wild; he looked a bit like a stray. Patterson saw a future opportunity of an informant that he may need.

“They all know who you are and why you’re here, they just don’t want to be anywhere near you” said the canine “And what do you mean by that? Mister?” Smiths asked, his senses slightly aroused by this canine, the canine turned toward Smith and replied

 “Balto’s my name and you both are agents Smiths and Patterson” Balto said coldly, as if “agent” was a meaningless word.

“How is it you know who we are?” Smiths questioned, quite shocked of his identity being said out loud.  “There aren’t many secrets here Mr. Smiths, and the arrival of government agents is very hard to conceal in this place” 

“What did you mean when you said they don’t want to be near us?” questioned Patterson, annoyed somewhat by this, stray looking, stranger’s seemingly higher intelligence than his own. “Quite simply Mr. Patterson, they don’t want to end up dead” replied Balto.

 “So it’s that bad here” Smiths groaned, “Are you by any chance the Balto that saved this town a few years back?” asked Mrs. Smiths, “I’m sorry miss, I wish I could stay and talk but I have too take care of some business but the officer over there can help you get to the station” Balto gestured to his right before turning around and walking away. “It was nice to meet you Balto” said Patterson, hoping this act of kindness might help him later. “And it wont be the last” Balto replied back, this response gave Patterson a something to smile about, he had found a potential informant in just a minute after leaving the boat, or so he thought.

They spotted the police sergeant, about early thirties with a medium build, wearing a warm northern jacket with the badge showing on the left breast; he walked up to them and thus greeted them formally. “Good afternoon Mr. Patterson, Mr. and Mrs. Smiths, I’m Officer Jacob Bishop” shaking each person’s hand. “So how are you all enjoying our warm weather today?” asked Sergeant Bishop, a hint of a joke in his tone. “You call this warm?! It’s practically freezing up here” said Patterson, the cold finally getting to him. “You think this is cold you should try blizzard weather, it drops really low and the snow is so thick you can’t see your nose” was Bishop’s remark to Patterson’s.

They unloaded their luggage, along with the sergeants help of course, and brought it too their new home. It was more a two-story house, built to accommodate two families (A duplex). There was the usual exchange of pleasantries. Bishop had grown up locally, he lived about a block from the station, but however, when Bishop was asked what they were up against, the atmosphere changed. “Can I speak too you two for a moment?” asked Bishop, more serious now than his more easy going style thus far. Acknowledging this as a sign of importance, they found an empty room to talk alone in. “You realize who you were just talking too, right?” Bishop asked the two agents, “Yeah, some canine named Balto, looked like a stray to me, I think he could be a promising informant” said Patterson, Bishop could not help but laugh at this. Patterson frowned at this, “What’s so funny about that?” asked Smiths, Bishop regaining his control became serious again, “You think that that wolf half breed would be an informant?” asked Bishop, “Oh so he was part wolf” said Smiths “Yeah, I think he could, why? What’s wrong with him?” asked Patterson. “The only thing wrong with him is that he is the number one person in charge of every criminal gang from here to Salem, Oregon” said Bishop.

*******

The boiler room had a long rectangular table in it, surrounded by several chairs, many of which were occupied by canine and human alike. There is much arguing from several of these people. At the head of this table sat Balto, with Aurora to his left and Boris to his right. Most of the people in this room control a small portion of Balto’s vast criminal empire, the remainder are rivals or friends to Balto’s as of yet, undefiled control of the North and Central Pacific Coast. There were about fourteen people, eleven males and three females sitting here; most were arguing over territory claims, whilst the rest sat and remained quiet. Of all these people, only nine are heads of crime families. The rest are just gangs.

The three main people of the current argument are Kirby and Ralph against Trent, a grey husky that was slightly over middle age (he is about eight years old), he sat roughly in the middle of the table on Balto’s left, this position was right beside Thunder, an opponent of Balto’s. This arguing had been a result to what had happened over a year ago at Kirby and Ralph’s gambling den, with Trent being most likely the mastermind behind it, even if he wasn’t guilty to the law, he was guilty to Balto. Balto was just bidding his time, trying to find a solution to end this without creating an all-out war.

 This was a very big possibility since Trent was backed by Thunder; a young purebred husky that was hungry for power and Balto was in his way of reaching that goal. Thunder was the second largest in every single bit of this organization, behind Balto of course. Thunder had thus been trying to find others like him, willing to wipe out the “old” system and bring in the new. His allies were fairly obvious to spot; they always took his side in every argument. His current support came from over half of the people at this table. But this does not mean he has any advantage over his immediate enemies. On the contrary, Balto and his few, but very powerful allies, along with their political connections, always overshadowed Thunder’s.

There had been some friction between sides. Before the incident there might be a skirmish or two a year, if that, but now skirmishes were at least once a month. It was starting to cause attention, thus the arrival of the government agents earlier today.

Most people here had earned their position here through Balto and they did not take it lightly. The rest had gotten here through expanding alongside Balto as “business” partners or had been recognized by him for some trait they possessed, as Kirby and Ralph had, being very good at gambling concealment. Thunder had obtained his position from his father after his death. Everyone here knew that Balto was unhappy at these meetings, they went no where and he was unhappy even more at the attention these skirmishes caused.

A courier came in and went to Balto and leaned toward Balto to try to give him the message but was drowned out. Having had enough, a very annoyed Balto stood up and everyone went silent, he was too powerful to ignore, even for Thunder. The courier repeated the act of whispering the message into Balto’s ear. This time however Balto’s face changed from annoyance too anger. His lips curled back to show his teeth, he gave a very noticeable growl. “Boris come with me” Balto ordered, still quite noticeably angry, as he walked out.

Boris followed the wolf dog outside the boiler room without question, Balto had never been this angry ever. “I need you to get everyone home, now!” Balto ordered anger still apparent in his voice.

“What’s happened?” Boris asked.

 Balto was still for a moment before he turned towards Boris, when he spoke he was obviously trying not to explode his anger at Boris.

“Someone in town just shot up a restaurant … and Jenna was there”. With that he turned around and ran as fast as he could towards town. “I hope she’s alright” thought Balto, his anger melting into worry.

*******

Three men were sitting around a table near the window, waiting inside a restaurant on Main St. for their boss, Don Frost, to return from the meeting that was at the boiler room, which was supposed to end around nightfall, which was not far away. They were however being watched from across the street. Inside the window, on the second floor, a man sat, every once and a while looking down at the three oblivious men. There was a man leaning on the corner of the building a few houses down, smoking to keep the arctic cold away. He took a look up at the man in the window, as he had done every minute or so. The man in the window had been waiting for his gaze and gave him a nod.

With the signal given, the man threw his cigarette away and disappeared around the corner. The man in the window looked back down at the men in the restaurant and something caught his attention.

A rusty red and cream white, female, husky entered the restaurant and what really got the man’s heart racing was that this female he recognized as Jenna. Balto would have all of them killed if she were caught up in this. He saw a black, Model-T, drive from around the corner and parked, as close as possible, in front of the window where the men sat. The air was then filled with the sound of the repeated shots from a long burst from a submachine gun, along with the shattering of glass and screams from innocent bystanders. This only lasted for a few seconds and as suddenly as it had happened, it stopped. With a roar from the engine, the car sped of into the distance.

When the car had departed, the man in the window had a full view of the scene across the street. There were three dead men riddled with bullet holes near the shattered and bullet punctured window. He could see some people inside, either getting up off the floor or from behind whatever they could