And then there was the Wolf, who was in a whole other class.
The meeting was on a secure website that was inaccessible to outsiders. All messages were encrypted and required a pair of keys: one key garbled the information; a second key was needed to recover it. More important, a hand scan was necessary to get on to the site. They were considering using a retinal scan, or possibly an anal probe.
The subject under discussion was the Couple, and what to do about them.
‘What the hell does that mean – what to do about them?’ asked the Art Director, who was jokingly called Mr Softee because he could get very emotional, the only one of them who ever did.
‘It means just what it sounds like,’ answered Sterling. ‘There’s been a serious breach of security. Now we have to decide what to do about it. There’s been sloppiness, stupidity, and maybe worse than that. They were seen. It’s put us all in danger.’
‘What are our options?’ the Art Director continued. ‘I’m almost afraid to ask.’
Sterling responded instantly. ‘Have you read the newspapers lately? Do you have a TV? A team of two took a woman in a mall in Atlanta, Georgia. They were spotted. A team of two abducted a woman in Pennsylvania – and they were seen. Our options? Do absolutely nothing – or do something extreme. An object lesson is needed – for the other teams.’
‘So what are we doing about the problem?’ asked Marvel, who was usually spookily quiet, but who could be nasty and dangerous when he was aroused.
‘For one thing, I’ve shut down all deliveries for the moment,’ said Sterling.
‘Nobody told me about that!’ Sphinx erupted. ‘I’m expecting a delivery. As all of you know, I paid a price for it. Why wasn’t I informed before now?’
No one said anything to Sphinx for several seconds. No one liked him. Besides, each one of them was a sadist. They enjoyed torturing Sphinx, or anyone else in the group who showed weakness.
‘I expect my delivery!’ Sphinx insisted. ‘I deserve it. You bastards! Fuck you all.’ Then he went off-line. In a huff. Typical Sphinx. Laughable, really, except none of them was laughing right now.
‘The Sphinxter has left the building,’ Potter finally said.
Then Wolf took over. ‘I think that’s enough idle chat for tonight, enough fun and games. I’m concerned about the news stories. We need to deal with the Couple in some decisive manner that satisfies me. What I propose is that we have another team pay them a visit. Is there any disagreement?’
There was none, which wasn’t unusual when the Wolf had the floor. They were afraid of him; all of them were petrified of the Russian.
‘There is some good news, though,’ Potter said then. ‘This fuss and attention… it is exciting, isn’t it? Gets the blood boiling. It’s a hoot, right?’
The group shared a laugh. ‘You’re crazy, Potter. You’re mad.’
‘Don’t you just love it?’
The well-protected chat room was not protected enough.
Suddenly the Wolf said, ‘Don’t say another word. Not a word! I think someone else is on with us. Wait. They’re off now. Someone broke into the den, and now they’re gone. Who could have gotten in here? Who let them in? Whoever it is, they’re dead.’
Chapter Forty-Two
Lili Lynch was fourteen and a half years old, going on twenty-four, and she honestly believed she’d heard everything, until she hacked into the Wolf’s Den.
The sick bastards in the well-protected-but-not-protected-enough chat room were all older men, and they were gross and despicable. They liked to talk incessantly about women’s private parts, and having vile sex with anyone and everything that moved – any age, any gender, human or animal. The men were beyond disgusting, and they made her want to puke. Only then it got a lot worse, and Lili wished she had never even heard of the Wolf’s Den, never hacked into the highly protected chat room. They might be murderers!
And then the leader, Wolf, actually discovered Lili was on the site with them, listening to everything they’d said.
So now Lili knew about the murders, and the kidnappings, everything they fantasized about, and possibly did. Only she didn’t know if any of what she heard was real or not.
Was it real? Or were they making it all up? Maybe they were just nasty, sicko bullshitters. Lili almost didn’t want to know the truth, and she didn’t know what to do about the stuff she’d already overheard. She had hacked on to their site and that was illegal. If she went to the police, she’d be turning herself in. So she couldn’t do that. Could she? Especially if the stuff on the site was just fantasies.
So she sat in her room and pondered the unthinkable. Then pondered it again. She felt so bad, so sick to her stomach, so sad, but she was also afraid.
They knew she’d hacked on to the Wolf’s Den. But did they also know how to find her? If she was them, she’d know how. So were they already on their way to her house?
Lili knew she should go to the police. Maybe the FBI. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She sat frozen. It was as if she were paralyzed.
When the doorbell rang she just about jumped out of her skin. ‘Holy shit! Holy mother! It’s them!’
Lili took a deep breath, then she scurried downstairs to the front door. She looked through the peephole. She could hear her own heart thundering.
Domino’s pizza! Jesus!
She’d forgotten all about it. It was a pizza delivery, not killers, at the front door, and suddenly Lili was giggling to herself. She wasn’t going to die, after all.
She opened the front door.
Chapter Forty-Three
The Wolf had seldom been angrier and someone had to pay. The Russian had a longstanding hatred for New York City, and the smug and overrated metropolitan area. He found it filthy-dirty, foul beyond imagining, the people rude and uncivilized, even worse than in Moscow. But he had to be there today; it was where the Couple lived, and he had business with them. The Wolf also wanted to play some chess, one of his passions.
Long Island was the general address he had for Slava and Zoya.
Huntington was the specific one.
He arrived in the town just past three in the afternoon. Actually, he did remember the one other time he’d been here – two years after he had arrived in New York from Russia. Cousins of his owned the house and had helped set him up in America. He had committed four murders out here ‘on the Island’, as the locals called it. Well, at least Huntington was close to Kennedy Airport. He’d be out of New York as soon as possible.
The Couple lived in a typical suburban ranch house. The Wolf banged on the front door and a goateed bull of a man by the name of Lukanov opened it. Lukanov was part of another team, one that worked successfully in California, Oregon, and Washington State. Lukanov had once been a major in the KGB.
‘Where are the stupid fucks?’ the Wolf asked once he was inside the front door.
The bull Lukanov jerked a thumb toward a semi-darkened staircase behind him, and the Wolf trudged up. His right knee was aching today, and he remembered a time in the eighties when members of a rival gang had broken it. In Moscow that kind of thing was considered a warning. The Wolf wasn’t much for warnings himself. He had found the three men who’d tried to cripple him, and broken every bone in their bodies – one by one. In Russia this gruesome practice was called zamochit, but the Wolf and other gangsters called it mushing.