” Bjorn replied.

“Ritual,” Ulrik inquired.

“We don’t have all the how it was done but we know that Greyson did a muzzle on a pack member.” Bjorn could see the look of shock and disbelief on Ulrik’s face. “We know he had help from someone else versed in dark spells, but we have not figured out who it could have been.”

“Did the wolf live,” Ulrik asked.

“Yes, and Tala was also able to reverse the spell, I guess. Don’t ask me how because I don’t know. It’s really quite bizarre if you ask me,” Bjorn finished.

Ulrik nodded his head for a second. “Let me do some digging. In the meantime, if you need any help dealing with Red Lake, let me know.”

Bjorn smiled. “I will let you know.” Bjorn got up and turned for the door. “I’ll leave you to your digging.”

As soon as Bjorn closed the door behind him, Ulrik grabbed his garbage can and puked. “Great, there goes my desire for lunch,” he muttered to himself.