The Wolf: A Novel Read online

  “The kids are not going to live your life when they grow up, Vincent,” Lisa said. “They’ll be out there on their own. The sooner they see what that’s like, the better it will be for them. And as I recall, you went to Italy when you were a teenager and you went alone.”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “But I get your point.”

  “We’ve never traveled as a family,” Lisa said. “I don’t think our kids have even seen the inside of an airport.”

  “They’re not missing much,” I said. “Long lines, bad food, lost luggage. Am I leaving anything out?”

  “I’m serious, Vincent,” Lisa said, reaching for my hand and holding it gently against her side. “Let them be kids, just this once. They’re so excited about this trip. I am, too.”

  “If I get on that plane,” I said, “it might as well be a private jet. First class will be me, you, the kids, and our bodyguards.”

  “Then don’t get on the plane,” Lisa said. “I’ll go with the girls and you follow us later with Jack. You still have that real estate deal to close, right?”

  I felt the argument sliding away. “That’s right,” I said.

  “Get that off your plate and then you and Jack can meet us in New York,” Lisa said. “Give the two of you some time together.”

  “It doesn’t feel right to me, Lisa,” I said. “At least not now. In a few years, maybe then might be a better time.”

  “You said you wanted a normal life for them,” Lisa said. “Did you really mean that or were they just words?”

  “I meant it,” I said. “I don’t want them to be like me in any way.”

  “Then normal needs to start right now,” Lisa said. “With this trip.”

  I pulled Lisa close to me and held her in my arms. “I love you,” I said. “And I’ll do anything not to lose you or the kids.”

  “I love you even more,” she whispered in my ear. “And always will.”

  So, going against my nature and judgment, I agreed to allow some air into my hermetically sealed world. For my kids and for Lisa. They wanted a taste of what passes for normal life, to move about freely, not be confined by my rules. And I went along with it, deluding myself into thinking that they would still be safe, they would still be there for me to hold them close.

  That no harm would come to them.

  That I was the only target of interest.

  It was a move that should never have been made. I allowed my love for family to obscure my distrust of the world. I put them out there without the protection they needed, the safeguards required. I let them go. And I will never forgive myself for that.

  My name is Vincent Marelli and I own your life.

  I know you’ve never met me, and if you are lucky you never will. The chances are better than even you’ve never heard of me, but in more ways than you could think of, I own a piece of you. Of everything you do. I don’t care where you live or what you do, a percentage of your money finds its way into the pockets of the men I lead. We are everywhere, touch everything and everyone, and always turn a profit. And once we’ve squeezed every nickel we can out of you, we toss you aside and never bother giving you a second thought.

  You lay down a bet at a local casino or with the bookie in the next cubicle, we get a cut. You take the family on that long-planned vacation, a large chunk of the cash you spend—highway tolls, hotel meals, the rides you put your kids on—finds its way into our pockets. You smoke, we earn. You drink, we earn more. Buy a house, fly to Europe, lease a car, mail your mother a birthday present, we make money on it. Hell, the day you’re born and the day you’re buried are both days we cash out on you.

  And you’ll never know how we do it.

  That’s our secret.

  We’re never in the headlines. Oh, you’ll read about some busts and see a bunch of overweight guys in torn sweatshirts with tabloids folded over their heads do a perp walk for the nightly news, but that’s not us. Those rodeo clowns are the ones we want you to think we are. Those are the faces that get Page One attention, headline trials and triple-decade prison sentences. We have thousands of guys like that and we toss them into the water any time federal or local badges need to make a splash, make the public think they’re out there serving and protecting.

  We remain untouched.

  At least, we did. Until this happened.

  We are the most powerful organization in the world.

  In the last twenty years nearly every top-tier branch of organized crime has joined our union: from the three Italian factions to the Yakuza in Japan, the Triads of China, the French working out of Marseilles, the Algerians, the Israelis, the Greeks, the Irish and the British. We are now one. A powerful and ruling body so strong, we are beyond the reach of any government, let alone an ambitious local district attorney out to make a name. We have become what the old-timers like Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, and Meyer Lansky dreamed about.

  We are a United Nations of crime.

  We took the business of crime off the streets and brought it into the dark, wood-paneled rooms where the real money and power live. It didn’t happen overnight and there were some bodies dropped along the way. In those early years, not every crew greeted the plan with applause. That’s understandable. These were men and women used to doing business their own way. It wasn’t easy to make them look at the bigger picture, have them see that the arrival of a new century brought with it an opportunity to take what we did in a more lucrative direction. But enough of them got it. They understood that the way we had accumulated wealth in the last century would take us only so far in this new one. That in order not only to compete but thrive and control the power levers, a modern gangster needed to be educated, as skillful with a spread sheet as he was with a gun and a blade. The modern mob boss would need to be as comfortable inside a boardroom as his relatives had been inside a union hall. The muscle end would always be easy to find. The ones with the knowledge and expertise to dominate a corporate structure would take time to develop.

  By the time the new century was welcomed, my group was in complete command. We had infiltrated the corridors of power from Wall Street to hedge funds to insurance companies and oil conglomerates. We were knee deep in the political and medical worlds and cut a wide path in the hotel, art, jewelry, and airline businesses. You add to that gambling, drugs, sports, and sex and we owned it all. By the spring of 2011 thirty-one percent of the currency spent in the world found its way into our pockets.

  It should have been a gangster’s paradise, but in my world, hell is never far away. Terrorist organizations wanted no part of our methods and we wanted even less to do with their chaos. Besides, the way those groups traveled, the light of the law was never far behind. If they crossed into our turf for any reason, they were taken out, no questions asked, no arguments given. It worked pretty well for a few years.

  Then along came the Russians, 1.5 million members strong, well-organized and even better financed. They laid low for close to a decade, letting the Cold War dust settle before tossing their muscle and cash to the terrorists. My group liked to get the bulk of their work done under the radar and preferred to conduct business in countries with stable governments. The Russians were the opposite. They thrived on worldwide unease—the more of it there was, the better they liked it. They had connections with forty-seven of the 191 terror organizations around the world and were the key financial suppliers for twenty-three others. Their money flow was endless and they were quick to supply them with any weapons and high-tech equipment they desired. The Russians also knew their way around what any terrorist outfit most craves—a dirty bomb. Thirty percent of the Russian crew came out of the Cold War with degrees in physics and chemistry. That combination alone, working with the wrong people looking to cause serious damage, would deal my business a lethal blow.

  If all that wasn’t bad enough, we also faced a growing problem south of the border. In 2008 the Mexican gangs got their hands on some terrorist money, working on the simple assumption that any enemy of the United
States was sure to be a friend to them. The cartel bosses set up a drug pipeline, buying thousands of kilos of hash and heroin from the eighty-seven terrorist outfits around the world functioning as suppliers. In return, instead of paying in cash, they closed the deal with shipments of all calibers of guns, tossing in the clips for free. It wasn’t lost on me that the guns traded by the Mexicans to the terrorists were American-made and stolen.

  Any spot I could point to on a map was about to turn into a hot zone. There was too much trouble brewing for it not to bubble over, and by the summer of 2011, I had a major decision to make. One of those calls a guy like me gets to make once, maybe twice, in his life.

  I could walk away from everything I built, turn my back and enjoy what was left of my time, proud of the criminal empire I helped create. I was thirty-five, with a wife I adored, two daughters, and a son who only had to smile in my direction to make me feel special. I had millions saved and millions more securely invested, every cent clean and legal. I had a thriving real estate and construction business that would keep my days busy and fuel a good and quiet life.

  But something gnawed at me, held me back from taking the easy way out.

  If I walked and let the terrorists and their criminal enablers have their way, they would bring everything I helped build down in one tumble. Besides, guys like me never walk away. We like to think we can, but the truth is I could never leave a problem—any problem—on the table and ask someone else to handle it.

  There was never a doubt in my mind these terrorist groups needed to be taken out. And my organization was the only one with the money and the manpower to take them head-on. We would need to be as ruthless and determined as our enemies, use all our resources, skills, and connections to bring them to ruin. In the process we would sustain heavy losses—both financial and in blood—but there could be no other way. You don’t talk peace with a guy looking for a fight and you can’t cut a deal unless you trust the hand you’re shaking. I looked at the situation from every possible angle and could figure no other way out. It was a war that needed to be fought. It would be a war foreign to us all: the power of modern organized crime against the Russian mob, the Mexican crews, and every terrorist outfit on the grid.

  I had no way of knowing if it was a war we could win.

  I only knew it was a war we couldn’t lose.

  I needed time to work up a plan.

  I took a leave of absence from running day-to-day operations of the syndicate—the three months I would need to prepare.

  I would have to make the first move, to dictate the course of the action. But before I could even make a move, I got blindsided, hit as hard as I’ve ever been hit in my life.

  That was my mistake.

  I had planned a two-week Paris vacation with my family, kicking it off with a long weekend in New York. My wife and kids were anxious to get going, thrilled I had set aside so much time for us to be together. I’ve never been big on vacations, so when I agreed to one it was greeted with shrieks of happiness.

  I can’t tell you how good those few minutes made me feel.

  I let Lisa handle the details as she had requested. She and our daughters were scheduled to take an early flight out of Los Angeles and get into New York a few hours before me, giving them time to settle in and hit the city for a girls-only afternoon of shopping and more shopping while I put the finishing touches on a Nevada land deal I had been working on for two years. Our son Jack would stay behind and keep me company on the plane. I would even pretend to lose to him at chess while our flight headed east.

  Lisa had talked me out of taking even the most basic safety precautions. Instead, I sent the three of them out there alone, defenseless. I tried to cover it a bit, putting one of the new bodyguards on the flight, sitting him two rows behind my wife. But that was hardly enough.

  Less than one hour into their flight, six men—all armed with Swiss Army knives, one claiming to have an explosive device rigged to his groin—took control of the plane, taking the 187 passengers on board hostage. Among those 187 were two undercover air marshals, one in coach, one in first class, sitting across the aisle from Lisa. Both were armed with semiautomatic weapons. The six terrorists spread themselves out between coach and first, each holding a female passenger as cover. The two marshals waited until they had clear shots and then made their move. But a packed airplane is never a good place for a shootout, regardless of how much training a person received. There’s never enough time or space and simply too much that could go wrong.

  Delta Flight 33, LAX to JFK, was no exception.

  I got my hands on the airline agency’s report of the events as they happened after the marshals announced themselves and pulled their weapons. There was quite a bit of screaming, which grew louder as panic took hold and chaos replaced silent menace. Two of the terrorists managed to get the drop on one of the marshals, slicing a vein in his right arm and taking his weapon. The marshals were brave and tough and fought like wild dogs. The terrorists acted as they had been trained, fearless of death, caring little for the lives of those around them. The end result was as predictable as it was painful: sixteen dead, including the six terrorists and the young bodyguard I had placed on the plane, and eight others seriously wounded. Half the passengers died from gunshot wounds, including a Silicon Valley executive and his teenage son seated in the two seats that had been meant for me and Jack. Three had been strangled. Several others fell to multiple stab wounds. Two on board suffered massive heart attacks.

  Three of the dead belonged to me.

  My wife Lisa had her throat slashed and, according to the medical reports, bled out, unable to move, the pain of her dying moments made even worse by an inability to aid and comfort her daughters.

  My youngest, seven-year-old Paula, had her skull crushed by the blunt end of a fire extinguisher, brutally murdered by a teenage terrorist with six young sisters of his own. Her head rested against the side of a small window, eyes open, staring at a clear blue sky.

  My oldest, ten-year-old Sandra, was hit with two bullets, each one potentially the kill shot. One bullet lodged in her throat, the second entered below the right cheek. The bullets left her face brutalized, her young body lifeless.

  In those horrendous final moments, when three people I loved were facing the dark hand of death, I was in the company of strangers, signing seven-figure contracts, bringing an end to a successful—and now meaningless—business transaction.

  Once the attack had been brought under control, the plane was rerouted back to Los Angeles, under the supervision of the U.S. marshals on board, one of whom was in need of medical care. Within an hour of its safe landing, I received a call from a friend in law enforcement. I didn’t need to hear anything beyond “There’s been a situation” to feel the brunt of the awful truth.

  I identified their bodies, buried my family, went through the empty ritual of a memorial service, and stayed inside my home for two months. My twelve-year-old, Jack, was my only companion. I worked out every day; endless hour after hour spent lifting weights, running hard on the treadmill, pounding the heavy bag, my anger an equal match to the tears I shed. I spent my nights sitting and talking to Jack, both of us refusing to take condolence calls or visits from friends or relatives.

  The enemy had made the first move.

  They had started the war.

  It should have been me on that plane.

  It should have been me they targeted.

  It should have only been me.

  That was their mistake.

  And in my business, one mistake is all you get.

  Chapter 2

  Zurich, Switzerland

  He was up early. The air was heavy with moisture, the sun not yet ready to shine. These were his favorite mornings, the ones that reminded him of the childhood in a town so small it could not be found on any Russian map. On those mornings, before the local steel factory opened its doors and shrouded the sky in dust and soot, he would stand in bare feet and stare out at the landscape sur
rounding the two-bedroom shack he shared with his parents and four older siblings. Two of his brothers had already stopped attending school and started on the only career path the town offered its young men—daily twelve-hour shifts stoking the fires.

  But young Vladimir Kostolov knew he would rather die than do one day of work in that heat. The factory’s owner lived in a large house miles away and never saw the toll the place took on the men who walked through its doors. Vladimir’s father was one of those men, and Vladimir vowed he would never be his father. He would turn his back on the town and the factory and earn his living by other means.

  By any other means.

  His road out went through Moscow a month shy of his twelfth birthday. He’d been sent to live with his mother’s cousin and was eager to breathe in the air of the big city. He hoped it would help ease the pain of a cough and congested chest that had plagued him since infancy. He had never met his cousin Alexander, who was only seventeen but had been living on his own since the death of his father two years earlier. Where Vladimir was thin and frail, Alexander was muscular and sturdy, running regularly through the empty streets of a working-class neighborhood, the shadows of Kremlin headquarters looming in the mist. Alexander had asked for the boy to come live with him, had convinced his aunt that when her son returned home he would be healthier. Maybe even useful.

  In truth, curing Vladimir and helping him cope with life in a factory town were the least of Alexander Zaverko’s concerns. He was a recruiter for the Red Mafiya, the Russian branch of organized crime. Alexander had already proven to be of value to senior members of the Milcheko crew who just in his cluttered neighborhood numbered two dozen. Alexander was a skilled car booster, taught by his mechanic father, able to start a car, move it to a hidden site, and lift the motor in under two hours. For this task he was paid the equivalent of four dollars per car. He often boosted four cars a day, doing his best work under the darkness of Moscow’s winter nights.