Standing still some yards away, she saw him dip his body near the rear of the car and reach into the wheel well, hunting around above it until he took out a magnetic key box.
“I told ya—” he started to say.
And then the air around them was shredded by machine gun fire that sounded like a bunch of weed-whackers in action.
Suppressors! her mind supplied, as if she had time to care.
Wineacre whirled around as if to flee, but suddenly she realized he was merely being torn apart by the slugs which were zipping through him and smacking into the car behind him. Blood was spurting from several entry points in his torso, and then his head burst apart when a new batch of slugs caught him there as he sprawled back against the Volvo. He was just flapping to the ground like an empty sheet when the key box in his hand flipped toward Heather.
Her wolf’s instincts had been active in the meantime, and she was barely aware of the fact that she had immediately dropped to the grimy sidewalk, rolled a yard or so out of the line of fire, and initiated a change. She struggled for a second with her slacks, but then slid out of them lithely and turned to see the key box heading straight for her.
She snatched it out of the air and kept rolling until she’d slipped off the curb and onto the street, behind a neighboring parked Explorer. A burst of slugs sought her out and chipped the sidewalk concrete in her direction as she continued rolling, feeling the sharp chips dig into her skin even as the fur began to grow in patches and she was visualizing herself as the slender, muscular wolf and hiding behind the SUV. She had just enough time to slide the key box under the SUV and hearing the click as it adhered, then her DNA did its realignment thing and she was over in a flash…she had managed to shed the ripped clothing and now she ducked under the Explorer and dumped her bag into the shadows.
Unlike Nick Lupo, as she well knew, she’d been a natural at this whole wolf-thing, and she’d learned to control her Creature faster and better than Lupo ever did. He’d been too busy fighting it all his life, whereas she’d embraced it and the powers it granted her, and she’d never had a problem maintaining both awareness and control while her body was the wolf’s.
Now she stayed down and out of sight, almost supernaturally convinced the shadows had hidden what had happened to her. Her view was hampered by the large SUV’s bulk, but she was low enough she could see underneath it, and her eyes found Wineacre’s dull, staring gaze. The top of his head was gone and the rest of his torso looked like hamburger extruded through a grinder. Whoever they were, they hadn’t much cared about her—they’d been after him.
In fact, Heather thought it was possible they had gotten there late and didn’t know he had already met her, or that she was the person he was meeting. She remembered that she’d been more than a few steps behind him when he’d gone for the key box. There’d been no other people nearby on the sidewalk.
In her mind, completely in control within the wolf’s body, it seemed the shooters were interested only in killing the ex-soldier. And whistleblower.
And they’d done so. Now what?
Jessie
The night shift in the casino was quieter tonight and she didn’t spot any of the security guys she knew. Not that she would have told them what she’d heard. For one thing, she couldn’t verify anything the two thugs had said.
And they were thugs. They looked like thugs and talked like thugs—well, at least they talked like TV versions of New York thugs. Maybe they were bullshitters. Maybe they were acting like Sopranos guys just for fun. But Jessie had developed a damn good radar for trouble, first as a rez doctor who had pretty much seen it all on both sides of the reservation boundary, and second as someone who’d been through hell and back with Nick Lupo. After what she’d seen—and done, she reminded herself—her radar was honed to a razor-sharp edge. And these guys had definitely set off her radar’s alarm bells. Something about their confidence, their mocking tone, told her they weren’t kidding.
There was trouble brewing, and she wasn’t at all sure what to do about it.
But here was a start.
She waved at Donna, the eternal secretary, as she walked into the rear of the casino, hoping to see the tribe’s newest elder and, by extension, head of the council and CEO of the growing casino enterprise.
“Hey, Donna, is he in tonight?”
Bill Grey Hawk had ascended to the head of the tribal council mostly by virtue of attrition—the Wolfpaw mercenaries had decimated the membership and once Davison was gone, murdered, there wasn’t much of the old guard left. Grey Hawk and his family had been taken hostage by the freelancing Wolfpaw killers and they’d seen “things” on Cranberry Island. Grey Hawk himself had seen Nick Lupo and that mercenary Tef turn into wolves and fight to the death. His wife might have seen too, but she and her kids were so traumatized that these days they barely ever stuck their noses off the rez.
“Yeah, Jessie, I’ll announce you.”
“No need,” Jessie said, approaching the office door before Donna could make the call. She wanted to catch him relatively unawares.
Grey Hawk was tall and gangly, almost gaunt, with unevenly silvering hair tied in a long ponytail that stretched down his back. Even in his sixties he still favored jeans, leather and buckskin vests, cowboy boots, and string ties. He looked more at home in the Southwest, Jessie had always thought, than near the Great Lakes. But then people affect all types of behaviors. Hell, some of the Indians who claimed to have come home to the rez were of questionable tribal integrity. In theory such legacy and tribal claims were checked and verified, but the process was slow and lagged and—truth be told—was sometimes amenable to the occasional nudge in either direction. Some previous members of the council had been lured back to stack the Yes votes for the casino project, for instance, although they’d been murdered by the Wolfpaw mercenaries at the behest of the mysterious Mr. XYZ, who’d had his own reasons to halt the project.
Grey Hawk smiled tightly when she walked in, and stood behind the massive desk Davison had commissioned from an Indian artist friend. It looked like driftwood-supported glass and aluminum and it was supposed to symbolize the tribe’s past and its promising future.
Not for Davison, she couldn’t help thinking.
“Dr. Hawkins, what a pleasant surprise,” he said.
She thought his eyes didn’t agree.
She smiled. “It’s nice to see you, Bill. Please, everyone calls me Jessie.”
They shook hands and he waved her to his leather guest chair. She sat on its edge, fidgety. He followed suit, sitting in his own chair behind the decadent desk.
“Jessie, what can I do for you?”
She considered.
How much to tell him? Blurt out all of it?
She really had no proof, just an overheard conversation and a gut feeling.
Nick would have agreed—he knew her gut feelings were usually accurate.
On the money, as DiSanto might have pointed out with his usual profound approach.
She decided to go all in, without dancing around it. “Okay, I know this sounds like it’s out of the blue,” she began, “but I heard a couple thuggy-looking guys talking down in the casino earlier, and frankly I’m a little concerned.”
His face reflected concern. He reached for his phone. “Is this something for Security to handle? I can have them here or on the floor in about two minutes.” The phone hovered in his hand.
“It’s serious, Bill, but I don’t think it’s a case where Security can help, at least not yet. Maybe later.” She deliberated again, then spoke bluntly. “Bill, I think the Mafia may be interested in grabbing a piece of the casino. They sounded like shady advance guys from some group out East, by way of Las Vegas. They had no idea I could hear them, so they chatted openly about it. Said their boss is in Vegas and moving here to suck the casino dry.”
Grey Hawk set down the receiver. “Jessie, these are serious issues. Do you have anything concrete I can use?” His eyes shone at her, grateful. He was alert
now.
“No, no solid evidence, just a few lines of conversations. Wait, though, I remember their names. One guy’s name is Johnny—he seems to be in charge. The other guy’s name is Marty. They look like…well, they look like mobsters on TV and in the movies. Hard faces, mean, smartass mouths.”
“Sure they weren’t actors rehearsing? We’ve had some theater groups coming is as part of the usual tours…”
Jessie almost made a dismissive face. What? Actors? Are you kidding?
But she held back out of respect.
“I can just describe them, I guess, but they definitely seemed like serious people to me, Bill. They weren’t bullshitting. I thought about it, but they sounded very much like people who’d work for some drug kingpin.”
“Well, Jessie, let me call in my new security head,” Grey Hawk said as he dialed. “You can give him the information.” There was a tinny squawk from the phone and Grey Hawk simply asked whoever had answered to stop into the main office.
They made small talk, which seemed surreal to her. A few minutes later a tall, linebacker-wide man wearing a black suit and a short black ponytail appeared on Grey Hawk’s doorstep.
“Charlie, come in,” he said.
He looks familiar, she thought. And his eyes widened in recognition of her, as well.
“Charlie Black Bear,” he said, extending a large hand. “You’re Dr. Hawkins. We met awhile back, when I was working down in Milwaukee. You were involved in that Archer case with Detective Lupo.”
“Yes, I thought I remembered you.” First she thought about how many of the newer generations of Indians were carrying their tribal names with them into the white world. With a lot more pride than previous generations. Then she remembered that things hadn’t ended well for him. Hadn’t something terrible happened to his family?
They shook hands.
“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling tentatively, “but I remember you had some bad times right after that case. Nick told me a little about it. I’m very sorry.”
His eyes hardened, withdrawing. “Thank you. Things happened that couldn’t be helped. I’m moving forward now, getting my life back together.”
Nick said it was very bad, and none of it might have happened if they hadn’t worked together that one time.
It was yet another reason Nick often felt cursed—people around him ended up suffering.
Suddenly she was very nervous about being here.
Bill Grey Hawk repeated what Jessie had reported, and Jessie filled in the details. To his credit, Charlie Bear (“I usually leave out the middle part.”) listened intently, his expression serious.
“I don’t like shit like this going down in my casino,” he said when she was finished. “I’ll keep my eyes open, and so will the crew. If you can describe them as much as possible, whatever you remember…”
“Definitely,” she said. As a doctor, she tended to be attentive and observant.
Meanwhile she noted that Grey Hawk had made a sour face when Charlie’s referred to the casino as his. But that was how all security people thought—they took things personally.
She described Johnny and Marty, and Charlie took careful notes on his iPhone, while Grey Hawk sat with a thoughtful look. When they were finished, Charlie said, “Bill, I’m going to write this up and send it to my team leaders to disseminate.”
Grey Hawk nodded. “Good, good.”
They shook hands all around and Charlie left, and then Jessie was following but Grey Hawk stopped her.
“If this is really going on,” he said, “we’ll stop it, don’t worry. I’m on it.”
“Good, Bill, thanks.”
Jessie left, wondering whether she should call Nick. Would it be best to leave him out of it, or would he want to know?
But if she told him, she’d have to admit having broken her promise and her therapy. If she hadn’t been in the casino, she wouldn’t have heard the conversation.
I’ll tell him only if I have to.
She noted that her taste for the mindless gambling seemed tainted for tonight, and she left the cavernous building behind without a second look.
Treewalker
He was just arriving home when his phone buzzed.
He pulled into his driveway and stepped on the brake, then reached for the phone. Coverage was spotty this far from the center of town, so he wanted to take the call even though he was tired and rather unwilling to get involved in any more arguments. He was already on the outs with the majority of the council and this was bound to be another one of those contentious calls questioning his intelligence and his motives.
Questioning why he would want to oppose every measure that could bring the tribe more revenue.
Oh, I don’t know, because this one’s real trouble…
He recognized the caller’s number, so he flicked the screen and answered. “Yeah, what now?” He’d apologize some other time. It was late, he was exhausted, and he’d spent half the day dancing with the same issue. He wanted a drink, a comfortable seat, maybe a little weed, and a movie, not necessarily in that order.
“Yes, I was there, remember? I don’t care what they say, it’s clear to me that some of you are either too naïve or you’ve convinced yourselves—lied to yourselves—that your way is what’s best for the tribe. I get it. But you aren’t—”
The voice squawked on the other end, not letting him finish. He sighed.
“True, I’m too young to remember when we didn’t—”
He waited for the caller to slow down so he could interject a word or two.
“Look, I really just want to get home right now,” he said, interrupting. “Can’t we discuss this at the next meeting?”
He waited again. Then: “I didn’t plan on becoming an obstacle, okay?”
In fact it had happened completely against his will. He’d been halfway through a tour in Afghanistan when shrapnel from an IED had taken out a chunk of his arm. By daily standards, he’d been lucky—the painful wound was not life-threatening, and he’d been rotated home. He had moved back to the rez when his last surviving relative, his grandfather, had passed away and left the new condominium to him. The building was one of the renovations begun after the casino had finally opened, doing well almost immediately. Before he knew it, he’d gone from almost prodigal son to tribal council member, mostly due to the fact that his grandfather had been a revered member to his dying day.
Now he waited for the perturbed voice to slow down again, but it was no use. Days like this, he wished he hadn’t returned at all. But the place had been his home, growing up, and now he felt some sort of obligation to try and improve it. The casino, against the odds, had begun to improve things. Conditions were improving noticeably, including Jessie Hawkins’s new hospital, new housing, new sewer facilities, a new power plant breaking ground soon…
William finally gave up. He clicked the call Off and slid the phone into his pocket. There, let him rant on to a dial tone. Did they have dial tones anymore?
He stopped at the door. It was slightly ajar.
William stopped to think. He’d closed and locked the door, hadn’t he, all those hours ago?
A tingling in the back of his neck reminded him of Kandahar, where it seemed he’d learned to live with the feeling that something was about to happen.
He pushed open the door silently.
Nothing.
The lights were off, as he had left them.
Cautiously now, and as silently as he could manage, he crept inside and left the door open. Slats of blue light made patterns across his carpeting and minimalistic furniture, some from the cathedral-high ceiling skylights and some from the tall triangular windows that reached all the way up to the peak of the building’s façade.
No sounds.
William waited a minute, then two, waiting to see if an intruder would show himself. He had a .40 Glock in a drawer, inaccessible to him right then. His eyes adjusted to the silvery gloom and he scanned the great room, checking the pockets of shadow cr
eated by the hutch, the dining room table and the narrow mission-style chairs huddled around it, the sofa…
He’d learned patience in the desert.
He stood, still as death, waiting. As he had done many long nights.
Nothing.
He started to relax. Surely someone who had broken in would have been flushed like quail by now. He turned, his hand reaching out for the light switch,
Two simultaneous things happened.
One, someone clamped his hand in a vise and pulled him off balance from outside the door.
Two, a bright beam of light blinded him.
They’d been hiding in the bushes outside.
There were two of them, and they slammed him against the wall hard and closed the door simultaneously. Pictures fell off their hooks and shattered on the foyer’s tile floor. William’s wound had weakened his arm and he found he had no strength to defend himself, because as soon as the back of his head cracked the plaster, the other thug placed a solid fist in his gut that stole his air in a whoosh. He couldn’t even raise his other fist, because the same guy who punched him did it again, so hard the blow lifted him off the floor. They let go simultaneously and he collapsed in a heap, gasping for air.
Then they took turns kicking him in the ribs, breaking him in half with each well-placed foot. They’d clearly done this often enough to have developed a system and a rhythm.
He felt a rib crack under the onslaught, then another. The jabbing pain inside his chest almost overwhelmed that which his booted feet caused on his skin and bones externally. All he could do was cover his face and head. They didn’t seem to be interested in either.
This is a message. They don’t want visible damage.
His brain was in slow-motion mode, so he tried to use it to get a good look at them.
Wolf's Cut (The Nick Lupo Series Book 5) Page 9