The Big Bad Wolf

CHAPTER 62

THE THREE BURLY MEN were dressed in loose jeans, work boots, and dark windbreakers.

They were hoodlums. In Russian they were called baklany or bandity. Scary demons

wherever you met up with them, monsters from Moscow let loose in America by the Wolf.

They parked a black Pontiac Grand Prix on the street, then climbed the hill to the main

campus at Holy Cross.

One of them was short of breath and complained in Russian about the steepness of the hill.

“Quiet, a*shole,” said group leader Maxin, who liked to call himself a personal friend of the

Wolf’s, though of course he wasn’t. No pakhan had real friends, but especially not the Wolf.

He had only enemies and almost never met those who worked for him. Even in Russia, he

had been known as an invisible or mystery man. Here in the U.S., virtually no one knew him

by sight.

The three thugs watched the college students on the blanket as they held hands, then kissed

and fondled.

“Kiss like girls,” said one of the Russian men with a nasty laugh.

“Not like any girls I ever kiss.”



The three of them laughed and shook their heads in disgust. Then the hulking leader of the

team strode forward, moving very fast given his weight and size. He silently pointed at

Francis, and the two other men pulled the boy away from Vince.

“Hey, what the hell is this?” Francis started to yell. He was stopped by a wide strip of

electrical tape pressed over his mouth, cutting off all sound.

“Now you can scream,” said one of the smirking hoods. “Scream like a girl. But nobody hears

you anymore.”



They worked together quickly. While one thug wrapped more black tape around Francis’s

ankles, the other bound his wrists tightly behind his back. Then he was stuffed inside a large

duffel bag, the sort used to carry athletic equipment such as baseball bats or basketballs.

The leader, meanwhile, took out a thin, very sharp stiletto knife. He slit the heavyset boy’s

throat, just as he used to kill pigs and goats back in his home country. Vince hadn’t been

purchased, and he had seen the abduction team. Unlike the Couple, these men would never

play their own little games, or betray the Wolf, or disappoint him. There would be no more

mistakes. The Wolf had been explicit on that, clear in a dangerous way that only he could be.

“Take the pretty boy. Quickly,” said the leader of the team as they hurried back to their car.

They tossed the bulging bag into the trunk of the Pontiac and got out of town.

The job was perfect.