Chapter 3 - THE MAN IN THE SNOWSTORM
The second heavy blow to the driver's side window cracked the safety glass in a spiderweb pattern that fractured Elena's distorted reflection. Through the opaque web of fractures, a tall figure in a heavy, unmarked tactical parka loomed out of the swirling whiteout, his face completely obscured by a tightly cinched hood and ski goggles.
"Open the door, ma'am!" a muffled, aggressive voice shouted through the glass, the words barely piercing the howling wind. "State wildlife property! Open the door right now!"
Elena’s hand hovered over the lock button, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. The dispatcher’s voice hissed frantically from the fallen phone on the passenger seat, though the words were completely drowned out by the renewed hammering on the metal frame.
"Don't you dare open that door," Elena muttered to herself, her eyes darting from the aggressive stranger outside to the two tiny wolf pups huddled safely inside her daughter’s red blanket on the floorboard.
Outside, the man abandoned the window, his heavy boots crunching loudly as he stalked toward the rear of the car. Elena watched in the rearview mirror as the stranger bypassed her trunk and moved directly toward the front passenger side where the injured mother wolf lay trapped beneath the wooden cross. The animal bared her blood-stained teeth, mustering a ferocious, rattling growl that vibrated through the frozen asphalt, despite her paralyzed hind legs.
The man in the tactical parka didn't hesitate; he drew a heavy object from his side holster that gleamed dull and lethal in the headlights of his idling truck. It wasn't a tranquilizer rifle—it was a suppressed firearm, its long barrel pointing directly down at the mother wolf's head.
"Move away, you stupid beast," the man muttered, his voice carrying clearly through a small vent on Elena’s window.
Without thinking, Elena pressed the horn. BEEEEEP.
The sudden, piercing blast tore through the blizzard, startling the gunman and causing his aim to jerk wide into the snowbank. The mother wolf snapped her jaws viciously at his heavy boots, missing his ankle by a fraction of an inch as she fought with every remaining ounce of her fading strength to protect her young.
The man swore loudly, pivoting his weapon toward Elena’s window with a furious snarl. "Open this door or I will blow this glass right into your face!"
Elena snatched the phone up from the passenger seat, her voice shaking with adrenaline and cold fury. "I'm on the phone with emergency dispatch! They know you're here! They know what 714 is!"
The man froze mid-motion, the barrel of his gun lowering an inch as he processed her words. He slowly turned his head toward the dispatch phone sitting on the seat, where the voice of the man from the research facility was now shouting frantically through the speaker.
"Agent Miller! Stand down! I repeat, stand down!" the voice roared through the tinty speaker. "You are compromised! Step away from the civilian vehicle immediately or face federal termination!"
Miller’s gloved hand trembled slightly on the grip of his weapon, his head snapping back and forth between the car window and the injured wolf gasping for breath beneath the wooden cross. For a heart-stopping second, Elena thought he was going to pull the trigger anyway, turning her car into a shooting gallery in the middle of a deserted highway.
Instead, Miller lowered the weapon completely, stepping back into the swirling snow with a cold, calculating glare. "You're making a catastrophic mistake, lady," he spat, his voice laced with venom. "That wolf carries a bio-marker that doesn't belong in nature. If those pups survive the night, whatever is inside them will spread."
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Before Elena could formulate a reply, Miller turned on his heel, vaulted back into the cab of his idling black pickup, and slammed the truck into reverse. With a deafening roar of spinning tires and flying gravel, the vehicle threw a wall of snow over Elena’s car before rocketing backward down the highway into the blinding whiteout, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.
Silence rushed back into the space, heavier and more terrifying than before, broken only by the ragged, shallow breathing of the mother wolf outside and the soft whimpers of the pups at Elena’s feet.
