Another ship’s officer, Milos Havlik, nudged Kamil. “The young one has a mouth, better watch out!”
Kamil lost his pensive look, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Franco.
“At least, that is what my father says,” Franco said innocently.
There was a pause as everyone seemed to hold his breath. Then everyone broke out into laughter and raised their glasses, the icy atmosphere broken at least temporarily. More wine and slivovitz was poured, and glasses clinked. Only Kamil continued glowering at the smart-mouth boy.
Franco heaved a sigh. Here he’d been worried about the priest getting them killed, and then he had gone ahead and opened his own big mouth. He wasn’t accustomed to this kind of gathering and conversation. Now he let the rest of this conversation get away from him, and sat back to eat the fattening food. It was good, if greasy, and seemed to help ease his crippling aggregate hunger from the last few years. In fact, he ate enough for three, shoveling food onto his plate and into his mouth like a starving animal. His time with the partisans had featured much thin soup, boiled potatoes, and the occasional chunk of horse meat. This was a banquet by comparison, and he ate his fill as if there were to be no food the next day. The priest made a face at him, indicating he shouldn’t make such a pig of himself.
After the remainder of the dinner, which was much quieter after the outbursts, some of the officers began to drink heavily as soon as the captain took his leave, a surly look on his face. Tranelli gazed longingly at the various open bottles and licked dry lips, but allowed himself to be led toward the door.
As they were leaving the mess hall, Franco heard the men get around to a topic that interested him, but it was too late.
“What about the woman passenger, the rich bitch?” Havlik said, smacking his lips lewdly. “Anyone see her out of her cabin yet?”
“She refused the captain’s invitation, more’s the pity. Snob.”
“But is she nice-looking?” someone asked.
“Is she? She’s like a movie actress! Yeah, she’s attractive all right and she’s got quite a rack. I’d fuck her in a minute. Those long legs of hers would be up on my shoulders and I’d—”
Someone shushed the speaker, pointing at Father Tranelli and Franco, who had just reached the door. Franco hesitated, but the priest pushed him bodily. Reluctantly, Franco and Tranelli ignored the rest of the whispering and stepped out into the corridor. They heard raucous laughter from inside, where the men were clearly still celebrating the woman’s copious traits.
“Damn it, we should have stayed,” Franco whispered. “I have wondered about her, too.”
“You saw her?” The priest’s eyes widened.
“Just a glimpse.”
“A rich Nazi? A general’s wife, that kind of thing?” The priest made a face.
“I don’t know. Maybe listening to them would have helped us.”
“They wouldn’t have talked freely with us there, you saw that.”
Franco frowned. It was only the first dinner. Would she refuse to dine with the rest of them every evening?
He wasn’t sure why he was so curious about her, but the alluring glimpse she’d given him had awakened something inside him, an interest he hadn’t known was there. He wasn’t sure what, but something was happening in his loins. His father had once joked that Franco would know when he was suddenly interested in girls, and now he wondered if that day had come. All he knew was that he tingled at the thought of that woman, even though it had been only a quick glimpse.
They headed back to their adjoining cabins.
A midnight excursion came to mind, but Franco doubted Tranelli would approve. Which was why he waited for the priest to adjourn to his own bunk. After pointedly saying good night and faking a yawn, Franco lay atop his narrow bunk and pretended to fall asleep.
The ship’s engines provided a soothing droning rhythm that threatened to put him to sleep. But his senses were fully awake, and excitement flowed through his nerves. He fidgeted until he thought he would explode. Soon it was time. Tranelli snored audibly in the other cabin. Franco dressed quickly and wandered into the dimly-lit corridor, the Vatican dagger tucked into his belt under the coat.
Even though there was no one on either side of the long corridor, the sense of dread was palpable.
Chapter Six
Rabbioso
Climbing rapidly from McCarran inside the belly of the mostly full Airbus, he watched the lights of the Strip twinkle magically below until the plane banked and the window turned dark.
His seat mate, a florid businessman in some kind of paper industry, made a half-hearted attempt to engage him in banal conversation, but Rabbioso’s natural glare took the fun out of it for the guy.
When the cart came around, jostling elbows and legs, he bought an outrageously expensive drink from a surly attendant (credit or debit card only) and tuned out a few more half-hearted attempts by the businessman to engage him, until finally he stared at the guy and growled just loud enough to awaken his Paleolithic brain and shut up out of pure fear. Muttering, the guy settled back facing partly away to sleep, leaving Rabbioso to his own thoughts.
Thankfully. Have to look into picking up a private plane. Or chartering. Anything’s better than this.
He tried to get back on track.
What was Marina up to? He realized he didn’t much care, but he needed her to be on his arm to quell the rest of the family’s suspicions about him. It wasn’t often an enforcer made a power play and took over a family, but this had been different. The whole upper hierarchy of the Bastone family had perished or been paralyzed—literally—in that fucking raid by the pretty doctor’s cop buddy and his henchman.
Rabbioso still didn’t understand exactly what had happened. One minute they’d been at the new compound, the empty house full of muscle, and the idiot Don Gus Bastone about to put the hammer on the doctor chick…and next they were all in the middle of a fucking war.
He remembered the electric insect sound he’d heard after the doc had escaped and before the place had gone up.
Gas leak, they said later in the news.
Fuck, yeah, and I’m Santa’s little helper.
Somehow the fuckers had called down a goddamn drone strike on the compound and it had ended up burned to the ground.
He wasn’t really interested in the details, but he did want revenge against the cop who seemed to have orchestrated the whole thing and managed to keep it out of the papers. And then the bastard cop turned out be a wolf, and their fight over the doc had left him damn near dead and in pain worse than anything he’d ever experienced. If he thought about it, the rage would consume him. And he’d always had the reputation of being a cool-headed customer. Only hot-heads brought down their own houses.
But that fuckin’ Nick Lupo—he chuckled at that—had to learn you didn’t fuck with Joe Rabbioso, or the Bastone Family. Soon it would be the Rabbioso family, and he had plans for when that would come about.
After that, Marina would become superfluous.
He glanced at his seat-partner, glad to note the guy’s curiosity had dissipated and he now feigned sleep. That was the way to deal with people—intimidate the hell out of them.
He waited until the more attractive flight attendant was nearby then waved her over and bought another drink. Let the airline make a few dollars off of him, what did he care? The old Don was still paying the tabs, even if he didn’t know shit about anything.
It was a good position to be in, even if he’d gone through hell to get there. And now he was itching for what was about to come.
And before he knew it the Airbus was on approach and dropping fast.
Oh yes, he was itching to play some games.
Lupo
He mostly hated driving, but the ride up north was always a liberation, a dropping of the bullshit by degrees, enhanced by the improving scenery as the surrounding trees slowly transitioned from deciduous to coniferous. Helping his mood was always his stash of playlists, one of them now
cranking from his new Mustang’s sound system.
Right now he was avoiding the Alan Parsons Project only because it reminded him too much of the rift that was slowly dividing him from Jessie. He had sequenced some of his favorite early Tangerine Dream albums so they flowed into his favorite later period albums. Goblins Club was on at the moment, and he was already looking forward to the newer version of “Stratosfear” that would follow when the album Tyranny of Beauty began. After that Live Miles, Ricochet, and Cyclone would weave in and out of his favorite period of their output.
He missed his old Maxima and its souped-up engine and greater comfort, but he had to admit he rather liked cornering with the pony car, and the sound was definitely an improvement.
Maybe he’d start enjoying the driving after all.
He was trying to purge his mind of all the crazy thoughts he’d been having since the shoot-out with the Bastone family had intersected the Wolfclaw attack. He still had nightmares about those moments, when the high-pitched monstrous insect sounds of the small but deadly drones signaled their arrival and the imminent deployment of the Reaper missiles. The two had occurred concurrently and he had taken advantage, improvising based on a shaky concept. He had no idea how he had managed to make that bit of magic work…but somehow it had.
Fuck, it was a thing of beauty.
Except it had given him those goddamn nightmares. He could relate to Danni Colgrave’s admission that she also wasn’t sleeping very well, although in her case it was the werewolves she’d seen that now made her sleep elusive—that and having killed a bunch of them with bursts of silver slugs. Plus all the other grisly shit she’d seen at the drone house.
He shook his head and slowed as he entered New London, his sort-of halfway point. He could avoid it now that newer highways had superseded the old two-lane state roads, but he still liked to slow down, gas up, stretch his legs. Grab a stale filling station sandwich and a tub of iced tea for the road.
He pulled into the large station in the center of town and glanced around. It was still the same place, and it recalled happier times. Even though he was heading up to Eagle River, his so-called “happy place,” he wasn’t feeling it yet. Too much on his mind.
And he was doing a stealth run. He hadn’t told Jess he was coming, and hadn’t decided whether he was going to see her.
Damn it, are we doomed? The two of us? When I’m sneaking in and not even telling the woman I love?
He just wanted to think.
He wanted to be away from Ryeland and Barton and Roman. From DiSanto, too, and whatever was burning him up. Something was wrong there, but DiSanto was being mum about it. The bus shooter had been quiet since the Route 15 massacre. Lupo should have wanted to work on that task force, but he got a strange vibe from Barton, whom they still called Hart-Bart behind his back due to confusion about his name when he’d arrived.
All that, and he also wanted to put some distance between him and Colgrave, who was looking at him funny these days. He hadn’t expected that…
Turned on? Geez.
And he’d been ducking Marla Anders even though his orders included mandatory sessions with the psychologist. She was trying to force him into a corner, he figured, with some agenda of her own. He had a long list of emails from her he hadn’t bothered to read, and he had managed to spot her from afar and abort any errands at work that would have taken him past her usual haunts.
And he hadn’t seen Heather, so he assumed she was still healing from the torture she had suffered, although she seemed to be bouncing back faster every time—as if her body was learning something, or simply repairing itself faster. He wondered if he might be the same. But in any case he wanted to be away from her, too.
Especially her.
She routinely played with his feelings, and with the lust the Creature within him automatically felt for the beautiful but amoral muck-raking reporter.
The only place to find some solitude, some quiet woods where he could let the Creature out on the hunt, was in Vilas County. And he would be there soon. But he had to go in silent mode, or he would be back to facing one of his looming problems. Not that he wanted to think of Jessie in that way, but it was happening and he was powerless to stop it.
He gassed up, paid for the fuel, a vat of iced tea and a turkey/cheese/limp lettuce sandwich, and headed back to his car.
In the next gas lane was an idling black Expedition with tinted windows.
If werewolves had a spider-sense, he mused, his was suddenly going off the meter.
He forced himself to appear nonchalant, but watched the windows from the corner of his eye as he fussed with his purchases, leaning into the passenger seat and setting down the food.
They weren’t getting gas, getting out to visit the can, or buying junk food. Whoever was in the truck was just…sitting there.
He reached below the dashboard on the passenger side and plucked out the MP5 submachine gun he had clipped there, pulling back the bolt as he held it below window level. He wasn’t going to start anything, but if the Expedition’s doors opened, he was going to have a word with them. And he sensed if they opened the doors or opened a window all hell would break loose.
Or not?
Fuck this, am I just paranoid?
Then again, this wouldn’t be the first time—
The black SUV’s engine suddenly growled and the vehicle tore away from the pumps, turned right past Lupo and squealed off the lot with barely a rolling stop. Traffic was thin, so the truck headed in the opposite direction without having to slow. It roared away in a cloud of exhaust fumes.
Lupo sighed in relief. It was nothing, after all.
Just a typical road-hog jerk trying to give everyone a good look at how dangerous he was. People like that all over the North Woods, and he’d run into some of them. People who’d run you off the road with their heavy-duty Dodge Ram 3500s if you looked at them funny while they passed you in a no-passing zone, belching smoke and ruining the quiet of the woods with their barely muffled V-8 engines.
Yeah, another one of those.
He carefully decocked the MP5 and replaced it, then got back into his seat.
And waited.
He wasn’t quite convinced the guy hadn’t been taking a long look at him. The suspicious vehicle itself was just the kind Wolfpaw had loved. Big, bad, black.
Lupo gave it a few more minutes, sipping his iced tea, then started up and headed for a nearby park where he could pull in and have his sandwich in peace. He remembered some years before running into a motorcycle gang there, but they’d made him as a pig and left him alone, spitting gravel after they decided to scram.
The middle of the state was chock-full of strange little pockets of anti-authority, some of which were biker gangs connected to larger bands such as the Mongols, the Outlaws, and even Hell’s Angels. Here, after all were the origins of the Posse Comitatus, as well as the KKK itself. There were places in middle or northern Wisconsin where you might as well have been in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, or in a bayou somewhere in the deep South. He’d always loved it there, but sometimes he also felt especially happy to be armed.
This was just a strange but meaningless encounter, he told himself. It had to be.
He chewed the slightly soggy sandwich thoughtfully, keeping an eye on his mirrors.
“You know what you’re doing?” It was Ghost Sam, sitting slouched in the passenger seat. “These aren’t really very comfortable seats,” he added, even though he was nearly invisible.
Lupo snorted. “Like you can tell.” You’re a ghost, he wanted to add, but he didn’t.
“You’d be surprised what I’m allowed to experience.” The old man sighed. “Listen, we have to talk. I understand you’re not in a good place with Jessie right now, but you have to pay attention to the other things that are going on around you. There’s a bigger picture, you know? You’ve become aware of some parts of it, but there are others and I can only help you in some ways.”
“Why not? Is there a rul
e book?” Lupo said around a mouthful of sandwich. He slurped up some tea.
“Maybe there is, I don’t know. What I do know is that the big picture is bigger and goes back farther than you can imagine.”
“What am I supposed to do about that?”
“I don’t know,” said Sam, “and that’s what scares me the most.”
Lupo chewed silently.
“You can’t get distracted by some things that don’t matter.”
“Does Corrado matter?”
“I think so.”
“Does Barton?”
“I believe so…”
“Does Roman?”
“Be careful there…you might want to—”
“Wait,” Lupo said. “What do you know?”
“There may be someone else who can help with the Roman situation, but I—I’m having trouble with that. It seems I’m limited from giving you direct help on some things. I’m trying to recruit someone else who can help you, but you have to be open to it, or this help will be meaningless. And bad things are—” The ghost was fading, and so was his voice.
“Wait, what doesn’t matter? What should I be careful of? Who’s going to help?”
But Ghost Sam was gone. The seat was empty.
Too many goddamn riddles.
He finished the sandwich, but he actually felt lonely now. A few minutes later he was on his way north again, hoping Ghost Sam would pop back in, but he didn’t.
By the time his playlist hit the latest Steve Hackett album, he’d all but forgotten the Expedition and its strange behavior. And he’d put Ghost Sam’s ominous warning out of his head.
He pointed the Mustang toward a corner of the rez relatively far away from the hospital, and Jessie, and hummed along with his music, the Creature inside him already feeling the loosening bonds of his urban prison.
The woods called to the Creature. Its hungers were starting to awaken.
Chapter Seven
Rabbioso
At the Dane County Regional Airport, he collected his bag and made his way to the end of the terminal that housed most of the privately owned hangars. There he quickly located the helipad (actually just a wide concrete apron with several yellow crosses painted on it), on which stood the AgustaWestland AW109E Power.
Wolf's Blind (The Nick Lupo Series Book 6) Page 7
