The Big Bad Wolf (Alex Cross 9)

THE THREE BURLY MEN were dressed in loose jeans, work boots, and dark windbreakers. They were hoodlums. In Russian they were called baklany or bandity. Scary demons wherever you met up with them, monsters from Moscow let loose in America by the Wolf.

They parked a black Pontiac Grand Prix on the street, then climbed the hill to the main campus at Holy Cross.

One of them was short of breath and complained in Russian about the steepness of the hill.

“Quiet, asshole,” said group leader Maxin, who liked to call himself a personal friend of the Wolf’s, though of course he wasn’t. No pakhan had real friends, but especially not the Wolf. He had only enemies and almost never met those who worked for him. Even in Russia, he had been known as an invisible or mystery man. Here in the U.S., virtually no one knew him by sight.

The three thugs watched the college students on the blanket as they held hands, then kissed and fondled.

“Kiss like girls,” said one of the Russian men with a nasty laugh.

“Not like any girls I ever kiss.”

The three of them laughed and shook their heads in disgust. Then the hulking leader of the team strode forward, moving very fast given his weight and size. He silently pointed at Francis, and the two other men pulled the boy away from Vince.

“Hey, what the hell is this?” Francis started to yell. He was stopped by a wide strip of electrical tape pressed over his mouth, cutting off all sound.

“Now you can scream,” said one of the smirking hoods. “Scream like a girl. But nobody hears you anymore.”

They worked together quickly. While one thug wrapped more black tape around Francis’s ankles, the other bound his wrists tightly behind his back. Then he was stuffed inside a large duffel bag, the sort used to carry athletic equipment such as baseball bats or basketballs.

The leader, meanwhile, took out a thin, very sharp stiletto knife. He slit the heavyset boy’s throat, just as he used to kill pigs and goats back in his home country. Vince hadn’t been purchased, and he had seen the abduction team. Unlike the Couple, these men would never play their own little games, or betray the Wolf, or disappoint him. There would be no more mistakes. The Wolf had been explicit on that, clear in a dangerous way that only he could be.

“Take the pretty boy. Quickly,” said the leader of the team as they hurried back to their car. They tossed the bulging bag into the trunk of the Pontiac and got out of town.

The job was perfect.

Chapter 63

HERE WAS THE DEAL as Francis saw it now, as he tried to be calm and logical about it. Nothing that had happened to him could possibly have happened! He couldn’t have been abducted a few hours ago from the campus of Holy Cross by three absolutely terrifying men. It just couldn’t have happened. Nor could he have been transported in the trunk of a car for four, maybe five hours to God only knew where.

Most important, Vince couldn’t be dead. That cruel and heartless piece of shit couldn’t have slit Vince’s throat back at the college. It hadn’t happened.

So all of this had to be an impossibly bad dream, a nightmare of the sort that Francis Deegan hadn’t experienced since he was maybe three or four years old. And this man standing before him now, this absurd caricature with curly tufts of white-blond hair around the side of his balding head, dressed in a tight black leather bodysuit—well, he couldn’t be real either. No way.

“I’m very angry at you! I’m good and pissed!” Mr. Potter yelled right in Francis’s face. “Why did you leave me?” he screeched. “Why? Tell me why. You must never leave me again! I get very scared without you and you know that. You know how I am. That was thoughtless of you, Ronald!”

Francis had already tried reasoning with the madman—Potter, he called himself, and no, not Harry. Mr. Potter. But reasoning didn’t work. He’d told the raving lunatic several times that he had never seen him before. He wasn’t Ronald. Didn’t know any Ronalds! That had earned him a series of full-handed slaps across the face, one so hard that it bloodied his nose. The dweeby Billy Idol-looking freak was a lot stronger than he looked.

So out of desperation, Francis finally whispered an apology to the creep. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I won’t do it again.”

And then Mr. Potter was hugging him fiercely and he was crying all over him. Wasn’t this too weird? “Oh, God, I’m so glad you’re back. I was so worried about you. You must never leave me again, Ronald.”

Ronald? Who the hell was Ronald? And who was Mr. Potter? What was going to happen now? Was Vince really dead? Had he been killed tonight back at the college? All of these questions were exploding inside Francis’s throbbing skull. So actually it was easy for him to cry in Potter’s arms, and even to hold on to him for dear life. To press his face into the fragrant black leather and whisper over and over again, “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Oh, my God, I’m sorry.”

And Potter answered, “I love you too, Ronald. I adore you. You’ll never leave me again, will you?”

“No. I promise. I’ll never leave.”

Then Potter laughed and pulled away sharply from the boy.

“Francis, dear Francis,” he whispered. “Who the hell is Ronald? I’m just playing with you, boy. This is just a game of mine. You’re in college, you must have figured that much out. So let’s play games, Francis. Let’s go out to the

barn and play.”

Chapter 64

I RECEIVED A STRANGE E-MAIL from Monnie Donnelley at my temporary office. An update of sorts. She hadn’t been suspended, Monnie said. Not yet anyway. Plus, she had some news for me. Need to see you tonight. Same place, same time. Very important news.—M