The Wolf: A Novel Read online

  The lines clogging the ticket windows were thick and noisy and lacked any sense of organization. Behind thick glass windows emblazoned with stickers, boat schedules, and tour signs posted in three languages, the stoic faces of the ticket brokers stared out above the crazed throng in front of them toward the congested traffic just beyond the stone barriers separating street from port.

  A middle-age man with a thin brown beard stood off to the side, watching the chaos with indifference, smoking an unfiltered cigarette and wearing a gray jacket two sizes too big for his svelte frame. Four black duffel bags rested by the sides of his soiled brown desert boots, each one zippered and taped shut. He wiped at his brow and glanced at the time on the small blue cell phone he clutched in his right hand.

  “You must be Dal.” The voice came at him from behind. Startled, he turned and glanced at the young man standing inches away from the duffel bags.

  “Are you …?” The middle-age man hesitated, reached into a side pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small, folded piece of white paper. He opened it, gave a quick look at what was written on it and then gazed back up at the young man. “Are you Pandi?” he asked.

  The young man nodded.

  Dal looked around the port area, concern etched on his brow, lines of sweat running down the sides of his cherubic face. “Where are the others?” he asked. “You were all to have come together.”

  Pandi smiled and shrugged. “Too much wine and too little food,” he said. “I woke them before I left. They should be here within minutes.”

  “I don’t care how much they drank,” Dal said, heat and tension giving way to anger and frustration. “You were supposed to be here together. Those were the instructions.”

  “We have plenty of time,” Pandi assured him, eager not to draw attention, looking at the throng of people around them, wondering if there was a way he could escape and die as he intended and not how some woman and her thugs planned it. “They have prepared for this day for months. There is no need for you to be concerned.”

  “I will lose my concerns the second I see their faces,” Dal said. “And if I don’t see those faces in the next five minutes, I will make a call that will be bad news for both of us.”

  “I told you they will be here. I mean it,” Pandi said, his voice cracking ever so slightly, the strain of the moment no longer easy to disguise.

  Dal stiffened when he felt the barrel of the gun push against the center of his back. Brunello stood behind him now, a thin black leather jacket folded over his right arm hiding the gun from view. Dal could feel Brunello’s warm breath on the folds of his neck and glared at Pandi. “You betray us?” he said. “You are a fool if you think this will save your life. No one can save your sorry life. You could have died with honor. Instead you will die of shame. As will everyone in your family.”

  Brunello leaned in closer to Dal. “Take two of the bags and then turn when I turn.” He tilted his head toward Pandi. “You take the other two,” he told him, “and we walk together toward the black car, the one right behind the taxi. “

  “What if I refuse?” Dal asked.

  “Then the boy will take the four bags to the car,” Brunello said, “while you lay here on the pavement choking on your own blood. If you want to die brave and in public, makes no difference to me. But that decision needs to be made now.”

  Dal hesitated, staring at the crowd, larger and more agitated than when he first arrived at the port only minutes earlier. He took a short breath and then bent over and picked up two of the bags, waiting as Pandi quickly grabbed the remaining two.

  “To the car,” Brunello said. “And walk like you mean it.”

  Manzo held the back door of a Mercedes sedan open as they approached. “The both of you and the bags in the backseat,” he ordered. Brunello jumped in behind the wheel, engine idling, and waited as Manzo slid in next to him. Brunello looked up at a traffic officer standing in front of the car, nodded, and was waved into the congestion of the wide cobblestone street.

  “How much time?” he asked Manzo.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Manzo said, “assuming the rocket scientists laid the timer and detonator in correctly. Otherwise, we all get to meet the virgins this morning.”

  “I hope not,” Brunello said. “I haven’t had a coffee yet.”

  Brunello navigated through the Naples traffic with practiced ease, shifting gears, dodging slow-moving buses and Vespas, edging away from the luxury end of town. Manzo shifted slightly in his seat and looked at both Pandi and Dal. “Your boss is going to be pretty pissed when he finds out you put to waste all those expensive explosives,” he said to them.

  “He will make sure you die because of what you are about to do,” Dal hissed, his voice a blend of fear and arrogance.

  Manzo smiled. “We all will die,” he said, “as you both will soon find out.”

  “Terrorist bastards,” Brunello said, his cheeks red, his body tense, the fingers of his right hand gripping the gearshift, his anger no longer contained.

  “What is it?” Manzo asked.

  “My niece, Rosa,” Brunello said, “my sister Anna’s oldest.”

  “What about her?”

  “She takes those boats every morning,” Brunello said. “Found herself a job in one of the hotels on Capri. These two had their way, she would have died in one of those explosions.”

  “She was lucky today,” Dal said. “But there will come a day when she will not be as lucky.”

  Brunello made a sharp left against oncoming traffic, barely avoiding a fast-moving Fiat and a scooter, and sped down a narrow side street, swerving when he caught sight of a free-roaming Jack Russell walking against the stone walls of the old homes lining the block. The tires of the sedan held steady riding the cobblestones, but still there was enough bounce inside the car to cause Manzo concern. “You might want to think about slowing down,” he said to Brunello. “We have no idea how well these bombs have been wired.”

  Brunello shifted gears and brought the sedan to a gradual halt in the middle of the empty street. “You’re right,” he said. “You know how I get when the blood goes to my head.”

  Manzo nodded. “We got less than ten minutes,” he said.

  Brunello shifted the gears to neutral and slid his right hand into the side pocket of his leather jacket, pulling out his Beretta, a silencer attached to the barrel. He turned and pointed the gun at Dal. “First things first,” he said, his eyes on Dal, his words meant for Manzo.

  Brunello pulled the trigger three times, careful to avoid going anywhere near the duffel bags resting beside Dal’s legs. The first two bullets landed in the center of the terrorist’s chest. The last one hit to the left of his upper lip.

  Dal died instantly, his eyes open and staring at the moon roof. Next to him, Pandi lowered his head, trembling like a straw doll left out in a harsh wind, and threw up on his pants and the two duffel bags braced against his slender body.

  “That was not on the program,” Manzo said.

  Brunello took a final glance at the dead terrorist and turned, reholstered his gun, and moved the car forward, keeping it in second gear, turning at the first corner. “He was going to die anyway,” he said after a few moments of silence.

  “Seven minutes,” Manzo said. “It’s up here on the left.”

  They were now in an abandoned area of Spaccanapoli, a neighborhood divided into seven sections, each leading into the heart of the city. Brunello made one final turn and was now facing the water again, only this time he was far removed from any tourists heading to the island of Capri. He brought the car to the edge of a dilapidated pier and left the gear in neutral, engine running.

  Manzo turned to look at Pandi. “This is where we get off,” he told the young man now completely resigned to his predetermined death. “You seem like a good kid. Not like the dead prick next to you. But you made this choice, not us.”

  “I don’t fear death,” Pandi managed to say.

  “No worries, then,” Manzo said. “You
drown or are blown up. Either way, you set your wish.”

  Brunello and Manzo leaned against the trunk of the sedan and pushed it over the edge of the pier. They watched as the car did a slow sink into the murky water, the top sheet a blanket of slick oil, grime, and splintered chunks of wood.

  “You sure the bombs will go off underwater?” Brunello asked as he and Manzo began to walk from the pier.

  “We’ll find out in three minutes,” Manzo said.

  The underwater blast shook the pier, sending rowboats flailing through the air. Two massive waves hooked over the pier and onto the sand-drenched cobblestones, washing away decades of soot and stain.

  “Where’d you leave our car?” Manzo asked.

  “A couple of streets over,” Brunello said. “Found a spot near that place used to be a butcher shop. The one Mario’s cousin let us use when we first got started.”

  “Do you believe any of that?” Manzo asked.

  “Any of what?”

  “What the terrorists believe,” Manzo said. “That when you die you’ll find seventy-seven virgins waiting for you in heaven.”

  “I got news for you, Luigi,” Brunello said. “I don’t think there are seventy-seven virgins anywhere. Not in heaven, not in hell, not on earth. If you’re lucky, you might find yourself one. But I hate to think what she must look like.”

  Chapter 30

  New York City

  I looked at Jack through the glass separating the terrace from the living room in the penthouse apartment. He was sitting on the hardwood floor tossing a tennis ball to a Neapolitan bullmastiff puppy he had named Hugo. The dog, only four months old and already close to a dozen pounds, was a gift from Angela, who stood next to me on the terrace, smiling as she watched Jack and Hugo take pleasure in each other’s company.

  “You know a pug would have been just as nice,” I said to her.

  “Maybe,” she said, turning to look at me. “But they don’t have the royal bloodlines and the history our mastiffs do.”

  “They also won’t grow to weigh as much as a middleweight boxer,” I said.

  Angela laughed. “Look how happy he is,” she said, nodding toward Jack. “They’ll be good for each other. And the dog will help keep him safe. Bullmastiffs defend to the death the ones they love.”

  “I remember,” I said. “It took a month before the two you had left my side whenever I came to visit that first summer.”

  “They’re slow to trust,” Angela said. “We could all take a lesson from them.”

  I turned to look out at the view of downtown Manhattan, rays of sun bouncing off the polished windows of the tall buildings that formed the skyline Truman Capote once called a “diamond iceberg.”

  The war against the terrorists was less than a month old.

  The Yakuza and the Triads were doing their part—squeezing the institutions that funneled money into the terrorist pipeline, some of them corporations we had done business with for years. Eastern European and Middle Eastern money that for decades had been sent to Japan to be cleaned and turned legal within twenty-four hours instead disappeared without a trace, days later finding its way into organized crime coffers. No one was better at this than the Chinese and Japanese syndicates. They had been handling organized crime funds since the midpoint of the last century and did so in stealth fashion, keeping track of millions of moving dollars stretched across at least a dozen syndicates around the world. Despite the daily avalanche of money coming in and then just as quickly leaving the country, not a single notation that was put to paper could be deciphered by any law enforcement authorities. The clean dollars were then invested in dozens of legitimate enterprises that not only expanded our power base, but made it that much easier to conduct the illegal end of the business. That ability to access funds without fear of exposure was one of the main reasons we thrived through the tail end of the twentieth century and the first decades of the current one. If you can’t link us to money, it is almost impossible to link us to crime.

  The two Asian syndicates had quickly put a dent into the terrorist money supply. I estimated it would take another month, six weeks at the outside, to drain the well in such a manner that the only cash finding its way into their hands belonged to the Russians. I wanted their money to flow unimpeded into terrorist accounts and allow Big Mike, John Loo, and their computer team the opportunity to crack their intricate code system and find out who the main money men of terror networks were and if they ever operated in tandem. Once a paper trail was established and I knew for certain it was accurate, I would have associates spread that information to trusted allies in law enforcement, both in the States and Europe, and let them help with the heavy lifting. I knew such a maneuver would bring a smile to Uncle Carlo’s face. “What difference does it make if your opponent goes away with a bullet or with a judge’s gavel?” he once told me. “What’s important is, he goes away. And the less the trail leads back to you, the better.”

  I was betting that the combination of the two cash drains would eventually lead to a backlash against the terror networks, banking on the fact that no one likes to see their money disappear without substantial returns. It was as true for a criminal organization as it was for a hedge fund.

  Once they had their system in place, Big Mike and John Loo were able to clone hundreds of terror cell phones and monitor their activities on a daily basis. They then matched the numbers, tossed them up on a large monitor, and without leaving the comforts of a downtown Athens office, knew who was calling which number and how often. With that information, we were able to establish links between the various cells and do a breakdown as to which were working together and which chose to fly solo. This helped me with a general overview of the terror landscape. With that key information in hand, I burrowed deeper toward my first target—Raza.

  He was an impressive young man, the unlikeliest of terrorists, and as I have come to learn, the unlikeliest often turn out to be the most dangerous.

  He listened to classical music when planning an attack and had built an army of several hundred willing to die at his command. There were no women in his cell. I found that curious, since leaders of such groups actively recruit women because they are not easily pegged as suicide bombers by authorities.

  If I were counting on Raza to make a mistake or a judgment error, I would never bring him to ruin. He had already shown he was too smart to commit either. To defeat him, I would need to continue to strip away his forces, dig even deeper into his financial reserves, interrupt his weapons flow, and get into his head. Make him think I was out there, close by, anticipating his every move, aware of his plans, capable of shutting him down at any point in the process. I would need Raza to believe that regardless of what moves he made or planned, I was already two ahead and ready to close him out.

  As for Angela—standing next to me on the terrace, pouring herself a glass of chilled wine, looking radiant in a strapless yellow summer dress, warm sun beating down on toned muscles and tanned skin—she had more than done her part. She had sent her Camorristas as far north as Florence and given clear orders to target kill all known terrorists operating in major cities. Working in league with David Lee Burke and members of his Silent Six team, she then focused her attentions on Raza and his network. She showed no mercy, accepted no excuses, and didn’t bargain deals with terrorists. “I had heard about her and her operation,” David Lee Burke told me one evening in Rome. “But the talk doesn’t do it justice. It is cold, relentless, and final. When the Strega marks you for death, the only thing left is to pick out a headstone.”

  The Strega struck quickly and harshly.

  In one Naples neighborhood alone, her crew eliminated eight men who had been rumored to be involved in sleeper cell activity. In Rome and in Florence her group foiled two Raza attacks and had stopped the bombing of the tourist boats in Margellina. Her methods were ruthless and she showed no mercy to any suspected terrorist. She operated under the centuries honored code of the Camorra—kill all in your path and leave
behind nothing but blood and ruin.

  She was living up to her reputation as the most ruthless mob boss in Europe, and I was happy to have her working on my side of the field.

  “Has he given the dog a name yet?” she asked.

  “Hugo,” I said. “He’s in a Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas phase. I did manage to talk him out of naming him after one of the Musketeers.”

  “Sometimes the apple does fall close to the tree,” she said, smiling. “I recall you being in such a phase yourself. One, if my instincts are correct, you have yet to outgrow.”

  “Jack’s noticed the heavy security detail I put on him,” I said. “And he’s not too happy about it. What boy his age would be? Maybe Hugo will help him ignore what’s going on around him and let him be a kid again.”

  “Give that dog some time, Vincent,” Angela said. “Watch him grow and then watch how he will not only know where Jack is but will be aware of who surrounds him, who is a friend, and who is a threat. I’ve seen it myself. Those two dogs of mine you mentioned? They saved my life on more than one occasion. My father told me each dog was worth six of his best bodyguards.”

  I nodded, my back against the brick wall of the terrace, my eyes on my son. “He’ll also have a friend,” I said.

  “He’s his father’s son, Vincent,” Angela said, turning to face me. “He can handle anything thrown his way.”

  “I hate leaving him for such long periods,” I said. “Jimmy fills the void most of the time and my uncle does, too, but it’s not the same as having a father around.”

  “Maybe being alone isn’t such a bad thing for him right now,” Angela said.

  “You’ve been busy rattling Raza’s cage,” I said, eager to shift the topic to business. “I would imagine by now he’s sniffed out who it is that’s bringing havoc to his plans.”