The Big Bad Wolf

The case was out of
our
control—the Wolf was running it.
    I got a phone call at home two nights later. It was quarter past three in the morning. “This had better be good.”
    “It isn’t. All hell’s broken loose, Alex. It’s a war.” The caller was Tony Woods, and he sounded groggy.
    I massaged my forehead as I spoke. “What war? Tell me what happened.”
    “We got word from Texas a few minutes ago. Lawrence Lipton is dead, murdered. They got to him in his cell.”
    I was starting to wake up in a hurry.
    “How? He was in our custody, wasn’t he?”
    “Two agents were killed with Lipton. He predicted it, didn’t he?”
    I nodded, then I said, “Yeah.”
    “Alex, they got to the Lipton family too. They’re all dead. HRT is on the way to your house, also the director’s, even Mahoney’s. Anybody who worked on the case is considered vulnerable and at risk.”
    That
got me up out of bed. I took my Glock out of the locked cabinet beside my bed.
    “I’ll be waiting for HRT,” I told Woods, then I hurried downstairs with my gun in hand.
    Was the Wolf already here?
I wondered.
    The war came to our house a few minutes later, and even though it was HRT, it couldn’t have been much scarier. Nana Mama was up and she greeted the heavily armed FBI agents with angry looks but also offers of coffee. Then she and I went to wake the children as gently as we could.
    “This isn’t right, Alex. Not in our home,” Nana whispered as we went upstairs to get Jannie and Damon. “The line has to be drawn somewhere, doesn’t it? This is bad.”
    “I know it is. It’s gotten out of control, everything has. The world is that way now.”
    “So what are you going to do about it? What are you planning to do?”
    “Right now, wake the kids. Hug them, kiss them. Get them out of this house for a while.”
    “Are you listening to yourself?” Nana asked as we arrived at the doorway to Damon’s bedroom. He was already sitting up in bed. “Dad?” he said.
    Ned Mahoney came up behind me. “Alex, can I have a second?” What was he doing here? What else had happened?
    “I’ll wake them, get them dressed,” Nana said. “Talk to your friend.”
    I stayed behind with Mahoney. “What is it, Ned? Can’t it wait for a couple of minutes? Jesus.”
    “The bastards hit Burns’s house. Everybody’s all right. We got there in time.”
    I stared into Mahoney’s eyes. “Your family?”
    “They’re out of the house. They’re safe for now. We’ve got to find him and burn him.”
    I nodded. “Let me get my kids up.”
    Twenty minutes later my family was escorted outside to a waiting van. They climbed inside like frightened refugees in a war zone. That’s what the world was becoming, wasn’t it? Every city and town was a potential battlefield. No place was safe.
    Just before I climbed into the van, I spotted a photographer posted across the street from our house on Fifth Street. It looked like he was photographing the evacuation of our house.
Why was that?
    I’m not sure how I knew who he was, but somehow I did.
He’s not from any newspaper,
I thought. I felt myself filling with rage and disgust.
He works for Christine’s lawyers.

Chapter 112
    CHAOS.
    The next day, and for two days after that, I found myself in Huntsville, Texas, the site of the federal prison where Lawrence Lipton had been murdered while he was in the custody of the Federal Bureau. No one there had any explanation for how Lipton and two agents had been killed.
    It had happened during the night. In his cell. Actually, the small suite where he was kept under guard. None of the video cameras had a record of visitors. None of the interviews or interrogations had turned up a suspect. Lipton had had most of the bones in his body broken.
Zamochit.
The Red Mafiya trademark.
    The same method had been used on an Italian Mafia figure named Augustino Palumbo this past summer. According to stories, Palumbo’s killer had been a Russian mobster, possibly the Wolf. The murder had taken place at the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.
    The following morning I arrived in Colorado. I was there to visit a killer named Kyle Craig, who had once been an FBI agent, and also a friend of mine. Kyle was responsible for dozens of murders; he was one of the worst psychopathic killers in history. I had captured him. My friend.
    We met in an interview room on death row in the isolation unit. Kyle looked surprisingly fit. When I’d last seen him he had been gaunt and very