Wolfs Bluff

Wolf's Bluff\ \ By W. D. Gagliani \ Dorchester Publishing\ Copyright © 2010 William D. Gagliani\ All right reserved.\ ISBN: 978-0-8439-6348-9 \ \ \ Chapter One\ Lupo Somewhere in Georgia \ Grimly, he checked the load in his Glock.\ The magazine was full, as it had been the last time he'd checked, so he slid it back into the grip until it clicked home. This was a clean Glock, unregistered and untraceable, procured by a friend of a friend, whose inventory was full of such clean pieces. He'd loaded the magazine, and the spares in his belt pouches, while wearing latex gloves to make sure there would be no prints on the brass. There was a second magazine on the dash, loaded in the same careful way but with special rounds, riding in a pouch he would hang from his belt at the last second.\ Lupo sat in a borrowed Honda that also had no paper, though it could survive a cursory look. The legit plates and registration would only fall apart if followed too far down the paper path. But his source for clean cars was almost as good as his source for clean guns. As a cop, he had access to a directory of people whose businesses resided on the fringes of the gray areas of the law.\ "You know you're asking for trouble, Nick," Sam said from the passenger seat. He was fidgeting with his hands, rubbing down his aging fingers, trying to straighten them against the arthritis. "You can't keep crossing the line without being seen. You can't keep walking into trouble by yourself."\ "If I caused the trouble myself, I can," Lupo muttered. "Look, I had to get rid of that petty robber. Sure, I should have known better before that, when I chased him down and-"\ Sam waved him off. "I know, I know, that was maybe a necessity, but this-this I'm not really sure of. You're here, far from home, driving a ghost car-"\ "And packing a ghost piece," Lupo interjected, holding it up.\ "Right, the piece means you plan on doing some housecleaning down here."\ "No, that's what the other stuff in the other magazine is for. And the trunk."\ "Ah, all the silver. So you think there are more of them here? Those three might have been the proverbial bad apples."\ "Sam, isn't it obvious? I can't believe there were only three of them in the entire world, first of all. Besides me, I mean. Suddenly we're a group of four. That means there's no end to the possibilities for more. And if there were three bad apples working for Wolfpaw Security, then why not more? A place like Wolfpaw strikes me as the perfect hiding place for bad apples, not to mention a natural way to, uh, 'wolf out' without too many people catching on."\ "You're talking about the Iraq connection?" Sam looked out the passenger window before turning back to Lupo. "You think there was more to it?"\ "Listen, from what I've found out, these guys killed their way through a bunch of in-country assignments. Nobody would have noticed, official or otherwise. Talk, rumors, whispers maybe. I was able to track down one source who says, off the record, mind you, that he remembers hearing rumors of weird animal attacks-all fatalities-following these guys throughout Baghdad, Karbala, and Basra. Nothing that anyone official ever cared about, what with all the bombings and assassinations and ethnic cleansing. What's a few more unusual deaths? Maybe starving animals were responsible. Maybe it didn't matter. After all, these people were subhumans, so why care?"\ "You're being harsh on the Wolfpaw management."\ "Am I?" Lupo snorted.\ "Think the management knows about the creatures?"\ Lupo frowned. "That's the million-dollar question. Maybe the whole company's rotten with these things. Maybe they don't just tolerate them, they encourage the behavior. Maybe it explains the corporate name and logo."\ "You mean instead of werewolves being drawn by the work and the name, it actually symbolizes their, uh, 'nature'?"\ "Sure, why not? I became a cop partly due to the enhancements this condition gave me. I would have washed out of the academy, if not for a few subtle advantages. So these guys, maybe they figured why not make the best of our abilities, make a ton of taxpayer money in government contracts, and eat as many live humans as we can get our paws on? And if you thought that way, where else would you go?"\ "So this is the answer? A midnight raid?"\ "Not a raid. More like a recon mission. I want to see from up close what these guys do in their off time. And what their training facilities look like."\ "You know they're probably gonna get decommissioned in the next year, right? They're gonna get pulled out of Iraq. Too many unprovoked killings."\ "Doesn't that make my point?"\ "I'm talking gunfire deaths, Nick."\ "Sure, but those are the visible deaths. It's those undocumented killings I'm interested in."\ Sam sighed. "I guess. I know you may be right, but do you think you should risk everything-even risk Jessie-just to ease your curiosity? You know how she feels about your obsession with Wolfpaw."\ "We can't be completely safe until I know. And until things are taken care of, even if I have to be the one to take care of them."\ Sam was silent.\ "Sam?" Lupo turned.\ There was no one there.\ Lupo blew out a long breath. The hair on the back of his neck tingled.\ Shit.\ He racked the Glock's slide.\ Jessie\ A late outbreak of the flu on the reservation had kept her at the clinic for an extra shift, so by the time it had quieted down again, she wondered if she should even bother going home. A couple more hours and she would be back in the car, driving to work to face another whole day of sniffling, miserable kids and their parents. It wasn't much to look forward to, and with Nick out of town there was nothing to draw her home, either.\ Jessie turned out the lights and settled into the plush futon on which she'd recently allowed herself to splurge, back in the private little room behind her office. It was far better than a cot, much softer, and wrapping the long green and gold Packers fleece blanket around herself would keep her warm and cozy until it was time to reopen the doors.\ She warmed up some cold tea in the microwave, broke out an emergency bag of Doritos, and checked her small bookcase for something good to read. Thrillers had lost their sheen for her after she'd become involved with Nick Lupo, a man who came with his own thriller life. She'd had enough of real-life thrills. No, maybe a nice locked-room mystery, a civilized "cozy," would be perfect for the cold weather and the way she wanted to feel under the fleece.\ She selected a thin paperback and cracked the cover with little interest but to distract herself just long enough to let sleep claim her. The words swam before her eyes and she began to let them, preferring to allow her mind to wander. She couldn't help it. She and Nick had argued about his trip, and she'd lost. He was stubborn, a typical Italian, as he would often admit, which galled her even more because it proved he knew he was galling her but then going on to do it anyway, which gave his decisions an element of premeditation she resented.\ Jessie had wanted to let things settle down before getting involved in some kind of terrible business all over again. The mercenaries and serial killer combination that had complicated the previous few months had proven difficult to explain and cover up, and only because Sheriff Tom Arnow had been personally aware of all the facts had they been able to drag a virtual tarpaulin over the whole sordid affair.\ Mayor Ron Malko had turned out to be a serial killer with a long résumé, and they had been able to manufacture an aura around him which they used to explain some of the killings that otherwise had been perpetrated by his employees, mercenary types recently home from a long and apparently enjoyable legalized killing spree in occupied Iraq. The gruesome difference was that these mercs had preferred devouring their victims after playing with them.\ Nick had been shocked to learn there were others who shared his "condition," as he called his lycanthropy. Though she'd often reminded him that logic dictated there would be more, given the fact that Nick knew at least two others had existed before him: Sam Waters's son, and the neighbor boy who had bitten Nick and ruined his childhood-and life, to hear him tell it.\ Jessie felt the jury was still out on whether Nick was cursed or blessed, but it was certain (and she was forced to agree) his luck had been running rather in the negatives in the last couple years.\ Her thoughts ran to luck because the bright lights of the new casino across the way blinked on and off all night long, painting her drawn shade a kaleidoscope of neon colors. The casino didn't face the clinic. Its raised ski-lodge-style facade dominated the main street in from both directions on U.S. 45. Jessie's clinic-really a well-equipped small hospital-faced the next street over, but the building's squat footprint occupied the entire block, and the room she lay in now, trying to rest, was located at the rear of the building. The bland rear wall did face the casino, however, with its winding drive and valet-parking lot leading to the three-story log atrium topped by huge replicas of stretched Indian blankets, their jagged designs recalling the worst stereotypes Jessie could think of, but apparently nobody cared as long as the money rolled in. Actually the lobby and its atrium were understated compared with the much greater crimes perpetrated inside the casino proper.\ The roar of buses accelerating after dropping off loads of elderly casino hounds seemed to punctuate her thoughts. What time was it? Had to be after 2:00 a.m., and people were just arriving.\ The council must be happy.\ Just a couple months of operation and the money had to be rolling in. Sure, there were construction costs to cover, and payrolls, and training, and a million other things. Jessie's clinic had seen a spike in routine physicals, forced by the employment agreements for all new casino staff. Construction was still ongoing next door to the casino, where the hotel and convention center was slowly taking shape.\ The evil pond that had caused all the recent trouble had been drained and its secrets divulged. Bodies had come out of the black water by the dozen, weighed down by everything from chains to cinder blocks and boat anchors. The newer victims had been zipped into strong canvas Christmas-tree-storage bags, but older remains had settled into a sort of organic sludge even veteran medical-examiner staff members could barely stomach. Bones and other remains had been scooped out of the mud like twigs. The stench had been overwhelming for weeks, until the tribal council had held a public cleansing and burned various bonfires in a sacred ceremony specifically geared to helping the reservation purify itself physically and psychologically of the evil that had been done on its border.\ Then the casino itself had risen from the previously cursed site and taken shape, and the surviving members of the council fast-tracked the casino and convention center project. Rick Davison had inherited the reins of the council and, sworn to secrecy about what he had witnessed, had led the tribe's effort to reinvent itself and bring prosperity to the downtrodden community.\ Jessie had to give Davison some credit. For the most part, he had managed to navigate the fine line between heading toward the distinctly cheesy and keeping some semblance of tribal honor and self-identity.\ The fact that he tended to avoid her whenever possible rankled her, however. It wasn't her fault their world had been invaded by evil forces who had upended everyone's lives. But Davison seemed to hold her responsible for bringing Nick Lupo into their lives, despite the fact that Lupo had vacationed in nearby Eagle River for over a decade before her relationship with him had transitioned from that of landlord to friend to lover.\ But she understood the tendency to associate the trauma suffered by Davison and his family with her and with Nick Lupo, even though they had helped Sheriff Tom Arnow vanquish the threat from four vicious killers-hell no, they were the reason Sheriff Arnow had succeeded. Without them, there was no telling when Eagle River and the rez would have broken the bloody chokehold. How many more would have died if Nick's intervention hadn't occurred when it did?\ Jessie put the paperback down and stared at the flashing behind the shade. She hated to admit it, but the casino was fascinating to behold. Maybe it was the whole psychology of it, the way people who could ill afford it were drawn to throw their money into machines that for the most part were designed to gobble it up, spitting back an occasional win just to spur the rest of the so-called players into donating more of their paychecks.\ Maybe it was her love of the Alan Parsons Project 1980 album The Turn of a Friendly Card, which explored the gambling addiction from a medieval-tinted progressive-pop-music perspective, that still seemed to hit the mark all these many years later. The fact that this love was shared with Nick had helped draw them together after years of friendship.\ But now Sheriff Tom Arnow's face was in her mind. She shook her head, almost as if wanting to deny it, but the image was there.\ She could see the angular planes of the tough sheriff who'd come to Eagle River by way of Daytona and Chicago, where he'd been a hard-nosed cop before deciding to find an easy path to retirement. Eagle River had not been it. She smiled a bit sadly to herself. She'd hated to see Tom go. He was interested in her, she could tell, maybe from the very beginning of his tenure as sheriff, but he'd backed off when he realized she was with Nick Lupo. And then Nick had decided to reveal his terrible secret to Tom, and that had made him more than just aloof. His world had been rocked, that was certain.\ Nick had been right, though. Arnow would never have listened to them without solid proof, and the best proof was a clear look at Nick Lupo changing from man to wolf, dangerous as it was. He would have stood by and watched as more and more victims were either devoured by the pack of mercenaries Ron Malko had hired, or disappeared at the hands of Malko himself. There was no way Arnow would have believed Nick's version of what he was up against, and the alliance that finally overcame the mercenaries would never have existed.\ Nick's decision to blow his secret to someone he only hoped he could trust had been borne out as a wise one in the end, but it had led to Arnow's hasty departure when the last of the paperwork was filed, after the state and federal authorities were satisfied that Malko had simply gone around the bend and hired trained killers to do his dirty work. The discrepancies between what was said and what some of the forensic evidence showed had been either ignored or written off as errors caused by the "backward" conditions of the provincial-hick-crime labs available locally.\ She glanced at the wall clock. Two forty A.M., and there was a full house across the street. As there was every night. The cars and SUVs stretched out in a long line off the highway, snaking through the parking lots or into the parking structure. Jessie unrolled herself from the fleece and stood stiffly, hovering on the brink of a decision that made little sense. The room was slightly illuminated by the brightness of the flashing lights, and she could see the familiar outlines of her furniture. She avoided the sharp corners and approached the window, feeling the pull through the shade and the glass panes. The pull of the casino.\ Not the gambling, not that. The environment itself seemed to draw her toward the warmth of that giant barn they'd erected in the center of her reservation. In essence, she felt it was valuable research she should do. She cast about in the dark, finding her North Face jacket mostly by feel. It was still cold in the North Woods, even though winter's back had finally been broken by the reluctant sun and its minions, warm southerly winds that were nothing if not unseasonable. But in the middle of the night, winter plotted its comeback, and the chill would take the breath right out of you as you crossed wide-open spaces between buildings even here in this small but growing community.\ Before she was quite aware of it, she had zipped up the coat and edged toward the door, feeling fatigue slide away as a growing glow of excitement began to warm her insides. She took the stairs down to the ground level, passed the rear nurse's station with a wave at the overnight staff, and was soon pushing through the exit door near the loading dock, where she stood overlooking the small surface lot and its smattering of vehicles illuminated by the strobelike casino lighting. Night staff and maintenance crew, perhaps an overnight patient or two, and a couple security guards. Her old Pathfinder was in the corner, parked in its reserved slot. She could just click the remote and head home after all; just a few steps away was the means.\ (Continues...)\ \ \ \ \ Excerpted from Wolf's Bluff by W. D. Gagliani Copyright © 2010 by William D. Gagliani. Excerpted by permission.\ All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.\ Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. \ \