by Cara Adams
Steve wondered if the lost pack might do better to stay away until after the dust had settled, then see if the new leader was a good one, but he kept his face impassive and said nothing.
“Who are the lead contenders for the position, sir?” asked Zed.
The other man gasped, and inside himself Steve agreed. It was a very intrusive question to ask, but then he supposed their Alpha had a right to know, or possibly knew already.
“France, Germany, and Turkey will attempt to win the role. The Alpha of Vojvodina might also make the attempt. But the man who should rule is the Alpha of Denmark. Only he has the strength and abilities to hold so many diverse nationalities together. I anticipate he’ll be successful in the end, but there will be unrest at the least, and likely worse than that for as long as a year if things really go wrong.”
“What about in your own pack, sir?” asked Zed.
“My son is an idiot, and my daughter is a slut. Fortunately this pack I can influence, and my chosen successor is a very strong man. As soon as he mates the woman he should have mated a year ago, I will induct him into the leadership position.”
Steve didn’t envy the incoming Alpha. Dealing with the former Alpha’s son and daughter was going to be a delicate task indeed. He wondered if the woman who’d escorted them up the stairs was the daughter. He also wondered just how good the security here was. It bothered him that he couldn’t see more of it.
“Gustav, take them and give them the files to read now, please. If you have any questions, Gustav will answer them for you.”
Steve understood that the man’s stamina had given out. Once again he stood and bowed, then followed the others out. Gustav marched them down a long corridor and into a room with filing cabinets and bookshelves from floor to ceiling.
“Wait here,” he barked.
Josie and Zed looked at some of the shelves but Steve tiptoed to the doorway Gustav had left through. Gustav was telling someone which files to bring.
“What about the photographs?” a man asked hesitantly in Austro-Bavarian.
“The Supreme said to give him the files. Do that,” replied Gustav.
Steve had just walked back into the middle of the room when Gustav returned. “When you’ve finished reading the files summon me.” He handed Zed a business card.
“Thank you,” said Zed.
The door closed behind Gustav with a loud click.
Steve stepped right up to Zed and said very softly, “When they bring the files, ask to see the photographs as well.”
Zed stared at him, then nodded.
I hope this other man will get them for us. If he obeys Gustav we’re screwed. What’s the secret about the pictures?
Chapter Four
Josie stretched up onto her toes and looked as far over each shoulder in turn as she could move. She was still a tiny bit stiff from the long flight here, and her ass was just a fraction sore from last night’s playtime. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t ready to fuck again tonight. She’d promised them a swap over and she meant it. As long as they both continued to cooperate. After that she might take a break for a few nights. She was quite sure that oral sex together could be a good thing to do. She was more than ready to gain some intimate knowledge about the two cocks she had to play with.
But right now she had a hell of a lot to think about. She was quite sure her Alpha didn’t know how close to death the European Supreme was already. She hoped with all her being the man he’d chosen as a successor would be able to deal with the son and daughter. That sounded like a total nightmare scenario to her. Unless they’d merely angered their father and he was misjudging them. But no. They had to be properly in their thirties or even forties, and surely he’d know all about their characters by now. It wasn’t like they were young adults still developing their personalities.
She was also starting to wonder if the missing pack wanted to stay missing. It rather appeared to her as if they’d been looking around and weren’t totally thrilled with what they’d seen. Shit, if any receptionist had wandered away from the desk at Wolf Central they’d have kissed good-bye to their job forever. And likely their ass as well.
And why weren’t these files all digitized? What was with towering stacks of papers, books and files? That went out twenty years ago. No one knew better than she did how much work was involved in data entry, but that’s what the adolescents of the pack were for. Those long summer vacations were the ideal time to get the teenagers and young adults typing their little hearts out, earning credits in the pack while simultaneously uploading great piles of data.
A young blond man appeared in the doorway pushing a trolley with a teetering pile of files on it. “Please you to follow me,” he said in poor English.
Josie stared at him. He had to be early twenties. He’d have learned English in school. It was the second language here. Why didn’t he speak it better?
Steve stepped beside Zed, tapped his mouth, raised an eyebrow, and pointed at the young man. Zed nodded decisively and Steve followed after the man leaving Josie and Zed to come behind him.
The hallway was very narrow and Josie was amazed the man could even get the cart past some of the towering piles of papers, but it opened out into a room with big tables and some hard wooden upright chairs. The man left the trolley at the end of the table. Steve thanked him in slow German. So slow even Josie could understand it.
The man smiled and replied, speaking fairly slowly himself. Soon they were talking and Josie had no hope of understanding them so she sat down and lifted a file off the pile. Oh shit what if they’re all in German? Why didn’t I think of that? Of course they’ll be in German. Or in Austro-Bavarian which will be even worse.
But much to her relief, a lot of the documents had been transcribed in English. She just had to hope it was an accurate translation. No, of course she didn’t have to hope. Steve could do a few spot checks for them in particular to see if important facts had been left out.
Josie ran a finger along the lines. The paragraphs on her file seemed to be close enough to the same length. The German ones were a little longer, but they did seem to use quite a lot of long words, which could explain the difference.
Josie pulled a notepad and pen out of her purse and settled down to read.
Two hours later her stomach was rumbling with hunger, but she’d found a handful of clues as to the missing wolf pack, and she’d also noted down a few other things she considered important about the various other wolf packs in Europe.
The young man entered the room and smiled diffidently at them. “You wish the sandwich? The coffee?”
“Yes, please.” Josie smiled right back at him. Any food at all right now would be good. Besides, she’d spent years eating at her desk while working through her lunch break. Sighing, she picked up yet another file and began reading. Between them they’d gotten a long way though the papers. The table was piled with the ones they’d read, and the trolley had only half a dozen left on it. She’d very quietly asked Steve to check the translations were reasonable and he’d plowed though a number of files before simply giving her a thumbs-up gesture. So that was one worry eliminated.
She was deep in another file when the young man was back holding a tray in his hands. It held a pot of coffee and three mugs, and a plate of kidney-shaped open sandwiches with salami on them. “Das Wurstbrot,” he said, smiling, placing the tray on the table.
“Thank you very much,” she said, smiling right back at him.
Steve spoke slowly in German to the man, and Josie just assumed he was thanking him for bringing them lunch, but the young man looked a bit worried, then straightened his spine. “Yes,” he said.
She really wanted to know what was going on, but poured herself a cup of coffee and picked up a sandwich. There was a lot of butter on the bread, way more than she was used to, but she just mentally shrugged and bit into the sandwich. The meat was spicy and salty, so she guessed the butter was there to help cut the spicy effect. Anyway, it tasted great to her,
so she munched as she kept reading, sipping her coffee after she’d finished her sandwich.
The young man handed Steve a thick folder, said something in a rather agitated voice, and left.
“What?” asked Zed.
“These are the photographs the bossy man, Gustav, didn’t want us to see. Andre”—he pointed to the door the young man had left by—“more or less said if we’re caught with them we didn’t get them from him. So we need to look at them fast and return them.”
Josie jumped up and stood behind Steve’s chair. Zed dragged his chair closer to Steve while Steve opened the folder. The photographs were poor quality, mostly taken, she thought, with low-quality CCTVs or people’s cell phones.
Josie pointed to the text under the top two pictures. “What’s that say?”
“It says who saw the person and where they were. Ignore that and just look at the pictures for now. Let’s see if we can recognize anyone before Gustav gets back.”
Josie thought Zed was going to complain, as he’d jerked upright when Steve spoke, but he must have agreed with Steve’s logic, because he bent forward again and they looked at the pictures. They spread them out over the table, scanning half a dozen at a time, before moving on to the next ones.
“Cinnabar Rudd. The troublemaker himself. Now who was the idiot who let him out of jail and gave him a passport?” asked Josie, pointing to his picture.
Steve pulled that picture into an empty space on the table and carefully photographed it with his cell phone, then he took a second picture of the text. “In London just last week.”
Zed grabbed the pile of pictures and started pawing through them again. He pulled three out. “These are all the same man. Take them, too.”
Josie looked more closely and nodded. In one the man was wearing a hat, and in two others he was dressed quite differently, but it was the same man. She read the text and said, “Even I can translate the places. London, Paris, and Rome. The dates? Oh, it’s day, then month, then year. Okay, so the dates are weeks apart.”
They went through all the photographs again without finding out anything useful, so Steve tidied the file up and took it back to the helpful young man, Andre, while Josie poured herself another cup of coffee and Zed ate the last sandwich off the plate.
“We’ll talk later. Let’s finish reading the files,” Zed said when Steve returned. Steve nodded and poured himself half a cup of coffee.
They were well through the files so it didn’t take them all that much longer. Josie stacked all the files back on the trolley as Zed said, “Do we have any questions for Gustav?”
Josie shook her head. She had plenty of questions but nothing she planned to ask here. Steve looked thoughtful. “I don’t think so. I’d say we need to ask the Supreme where he wants us to start looking for the pack and see if it ties in with our own ideas.”
“I agree. I think we have done all we can now. It’s more a matter of knowing where to start. Like Steve, I’ll be interested in the Supreme’s thoughts on that.”
Zed pulled out his own cell phone and called Gustav. “Thank you for your help. I think we’re done here for the day. Can we meet with the Supreme again tomorrow and see where he wants us to begin?”
Zed had evidently hit speaker because Gustav’s voice came through quite clearly. “He’s penciled you into his schedule for ten again in the morning. Wait a moment and I’ll come to escort you to the elevator.”
Zed clicked off the call and walked out back, presumably to find the young man and thank him. Josie stared at her hands, then rubbed them on a paper towel. The files weren’t exactly dirty, but there was a bit of dust around. Mostly she wished someone had entered the data on a computer. Perhaps that’s what Andre was doing.
Gustav arrived and took them all the way to their vehicle, very stiff and formal, although he did brush against her at one stage. But she didn’t get any sense of him trying to be flirtatious like the woman had been with Zed.
When they got in their car, Zed put his finger over his lips. Josie was surprised. Did he think someone had bugged the vehicle? Couldn’t they trust these people after all?
* * * *
Zed was absolutely furious at himself that he’d forgotten to ask about the photographs. It wasn’t that he planned to ignore Steve. He understood that if Gustav didn’t want them to see the pictures, perhaps that was a good reason to ask for them. But there were so many other things rolling around in his mind, all trying to take his attention, he’d lost track of it for the moment. Then to know one of the pictures was of Cinnabar Rudd. He’d caused trouble in Jasper’s pack and been expelled from it. Then he’d joined another pack and incited some of the men to attack the mating party. Not only that, but he’d stayed safely outside the Konference Kabins property himself, and let the others get arrested. Of course they’d all pointed their finger at him, but it seemed he’d run away again, this time to London. Where he was undoubtedly about to cause yet more trouble.
But how could he tell the Supreme without admitting they’d seen the forbidden pictures? Damn, that was going to be delicate. He’d tell his own Alpha though. Maybe his Alpha could just inform the Supreme that he’d heard the man had gone to London. Or something.
Add to that the fact he really didn’t trust Gustav and wouldn’t be at all surprised to find electronic eavesdropping bugs planted all over them and their car. When Gustav had brushed against Josie he’d half expected him to pinch her ass, but now he wondered if the man had been hiding a bug in her clothing. As soon as they were out of the city they’d need to do a damn good spring cleaning of everything and it also meant they couldn’t speak to each other properly until everything had been checked as well. At least it was after they’d seen the pictures or they’d really be fucked. Damn! What a mess!
He led the conversation into a discussion of Vienna itself, on the way home, and Josie and Steve played along with him, expressing interest in seeing the sights they’d been told about before meeting with the Supreme. “We can do that tomorrow, after our ten o’clock meeting. It’ll be a nice mini-vacation for us before we start work,” he said, not meaning a word of it.
“There’s a swimming pool in the hotel. I think I’ll swim some laps this afternoon,” said Josie.
“It’ll be much too cold,” argued Zed.
“I swim fast.”
Okay, so she wanted a chance to talk to them without being overheard. Surely no one would have bugged the hotel towels or their swimwear. Maybe it would work.
After they got out of the car, and well aware anyone could be watching them as well as bugs on their clothing, which he intended to check, Zed guided them inside the hotel. As he walked he carefully checked the pockets of his jacket, although he didn’t think Gustav had been close enough to do that. He couldn’t detect anything and he couldn’t see how any other items of clothing had been bugged There was Josie’s purse, which had been over her shoulder. He supposed Gustav might have dropped a bug into it. But the car would have been easy for anyone to bug. They’d had hours to do it.
He pulled out the tiny notepad he’d kept in his jacket pocket and wrote, Give me your purse. I want to check it for bugs.
Josie collected her keycard and her cell phone and said, “If you change your mind, I should be up at the pool in fifteen minutes or so. Bye, Zed. Bye, Steve.”
She got off at her floor, leaving the two men in the elevator with her purse. Zed was glad there weren’t other people in the elevator with them or that would have looked really strange. Arriving at his own floor, he walked to his room and Steve silently followed him. He tipped the purse upside down on the bed. It suddenly occurred to him what an amazing woman Josie was. Few women would let anyone take their purse from them.
Since no one had actually taken her purse anywhere, the bug, if there was one, would have simply been dropped into it as Gustav escorted her to the elevator. He pushed all the items into a neat pile then removed them one at a time as he looked at them. Her wallet, a packet of tissues, a lipstick,
an emery board, a key ring with several keys on it, her passport, sunglasses, several pens, a notepad, a wallet of travel documents, a small zipped up makeup case, and that was all. He held the purse upside down and shook it, then pulled on the lining and turned that inside out while he felt around between the fabric of the purse and the lining itself. But there were no holes in the lining and nothing between the lining and the outside of the purse.
One by one he picked up the items, looking at each one and returning them to the purse. He opened her wallet and felt around inside it, but nothing had gotten caught up there. Then he opened the makeup purse. As well as the usual girl stuff he was surprised to see a string of condoms and a small tube of lube. Oh yes, she wanted them and he was more than ready to fuck her again. Tonight and every night. But it was good to know that was what she planned as well.
Steve tapped his shoulder and pointed to the key ring.
Zed picked it up and looked at each key individually. And there was the bug, a tiny thing, magnetized obviously, and stuck to one of the keys. That was actually a pretty smart move as they knew it was most likely these were her keys from her home and she wouldn’t be looking at them until she returned home. Also, it was unlikely there’d be anything much else that a magnet would stick to, so if she hadn’t had keys it would have slipped to the bottom of her purse and been completely invisible. Actually, perhaps they thought she would have left her house keys in her luggage and the bug would never be found.
Oh well, that proved what he’d thought anyway. But he’d still be checking every stitch of the clothing he was wearing today just to be sure there were no more little surprises.