“My children. Please don’t kill me,” the doctor begged. “You know I have children.”
“They’ll be better off without you. I think so, bitch. I bet they would agree.”
He shot her through the heart. A mercy killing, he thought to himself, especially after the way she’d tortured him. Plus, he just didn’t like her, the humorless bitch.
Finally, the Wolf left the office and walked to his Range Rover. He was thinking that no one knew what he looked like now. Not a single person anywhere.
And that got him laughing, almost uncontrollably. This was his piece of the puzzle.
Chapter 116
“THERE HE IS—has to be.”
“He’s laughing! What’s so funny? Look at him. Can you believe it?”
“He looks like he was scalped, then had his skin flayed,” Ned Mahoney said when the heavily bandaged man in a gray overcoat emerged from the brownstone. “He looks like a goddamn ghoul.”
“Don’t underestimate him,” I reminded Ned. “And don’t forget, he is a ghoul.”
We were watching the Wolf—at least, the man we believed to be the Wolf—as he left a plastic surgeon’s office on the East Side of Manhattan. We had just gotten there, less than sixty seconds before. Almost missed him again.
“Don’t worry, I’m not underestimating him, Alex. That’s why we have half a dozen teams getting ready to pounce on him. If we’d gotten here sooner, we could have grabbed him inside the doctor’s office.”
I nodded. “At least we’re here. It was a complicated negotiation in England. Klára Lodge and her children are somewhere in northern Africa now. She did her part.”
“So the Wolf has had a tracking device under his shoulder blade since he came out of Russia? That’s the story?”
“We’re here, aren’t we? According to Klára, Martin Lodge knew where he was all along. That kept Lodge alive.”
“We’re ready to go, then? We take him?”
“We’re ready. I’m ready.” Jesus, was I ready. I wanted to take this bastard down so badly. I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face.
Mahoney spoke into the mike attached to his headset. “Close on him now. And remember, he’s extremely dangerous.”
You got that right, Neddo.
Chapter 117
THE BLACK RANGE ROVER was stopped at a light on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street. Dark sedans pulled up on both sides. A third car blocked off the intersection. Agents jumped out of the cars. We had him!
Gunfire suddenly erupted from a white Hummer in front of the Range Rover. The doors of the Hummer flew open. Three men with automatic weapons came out firing.
“Where the hell did they come from?” Mahoney yelled into his mike. “Everybody down!”
We were already out of our car and running toward the gunfight. Ned fired and took down one of the Wolf’s bodyguards. I hit another, and a third bodyguard opened up on us.
Meanwhile, the Wolf was out of the Range Rover and running down Fifth Avenue, staying out in the street with the cars. The condition of his face made him look as though he’d already been shot, or maybe badly burned in a fire. People on the sidewalk were hitting the pavement because of the gunshots coming from everywhere. Several were screaming uncontrollably. How far did the Wolf think he could get, looking the way he did? In New York City, maybe far!
More gunmen appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. More of his bodyguards. He had certainly brought backup. Had we brought enough?
And then the Wolf ducked into a store on Fifth. Mahoney and I followed him. I didn’t even notice what store it was. Upscale. Glitzy. Fifth Avenue, for God’s sake!
The Wolf did the unthinkable then. Although nothing he did completely surprised me anymore. His right arm shot forward and released a dark object into the air. I watched it start to tumble.
I shouted, “Grenade! Everybody down! Get down! Grenade!”
A powerful explosion at the front of the store blew out two massive picture windows. Shoppers were hurt. The smoke was very thick and dark. Everybody inside the store was screaming, including the clerks behind nearly every counter.