SEAL Wolf Surrender

by Terry Spear

  She didn’t look happy about the prospect of being left behind, but it was bound to get ugly inside, and she wasn’t trained for this.

  “Just keep the doors locked. Call the police if you have any trouble with thugs in the area harassing you. The Humvee was bulletproofed after I’d been on some tough assignments.”

  “Did he tell you how many times he’s been shot?” Shawn added. “After that, he opted for a bulletproof Humvee.”

  “There were other situations than when Dexter shot you?” Natalie asked, looking worried.

  “That was the only time I took so many rounds.” Before Natalie asked about the other times, Brock said, “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

  He got out of the vehicle, and Shawn joined him. Brock prayed no one learned Natalie was in the Humvee in the back alley, and he and his cousin didn’t get themselves shot.

  “If I hear shooting?” she asked.

  “Don’t call it in. Hopefully, no one else will either,” Brock said. “If we’re wounded, we’ll make our way out to the Humvee and leave with you.”

  Then he used his special lockpicks and unlocked the back door. Inside, heavy metal was playing. Good. It would help cover the noise they made when they entered.

  Brock opened the door and the damn thing creaked, but no one seemed to hear them.

  He slipped inside and heard a printing press running upstairs. Shawn followed him inside. The hall led to a restroom, the door open, and no one was inside. A staircase was off to the right. Up front, a couple of chairs and a table were situated for tattooing. No one was there either.

  Brock motioned he was going up. He just hoped the damn steps wouldn’t creak as much as the back door did. He was again glad for the deafening music. He couldn’t believe they’d play it so loud. The wolves had enhanced hearing, but if they listened to loud noises like this, their hearing could be affected permanently, just like a human’s.

  Then a man said, “Shit, we got company.”

  Security cameras. Damn.

  Brock bolted up the stairs, not wanting to be shot where he had no cover, while Shawn took cover downstairs.

  A dark, shaggy-haired man came out of an upstairs room shooting. He looked a lot like Marek. His brother, Jimmy, most likely.

  Brock dove into a room filled with rubber tubs containing bleach. Money was sitting in several of the tubs, and the chemical burned Brock’s eyes and throat. He hid behind the plastic tubs.

  The guy came around the corner, shooting into the room, the rounds striking the rubber tubs, the bleach pouring out of the holes.

  “How many?” another guy asked, his voice harsh, frantic.

  “Hell, it’s a male wolf. I can’t see him. But I can smell him.” The man fired more shots at the rubber tubs. “He’s in the cleaning room.”

  Brock lay low. He needed to get Jimmy’s gun and use it on the other guy. He needed to make it look as if the two men had had a falling-out. But he was pinned down. He hoped his cousin remained safe until he could put at least one of the men out of action.

  “I might have killed him,” the man said and began slowly moving into the room.

  Good. That was the best scenario Brock could hope for. He had only one chance to do this right if he wasn’t going to get himself killed. He’d have to put his SEAL training to good use. He low-crawled around the tubs, angling himself so the shooter would approach the same way Brock had initially moved, his scent still in that area. But Brock was moving around to the other side, trying to get into position so he could tackle the man, disarm him, knock him out, and use Jimmy’s gun on the other man.

  “Jimmy?” the other man called out from the room where the printing press was running.

  In the room where Brock was, Jimmy continued to move cautiously toward the tubs. Brock had to risk rushing forward before Jimmy reached the tubs and could see there was no one behind them any longer. He didn’t want to shoot Jimmy with his own gun and was still too far away to just jump on him in one leap. He had to move several steps, and Jimmy would undoubtedly turn to shoot at him as soon as he saw movement.

  Shawn began moving up the stairs, the wooden steps creaking.

  Before the other man could shoot at Brock’s cousin, Brock jumped to his feet and rushed to pounce on Jimmy with steely determination. Jimmy swung around to face Brock, but he was too late. Brock quickly grabbed Jimmy’s arm and twisted his thumb, forcing him to drop the gun. Then Brock knocked him out with a well-placed strike to the side of the man’s temple. Jimmy collapsed, and Brock grabbed his gun.

  Whoever the other guy was, he was hesitant to come into the room shooting.

  “Got company!” Shawn shouted when the shop’s front door burst open. He raced up the remaining stairs, coming to help, no matter what the situation was up there.

  The other guy came out of the printing room shooting, but Brock was ready for him. He fired three shots from Jimmy’s gun, killing the man. Both were wolves. Were the musclemen too?

  Shawn retrieved the other man’s gun, and he and Brock waited for the musclemen to come up the stairs. The two men hesitated just inside the building near the front door. Then one of them slammed it shut.

  “Antonio,” one muscleman called out from down below but well back of the stairs.

  “Come on down and tell us what you want,” the other guy said, probably assuming Brock and Shawn had taken the other men out.

  There was no way that these men were going to give Brock and Shawn what they wanted without a fight.

  “They came in the back way, and there’s a Humvee out there,” one of the guards said to the other.

  Brock couldn’t wait any longer for the men to approach him and Shawn, worried the musclemen would try to grab Natalie as a hostage, if they could.

  He carried Jimmy to the stairs, holding the unconscious man in front of him, and moved down a couple of steps. One of the musclemen came out of his hiding place and began shooting, killing Jimmy. Using Jimmy’s gun, Brock blasted away at the shaved-headed muscleman. He went down, and Brock released Jimmy. The dead man tumbled down the stairs and landed at the bottom.

  Brock charged down the stairs and fired off Jimmy’s gun. The second guard shot back, grazing Brock’s arm. Shawn was above Brock on the stairs and fired two rounds into the muscleman’s forehead. The man crumpled to the floor dead.

  “What do we do with the money and printing press?” Shawn asked.

  “Pull the money out of the containers of bleach, and throw it in a container we can carry with us. I’ll round up the money they haven’t tried to remove the ink from yet and the stuff they’re printing so Dexter doesn’t get ahold of it. We’ll need to set up the guns to make it look like they had a shoot-out between them.” Brock called Natalie while he dropped the gun off with Jimmy where he had fallen to the bottom of the steps. “Shawn and I are both fine. How are you?”

  “I’m good.”

  “We’re bringing money out.”

  “They saw your Humvee,” Natalie said. “I’m glad you’re both fine. I didn’t call the police, as much as I wanted to when I heard all the shooting.”

  “Good. I’ve got to deal with the offset printing press, security cameras, and ink and such. Be there in a few.” Brock knew Dexter could afford to buy another offset press, but finding another good counterfeiter would be a different story. Especially one who was a wolf. “Hopefully, they didn’t have time to tell Dexter what was going on.”

  Brock rushed back up the stairs to help Shawn. His cousin was reading through a journal.

  “What now?” Brock found a box to put the printed fake money into.

  “Hey, this guy was an apprentice. The master counterfeiter could still be doing this crap, and if he’s a wolf—”

  “We’ve got to deal with him.” Brock began dismantling the offset press, breaking the pieces to ensure no one could use it again. “Des
troy the ink so they can’t use that mixture again.”

  “How? I don’t want to pour it into the toilet. Environmental concerns.”

  “Add it to the tubs with bleach.”

  Shawn smiled. “Why didn’t I think of that? Hey, there’s glue here too. And more paper, a whole roll of it, and cut paper that looks like regular paper but about half the weight of a bill. And…automotive paint?”

  “Just pour all the ink, paint, and glue into the bleach. We’ll bring the paper with us. That’s the special paper used for making counterfeit bills.”

  After they demolished the small offset press and the other components the counterfeiters had used to create the fake money, Brock destroyed what he could of the equipment they had used for photolithography.

  “What the hell is that?” Shawn asked, carrying a couple of butt rolls of paper to the stairs.

  “He was using photolithography. It uses light to transfer a pattern to a surface for etching.”

  “You’d think he’d use an ordinary digital printer, the way some do,” Shawn said. “Less expensive than an offset press, and less intensive work.”

  “But the quality isn’t as good,” Brock said. “These guys wanted to sell what looked like the real thing so no one would get caught. Not the criminal element they sold to. No one. And then they could sell more at a higher dollar amount. I’ve got the etched metal plates. We’ll have to find a way to destroy them.”

  “That’s how they were applying the ink onto the sheet of paper.” Shawn glanced at the security monitors. “I’ll grab the security cameras.”

  “Good. There are two: one in the front room and one up here.”

  “Handling it,” Shawn said.

  Brock rushed outside with the plates and a box of money. Natalie unlocked the car door for him.

  “Hurry. With all the shooting—” she said.

  “Yeah, I know. But in this neighborhood, it probably happens a lot.” Brock ran back inside and helped Shawn carry the rest of the money out to the Humvee. There was more than a million in fake bills, plus the rolls of paper that would have been used to create more of the stuff. “Hey, if Dexter was monitoring these guys…” Brock fished in a bag he kept in his Humvee and pulled out a device that would look for listening devices. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to check for Dexter’s listening bugs.” He quickly searched the place and found four. He destroyed them, then locked the front and back doors of the shop and climbed into the vehicle with his cousin.

  “What exactly happened in there? From all the shooting going on, I wasn’t sure any of you would make it out without wearing a bunch of bullet holes,” Natalie said as Brock drove out of the alleyway and headed down one street and then another, just in case they were seen…or followed.

  “Jimmy tried to shoot me. Then Antonio tried his hand at it. I guess the musclemen guarding the place out front heard shots fired and barged into the place.” Brock settled back against the driver’s seat as he drove onto another street.

  “Did you get all the money?” she asked.

  “Yeah. The real money that hadn’t been whitewashed, still one-dollar bills, the fake money, and the blank bills. But they had started a new process using a roll of paper. Looks like we’ll have to have a bonfire cookout at your place,” Brock said. “The musclemen were human.”

  Shawn was flipping through the journal. “Okay, bad news. Some guy called Picasso was Ink Man’s mentor. Apparently, a ‘master’ teaches an apprentice all the ins and outs. Jimmy was an artist, stealing cars and dealing in drugs, until he was removed from the streets to be apprenticed by Picasso.”

  “Great. Is Picasso a wolf then? Or human?” Natalie asked.

  “Um, hold on.” Shawn flipped through several pages. “Okay, good. He’s human. Jimmy wrote down some important notes on how to create the bills, but then began to create his own. Genius, really. He wouldn’t have needed the money from Marek after a while. He was beginning to create his own version.”

  “He wouldn’t have needed Dexter’s backing either,” Brock said.

  “Doesn’t look like it. But he would probably have kept Antonio on to do the printing or bleaching, whatever he needed him for. The two of them would have done this together. Too much work for one person. Maybe Kittie would have been working with them on all this.”

  “I wonder how much it cost him to create the money,” Natalie said.

  “That’s a good question. If he was getting thirty cents on the dollar for one hundred thousand, that’s not all that much money. Especially not when they had to share it. But it looks like they made a hell of a lot more money than that,” Brock said.

  “Man, this journal says it all. Jimmy posed as a Sunday school teacher at one of the paper plants and got free butt rolls, the end of a roll of the ‘good’ stuff they could use for making the bills. Dexter’s brother has been selling the counterfeit money to the Chinese, Russian, and Italian mafia, drug organizations, you name it. He lost a sale to one criminal faction because they bought superbills, ones so superior they’re incredibly hard to detect as counterfeit. But it’s really hard to find them that good, so other criminal elements bought from Dexter’s brother.”

  “Wow, I’ve never heard of superbills before,” Natalie said.

  Brock said, “The new stuff looks perfect.”

  “According to the journal, it is,” Shawn said. “The guy must have been OCD to write all this stuff down. Treating it as an art and a science, based on all the experiments he did to create the right ink for the job, he outlined every detail in here. The new money is close to being superbills. He says here that he stole one of the hundred-dollar bills Picasso made so he could spend it, going against the master’s rules. Jimmy loved the power of being able to spend the money, after creating something that would pass for the real thing.”

  “Hell, I would think Picasso would have been pissed if he’d learned about it,” Brock said.

  “He would have, according to Jimmy. Apparently, that was one of the first rules—not to spend the money they made. That was a good way to get caught up in it. They had to resell it to another party and distance themselves from the money. The other thing he was supposed to do was live on the low, printing only around a hundred thousand in bills a year, so he’d end up with thirty thousand, not so much that it might be noticeable.”

  Brock shook his head. “He’s making a hell of a lot more than that.”

  “Then he took on these partners, and he had to make a whole lot more. They must have a lot more distribution, too, so they can all earn enough.”

  “What’s with the glue and automotive paint?” Brock asked.

  Shawn flipped to another page in the journal. “Okay, get this. The paint mixed with the ink made the ink stand out more, giving it more texture. The ink is raised on real bills, and counterfeit bills are flatter. The automotive paint helped. You won’t believe this, but two thin pieces of paper are sandwiched together. Then Jimmy added a security strip on the left side and created his own watermark on the paper, using a special glue that won’t add too much weight to the twin sheets of paper. They discovered that using a counterfeit pen on the paper in a phone book would show yellow, rather than the iodine turning black. Black ink means the paper is counterfeit, not starch-free. They tracked down one of the printers of the phone books to locate the paper they used. The only problem with these is that in the heat and humidity of the south, the paper money can separate.”

  Natalie chuckled. “I can just see that happening in Texas. Go to buy some clothes, and your money begins to peel apart right in front of the clerk. It would be a sure giveaway that it’s not the real stuff.”

  “That means they are making two kinds. One is being sold to northern locations, and the other can be sold in the south. The money that’s bleached,” Brock said.

  “The one-dollar bills will be a nice gift to the Greystoke pack. How will th
e police explain the shootings?” Natalie asked, sounding worried.

  “I took one of their guns and used it on the others. It will look like they had a quarrel among thieves. There was enough evidence to indicate the men were up to no good. The destroyed offset press, the chemicals. The police might believe someone got away with the money. I doubt anyone in the ink shop had time to inform Dexter of the trouble they were in, unless he was monitoring them. I doubt the musclemen even knew him.”

  “You’re bleeding.” Natalie touched Brock’s shoulder above the blood on his shirt.

  “Superficial. Nothing but a graze.”

  “What about you, Shawn?”

  “I’m good. Brock didn’t let me terminate but one guy. I did the same as Brock and used one of the perp’s guns to shoot the last guard. If Dexter heard what was going on through the listening bugs, how much do you want to bet he’ll be after us?” Shawn asked.

  “No doubt in my mind. If it’s like Brock’s listening bugs, Dexter could listen on his phone, right?” Natalie said.

  “Yeah, but only if he’s listening to it at the right time. He might be making phone calls or not monitoring the bugs all the time. He’d be smart to run, but I suspect he doesn’t want to leave his ranch behind, and he’ll want us dead after all the trouble we’ve been to him and his operation,” Brock said.

  “Don’t you think he’ll want all his stuff back before we get rid of it? What if he and his men are already at the garden center?” Natalie asked. “If he’s got any other men on the payroll?”

  “He’s got about fifty miles to drive to reach the garden center,” Brock said, “if he’s out at his ranch and not in Amarillo right now.”

  “I say we park out away from the garden center, Natalie runs as a wolf, and you and I go in packing to check out the situation,” Shawn said.

  Brock turned down another street. He had to rethink this whole business. “Okay, if he was in town when we were eliminating his crew, he’ll undoubtedly have to get some thugs together to come after us. That’s only if he was listening to the bugs to hear what Antonio and Jimmy were discussing and what went down.”