Blue Curse (Blue Wolf Book 1)

by Brad Magnarella

  I looked over the cube’s strange inscribings. An almond-like smell emanated from the dark wood.

  “If there was magic in the cube once, I sense none now,” Nafid said. “But a few minutes ago, in a moment of clarity, she insisted you take it. She said you would need the cube in your battle.”

  “Please thank her for me.”

  Nafid nodded as she walked past me but then hesitated in the doorway.

  “You should know something, Jason. As long as my great-grandmother lives, I can reach the Great Wolf through the portal she created—even if she cannot. I can perform the da’vat ceremony. I can see to it that the bargain is fulfilled. But should Baba perish, so too will the portal. Neither I nor any of my sisters will have a way to reach the Great Wolf. Meaning that even if you kill the White Dragon, you will remain the Blue Wolf.”

  20

  “It can’t be done, boss,” Segundo said, shaking his head. “Not in the kind of timeframe you’re talking.”

  It was four hours later, and my split team had returned from the mountains along with the wolves. I’d been on the radio for a chunk of that time, arranging for a Chinook to airlift Parker’s body and deliver the village a large supply of food, medicine, building materials, and weaponry.

  While that percolated through the channels, I had used Hotwire’s computer to send a situation report, in which I described the attack as the work of the Mujahideen. I explained that Parker had become separated while pursuing the enemy into the mountains. We’d found him early this morning, frozen and succumbed to hypothermia. It was the first time I had ever lied in a report, but the truth would only get me pulled for a comprehensive medical eval.

  And that was the biggest challenge right now: getting anywhere without the military seeing me.

  “Easy there,” I said to Segundo, irritation heating my words. “This is a brainstorming session. I’m asking for ideas, not roadblocks. And right now, Mauli’s idea has the best chance of getting me to New York.”

  According to Mauli, the military physicians in Waristan were so overburdened that they were signing off on medics’ orders without reading them. Mauli’s idea was to diagnose me with a malignant skin condition and then write an order that I be transferred to a VA hospital in New York that specialized in such conditions. He would get a physician at the main operating base to sign the stat order. Wrapped head to toe, I would be lifted out with Mauli escorting me.

  “Look, I’m not trying to be a dick,” Segundo said. “All I’m telling you is that even if you did get the order, you’d still be on the military’s timetable. That’s going to mean a ton of stops, a lot of waiting. You remember what happened when they sent Donnie out? It’ll be a week by the time you set foot in New York.”

  I turned to Mauli for his opinion.

  “I mean … he could be right,” my medic hedged.

  “Great,” I muttered.

  “I’m telling you,” Segundo added. “This isn’t the military of ten years ago. It’s stretched really damn thin, which helps with the order thing, but we’re still talking fewer planes, fewer flights…”

  “Unless you booked with Centurion,” Hotwire cut in.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Is that supposed to be funny? Centurion is the reason we’re in this mess.”

  Hotwire showed his hands. “Hey, if time and discretion are the issues, then Centurion is an option. That’s all I’m saying. They fly direct with mid-air refueling. You’d never have to disembark until you reached your destination. It will cost you a shitload, but it’s the surest bet.”

  “How do you even know this?” I asked.

  “I hack encrypted frequencies in my spare time. Just last month a soldier wanted out, some senator’s kid. The military wouldn’t release him, so his dad paid Centurion’s transport division to include the kid on a cargo flight to his home state. I eavesdropped on the whole thing.”

  As Hotwire’s commanding officer, I didn’t want to hear about his illegal activities. But times had changed.

  “Seems like a huge risk to their contract,” I said.

  Segundo blew a raspberry with his lips. “Centurion has taken over half the war. They could drop a bomb on the Presidential Palace on Monday, say ‘oops’ on Tuesday, and by Wednesday Congress and the Centurion lobbyists would be laughing about it over cocktails. They do whatever the hell they want.”

  “They’re not gonna help someone who cracked one of their rep’s faces in half,” I said.

  Segundo shook his head. “Different departments, man. Transport probably doesn’t even know, much less care, about what happened to Baine.” He snorted. “Look who’s throwing up roadblocks now.”

  “And, hell, I can disguise your digital identity,” Hotwire said.

  “I think we should exhaust all options before even thinking about Centurion,” I said thinly.

  “Captain.” Segundo leveled his dark Colombian eyes at me. “There are no other options.”

  I dragged a hand through the thick hair between my ears and paced the room. I pictured waves of armed kobold mercenaries storming the valley, a fleet of white dragons flying overhead. With or without the Blue Wolf, the Kabadi wouldn’t stand a chance. All remnants of the Great Wolf would be wiped out, possibly casting the world into darkness. I needed to reach the White Dragon before he secured the money for his army. And, yeah, before the old woman passed on and I lost my future with Daniela. I stopped pacing and turned toward the team.

  “How much are we talking?”

  “It cost the senator fifty-five,” Hotwire said.

  “Thousand? Yeah, well, I don’t have that kind of dough, so we can scratch that option.”

  “Do you have five thousand?” Segundo asked.

  “I doubt they’re going to let me pay on an installment plan.”

  “Yes or no.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Good,” he said, then looked around. “Who else has five thousand? Savings, retirement, home equity?” He raised his own hand. When the rest of the team’s hands went up, I saw what he was doing.

  I shook my head. “I can’t take your money.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll never see our money,” Segundo said with a smirk. “It’s going straight to Centurion—as much as that fucking burns. Look, man, the White Dragon killed a brother. And he’s damn sure not getting off on the technicality of the rest of us being cheapskates. We want as much skin in the game as you, and if we can’t be there, it means contributing to the ‘Grease the Dragon’ fund. That’s how Team 5 rolls.” As whoops went up, he turned to Hotwire. “Call Centurion Transport and get Wolfe on the next flight to New York.”

  “Hold it,” I said, showing Hotwire a hand. I turned toward Segundo. Suspicion prickled through me as I thought back to Team 5’s return the day before. Something wasn’t adding up. “Colonel Stanick didn’t send Team 5 back to support me and Parker, did he?”

  Segundo furrowed his brow. “What are you talking about?”

  Though he looked convincing, I caught a souring of his scent. The rest of the room went quiet. Too quiet. When I looked around, a few of the team members averted their gazes.

  I nodded knowingly. “He sent you to extract us.”

  “You really think we’d blow off an order from Colonel Stanick?” Segundo asked.

  “The rest of the team, maybe not. You? Absolutely.”

  Segundo’s jaw clenched as if he were about to launch into a defense of his innocence, but then he sighed and threw his hands up. “Stanick said the situation was too unstable. After consulting with CENTCOM, he decided to pull out and reassess. So yeah, he sent us to extract you.”

  I shook my head. “You should have told him I refused and then returned to base.”

  “We put it to a vote,” Segundo said. “Help you fight the White Dragon or leave you here on your own. It was unanimous. And before you go beating yourself up, Parker was as vocal as any of us.”

  The rest of the team grunted in agreement, but I quieted them with a yellow gl
are. “A vote?” I said. “We’re not a high school debate team deciding what color tie to wear to the state meet. This is the military. We don’t do votes. We follow a chain of command.”

  “Team comes first,” Segundo said defiantly. “And I’d do it again.”

  “This is your future!” I roared. “Do you think you’re going to get into OCS after this?”

  “If we get you back, I could give a rat’s ass,” he said. “This is your future too. And I’m sorry, but when I introduce my kids to you some day, I don’t want them screaming in fucking terror.”

  I frowned at Segundo’s attempted humor and paced the front of the room again. I was angry because of what had happened to Parker. Angry at myself. I had put my team in an impossible position. Of course their first line of loyalty was going to be to me, a brother in trouble. That’s the way Spec Ops units were designed to function. But this was bigger than me now. To be fair, it was also bigger than the U.S. military and the “Never-Ending War.” The wolf in me knew this even if it made little rational sense.

  My team was watching me, awaiting my next words. I turned to Hotwire and nodded.

  “Contact Centurion,” I said.

  I jolted upright, the strong smell of airplane fuel filling my nostrils, and realized the plane was no longer airborne, but speeding down a runway. The landing must have awakened me. I checked my watch. Twelve hours since liftoff. That was about right.

  Hotwire’s intel had been good. Centurion Transport dealt in flights for the right price. He talked them down to an even fifty thousand, and with fifty percent up front—money he transferred electronically from our accounts—he secured a seat for me on a flight leaving in four hours. That done, I’d radioed Pete, asking for a second favor in almost as many days: getting me a lift to Centurion’s airfield.

  At the airfield, I was escorted by a member of the flight crew up the bay door and into the cargo hold. To conceal myself, I wore a bulky flight suit, a scarf, and a mask that Mauli had made for me using bandages and medical tape so that I looked like a soldier recovering from a head wound. No one asked any questions, except if I needed to use the bathroom before takeoff.

  As I settled in, I tried not to think about the fact I was leaving my team behind, minus Parker, or that they were jeopardizing their military careers to cover for me. Segundo would be sending periodic communications up the chain that insurgent attacks were frustrating my extraction. There was no telling how long that charade would hold, but my focus needed to be on my mission. Not on my teammates, not on Daniela, who had no idea where I was or what I was doing, not on the fact I was going AWOL on a one-way flight to the States.

  I would face the consequences when the White Dragon was dead. As my former captain used to say, in war it was often easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

  I spent part of the flight using my laptop and the plane’s Wi-Fi to search for information on the man the White Dragon had gone to meet. Wang “Bashi” Gang headed New York’s Chinatown mafia, an organization known as the White Hand. I found several stories dealing with Bashi’s brutal rise to power, including accounts of him torturing and killing his own siblings in order to succeed his father, who had died a few years earlier. Bashi brought the same brutality into his reign as kingpin as he grew the White Hand’s influence and territory. In addition to extortion, prostitution, and weapons dealing, the White Hand was involved in a major drug network that extended up and down the East Coast.

  Hence the White Dragon’s interest in Bashi as a buyer.

  I couldn’t find anything on where this Bashi was headquartered, though, which meant I was going to have to pick up the White Dragon’s scent somewhere in Chinatown’s fifty square blocks.

  As the plane taxied to a stop, I unbuckled the harness that strapped me into my seat in the cargo hold and let out a monstrous yawn. I’d only managed a few hours sleep the last three days and was beginning to feel the strain.

  Checking to make sure my pistol was still in my hip pocket, I stood and zipped up my flight suit, adjusted my scarf and mask, slung my backpack over a shoulder, and lifted the case with my disassembled M4. Another advantage of flying with Centurion had been the issue of weapons. Being able to just carry them on and off made things a hell of a lot easier.

  I shifted my weight as I watched the bay door. I’d never had a problem flying before, but in my wolf state the plane had started to feel like a coffin whose sides were closing in. The stuffy suit didn’t help.

  Within minutes, though, the bay door lowered, and a surprising flood of daylight burst into the hold, singeing my eyes. Ten thirty at night in Waristan meant two in the afternoon here.

  A silhouette bisected the light. “Welcome to JFK International,” a man said.

  I grunted, raising a forearm to block the glare as I limped on stiff legs past the chained pallets of supplies. I expected to find the same crew member who had escorted me on board. Instead, out of the light emerged a short black man in a dark pinstripe suit. His lips grinned beneath a pencil-thin mustache that matched the color of his combed-back gray hair. When he reached the cargo hold, he extended a hand to shake.

  “Burn wound,” I said, retracting my gloved hand.

  I didn’t need anyone gripping my huge paw. Besides, the man was throwing off a sketchy vibe.

  “Of course,” the man said, sliding his hands into his pockets. He came to a stop in front of me at the top of the ramp, his grin reducing his eyes to slits. Something told me he knew I was lying. “I imagine you’re in a hurry to get to where you’re going, but I was hoping we could have a chat first.”

  “Like you said, I’m in a hurry.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t introduce myself,” he said quickly before I could step past him. “Reginald Purdy, head of Program Development at Centurion United.” He started to extend his hand again but caught himself.

  My gaze fell to the silver pin on his lapel with the Centurion insignia.

  “Is there some sort of problem?” I asked, my gaze flicking past him. Four large Centurion soldiers stood at the bottom of the ramp, automatic weapons pointed downward. I edged over so the man was between me and them.

  “Well, there’s the matter of the remaining payment due on landing,” he said. “Those were the terms, correct?”

  I relaxed slightly. “Right. Let me contact my man and he’ll make the transfer.”

  “Or perhaps we can waive the remaining payment in exchange for fifteen minutes of your time.”

  He was going to waive twenty-five thousand dollars for a fifteen-minute chat? Though I guessed to a hundred-billion-dollar company that would be like flipping me a nickel. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “I’m here to make you an offer, Captain Wolfe.”

  I stiffened. There’s no way this man should have known who I was. Hotwire had taken special care to cloak my identity. He’d sent the payment through encrypted channels that wouldn’t expose me or my teammates. My nostrils opened out as the animal in me tried to draw a better bead on him, but all I could smell was his stinging aftershave.

  “What kind of an offer?”

  “First, apologies are in order for the actions of our representative. Baine Maddox embedded himself in your team on his own initiative. Centurion never ordered him to do so. The bombing that followed…” Mr. Purdy, who possessed the mannerisms of an old-time lawyer, grimaced in a show of sorrow. “Horrible. As you may have heard, the military took Mr. Maddox into custody for his actions.”

  So much for Centurion’s right hand not knowing what the left is doing, I thought, tensing anew. I glanced down the ramp to find the soldiers had shifted such that they had clean lines of sight on me.

  “And Olaf?” I asked.

  “He’s being handled internally.”

  “I’ll bet,” I muttered.

  “What you don’t know,” Mr. Purdy went on, “is that Baine lost his life two hours ago.”

  I squinted at him. “Baine’s dead?”

  “In the act of attackin
g a guard and trying to take his weapon, yes. By all accounts, Mr. Maddox was ambitious but also temperamental and reckless. And that’s our failing. We’re revising our hiring protocols as we speak.”

  “Good to know,” I said thinly, wondering if Centurion had had him killed to frustrate an investigation into his actions. But then another thought hit me.

  Or to cover up the fact that Centurion had been contracted by Orzu to eliminate the Kabadi’s warrior class.

  I thought about Baine’s push to bring Olaf along, about his insistence that the blue-haired men were enemy collaborators, about Olaf sneaking onto the roof to tag the building. It added up. Baine hadn’t been looking for a commission from the U.S. military, which would have required a review to determine whether the targets were high value enough.

  He and Centurion had been in the pay of the White Dragon.

  “But that’s all preamble,” Mr. Purdy continued. “I felt we needed to clear the air on the matter of Mr. Maddox before proceeding. Dispel the cloud of mistrust. So let me cut to the chase.” He removed a folded handkerchief from the front pocket of his jacket and touched it to each corner of his mouth. “After the bombing, we kept a surveillance drone in the area to assess the damage. With our exceptional video capacity, we can monitor details as small as six inches from an altitude of 20,000 feet. Do you know what that means?”

  The thick hair over my skin bristled hotly. When I only glared at him, he continued.

  “It means we saw everything, Captain Wolfe. I know what you look like beneath your disguise. I know about your transfiguration. I know about your newfound abilities.”

  My breaths cycled harshly. “Is this some sort of extortion job?” I growled.

  Though I towered over the diminutive man and possessed claws that could separate his head from his body, his eyes twinkled amicably. “Oh, far from it,” he said. “We’d like to offer you a position with Centurion.”