Page 40 of Memphis Heat
Jarod bellowed in rage, the thought of Belle being at the mercy of these bastards making his stomach roll.Under ordinary circumstances she could more than take care of herself, but these wolves were much stronger than she was on the best of days.Could she hold out long enough for him to rescue her?His best shot was to get to hernow.
One mighty leap, and Jarod was standing in front of Alexi, ready to fight for Belle.Then there was a solidcrack, and his head exploded in pain.The last thing he saw before blackness took him was Belle’s terrified face.
* * *
“Sit.Down.”Snorrasan shot him a look.
“Belle is out there and all I can do is wait.I’m not any fucking good at waiting!”Jarod snapped.
“Your pacing back and forth like a cat in heat isn’t helping anything at all.Let Remmy do his job.”
“Did the transfer go through?Did you get their account number?”
“The transfer did not go through -- Amanda stopped it in time -- and I do have the account number, thanks to our surveillance video, even though that ToughBook’s not so tough anymore.However, the account number’s not helping me much.So far I’m going in circles,” Remmy announced with a growl of frustration.“The number Alexi gave Amanda leads to a valid account, but it’s in the Caymans.Almost untraceable.Miller’s got his IT guys on it.They’ve got better clearance access than I do.I’m going at this from another direction.The city’s been paying the renovations contractor, Brilev Construction, LTD, through a local account, here in Memphis.We could get a warrant for the bank records, but if I can get through this firewall…”
“Let me help you,” Terra volunteered.
“Thanks, but I work alone.”Remmy’s response was terse, and none too friendly.
So, Jarod thought.I’m not the only one with trust issues.Remmy’s guarded response had Jarod thinking the kid was sharper than he looked -- and he looked sharp as a scalpel.One thing was for sure.Remmy wasn’t the mole.He’d been turned after that botched raid that had killed Smith and Reginald and left Black and White on the furry side.Remmy’d been attracting attention in the Computer Crimes unit until they’d raided a hacker’s station two weeks ago.Kind of convenient for the MFOP, but nottooconvenient, according to Snorrasan and Miller.
“OK.I’m in.Bank records show the account for Brilev Construction, LTD registered to a holding company…” Remmy frowned and clicked again.“Owned by another holding company… whose principles appear to be Ortsa Brilev, Alexi Umarov, and another holding company.”He looked up from the screen.“We’ve been working under the assumption that Alexi is the boss.Looks to me like he and Brilev are each in charge of different divisions of the same front company, with a third, silent partner or maybe even a boss.”
“But Alexi’s an Alpha,” Amanda blurted.“Even I could tell that.”
Callahan shook his head.“Alphas have to work their way up through the ranks just like everyone else.Every pack Alpha has his generals -- humans call them Betas, but a Beta’s just an Alpha who hasn’t risen to top dog yet.It’s like the military.You have to be promoted, one rank at a time.If our alpha, Colonel Roberts, retired, Lt.Commander Snorrasan would take his place.And so on.The only way I could move up would be to challenge those above me within the pack’s infrastructure.These Old World wolves, they’ve got pack structure that goes far, far beyond ours.Alexi’s got someone he reports to somewhere, either here or back in Chechnya.Or both.”
“I wonder what he did to getpromotedto overseas operations,” Butch mused.
“Maybe it wasn’t him,” Regan offered.“Maybe it was that bastard get of his, Dolf.If Dolf hadn’t been attacking cops in back alleys, we’d never have gotten wind of their operations until it was all far too late.Jarod kind of accidentally broke the case for us.”
Jarod nodded, slowing his racing mind enough to follow her line of logic.“These Chechens, they’re all born wolves, families going back to the Old World.Every one of them can recite his genealogy going back hundreds and hundreds of years.They sit around at night arguing about family disputes older than all of us put together.Alexi only had one son, Dolf, and he was a real screw-up.Nasty taste for human blood.Alexi made him sound like a pain in the ass, but I should have seen beyond that.Dolf was Alexi’s weak point.He’s been stringing us along, feeding me just enough wrong information to make us vulnerable, out of some sense of revenge for his son’s death.That’s why he’s taken Belle.He wants to face me.Wants me to track him down.Wants to call me out, one on one, and make me pay.”
“Well, all of the account holders lead to dead ends except for this last holding company, D.A.Umarov, LTD,” Remmy reported.“And its principles are Ortsa Brilev, Alexis Umarov, and Dorf Umarov, Sr.The physical address for the holding company is an office building in the industrial park near the airport.”
“Oh, shit.”
“What?”the room chorused.
“I found it.This ain’t good.”Remmy flicked his finger toward the plasma monitor on the wall as it lit up.
“What the…”
“Fuck!”
“What am I looking at?”Snorrasan demanded.“Old school here.Clueless.”
“I used Whois to locate the owner of the construction firm’s website and backtraced that to another site registered to the same address, and then I hacked that site and found this.Andthisis a private online auction,” Regan explained.
“And that” -- Butch pointed to the item being bid on --”Looks to be one hundred grams of weapons grade HEU -- Highly Enriched Uranium -- in ten-gram lots.”
Snorrasan looked puzzled.“Ten grams?That’s like a handful of paperclips.”
“Emphasis on theHighly Enrichedpart of the description,” Agent Miller explained.“Ten grams is enough to wipe the east side of Memphis off the map.”
“And it’ll fit in a lead-lined thermos,” Callahan added.“Had one in my hand for a few moments this afternoon before the whole place went to hell.Lead-lined canister weighed less than ten pounds.”
Snorrasan looked at the screen again.“Oh, shit, indeed.I think I felt better not knowing.”
