SHADOW PACK (Michael Biörn Book 1)

by Marc Daniel

  Michael grunted in agreement.

  “What we need to find out is a motive. If we understand why the first wolf killing took place, we’ll have solved the puzzle,” resumed Sheila.

  Michael still wasn’t convinced, but he did not voice his doubts. “Steve and David were working on a series of cop assassinations, and they thought Chief Deputy Sullivan’s murder was probably related to those.”

  “I know, I wrote a piece about this implicating the mob. And since Ivanov’s goons sent me to the hospital shortly thereafter, there might have been some truth in it…” commented Sheila, mechanically rubbing her recently mended ribs.

  “We need to find out everything we can about these other murders, and maybe then we’ll be able to find a motive,” said Michael thoughtfully.

  “I think your buddy David Starks would be a great asset in this matter…”

  Chapter 123

  The small army had made it to the rallying point an hour before sunrise and had waited there in silence. None of the men were expert navigators, but with the advent of GPS navigation, anyone with half a brain could get to a designated point nowadays.

  With the exception of the lieutenants, easily identifiable in their black commando suits, the men wore camouflage army fatigues. Their faces were painted in black and green and only their weapons gave away their nonmilitary affiliation. A few of them had heavy duty M-16A1 assault rifles equipped with 40-millimeter grenade launchers, but the bulk of the group was armed with Russian AK-47s, the cheap, versatile, and reliable assault rifle favored around the world by rebels, regular armies, and terrorist groups alike.

  In agreement with Ivanov’s orders, every shell in every clip was equipped with silver-head bullets, an expensive and mostly useless precaution. The mobster was under the misconception that silver bullets could kill werewolves more surely than regular bullets… an urban legend! Granted, silver being harder and therefore less malleable than lead, silver bullet fired at short range might have a more damaging impact than their lead counterparts, but the armor-piercing steel or tungsten versions would still have been a better and much cheaper option.

  Ivanov had given clear instructions to wait for daylight before launching the assault, for he knew the wolves had better night vision than humans. He also knew the wolves would be more likely to detect the incoming strike force if his men were to wait for sunrise too close to the Houston pack HQ. Therefore, following their boss’s orders, the fifty-odd men had waited for the break of dawn to start walking the final mile to their target.

  The forest was still doused in the early morning light when Ivanov’s men took their positions at the edge of the clearing, completely surrounding Clemens’ cabin.

  Chapter 124

  Lucy Harrington arrived at the precinct six police station shortly after 8 a.m. and walked straight into David Starks’ office, only to find it empty. She sank into one of the only two chairs not covered with files and started crying silently, alone in the austere room. After three days spent looking for her sister in every possible place and interviewing everyone who had even a remote chance of knowing Olivia’s whereabouts, Lucy had finally come to accept the fact her sister had disappeared and that she wouldn’t be able to find her on her own.

  She was still crying a few minutes later when David walked in, holding a steaming cup of coffee. The detective hadn’t seen Lucy since the funeral, and he didn’t recognize her right away without the huge sunglasses the young woman had sported then.

  Recognizing her dad’s old partner standing in the doorway, she said in a sob, “Olivia has disappeared.”

  The name jolted David’s memory. “Lucy? I didn’t know you were still in town. I had heard you’d gone back to college.”

  “I had… I just got back into town three days ago. I couldn’t reach Olivia and I started worrying. I came back to look for her, but I still can’t find her anywhere and I am afraid something happ—” replied Lucy, breaking into an uncontrollable sob in mid-sentence.

  The detective extended a box of tissues towards the crying woman and waited patiently for her to regain enough composure to continue her story.

  “Olivia never mentioned she was planning to take a trip,” resumed Lucy, making a visible effort to keep her sniveling under control. “She’s all I have left. If something happened to her—”

  Not knowing what else to do, David placed a comforting hand on the weeping woman’s shoulder and waited for her tears to run out.

  **********

  Unable to bear the idea of sleeping in the house where her parents had been murdered, Lucy had decided to stay with a friend while in Houston. Sitting on the floor in the middle of the living room, she dialed Michael’s cell phone number for the fourth time in less than an hour and, for the fourth time, the call went straight to voicemail. Growing increasingly frustrated with her lack of progress, Lucy hung up and angrily threw her phone on the couch. It bounced back and barely missed the coffee table before landing on the living room rug in one piece.

  After filling out the paperwork to initiate a police investigation of Olivia’s disappearance, David had given Michael’s phone number to Lucy. The young woman had been trying to get in touch with the ranger ever since, and at every failed attempt she was shedding a few more tears. She had been crying on and off all day, and her puffed-up eyes were black with smeared mascara.

  Suddenly, she remembered the detective mentioning Michael’s return to Yellowstone and went to pick up her smartphone from the carpet. After a couple minutes of online searching, she dialed Yellowstone National Park’s information and asked for Michael’s landline number. Unfortunately, the lady on the phone apologetically explained this was not the type of information she could give out to the public.

  “Could you at least pass on a message? It is very important…” said Lucy, sounding just desperate enough for the woman to agree.

  She had expected to wait several hours for Michael to call her back, but five minutes later her phone was already ringing.

  “Hello?”

  “Lucy? Hi, this is Michael Biörn speaking. I believe you were trying to get a hold of me?”

  “Yes, yes I was,” said Lucy eagerly. “Is my sister with you?”

  “No…” answered Michael, not at all liking the direction the conversation was taking. “Why would she be with me?”

  He heard Lucy explode in sobs on the other end of the line and waited for her to calm down.

  “She’s gone missing,” Lucy managed to say after a minute. “I’ve had no news from her in a week and we usually talk every day…”

  Chapter 125

  No light was visible inside the house, and Igor Petrovich hoped their enemies were still sound asleep. Ivanov had asked him to lead the attack against Clemens’ organization, and since Igor was not an idiot, the boss had been forced to explain to his lieutenant why silver bullets were necessary for the job. Although Petrovich had long suspected Clemens’ involvement in the wolf attacks, his logical brain refused to accept the absurd werewolf stories that had escaped from Ivanov’s mouth. Maybe Clemens’ men truly believed they were wolves and fought as such, or maybe they used trained wolves as weapons… The killings in Houston had been all over the news lately, and although the journalists had wrongly accused the mob of being behind the series of assassination, they could have had the rest of the story right…

  Every member of the large execution squad was equipped with a radio headset to facilitate communications. When Petrovich gave the signal, the men located on the south side of the house dropped to the ground, while the men on the north side stood and started opening fire. Bullets poured out of their automatic weapons for a full minute, turning the cabin’s north siding into Swiss cheese. Still following their lieutenant’s orders, the men on the north side ceased fire and lay flat on the ground while their southern counterparts stood up and in turn opened fire. This strategy was aimed at targeting every possible angle of the house without suffering casualties from friendly crossfire.

>   Soon the south siding was equally well ventilated as the north one and Petrovich ordered a ceasefire. He had not expected werewolves to storm out of the house to tear his men to pieces, but after observing that absolutely no one—and nothing— had made a run for it, he felt slightly disappointed.

  Given the look of the bullet-riddled building, it was doubtful anything could have survived the assault, but he still sent a dozen men inside the house to go investigate and confirm the success of the mission. The recon team had not been inside the cabin thirty seconds when terror screams erupted over the com system. The shrilling was short-lived and soon silence returned. Petrovich, convinced his scouting team was dead, ordered his men to resume fire and this time the use of the M16-A1 grenade launchers was strongly encouraged.

  Pieces of hardiplank and sheet rock flew everywhere as the structural integrity of the building started to fail. Before the house had a chance to collapse, a group of gigantic blood-covered wolves exploded out of it and rushed towards Igor’s men who did not wait for his authorization to open fire on the beasts. The monsters were impossibly fast and agile, however, and it was simply impossible to keep an aim on them. They dodged most bullets and the ones that actually reached them didn’t seem to slow them down in the slightest. They were on Petrovich’s group in an instant, ripping throats and stomachs open as if they were made of paper. Before long, the beasts were the only ones left standing on the bloody battleground.

  After making sure there wasn’t a single enemy left alive, the great black wolf who had led the onslaught let out a long howl and took off running towards the woods. The trees soon swallowed his silhouette, but none of his wolves made a move to follow him—they knew better. They, too, had seen the mangled body of the Alpha’s mate lying amidst the rubble of their house. Isabella had been on the receiving end of a grenade and hadn’t survived the detonation.

  Chapter 126

  “I had lunch with Salinger today,” announced Salazar conversationally.

  “Eastside Salinger?” enquired Lewis. Her partner nodded.

  “How are things going over there?” she asked, maneuvering her way between lanes of traffic. There was never a good time for traffic on the 610 loop, but 5.30 p.m. was definitely one of the worst.

  “Same shit, different place…” replied Salazar cynically. “He’s working the murder of a smalltime crook nicknamed The Chemist, who was found floating in the Port of Houston a few days ago.”

  “Was the guy’s real name Victor Grey?” asked Lewis, suddenly interested.

  Ed Salazar thought about it for a second before answering, “Mmh, I think so. Why? Did you know the guy?”

  The rain, which up to now had only been a drizzle, started pouring heavily on the already saturated freeway.

  Most of these morons already can’t drive on dry roads, this is definitely going to help clear up traffic, thought Samantha Lewis. She answered, “Yeah, I knew the guy. He was a small fish himself, but he worked for pretty big ones. I busted him once when I worked in narcotics, but he ratted his way out of the slammer.”

  She slammed on her brakes as the file of cars in front of her came to a complete stop.

  “Looks like we’re going to be here a while,” she said, exasperated.

  “Who did he rat out?” asked Salazar.

  “Some bigtime dealer, but it’s been twelve years and I doubt anyone would remember the guy. It was before the Russians’ era, when the Italians were still running the show.”

  Salazar meditated his partner’s answer while looking at the rain bouncing off the hood of the car beside them. “Do you think The Chemist’s death could have something to do with Ivanov or our case?”

  “Victor had supposedly retired from the drug-processing business, but you know how these guys are…” answered Lewis thoughtfully. “I suppose he could very well have been back in business, and since Ivanov controls the drug trafficking across the city… there is a chance, although slight, that Victor’s death could be related to our headache.”

  Chapter 127

  The ground surrounding the house was littered with the dismembered bodies of Ivanov’s defeated army. The mercenaries’ blood had seeped through the clearing’s ground to form a macabre patchwork with the fallen tree leaves. Here and there, small patchy clouds of fog hung in the air like ethereal ghosts, further increasing the surreal atmosphere.

  Karl Wilson, a woman, and six other men David Starks did not recognize were standing in silence in front of the house. The group looked utterly disheveled and wore ragged clothes, torn to pieces by what David assumed had been unplanned morphing.

  The detective had surveyed the mobsters’ bodies for teeth or claw marks, but he hadn’t found anything truly definitive. Numerous bodies were riddled with bullet wounds to the point of being torn to shreds. David suspected the wolves had shot the bodies postmortem to erase all traces of their true fate. If it were the case, they had been very thorough in their work.

  Since the lab team had already finished taking pictures and sampling whatever they felt needed to be checked out, David notified the team from the coroner’s office that they could start taking away the bodies. He then walked towards what was left of the Houston pack to try and figure out what exactly had happened, and, more importantly, where the hell Peter Clemens was.

  Chapter 128

  The flight had been bumpy and Sheila had felt sick for a good half of the trip. Once she started feeling better, she had been in a chatty mood, but Michael wasn’t, and despite all her attempts she had been unable to obtain more than monosyllables out of her boyfriend who appeared once again lost in thoughts. Boyfriend… she wondered. Was this how Michael saw their relationship? They had been intimate a few times and he seemed to appreciate her company as much as she enjoyed his, but did he consider her his girlfriend? She would have paid a lot of money to know what was going on in that brain of his, and to know how much room Isibel was still occupying.

  The plane landed in Houston with only a five-minute delay, and Michael and Sheila drove straight to the friend’s apartment where Lucy was staying to meet with the young woman. Lucy was glad to see Michael, but she didn’t seem to have much more to tell him than what she had already disclosed over the phone.

  Michael asked about the last few discussions Lucy had with her sister in the hope Olivia would have mentioned something which, although seemingly irrelevant at the time, could now shed some light on her disappearance. Unfortunately, nothing Lucy recalled appeared remotely useful, and Michael quickly realized he knew more about the situation than Lucy did. He refrained, however, from mentioning this to the young woman.

  During his last discussion with Olivia, she had confessed to taking a maid job in order to get access to Clemens’ house. Michael had warned her of the risks she was taking and demanded she never returned to Clemens’, but the discussion had turned into an argument and it had been the last time he had talked with Olivia.

  He now strongly suspected Clemens was involved in the woman’s disappearance, but he did not know what to do about it. Although the pack had suffered major losses during their last confrontation in Yellowstone, there were still enough of them left to be a problem. Michael could not count on any help from his furry relatives this time, so he decided it was time to touch base with David Starks and see if the detective could help.

  Chapter 129

  Forty-five minutes of questioning hadn’t enlightened David Starks very much regarding the exact circumstances of the bloodbath. Karl Wilson had been the only one answering his questions while the others had simply agreed to every statement made by the pack’s second in command.

  According to Wilson, Peter Clemens had not been around when the small army had given the assault, and no one knew where he was. Nobody seemed to know who the men were who had attacked them or why they had tried to kill them.

  When David had asked how such a small group had been able to defeat such an overwhelming force, Wilson had simply invoked luck and God’s protection of the innocents.


  Because the evidence was so heavily indicating that the pack had acted in self-defense when they had decimated the fifty heavily armed men, David could not arrest any of them. Of course they had lied to him over and over again, but you could not arrest someone for suspecting them of lying. In addition, he already knew the answers to the most important questions: Peter Clemens was still alive, Isabella was dead, and there was no doubt in the detective’s mind that the strike force had been sent by Ivanov.

  Chapter 130

  Ed Salazar was standing in Katia Olveda’s living room trying not to stare too much at the assistant DA’s particularly low-cut silk blouse.

  “Where is your partner?” asked Katia casually.

  “She had some other business to attend, so I told her I’d come alone to not waste any time,” lied Salazar. Lewis was actually waiting for him in a coffee house a block away. She had simply refused to come and ask a favor from the woman she typically referred to as The Slut.

  “I see,” replied Katia, clearly unconvinced. “So, what is the emergency?”

  “We need a warrant to search Peter Clemens’ property.”

  “Why do you need to search his property? From what I hear, there isn’t much left of his house anyway. It would seem someone decided to use it for target practice.”

  Salazar brushed some imaginary dust off his sleeve before answering. “Detective Starks informed us an hour ago that a clump of hair he had found nearby Clemens’ cabin and had analyzed by the lab actually belonged to a Danko Jovanovich. A bookie for the Russian mob who went missing six weeks ago. The hair sample also had traces of Danko’s blood. We were suspecting Ivanov’s involvement in the wolf attacks, but we had no tangible evidence to go by—”