Wolf's Gambit Read online

  “Foot hurt today?”

  “Huh?” Lupo’s thoughts dissipated.

  “Humidity’s high. Figured your foot would ache like a sonofabitch today. One of the drawbacks of spring—all that rain. Looks like we’re in for some,” said his partner. “‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.’ Did you see that red sky earlier?”

  “I hadn’t noticed. I was sleeping.” Veiled sarcasm never worked on DiSanto.

  “Yeah, it was like a red curtain.”

  Lupo grunted.

  They drove in silence for a while. Lupo knew where they were headed. “Coffee stop?”

  “Me coffee, you tea. That okay?”

  “Fine.” Lupo couldn’t figure why younger people had to have coffee every moment. Ben had never been like that.

  Dammit. He missed Ben more than he could ever explain.

  He’d get stuck on a thought and couldn’t leave it. Like his dad. And Lupo knew he’d fallen into the same trap again. Thinking of Ben made him think of his father, and there went his mood.

  Frank Lupo and his son had honed their differences for years, but they had slowly recovered some semblance of a close friendship, especially when Lupo had finally gone to visit the old man after the Martin Stewart case. A few months of closeness—phone calls, visits—and then brain cancer had eaten up Frank Lupo in little over a year, and now Nick Lupo found himself more easily returned to that blazing hot fall day in the bleak Florida crematorium than in the worst of his experiences as a cop. At night he saw Ben in his casket, and then Ben would morph into his father on a gurney. No funeral for him. He hadn’t wanted one, but Nick still felt guilt at not overriding the old man’s wishes this one time. Now he suffered in silence, pursued by nightmares and disturbing imagery whenever he closed his eyes.

  After coffee and tea purchases, DiSanto drove them to their assignment for the day.

  Lupo felt an itch begin on the back of his hands and run up his forearms. If he’d looked, he knew he would have seen dark, wiry hair begin to grow in tufts along his muscles.

  He shivered despite the warmth of the spring day.

  Something coming.

  Jessie

  She awoke still hung over from the vivid dream.

  It was one of those strange dreams, beginning with a benign, almost pleasant aura of hazy positivity that seemed to caress her brain and stroke her pleasure center while relating to nothing at all. She sensed that she was smiling in her sleep.

  Then the background changed, from a music video’s gauze-draped room with wind-blown curtains and flickering candles to a dark hollow in the woods, cold and damp and tinged with sepia. It was almost like jumping from one photograph to another. Even while sleeping, Jessie thought she was aware of the change, felt her muscles tighten and her skin tremble as if the weather had suddenly turned freezing. The darkness slid over the woods like a black curtain, and as she shivered she heard a howl squeezing through the tree trunks, which turned black as she looked at them. She heard rustling in the woods and she caught the heavy scent of musk and something else, a strange smell of decay somehow intertwined with a familiar smell of…she couldn’t quite identify what, but she knew that she was intimately acquainted with it.

  Her shivering intensified, and she caught herself wondering whether it was the sleeping Jessie who shivered or the dream Jessie, or if perhaps they weren’t both shivering. The rustle in the woods grew louder, closer, more menacing, and she thought back to the safe place, white with its gauze and soft-focus lighting, wishing she could return there, where she knew she would not be afraid. Instead, the dark place surrounding her became more and more vivid, and whatever made the rustling sounds growled—at first softly, but then growing in volume and anger. Rage.

  Who or what was it?

  Nick Lupo. In his wolf form.

  Then she had shaken herself awake.

  The dream-turned-nightmare left her reluctantly, and she pulled the covers up against the sudden chill.

  Why did she have these strange dreams so often? Why were they so similar as to almost be considered recurring? What did they mean? Anything?

  The questions zipped through her mind as they had a dozen times before, but in replaying them she found herself relaxing her clenched muscles. Slowly, her limbs warmed up and the chill began to dissipate.

  Jessie thanked her lucky stars for Nick’s upcoming visit. They had been together long enough now to be comfortable with each other. No longer just his landlord, she had become his lover.

  She could shiver herself to death thinking of that cold night Nick rescued her from Martin Stewart. She’d seen Nick shimmer from man to wolf like the bouncy result of an oldfashioned film reel mounted on a shoddy projector. She’d been forced to believe right away, with no doubts. Except maybe for her own sanity; there was always that.

  But no, she had seen him magically transform into a gargantuan black wolf—a crippled wolf, but still a formidable enemy, as Martin Stewart had learned.

  Jessie had struggled with symptoms of post-traumatic stress afterward, but she hadn’t told Nick. She’d found her own way to battle through it, burying herself in her work and—she blushed—in nursing Nick Lupo back to health, which included a healthy dose of intense lovemaking.

  She smiled, thinking of the tenderness he had exhibited with her as he healed from the terrible wound she had been forced to inflict. It hadn’t kept them from exploring each other’s bodies every chance they had.

  They had bonded. Old friends who had suddenly become lovers, already comfortable with each other’s company, they had enjoyed discovering the whole new aspect of their relationship.

  Jessie felt her insides melting at the thought of Nick’s hands on her. Nipples tingling under his tongue, gentle nips driving her to near madness. She was wet and ready, and Nick was still hours from arriving. She touched herself, feeling naughty and not caring, knowing she still had time before work.

  Fingers caressing her most intimate spots, Jessie allowed herself to imagine they were Nick’s, and then she was moving faster, deeper, more pointedly focusing on that one spot where he would have placed his warm and loving tongue…

  When the phone rang, she snorted with annoyance.

  Let the damn thing ring!

  But then she heard Arnow’s hesitant voice, and the next thing she knew she was leaving her comfortable bed to hear the bad news.

  Tannhauser

  They had been here a month, laying low, itching to get to work. They had lined up routines that at least appeared legitimate, in case of nosy neighbors. Money wasn’t a problem. Boredom was. It ate at them and blunted their edges. Slowed their reflexes. Killed their inner core and reduced them to shells. At least until they had purchased some used bench presses and barbell sets and given themselves an exercise program that would have killed lesser men.

  Tannhauser didn’t know why they couldn’t begin their work as soon as they’d arrived, but he was the leader and even though his word was law, he still felt obligated to mollify them and pen them in.

  Until the time came to loose the lightning.

  A month of waiting was nothing to someone like him. A month of waiting was an appetizer in front of a meal. And now supper was ready.

  He waited for the others, not worried they’d disobeyed their orders. He had been warned about unusual circumstances, and even though they feared nothing and no one, he still acted cautiously.

  This quaint northern town in a state they’d never seen was no great shakes, but the sprawling national forest that curled around it was a slice of heaven for him and his kind. The spring weather was so much more complex than what they’d become accustomed to in the last three years. This was so much better. Even if they hadn’t been on the payroll, Tannhauser thought he might have liked to settle here.

  Why hadn’t they ever traveled this far north?

  He shook his head. Who knew?

  Checked his belt clock. Still nothing.

  The woods spr
ead their mantle of pine and fir needles right up to the front door of the rental house. The lot had been carved out of a waterfront copse, but just barely. Evergreens shrouded three sides of the two-story log cabin, a Cape Cod and Colonial hybrid that said “hunting lodge” to anyone who managed to spot it from the road or the lake.

  It was not easy to spot. The trees masking it provided more than adequate screening from the road. A narrow overgrown driveway snaked off the road but was almost invisible.

  Suddenly Schwartz seemed to materialize next to him, right at the tree line.

  Trees.

  What a wonderful thing.

  No wonder they had lost their heads a little when first arriving. It had been so long in the sun and the sand that greenery was a welcome novelty.

  One second there was only forest—tall pines, wide-armed firs, some spruce and poplar—and then the next second Schwartz stood next to him, grinning his toothy grin, his eyes alight with more than moonbeams.

  “Mission accomplished,” Schwartz said, grin widening.

  He’d grin his way to hell.

  Tannhauser didn’t smile. You had to keep a certain distance between you and your subordinates.

  “Tef?”

  “Stopped off for a snack.”

  Again the grin. Schwartz was a good man, but Tef was a loose cannon. Tannhauser frowned. He would have to reassert. But now wasn’t the time.

  Schwartz took his silence for approval and asked, “We going out again tomorrow?”

  “No, Mr. XYZ said wait, so we wait now.”

  “What’s this Mr. XYZ bullshit? Don’t we rate a real name?”

  Tannhauser snorted. “We’re employees. We rate what our employer wants us to rate.”

  “Well, that’s bullshit anyway.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Moments later Tef also appeared, stepping out from between the trees, his face glowing with fresh blood.

  “All right, we’re all here. Time to disappear for a short while.” Tannhauser herded them inside and waited for their grumbling to dissipate.

  “Good job, men. My compliments.”

  They nodded with happiness. They were simple creatures, easy to lead and easy to manipulate.

  Mr. XYZ

  He had wanted to say, Call me Deep Throat, or something melodramatic, but the words had stuck in his throat at the critical moment, and he’d gone with the Mr. XYZ moniker because he wasn’t as imaginative as he wanted to be.

  Except for some things. He could be very imaginative in some areas.

  Though the news hadn’t broken big yet, word was spreading slowly about what had happened near the casino, some Indian kid having gotten himself killed, and he had to keep himself from beaming.

  That would have been unwise.

  He did allow himself a small smile, but to an outsider it might as well have been a smile at the unseasonably warm late spring weather. Or it might have been a smile aimed at the woman who had just passed him on the street. She’d caught his eye and smiled back, tentatively. After all, you never knew when a total stranger would turn out to be some crazed killer.

  Word about the Indian who’d been murdered wouldn’t have reached here yet. Mr. XYZ was out early, ready to celebrate. He saw the woman with whom he’d shared his smile enter a Walgreen’s down the block, one of the old-fashioned storefront ones. He’d seen her feed the meter a half block away, so he ducked into the early-hours pub between the two points, figuring he could stare out the wide window and see her pass again.

  He reconstructed her face in his mind. Dirty blonde hair, a bit messy. A long, wide nose. A nice smile. Her eyes—they’d caught his, and he had fallen into them. And he’d trapped her in his eyes, he knew that. She’d smiled because she had to. Because they had connected very deeply. She just didn’t know it yet.

  In the pub, he was one of only a half dozen customers, each sitting in a pool of his own darkness at the long log-plank bar. He slid into a stool near the window, glanced outside, then ordered a local tap with barely a look at the schlub behind the bar. A long look would connect them, and he didn’t want that. He wanted to be forgotten. The bartender would forget him, what he looked like, his features and clothing. But she wouldn’t, his new conquest. She could never forget him now, and that was why he had to wait for her.

  He sipped the beer, rolling his fingers on the bar like fleshy castanets. He had to stop, or they would look at him. And remember. He forced himself to stop. He sipped more beer.

  How long would she—?

  Ah, there she was, just walking past, toward her parked silver SUV. Fucking foreign sleek job.

  He wasn’t in a hurry, but he left a five on the shellacked bar.

  He slipped outside in time to see her leave, pulling out of the space and heading for the highway.

  He almost waved.

  But he didn’t. He would see her soon enough.

  He had placed a very sharp implement deeply between the treads of her rear tire, and he knew almost exactly how long it would take for it and the highway surface to do their work.

  Schwartz

  For the first time in a month, Schwartz felt alive.

  Two months before, he was also alive and well, earning big money and having the run of the place with his buddies, his muscles vibrating with the smooth hardness of exercise and sun. He had been in his glory, having his fill of food and play and yet fulfilling a job for which he was well paid and eminently qualified. He and his pals were known for their friendship, but few realized how close—or how hierarchical—their relationship really was.

  It was glorious.

  Baghdad had been the pinnacle of his life.

  And then the bottom had fallen out, so to speak, and they’d been shipped home. Not in disgrace or anything like that, but just because the job had finished, or the contract had run out or been terminated, or some high-ranking bastard somewhere had ratted on them or pulled a few strings, or who the fuck knew?

  They had been yanked from the best days of their lives, and it was almost a physical pain he and the others felt, once again having to rein themselves in. Having to fit into a system that neither suited nor really wanted them.

  This job had come along and they’d been free to take it then, but the job had involved waiting, and Schwartz wasn’t one to wait. No, he was one to chase the job, worry at its heels, and gulp it down. In chunks.

  He smiled when he thought like that. It was fun.

  Fun. That was what Baghdad had been. After learning the ropes, their way around the strange customs, the faces of their allies—after all that, they had learned what their contract allowed them to do, and it was all fun from there. Almost a year of hunting with barely a limit. Schwartz smiled at the thought of the hunts they had organized.

  When ordered to “clear” a neighborhood, they had done their work with zeal.

  He remembered the first time they took a prisoner “to the alley.” Baghdad streets were already narrow, but in the poorer neighborhoods there were constricting alleys behind the squat blocks of flats most of the terrified populace called home. In this case, they were sure their prisoner was a true insurgent, a defiant and somewhat crazy-eyed youth who shouted jihadist epithets at them from the moment they’d kicked in his door. Or his mother’s door, if that was the woman who hung just out of sight behind him when they’d first barged in while chasing a pair of thugs who had managed to elude them in the rabbit warren.

  Tef had taken some delight in pistol-whipping the boy in front of the mother, to make him talk. But the kid’s shouting became shriller, and the mother’s joined his until they sounded like stone-deaf banshees. Tannhauser had just up and shot the old woman in the head to shut her up. Her head burst like a melon from the market down the street, and Schwartz couldn’t help giggling at the way her neck bone—what the hell was it, a spine?—stuck out of the bloody gore.

  Tef said, “Man, why’d you do that? We could have used her to make him talk!”

  Tannhauser never pulled rank, but
his leadership glowed in the pupils of his eyes. He was Alpha, and there was no one else on the squad who could have led. He’d locked Tef in the glare of his intense eyes and Tef had shut up, though he continued to cuff the crying kid—the insurgent—in the side of the head until his ear was mangled and bloody.

  “This kid don’t know shit.”

  That was when Schwartz had the brainstorm. “Take him out back,” he said. Tef looked at Tannhauser for guidance. Alpha nodded.

  “What you got in mind?” Tann said, as Tef wrestled the screaming kid toward the rear.

  “Little contest. Let him go, wait for him to run, then see how long it takes one of us…”

  “Cool beans, dude,” Tef said, interrupting. “Me first?”

  Schwartz had frowned. It was his idea. But the kid was Tef’s toy from the beginning. “Go for it.”

  Tef—his name was short for Teflon, the kind of ammunition with which he preferred to load his three 9mm Glocks—kicked the kid to the back door and almost through it. The thin wood splintered under his attack. The alley was narrow, dark, angular. Dusty. They were sick of the dust.

  Schwartz said, “Let him go, then hunt. I’ll keep watch for fl ags.”

  The Wolfpaw Security Services contract called for only Wolfpaw personnel to handle this specific neighborhood, but occasionally “flags”—uniformed US troopers—wandered into the territory and stuck their two cents into Wolfpaw business.

  Tef cuffed the kid once more. Blood ran from his scalp down his face. He wasn’t going anywhere. His eyes were wide with shock and fear. No, it was hatred. Schwartz could see it in the kid’s soul, taking hold. If he wasn’t an insurgent or terrorist now, he soon would be.