The Wolf by Lorenzo Carcaterra Page B

plans often end in defeat. From the Romans to Civil War generals to the Nazis, battles fought on dual fronts have low rates of success. But none of those undertakings had been waged for personal reasons. In none of those wars was there a single leader who went into battle because he had lost a family member. They went in because they were told to go in, or to further a cause, or some other vague purpose. At no time was any of it personal.
    It is my strength and my weakness.
    Which is why I called in my own group of assassins—four men and two women who had been part of my private team for nearly a decade. I recruited each myself, choosing them from the elite ranks of the military and intelligence arenas. I went looking for those who had seen heavy combat, hand-to-hand, street-level. I also went for those with a combination of academic excellence and street-smarts. I didn’t want anyone eager to do the work only for the impressive salary and benefits I offered. I prize loyalty above all else and wanted these six to be beyond reproach in that regard. I needed them to be color-blind when it came to politics or patriotism. The work I had in mind would call into account neither. They had spent years training to do as they were told, and I was relying on that discipline. I also needed them to be a group of stone-cold killers bound by honor who would never betray me, no matter how seductive the offer.
    It was no easy task and took three years to accomplish.
    I logged thousands of air miles and talked to hundreds of contacts—from deep cover intelligence operatives to mercenaries to some of the best assassins in the international organized crime universe. And before I contacted the six chosen for the job, I had extensive background checks done and psychological profiles drawn up. I left nothing to chance. I took the selection of my Silent Six as serious as any endeavor I had undertaken in my years as a crime boss.
    They are the best at what they do and they do it only for me.
    They operate in complete secrecy; no one is aware they exist. They are my invisible army, sent to make the impossible possible.
    That is why, on this night, they were situated inside the walls of a compound in northern Yemen, ready to take out forty combatants and bring me a man I needed for a hard conversation.
    The team was equipped with microscopic night-vision cameras, strapped to their backpacks and the sleeves of their jackets. They also had high-def audio equipment wrapped around their gun belts. This allowed me to see and hear what they did from a penthouse apartment thousands of miles away. It was like watching a video game of my own creation, played before my eyes.
    “We can make our move any time from here in.”
    It was the voice of team leader David Lee Burke. He was huddled in a corner of the outer perimeter of the compound, his muscular body coiled and braced.
    “You have confirmation our guy is in the house?” I asked.
    “Yes,” Burke responded. “Both from high-level intel and our own street informants. If he left here, he did it on a cloud. No one has seen him come out since he went in three days ago.”
    “When he does come out, I need him to be breathing,” I said. “Anything less and it’s a burnt mission.”
    “Can’t guarantee he won’t take a bullet,” Burke told me. “We’ll do our best not to hit him, but sometimes, well …”
    “A guy turns the wrong way,” I said.
    “Something along those lines,” he said.
    I liked David Lee Burke and always appreciated his candor and lack of airs. He was a decorated Green Beret, expert in hand-to-hand combat and as close to a ninja warrior as anyone this side of the Yakuza. He was also a husband who had lost a wife to cancer, and a father who had buried a teenage daughter. A man who sought his comfort in the day-to-day skirmishes of war.
    In my line of work we have associates we like and associates we pretend to like. We have more than our share of enemies and have forged