I hope you all are enjoying your holiday season. As promised, here is the winner of the contest - the first 4 pages of Chapter 16. Please remember this is a first draft, so please excuse punctuation, grammar and whatnot. The winner of the contest to get an advance read of Chapter 16 is....Jenell Peterson.
“The fucking Security
Division?… I…I can’t believe that… they’ve taken oaths to uphold the laws of
the Alpha Council,” Tristan said as he slowly exhaled and the others stood in
stunned silence.
“Gabe did say he felt
betrayal around him. We have to wonder
though, why didn’t they warn the three Packs of the upcoming raids? Is it a play for power and money or something
else?” Carlo asked quietly before turning to Paulo. “Can you find who accessed the account?”
“Unfortunately no, all I got
was the IP address but it doesn’t tell me who was using the computer only the
area it originated. The ACSD changes IP
addresses randomly so I can’t target a specific computer. I can
access the video and narrow it down by seeing who was using computers at the
time,” Paulo said with a sigh. Ten
minutes later he said, “The video’ll start five minutes before the alert.”
“Look at their body
language,” Savannah
“Alpha Carlo, while you’re
doing this I’d like to take Rain to the roof so he can do his recon,” Ed said as
he looked at his watch.
“Take Frank, George, Brad,
Aldo and Jeff with you,” Carlo said as he continued to stare at the screen.
“I’ve got everything I need,”
Rain said as he nodded to the bag he had kept at his side the entire day. The men headed to the third floor and went
down the hall stopping in front of the door to the center column. “Frank, this is the first time I’ve been
anywhere but the cafeteria and gym. It’s
freakin amazing.”
“Aldo and his men have done a
wonderful job maintaining the building and all the updates have been
historically accurate while upholding current codes. That’s why it’s considered one of the more
important historical buildings in Maryland
Aldo removed the third tread
on the staircase revealing a keypad, after typing in the code he replaced the
tread and proceeded up the stairs opening the trap door and the men followed
him into the tower room. The only furnishings
in the room were a small table with two chairs and a two door metal cabinet. “We keep tools here, so we don’t have to run
down to the maintenance shop,” Aldo explained with a shrug as he moved to the front
wall and removed the window molding. He
typed the code in and part of the rear wall swung open on hinges.
“Follow me,” Jeff said as he stepped
through the door onto the flat roof.
Rain set his bag down and got
out a notebook and pen before turning to Aldo, “You have the exact dimensions
and plans of the roof?”
Aldo turned to Frank who
said, “Get him a copy of the external specs.”
Jeff nodded and headed to the maintenance department in the basement.
Aldo opened his notebook and
followed Rain to the roof’s edge where he crouched down to check the decorative
iron railing that ran along it. “Doesn’t
provide much cover does it?” Rain asked to no one in particular. “We’re going to need solid planks, like an
inch thick of lead.”
Aldo asked, “How high and is
it to cover the whole roof line?”
“We don’t want them to cover
the entire surface, we’ll need to leave sections open so we can shoot and use
them for cover. At the corners, leave a
1’ section open on both sides. We don’t
want them to be visible, so lay them out and when we need them we’ll insert
them in ‘U’ brackets,” Rain stopped talking and looked at Frank, “We’re the two
broadest guys, lay next to me and they can measure us to see how wide the
planks need to be.” After they lay down,
Aldo pulled a tape measure out of his pocket and Ed measured them and Aldo
wrote it down. Rain got up and looked at
the measurements and said, “They’ll need to be 6’ long and 2’ high.”
“I’ll go over the plans with
Tristan and we’ll send the schematics of where we want them set up,” Rain said
as he continued walking around the roof line until he arrived back to where his
bag lay. Crouching down he pulled out Steiner
binoculars and went to the right side of the tower room. “What are you looking for?” Frank asked as the
men moved to stand next to him.
“Several things. I’m trying to figure out which way they’re
going to come, the front gate is obvious but if they’re trying to sneak up on
you, they’ll come through the woods. You’ve
got cameras and made funnels to direct them, that’s good but once they get to
the wall, they’re going to look for the least resistance while still looking
for cover,” Rain said as he turned to glance at Frank. “That jump from the top of the wall will be
difficult, but it can be done.”
“We’re installing an iron
railing with ornamental spikes in front of the shrubbery and we’re also putting
spikes inside. Well, I guess it won’t be
so ornamental if they get speared with them,” Frank said with a smile.
“Right before the battle paint
them with liquid silver and shake wolfsbane on it when the paint is tacky,”
Rain said as he moved along the roof, staring and then looking through the
binoculars before writing in his notebook.
“Where can we get
wolfsbane? I don’t know of anybody that
has it,” Aldo said as he turned to stare at Rain before writing in his notebook.
“There’s a store in Leesburg , VA
Frank looked at Rain in
amazement, “I never would’ve thought you believed in the power of crystals and
rocks.”
Rain said in a quiet voice,
“When you’ve been to some of the places I’ve been and seen some of the things I
have… well, you learn to accept and believe in things you don’t understand.” He turned to Aldo, “When you go, talk to the
staff because there are crystals that will help center you when you’re
meditating and help you focus.” Frank
passed the information to Carlo knowing Maeve wanted to find somebody to help
her understand her gift better.
After he finished his visual
inspection of the roof and grounds, he went to his bag and pulled out a case
containing a sniper rifle and scope. He assembled
it and handed it to Ed, “Joe already verified its empty, but before I do
anything more I want you to verify it also.
I need to lie down at the edge of the roof to get a good feel for
things. I’ll do it on the back of the
building, away from the football field.” Ed took the rifle and verified the chamber and
magazine were empty. Rain lay down and
put a small sandbag under the muzzle and moved several times until he found the
position he wanted, “Aldo, here is where we’ll be shooting from, so you’ll want
the planks here.” He pointed to an area 8”
behind the muzzle.
Jeff went into the tower room
and came back with spray paint and sprayed a small line. “I’m not sure how many men Alpha Carlo and
Tristan are going to put up here, but we should plan on 40 – 50, depending on
how many are attacking and where they are.
The bullets we’re going to manufacture are lead-tipped silver with a wolfsbane
core. We need to find people to mine the
silver from Swift’s and then manufacture the bullets according to our specs;
obviously we can’t do it ourselves.
Tristan is going to talk to Carlo about that when we get more
information.”
Rain got up, dismantled his
rifle and carefully put it into the case and said, “Now I need some pictures.” He got out a digital camera and walked around
taking pictures of the areas he had noted down.
They repeated the process in relocking the tower room and center column
before rejoining the others.
“Any luck?” Frank asked as
they walked in the cafeteria which had just been finished being cleaned.
Carlo shook his head in disgust,
“Every fucking computer was being used and Savvie says they all look guilty of
something. Paulo’s going to enhance it
to see if he can get any more details.
We do have something interesting; ten minutes after the account was
accessed Charles was served his tray.”
Paulo cued the video on the large screen and the men watched Charles howl
before shifting.
“We’re assuming that was his
reaction to finding out the money was gone,” Tristan said with a smile. “Losing $600 mil will do that to a man.”
“The question is, how did he
find out? Nobody spoke to him, the metal
in the bars prevents the use of the bond, and his cell is away from the others
… so again, how did he find out?” Savannah
“Had to be a note. Look at the guard; when they open the cart
doors he pulls out a specific tray and instead of watching the prisoner while
he hands it to him, he glances down like he’s telling him something. I’m getting a feeling of subservience; but
there’s something off about it, like he’s doing this because he has to, not
because he wants to,” Aldo said as he stood to the side of the screen.
After watching the video
three more times, Carlo said, “You’re right Aldo. It’s very subtle but it’s there. When he sits on his cot that must be when he
read it because he howled and shifted almost immediately.”
“How’d you spot it?” Savannah
“Twenty years of working
here. Even though the families use the
bond, they still need to find ways to talk to their friends when they’re
supposed to be studying,” Aldo said with a grin as the others nodded.
