Free The Wolf by Lorenzo Carcaterra

disrupt the efficient operations that had long been in place.
    We are at our best when we work in the shadows, Kodoma had told me. From there we make millions, and few eyes look our way. If we are lucky, no one notices—and those who do are not upset we exist. To some people we are a threat and a scourge, to others a necessity. These Russians and their terrorist friends are not like us. They do not think of what we do as business. They do not believe in the shadow world. They choose to work under the light of day. To travel down that path is madness. But that is who we will be fighting—madmen. And if we are to fight them, it must be to the death. There can be no other way. If I bring my group in and join in battle with you, I will never accept a peace proposal from our opponents. Never. We fight until there is no one left to fight.
    I moved the queen into position. She was surrounded and looked to be facing defeat. The first move would give her clearance. The second move would give her the upper hand. The third would lead to victory.
    It was now time to play for real.
    The first battle of our war would begin on this very day.

Chapter 10
    Rome, Italy
    Remi Frantoni ran out of the international arrivals terminal and into the sharp sunlight. He was followed by dozens of passengers and airport employees seeking refuge from the turmoil.
    Remi crossed the walkway, dodging a bus and two taxis, feverishly looking for the one face he needed to find. He ran toward the parking garage, heading for the off-ramp, still holding the satchel, his police shield clipped to a chain and dangling around his neck, desperate to find a place to unload the bag where its explosion would do the least damage. As he ran, sweat streaming down his cheeks and across his back and chest, he wondered why it hadn’t been set off yet, why the person with the device hadn’t hit the button. An experienced hand would have detonated it in the airport, the second he saw the woman hit the ground. The device hidden in the satchel also eliminated any concern about a suicide bomber. That led Remi to conclude he was dealing with a trained recruit on his first mission; while it’s not much of a task to set off a bomb in a terrorist camp under the eyes of seasoned killers, it is quite another to press the button in a crowded airport and watch hundreds of people be killed and wounded. The first murder is always the most perilous, even for a terrorist.
    Remi stopped running, turned and walked back toward the scattering crowds. He was working on instinct now, a risk he was willing to take, one he really had no choice but to take. He could run with the satchel until the bomb squad arrived, but with traffic congestion and clogged roads leading out of the city, that could be ten, fifteen minutes away. And dropping it in a safer area, as far from the airport as he could find, helped only so much. There were roadways, garages, traffic, and hundreds of people walking in all directions.
    Regardless of where he left the thing, innocent people would die.
    He was close, Remi could sense it, feel it, willing to ride his hunch to the finish line. He inched forward, taking deliberate steps, glancing at the people running past, each one desperate to get as far from the airport as possible. In the distance, he heard the sirens, knew the bomb squad was close, knew his window to nab the terrorist was narrowing.
    Remi smiled when he saw the young man standing next to a taxi stand, one hand in the pocket of a soiled blue windbreaker. He was rail thin with long brown hair and a cropped beard that did little to hide his youth. The boy was pasty white and seemed to shiver even under the glare of a warm sun. Remi crossed the walkway, sidestepping a Fiat 124 speeding toward him. The sirens grew louder, increasing the crowd’s distress to a feverish level.
    Remi stepped in next to the young man, one hand grabbing his free arm and holding it tight. “You can come out of this alive,” he said to