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62
“If you find them, they are hostile and are to be captured to face trial, killed if necessary,” Robert said. “The American Council will back you on this. It has been decades since a European Pack tried something like this, and we need to make an example of them.”
“I agree,” Councilman Javier said. “I have additional evidence that proves Yuri took out a contract on Alpha Jessie. Murder of an Alpha is a capital crime, and I intend to file charges with the Council.”
“She’s not an Alpha,” Francois said.
“She is certainly one now,” Javier said. “She has a wolf, which Alpha Sven has verified is an Alpha. She has the blood right to inherit the Moscow Pack, and is mated to a strong Beta. If we had known these things a month ago, there would have been no argument as to the rightful Alpha of this Pack. If they come to Moscow, I will hand it over to them in a heartbeat,” he said.
“And I will stay on as their Beta,” Patrick said. “She is strong, just, she will be a great Alpha in time.”
“File the charges, then,” Francois said. “I will contact the others and set up a conference. If the Council agrees, we will arrest Yuri and hold him for trial.”
Someone came from offscreen and whispered in Javier’s ear. He turned back to us, his expression grim. “It appears someone beat us to it. Federal Police forces raided Yuri’s offices in St. Petersburg today, and a warrant has been issued for his arrest on charges of slave trafficking, smuggling and bribery of Federal officials. Someone tipped him off and he and his top men were able to escape capture.”Content from NôvelDr(a)ma.Org.
“He’s going to be more desperate for money than ever,” Patrick said. “The Sicilians are charging him ten million dollars a week in interest, and with the police seizing his offices and properties he has no legal means to get it. They’ll be going after his assets and his bank accounts too.”
“A cornered, injured wolf is the most dangerous,” Francois said. “We will work our end, you guys find the Luna and keep Jessie and John alive.” He closed his window, followed quickly by the others.
“We’ll be there in six hours,” Stan said.
For the first time since the phone call, I had hope. Now I had to figure out how to get to the island on a lake with thin ice.
I called my Pack together, quickly explaining what was going on. The biggest question I had was how to safely get out there, since the lake ice was too thin to walk on. One of my young warriors came up with the solution. “Alpha, I’ll ice boat out to them. No problem.”
“Nick, you think you can get out there?”
“Sure, the weather is good. The snow didn’t stick, and the below zero has left the lakes with an inch or two of ice. The runners are widely spaced and I go pretty fast, and even if I break through I can float. I’m wearing a wetsuit anyway. Just tell me what you want me to pass along or be close enough to link when I get out there.” I had watched him sail last year, in a good wind his ice boat could hit close to a hundred miles an hour. “Go get it ready, I’ll go with you.”
“Not alone,” my warriors said.
“I’ll take one with me, the rest of you I need out there patrolling the territory and covering the escape of the non-combatants. I want the vulnerable members of my Pack safe as soon as possible.” With that, I sent them about their business. Ten minutes later, I was in the passenger seat of Nick’s pickup truck, the ice boat on the trailer behind us, as we headed to the boat ramp at Eagle’s Nest Lake Number One.
******
Alpha Yuri’s POV
My man in the Federal Police gave me just enough warning to flee before the armored vehicles and SWAT teams arrived at my office. I set my lower level people to work on the evacuation plan, and they started to destroy computers and files before the men arrived. The building went into lockdown, with all doors locked, gates and barriers dropping into place. It wouldn’t stop them, not with explosives and breaching equipment, but it would slow them down.
My senior people followed me into a closet in the back of my office, which led to a private staircase that exited in the subbasement. The door on one side went to my private garage, which had a tunnel underground for three blocks before it came up into another building I owned. I sent all but two of my Betas out this way, with instructions to secure the safe houses we had all over the city and in the countryside then report back.
I kept Beta Polina with me as my personal bodyguard. She excelled at this, since as a female who was about five feet tall, no one would ever think she was the most lethal being around. Throwing and other knives were hidden within her clothes along with a high-capacity pistol. When the other men left, I pressed a code into the security panel as it closed, and a rumble sounded behind us. The entire back wall of the alcove rotated backwards, exposing a dark passageway. We entered, then I set the reinforcing bars after it closed again. The door had a cinderblock veneer to match the other walls, but was backed by six inches of vault steel. It would take a big charge to break it, if they ever found it.
“Think they’ll notice?”
“They will find the stairway, then assume we left with the others in the cars. They won’t ever find this place.” The room we entered was a Cold War-era bunker, long forgotten by the State but not by me. Built fifty feet below ground, it was concrete and steel and impregnable. I had spent a lot of time and money years ago to bring it up to modern standards; heating and air systems, sleeping areas, and the control room we were in now. I looked at the technician who was working on the computers, one of three who lived down here permanently for security reasons. “Evacuation procedure completed?”
“Almost, Alpha. All files have been confirmed to be backed up to my local servers, and the main servers have been destroyed. I have not gotten confirmation from the main office area that they are complete.”
“You won’t,” Polina said as she watched the security feed from the building above. Police had burst into the office floor and were subduing the Pack members that had been left behind.
I watched as they burst into my office and laughed a little at their expressions. “I’ll not be taken, not like my brother. I’ll always be a step ahead of you,” I laughed.
“Sir, if you’ll move aside, I have responsibilities with the evacuation plan.” I nodded and Polina sat at the communications terminal. The main screen showed a map of the city, with all of my properties and safe rooms. They were color coded; green was secure, yellow hadn’t reported, and red were breached.
There was way too much red for comfort.
I went to a spare terminal and started punching through the remote video feeds for the facilities that had been breached. Police had raided twenty-plus places at once, a massive operation to pull off without my sources in the local police knowing. “They had inside help,” I said as my fists clenched. “No way they find this many without a guide dog.”
“Recriminations later, Alpha, we need to save what we can,” Polina replied. They were busy ensuring codes had been sent to all facilities implementing the evacuation protocols. We couldn’t let the police get more. I went back to the feeds from my office; the captured men and women had been taken away, and the place was swarming with cops.
By nightfall, it was clear how big a blow this had been. The over four hundred members of my Mafia operations had been divided into four categories: Killed, Arrested, Unknown and Available. The first two categories had well over a hundred people. Entire areas of my operations were decimated, especially in the smuggling and slave trading areas. Every one of those facilities had been raided.
I gave the order for the rest to lay low in the safe rooms. It might be weeks until things cooled off, and I could find and eliminate the leak in my organization behind this. I sent messages to my legal team, who would be busy trying to get my men out of prison, and to my finance people. With the illegal streams of income drying up, I had to accelerate the sales of my legal properties to meet the interest payments. I was thinking of how this would occur when Polina interrupted. “It’s Shura,” she said.
“Put it on the main screen.” A moment later, his face appeared. He was in what looked to be a cabin, sitting at a small table. Behind him on the bed was a woman, chained and gagged. “Beta, how goes your search?”
“The source was very productive,” he said. “Her information was accurate, and my men recovered the million-dollar reward and made her disappear.” I smiled at this, amateurs always lost when they played a professional’s game. We wanted it all, and we wouldn’t hesitate to kill to get it. “It was Alpha Sven Hirkkel of the Vermillion Pack, a small Pack in north central Minnesota. We’ve captured his mate and I’ve given him the terms,” he said.
“He’ll produce Jessie’s body?”
“He better, that and two hundred and seventy-five million,” Shura said as he looked back at the woman, who was struggling to get free.
“Why not all the money?”
“I thought he’d be more cooperative if he thought he could keep the original reward. Don’t worry, I’ll get that too before I leave.”
“Just get her body and leave it for the authorities. The sooner they issue a death certificate, the better for me. The police can’t seize assets I legally obtain, like my brother’s estate, and if he returns that money I can get the Sicilians off my back.” Things were starting to fall into place, at least here. “The Alpha and his Pack need to die. Make it look like rogues or hunters, whichever you think is best, but we can’t leave anyone alive who can link back to us.”