by Marc Daniel
Feeling it was time to change the subject, David asked, “So where’s your new motel?”
“At the corner of Rankin and Imperial Valley, not far from the airport,” answered Michael.
Katia made a mental note of this before orienting the discussion towards his job as a park ranger, and how he came to be so familiar with wolves.
**********
Katia took her leave as soon as her lunch was finished, leaving David and Michael alone and free to talk at last.
“Sorry about that… She called me an hour ago and insisted on having lunch, so I told her she could join us,” apologized David.
“No problem. It didn’t bother me,” replied Michael honestly.
The discussion was interrupted by the waiter bringing coffee for David and two desserts for Michael who hadn’t been able to choose between the tiramisu and the cannoli. Michael started on the cannoli as David was saying, “What we need is a link between Clemens and Ivanov. The fact you got attacked by the Russians a few days after visiting Clemens is definitely more than a coincidence, but that’s not going to be enough for a judge.”
“Especially since we don’t have anything linking either one of them to Steve’s murder!” said Michael, attacking the tiramisu.
“We know for a fact Clemens is behind that.” David sounded convinced.
“I don’t know about ‘knowing for a fact’, but it sure looks that way.”
“I don’t really care what Clemens goes down for, as long as he pays,” started David before lowering his voice to add, “I heard from an informant that Ivanov was expecting a large cocaine delivery Friday evening.”
The statement caught Michael’s attention. He replaced his spoon on the plate that still held half a piece of tiramisu and asked, “Do you know where?”
“Port of Houston. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ivanov had asked Clemens to help guarantee the shipment’s safety.”
“Is your source reliable?”
“Most of the time…”
Michael pondered the information as he finished his tiramisu. “Maybe we should go check it out for ourselves,” he said finally.
“I was just going to propose that,” said David with a smile. “We can go take a look, just the two of us. To assess the situation if you will…and we can call backup as needed. What do you think?”
“You are reading my mind.”
As they were exiting the restaurant, David took a phone out of his pocket and gave it to Michael who just looked at it as if he had never seen one before.
“I’d like you to keep it with you,” said David.
“I don’t do cell phones.” Michael handed it back to David.
“Listen, Michael, given the situation, I believe it would be useful to both of us if we can be reached at any moment.” David spoke in what he hoped was a convincing but non-commanding tone. He knew praeternatural creatures did not typically take orders well. There was always some type of power play involved.
Michael considered the argument for a minute before shoving the phone into his pocket.
“You’re right.”
Chapter 55
The ground under her feet was spongy and wet and the air smelled of damp wood and decaying vegetation. It had been years since Olivia last visited Sam Houston National Forest. She had been a junior in high school at the time and had come with a boyfriend on a day trip. She remembered it vividly; it had been a sunny, merry day.
The circumstances of today’s trip to the forest could not have possibly differed more from those of her last visit. She had found Peter Clemens’ name and location jotted on some list Michael Biörn had kept in one of his hotel room’s drawer. The whole list had been cryptic to say the least, stating among other things that the police had been infiltrated by wolves, and referring to Clemens as the Alpha… Since Clemens’ name and location were the only lead she had so far, she had decided to come and take a look at the alleged “pack headquarters”.
She wasn’t really sure what she should be looking for… cages, a pen filled with murderous wolves in the backyard, or what?
She had parked her car on one of the trailhead parking lots a couple miles from Clemens’ cabin and had followed the dirt road that led to it. She walked alongside the road, thirty feet into the woods, less chance to be noticed that way. She wore hiking boots, shorts, a lightweight shirt and a small backpack containing water, a camera, and binoculars. In addition to being functional, the attire made her look like any other hiker roaming the woods.
The road was now opening onto a clearing with a house in the center—presumably Clemens’. There was no car in the driveway and no visible sign of life inside the house, but Olivia decided to stay under the cover of the trees, just in case. She pulled out the binoculars from her backpack in the hope of using them to peer inside the house, but the windows were treated and didn’t allow anything but light to penetrate their impervious barrier.
Frustrated, Olivia decided to check out the house perimeter in hope to find some clue of wolf activity. She replaced the binoculars in her pack and started slowly circling the house while carefully staying a few feet outside the outskirt of the clearing.
She completed her circle and found herself on the other side of the dirt road without finding the slightest indication of the presence of wolves. Whatever reason Michael had for believing this place was linked to the wolves’ attacks had to be inside the house, and therefore out of her reach.
Her train of thought was interrupted by the sound of a car coming up the dirt road. She slowly retreated a few steps deeper into the woods and crouched down. Her heart was racing, and she could feel sweat from her armpits running down her body. As the driver parked the vehicle in the driveway, she felt a wave of relief shortly followed by a feeling of disappointment. The car belonged to a cleaning company. The “Houston Dirt Removers” according to the sign plastered on the driver’s door. She probably did not have much to fear from the hundred-pound woman who had gotten out of the car and was now pulling a vacuum cleaner out of her trunk, but she wouldn’t learn anything useful from her either. Olivia simply needed to get inside the house. There was no way around it.
Chapter 56
It was nearing 10 p.m. and the cleaning lady was long gone when Katia arrived at Clemens’ house. An underling she didn’t know had answered the door and he led Katia to the living room where Peter, his wife Isabella and the pack’s second in command, Karl Wilson, were debating the upcoming mid-term elections. They all had drinks in their hands, a beer for Karl and scotch for the Clemenses. Another beer stood on the coffee table in front of an empty chair. The underling grabbed the bottle from the table before returning to his seat, leaving Katia the only standing person in the room. This would have been awkward in any situation and was even more so amongst werewolves for whom a lower stance was a sign of submission, but Katia was no threat to them, and they did not care whether she stood or lay down on the hardwood floor.
She had been standing there a good minute before Peter stopped ignoring her and finally acknowledged her presence. “Katia, grab a drink and come sit with us, we’re all eager to hear what you have to say,” he said, with a benevolent smile on his face.
Katia went to the bar and poured herself a glass of water before sitting in an empty chair facing the couch where the husband and wife were sitting.
“I heard you were able to gather a bit more information about our Michael Biörn,” said Peter.
Katia took a sip from her glass before answering, “As you already know, he is a park ranger in Yellowstone National Park and he’s in Houston at the request of the now deceased Steve Harrington, the Houston PD lieutenant who was in charge of Chief Deputy Sullivan’s murder investigation.”
She paused for an instant and took another sip from her glass. She didn’t like to be in this house. This place was dangerous for both her career and her life, which was why she only showed up late at night, when her presence was the least likely to be noticed. She would have much rather bee
n in David Starks’ bed, but she didn’t have the choice. What the Alpha wanted the Alpha got, and she was not in a position to argue.
“Biörn has been a ranger in Yellowstone since ninety-four,” resumed Katia in a slightly trembling voice that betrayed her nervousness. “Prior to that he was an army ranger, which is where he met Steve Harrington. Apparently the two of them got in hot water in Somalia and were the sole survivors of their recon team.”
“I am shocked the Somali army could not take Biörn down,” interrupted Karl sarcastically.
Katia shot him a murderous look to which he replied with a smile that looked more threatening than friendly. Karl had never forgiven Katia for rejecting him. They had dated for a few months and he had been the one who had introduced her to Clemens. She had known from the very beginning of their relationship that Karl was different. One evening, she had been invited to a gathering at Clemens’ cabin and she had been shown the true nature of the wolves. She had displayed all the signs of hysteria before Isabella and another woman had finally managed to calm her down. Karl had been in love with Katia and had wanted to take her as his mate, but he had been forced by Clemens to reveal his secret to her before proposing.
In a state of panic, Katia had rejected him, which was when things had gotten complicated. Since she knew their secret, and refused to join them, she should have been executed, but Clemens had anticipated her refusal and had come up with an alternative.
He had never understood what the two of them were doing together in the first place. Karl was well built and had the magnetic charisma usually associated with werewolves, but Katia was still out of his league. They also disagreed on most issues and had opposite tastes in just about everything. Clemens had therefore predicted Katia’s rejection and agreed to Karl’s request only because he saw the value of having a mole in the District Attorney’s office.
After rejecting Karl, Katia had been offered a choice between death and becoming a spy for the pack. She had chosen spying.
“I could not find any trace of him prior to eighty-nine when he joined the Army,” resumed Katia in an apologetic voice. “Without an open investigation against him, I cannot access the type of documents I would need to run a full background check. So I’m afraid this is about as much as I can tell you from a background standpoint.”
“What else can you tell us besides background then?” asked Peter in a slightly irritated voice.
“He befriended David Starks, the cop I am dating,” she added, with just enough emphasis on the word “dating” to tick Karl off. “I had lunch with them yesterday, and I can tell you which motel he’s staying at.”
“Now that’s the type of information we can use,” answered Clemens with a grin.
Chapter 57
At two in the morning, the Port of Houston was about as deserted as it would get. David and Michael had been walking quietly from dock to dock in a furtive search of the vast premises for the better part of the night, and they were starting to wonder about the veracity of the information David had received.
As they were heading towards dock seven for the second time of the evening, Michael stopped David with a peremptory gesture of his hand.
“We have some activity over there,” he said, pointing vaguely ahead of him.
“I don’t see anything,” answered David in a low voice.
“Neither do I, but they’re there all right, at least a half dozen men.”
“Are you telling me you can smell them?” asked David, but Michael simply ignored the question: a silence the detective interpreted as a yes.
“Let’s walk around these containers,” whispered Michael. “That should give us a view of the dock without being too much in the open.”
The two men walked silently towards a grid formed by forty-foot-long shipping containers facing dock seven. As they stealthily made their way through the maze of containers, voices started to invade the silence of the night. Faint at first, the voices quickly grew into full-blown discussions in a language Michael identified as Russian.
The last row of cargo containers stood parallel to dock seven, about twenty yards from the water. Crouched to the side of one of them, Michael and David were hiding in its shadow projected by the dock’s dim lighting. Their position offered a vantage view of the bustle both on and off the docked cargo ship. Men could be seen walking back and forth along the vessel, while others paced up and down the ship’s main bridge. Most of them carried Kalashnikov assault rifles, easily identifiable by their curved magazines.
“They are waiting on a truck,” whispered Michael in David’s ear.
“You speak Russian?” asked David, the whispering mostly masking the surprise in his voice.
Michael simply nodded in answer. Ten centuries was more than enough time to fully master a good dozen languages, and Russian was not as difficult as people thought. Chinese and Arabic, on the other hand…
“I am not seeing any wolves,” said Michael in the same low voice.
“Could you recognize them from here?” David sounded slightly doubtful. Michael, unperturbed, nodded.
“Shit!” swore David under his breath. “So much for linking Clemens to the mob… We should call for reinforcement now. If the wolves aren’t around, there is no point tackling this on our own.”
Michael agreed, and they started retreating to a safe distance in order to call for backup without running the risk of being heard by the sentinels. As they approached the third row of containers, two men suddenly appeared in front of them, their Kalashnikovs aimed at Michael’s and David’s chests. The men had been downwind from their position and Michael had not picked up their scent.
Moving at a speed no mere human could have ever matched, Michael shoved David to the side before rushing towards the two Russians. A bullet grazed his right arm and another pierced his left side before exiting through his back, but that did not even slow him down. Within one second, Michael was on the two men. He grabbed the two guns simultaneously by the barrels and ripped them out of the men’s grips. The motion sent the sentinels flying forward and before they had a chance to spin around to face their assailant, Michael grabbed both their heads and smashed them together. He had meant to simply knock them out, but the sinister cracking sound the heads made on impact told him he still needed to work on his restraint.
He walked towards David who was just getting back on his feet after being projected ten feet to the side.
“Are you OK?” he asked.
“I feel like I was just hit by a train, but I don’t think I have anything broken.”
The gunshots had raised the alarm and the steps of running men could be heard getting closer by the second.
“Call for backup and hide,” ordered Michael, picking up the two rifles from the ground. “I’ll slow them down.”
He handed a weapon to the detective. “Do you know how to use this?”
David nodded and grabbed the weapon.
Chapter 58
The room was dark, and Sheila Wang did not realize right away she was not lying in her own bed. Her head throbbed painfully with each heartbeat, and her jaw ached terribly when she tried opening her mouth. Now that she thought of it, her entire body was in pain.
She suddenly became aware of a faint green glow originating somewhere on her left and she tried turning her head towards it to investigate, but something prevented her. Had she been in a car accident? She could not remember anything like that, but maybe she was suffering from amnesia…
At the price of a painful intensive effort, she rose on her right elbow and slowly turned her upper body towards the light. The glow was coming from a hospital monitor whose wires disappeared under her sleeve. She followed the wires to find a couple of electrodes attached directly to her chest. This discovery confirmed the suspicion that had been slowly seeping through her subconscious. “I am in a hospital.”
And then she remembered it all: her morning run at Memorial Park, the two men who had ambushed her, her sports bra being cut off
her, and the beating… In a sudden panic, she wondered if they had raped her. She could not remember anything about it, but they could have done it after she had passed out… The anxiety attack replaced the pain with a heavy weight on her chest, so she could barely breathe. She felt as if someone had placed her lungs in a vice and were squeezing the oxygen out of them.
She fumbled for the call button invisible in the room twilight, finally found it, and pressed it continuously until a nurse appeared in the room, a concerned look on her face. With graying hair falling onto light-blue scrubs, the woman looked to be in her mid-fifties.
“You’ve finally woken up,” she said, with a well-practiced sympathetic smile.
Sheila tried to speak, but the words choked in her throat. Her mouth was as dry as a desert and the pain in her jaw prevented her from articulating any sound.
“Calm down, sweetie,” said the nurse. “Your jaw was dislocated and it is going to be painful for the next few days.”
Sheila swallowed and the pain caused by the effort brought tears to her eyes.
“Don’t try to speak, I’ll tell you what’s going on and if you still have questions after that, you’ll write them down,” said the nurse, who had clearly had some experience with patients coming out of comas. Sheila closed her eyes for a second to indicate her agreement.
“The doctor is on his way; he’ll come and see how you are doing. You were brought here in a coma Tuesday morning. It is now Friday night, so you were only out for a little over three days. That’s usually a good sign,” said the nurse with a warm smile. “A runner found you unconscious in Memorial Park and called an ambulance. It would seem that you were attacked, but you have only a couple of broken ribs and a dislocated jaw to worry about; everything else is superficial.”
The nurse must have seen the anguish in Sheila’s eyes, because she quickly added, “We have no reason to believe you were sexually abused. No bruising in that region and the rape kit didn’t show anything at all.”