Warlock of Omaha

By Hemaccabe

Chapter 4: Lawyers, Guns and Money

So back at the lab, it was quiet. Holly was at class. Miranda and Diane were working on things at University. They were all grad students, classes are important and there's always something to do, something to study, some project to further and they had wasted the weekend too. They were eager to be back at it.

So, with a batch of bolts begun and a sandwich in hand, Miranda's homemade pastrami and bread are hard to quantify, I started to feel a bit calmer.

Through one of my clients, I had access to some Dark Glass private detectives. I gave them a call and had them put a team of at least three around the building in Carter Lake 24/7 until further notice. Two on this side of the river and one on the other.

"Do you want any drone over flights or on premises reconnoiter?" He asked.

"Nothing overt please." I replied. "Keep sending me updates at the secure e-mail and don't spare the thermograph."

The thermograph would be able to look through walls and give me a good sense of what they had inside and if they had set up anything interesting.

I was watching the debit card and cell phone I had given Jake. He had put some fuel in the bike and ate at a Chinese buffet so far.

I had an intuition about the Fomor. Sane people would use land transportation. If I had a typical young girl and needed to move her, well sedated in a box in the back of a van would likely be pretty convenient, cheap and fool proof. If I was really well heeled and, in a hurry, a chartered jet. But the Fomor would think of the water as their ally. I would bet good money there was something in the water on the dockside of that warehouse guarding it. I would also bet they'd want to use the water to move her. So, I looked around my contact list and found an expert on barge traffic.

Yes, they still use barges to move large cargoes of coal, cotton, oil and food crops up and down the river. I tracked down an expert on the matter at one of my clients, and I gave Sally Clark a call.

"Hello!" She answered promptly and cheerfully when I called by phone. I explained my problem, I was looking for a barge heading to Omaha without clear provenance.

"Well," Sally explained, "there are only so many barges and most have clearly defined paths, they want potential clients to know where they will be when, so they can get the next load. Time spent waiting or deadheading is expensive time lost for a barge."

After some review, we did find a barge moving in strange ways without clear provenance and it would be in Omaha by Friday afternoon.

That settled that, we had till Friday afternoon, which meant we were go for Thursday night.

I called a friend named Jim.

A lot of people reading this might be thinking, "He's taking advantage of those big financial company clients of his."

And maybe they're right. Of course, you don't get to be a big financial company without having broken a few eggs so it's not like they're charity cases deserving of great sympathy.

The truth is I do, for various reasons, spend time prowling around their networks and systems and I have detected irregularities which I have then reported to them. Whether and how they acted on those irregularities was their business. I have not noticed enough in any one firm to justify my fees directly. However, all of these firms depend on a reputation for fiduciary soundness and security. If any of these "irregularities" had popped on their own, the damage to the firms' reputation would have been potentially catastrophic, so I feel like I give good value for money.

Beyond money, I gain a wide variety of benefits and services. The Dark Glass boys cost a pretty penny, but I have discretion to use them from one of my clients, so they get to pay. I found Ms. Clark and got her candid help the same way. I also get unlimited sys admin access to a huge amount of the financial system so when I say I'm reading someone's e-mail, I am.

That said, I've found a few interesting situations as well. During one of our beloved country's financial crises I was reviewing various cases and when scanning files, noticed Jim was a fellow Omahan so just out of curiosity, I took a closer look.

Jim's an older guy, heavyset, has some health problems. He has a business here in Omaha where he sells boats to people, then orders the boat in from the manufacturer. The boats are shipped in pieces and Jim assembles them and puts them on trailers.

Jim's line of credit had been cut in the general panic and he couldn't secure new financing. The funny thing was, he had the orders, he just needed credit to buy the boats, so he could deliver. His business was on the verge of going belly up and his life on the rocks.

I called him up and said I had been referred by a mutual acquaintance and that I heard he needed financing. So, I then let him tell me for some time how much he needed the financing and would be a good credit risk etc. When he stopped to breath I offered him a line of credit at favorable terms, which he quickly agreed to. He borrowed money, he delivered boats, he paid me back in a timely manner. When things settled down a bit, he went on to find more conventional financing. I was satisfied and earned a decent return, but he always considered me a friend after that. I don't know why. He gave me the chance to make the world a better place.

I needed to go on the river and Jim always had a boat and knew well how to drive them.

I called Jim and set up to meet him at 7am the next day at a landing in Council Bluffs.

Just as I was finishing talking to Jim, I noticed Jake's cell phone was dialing a Massachusetts number. I hit a button that scrambled Jake's phone, he'd have to turn it off, leave it off for a few seconds and then do a full reboot. I had about a minute.

I used a series of cutouts and dialed Jake's Massachusetts number from a phone in Atlanta. It rang a few times and a female voice answered, "Jake is that you?"

"Cassie!" I replied in a very passable imitation of Jake.

"Jake please you…" answered the female voice as I hung up.

So, Jake was calling Cassie, curiouser and curiouser.

As Jake's phone came back online I called him.

"Yeah." He answered.

"Please, I asked you not to call Cassie. Please only use the phone to contact me." I replied.

"How did you know…" Jake began to ask.

"You asked for my help because I have magic powers. Now trust me and don't do stupid things that will get us killed." I said.

"Okay." He answered sullenly.

"Try to wait at the hotel, I'll have a car dropped off for you shortly." I told him.

"I will." He answered.

After I hung up, I arranged for a minivan to be delivered to the hotel by a local rental agency.

I then had an REIT in Dallas order a set of drawings with the layout of the building in question.

I kept working on my batch of bolts.

One may be wondering of the bolts.

The bolts represent a major effort on my part to make an alliance with a major supernatural power. On my visit to Chicago for the Bright Future Society conference I took a side trip to visit the Svartalves. The Svartalves are like the Switzerland of magical powers. Perhaps not the most powerful, but also, generally, not at war with anyone. While not the most powerful, they're badass enough that no one wants to mess with them. At least it seems as if everyone in the supernatural world who has the power to take them has others they have grudges with and the energy necessary to attack the Svartalves would sap them too much in their other grudges. In an ideal world, if I could ally with them, that would deter a huge number of buggity boos from messing with me. Even in a less ideal world, if I accidentally ran afoul of some other supernatural power, I might hope the Svartalves would be willing to mediate for me. In addition, the Svartalves are thought of as among the best craftspeople of the supernatural world and there was a huge amount I knew I could learn from them.

I had carefully contacted the Svartalves and arranged a meeting prior to the conference. The Svartalves will meet and sell things to people, generally by special commission. I hired a limousine for the evening. It brought me to a nice part of town. The Svartalves' home was a conspicuously nice building with remarkable architectural flourish. I was dropped at the sidewalk. I then walked across a very nice plaza and was buzzed through their front door without having to break stride. A human guard greeted me and walked me to a pleasant conference room where he asked me to sit. The room had sideboards all around with various pleasant conference roomy things, a water pitcher, large screen etc. The room was dominated, as would be appropriate, by a large conference table surrounded by comfortable looking chairs. Everything was made of wood, metal and leather. It was all really nice. Nothing said supernatural magic, or seemed unreasonable in and of itself, but it would take quite a budget and a remarkable sense of style to get anywhere close to a conference room like the one I was in. I sat at the chair nearest the door I had entered. The chair was as comfortable as it seemed.

I sat and waited for only a few minutes and a small man entered from a door on the opposite side of the room. The man didn't stop and let me get a good look at him, but I would guess his size at less than five feet and he was thinly built. It's conceivable he might be human, but boy he didn't seem human. He stopped at the other side of the table and said, "Welcome, I am Mr. Honi. I understand we may be of some service to you." His diction was perfect but had a bit of European lilt. His voice was high pitched and, once again, could have been human, but didn't seem to be.

Mr. Honi then sat down at the chair opposite me and nearest to the door he had entered.

I had been practicing for some time. I had read a number of warnings. The Svartalves were fairies and thus, very transactional. One could accidentally sell one's life for a glass of water or less. I wanted to be allies, not owned or worse.

"Hypothetically, I believe I might be of some service to you. I am a human craftsman of some small skill. There might be an exchange of craft that would be mutually beneficial. It would have to be understood that any exchange or agreement we would come to would need to be explicit and stated clearly. No agreement could be entered to implicitly. Ideally, while I understand that Svartalves like to interact transactionally and by their own custom, our agreements would be governed by human custom and further by what humans tend to think of as friendship and collegiality. It would then be my hope that friendship could grow between us built on good faith." I said as a prepared speech.

Mr. Honi looked at me for a moment and then said, "So you are a craftsman of some skill and would like to work with us. Very interesting. Do you have an example of your craft with you?"

That seemed like a really obvious question for which I had completely not prepared. I blinked a few times and took out my Glock. I drew it slowly and deliberately, removed the magazine and emptied the chamber. The bullet dropping to the table, making a clear metal on wood sound. Then I stood up, took the Glock barrel in my hand and handed it grip first to Mr. Honi.

Mr. Honi took the pistol. He checked it as safe and worked the action several times and then disassembled it down completely to constituent parts including the trigger assembly, without tools, really fast. He then picked up each part and examined it really carefully. That took a while.

Mr. Honi then reassembled the Glock in about a minute. It should be understood; the Glock is designed to be easily and quickly field disassembled by hand without tools. That does not include areas like the trigger assembly. I'm probably faster and smoother with my pistol than 95% of human gunsmiths. I might also add that my Glock was chock full of custom parts, many uniquely created and fitted by me, so it's not like he had practiced with a duplicate from a store. I wouldn't try to take my pistol apart the way Mr. Honi had unless I was at my bench with tools. If I could do it in under 30 minutes, I'd be proud. Reassembly would take substantially longer. Mr. Honi had done both, without tools, at a conference table, in under a minute each and it had seemed easy.

Mr. Honi handed me back my pistol the same way I handed it to him. I replaced the bullet in the magazine, re-installed my magazine, but deferred chambering it in Mr. Honi's presence, then holstered it.

Mr. Honi looked at me and said, "I will confer with my associates and then we will contact you if any opportunities to be, 'collegial' emerge. Thank-you for coming."

Then, before I could even think to say something, Mr. Honi got up, turned his back and walked back out the room the same way he came in.

While I was trying to figure out what had just happened, but before a minute went by, the security guy came back and showed me, politely, out of the building. I walked out, got back in my limousine and went back to the Palmer House.

I figured I had overplayed my hand and been politely rejected as I replayed the situation in my mind over and over. Maybe I should have been more obsequious? Maybe I had dodged a bullet, stories of mortals being taken advantage of by fey were legion.

Then fourteen months later I got an invitation to visit the Svartalves again. I traveled back to Chicago, checked into the Palmer House, got a limousine and visited the Svartalf enclave. I was shown to the same conference room. This time when Mr. Honi came in he brought in another Svartalf and introduced him, "This is Mr. Guna."

They took some time and explained they wanted me to make them some bolts. They gave me detailed CAD descriptions.

"These bolts are similar to what one could buy in any hardware store?" I asked.

"However, we want really nice bolts and we want magic in them." Mr. Guna answered.

There was no talk of anything so gauche as paying me for the bolts. However, they casually went through the process of how to imbue each bolt with magic. It changed the way I imbue magic. It was much faster, more efficient and effective then what I'd been doing. Obvious once they showed me, but something I would likely never have run across on my own. It's no exaggeration to say I would have paid millions for that lesson. They politely asked me to deliver 500 bolts in six months and showed me out.

I went home. Spent a five-digit number on top of the line tooling and supplies and after a few weeks of getting set up, ran off a batch of 500 bolts. The worst were substantially better than what one would buy at the local hardware store. Better really, than the finest boutique bolts one might order for money. But as I reviewed the bolts in quality control, I noticed variation. The worst bolts might still be great but were clearly not as great as the best. So, I ran another batch. I kept the best half of both batches. A substantial improvement, but they still could be better.

It was at that moment I realized, this could very well be a test. How good a job could I do? How hard would I work? I suspected that I was auditioning to be their iron Jed. I was very okay with that.

Svartalves are fairies and they don't like iron. Some work on some jobs they might have would be iron. Just as I had Jed to work on my truck, they would probably love to farm that iron work out to their iron Jed. I would _love_ to be their iron Jed.

That meant these would have to be the finest bolts ever created by man. If I impressed them, it could mean everything I had wanted, the friendly support of a major magic power, tutelage, some measure of safety. So, the bolts were important with a capital "I." I had to deliver in less than a month. The last batch I ran the previous week had only contributed three bolts. This one might be less, but every bolt contributed to overall quality. I had trays for the bolts that would shame a fine jeweler and a nice case for the trays.

I had wanted to obsess and compulse over making the bolts, but I realized that the more tired, hungry and strung out I got, the more mistakes I made. I had to husband my main resource, myself. There were only so many more batches I could make. The last thing I needed right now was a distraction. Playing with Jake had already meant losing one batch.

I got the building drawings and printed them on my large format HP printer, then took them to the main house where it was already after ten and the girls were asleep. Miranda had brought me dinner in the bolt shop.

I laid out the map of the building on my billiard's table then pulled up the first report from Dark Glass. Six armed guards, armed with pistols and MPKs. Good. No obvious exterior booby traps. Surveillance continued.

I called Jake, "Don't stay out late. I'm picking you up at six."

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