“Bloody hell!”Badger muttered.“Feckin’ fresh.Prob’bly early this morning.Definitely a wolf.”
Web’s nose wrinkled.“I wish I was wrong earlier.”
On top of that box was a white label with Cyrillic handwriting:
?????????????? ??????
“Anyone know what that means?”Trent asked.
Web pulled out his phone and scanned it, looking grim as he held it so both men could read the results.
The translation app knew what language it was: Russian.
CEASE IMMEDIATELY
“Fuck,” Trent said.
“Ye wanna take it back to the house and do this next part?”Badger asked.
“Nope.Let’s get it over with.I want to know who it is.”Trent took a deep breath and slit the packing tape on the top of the innermost box and carefully opened the flap.
Inside was a round object wrapped in several layers of black trash bags encased by more blue shrink wrap.
Its shape was unmistakably a head.
“Oh, boy,” Web said.“They weren’t fucking around to make sure it didn’t leak, were they?”
Trent reluctantly worked his way through the layers.When he peeled them back, the man’s sightless eyes stared up at them out of a blood-spattered face, his mouth frozen in a rictus of agony.
Trent blew out a breath.“I don’t know him.”
“I do,” Badger grimly said, staring down at it.“That’s Ray Dorland.”
ChapterSixteen
Dewi
“What doyou mean you have Ray Dorland’s head in a box?Is that a euphemism?”
“No, Dewi,” Trent said.“I mean, we have Ray Dorland’shead.In abox.Hisliteralhead in aliteralbox.Apparently, it’s a gift from the Russians.The string attached to this gruesome gift is that they want us to shut down that line of inquiry, because they wrote ‘cease immediately’ on the box.”
“There was a string attached?What the fuck?What does that even mean?”
“A metaphorical string,” Trent said, sounding exhausted.“Not a literal string.”
“But you’re sure it’s a real head?”
“Dewi, yes.I’m lookingrightat it.It’s Ray Dorland’s real head.Badger identified him.”
“Well, fuck.Who sent it?”
“I’m guessing a Russian, given the warning.Name listed on the shipping invoice was Smith.”
“Then how’d they know we would know who sent it?”
“Uh, maybe because of the Russian warning written on it?”
“True.”
