Black Wolf

It was exactly the same. Exactly.

“Keep going,” he said.

Turk banked hard behind the helicopter and loosed a group of flares. He spun back left, ahead and above the helicopter, and released some more.

“Tigershark, stand off!” repeated the Czech pilot.

“Yo, bro, I ain’t movin’,” said Turk.

“We see your flares. Your aircraft is in the way.”

“That’s the idea,” he answered.

Zen felt the helicopter weave and bob as the sky exploded around them. He thought for a moment that they were being fired on, then realized he was only seeing flares.

“Land the aircraft,” he told Stoner. “Get us down. You can surrender. We’ll fix you.”

Stoner frowned at him.

“We are landing,” he said. He turned to the other two Wolves and spoke to them in what Zen guessed was Russian.

The helicopter banked, then turned hard in the other direction, then dipped so quickly Zen felt weightless.

And then they were on the ground.

Stoner grabbed the back of Zen’s shirt as the helicopter settled down.

“Out!” he commanded. “Everyone out!”

He dragged Zen along the deck of the chopper, pulling him along as he followed the others outside. There were aircraft above—two MiGs, diving furiously in their direction, and another, smaller plane that ducked between them.

“Get the cars!” he shouted.

He still had Zen. What should he do with him?

Kill him, and make a clear break with the past. Or leave him here, as he’d been left.

But that wasn’t the same thing, was it? He’d been left to die. Zen would surely be found.

He looked toward the aircraft. The pilots, slowed by their seat harnesses, were just now getting out.

“Stoner, you can be helped,” said Zen.

“What are you doing with the American, Black?” asked Blue, shouting over the helicopter’s dying engines.

“We don’t need him anymore,” said Stoner, and he dropped Zen to the ground.

“We should take him,” said Blue. “We can always kill him later.”

“Get to the cars.”

“I wouldn’t have believed that you would turn soft for the Americans,” said Blue.

The pounding in Stoner’s head increased. His throat felt scratchy, as if it were made of sandpaper.

He knew what was coming. He saw it before it happened.

Blue spun, gun drawn. Stoner already had his gun out and shot once, through the right eye as he knew he must. Then he turned and caught Gray in the temple. The bullet struck one of the carbon plates that had been inserted in his brain, throwing Gray to the ground but not killing him. Stoner took two quick steps, leaning down as Gray struggled for his gun.

He shot him in the face. It was the only reliably vulnerable place.

Zen saw the gun fly from the Blue Wolf’s hand as it fell. He began crawling toward it.

The pilots began to run as soon as the Black Wolf shot Blue.

Neither was a member of the Wolves, but they were dangerous nonetheless. They would find a way to tell Gold what had happened.

They might even be wired to do that now, Stoner realized.

They had run to the barn. Stoner began walking after them. With his third stride he broke into a run.

Stoner heard the planes buzzing above him but ignored them.

He heard something else. Unlike some of the other Wolves, his hearing was not augmented, but the techniques they had taught him for focusing his mind helped him pick out different sounds from a cacophony of noises, in effect increasing his ability.

The engine of one of the cars.

He jumped back as the car crashed through the door. It veered right, lurching out of the driver’s control. He dropped to his knee and fired twice, each shot hitting a different rear tire. The car careened sideways, then flipped over.

Stoner walked slowly toward the car. He would kill the men.

And then, reluctantly, he would face Zen.

“They’re immobile on the ground,” Turk told Brea

“They have police responding,” she said. “They can see your aircraft overhead—they must be only a few minutes away.”

Turk pulled back on his yoke so sharply he swore it would come out of the control column. The aircraft turned its nose straight up—just barely missing the MiG that had plowed through the air in front of him.

“Call the Czech air force off,” he said. “I think they’re a little peeved that I didn’t let them shoot down the chopper.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Zen was about ten feet from the pistol when he heard the Black Wolf coming. He pushed harder, clawing his way forward.

The gun was inches away.

A boot kicked it away.

Another slammed down hard on his hand. He felt so much pain he nearly blanked out.

“You should have searched harder for me,” Stoner told him.

“You’re right,” conceded Zen. “We should have.”

Stoner brought his gun down, aiming it at him.

“Let me call my wife and daughter and tell them I love them before you kill me,” said Zen.

“Be real, Jeff.”

“You gave me the cell phone.”

Stoner straightened his arm. Zen held his breath, then watched as Stoner raised the gun to his head.

Stoner remembered the crash perfectly now, the feeling that had come over him as the aircraft hit the ground. It seemed to take forever for death to come… and it hadn’t come.

Just pain, incredible, unending pain.

Like now.

He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

His pistol was empty. He hadn’t counted his shots.

Zen realized it a second before he did. It was just long enough for him to grab the gun on the ground.

“Shoot me!” yelled Stoner.

But his old friend didn’t. Instead, he started firing into the ground.

Stoner dove on him, desperate for one last bullet.

Turk saw the struggle, and the Czechs, ru

They weren’t going to make it.

What he needed was a stun grenade or something along those lines. But he didn’t have bullets. All he had was the Tigershark.

All the Tigershark had was speed and maneuverability.

Useless.

Maybe not, he realized, pushing his wing over.

Zen pulled the trigger again and again, knowing what Stoner would do—what he thought he had to do.

The gun jumped. He pulled. Stoner dove on his arm, trying to pull the gun toward his face.

“I’m not firing,” yelled Zen as Stoner wrestled for the trigger. “I’m not killing you.”

Years of exercise—much of it out of sheer frustration—had given Jeff Stockard an extremely strong upper body. But it was not up to Wolf standards. Slowly, he felt himself losing the battle.

“You’re not getting it,” yelled Zen, pushing himself toward Stoner’s chest. He fired the gun—the shot went wild.

Stoner grabbed the barrel and pulled it toward his face.

“No!” yelled Zen.

There was an explosion. Zen felt his head spin. Light cracked near him.

Then another boom—longer, harder—the cracking of the sound barrier only a few feet away.

Wind rushed over them.

Someone yelled at him. Someone else pulled him away. A third man was struggling with Stoner. A fourth and fifth jumped on Stoner. There was a loud crack, the zapping of a stun gun, and Stoner leapt upward.

Then Zen couldn’t see at all.

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