The Wolves (29 page)

T
he medic, a skinny black guy named Beach, deftly palpated Wells’s wrist. “I want you to know, this is at the edge of what I do. Hospital’d be better.”

Wells shook his head.

“You say so.” Beach unrolled a quick-set bandage and gently wrapped Wells’s wrist and hand. “That’ll stabilize it,” he said, when he was done. “But you need a real doctor in the morning. Clean out the bone fragments. Put in a pin so that it heals quicker, nothing slips around.”

“That bad?”

“See how blue your fingers are? Something in there is blocking nerves, blood vessels. I can’t fix that. You don’t get to someone who can in the next twenty-four hours, you might lose those piggies.”

All that work to rehab his foot, and now this. Wells laughed.

“You think I’m joking?”

“I’m like one of those highways that as soon as the crews get done paving, they have to start all over again at the other side, they never really fix it.”

“Whatever. I shouldn’t give you this, I’ve seen twenty-year-old privates with more sense, but you’re gonna need it.” Beach dug into his kit, came up with a morphine ampule.

As badly as he wanted the relief, Wells shook his head. “You have Advil? Tylenol? I gotta stay sharp.”

Beach gave Wells four of each. “In my professional opinion, they won’t do jack.”

“A little suffering is good for the soul.” Wells dry-swallowed the pills.

“Then yours is gonna be in great shape tonight.”

—

W
ELLS TOLD
Wright and Shafer everything, everything except the way Orli had spun for him at the end.

“Give us a sec?” Shafer said when Wells had finished. Not the response he’d expected. Shafer and Wright left, closed the apartment’s door. Wells heard them murmuring in the hallway. A couple minutes passed, long enough to annoy him. It was almost midnight. He’d have to hurry to be in Macao in time to catch Duberman and Cheung together. Wells was about to go outside after them when Shafer walked back in. Alone. He stood close to the door, like he was afraid Wells would take off.

“Any chance Gideon got away?” Shafer said. “Media hasn’t mentioned anything about anyone being arrested.”

“I don’t see how. He’s not our problem, anyway.”

“Unless he gives you up.”

“Not his style.”

“What about Orli?”

He couldn’t help himself, her name brought him back to the garage, not only how she’d looked but what she’d said,
I want you to see
. A
diamond’s beauty, a diamond’s hardness. “No. They push her, she’ll say she was in shock, she can’t remember.”

“And you don’t know what she wanted to tell you at the end?”

Wells shook his head. “About that helicopter, Ellis.”

“I think we should focus on getting you out of here. Charter to Japan or if HKIA’s no good, a ship to the Philippines.”

“Without Gideon or Orli, no way the cops make me. Not in time to matter, anyway. We were on the highway by the time we saw anyone coming. And that Toyota isn’t even ours.”

“FSB’s going to be looking, too.”

“I’m not suggesting I buy a place here. I’ll be gone tomorrow morning at the latest. They won’t come back that fast.” Wells didn’t understand Shafer’s sudden caution. He stood from Wright’s ugly yellow couch. “Let me put on a shirt that isn’t covered in Russian blood and get out of here.”

Shafer raised his hand like a traffic cop. A flicker in his eyes Wells couldn’t read.

“This coming from the White House, Ellis? President change his mind again?”

“I just want to be sure we’re thinking it through.”

“Done thinking. You won’t give me the helicopter, I’ll take a ferry.” Though Wells would much rather fly. A ship wouldn’t arrive in time. And a copter would set him on the roof of Duberman’s new casino, save him from the pesky immigration officers at the Macao Ferry Terminal. Even if an air traffic controller noticed it landing at the casino rather than the terminal, the Chinese air force would hardly scramble. Macao’s airspace was low priority, chasing down a gambler who wanted to skip immigration even lower.

“Duberman’s not going anywhere, John. It’s all over but the shouting. You’ve done enough for one night. Give somebody else a chance.”

Inside the cast, Wells’s wrist throbbed. Suddenly he understood. “This is about Buvchenko.” Wells stepped toward the door, stared at Shafer until the smaller man blinked, looked away. “If anyone in the world had that coming—”

“It’s not about who he is. It’s about who we are. And it’s not just what you did. It’s the way you’re talking about it.”

“Get that from a Hallmark card?”

“Murder with special circumstances.” A phrase prosecutors used when they intended to seek the death penalty for heinous crimes.

“That what I am to you?”

“You need to get some sleep.”

“Go back to Langley. You don’t belong out here.”

Shafer shook his head:
Maybe you don’t, either. Not anymore.

“This conversation’s done, Ellis. Give me a ride or I find one myself.”

Shafer folded his arms across his chest and looked up at Wells, and Wells wondered what he would do if Shafer didn’t move.

Finally, Shafer ducked his head in surrender. “Okay, John. One condition.”

Wells waited.

“Whatever happens over there, tonight’s done, you rest.”

MACAO

T
he helicopter pilot was Wells’s age, a bald-headed white guy who wore brown fingerless leather driving gloves.
He’s good,
Wright had said, his last words before Wells walked out of the apartment.
Just don’t ask his name.
Wright seemed less bothered than Shafer by the way Wells had executed Buvchenko. Maybe Wright understood better.

Or maybe he just didn’t care about Wells.

—

T
HE
B
ELL 206
was a single-pilot, four-passenger bird, reliable, used by police departments all over the world. The pilot flew beneath the cloud cover into an easterly wind that kept them under a hundred knots and sent whitecaps scudding over the South China Sea nine hundred feet below.

Ten minutes after they left Hong Kong, Wells caught his first glimpse of Macao, a neon smudge beneath the clouds. Minute by minute, the territory took shape, the city’s hills to the north, the artificial island of Cotai to the south. The top of Duberman’s new tower was at the southern end of the island, lost in the mist.

When they were close enough to see the marquees of each individual casino, the pilot pushed the Bell southwest, giving a wide berth to the ferry terminal and its immigration officers. A few seconds later, the radio squawked in Chinese. The pilot ignored it.

Below, the sea’s flat gray waters gave way to Cotai’s engineered borders. Dead ahead, the Sky loomed. The tower was not just extraordinarily tall, but wide and deep, a glass-sheathed mountain. A quarter mile from it, the pilot pushed the cyclic stick between his legs to the right while raising the collective lever at his left side. The twin maneuvers put the Bell into a rising, declining-radius loop around the tower, like the helicopter was wrapping it in Scotch tape.

A couple of hundred feet up, the clouds began, lacy, then thicker, swirling around the building, blurring its edges. Four loops brought them over the top of the tower. The pilot maneuvered them until the Bell hovered directly above the roof, a hundred feet or so up, though the clouds were thick enough that Wells couldn’t be sure. Spotlights on the building’s corners tunneled through the mist.

“You got this?”

“Easy.” The pilot flicked on the helicopter’s own spotlight and lowered the collective.

The clouds cleared enough for Wells to glimpse a white circle with an
H
at its center. The pilot feathered the pedals to control yaw while gently working the collective. The Bell came down as smoothly as an elevator and Wells wondered why he’d worried—

Ten feet above the roof, the wind shifted, drove them west, left, toward a concrete block topped with steel brackets, an anchor for window-washing risers. The pilot saw the danger, raised the collective, pushed the cyclic right. But the helicopter didn’t respond right away. The wind drove the Bell toward the concrete. The block was at least ten feet long, six or seven feet high, fifteen feet back from the edge of
the roof. Wells wondered if it was big enough to tip them sideways, spin them down the side of the building—

Finally, the helicopter responded, bit into the wind, pulled up and away, its left skid just scraping the block, leaving a jagged black line of paint on the concrete. Three hundred feet above the roof, the pilot cut the spotlight and put the Bell into a slow loop. The clouds parted and Wells saw the whole massive roof, nearly two hundred feet on each side, vents and window-washing equipment and pipes and fire exits surrounding the helipad. Wells wondered where Duberman’s chopper was, realized he had probably set down at his other casino and driven over rather than risking a landing here.

“That’s easy, hate to see hard.”

“Ready for another try or you need fresh underwear?”

The pilot came to a hover and again began to bring them down. For a while, they barely descended. Wells figured the pilot was trying to get a sense for the frequency and rhythm of the wind gusts. About two hundred feet up, a big one caught them, but this time the pilot was ready and the helicopter recovered much more quickly.

“Not by the book, but I’m putting us down quick this time.” He lowered the collective and Bell dropped fast toward the very center of the
H
. “Brace for landing,” he said, when they were maybe thirty feet up. Wells folded his right arm over the sling that held his left and leaned forward. The helicopter banged hard against the pad, bounced, landed again, both skids down now. The jolt tore at Wells’s wrist and set his arm aflame.

“Good times,” the pilot said.

Wells unbuckled himself, leaned forward, swiped his fingers over the butt of his pistol like a lucky charm. “I’m not back in ten, get out of here.”

The pilot grinned:
You think I needed you to tell me that?

—

W
ELLS STEPPED ONTO THE PAD
, turned for the nearest fire stairs, about thirty feet from the edge of the north wall of the roof. Before he reached them—

The door swung open. Duberman stepped out. After him, Cheung. They must have been in the casino that was just below the roof, heard the helicopter, come up.

Cheung was a small man, his face red and flushed. Duberman wore a pin-striped gray gangster suit, white chalk stripes and wide lapels. All he needed was a big cigar and a pinky ring. He stopped so fast when he saw Wells that Cheung banged into him, a cheap vaudeville act, the Chinaman and the Pimp.

Behind them, Gideon.

Gideon?

The wet wind sang. For three, four, five seconds, Wells and Duberman stared at each other. Wells had last seen Duberman four months and six thousand miles away, stepping off a plane in Saudi Arabia. They’d both believed at that moment that Duberman had won, the United States was going to attack Iran.

Instead, Duberman had lost, first his war and then everything else. He stepped forward. “John Wells. I missed you.” He made a cross with his fingers. “That work on you?”

“Everything ravaged, everything burned,” Wells said.

Duberman looked back to Gideon, barked a question in Hebrew.
Why is he here? Didn’t you say you couldn’t find him?
Something like that, Wells imagined.

So Gideon had escaped the garage. How? Wells flashed on the motorcycle against the wall and knew. Then Gideon outraced Wells to
Macao in a helicopter of his own. But why? To protect Duberman? Tell him Orli was safe? Beg him to surrender?

Gideon stepped out from behind Duberman now, giving himself an angle on Wells.
I draw on your boss, what do you do?
Wells needed Hebrew. And telepathy.

“Don’t tell me you’re working with Buvchenko?” Duberman said.

“Buvchenko’s dead.”

“Lying.”

“I killed him myself.”

Duberman stared at the sky as if the clouds could confirm the news. “What about Orli?”

Thought you’d never ask.
“She’s fine. Safe. Come on. Let’s go home.”

“So they put me a cage until it’s time for the needle.” Duberman shook his head. Wells stepped toward him, but he turned away, strode to the edge of the tower, pulling the other three with him.

“You’ve got the best lawyers in the world, Aaron.” Wells wasn’t sure why he was arguing. Maybe after what Shafer had said, he wanted to give Duberman every chance.

“You don’t mind, I’ll show myself out.” Duberman backed up until he just a couple of feet from the edge of the parapet—

“Don’t—”

“I think we both know the game’s over. But before I go, I have something you might want.” He reached into his suit pocket—

Wells understood a half second too late, Duberman was carrying, a lousy little pocket pistol, a popgun, so small it hadn’t even ruffled his suit. He came out with it as Wells reached under his shirt for his own pistol and felt it snag, the hard landing had caught it in the holster—

Duberman brought the pistol up and locked eyes with Wells, and Wells saw the truth there—
one for you and one for me—
and finally Wells
freed his own pistol and brought it forward, but he had no chance now, the ball was still in his hand and the horn had sounded—

He heard two quick
pops
somewhere behind him—

Two neat holes in Duberman’s suit—

Duberman looked down at his chest. His mouth opened and the pistol came out of his hand and clattered on the roof of the four-billion-dollar monument he had built to himself. Wells looked back, saw Gideon in a shooting stance, of course Gideon, in the end the scales had tipped, he’d chosen Wells over the man who’d saved his son—

Duberman went to his knees and Gideon ran for him, they were murmuring in Hebrew. Wells stayed back, let them speak. Too soon, Duberman tipped forward. Gideon caught him and put him on his back. By the time Wells reached them, Duberman was gone, staring at the sky with eyes that didn’t see.

Wells closed them. “Thank you,” he said to Gideon.

“For her.” Gideon knelt beside Wells and prayed over Duberman, a quiet stream of Hebrew.

—

W
ELLS HEARD FOOTSTEPS
scraping the concrete, raised his head. Cheung was coming. Wells raised his own pistol, thinking Cheung might go for the pistol Duberman had dropped. But Cheung trudged past like a sleepwalker. At the edge of the parapet, he reached into his pocket and came out with a shiny black plaque Wells had never seen before.

Cheung looked at it for a moment, spun it out into the night, a backhand Frisbee flip, like he wanted to be sure gravity still worked. Then he stepped onto the parapet and took one final stride. No hesitation. As if the clouds themselves could hold him. An emperor of the
air. He didn’t scream or whisper. Not a sound. When Wells reached the edge and looked over, Cheung was gone, not even a speck in the night.

—

G
IDEON FINISHED PRAYING
, walked to the helicopter. Apparently he didn’t plan to let Wells ditch him this time. Then Wells was alone with Duberman. What was left of him, which was nothing, two hundred pounds of well-groomed meat.

Wells had won. Yet he wanted more. He had a thousand questions for Duberman, beginning and ending with the simplest, the most important:
Why?
But the man had taken the answers with him.

Maybe there were no answers. Maybe human beings never understood themselves, much less anyone else. Wells looked up from the corpse just as the wind blew apart the clouds and opened the sky to the moon.

His voice rose in his throat, a scream. A howl.