“Looks like,” I said.
We stood for a moment that must have felt like an hour to the four men who held their positions, confident but confused. A car appeared behind them and blocked off entry to the street, four burly men swinging open doors and stepping out. Within seconds three more men emerged from tenements and storefronts, closing in on the four on our tail, freezing them in their place. I walked with Big Mike by my side down the center of the street toward them, slowly, our eyes on each one, Russian muscle sent on a mission that was now doomed to fail.
We passed the four men, saw the look of the inevitable on their faces and turned at the corner, walking uptown now, the sun warming our backs.
Chapter 21
The lead wolf in a pack never attacks without learning the habits of his prey.
He forms a thirty-mile radius when tracking an adversary, following him from dawn to dusk. He learns an opponent’s eating habits and sleep patterns. He gauges how long the other can go without food, whether he can sleep under open sky or needs shelter, whether it is best to attack when he is alone or part of a group. It can take as long as three hundred miles for this information to be gathered, but the wolf is a patient creature, confident that once he is primed for the kill he will succeed.
A wolf can attack at any time, though he prefers darkness or morning fog. He moves with silent steps and controls his breathing as he draws closer to the target. While tracking his prey, the wolf can go for days without food, water, or shelter, his whole being focused on the hunt. If the wolf suspects a trap, he steps back and lets the oldest wolves take the most visible positions. He lurks in the shadows, watching for movement, senses on alert.
Once the wolf attacks, he does so with a ferocity that is frightening to witness.
He does not move in to wound or slow his target. He is there for only one purpose—to kill. He destroys his victims without hesitation, his body awash in blood and bone, oblivious to screams and cries for aid. The attack is over in a matter of minutes, and the herd rushes in to gnaw on the remains of the carcass as the lead wolf steps back, his breath coming in shallow spurts, taking in his surroundings and savoring the conquest. He watches as the younger cubs walk in a circle around the kill site, wiping away the markings of the older wolves, leaving behind as little evidence as possible. Yet at the same time making it clear to anyone who came upon the blood-soaked scene that this was the handiwork of a wolf.
The lead wolf stands away from the pack, watchful for a counterattack, mindful of his surroundings. He is already plotting when and where to strike again, a restless leader who never tires of the chase.
I have been fascinated with wolves since I was a boy.
I can remember reading the books and stories of Jack London, and while the wolves were almost always adversaries in those tales, he wrote about them with respect and affection. He admired their courage and their ability to withstand the harsh blows of the elements and still survive. I read books about them and would see photos of them in National Geographic magazine, always impressed with their strength and stamina. Sometimes I dreamed of their steel-blue eyes.
They were eyes that sent a clear warning to any enemy looking to do them harm. I came to view them as creatures from another time, animals following their own code of conduct, killing out of need or when threatened. They trusted no one but those in their pack and even then were on guard against the possibility of betrayal.
In the world in which I was raised, the ways of the wolf kept me alive.
I had put in place the pieces needed to track my prey.
I had the Greek and John Loo locking in on their communications.
I had the Yakuza on their money trail.
I had the Strega following their movements and learning their habits.
I had the Silent Six primed to destroy their field operations.
It was time to attack an opponent who dared to step into my lair and destroy what was most dear to me. I was ready to hear them plead for their lives and beg for a forgiveness that would never come.
Ready to leave them ruined, shredding them to the bone.
Ready to taste the kill.
Part II.
“If you are going through hell, keep going.”
—Winston Churchill
Chapter 22
Naples, Italy
SUMMER, 2013
“I was left an envelope with twenty euros and a note telling me where the bag was and when I was to pick it up.” The man was in his early thirties but looked older because of a thick beard and ill-fitting clothes. He was French by birth but had spent the last five years living and working as a sales clerk in a low-end clothing store in Naples. He was single and had been dating a woman from Forcella for two years. He had no criminal record, rented a two-room apartment above the shop where he worked, and had no credit cards or driver’s license.
“Where is the bag now?” I asked.
“I left it where I was told to leave it,” the man said, “in the lobby of the Excelsior Hotel, mixed in with the luggage of arriving guests.”
“That’s as much as you know?”
“That is all I know,” the man said. “I swear it.”
“You their regular courier?” I asked.
“This was the third time,” the man said. “Instructions are always the same, the money, too. Only locations change.”
“You part of the cell?” I asked. “Or in debt to them?”
The man shook his head. “My father,” he said in a low voice. He spoke English, colored with traces of a French accent. “Back home. He’s ill and hasn’t been able to work for the last six months. He borrowed money to help pay for food and rent. He thought they were friends. They weren’t.”
“They never are,” I said.
“Are you going to kill me?” the man asked.
“How many more runs you need to make before your father’s debt is cleared?” I asked.
“Three,” the man said. “Then my father and I will be free of them. That’s what they told us.”
“That won’t happen,” I told the man. “You’ll be left with two options. You keep working for them, doing whatever they ask. Or they kill you and your father.”
“I must believe them,” the man said. “What else am I to do?”
“I need a name,” I said. “The contact that first approached you with the offer. And I’m going to need it now. If I get that, maybe I can help you out of this situation. I don’t, the answer to your earlier question is yes. I will kill you.”
“I need to protect my father,” the man said. He was wet with sweat and had trouble catching his breath. I knew the look on his face: he was staring into the void of total despair.
“Your father will be killed, whether you help me or not,” I said. “He’s of no use to them. There’s nothing I can do about that. You I can still help, but only if you tell me what I need to know. Right now, that’s the only decision you have to make.”
The man looked around at his surroundings. Oak barrels filled with wine dominated the four sides of the large room. There was a small wooden table in one corner, large espresso pot and two porcelain cups at rest in the center. He was tired and frightened and unsure of how his ordeal would end. I leaned against one of the oak barrels. He looked at me with eyes that welled with tears. “Your men killed everyone at the compound,” he said. “Everyone but me. Why? What makes you think I can be of use to you?”
“I told them to bring out one,” I said. “They brought you. So think on this hard but don’t take too long. The next words I hear from you will decide whether or not I chose the wrong guy. Now, who is it that contacts you?”
The man lowered his head. “He is someone from back home,” he said. “We were both at university together.”
“His name?” I said.
“Kazmir,” he said, trembling as he spoke. “He heard I was in financial difficulty and told me he could be of help.”
“Who does he work for?”
The young man
shook his head, droplets of sweat dripping down to the cracked wooden floor. “I never asked and he never told me. I figured the less I knew about the people involved the better.”
“Kazmir works for Raza,” I told him. When I moved a few feet closer, he looked up with pleading eyes. “Kazmir was recruited shortly after he finished his studies. As were others at your university.”
“I was never political,” the young man said. “It’s not a path I cared to follow.”
“Yet here you are,” I said, “willingly or not, walking down that path.”
“I had no choice,” the young man said.
“You do now,” I said.
“What is it you want me to do?”
“The other times you were used as a courier, was it always a bag you were given?”
He nodded.
“How soon after the drop did the bombs go off?”
“I left them during morning rush, with the confusion of people checking in while others were trying to check out,” he said. “Both explosions went off in the early evening.”
“How much damage?”
“There were many bodies in both locations,” the man said.
“And no police link back to Raza?”
“He wasn’t looking for credit,” he said. “He seemed to be trying out different types of explosives.”
I smiled at the man. “You see,” I said. “You do know much more than you think. You knew there were bombs in the bags you left behind. You knew when they were set to go off and where best to leave them where they would go undetected for hours. And you knew there would be people, innocent people, who would die because of the bags you left behind. That makes you much more than a courier. That makes you an accomplice to murder.”
The man stayed silent. I’m sure he knew that any words spoken from here on would fall on deaf ears. I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out a small black and white photo and showed it to the man. “Is this your father?”
He nodded, confusion doubling down on his fear. “Who gave that to you?”
“You’re going to go back to the Excelsior,” I said, “and you’re going to find that bag you left and take it out of there.”
“And bring it where?”
“Back to Kazmir,” I said. “Back to the man who gave it to you. Bring it to where he is waiting for news of the blast and have it go off there.”
“But then I will die as well,” the man said.
“Throw it in, walk it in,” I said. “That’s your call. So long as that bomb goes off close enough to Kazmir to kill.”
“And then?”
“Then you and I are finished,” I said.
I watched the man stand on unsteady legs and walk toward the door leading out to the street. He turned to look at me one final time. “Who are you?” he asked.
When I said nothing, the man opened the door and walked out into the heat of a summer day in Naples.
David Lee Burke stood next to me. He had spent his time in the cool shadows of the room, silent and unnoticed. “I have two on him to make sure he does as he’s been told.”
“He’ll do it,” I said. “Taking orders is all someone like him understands.”
“If he survives the explosion?”
I looked at David. “He won’t,” I said. “Make sure of it.”
Chapter 23
Rome, Italy
“We need to work on a much larger scale,” Raza said. “No longer be content with dozens, sometimes hundreds of bodies. We must think in the thousands. We have always had the cause. Thanks to the Russian, we now have the money.”
“We also have many more eyes on us,” Avrim noted. “And they are not hindered by law. They make up their own laws. So far, they have proven to be very disruptive.”
“That’s because we have allowed them to be,” Raza said.
“What do you propose?”
“It is time to destroy places the enemy holds sacred,” Raza said.
They were inside the Borghese Gallery, standing in front of Caravaggio’s Boy with a Basket of Fruit, Raza admiring its detail and colors. “The fruit looks real enough to taste,” he said with admiration. “And the boy’s features resemble skin more than paint. But it is the darkness that shrouds the work that always catches my eye. He was a master of darkness.”
“Have you selected a target?”
Raza nodded, glancing at the work from a different angle.
“I’ve been told the American has partnered with the crime organization in Naples,” Avrim said. “They seem to be led by a woman.”
“The Italians are such romantics,” Raza said, a small smile creasing his handsome features. “Only they would allow a woman to lead them into battle.”
“She has a lethal reputation,” Avrim said.
“She is strong in her city, on her streets. Outside of that, she is a housewife.”
“We shouldn’t underestimate her.”
“I underestimate no one,” Raza said, staring now for the first time at Avrim, his anger apparent. “But she is a gangster put in a position of power because of birth, not accomplishment.”
“Unlike the American, she has lost no family in the struggle,” Avrim said in a calm voice, eager to settle Raza’s flash temper.
“Not yet,” Raza said.
“I must tell you,” Avrim said, “I have concerns about our situation. Some of the men in the cell have voiced similar worries.”
They were walking now, stopping every so often to gaze at a painting. “Tell me your concerns,” Raza said.
“We expect to be a target of the police and the governments against whom we have chosen to wage our battle,” Avrim said, keeping his manner calm. “But these others present a more difficult challenge. They are criminals. No government would go to the lengths they will. They are without rules.”
“As are we,” Raza said. “They die seeking profits. We die seeking paradise. A subtle difference.”
“They have killed some of our men on sight,” Avrim said. “They raided one of our compounds and killed all but one—and him they took prisoner.”
“Do you fear them?”
“Yes,” Avrim said. “Especially the Wolf.”
“Why the Wolf in particular?”
“Unlike the others, he has two reasons to want us dead. For business and for revenge.”
“Why is it you think he has targeted our cell?” Raza asked. “I’m sure I’m not the only one who has made a deal with the Russian.”
“He may believe we had something to do with the loss of his women,” Avrim said. “Or he might think we can lead the way to the ones who did.”
“I don’t care what he believes,” Raza said. “The criminal organizations were going to go after groups like ours sooner or later. When it comes to their business interests, they trust no one to do their dirty work. They are no different than us running their operations.”
“Do you trust this Russian?” Avrim asked.
“I have known you for years, Avrim,” Raza said, “and I barely trust you. I have no reason or desire to trust our financial benefactor. He is nothing more to me than a bank. Once that need diminishes, we rid ourselves of him as well.”
“I trust you, Raza,” Avrim said, walking with the terror leader toward a first floor bookshop. “I would give my life for you.”
Raza stopped and smiled. “And one day I will ask you to do so. But for today, we shall enjoy a delicious lunch. After which, we will spend the rest of the afternoon in church.”
“Church?”
Raza picked up a copy of Caravaggio’s Roma and strolled toward the cashier’s counter. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ won’t be praying.”
Chapter 24
New York City
“Took a while, but we were able to break into their cell phone system and clone three of their active numbers,” Big Mike said. “Keep in mind that’s three out of a possible rotating dozen, with four new ones added every week to ten days.”
“Can you get visu
als along with the pickups?” I asked.
“On some,” Big Mike said, “not all. These guys are slick. They use three different numbers at three different locations to relay one message. They talk in their own code that’s hard to break down. Gets even harder, if not impossible, when they start to talk in their own lingo.”
I sat back and stared out at the churning waters of the river. We were sitting on a bench in Hudson Park in Chelsea, the skyline stretched out behind us, the sun warming our faces. “How many?”
“In the cell?” Big Mike asked. “Or on the calls?”
“Both.”
“From near as me and John can tell, he’s got about a hundred regulars stretched out across Europe, mostly in Italy and England, don’t ask me why. Out of that number, maybe five to no more than seven are in on the phone rotation.”
“The rest get the messages relayed verbally or through intercepts?” I asked.
“Pretty much,” Big Mike said. “Boil it down, it comes off as a simple operation. The higher-ups, starting with Raza, come up with the plan. They relay it to the second tier and from there it rolls downhill. The least important guy in the chain is the poor bastard who straps on the bomb and is sent to do the job.”
“Have you picked up Vladimir on any of the calls?”
“Not a word,” Big Mike said, shaking his head. “Either he wants to keep his distance and is giving them free rein to do what they want or he is keeping track of operations in a way we haven’t figured out yet.”
“What have you got so far?”
“Raza’s smart,” Big Mike said. “He works without a pattern other than each job is bigger than the last.”
“It’s all a big game to them,” I said. “This cause they claim to have, this mission they’re on, it’s all bullshit. It’s about the chase and killing as many people as they can as quickly as they can.”
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