Wolf Who Walks Alone: A Raymond Wolf Mystery Novel

by Steve R. Yeager

  “He’s dead.”

  Sayid, who was still sitting behind the wheel, stared back at Krieg, unblinking. “He has managed to kill most of your men…? How can this be? Six so far. Six!”

  Krieg flinched. He knew the number killed or missing was probably higher, but he did not want to divulge that information. Certainly not with Sayid. He picked up the radio and clicked the talk button.

  “Can anyone read me?”

  Static.

  “Anyone at all?”

  More static.

  Krieg glanced at Sayid. “We should return to the house. It’s safe there. I can’t explain any of this. I can’t… It’s…impossible. All my men had weapons. They—”

  “But your man here still has his gun. Explain that!”

  “He does,” Krieg admitted, looking at the corpse of one of his employees. The man’s throat had been slashed and blood had soaked into the man’s shirt, saturating the white with mottled shades of red.

  “I can’t…” Krieg started to say and then trailed off. He glanced at the dead man again. Something about him seemed…posed? The man was sprawled on his back with an arm propped on top of a rock and a stick jammed into his shirtsleeve to keep it straight. A smaller stick had been tied to his finger with a strip of what looked like bark. That finger pointed northwest. Krieg followed the indicated direction with his eyes. It only led deeper into the heart of his sprawling property.

  “He is taunting us,” Sayid said in answer to Krieg’s unasked question. “He is attempting to lure us into a trap, and he expects us to follow.”

  Krieg stammered before finding his voice. “B-but there are footprints leading that direction also. None of them…appear to be made by the girl.”

  Sayid set one hand on the gearshift lever and jiggled it. “Perhaps he is shielding her from this brutality. This is life and death, Mr. Krieg, and this is now your sixth dead employee. I believe I am right to question your competence.”

  Krieg stammered again. “M-maybe they split up? Or perhaps he has hidden her?” He really had no idea. He was not used to being hunted and never realized it would make him this nerve-wracked. He made a fist on the handle of his cane and tensed it, watching his knuckles whiten.

  It was hard to even think.

  “I know this man,” Sayid breathed. “Now that he has killed all your men, he means to hunt us exclusively. And the first thing he will be thinking is that we will tuck our tails and run back to safety.”

  “Retreating now would be the best course,” Krieg agreed shakily.

  “No,” Sayid said back and gave a wicked grin. “It would not. He is expecting us to act predictably. And I have not yet found the girl. But I will. We will.”

  “We must go ba…I…I can call in more men when we return.”

  “How many and how fast?”

  “An hour, m-m-maybe less. I can get another ten, at least.”

  “But will our prey escape us before then?”

  “I d-do not think he means to escape, but…I think we should. We have waited too long already. He is stalking us. I…I can feel it.”

  Krieg scanned the area ahead and behind them, wondering just where the man called Wolf could be. He felt as if he could be anywhere by now. Waiting. Watching. Preparing. He groped about for the tablet that had fallen onto the floorboard of the Land Rover, clicked it on, and slid his trembling fingers across the tablet’s screen. The tiny hairs on the nape of his neck prickled, and he instinctively bent forward to make himself smaller, just knowing the shot that would kill him was about to arrive at any moment. The big man had to have a gun now. He’d killed so many men.

  So many…

  What is he waiting for?

  “T-there’s nothing,” Krieg said. “Nothing. Cameras. Some are out. Some are…”

  Sayid scowled at him. “Use your phone and call in more. Now! But it is not yet time for us to run.”

  “But…my phone is at the house.”

  “The radio?”

  “He…is listening. Y-yes, he is.”

  “What type of operation are you running here, Mr. Krieg? I was promised a hunt and provided very specific instructions.”

  “You…You will have it, I promise.” Krieg picked up the walkie-talkie. Maybe, he thought, just maybe that man who had been with Montez was still at the house. Maybe it wouldn’t matter if he were overheard by the man they were hunting. He was on foot. Had to be. It would take—

  Time.

  It had not been a smart move to kill Montez. He realized that now. Maybe he could have kept him around a little longer. He’d been far too hasty. His decision had been made too quickly.

  Not enough—

  Time.

  But that young man. Edward was his name, yes? He’d been reliable. He’d come through.

  He had to come through…

  Sayid drummed his hand on the steering wheel. “That man out there wants to kill us. He is dangerous and you must be wary at all times.”

  Which was patently obvious to Krieg. He very much wanted to remind Sayid that he had been responsible for letting the large man loose in the first place. But Krieg held his tongue. He was too frightened now to even speak.

  The radio crackled. Krieg hoped on the off chance it was the young man. But the voice coming from the speaker was not that of the young man.

  “I am coming for you, and I will cut out your—”

  The last word had been garbled. The large man had let go of the button too soon. Krieg almost wanted to answer back to know what the man meant. Almost. But, since it was not the young man back at the house, Krieg had to wonder where that brave young man was now. Has he been killed as well? No, he couldn’t have been killed. That young man will save us. He has to.

  “See?” Sayid whispered. “This game, he finds amusing. He will not let us reach the security of your home or leave the property. Not until either he is dead or we are dead.” He stopped to wipe sweat from his brow. “You showed me that big rifle of yours. You said it was powerful enough to take him down. It even has fancy bullets made of silver. That should be enough. Isn’t that how the story goes, Mr. Krieg? Silver bullets kill the wolf?”

  “No,” Krieg said, head twisting side to side. “It…doesn’t matter.”

  “No?” Sayid replied with anger.

  “No…we must return or escape or he will kill us like he killed my men.”

  Sayid said nothing for several seconds, then, “You are indeed a coward, Mr. Krieg.”

  A coward who wants to live. Krieg knew that if he ran, he would still be alive to see another day, but only if they acted fast.

  “We…we must return,” he said. “Or escape.”

  Sayid glared at him with eyes as black as midnight on a starless night. He shut off the Land Rover, jerked the keys from the ignition, and threw them hard toward the watering hole to the left. The keys splashed when they landed—and sank into oblivion.

  “What are you doing?” Krieg asked in horror.

  “Now we are both committed to the cause. The only possibility left for us is to find him and to put a bullet in his back. Allah will watch over us, Mr. Krieg, I assure you of that. Even innocent infidels like you who have not yet converted, He will protect. And He rewards those who serve Him best. But be warned, because He also punishes cowards without mercy. So, I would suggest that even though you are not of my faith as of yet, you should still not act like a cowardly dog. You must face death like a man.”

  Sayid turned and grabbed his black combat rifle from the backseat, ejected the magazine, checked it, and slammed it home as he climbed out of the Land Rover.

  “Where…where are you going?” Krieg asked, suddenly more terrified now than he had ever been in his entire life. Even the accident that had crippled him had not frightened him so much.

  Sayid glowered at him. “Are you coming with me?”

  “I cannot…I cannot walk…that far.”

  “Then you will be the bait, Mr. Krieg. Show a little more bravery when the hunt is turn
ed toward you.”

  “But…”

  With a nod of finality, Sayid bent near the dead man, touched the footprint indentation in the muddy ground with his fingers, rubbed the tips together, and set off after the trail of marks that led into the brush and trees in the distance.

  Quentin Krieg, who had killed hundreds, if not thousands of animals and mounted their heads to his walls, was now alone in the Land Rover, trembling in a purely animalistic fear.

  - 53 -

  SLOW RIDE

  EDDIE DONATO EASED himself back in the seat and set the cruise control on the big black Crown Victoria right at the speed limit. No need to get a ticket. He had a very long drive ahead of him to get back home to The City. Beside him was a briefcase filled with fat stacks of hundreds. More precisely, one-hundred-and-twenty-G’s in total. A nice round number. Eddie liked nice round numbers, especially since his cut with Montez was originally going to be only twenty-G’s, at most. And that lying sack of shit had claimed the total payday was only fifty large.

  The douche.

  One-twenty was not a bad haul. Not bad at all.

  He was glad to be on the road now. That guy Krieg had asked him to stick around for the day while he hunted the big dude and young chick, but Eddie wasn’t about to do that. Not unless there was another fat paycheck in it. Right now, all he wanted to do was to get back home.

  Fast.

  The money was more than he had ever held in his short life, all tied up neat and tidy in little bricks with bands around each stack of bills. It even smelled like real money, not that he’d ever smelled so much all in one place before, either. And to think, his parents had wanted him to be a lawyer. What bullshit. Maybe now, since that asshole Montez was out of the way, that Krieg guy might have more paydays in the future to shake out of him. Maybe he’d even have another fat job for him one day, for which Eddie would be more than happy to do just about anything.

  Still, the old geezer was the real loser type. Crazy old man. Probably got off putting his dick in little boys. But, whatever, if the pay was good, Eddie’d whack anyone the guy wanted whacked even if he had to put on cowboy boots and one of those stupid hats to do it.

  No biggie.

  When he got back to The City, he planned to drop off ten-G’s with his capo and explain the failure of that idiot Montez and all the bad shit that had gone down. Then he’d find the girl he’d hooked up with before he’d split town. The hundred large would buy them both a whole shitload of blow and a real night out.

  Yeah, life’s looking pretty sweet.

  - 54 -

  HUNTER IS HUNTED

  FROM HIS HIDDEN vantage point in the trees, Wolf gazed at the Land Rover with a righteous anger seething in his heart. He’d been watching the entire exchange between the two men in the vehicle. And now that Krieg was sitting alone in the passenger’s seat with the large hunting rifle propped up against the dashboard, he was as good as dead.

  Wolf waited patiently, then began to make his move when the soon-to-be-dead guy started methodically scanning the grove into which Abdullah al-Sayid had disappeared.

  Krieg was holding the binoculars to his eyes and lowering them every few seconds to check the terrain immediately surrounding him for threats. He was doing this with an almost clocklike regularity and, even though the distance between them was great, Wolf could still sense the man’s primal fear.

  Earlier, he had covered much of the area on a walking recon and knew it well. He had also made himself almost a ghost by fashioning a makeshift Ghillie suit from scraps of clothing he’d taken from the men he had killed, adding more and more bits of debris and grass until he was satisfied. And, to keep himself hidden, he’d painted his face up with mud and dung, creating ragged edges that were more difficult for the human eye to see. His only giveaway would be if he moved too rapidly.

  He would not move too rapidly.

  But to get to the Land Rover, he would need to cover about fifty feet of open ground, and the entire way he would be completely exposed, which left plenty of time for the man in the vehicle to react, grab his rifle, take careful aim, and fire.

  He could use another rock on the old guy. He’d killed three others that way and distracted five more before sneaking up from behind and slitting their throats, ear to ear.

  He did not want to use a rock. Not for this man.

  With a deathly silence, he stalked his prey, circling around through the trees and approaching from the man’s blindside.

  He stepped from the trees, and—

  Krieg chose that moment to break his regular cycle. He removed his hat and mopped his brow. And, as if he suddenly suspected danger, he spun and glanced over his left shoulder, then his right, then pushed himself up in his seat and twisted his body and stared directly at the spot where Wolf had been about to emerge from behind a tree.

  Wolf froze and held his breath, making no movement, no sound, disturbing neither rock, nor leaf, nor branch. Hot blood and sweat trickled down his thigh from underneath the hastily tied dressing he had applied. Having run for miles without shoes or finding boots on the dead that fit him had cut his feet to shreds. But there was no time for pain. He pushed the trifling annoyances aside and remained as unmoving as a settled stone.

  Krieg shook his head, and Wolf could see that the man’s lips were moving rapidly but not what was being said. It was odd, too, because the man did not seem to be able to comprehend that he was being stalked and had remained behind, and exposed. Perhaps he could not drive? Or perhaps he was overly confident in his abilities?

  Or perhaps…

  Wolf continued to watch, suspecting a trap.

  Krieg stopped searching and again lifted the binoculars to his eyes as he turned toward the grove into which Sayid had disappeared.

  Then he restarted his regular scans.

  Perhaps it was that the man wasn’t half the great hunter he thought he was. Those who hunted solely for trophies were often not. They were something else. Something less. Wolf hunted. He had hunted many times when he was young. He had never thought it wrong to hunt game, and still did not. But he had a need to hunt then. Just as he had a need to hunt in Iraq.

  And there was a need to hunt now.

  He exhaled and slid in with the sighing wind. When he came to the vehicle, he circled to the passenger’s side, ducking as low as possible. As he approached, he could hear Krieg’s shallow, labored breathing and him moving in the seat—every shift, every squeak, every chirp of the springs. He could smell the man’s soured fear and that of his dank sweat.

  Inches to go now. Just a few more…

  Krieg was looking through the binoculars when Wolf struck. He grabbed the man by the shirt and yanked him from the Land Rover and slammed him hard to the ground. Immediately, he scrambled on top of the man, covering Krieg’s mouth and nose with a large hand and pinning the man’s head to the muddy soil and driving it down between tufts of soft grass.

  He continued to press.

  Krieg’s eyes shot wide with panic and fear as he fought to escape. Wolf could feel the man’s withered legs and damaged, misshapen body squirming beneath him, trying to break free. The guy felt as though he was nothing more than a thin sack of skin and hard bones. And, for a brief moment, Wolf felt some small blip of sympathy for the man, and something deep inside him began to question what he was doing.

  All this killing? All this death? Fear and anger? Hate? Or, something else…? Would grandmother approve? Would my…?

  He began to relax his grip as he considered. He looked at Krieg’s hat. It had come to rest next to the knobby front tire of the Land Rover.

  No.

  He remembered the girl who called herself Melody, picturing that first time they had met in his mind. What she wore. How she had looked. How out of her element she had been.

  No.

  She was dead because of what this man had done. She should not be dead. She had not deserved to die at such a young age for such a small mistake. He knew that the world could be cruel. L
ife was not fair. Never fair. But he also knew his place in it.

  He knew that only he could go where others feared to go.

  He knew this because he was indeed a wolf. His grandmother had named him so. Wolf Who Walks Alone, she had called him on that day. She had seen it in him as a child, and she had told him all about wolves. They were not the evil creatures that Krieg had proclaimed them to be. They were dangerous, deadly, and to an outsider, unpredictable. But wolves were also loyal—and they protected their young with an unmatched ferocity.

  This man Krieg below him had surely taken other girls and sold them to one monster or another. That had to be stopped. That demanded a price to be paid to balance such evil. And when Wolf thought of all the trophies hanging on the man’s walls, and of all the pain the man had caused over the course of his lifetime…

  The decision was easy.

  He drew the long knife he had taken from one of the men and shifted positions so he could pull up Krieg’s button-up shirt. He shifted his weight even lower and worked to expose the man’s soft white underbelly while remaining on top with his hand pressing on Krieg’s chin. The flesh of the man’s stomach was pallid and pasty and crisscrossed with scars, or marks, or something.

  Pausing for only a brief second, Wolf looked for a starting point, then drew the razor-sharp knife blade across the man’s belly, slitting the flesh, and watching the man’s own muscle tension peel away the layers and exposed bubbles of yellow and pink fat.

  Krieg tried to shriek in horror, but his mouth was still covered by Wolf’s hand and his head was still pinned down sideways. His eyes clamped shut and his body spasmed and he shuddered and gurgled.

  Wolf held him tight against the ground, pushing upward to keep the man’s squirming mouth closed. He lifted the knife away and twisted Krieg’s head so he could see his eyes. Wolf widened his own eyes and stared down at the man until pure fright caused Krieg to stop moving.

  Then he started cutting again.

  But, as Wolf began to cut, he realized he could not go through with what he had planned. Not with this man. This man deserved something different. It had been the slight breeze that had whispered the secret to him and told him what to do. It also carried a scent that he recognized as well.