Rogue Wolves

by James Quinn

  Gorilla and Eunice went quiet for a moment, weighing up this new information. Finally, it was Eunice who spoke. “So why doesn't he come back and finish you off? Why do you deserve his generosity and be allowed to live? Why doesn't he just come back and put a bullet in you?”

  “And complete the job!” said Gorilla, finishing the sentence.

  The old man turned one rheumy eye to his inquisitor and snarled. “Just look at me, lady, look at me! I'm alive because of tubes and drugs. I haven't taken a piss on my own for years. That bastard Caravaggio… it amuses him to know that this is how I live. Frail, bed-ridden, eking out an existence for years until death finally takes me. Now, you tell me which would give a man like Caravaggio more pleasure – a bullet for a quick kill, or watching his enemy suffer for decades in misery and pain?”

  He broke into another coughing fit. Gorilla was about to say something, but Eunice glanced over at him and shot him a warning glance – don't push it too far, Jack!

  Gorilla thought about it for a moment, but decided to pose one last question to the broken man before him. He leaned forward, his hands clasped together in front of him. “If you had the chance to get to Caravaggio again, to kill him, how would you do it? How would you find him?

  “That's easy. Isn't it obvious? I always said that Caravaggio's downfall would be his own ego, his over-inflated sense of himself. If you can find a way to prick that ego, well, it might just buy you enough time to kill him, to get inside his guard. Maybe…” said the old assassin.

  “And how to find him?” pushed Gorilla, once again ignoring Eunice's stern looks out of the corner of his eye.

  “Oh, my friend, that's the bleddy easy part! You won't need to find him. If he catches even a rumour of someone like you on his tail, he'll find you! But I have something for you, a file, or at least what's left of it. Who knows, there may be something of use to you in there?”

  He pointed over to an old briefcase leaning against the wall and beckoned for Eunice to take it.

  “If you want to catch the devil, you should always follow the money. That's how they caught Capone, so I'm told. It wasn't guns or dawn raids or shootouts… always follow the money and it will lead you right back to the source.

  “Caravaggio is no different to anyone else in that respect, he still has to have money to operate, although in his case it is vast sums of cash. And he needs to have someone manage it for him – hide transfers, disguise accounts, assets, the whole mix. He always said to me that he would like to retire to the mountains in the North… to a cabin, snow and ice, isolation.

  “But I always had a sneaking suspicion that he was being evasive. Europe was too risky for him, he would be too exposed there. He had made too many enemies in the Middle East. Asia is a possibility, but it doesn't feel sophisticated enough for a man like him, Africa, the same! And as for America… tsh… never. He hated the Americans, despite the vast amounts of money he took from them.”

  “South America?” asked Eunice hopefully.

  “It's a possibility, which may be something your people can help with. Perhaps they can lean on their contacts in those countries. At least it would narrow the field down. But for me… no, it doesn't feel right.”

  “So where?” asked Gorilla.

  “I would guess that he would stay near his money. He can't declare it openly, so he needs to hide it, probably somewhere with loose laws that international criminals can take advantage of. There was a man I discovered years ago who was suspected of taking a cut of Caravaggio's money, but it was never confirmed what for. I always suspected that he was his money-launderer.”

  “Who is he?”

  “It was only a rumour, but look for a man named Alvarez. Louis Alvarez. He's a fixer, a middleman. He runs and gambles big on illegal knife-fighting tournaments. If it was me, I'd look to head south.”

  “South where?” asked Eunice.

  “To Mexico,” replied Chirug.

  Chapter Twelve

  Virginia, USA – October 1973

  Gorilla had control of the Mustang, hands on the wheel, foot on the accelerator. Beside him, Eunice slept. The flight home from the Canary Islands had taken it out of her and she had been about ready to crash when they landed at Washington Dulles International, so he had offered to take the wheel and drive them to Virginia.

  He was having one of his 3 a.m. moments, when all his doubts about whether he was doing the right thing or which direction his life should go in, came and haunted him.

  Eunice Brown fascinated him. It wasn't just that she was a strong, independent woman in a very male-dominated trade… it wasn't even that she ticked all the boxes for him physically, with her height, her red hair, slim figure and green eyes. It was more than that. He felt as if he were seeing a different aspect of her every day and, to a man like Gorilla with his straight-down-the-line attitude, he found it hard to get a handle on her different facades. She intrigued him.

  He had seen Nikita; the hard-bitten professional bounty hunter. Then he had seen the cool interrogator of the South African hit man. He had seen the sophisticated and glamorous woman wearing designer dresses in Paraguay and Argentina. And here and now, he was seeing the relaxed girl from Virginia; asleep, skirt pulled up to her thighs and dusty old cowboy boots resting on the dashboard. To him, she was an enigma.

  He had known women in the intelligence world – he had known women as friends, family and lovers – but he had never known one who transcended both of his worlds so easily. He loved the way she slurred and drawled her speech in the southern way; even though he wanted to correct her pronunciations every time, he held back because it was what made her who she was.

  She was strong and feisty and independent. She could be both hard and gentle, and she was one of the best damned operators that he had ever had the pleasure to work with – or against!

  But still, she was that enigma. That unqualified puzzle. The question was, could he trust her? Or was she just using him to get the target and fulfil her own contract?

  Sometimes he hated this bloody business.

  The ranch was called Lafayette, according to the gatepost.

  Gorilla spotted it from half a mile away. It sat on an incline, isolated from the rest of the area and he guessed the nearest house was a good two miles away. It was a pretty, green, two-storey hacienda-style building complete with a front porch and rocking chairs. Gorilla thought it looked like something out of a William Faulkner novel.

  They pulled off the main road and onto the long drive that led up to the residence, to the side and rear of which there were at least six acres of land, with stables and several horses milling about.

  From a tactical point of view, it was perfect. There was clear line of sight in every direction, so anyone attacking would have trouble staying hidden. The only downside that he could see was that it was isolated, but he guessed that was what Eunice Brown was after. And let's face it, he thought, she could handle herself, so back-up would be a moot point in the grand scheme of things.

  As they approached the ranch, Eunice clicked a button on the dashboard and the garage doors began to open. He drove the Mustang straight in and parked up. Two very large German Shepherds came running out of their kennels to greet them.

  For a moment, Gorilla did what he always did with strange canines, especially very big strange canines – he paused and braced himself, ready to fight. He had never been a dog lover by any stretch of the imagination; a battle to the death with some Japanese fighting dogs several years earlier hadn't changed his opinion any, either.

  But he needn't have worried; Eunice calmed them with a command from her voice. “Axel! Ada! Heel!” The dogs immediately came to heel.

  “They bite?” asked Gorilla cautiously as the dogs sniffed at him.

  “They'll only nibble you, Jack.” She laughed. “See, they like you.”

  The dogs were good for security, either as an alarm or to take down intruders. He had no doubt that there would also be an array of weaponry concealed in vario
us stashes around the property in case of an attack. He also had no doubt that Nikita Brown knew how to use all of them to lethal effect.

  The dogs kept watch outside as they both entered the coolness of the interior. It was open-plan and simply furnished. Eunice made her way to her ground floor office while he perused the bookshelves. It was something he always did in people's houses or at parties, rummaging through books.

  “Holy shit!” she cried from the office.

  “What is it?” he called from over his shoulder.

  She came back holding a sheet of computer paper from a teleprinter. “It's from my controller at EXIS. It seems that your people and my people have been in touch. I wonder how that came about?”

  He shrugged. “And?”

  “It seems that they want us to work together, pool resources.”

  “You mean, exactly like we have been doing for the past few weeks?”

  She laughed. “Yes! But now it's official. I mean… you know how it works, Jack. Nothing real exists until some seat-shiner gives the order. How the hell would we cope without these people? It's a wonder we can go to the bathroom by ourselves without them providing us with instruction!”

  “Maybe the agencies have been in touch all along. Maybe they've had us all competing over the same contract? Whatever it is, they all certainly seem to want Caravaggio's head.”

  She nodded. “I agree. I think this is something a whole lot more than just terrorism.”

  “Is that what they told you?”

  “Yes. Only the bare details. Something to do with a terrorist plot to bring down an airliner.”

  Gorilla raised an eyebrow at that. “The SDECE told me that he was going to kill the President of France!”

  She shrugged. “Well, let's forget about it for now, at least until tomorrow. Drink?”

  “Please. Bourbon,” he said. He needed a good drink more than ever tonight.

  “You've lost weight since we first met in Paraguay,” she observed, pouring him a Wild Turkey with a splash of water, just how he liked it.

  “Some,” he admitted. “I had some time away in a private medical facility recently. The hand injury. The medical professionals insisted on a healthy lifestyle while I was there. I've carried it on. You approve?”

  She nodded. “Absolutely! You've lost that bulk. You look leaner, harder, fitter… you wear it well. It suits a man of your age.” She handed him the glass and for a brief moment both their fingers and their eyes locked in an intimate embrace. The silence was palpable.

  “Maybe tomorrow I can show you around before we get back to work. Take you into town and introduce you to some good, old-fashioned southern food? Meet the locals, that kind of thing.”

  Gorilla nodded. “Perhaps, although I think we should concentrate on getting back on the road. I don't want to lose Caravaggio's trail.”

  She flushed and a hint of defensiveness and embarrassment crossed her face. “Oh, I agree, Jack. We will, but I think we need a breather first. Even just a day or two,” she said, moving closer to him, touching his arm in that intimate manner that Americans seemed so comfortable with.

  Gorilla felt his body instinctively respond to her touch and her proximity. He could sense all of her; her natural heat, her scent, her eyes on him. He could hear her breathing deeply. He knew that even something as simple as a touch from this woman could stir things in him that he hadn't felt for a long time.

  “Eunice, I don't –”

  But she cut him off before he could say any more and turned away. “I've made up the guest bedroom downstairs. You should be comfortable. I don't know about you, Jack, but I could probably sleep for a week. That flight was a killer!”

  She stood in the doorway, hands on hips and he thought she was going to take the conversation further. But instead, she simply said, “Goodnight, Jack.”

  “Goodnight, Eunice,” he said quietly. And then she was gone.

  She came to him that night. He had gone to bed early. The day's travelling had worn him out. He had lain down in the downstairs guest bedroom and listened to the sounds of the night, but his thoughts were busy. Busy with the route that he had taken to get here and the information that they had gathered to find Caravaggio. Busy with how he could find this man, his target. Busy with how he would get close to him – get close enough to be able to kill him.

  But most of all, his thoughts were with Eunice Brown who was asleep upstairs.

  She fascinated him, she intrigued him, but most of all she stirred emotions in him that he thought had long since been buried. Oh, there had been women, certainly, but no one who had connected with him so clearly and on so many different levels.

  Finally, around 2 a.m., he drifted off, sleep eventually taking hold of him. He slept hard, his dreams of the woman with the red hair and the sassy manner prominent. He imagined her scent, her touch, how it would be to kiss her and hold her.

  Then there she was, standing over him in the darkness of his room. Not a dream, but reality, wearing a leather aviator jacket to keep out the cold and very little else. “Can I join you?” was all she said.

  He nodded and she slipped off the jacket to reveal herself to him. Her body was just as he had imagined it; slim, lean, the curve of her hips, the swell of her breasts that were partly covered by the cascade of her red hair. But it was the eyes that held him. Even in the dark, her eyes searched for his and never let him go. Her hand reached out for his and they interlocked their fingers; it was both an innocent and deeply personal act.

  Then they were together between the sheets, skin to skin, holding each other.

  “You think we should?” he asked, knowing that he wanted to more than anything.

  “Jack, we've waited for so long, let's not put it off any longer.”

  They started a kissed that lasted for minutes, neither one of them wanting to break the connection and, when they finally did, it was only to explore each other's bodies with their hands and tongues and eyes. They both found that they had a similar style of lovemaking; physical and passionate. It was as if two long-parted souls had finally found each other and had been reconnected once more.

  Eunice took control and straddled him, gasping as he entered her. She took it slow, grinding on top of him, his hands rested on her hips, moving with her to bring her on. The warm night had brought with it an electric storm and intermittently, their lovemaking was illuminated by a flash of blue lighting.

  Eunice began riding him more passionately now, with power behind the thrusts, and she moaned when Grant moved his hands up to caress her breasts to the rhythm of their combined beat. When she came, she came hard and the inevitable scream of their mutual orgasm was drowned by the crash of thunder from the storm. “Oh Jack, oh Jack… Oh my God!”

  They lay in each other's arms for a while, talking, whispering to each other, joking at times, comfortable with each other's skin, their bodies entwined. The talking only stopped so that they could kiss some more.

  “Well, aren't we a pair, Mr Grant?”

  “We certainly are, Miss Brown.”

  She got up and slipped on the jacket. “I'll be back. Don't go away.” Moments later, she came back with a beer for each of them. It was cold and refreshing and it suited both their moods. She sat on the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest inside the jacket.

  “That's a nice jacket.”

  She smiled. “It belonged to my dad. It was his old motorcycle jacket. He'd wear it all the time.”

  “It's an aviator jacket. Was he Air Force?”

  “No, Dad was Army. Special Forces, then later, assigned to intelligence duties. He just liked the jacket. He got it off an old buddy of his. Dad went missing in action when I was young. Every time I wear that jacket, I think of him. It reminds me of the last time I ever saw him. He was walking out of the kitchen, he turned and waved and… and that was it. He was gone.”

  “You miss him, Eunice?” That was a stupid question. Why had he said that? Of course she would miss him!

  He saw a si
ngle tear roll down her cheek and fall onto the pillow. “Jack, honey, I miss him every day. He was the strongest, sweetest, kindest man I ever knew. You remind me of him in many ways.”

  Grant lay back, not speaking, not knowing whether to say 'thank you' or let her talk herself out. It didn't feel right to intrude on her thoughts.

  Finally, she broke the silence. “Have you ever lost anyone like that, Jack? Parents, lovers, a friend?”

  He lay back onto the pillow and thought. He didn't have to search hard in his memory for the pain of loss. He remembered a night, many years ago. Cold, dark, standing in front of a barbed wire fence, holding a baby in his arms, wrapped inside his thick winter coat; the Smith &Wesson 39 that he had been given, gripped tightly in his other hand, ready to be used to protect himself and the child.

  He had stared across the no-man's land to a man who mirrored his own actions. The man was in uniform. Tall, arrogant, he too was holding a child in a similar fashion. At his feet lay a dead body, the body of a woman. The man was staring at him, hate in his eyes. Only the barbed wire fence separated them. In the distance were the sounds of klaxons, shouting, automatic gunfire, and the random strobing of flashlights as guards searched the gloom, drawing closer all the time.

  Jack Grant had taken one final look, tears in his eyes, and then he had run… run as hard as he could into the forest, his legs pounding, still cradling the baby, putting distance between him and the fence. Some way behind him, he had heard the man calling after him, “You can never run from me, Grant, I will find you… you can't hide!”

  He came back out of his thoughts and turned towards her, his hand resting on her thigh. “We all lose people, Eunice, it's a part of life. It's how we learn to deal with it, live with it… that's what counts. There are certain things, certain pains that will never fade away no matter how much time I give them. I think they will only stop when I take my last breath.”

  “I notice you didn't answer my question,” she said.