Black Wolf

Maybe.

He couldn’t hear. He tried rolling to his right to get up, then realized he was already on his stomach. He pushed up, dizzy, and began feeling his legs, and then his chest.

Somebody grabbed his right arm. It was Da

Nuri tapped his ears. They felt as if he were in a plane, ascending quickly. He tapped them, trying to get them to pop.

“You OK?” yelled Da

“I guess,” answered Nuri. “I can barely hear you.”

“The grenade in the car—good idea,” said Da

Nuri followed. Tiny was on the ground, his face twisted in pain. His right leg was bent at an u

“The big building!” yelled Da

Before he could turn, the ground shook with an explosion so strong that Nuri lost his balance and fell to the ground.

“Looks like we don’t have to worry about getting him out of the building,” Da

THE SHOW

49

Moldova

The first priority was securing the buildings and making sure there were no Wolves left. Boston took charge of that, organizing a room by room sweep of the main house. Meanwhile, the severely injured were tended to. Tiny had broken his leg in the fall, and his ribs had been shattered by the Wolf’s punch. The trooper shot in the leg had lost a great deal of blood. Da

They’d been lucky, Da

So who were these guys? And was Stoner here?

Da

He stood over a body in the hallway on the second floor. It was facedown in a pool of blood, riddled with bullets—the man looked to have taken an entire magazine, if not two, before going down.

Was this Stoner?

Da

The body slumped against the opposite wall, head flopping. For a second Da

A bit of skull fell away.

It wasn’t Stoner.

Da

Da

Each time his throat thickened and his heart pounded faster. Each time his breath seemed to slip away. And then each time the face, battered by bullets and covered with blood, didn’t belong to Mark Stoner. It was too young, too long, too round, too blond, or too different.

As varied as their faces were, all of the Wolves had many physical traits in common. All were at least six feet, most much taller. They were bulked up with muscles that would have made a bodybuilder jealous. Several were wearing prosthetics and implants. The man who Nuri had killed after he jumped from the roof of the house had an artificial leg fused to his bone just below his hip. Another of the men, killed in the house, had an artificial arm. Three of the others had scars on their upper arms and calves; Da

They gathered the bodies so they could be evacked and inspected by the technical team that evening. Da

The deputy minister met him on the road. Lacu’s face was ashen; for all his earlier enthusiasm, he clearly hadn’t counted on so much bloodshed.

“We’re just finishing a sweep right now,” Da

The Moldovan deputy minister nodded.

“Nuri?” he asked.

“He and your sharpshooter are fine. They, uh, they were shaken up a bit. But your man was very brave. They were both brave.”

Lacu didn’t smile, exactly, but his nod this time seemed more positive.

“I need to look at the dead men,” said Da

“Autopsies?” The minister didn’t understand the English word.

“Inspect the dead, the… uh, have doctors look at the bodies.”

Lacu still didn’t understand. Da

Stoner wasn’t among them. None of the men had exoskeleton gear either. A good thing, Da

“One of my men will show you a clear path to the marijuana fields,” Da

“Yes,” said Lacu. “I see that.”

One body remained unchecked—the man who had blown himself up in the building.

Was it Stoner?

The explosion had leveled the building, turning it into a pile of debris. It would take days to dig through it.

It must have been Stoner, Da

Did Stoner know that he was there?

A chill swept over Da

“What happened?” Da

In theory, the house should have contained a trove of information about the organization, even if actual records weren’t kept there. But the men had no personal effects—no IDs, no wallets even, nothing besides wads of euros and Moldovan leu, the local currency.

There were filing cabinets in the guardroom. Thinking they might be booby-trapped, Flash brought in a small electronic sca

Instead of the explosion he feared, there was a soft sound, almost like a pillow being fluffed. Smoke curled from the unit, followed by a small deck of flames that consumed the entire row of folders.

Shortly afterward, convinced that the area was secure and they hadn’t missed anything important, Da