Abandoned Treasure

Nathan Storm’s POV

Palo Alto Apartment, California

Saturday, January 12th, 2008

I returned from the apartment complex gym at six. I’d done a long run on the treadmill followed by a lower body lifting session, and my legs were jelly as I took my post-workout shower. I dressed in basketball shorts and a T-shirt, getting to the kitchen just in time for the knock at the door. I’d ordered pizza for six-thirty. He was here on time, and I paid the delivery guy in cash with a good tip. I brought the pizza into the small bedroom that housed Jade’s computer desk and server. I was good in the woods but useless around computers.

I had to let my mate handle that end, and hacking wasn’t safe. I had to trust she could do things without them tracing back to us. If she made a mistake, the last thing we saw might be a Council Enforcer crew. It grated on my wolf, who thought I should take the chances while she stayed safe with our baby. “How is it going?”

“Most of it is filler, but I’m finding a few interesting things.” With Spider Monkey’s help, we broke into the Bitterroot Pack’s website before she took off. Jade spent an hour downloading everything she could before she erased any trace of our presence. “I’m sorry, Nathan. I know you hoped your daughter would still be alive.”

“The Council told the truth that time.” I set the pizza and two paper plates down. The first thing we checked was the Pack Roster. There was an adoption listed, but the baby was several months older than my daughter would have been. If she died with her mother, she never made it to Pack lands, and there was no reason to list her. I wondered what happened to my family. Were they burned to ashes in a fire? Bagged up and tossed into a dumpster at some gas station? Dumped in the woods for the animals? Or were they buried under rocks somewhere along the road?

The only thing I was sure of was that Alpha Todd would not bring an innocent baby home and give her a proper funeral. That wasn’t his style. In his world, there were no innocents.

The not knowing part grated on me. Carol and I were both listed as Rogue-Deceased. “I’m more upset about what happened to Darrell after I escaped. ”His execution was recorded in the roster not long after I’d made my escape.“ What do you want to drink?”

“A Quad Grande, Non-Fat, Extra Hot Caramel Macchiato Upside Down?”

I shook my head. “Really? You’re pregnant! You are NOT drinking caffeine, much less getting four shots of Expresso. How about a nice glass of orange juice?”

“I can dream,” she replied. “That used to keep me going all night.”

“That much caffeine could bring Frankenstein to life.” I went to the small apartment kitchen and poured her a glass, grabbing a bottle of Anchor Christmas Ale for myself. Jade gave me a dirty look as I set the bottle next to the pizza box. I sat on the extra chair and grabbed two slices of All Meat for each of us before moving the box aside. “What have you been finding?”

“I’ve been digging through the Alpha’s e-mails,” she told me as she sat back and grabbed her plate. “Most of it is bullshit administrative stuff, but I found a few messages that are suspicious.”

“How?”

“They are codes sent through anonymizer websites.”

“The messages are scrambled?”

She took a bite before answering. “No, nothing like that. The messages are only five to ten words long. It’s like a Peyton Manning pre-snap call, except there’s no ‘OMAHA’ to break it up.” She handed me a stack that she had printed out. “See if you can figure it out.”

“After dinner,” I told her.

“You just want to watch me eat!”

“It makes my wolf happy to see my mate’s belly grow.”

“I’m not showing yet!”

“Then the pizza belly will be good for now.” Instincts were a powerful thing. I would always serve her before me, and I would starve before she went hungry. Nothing was more important than our child; the loss of one only drove that reality home. “What’s the plan now?”

“I’ve searched on the keywords you gave me, and it will take a few days to go through all the hits. Reviewing the other stuff could take weeks.”

“What is the next step?”

“I left a keystroke logger behind.”

I chewed my big bite of cheesy goodness before answering. “What is that?”

“A simple program that records everything Alpha Todd does on his computer; every link he clicks on, every character he types is recorded for me to download later. I’ll know everything he’s done on his computer in a week.”

“Isn’t that risky?”

She shook her head. “Most network security is focused on the firewalls and keeping people out. I installed this program while I was already inside. If I can still hack back in, I can download the data whenever.”

“And if their computer guy figures out that you’ve hacked their system?”

“Then I better hope Spider Monkey’s tricks hide me.”

I laid another slice on her plate, taking two for myself. “What about the Council? Can we hack them?”

“Not yet. I have to imagine Council IT security is better than some backwoods Pack. No offense.”

“None taken.” We finished dinner, and I cleaned up while Jade did her homework. I grabbed the stack of emails and sat on the couch to look through them.

One stuck out.

I showed it to Jade. “What do you see here?”

Jade frowned as she looked at it. “A series of numbers.12, 19, 14, 17, 19, 30, 22. It’s not a GPS coordinate for anything, and it doesn’t fit into any number-letter substitution code I tried. It’s not his lotto picks because the 19 repeats.”

“It’s not a lottery; it’s a meeting time and place from the Sons of Tezcatlipoca. The jaguars use the Mayan calendar, not the newfangled Gregorian one. Pull up a website that converts between the two.”

A quick Google search brought up a website. “There are too many numbers for this,” she said as she entered the series. “January 16, 2008. There’s still the last two numbers.”

“Pier number and time. Oakland pier number 30 at 2200 hours. It’s the next pickup. Fucking Alpha Todd has someone else running drugs for the Sons now that Darrell and I are gone.”

She froze, staring at the screen. “We don’t get involved in the drug trade, especially if the Sons of Tezcatlipoca are involved! Do you know what they do to their enemies?”

I nodded. “It’s nothing compared to what the club does to those who betray them.” I leaned back on the couch. “I could intercept the shipment and make it look like the Bitterroot Pack is at fault,” I said. “They would wipe out the Pack for us.”

“Are you kidding? Are you talking about starting a war between the Jaguars and the Wolves? The blowback from that would affect us ALL. It’s out of the question.”

I closed my eyes and thought about it. “The Sons use us to move the bulk product in the containers. Werewolves don’t have territory issues with the Packs on the way to Denver, and the cats don’t want to risk their Club with large-scale trafficking. In return, the Bitterroot Pack gets five percent of the product. They take it east to a warehouse outside Chicago. From there, it gets divided for transport to cities in the Midwest.”

Jade didn’t like what I was saying. “Taking their stash hits their pocketbook, but then what? You can’t sell it.”

“It takes over a week to make the deliveries and bring the cash back to Chicago before returning to Montana. That’s where we hit them and take their money.”

“How much money?”

“About two hundred thousand, but it can change by up to fifty thousand depending on the shipment size and the market at the time.”

Her eyes bore into mine. “And how do you know all this, MATE?”

I couldn’t lie to her. “The junior warriors in Bitterroot were tasked with the transport job. Alpha Todd’s theory was that if the Feds bust the shipment, the two men in jail aren’t his best men. I used to transport guns and designer drugs as well, but that smuggling was for my purposes.”

“Why the hell would you do that?”

“I had to save money to escape and hide with Carol. Pack wolves don’t have personal money; the Pack has it all. Side deals were my ticket to escape.”

“I don’t like it. If the wolves scent you, we are dead.”

I got up and hugged her while she sat at the kitchen table. “They won’t know what hit them.”

I didn’t stake out the pier or trail the shipment to Denver. Getting close to the cats was too great a risk. Instead, I relied on Alpha Todd being a tightwad. He wouldn’t want to spend money on a new warehouse when the old one still worked.

I was in place when the two Bitterroot warriors arrived, safely hidden in a building six blocks away. I’d learned a few things about hiding my scent as a rogue, and I put them all to use. Scent-blocking fabrics, soaps, and deodorizing sprays kept me safe. I watched and waited while they drove back and forth to other towns to make their sales.

I could get greedy and take it all, or I could be smart and get most of it. I did the latter, waiting until the two warriors left for their final deliveries. I brought a gas can and a bolt cutter in the back of my Explorer. I’d printed out fake Illinois plates, covering the California license plates, and put a removable magnetic sign for a security company on the driver’s side. If any cameras caught the car, they’d never trace it back.

I pulled a ski mask over my face as I drove in, parking my Explorer in a dark spot outside the small building. I wore black jeans, boots, gloves, and a wool sweater to disappear into the shadows. Only my eyes were exposed, and in the dim light, that wouldn’t matter.

I cut the padlock on the sprinkler system valve outside and closed the valve. Moving to the side door, I cut the padlock and entered. The alarm system started to beep; I entered the code I’d memorized years earlier and turned it off. There was no video system inside because of the illegal activities going on.

I waited fifteen seconds, using my senses to verify no one was inside, then moved away from the door. I walked to the office and picked the deadbolt to get in. Removing the carpet square under the desk exposed the fireproof safe dug into the concrete floor.

The combination hadn’t changed. I removed the bundles of cash and placed them in my backpack. Leaving the safe open, I started spreading the gasoline around. I made a gasoline trail to the truck, removed the fuel cap, and stuffed a rag in the tank. I soaked that and the inside of the shipping container, then back to the entrance door.

One match set the trail ablaze. I was driving away before the fire reached the office and halfway to the freeway before the fire trucks arrived. I stopped on a dark street, removed the sign and the paper tags, and changed into a Stanford hoodie for the drive.

The fire would destroy all evidence of the drugs and my burglary. When the warriors returned, they wouldn’t catch my scent.

I didn’t envy the two on their return. Alpha Todd didn’t accept failure, and they faced severe punishment for losing his money. I’d taken one hundred and eighty-seven thousand from the Bitterroot Pack, and it felt damn good.