Apex Predator

by S. M. Douglas

  They needed that loan worse than anything.

  She choked back her unease, smiling sweetly.

  Donnelly walked up in front of Mary. A familiar and delicious darkness rushed through his body, the tingling feeling in his legs tickling his awakening crotch.

  Mary glanced up, the man’s eyes dancing wildly behind fluttering eyelids. Why was he getting so close? Normal creeps just wanted a look down her top. A sickening dread shot through her lurching stomach as she finally understood Donnelly expected more than she had ever before been prepared to offer. Unfortunately for Mary, that realization came too late to matter.

  Donnelly stepped between her legs, midsection pressing toward her face. She twisted away. His right hand shot out and grasped the back of her head, fingers digging painfully into her scalp, the fight draining from her muscles. She fell back into the chair, tears shimmering in her eyes. “Oh God, please no!” she heard herself begging, regretting it as soon as the words escaped her lips, seeing Donnelly’s slacks lewdly tenting in response.

  Donnelly panted at the sight of her deliciously trembling figure. Fumbling with his fly, his left hand fished inside. His right hand released her sobbing head, and roughly ripped down the top of her dress. Saliva flooded his mouth at the sight of her lush breasts spilling free. A barely repressed urge to taste her nearly overpowered his dwindling self-control. His last thought before he pulled her whimpering mouth to him was that life was awesome.

  Chapter 10

  August 2016 – London, England

  Detective Ian Cusick finished the report and eased back in his chair. His desk lamp battled against the empty office’s darkness. Even Hume had gone home. He stared at the glowing computer screen. The grand reopening of the file had been for show. When he refused to play along, his boss had buried him in menial work, a big chunk of it he was finally wrapping up. In the meantime, he had hedged his bets and given Patrick a cheap disposable phone and his number. That had been two weeks prior. He had heard nothing since.

  Still, it had only been in the past few days that he had been able to sleep through the night again. He shook his head, a wry smile crossing his lips…the howling. That Patrick was a cheeky bastard - probably enjoyed sending the cops on a wild goose chase after the werewolves of London. Well played friend, well played indeed.

  Cusick hit send and stood, taking one last glance at a picture on his desk of his wife and three kids. He glided through the ghostly quiet of the empty cubicles. The huge room bustled with a sea of activity on most days. Even so, this late on a Friday night not even a janitor could be found.

  He hit the down elevator button just as his phone buzzed with a text message. He glanced at the phone’s screen, his eyes widening.

  “It’s Patrick. It’s happening again. Please hurry!”

  ------------------

  August 2016 – Southeast Michigan

  Brody squinted as he stepped inside the pub. It was dark inside in spite of the mid-day sun. The smell of fried onion rings and grilled meat hung in the stale air. A wall-mounted TV broadcast the latest news about Donnelly’s testimony before Congress. Brody spotted a trim older man sitting in a low slung booth. The man played with his smart phone while nursing a gin and tonic, ice cubes clinking in the sweating glass.

  Brody strolled over, hand extended, “Good afternoon Doc, Special Agent Will Brody.”

  “How did you—”

  “I pulled your file.”

  Martin’s face reddened. “Why would—”

  “Take it easy, I’m just kidding.”

  “Oh,” Martin relaxed. “Of course, I just meant with all the NSA stuff—”

  “Lousy joke,” Brody said, the back of his neck tightening into a knot. The Goddamn NSA had everybody with a badge looking like the fucking Gestapo.

  “What’s so hot you couldn’t discuss it over the phone?” Brody said, sliding into the opposite side of the booth.

  Martin drained his drink in one gulp.

  The waitress sashayed over. She looked as if she had been ridden hard and put away wet.

  The Doc rang up another high ball. Brody ordered a root beer, watching Martin fumble with a brown messenger shoulder bag. After the waitress wandered off Martin finally pulled from the bag a clear zip-locked specimen pouch. It was holding a tooth remnant that looked like the exact twin to the one Elliot had been waving around at the crime scene.

  “I’m just going to say it,” Martin said. “This tooth is human.”

  Brody pressed his fingers into the corners of his eyes, grinding at the ever present headache that had taken a quantum leap in intensity. The waitress came back. She had hardly served their drinks when Martin pounded down half of his. Brody’s hands fell from his face, his mouth hanging open. Catching flies, grandma would have said had she been still alive. He stared out the pub’s plate glass front windows. The shadows lengthened on the sidewalk. The feeling something was wrong in the world bearing on him stronger than ever.

  “On the other hand, the hairs recovered from the crime scene are canine,” Martin said, depositing a second specimen bag on the table, “though not from a dog.”

  “A wolf?” Brody said, his voice ragged.

  “I don’t know,” Martin said, shaking his head in confusion.

  A thought hit Brody, his stomach contracting in a way that was telling him not to say what he was thinking, but he couldn’t stop himself. He had to ask.

  “We have canine hair and a tooth that looks like it came from some animal, but your tests are showing it to be human,” Brody said. “I’m not one to question science just because it doesn’t fit my notion of how things should be. So in the spirit of keeping our options open…” Brody began to stammer. “You know, for shits and giggles. I’m just gonna throw this idea out there. What about a were—”

  “A hoax?” Martin interjected. “You were going to ask how hard it would be for a prankster to make this look like some kind of monster was involved, right?”

  “Of course,” Brody said, flushing as he pulled his ringing smart phone from his pocket. He motioned for Martin to stay and headed for the door. Though he hadn’t been allowed to finish, he was damned if he would now. The man had not only cut him off quick, but he looked like he was about to crap his pants.

  ------------------

  August 2016 – London, England

  Patrick peeked out from where he hid, wedged behind a dumpster. He had been scrounging for a snack when a sudden gash of light had sent him scurrying for cover.

  Almost immediately he had realized a Friday night party was rocking the offices high above. The pattern was always the same. A younger toff from the trading desk would meet the supplier in the alley, pick up the goods, the high-end hookers would show, and everybody is happy. This time however, the young trader had been accompanied by a distinguished looking older fellow in a double breasted suit.

  “You sure you wanna do this, Neil? It’s a simple transaction,” said the younger man.

  “Everyone needs to live a little,” Neil said, his voice sounding slurred in the eerily silent night.

  Patrick couldn’t believe his eyes. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that ‘Neil’ was there. Yet these muppets couldn’t imagine that the cops would target them for a sting operation. What had ‘Neil’ done to warrant this? Stolen from one of the big dogs?

  A muffled thump echoed from down the alley.

  “C’mon. He’s here,” The young trader said, grabbing Neil by the arm as he tore off into the darkness.

  Patrick eased out from behind his hiding place to watch—

  An enormous shape loomed over the two men. They slid to a sudden stop on the gravelly concrete, the young trader bleating out, “Holy Mary Mother of God” as he pivoted to run. He never completed his turn.

  It was already moving, so fast it hardly registered on Patrick’s eyeballs.

&n
bsp; A stunned oomph escaped the young man’s lips as his skull was whipped into a brick wall with a nauseating crack. His lifeless body held for a moment and then sagged to the ground like a sack of wet meat. Neil dropped to his knees and begged for his life; all dignity, breeding, and upper-class bearing gone in a miasma of bowel shaking terror.

  Piss shot down Patrick’s leg as more screams and snarls rent the night. A voice inside yelled at him to flee. That if he moved now while it was distracted he could make it to the street. Then again, he had spent years doing little more than boozing, eating, and sleeping. That thing would be on him before he took a few steps.

  The shrieking reached a high pitched crescendo, and then abruptly cut off. A sickening snapping of something chewing through bone carried toward Patrick like the sound of a man crunching through a bag of crisps. He contorted his body as far behind the pungent dumpster as he could get, his head pressed to the cold, gritty asphalt. Tears streaked down his face at the thought of whatever was out there. Nevertheless, survival instincts kicked in, his trembling fingers fishing the phone from his pocket, punching at the tiny keyboard. It had been years since he owned one of these maddening devices and the infuriating autocorrect more than once left his heart hammering, but he finally hit send. Only then did he realize just how much the phone’s screen lit up his hiding place. He snapped the device shut, working to still his labored breathing.

  Total silence enveloped the alley.

  Maybe it was gone?

  He dipped his head under the dumpster, trying to ignore the sour vinegary smell of his fright. He didn’t see a thing, but paused another moment. Listening, and hearing nothing.

  Maybe it ran off.

  He made his move, pushing backward. His feet and legs inched wormlike, shoulders and arms hunching as he leveraged himself out from behind the dumpster. He brightened at the thought he might get out from—

  His legs buckled.

  Confused, he pushed again. He didn’t remember a wall being there. He rolled over on his back and lifted his head to see his feet pushed up against a set of fur covered legs. From high above, saliva and blood splattered down onto his ankles like paint droplets from a carelessly wielded brush.

  Patrick’s panic struck eyes panned up.

  The moon hung fat in the night sky.

  An immense presence blotted out everything else, the savagely grinning face of hell itself leaning down, dripping jaws opening wide.

  ------------------

  August 2016 – Southeast Michigan

  Brody stepped outside the bar, wrinkling his nose at a pungent odor. He turned to see a rabbit twisted in the street, mouth open in a silent scream. Frowning at the sight of the dead animal, he answered his phone.

  It was Vance. One of Cameron’s casino companions matched up with the description of a man travelling out of the Ukraine. As Brody listened he couldn’t help but notice the edge to Vance’s voice, “You holding out on me?”

  Silence greeted Brody’s entreaty.

  For a second, he thought Vance had hung up on him, but then the agent responded, “I have a friend at Scotland Yard.”

  “Go on.” Brody gritted his teeth.

  “Several bankers in London have offed themselves. At least that’s what the British press is reporting, though nobody is mentioning that they all worked for Donnelly’s bank. In addition, my contact thinks that these so-called suicides were helped along.”

  Christ, he could use a beer.

  “Here’s the kicker, the jumper’s co-workers were being investigated for rigging commodities markets. The other night my guy got tipped off. He went in by himself, said it looked like a slaughterhouse, blood everywhere. He lost his cool. By the time he returned with back up all they found was what remained of some homeless dude. My guy said there was no way just one person got whacked, says he’s never been on a crime scene like it, says he’s done with this, has a wife and kids.”

  Brody’s heart raced.

  “That’s not all,” Vance said. “Our New York office is investigating the disappearance of a trader from Donnelly’s bank. He went for a walk and never came back. Check this out. He specialized in oil markets - one of the commodities allegedly rigged by the same bankers in London.”

  “We’re missing something,” Brody said. “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “That may be, but justice’s big wheel stopped spinning a long time ago,” Vance said. “Right or wrong, you don’t come up with something good and they will pound you into the dirt.”

  Brody hung up, his hands shaking as he headed back inside.

  A fresh drink sat in front of Martin.

  “Keep that up Doc, and you’re gonna be higher than a white pine.”

  “Piss off,” Martin said.

  “We really gonna do this?”

  “There’s something else,” Martin said.

  Brody eased into the booth.

  “Before I got your samples I had received another tooth fragment. It came from a Second World War mass grave being investigated by some professors from the University of Michigan,” Martin said. “This dig they’re working is located in the Ukraine. You’re not going to believe this but the DNA test for their tooth fragment matched that of yours.”

  Not two minutes later Brody was sprinting to his car, phone to his ear and Wilson on the other end.

  “Guess what?” Wilson said.

  “Try me.”

  “Cameron’s wife found a letter. The envelope contained a finger.”

  “I take it once the lab runs the tests it will match Cameron’s DNA.”

  “The Bureau jet is at Detroit Metro,” Wilson said. “We tracked our suspect on a flight from Kiev to LaGuardia just before the Hampton’s disappearances. We think he followed Cameron out to Detroit and then went back to the Ukraine. The MVS has been alerted you’re coming.”

  Brody winced. Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, or MVS, had participated in the rendition of the CIA’s captured prizes during the previous decade. If there was one part of the U.S. Government not associated with the AG’s office that he despised the cowboys from the CIA were it. He filled in Wilson on his meeting with Martin.

  Wilson exploded in anger, “Goddammit, Brody. Don’t give me any weird shit. Find me something we can work with, and now.”

  Brody tried to respond, but Wilson raged on about how he’d be damned if he would even think of launching an investigation into whether a fucking animal was responsible for a hedge fund manager’s death. Brody waited patiently. Before Wilson hung up he won permissions to visit the professors working the Ukrainian mass grave. However, as Brody drove to the airport he knew he would need a ton of evidence before jumping to any conclusions that could land him permanently on the bench. He mulled it over for a minute or two before deciding he wasn’t going to trust Wilson or the AG.

  He called Vance.

  “You got a minute?” Brody asked.

  “More like a second,” The older man said. “Right now, I’m busier than a cucumber in a women’s prison.”

  Brody paused at his partner’s choice of phrasing then explained what he needed. While in the Ukraine he would lose the MVS and visit the professors without having to worry about any unwanted meddling from the Ukrainian authorities. Vance agreed to help run interference in case Wilson got jumpy about it. Brody hung up feeling better.

  Within minutes of arriving at the airport he settled into the plush Gulfstream, though the plane’s slick comfort couldn’t take his larger headaches away. He fumbled yet again with his ringing smart phone.

  “We have a bigger problem than I thought.”

  It was Elliot.

  Brody stared at the screen for several seconds before finally answering the medical examiner, “Yes...”

  “We still can’t get any clarification on the irregularities in the DNA. Not to take away from that issue
but the bigger problem goes to the core of what we think the evidence is telling us.”

  “Which is?”

  “We have DNA sets that match up with a human, and or animal as responsible for the victim’s death. However, the measurement of the distance between each tooth impression in the bone and the indicator of the larger mouth they came from matches no known land predator I know of, minus maybe a tiger.”

  Brody sighed.

  Elliot heard him, “Look, I know how ridiculous this sounds. There has to be an answer that makes sense. In the meantime I’ll—”

  “Ok, Doc. I get it,” Brody said. “However, what if were not being open-minded enough? What if—”

  “If I were you I wouldn’t get too far out over my skies on this one,” Elliot said. “I’ve seen all kinds of crazy stuff. If there’s one thing I’ve learned however, it’s that sometimes the right answer isn’t the one best supported by the evidence. Sometimes it’s the most acceptable answer. Even if you’re wrong it won’t matter compared to what happens if you give your boss something he isn’t prepared to believe.”

  In spite of his mounting frustration Brody thanked Elliot for his input, and thumbed off the smart phone.

  The sky darkened as the powerful aircraft banked east.

  Chapter 11

  August 2016 – Dibrovno, Western Ukraine

  Professor Owen Shaw kneeled in a large earthen pit, an ox-hair artist’s brush in hand as he worked at the fine peppery soil, feathering free a human femur’s distinctive curving expanse. Likely the final such remnant this mass grave was going to give up, and, as he hoped, perhaps the possible key to cracking its puzzle.