The Big Bad Wolf



                   




A NOVEL BY
            



James Patterson



                   




Prologue
 



THE GODFATHERS



                   




THERE WAS AN IMPROBABLE MURDER STORY told about the Wolf that had made its 
way into police lore and then spread quickly from Washington to New York to London and 
to Moscow. No one knew if it was actually the Wolf. But it was never officially disproved, 
and it was consistent with other outrageous incidents in the Russian gangster's life.
           




According to the story, the Wolf had gone to the high-security supermax prison in Florence, 
Colorado, on a Sunshiny night in early summer. He had bought his way inside to meet with 
the Italian mobster and don Augustino "Little Gus" Palumbo. Prior to this visit, the Wolf had 
a reputation for being impulsive and sometimes lacking patience. Even so, he had been 
planning this meeting with Little Gus Palumbo for nearly two years.
     




He and Palumbo met in the Security Housing Unit of the prison, where the New York gangster 
had been incarcerated for seven years. The purpose of the meeting was to reach an 
arrangement to unite the East Coast's Palumbo family with the Red Mafia, thereby forming 
one of the most powerful and ruthless crime syndicates in the world. Nothing like it had ever 
been attempted. Palumbo was said to be skeptical, but he agreed to the meeting just to see if 
the Russian could get inside Florence prison , and then manage to get out again.
      




From the moment they met, the Russian was respectful of the sixty-six-year-old don. He 
bowed his head slightly as they shook hands and almost appeared shy, contrary to his 
reputation.
                 




"There's to be no physical contact," the captain of the guards said from the intercom into the 
room. His name was Larry Ladove and he was the one who had been paid $75,000 to 
arrange the meeting.
              




The Wolf ignored Captain Ladove. "Under the circumstances, you look well," he said to Little 
Gus. "Very well indeed."
 
           




The Italian smiled thinly. He had a small body, but it was tight and hard. "I exercise three 
times a day, every day. I almost never have liquor, and not by choice. I eat well, and not by 
choice either."
    




The Wolf smiled, then said, "It sounds like you don't expect to be here for your full 
sentence."
                 




Palumbo coughed out a laugh. "That's a good bet. Three life sentences served concurrently? 
The discipline is in my nature, though. The future? Who can know for sure about these 
things?"
          




"Who can know? One time I escaped from a gulag on the Arctic Circle. I told a cop in 
Moscow, I spent time in a gulag; you think you can scare me? What else do you do in here? 
Besides exercise and eat Healthy Choice?"
   




"I try to take care of my business back in New York. Sometimes I play chess with a sick 
madman down the hall. He used to be in the FBI."
                 




"Kyle Craig," said the Wolf. "You think he's crazy like they say?"
      




"Yeah, totally. So tell me, Pakhan, how can this alliance you suggest work? I am a man of 
discipline and careful planning, in spite of these humbling circumstances. From what I'm told, 
you're reckless. Hands-on. You involve yourself with even the smallest operations. Extortion, 
prostitution. Stolen cars? How can this work between us?"
 




The Wolf finally smiled, then shook his head. "I am hands-on, as you say. But I'm not 
reckless, not at all. It's all about the money, no? The bling-bling? Let me tell you a secret that 
no one else knows. This will surprise you and maybe prove my point."
      




The Wolf leaned forward. He whispered his secret, and the Italian's eyes suddenly widened 
with fear. With stunning quickness, the Wolf grabbed Little Gus's head. He twisted it 
powerfully, and the gangster's neck broke with a loud, clear snap.
                




"Maybe I am a little reckless," said the Wolf. Then he turned to the camera in the room. He 
spoke to Captain Ladove of the guards. "Oh, I forgot, no touching."
                   



The next morning Augustino Palumbo was found dead in his cell. Nearly every bone in his body 
had been broken. In the Moscow underworld, this symbolic kind of murder was known as 
zamochit. It signaled complete and total dominance by the attacker. The Wolf was boldly stating 
that he was now the godfather.



                   




                   




Part One THE "WHITE GIRL" CASE
      



Chapter 1



                   




THE PHIPPS PLAZA shopping mall in Atlanta was a showy montage of pink-granite doors, 
sweeping bronze-trimmed staircases, gilded Napoleonic design, lighting that sparkled like 
halogen spotlights. A man and a woman watched the target, "Mom", as she left Niketown 
with sneakers and whatnot for her three daughters packed under one arm.
        




"She is very pretty. I see why the Wolf likes her. She reminds me of Claudia Schiffer," said 
the male observer. "You see the resemblance?"





Everybody reminds you of Claudia Schiffer, Slave Don't lose her. Don't lose your pretty little 
Claudia or the Wolf will have you for breakfast."
                




The abduction team, the Couple, was dressed expensively, and that made it easy for them to 
blend in at Phipps Plaza, in the Buckhead section of Atlanta. At eleven in the morning, Phipps 
wasn't very crowded, and that could be a problem.
                   




It helped that their target was rushing about in a world of her own, a tight little cocoon of 
mindless activity, buzzing in and out of Gucci, Caswell-Massey, Niketown, then Gapkids and 
Parisian (to see her personal shopper, Gina), without paying the slightest attention to who was 
around her in any of the stores. She worked from an At-a-Glance leather-bound diary and 
made her appointed rounds in a quick, efficient, practiced manner, buying faded jeans for 
Gwynne, a leather dop kit for Brendan, Nike diving watches for Meredith and Brigid. She 
even made an appointment at Carter-Barnes to get her hair done.
           




The target had style and also a pleasant smile for the sales people who waited on her in the 
Tony stores. She held doors for those coming up behind her, even men, who went out of their 
way to thank the attractive blonde. "Mom" was sexy in the wholesome, clean-cut way of 
many upscale American suburban women. And she did resemble the supermodel Claudia 
Schiffer. That was her undoing.
 




According to the job specs, Mrs. Elizabeth Connolly was the mother of three girls; she was a 
graduate of Vassar, class of 87, with what she called a degree in art history that is practically 
worthless in the real world , whatever that is , but invaluable to me." She'd been a reporter for 
the Washington Post and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution before she was married. She was 
thirty-seven, though she didn't look much more than thirty. She had her hair in a velvet 
barrette that morning, wore a short-sleeved turtleneck, a crocheted sweater, slim-fitting slacks. 
She was bright, religious, but sane about it, and tough when she needed to be, at least 
according to the specs.
     




Well, she would need to be tough soon.
       




Mrs. Elizabeth Connolly was about to be abducted.
       




She had been purchased, and she was probably the most expensive item for sale that 
morning at Phipps Plaza.
      



The price: $150,000.



                   




                   



Chapter 2



                   




LIZZIE CONNOLLY FELT LIGHT-HEADED and she wondered if her quirky blood sugar 
was acting up again.
      




She made a mental note to pick up Trudie Styler's cookbook, she kind of admired Trudie, 
who was cofounder of the Rainforest Foundation as well as Sting's wife. She seriously 
doubted she would get through this day with her head still screwed on straight, not twisted 
around like the poor little girl in The Exorcist. Linda Blair, wasn't that the actress's name? 
Lizzie was pretty sure it was. Oh, who cared? What difference did trivia make?
              




What a merry-go-round today was going to be. First, it was Gwynne's birthday, and the party 
for twenty-one of her closest school buddies, eleven girls, ten boys, was scheduled for one 
o'clock at the house. Lizzie had rented a bouncy house, and she had already prepared lunch 
for the children, not to mention for their moms or nannies. Lizzie had even rented a Mister 
Softee ice-cream truck for three hours. But you never knew
 
what to expect at these birthday gigs other than laughter, tears, thrills, and spills.
       




After the birthday bash, Brigid had swimming lessons, and Merry had a trip to the dentist 
scheduled. Brendan, her husband of fourteen years, had left her a "short list" of his current 
needs. Of course everything was needed A.S.A.P.S. which meant as soon as possible, 
sweetheart.
               




After she picked up a T-shirt with rhinestones for Gwynnie at Gapkids, all she had left to buy 
was Brendan's replacement dop kit. Oh, yeah, and her hair appointment. And ten minutes 
with her savior at Parisian, Gina Sabellico.
        




She kept her cool through the final stages, never let them see you sweat, then she hurried to 
her new Mercedes 320 station wagon, which was safely tucked in a corner on the P3 level of 
the underground garage at Phipps. No time for her favorite rooibos tea at Teavana.
              




Hardly anybody was in the garage on a Monday morning, but she nearly bumped into a man 
with long dark hair. Lizzie smiled automatically at him, revealing perfect, recently whitened 
and brightened teeth, warmth, and sexiness even when she didn't want to show it.
    




She wasn't really paying attention to anyone, thinking ahead to the fast-approaching 
birthday party, when a woman she passed suddenly grabbed her around the chest as if Lizzie 
were a running back for the Atlanta Falcons football team trying to pass through the "line of 
spinach," as her daughter Gwynne had once called it. The woman's grip was like a vise she 
was strong as hell.
  




"What are you doing? Are you crazy?" Lizzie finally screamed her loudest, squirmed her 
hardest, dropped her shopping bags, heard something break. "Hey! Somebody, help! Get off 
of me!"
          




Then a second assailant, the BMW sweatshirt guy, grabbed her legs and held on tight, hurt 
her, actually, as he brought her down onto the filthy, greasy parking-lot concrete along with 
the woman. "Don't kick me, bitch!" he yelled in her face. "Don't you fucking dare kick me."
         




But Lizzie didn't stop kicking
 
or screaming either. "Help me. Somebody, help! Somebody, please!"
 




Then both of them lifted her up in the air as if she weighed next to nothing. The man 
mumbled something to the woman. Not English. Middle European, maybe. Lizzie had a 
housekeeper from Slovakia. Was there a connection?
          




The woman attacker gripped her around the chest with one arm and used her free hand to 
push aside tennis and golf stuff, hurriedly clearing a space in the back of the station wagon.
   




Then Lizzie was roughly shoved inside her own car. A gauzy, foul-smelling cloth was pushed 
hard against her nose and mouth, and held there so tightly it hurt her teeth. She tasted blood. 
First blood, she thought. My blood. Adrenaline surged through her body, and she began 
fighting back again with all her strength. Punching and kicking. She felt like a captured 
animal striking out for its freedom.





"Easy," the man said." Easy-peasy-Japanesy . . . Elizabeth Connolly."
                   




Elizabeth Connolly? They know me? How? Why? What is going on here?
        




"You're a very sexy mom," said the man. "I see why the Wolf likes you."
       




Wolf? Who's the Wolf? What was happening to her? Who did she know named Wolf?
            




Then the thick, acrid fumes from the cloth overpowered Lizzie and she went lights out. She 
was driven away in the back of her station wagon.
  




But only across the street to the Lenox Square Mall
 
where Lizzie Connolly was transferred into a blue Dodge van that then sped away.
      



Purchase complete.



                   




                   



Chapter 3



                   




EARLY MONDAY MORNING, I was oblivious to the rest of the world and its problems. This 
was the way life was supposed to be, only it rarely seemed to turn out so well. At least not in 
my experience, which was limited, when it came to anything that might be considered the 
"good life?"
              




I was walking Jannie and Damon to the Sojourner Truth School that morning. Little Alex was 
merrily toddling along at my side. "Puppy," I called him.
          




The skies over D.C. were partly cloudy, but now and then the sun peeked through the clouds 
and warmed our heads and the backs of our necks. I'd already played the piano ,Gershwin, 
for forty-five minutes. And eaten breakfast with Nana Mama. I had to be at Quantico by 
nine that morning for my orientation classes, but it left time for the walk to school at around 
seven-thirty. And that was what I'd been in search of lately, or so I believed. Time to be with 
my kids.
       




Time to read a poet I'd discovered recently, Billy Collins. First I'd read his Nine Horses, and 
now it was Sailing Alone Around the Room. Billy Collins made the impossible seem so 
effortless, and so possible.
     




Time to talk to Jamilla Hughes every day, often for hours at a time. And when I couldn't, to 
correspond by e-mail and, occasionally, by long flowing letters. She was still working 
homicide in San Francisco, but I felt the distance between us was shrinking. I wanted it to and 
hoped she did too.
   




Meanwhile, the kids were changing faster than I could keep up with them, especially Little 
Alex, who was morphing before my eyes. I needed to be around him more and now I could 
be. That was my deal. It was why I had joined the FBI, at least that was part of it.
               




Little Alex was already over thirty-five inches and thirty pounds. That morning he had on 
pinstriped overalls and an Orioles cap. He moved along the street as if a leeward wind were 
propelling him. His ever-present stuffed animal, a cow named Moo, created ballast so that he 
listed slightly to the left at all times.
      




Damon was lurching ahead to a different drummer, a faster, more insistent beat. Man, I 
really loved this boy. Except for his fashion sense. That morning he was wearing long jean 
shorts, Uptowns, a gray T with an Alan Iverson "The Answer" jersey over it. His lean legs 
were sprouting peach fuzz, and it looked as if his whole body were developing from the feet 
up. Large feet, long legs, a youthful torso.
       




I was noticing everything that morning. I had time to do it.
    




Jannie was typically put together in a gray T with "pro Athletics 1987" printed in bright red 
letters, sweatpant capris with a red stripe down each leg, and white Adidas sneakers with red 
stripes.
        




As for me, I was feeling good. Every now and again someone would still stop me and say I 
looked like the young Muhammad Ali. I knew how to shake off the compliment, but I liked 
to hear it more than I let on.
               




"You're awfully quiet this morning, Poppa," Jannie laced her arms around my free arm and 
said. "You having trouble at school? Your orientation? Do you like being an FBI agent so 
far?"
          




"I like it fine," I said. "There's a probationary period for the next two years. Orientation is 
good, but a lot of it is repetitive for me, especially what they call "practicals". Firing range, gun 
cleaning, exercises in apprehending criminals. That's why I get to go in late some days."
    




"So you're the teacher's pet already," she said, and winked.
              




I laughed. "I don't think the teachers are too impressed with me, or any other street cops. 
How're you and Damon doing so far this year? Aren't you about due for a report card or 
something?"
             




Damon shrugged. "We're acing everything. Why do you want to change the subject all the 
time when it's on you?"
      




I nodded. "You're right. Well, my schooling is going fine. Eighty is considered a failing grade 
at Quantico. I expect to ace most of my tests."
              




"Most?" Jannie arched an eyebrow and gave me one of Nana Mama's "perturbed" looks. 
"What's this most stuff? We expect you to ace all your tests."
      




"I've been out of school for a while."
 




"No excuses."
         




I fed her one of her own lines. "I'm doing the best I can, and that's all you can ask from 
somebody."
             




She smiled. "Well, all right, then, Poppa. Just as long as the best you can do puts all A's on 
your next report."
     




About a block from the school I gave Jannie and Damon their hugs _ so as not to embarrass 
them, God forbid, in front of all their cool-ass friends. They hugged me back and kissed their 
little brother, and then off they ran. "bye," said Little Alex, and so did Jannie and Damon, 
calling back to their brother," bye, ba-bye!"
       




I picked up Little Alex and we headed home; then it would be off to work for soon-to-be 
Agent Cross of the FBI.
          



Ú," said Little Alex as I carried him in my arms. That was right _ Dada. Things were falling into 
place for the Cross family. After all these years, my life was finally close to being in balance. I 
wondered how long it would last. Hopefully at least for the rest of the day.



                   




                   



Chapter 4



                   




NEW-AGENT TRAINING at the FBI Academy in Quantico, sometimes called "Club Fed," 
was turning out to be a challenging, arduous, and tense program. For the most part, I liked it, 
and I was making an effort to keep any skepticism down. But I had entered the Bureau with 
a reputation for catching pattern killers, and I already had the nickname Dragonslayer. So 
irony and skepticism might soon be a problem.
                   




Training had begun six weeks before, on a Monday morning, with a crew-cut broad-
shouldered SSA, or supervisory special agent, Dr. Kenneth Horowitz, standing in front of our 
class trying to tell a joke: "The three biggest lies in the world are: _All I want is a kiss,_ _The 
check is in the mail,_ and _I'm with the FBI and I'm only here to help you._" Everybody in 
the class laughed, maybe because the joke was so ordinary, but at least Horowitz had tried 
his best, and maybe that was the point.
   




FBI director Ron Burns had set it up so that my training period would last for only eight 
weeks. He'd made other allowances for me as well. The maximum age for entrance into the 
FBI was thirty-seven years old. I was forty-two. Burns had the age requirement waived for 
me and also voiced his opinion that it was discriminatory and needed to be changed. The 
more I saw of Ron Burns, the more I sensed that he was something of a rebel, maybe 
because he was an ex-Philadelphia street cop himself. He had brought me into the FBI as a 
GS13, the highest I could go as a street agent. I'd also been promised assignments as a 
consultant, which meant a better salary. Burns had wanted me in the Bureau, and he got me. 
He said that I could have any reasonable resources I needed to get the job done. I hadn't 
discussed it with him yet, but I thought I might want two detectives from the Washington PD 
_ John Sampson and Jerome Thurman.
                   




The only thing Burns had been quiet about was my class supervisor at Quantico, a senior 
agent named Gordon Nooney. Nooney ran Agent Training. He had been a profiler before 
that, and prior to becoming an FBI agent, had been a prison psychologist in New Hampshire. 
I was finding him to be a bean counter at best.
        




That morning, Nooney was standing there waiting when I arrived for my class in abnormal 
psych, an hour and fifty minutes on understanding psychopathic behavior, something I 
hadn't been able to do in nearly ÿteen years with the
    




D.C. police force.
    




There was gunfire in the air, probably from the nearby Marine base. "How was traffic from 
D.C.?" Nooney asked. I didn't miss the barb behind the question: I was permitted to go home 
nights, while the other agents-in-training slept at Quantico.
                   




"No problem," I said. "Forty-five minutes in moving traffic up on Ninety-five. I left plenty of 
extra time."
                




"The Bureau isn't known for breaking rules for individuals," Nooney said. Then he offered a 
tight, thin smile that was awfully close to a frown. "Of course, you're Alex Cross."





"I appreciate it," I said. I left it at that.
   




"I just hope it's worth the trouble," Nooney mumbled as he walked off in the direction of 
Admin. I shook my head and went into class, which was held in a tiered symposium-style 
room.
       




Dr. Horowitz's lesson this day was interesting to me. It concentrated on the work of Professor 
Robert Hare, who'd done original research on psychopaths by using brain scans. According to 
Hare's studies, when healthy people are shown "neutral" and >motional" words, they 
respond acutely to emotional words, such as cancer or death. Psychopaths register the words 
equally. A sentence like "I love you" means nothing more to a psychopath than "I'll have 
some coffee." Maybe less. According to Hare's analysis of data, attempts to reform 
psychopaths only make them more manipulative. It certainly was a point of view.
   




Even though I was familiar with some of the material, I found myself jotting down Hare's 
"characteristics" of psychopathic personality and behavior. There were forty of them. As I 
wrote them down, I found myself agreeing that most rang true.




Glibness and superior charm


Need for constant stimulation / prone to boredom



Lack of any remorse or guilt
       




Shallow emotional response
                   




Complete lack of empathy...
                  




I was remembering two psychopaths in particular: Gary Soneji and Kyle Craig. I wondered 
how many of the forty characteristics" the two of them shared, and started putting
     




G.S. and K.C. next to the appropriate ones. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned away 
from Dr. Horowitz.
             




"Senior Agent Nooney needs to see you right now in his office," said an executive assistant, 
who then walked away with the full concept that I would be right on his heels.
      



I was.


I was in the FBI now.


 



                   




                   



Chapter 5



                   




SENIOR AGENT GORDON NOONEY was waiting in his small, cramped office in the 
Administration building. He was obviously upset, which had the desired effect: I wondered 
what I could have done wrong in the time since we'd talked before class.
            




It didn't take him long to let me know why he was so angry. "Don't bother to sit down. You'll 
be out of here in a minute. I just received a highly unusual call from Tony Woods in the 
director's office. There's a _situation_ going down in Baltimore. Apparently the director 
wants you there. It will take precedence over your training classes."
                   




Nooney shrugged his broad shoulders. Out the window behind him I could see thick woods, 
and also Hoover Road, where a couple of agents jogged. "What the hell, why would you need 
any training here, Dr. Cross? You caught Casanova in North Carolina. You're the man who 
brought down Kyle Craig. You're like Clarice Starling in the movies. You're already a star."
        




I took a deep breath before responding. "I had nothing to do with this. I won't apologize for 
catching Casanova or Kyle Craig."
          




Nooney waved a hand my way. "Why should you apologize? You're dismissed from the 
day's classes. There's a helicopter waiting for you over at HRT. You do know where Hostage 
Rescue Team is?"
                 




"I know where it is."





Class dismissed, I was thinking as I ran to the helipad. I could hear the crack, crack of 
weapons being fired at the shooting range. Then I was onboard the helicopter and strapping 
in. Less than twenty minutes later, the Bell helicopter touched down in Baltimore. I still 
hadn't gotten over my meeting with Nooney. Did he understand that I hadn't asked for this 
assignment? I didn't even know why I was in Baltimore.
     




Two agents in a dark blue sedan were waiting for me. One of them, Jim Heekin, took charge 
immediately, and also put me in my place. "You must be the FNG," he said as we shook 
hands.
                   




I wasn't familiar with what the letters stood for, so I asked Heekin what they meant as we got 
into the car.
                




He smiled, and so did his partner. "The Fucking New Guy," he said.
  




"What we have so far is a bad deal. And it's hot," Heekin said. City of Baltimore homicide 
detective is involved. Probably why they wanted you here. He's holed up in his own house. 
Most of his immediate family's in there with him. We don't know if he's suicidal, homicidal, 
or both, but he's apparently taken the family hostage. Seems similar to a situation created by 
a police officer last year in south Jersey. This officer's family was gathered together for his 
father's birthday party. Some birthday party."
     




"Do we know how many are in the house with him?" I asked.
    




Heekin shook his head. Best guess, at least a dozen, including a couple of children. Detective 
won't let us talk to any of the family members, and he won't answer our questions. Most of 
the people in the neighborhood don't want us here either."
                   




"What's his name?" I asked as I jotted down a few notes to myself. I couldn't believe I was 
about to get involved in a hostage negotiation. It still didn't make any sense to me _ and then 
_ it did.
               




"His name is Dennis Coulter."
      




I looked up in surprise. "I know Dennis Coulter. I worked a murder case with him. Shared a 
bushel of crabs at Obrycki's once upon a time."
 



"We know," said Agent Heekin. "He asked for you."



                   




                   



Chapter 6



                   




DETECTIVE COULTER HAD ASKED FOR ME. What the hell was that all about? I hadn't 
known we were so close. Because we weren't. I'd met him only a couple of times. We were 
friendly, but not exactly friends. So why did Dennis Coulter want me here?
       




A while back, I had worked with Dennis Coulter on an investigation of drug dealers who were 
trying to connect, and control, the trade in D.C. and Baltimore and everywhere in between. 
I'd found Coulter to be tough, very egotistical, but good at his job. I remembered he was a big 
Eubie Blake fan, and that Blake was from Baltimore.
                  




Coulter and his hostages were huddled somewhere inside the house, a gray wood-shingle 
Colonial on Ailsa Avenue in Lauraville, in the northeast part of Baltimore. Venetian blinds 
were tightly closed in the windows. What was going on behind the front door was anybody's 
guess. Three stone steps climbed to the porch, where a rocking chair and a wooden glider sat. 
The house had recently been painted, which suggested to me that Coulter probably hadn't 
been expecting trouble in his life. So what happened?
     




Several dozen Baltimore PD, including SWAT team members, had surrounded the house. 
Weapons were drawn and, in some cases, aimed at the windows and the front door. The 
Baltimore police helicopter unit Foxtrot had responded.
               




Not good.
                  




I already had one idea. "What do you think about everybody lowering their guns for 
starters?" I asked the old commander from the Baltimore PD. "He hasn't fired on anybody, 
has he?"
         




The old commander and SWAT team leader conferred briefly, and then weapons around the 
perimeter were lowered, at least the ones I could see. Meanwhile, one of the Foxtrot 
helicopters continued to hover close to the house.
 




I turned to the commander again. I needed him on my side. "Thank you, Lieutenant. Have 
you been talking to him?"
       




He pointed to a man crouched behind a cruiser. Detective Fescoe has the honor. He's been on 
the horn with Coulter for about an hour."
  




I made a point of walking over to Detective Fescoe and introducing myself. "Mick Fescoe," 
he said, but he didn't seem overjoyed to meet me. "Heard you were coming. We're fine here."
                  




"This intrusion isn't my idea," I told him. "I just left the force in D.C. I don't want to get in 
anybody's way."
       




"So don't," Fescoe said. He was a slender, wiry man who looked as if he might have played 
some ball at one time. He moved like it.
               




I rubbed my hand over my chin. "Any idea why he asked for me? I don't know him that 
well."
           




Fescoe's eyes drifted toward the house. "Says he's being set up by Internal Affairs. Doesn't 
trust anybody connected to the Baltimore PD. He knew you'd gone over to the FBI recently."
                   




"Would you tell him I'm here? But also tell him I'm being briefed now. I want to hear how he 
sounds before I talk to him."
   




Fescoe nodded, then he called the house. It rang several times before it was picked up.
            




"Agent Cross has just arrived, Dennis. He's being briefed now," said Fescoe.





"Like hell he is. Get him on the hook. Don't make me shoot in here. I'm getting close to 
creating a real problem. Get him now!"
       




Fescoe handed me the phone and I spoke into it. "Dennis, this is Alex Cross. I'm here. I did 
want to be briefed first."
        




"This really Alex Cross?" Coulter asked, sounding surprised.
                  




"Yeah, it's me. I don't know too many of the details. Except you say you're being set up by 
Internal Affairs."
 




"I don't just say it, I am being set up. I can tell you why too. I'll brief you. That way you'll 
hear it straight."
 




"All right," I told him. "I'm on your side so far. I know you, Dennis. I don't know Baltimore 
Internal Affairs."
   




Coulter cut me off. "I want you to listen to me. Don't talk. Just hear me out."
            




"All right," I said. "I'm listening."
          




I sat down on the ground behind a Baltimore PD cruiser, and I got ready to listen to the 
armed man who was supposedly holding a dozen of his family members hostage. Jesus, I 
was back on the Job again.
                 



"They want to kill me," Dennis Coulter began. "The Baltimore PD has me in its crosshairs."



                   




                   



Chapter 7



                   




POP!
        




I jumped. Someone had pulled open a can of soda and tapped me on the shoulder with it.
        




I looked up to see none other than Ned Mahoney, head of the Hostage Rescue Team at 
Quantico, handing me a Diet Coke, caffeine-free. I had taken a couple of classes from him 
during orientation. He knew his stuff _ in the classroom, anyway.
  




"Welcome to my private hell," I said. "What am I doing here, by the way?"
  




Mahoney winked and dropped down beside me.
                




"You're a rising star, or maybe a risen star. You know the drill. Get him talking. Keep him 
talking," said Mahoney. "We hear you're real good at this."
            




"So what are you doing here?" I asked.
    




"What do you think? Watching, studying your technique. You're the director's boy, right? He 
thinks you're gifted."
           




I took a sip of soda, then pressed the cold can to my forehead. Hell of an introduction to the 
FBI for the FNG.
       




"Dennis, who wants to kill you?" I spoke into the cell phone again. "Tell me all you can about 
what's going on here. I also need to ask about your family. Is everybody all right in there?"
    




Coulter bristled. "Hey! Let's not waste time on a lot of bullshit negotiation crap. I'm about to 
be executed. That's what this is. Make no mistake. Look around you, man. It's an 
execution."
    




I couldn't see Coulter, but I remembered him. No more than five-eight, goatee, hip, always 
cracking a wiseass joke, very tough. All in all, a small-man complex. He began to tell his 
story, his side of things, and unfortunately I had no idea what to make of what he was 
spilling out. According to Coulter, detectives in the Baltimore PD had been involved in large 
drug payoffs. Even he didn't know how many, but the number was high. He'd blown the 
whistle. The next thing he knew, his house was surrounded by cops.
       




Then Coulter dropped the bomb. "I was getting kickbacks too. Somebody turned me in to 
Internal Affairs. One of my partners."
                   




"Why would a partner do that?"
     




He laughed. "Because I got greedy. I went for a bigger piece of the pie. Thought I had my 
partners by the short hairs. They didn't see it that way."
       




"How did you have them by the short hairs?"
    




"I told my partners that I had copies of records _ who had been paid what. A couple years_ 
worth of records."
               




Now we were getting somewhere. "Do you?" I asked.
 




Coulter hesitated. Why was that? Either he did or he didn't.
      




"I might," he finally said. "They sure think I do. So now they're going to put me down. They 
were coming for me today....I'm not supposed to leave this house alive."
    




I was trying to listen for other voices or sounds in the house while he kept talking. I didn't 
hear any. Was anybody else still alive in there? What had Coulter done to his family? How 
desperate was he?





I looked at Ned Mahoney and shrugged my shoulders. I really wasn't sure whether Coulter 
was telling the truth or if he was just a street cop who'd gone loco. Mahoney looked skeptical 
too. He had a don't ask me look on his face. I had to go somewhere else for guidance.
                  




"So what do we do now?" I asked Coulter.
   




He sniffed out a laugh. "I was hoping you'd have an idea. You're supposed to be the hotshot, 
right?"
     



That's what everybody keeps saying.



                   




                   



Chapter 8



                   




THE SITUATION IN BALTIMORE didn't get any better during the next several hours. If 
anything, it got worse. It was impossible to keep the neighbors from wandering out on their 
porches to watch the standoff in progress. Then the Baltimore PD began to evacuate the 
Coulters_ neighbors, many of whom were also the Coulters_ friends. A temporary shelter had 
been set up at the nearby Garrett Heights elementary school. It reminded everyone that there 
were probably children trapped inside Detective Coulter's house. His family. Jesus!
           




I looked around and shook my head in dismay as I saw an awful lot of Baltimore police, 
including SWAT, and also the Hostage Rescue Team from Quantico. A swarm of crazy-eyed 
spectators was pushing and shoving outside the barricades, some of them rooting for cops to 
be shot _ any cop would do.
  




I stood up and cautiously made my way over to a group of officers waiting behind an 
emergency rescue van. I didn't need to be told that they didn't appreciate interference from 
the Feds. I hadn't either when I was on the D.C. police force. I addressed Captain Stockton 
James Sheehan, whom I'd spoken to briefly when I arrived. "What do you think? Where do 
we go with this?"
                   




"Has he agreed to let anybody out?" Sheehan asked. "That's the first question."
                  




I shook my head. "He won't even talk about his family. Won't confirm or deny that they're 
in the house."
                




Sheehan asked, "Well, what is he talking about?"
        




I shared some of what I'd been told by Coulter but not everything. How could I? I left out 
that he'd sworn Baltimore cops were involved in a large-scale drug scheme _ and, more 
devastating, that he had records that would incriminate them.
     




Stockton Sheehan listened and then he offered, "Either he lets go of some of the hostages or 
we have to go in and get him. He's not going to gun down his own family."
        




"He says he will. That's the threat."
    




Sheehan shook his head. "I'm willing to take the risk. We go in when it gets dark. You know 
this should be our call."





I nodded without agreeing or disagreeing, then I walked away from the others. It looked as if 
we might have another half hour of light. I didn't like to think about what would happen 
once darkness came.
      




I called Coulter again. He picked up right away.
                 




"I have an idea," I told him. "I think it's your best shot." I didn't tell Coulter, but I also 
thought it was his only shot.
    




"So tell me what you're thinking," he said.
        




I told Dennis Coulter my plan.. . .
                




Ten minutes later, Captain Sheehan was shouting in my face that I was "worse than any 
motherfucking FBI asshole" he had ever dealt with. I guess I was a fast learner. Maybe I 
didn't even need the orientation classes I was missing at Quantico. Not if I was already the 
"king of the FBI assholes." Which was one way of saying that the Baltimore police didn't 
approve of my plan to defuse the situation with Detective Coulter.
   




Even Mahoney had doubts. "I guess you're not real big on social and political correctness," 
he commented when I told him Captain Sheehan's reaction.
                   




"Thought I was; guess I'm not. Hope this works. It better work. I think they want to kill him, 
Ned."
      




"Yeah. So do I. I think we're making the right call."
            




"We?" I asked.
        




Mahoney nodded. "I'm in this with you, podjo. No guts, no glory. It's a Bureau thing."
      




Minutes later, Mahoney and I watched the Baltimore police very reluctantly pull back from 
the house. I had told Sheehan I didn't want to see a single blue uniform or SWAT coverall 
anywhere around. The captain had his idea of what constituted acceptable risks and I had 
mine. If they rushed the house, somebody would die for sure. If my idea failed, at least 
nobody would get hurt. Or, at least, nobody but me.
       




I got back on the phone with Coulter. "The Baltimore police are out of sight," I told him. "I 
want you to come out, Dennis. Do it now. Before they get a chance to think about what just 
happened."
              




He didn't answer at first, then said, "I'm looking around. All it takes is one sniper with a 
nightscope."
 




I knew he was right. Didn't matter. We had one chance.
     




"Come on out with your hostages," I told him. "I'll meet you on the front steps myself."
          




He didn't say anything more, and I was pretty sure I'd lost him. I focused on the front door 
of the house and tried not to think about people dying here. C'mon, Coulter. Use your head. 
This is the best deal you're going to get.
              




He finally spoke again. "You sure about this? Because I'm not. I think you might be crazy."
    




"I'm sure."
                  




"All right, I'm coming out," he said. Then he added, "This is on you."
  




I turned to Mahoney. "Let's get a protective vest on him as soon as he hits the porch. 
Surround him with our guys. No Baltimore PD anywhere near him no matter what they say. 
Can we do that?"
       




"Brass balls." Mahoney grinned. "Let's do it _ try, anyway."





"Let me bring you out, Dennis. It's safer that way," I said into the cell. "I'm coming to you 
now."
       




But Coulter had his own plan. Jesus, he was already on his front porch. He had both hands 
raised high over his head. Clearly unarmed. Vulnerable as hell.
 




I was afraid I'd hear shots and he'd go down in a heap. I started to run forward.
  




Then half a dozen HRT guys were all over him, shielding Coulter from harm. They rushed 
him to a waiting van.
           




"We got him inside the truck. Subject is safe," I heard the report from HRT. "We're getting 
him the hell out of here."
                   




I turned back toward the house. What about the family? Where were they?
  




Had he made up his story? Oh, Christ, what had Dennis Coulter done?
          




Then I saw the family walking single file out of the house. It was an incredible scene. The hair 
on the back of my neck stood up.





An old man in a white shirt, black trousers, and suspenders. An elderly woman in a blowing 
pink dress and high heels. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Two small girls in white 
party dresses. A couple of middle-aged women holding hands. Three males in their twenties, 
each of them with their hands up. A woman with two little babies.
   




Several of the adults were carrying cardboard boxes.
   




I figured I knew what was in them. Yeah, I knew. The records, the proof, the evidence.
                  




Detective Dennis Coulter had been telling the truth after all. His family had believed him. 
They had just saved his life.
           




I felt Ned Mahoney pat my back hard. "Nice job. Really good job."
                 




I laughed and said, for an FNG. That was a test, wasn't it?"
            



"I really couldn't say. But if it was, you aced it."



                   




                   



Chapter 9



                   




A TEST? Jesus. Is that why I was sent to Baltimore? I hoped to hell not.
    




I got home late that night, too late. I was glad that no one would be up to see me, especially 
Nana. I couldn't handle one of her soul-piercing disapproving looks right now. I needed a 
beer and then I wanted to go to bed. Sleep if I could.
        




I slipped quietly inside the house, not wanting to wake anyone. Not a sound except for the 
tiniest electric hum that came from somewhere. I was planning to call Jamilla as soon as I got 
upstairs. I was missing her like the plague. Rosie the cat slid by and rubbed against my leg. 
"Hello, Red," I whispered. "I did good today."
            




Then I heard a cry.
 




I hurried up the front stairs toward Little Alex's room. He was up and working himself into a 
good wail. I didn't want Nana or one of the other kids to have to get up and tend to him. 
Besides, I hadn't seen my boy since early that morning and I wanted to give him a snuggle. I 
missed his little face.
             




When I peeked into his room he was sitting up, and he seemed surprised to see it was me. 
Then he smiled and clapped his hands. Oh, boy! Daddy's on the case. Daddy's the biggest 
sucker in the house.
                   




"What are you doing up, Pup? It's late," I said.
               




Alex's bed is a low-riser that I made myself. There are protective bars on either side to keep 
him from falling out.
 




I slid in beside him. "Move over and give your daddy some room," I whispered, and kissed 
the top of his head. I don't ever remember my father kissing me, so I kiss Alex every chance I 
get. The same goes for Damon and Jannie, no matter how much they complain as they get 
older and less wise.
        




"I'm tired, little man," I said as I stretched out. "How about you? Tough day, Puppy?"
 




I retrieved his bottle from a space between the mattress and the guard bars. He started to 
drink, and then he moved in close to me. He grabbed his stuffed cow, Moo, and he fell back 
to sleep in minutes.
  




So nice. Magical. That sweet baby smell I love. His soft breathing _ baby's breath.
    



The two of us had a nice sleep-over that night.



                   




                   



Chapter 10



                   




THE COUPLE WAS HIDING out for a few days in New York City. Lower Manhattan. It was 
so easy to get lost there, to disappear off the map. And New York was one city where they 
could get whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted it. The Couple wanted rough sex. For 
starters, anyway.
     




They had stayed out of reach of their employer for more than thirty-six hours. Their contact 
man, Sterling, finally got through to them on the cell phone in a room at the Chelsea Hotel on 
West Twenty-Third Street. Outside the window was a sign: HOTEL CHELSEA in an L shape. 
The vertical HOTEL was in white, the horizontal CHELSEA in red. It was a famous New 
York City icon.
          




"I've been trying to reach you for a day and a half," Sterling said. "Don't ever turn off your 
cell on me. Consider this a last warning."
            




The woman, Zoya, yawned and gave the phone the finger.
                   




With her free hand, she popped a CD, East Eats West, into the player. Rock music kicked in 
hard and loud. "We were busy, darling. We're still busy. What the hell do you want? You 
have more money for us? Money talks."
           




"Turn down the music, please. Please. Somebody has an itch. He's very rich. There's a lot of 
money involved."
                  




"Like I said, darling, we're busy right now. Otherwise occupied. Out to lunch. How big an itch 
is it?"





"Same as last time. A very big itch. He's a personal friend of the Wolf."
                   




Zoya flinched at the mention of the Wolf. "Give me details, speciüs. Don't waste our time."
       




"We'll do it like we always do, darling. A piece of the puzzle at a time. How soon can you be 
on the road? How about thirty minutes?"
                  




"We have something to wrap up here. Let's say four hours. This need that somebody has, this 
itch _ what kind of itch is it?"





"One unit, female. And not too far from New York. I'll give you directions first. Then speciüs 
on the unit. You have four hours."
    




Zoya looked at her partner, who was lounging in an armchair. Slava was idly fingering a 
pecker leash as he listened to her talking. He was gazing out the window at a sweet shop, a 
tailor shop, a one-hour photo. Typical NYC view.
  




"We'll do the job," said Zoya. "Tell Wolf we'll get his friend what he needs. No problem 
whatsoever." Then she hung up on Sterling. Because she could.
                  




She shrugged at her partner. Then Zoya looked across the hotel room to a queen-size bed 
with a steel decorative headboard. A young blond man was lying there. He was naked and 
gagged, handcuffed to vertical rods spaced about a foot apart on the bed.
     




"You're in luck," Zoya said to the blond. "Only four more hours to play, baby. Only four 
more hours."
             




Then Slava spoke. "You'll wish it was less. You ever heard of a Russian word _ zamochit? 
No. I'll show you zamochit. Four hours_ worth. I learned it from the Wolf. Now you learn 
from me. Zamochit. It means to break all the bones in your body."
     



Zoya winked at the boy. ?our hours. Zamochit. You'll take the next few hours with you through 
eternity. Never forget it, darling."



                   




                   



Chapter 11



                   




WHEN I WOKE IN THE MORNING, Little Alex was sleeping peacefully beside me, his head 
on my chest. I couldn't resist sneaking another kiss. And another. Then, as I lay there next to 
my boy, I found myself thinking about Detective Dennis Coulter and his family. I had been 
moved emotionally when they came out of that house together. The family had saved 
Coulter's life, and I was a sucker for family stuff.
         




I had been asked to stop at the Hoover Building, always referred to as "the Bureau," before I 
drove down to Quantico. The director wanted to see me about what had happened in 
Baltimore. I had no idea what to expect, but I was anxious about the visit. Maybe I should 
have skipped Nana's coffee that morning.
 




Almost anybody who has seen it would agree that the Hoover Building is a strange and 
supernaturally ugly structure. It takes up an entire block between Pennsylvania Avenue, 
Ninth, Tenth, and E Streets. The nicest thing I could say about it is that it's fortresslike." 
Inside, it's even worse. The Bureau is library quiet and warehouse grim. The long halls glow in 
medicinal white.
  




As soon as I stepped onto the director's floor, I was met by his executive assistant, a very 
effluent man named Tony Woods, whom I liked quite a bit already.
  




"How is he this morning, Tony?" I asked.
    




"He likes what happened down in Baltimore," Tony answered. "His Highness is in a pretty 
good mood. For a change."
         




"Was Baltimore a test?" I asked, not sure how far I could go with the assistant.
                   




"Oh, it was your final exam. But remember, everything's a test."
                   




I was led into the director's relatively small conference room. Burns was already sitting there 
waiting for me. He raised a glass of orange juice in mock salute. "Here he is!" He smiled. "I'm 
making sure that everybody knows you did a bang-up job in Baltimore. Just the way I 
wanted to see you start out."
           




"Nobody got shot," I said.
        




"You got the job done, Alex. HRT was very impressed. So was I."
              




I sat down and poured myself coffee. I knew it was "help yourself" and no formalities with 
Burns. "You're spreading the word . . . because you have such big plans for me?" I asked.
     




Burns laughed in his usual conspiratorial way. "Absolutely, Alex. I want you to take my job."
            




Now it was my turn to laugh. "No, thank you." I sipped the coffee, which was dark brown, a 
little bitter, but delicious _ almost as good as Nana Mama's. Well, maybe half as good as the 
best in Washington. "You care to share any of your more immediate plans with me?" I 
asked.
  




Burns laughed again. He was in a good mood this morning. "I just want the Bureau to 
operate simply and effectively, that's all. It's the way it was when I ran the New York office. 
I'll tell you what I don't believe in: bureaucrats, and cowboys. There are too many of both in 
the Bureau. Especially the former. I want street smarts on the street, Alex. Or maybe I just 
want smarts. You took a chance yesterday, only you probably didn't see it that way. There 
were no politics for you _ just the right way to get the job done."
     




"What if it hadn't worked?" I asked as I set my coffee down on a coaster emblazoned with 
the Bureau's emblem.
 




"Well, hell, then you wouldn't be here now and we wouldn't be talking like this. Seriously, 
though, there's one thing I want to caution you about. It may seem obvious to you, but it's a 
lot worse than you imagine. You can't always tell the good guys from the bad ones in the 
Bureau. No one can. I've tried, and it's almost impossible."
             




I thought about what he was implying _ part of which was that Burns already knew that one 
of my weaknesses was to look for the good in people. I understood it was a weakness 
sometimes, but I wouldn't change, or maybe I couldn't change.
  




"Are you a good guy?" I asked him.
  




"Of course I am," Burns said with a wholesome grin that could have landed him a starring 
role on The West Wing. "You can trust me, Alex. Always. Absolutely. Just like you trusted 
Kyle Craig a few years back."
     



Jesus, he was giving me the shivers. Or maybe the director was just trying to get me to see the 
world his way: Trust no one. Go to the head of the class.



                   



Chapter 12



                   




AT A LITTLE PAST ELEVEN, I was on my way down to Quantico. Even after my "final" in 
Baltimore, I still had a class on "Stress Management and Law Enforcement." I already knew 
the operative statistic: FBI agents were five times more likely to kill themselves than to be 
killed in the line of duty.
                




A Billy Collins poem was floating through my brain as I drove: "Another Reason Why I 
Don't Keep a Gun in the House." Nice concept, good poem, bad omen.
   




The cell rang and I heard the voice of Tony Woods from the director's office. There had been 
a change of plans. Woods gave me orders from the director to go straight to Ronald Reagan 
Washington National Airport. A plane was waiting for me.
     




Jesus! I was on another case already; I'd been ordered to skip school again. Things were 
happening faster than even I had expected, and I wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad 
thing.
                   




"Does Senior Agent Nooney know that I'm the director's one-man flying squad?" I asked 
Woods. Tell me that he does. I don't need more trouble down at Quantico.
   




"We'll let him know posthaste where you're going," Woods promised. "I'll take care of it 
personally. Go to Atlanta, and keep us posted on what you find down there. You'll be briefed 
on the plane. It's a kidnapping case." But that was all Tony Woods would tell me on the 
phone.
    




For the most part, the Bureau flies out of Reagan Washington National. I boarded a Cessna 
Citation Ultra, tan, with no identifying markings. The Cessna sat eight, but I was the only 
passenger.
               




"You must be important," the pilot said before we took off.
            




"I'm not important. Believe me, I'm nobody."





The pilot just laughed. "Buckle up, then, nobody."
  




It was perfectly clear that a call from the director's office had preceded me. Here I was, being 
treated like a senior agent. The director's troubleshooter?
       




Another agent jumped aboard just before we took off. He sat down across the aisle from me 
and introduced himself as Wyatt Walsh, from D.C. Was he part of the director's "flying 
team" too? Maybe my partner?
               




"What happened in Atlanta?" I asked. "What's so important, or unimportant, that it requires 
our services?"
                 




"Nobody told you?" He seemed surprised that I didn't know the details.
    




"I got a call from the director's office less than half an hour ago. I was told to come here. 
They said I'd be briefed on the plane."
           




Walsh slapped two volumes of case notes on my lap. "There's been a kidnapping in the 
Buckhead section of Atlanta. Woman in her thirties. White woman, well-to-do. She's the wife 
of a judge, which makes it federal. More important, she isn't the first."
 



 


Chapter 13



                   




EVERYTHING WAS SUDDENLY in a hurry-up mode. After we landed I was driven in a van 
to the Phipps Plaza shopping center in Buckhead.
                 




As we pulled into the lot off Peachtree, it was obvious to me that something was very wrong 
there. We passed the anchor stores: Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor. They were nearly 
empty. Agent Walsh told me that the victim, Mrs. Elizabeth Connolly, had been abducted in 
the underground parking lot near another large store called Parisian.
       




The entire parking area was a crime scene, but particularly Level 3, where Mrs. Connolly had 
been grabbed. Each level of the garage was marked with a purple-and-gold scroll design, but 
now crime-scene tape was draped over the scrolls. The Bureau's Evidence Response Team 
was there. The incredible amount of activity indicated that the local police agencies were 
taking this extremely seriously. Walsh's words were floating in my head: She isn't the first.
               




It struck me as a little ironic, but I was more comfortable talking to the local police than to 
agents from the Bureau's old office. I walked over and spoke to two detectives, Pedi and 
Ciaccio, from the Atlanta PD.
         




"I'll try to stay out of your way," I said to them, then added, "I used to be Washington PD."
    




"Sold out, huh?" Ciaccio said, and she sniffed out a laugh. It was supposed to be a joke, but 
it had enough truth in it to sting. Her eyes had a light frost in them.
 




Pedi spoke up. He looked about ten years older than his partner. Both were attractive. 
"Why's the FBI interested in this case?"
                




I told them only as much as I thought I should, not everything. "There have been other 
abductions, or at least disappearances, that resemble this one. White women, suburban 
locales. We're here checking into possible connections. And, of course, this is a judge's wife."
            




Pedi asked, "Are we talking about past disappearances in the Atlanta metro area?"
    




I shook my head. "No, not to my knowledge. The other disappearances are in Texas, 
Massachusetts, Florida, Arkansas."





"Ransoms involved?" Pedi followed up.
              




"In one Texas case, yes. Otherwise no money has been asked for. None of the women have 
been found so far."
 




"Only white women?" Detective Ciaccio asked as she took a few notes.
      




"As far as we know, yes. And all of them fairly well-to-do. But no ransoms. And none of what 
I'm telling you gets to the press." I looked around the parking garage. "What do we
            




have so far? Help me out a little."
         




Ciaccio looked at Pedi. "Joshua?" she asked.
                




Pedi shrugged. "All right, Irene."
               




"We do have something. There were a couple of kids in one of the parked cars when the 
abduction went down. They didn't witness the first part of the crime."
            




"They were otherwise occupied," said Joshua Pedi.
            




"But they looked up when they heard a scream and saw Elizabeth Connolly. Two 
kidnappers, apparently pretty good at it. Man and a woman. They didn't see our young 
lovers because they were in the back of a van."
        




"And they had their heads down?" I asked. "Otherwise occupied?"
               




"That too. But when they did come up for air, they saw the man and woman, described as 
being in their thirties, well-dressed. They were already holding Mrs. Connolly. Took her down 
very fast. Threw her into the back of her own station wagon. Then they drove off in her car."
         




"Why didn't the kids get out of the van to help?"
     




Ciaccio shook her head. "They said that it happened very fast, and that they were scared. 
Seemed _unreal_ to them. I think they were also nervous about having it known they were 
playing around in the back of a van during school hours. They both attend a local prep 
school in Buckhead. They were skipping classes."
                   




A team took her, I thought, and knew it was a big break for us. According to what I'd read on 
the ride down, no team had been spotted at any of the other abductions. A male and a 
female team? That was interesting. Strange and unexpected.
     




"You want to answer a question for us now?" Detective Pedi asked.
              




"If I can. Shoot."
       




He looked at his partner. I had a feeling that somewhere along the way Joshua and Irene 
might have spent some time in the backseat of a car, something about the way they looked 
at each other. "We've been hearing that this might have to do with the Sandra Friedlander 
case. Is that right? That one's gone unsolved for, what, two years in D.C.?"
 




I looked at the detective and shook my head. "Not to my knowledge," I said. "You're the 
first to bring up Sandra Friedlander."
            



Which wasn't exactly the truth. Her name had been in confidential FBI reports I'd read on the 
ride down from D.C. Sandra Friedlander _ and seven others.



 
                  



Chapter 14



                   




MY HEAD WAS BUZZING. In a bad way. I knew from my hurried reading of the case notes 
that there were more than 220 women currently listed as missing in the United States, and 
that at least seven of the disappearances had been linked by the Bureau to "white slave 
rings." That was the nasty twist. White women in their twenties and thirties were in high 
demand in certain circles. The prices could get exorbitant _ if the sales were to the Middle 
East or to Japan.





Atlanta had been the hub of another kind of sex-slave scandal just a few years back. It had 
involved Asian and Mexican women smuggled into the U.S., then forced into prostitution in 
Georgia and the Carolinas. This case had another possible connection to Juanita, Mexico, 
where hundreds of women had disappeared in the past couple of years.
      




My mind was rushing through these unpleasantries when I arrived at Judge Brendan 
Connolly's home in the Tuxedo Park section of Buckhead, near the governor's mansion. The 
Connolly place replicated a 1840s up-country Georgia plantation home and sat on about two 
acres. A Porsche Boxster was parked in the circular driveway. Everything looked perfect _ in 
its place.
                   




The front door was opened by a young girl who was still in her school clothes. The patch on 
her jumper told me she attended Pace Academy. She introduced herself as Brigid Connolly, 
and I could see braces on her teeth. I had read about Brigid in the Bureau's notes on the 
family. The foyer of the house was elegant, with an elaborate chandelier and a highly 
polished ash hardwood floor.
       




I spotted two younger girls _ just their heads _ peeking out from a doorway off the main 
entryway, just past a couple of British watercolors. All three of the Connolly daughters were 
pretty. Brigid was twelve, Meredith was eleven, and Gwynne was six. According to my crib 
notes, the younger girls attended the Lovett School.
   




"I'm Alex Cross, with the FBI," I said to Brigid, who seemed tremendously self-assured for 
her age, especially during this crisis. "I think that your father is expecting me."
        




"My dad will be right down, sir," she told me. Then she turned to her younger sisters and 
scolded, "You heard Daddy. Behave. Both of you."
        




"I won't bite anybody," I said to the girls, who were still peeking at me from down the 
hallway.
  




Meredith turned bright red. "Oh, we're sorry. This isn't about you."
       




"I understand," I said. Finally they smiled, and I saw that Meredith had braces too. Very cute 
girls, sweet.
      




I heard a voice from above. "Agent Cross?" Agent? I wasn't used to the sound of that yet.
     




I looked up the front staircase as Judge Brendan Connolly made his way down. He had on a 
striped blue dress shirt, dark blue slacks, black driving loafers. He looked trim and in shape, 
but tired, as if he hadn't slept in days. I knew from the FBI workup sheets that he was forty-
four and had attended Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt Law School.
   




"So which is it," he asked, then forced a smile, =o you bite or not?"
   




I shook his hand. "I only bite people who deserve it," I said. "Alex Cross."
 




Brendan Connolly nodded toward a large library-den that I could see was crammed from 
floor to ceiling with books. There was also room for a baby grand piano. I noticed sheet 
music for some Billy Joel songs. In the corner of the room was a daybed _ unmade.
 




"After Agent Cross and I are done, I'll make dinner," he said to the girls. "I'll try not to poison 
anybody tonight, but I'll need your help, ladies."
   




"Yes, Daddy," they chorused. They seemed to adore their father. He pulled the sliding oak 
doors, and the two of us were sealed inside.
          




"This is so damn bad. So hard." He let out a deep breath. "Trying to keep up a front for them. 
They're the best girls in the world." Judge Connolly gestured around the book-lined room. 
"This is Lizzie's favorite place in the house. She plays the piano very well. So do the girls. 
We're both bookaholics, but she especially loved reading in this room."
     




He sat in a club chair covered in rust-tone leather. "I appreciate that you came to Atlanta. 
I've heard you're very good at difficult cases. How can I help you?" he asked.
    




I sat across from him on a matching rust-tone-leather couch. On the wall behind him were 
photographs of the Parthenon, Chartres, the pyramids, and an honorary plaque from 
Chastain Horse Park. "There are a lot of people working to find Mrs. Connolly, and they'll go 
down a lot of avenues. I'm not going to get into too many details about your family. The 
local detectives can go there."
                   




"Thank you," the judge said. "Those questions are devastating to answer right now. To go 
over and over. You can't imagine."
                   




I nodded. "Are you aware of any local men, or even women, who might have taken an 
inappropriate interest in your wife? A long-standing crush, a potential obsession? That's the 
one private area I'd like to go into. Then, any little things that strike you as out of the 
ordinary. Did you notice anyone watching your wife? Are there any faces you've seen 
around more than normal lately? Delivery men? Federal Express or other services? Neighbors 
who are suspicious in any way? Work associates? Even friends who might have fantasized 
about Mrs. Connolly?"
                




Brendan Connolly nodded. "I see what you're getting at."
    




I looked him in the eye. "Have you and your wife had any fights lately?" I asked. "I need to 
know if you have. Then we can move on."
          



Wetness suddenly appeared in the corners of Brendan Connolly's eyes. "I met Lizzie in 
Washington when she was with the Post and I was an associate at Tate Schilling, a law firm there. 
It was love at first sight. We almost never fought, hardly ever raised our voices. That's still true. 
Agent Cross, I love my wife. So do her daughters. Please help us bring her home. You have to find 
Lizzie."



 
                  



Chapter 15



                   




THE MODERN-DAY GODFATHER. A forty-seven-year-old Russian now living in America 
and known as the Wolf. Rumored to be fearless, hands-on, into everything from weapon 
sales, extortion, and drugs to legitimate businesses such as banking and venture capital. No 
one seemed to know his true identity, or his American name, or where he lived. Clever. 
Invisible. Safe from the FBI. And anybody else who might be looking for him.
        




He had been in his twenties when he made the switch from the KGB to become one of the 
most ruthless cell leaders in Russian organized crime, the Red Maya. His namesake, the 
Siberian wolf, was a skillful hunter, but also relentlessly hunted. The Siberian was a fast 
runner and could overpower much heavier animals _ but it was also hunted for its blood and 
bones. The human Wolf was also a hunter who was hunted _ except that the police had no 
idea where to hunt.
         




Invisible. By design. Actually, he was hiding in plain sight. On a balmy evening, the man 
called Wolf was throwing a huge party at his 20,000-square-foot house on the waterfront in 
Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The occasion was the launch of his new men's magazine, called 
Instinct, which would compete with Maxim and Stun.
      




In Lauderdale, the Wolf was known as Ari Manning, a wealthy businessman originally from 
Tel Aviv. He had other names in other cities. Many names, many cities.
               




He was passing through the den now, where about twenty of his guests were watching a 
football game on several TVs, including a 61-inch Runco. A couple of football fanatics were 
bent over a computer with a statistics database. On a nearby table was a bottle of 
Stolichnaya encased in a block of ice. The vodka in ice was the only real Russian touch that 
he allowed.
               




At six-foot-two, this Wolf could carry 240 pounds and still move like a big and very powerful 
animal. He circulated among his guests, always smiling and joking, knowing that no one in 
the room understood why he smiled, not one of these so-called friends or business partners or 
social acquaintances had any idea who he was.
         




They knew him as Ari, not as Pasha Sorokin, and definitely not as the Wolf. They had no 
clue about the pounds of illegal diamonds he bought from Sierra Leone, the tons of heroin 
from Asia, and weapons and even jets sold to the Colombians, or white women purchased by 
the Saudis and Japanese. In south Florida, he had a reputation for being a maverick both 
socially and in business. There were more than 150 guests tonight, but he'd ordered food and 
drink for twice that number. He had imported the chef from Le Cirque 2000 in New York, 
and also a sushi cook from San Francisco. His servers were dressed as cheerleaders and were 
topless, which he thought a cheeky joke, guaranteed to offend. The famous surprise dessert 
for the party was Sacher tortes flown in from Vienna. No wonder everybody loved Ari. Or 
hated him.
          




He gave a playful hug to a former pro running back for the Miami Dolphins and talked to a 
lawyer who'd made tens of millions from the Florida tobacco settlement _ exchanged stories 
about Governor Jeb Bush. Then he moved on through the crowd. There were so many ass-
kissing social climbers and opportunists who came to his house to be seen among the right, 
and wrong, people: self-important, spoiled, selfish, and, worst of all, boring as tepid dishwater.
                  




He walked along the edge of an indoor swimming pool toward an outdoor pool more than 
twice the size. He chatted with his guests and made a generous pledge to a private-school 
charity. Not surprisingly, he was hit on by somebody's wife. He had serious conversations 
with the owner of the most important hotel in the state, a Mercedes-dealing mogul, and the 
head of a conglomerate who was a hunting "buddy" of his.
         




He despised all of these pretenders, especially the older used-to-be's. None of them had ever 
taken a real risk in their lives. Still, they had made millions, even billions, and they thought 
they were such hot shit.
  




And then _ he thought about Elizabeth Connolly for the first time in an hour or so. His sweet, 
very sexy Lizzie. She looked like Claudia Schiffer, and he fondly remembered the days when 
the image of the German model was on hundreds of billboards all over Moscow. He had 
lusted for Claudia _ all Russian men had _ and now he had her likeness in his possession.
       




Why? Because he could. It was the philosophy that drove him and everything in his life.
                   



For that very reason, he was keeping her right here in his big house in Fort Lauderdale.



 
                  



Chapter 16



                   




LIZZIE CONNOLLY COULDN_T BELIEVE any of this awfulness was happening to her. It 
still didn't seem possible. It wasn't possible. And yet, here she was. A hostage!
 




The house where she was being kept was full of people. Full! It sounded as if a party was 
going on. A party? How dare he?





Was her insane captor that sure of himself? Was he so arrogant? So brazen? Was it possible? 
Of course it was. He'd boasted to her that he was a gangster, the king of gangsters, perhaps 
the greatest that ever lived. He had repulsive tattoos _ on the back of his right hand, his 
shoulders, his back, around his right index finger, and also on his private parts, on his testicles 
and penis.





Lizzie could definitely hear a party going on in the house. She could even make out 
conversations: small talk about an upcoming trip to Aspen; a rumored affair between a 
nanny and a local mother; the death of a child in a pool, a six-year-old like her Gwynne; 
football stories; a joke about two altar boys and a Siamese cat that she had already heard in 
Atlanta.
      




Who the hell were these people? Where was she being held? Where am I, damn it?
           




Lizzie was trying so hard not to go crazy, but it was almost impossible. All of these people, 
their inane talk.
                  




They were so close to where she was bound and tied and gagged and being held hostage by a 
madman, probably a killer. As Lizzie listened, tears finally began to run down her cheeks. 
Their voices, their closeness, their laughing, all just a few feet away from her.
           




I'm here! I'm right here! Damn it, help me. Please help me.
           




I'm right here!
            




She was in darkness. Couldn't see a thing.
               




The people, the party, were on the other side of a thick wooden door. She was locked in a 
small room that was part closet; she'd been kept in here for days. Permitted bathroom breaks 
but not much else.
   




Bound tightly by rope.
        




Gagged with tape.
  




So she couldn't call out for help. Lizzie couldn't scream _ except inside her head.
       




Please help me.
      




Somebody, please!
                   




I'm here! I'm right here!
        




I don't want to die.
   



Because that was the one thing he'd told her that was certain _ he was going to kill her.



                   



Chapter 17



                   




BUT NO ONE COULD HEAR Lizzie Connolly. The party went on and got larger, noisier, 
more extravagant, vulgar. Eleven times during the night, stretch limousines dropped off well-
heeled guests at the large waterfront house in Fort Lauderdale. Then the limos left. They 
would not be waiting for their passengers. No one noticed, at least no one let on.
            




And no one paid any attention when these same guests left that night in cars they hadn't 
arrived in. Very expensive cars, the finest in the world, all of them stolen.
     




An NFL running back departed in a deep maroon Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible worth 
$363,000, "made to order," from the paint to the wood, hide, trim, even the position of the 
intercrossed R's in the cockpit.
                




A white rap star drove off in an aqua blue Aston Martin Vanquish priced at $228,000, 
capable of zero to a hundred in under ten seconds.





The most expensive of the cars was the American-made Saleen S7, with its gull-wing doors, 
the look of a shark, and 550 horsepower.
     




All in all, eleven very expensive, very stolen automobiles were delivered to buyers at the 
house.
             




A silver Pagani Zonda priced at $370,000. The engine of the Italian-made racer barked, 
howled, roared.
       




A silver and orange-trimmed Spyker C8 Double 12 with 620 horsepower.
             




A bronze Bentley Azure Mulliner convertible _ yours for $376,000.
              




A Ferrari 575 Maranello, $215,000.





A Porsche GT2.
       




Two Lamborghini Murcielagos, yellow gold, $270,000 apiece, named, like all Lamborghinis, 
after a famous bull.
 




A Hummer H1 _ not as hot as the other cars, maybe, but nothing got in its way.
         




The total value of the stolen cars was over three million; the sales came to a little under two.
         




Which more than paid for the Sacher tortes flown all the way from Vienna.
    




And besides, the Wolf was a fan of fast, beautiful cars . . . of fast, beautiful everything.
                



 


Chapter 18



                   




I FLEW BACK TO D.C. the next day and was home at six that night, finished with work for 
the day. At times like this, I almost felt that maybe I had my life back. Maybe I'd done the 
right thing by joining the Bureau. Maybe . . . As I climbed out of the ancient black Porsche, I 
saw Jannie on the front porch. She was practicing her violin, her "long bows." She wanted to 
be the next Midori. The playing was impressive _ to me, anyway. When Jannie wanted 
something, she went after it.
     




"Who's the beautiful young lady holding that Juzek so perfectly?" I called as I trudged up the 
lawn.
        




Jannie glanced my way, said nothing, smiled knowingly, as if only she knew the secret. Nana 
and I were involved in her practices, which featured the Suzuki method of instruction. We 
modified the method slightly to include both of us. Parents were a part of practice, and it 
seemed to pay dividends. In the Suzuki way, great care was taken to avoid competition and 
its negative effects. Parents were told to listen to countless tapes and attend lessons. I had 
gone to many of the lessons myself. Nana covered the others. In that way, we assumed the 
dual role of "home teacher."





"That's so beautiful. What a wonderful sound to come home to," I told Jannie. Her smile was 
worth everything I'd gone through at work that day.
         




She finally spoke. "To soothe the savage beast," she said. Violin under one arm, bow held 
down, Jannie bowed, and then she began to play again.
      




I sat on the porch steps and listened. Just the two of us, the setting sun, and the music. The 
beast was soothed.
                   




After she finished practice, we ate a light dinner, then hurried over to the Kennedy Center for 
one of the free programs in the Grand Foyer. Tonight it was "Liszt and Virtuosity." But wait _ 
there was more. Tomorrow night we planned to attack the new climbing wall at the Capital Y. 
Then, with Damon, it was a video game extravaganza featuring Eternal Darkness: Sanity's 
Requiem and Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.
    




I hoped we could keep it up like this. Even the video games. I was on the right track now and 
I liked it. So did Nana and the kids.
             




Around ten-thirty, to complete the day just right, I got hold of Jamilla on the phone. She was 
home at a decent hour for a change. "Hey," she said at the sound of my voice.
      




"Hey back at you. Can you talk? This a good time?"
              




"Might be able to squeeze in a couple of minutes for you. I hope you're calling from home. 
Are you?"
      




"Been here since around six. We had a family night at the Kennedy Center. Big success."
           




"I'm jealous."
            




We talked about what she was up to, then my big night with the kids, and finally my life and 
times with the Bureau. But I had the sense that Jamilla needed to get off after about fifteen 
minutes. I didn't ask if she had anything going for tonight. She'd tell me if she wanted to.
                   




"I miss you way out there in San Francisco," I said, and left it at that. I hoped it didn't come 
off as not caring. Because I did care about Jam. She was in my thoughts all the time.
  



"I have to run, Alex. Bye," she said.


"Bye."


Jamilla had to run. And I was finally trying to stop.



                   



Chapter 19



                   




THE NEXT MORNING I was told to attend a key-person meeting about the Connolly 
kidnapping and the possibility that the abduction was connected to others in the past twelve 
months. The case had been upgraded to "major," and it had the code name "White Girl."
              




An FBI Rapid Start Team had already been dispatched to Atlanta. Satellite photos of the 
Phipps Plaza shopping center had been ordered in the hope that we could identify the motor 
vehicle the UNSUBS had used to get there before driving away in the Connolly station 
wagon.
    




There were about two dozen agents in a windowless "major case" room at the Bureau in 
Washington. When I arrived, I learned that Washington would be the "office of origin" for 
the case, which meant the case was important to Director Burns. The Criminal Investigative 
Division had already prepared a briefing book for him. The important entry point for the FBI 
was that a federal judge's wife had disappeared.
  




Ned Mahoney from HRT sat down next to me and seemed not just outgoing but friendly. He 
greeted me with a winking "Hey, star." A tiny dark-haired woman in a black jumpsuit 
plopped down on the other side of me. She introduced herself as Monnie Donnelley and told 
me she was the Violent Crimes analyst attached to the case. She talked extraordinarly fast, 
lots of energy, almost too much.
     




"Guess we'll be working together," she said, and shook my hand. "I've already heard good 
things about you. I know your résumé. I attended Hopkins for grad school too. How about 
that?"
    




"Moonie's our best and our brightest," Mahoney interjected. "And that's a gross 
understatement."
    




"He's so right," Monnie Donnelley agreed. "Spread the word. Please. I'm tired of being a 
secret weapon."
      




I noticed that my supervisor, Gordon Nooney, wasn't in the room of at least fifty agents. 
Then the meeting began on White Girl.
            




A senior agent named Walter Zelras stood in the front and started to show slides. He was 
professional but very dry. I almost felt as if I'd joined IBM or Chase Manhattan Bank 
instead of the FBI. Monnie whispered, "Don't worry, it'll get worse. He's just warming up."
            




Zelras had a droning speaking voice that reminded me of a professor I'd had a long time ago 
at Hopkins. Both Zelras and my former professor gave everything equal weight, never 
seemed excited or disturbed about the material they were presenting. Zelras' subject was the 
connection the Connolly abduction might have had to several others in the past months, so it 
ought to have been spellbinding.
             




"Gerrold Gottlieb," Monnie Donnelley whispered again. I smiled, almost laughed out loud. 
Gottlieb was the professor who used to drone on at Hopkins.





"Upscale, attractive white women," Zelras was saying, "have been disappearing at a rate a 
little over three times the statistical norm over the past year. This is true both here in the 
States and in Eastern Europe. I'm going to pass around an actual catalogue showing women 
who were up for sale about three months ago. Unfortunately, we were unable to trace the 
catalogue back to whoever manufactured it. There was a Miami link, but it never went 
anywhere."
                




When the catalogue got to me, I saw that it was black and white, the pages probably printed 
off the Internet. I quickly leafed through it. There were seventeen women shown, nude shots, 
along with details such as breast and waist size, "true" color of hair, and color of eyes. The 
women had unlikely nicknames like Candy, Sable, Foxy, Madonna, and Ripe. The prices 
ranged from $3,500 to $150,000. There was no further biographical information on any of 
the women and nothing at all about their personalities.
  




"We've been working closely with Interpol on what we suspect could be _white slave_ 
trading. FYI, _white slave_ refers to women bought and sold specifically for the purpose of 
prostitution. These days, the women are usually Asian, Mexican, and South American, not 
white, except in Eastern Europe. You should also note that at this time slavery is more 
globalized and technologized than ever in history. Some countries in Asia look the other way 
as women, and children, are sold _ especially into Japan and India.
     




"In the past couple of years, a market has opened up for white women, particularly blondes. 
These women are sold for prices ranging from a few hundred up into the mid five figures and 
possibly higher. As I said, a significant market is Japan. Another is the Middle East, of course. 
The Saudis are the biggest buyers. Believe it or not, there's even a market in Iraq and Iran. 
Questions at this point?"
                




There were several, mostly good ones, which showed me this was a savvy group that had 
been brought together.
     




I finally asked a question, though I was reluctant to as the FNG. "Why do we think Elizabeth 
Connolly is connected to the others?" I gestured around the room. "I mean, this connected?"
             




Zelras answered quickly. "A team took her. Kidnapping gangs are very common in the slave 
trade, especially in Eastern Europe. They're experienced and very efficient at the abductions, 
and they're connected into a pipeline. There's usually a buyer before they take a woman like 
Mrs. Connolly. She would be high risk but very high reward. What makes this kind of 
abduction attractive is that there's no ransom exchange. The Connolly abduction fits our 
profile."
   




Someone asked, "Could a buyer request a special woman? Is that a possibility?"
              




Zelras nodded. "If the money is right, yes, absolutely. The price might go into the six figures. 
We're working that angle."
    




Most of the remainder of the long meeting was taken up with discussion about Mrs. Connolly 
and whether we could find her quickly. The consensus was no. One detail was particularly 
perplexing: Why would the UNSUBS kidnap the victim in such a public place? Profit / 
ransom seemed the logical possibility, but there had been no ransom note. Had somebody 
specially asked for Mrs. Elizabeth Connolly? If so _ who? What was special about her? And 
why the mall? Surely there were easier abduction locations.
                   




As we talked about her, a photograph of Mrs. Connolly and her three daughters remained on 
the screen at the front of the conference room. The four of them looked so close-knit and 
happy. It was scary, sad. I found myself thinking about being with Jannie on our front porch 
the night before.
    




Someone asked, "These women who've been abducted, have any of them been found?"
   



"Not one," said Agent Zelras. "Our fear is that they're dead. That the kidnappers _ or whoever the 
kidnappers deliver them to _ consider them disposable."



 
                  



Chapter 20



                   




I RETURNED TO my orientation classes that day after the lunch break, and just in time for 
another of SSA Horowitz's awful jokes. He held up a clipboard for us to see his material. 
"The official list of David Koresh's theme songs. "You Light Up My Life"," I'm Burning 
Up"," Great Balls of Fire". My personal favorite:" Burning Down the House". Love the 
Talking Heads." Dr. Horowitz seemed to know that his jokes were bad, but black humor 
works with police officers, and his deadpan delivery was decent. Plus, he knew who had 
recorded;"Burning Down the House."
  




We had an hour session on "Management of Integrated Cases," followed by "Law 
Enforcement Communication," then dynamics of the Pattern Killer." In the last course we 
were told that serial killers change, that they are dynamic." In other words, they get smarter 
and better at killing. Only the "ritual characteristics" remain the same. I didn't bother to take 
notes. The next class took place outdoors. We were all dressed in sport jackets, but with 
padded throat and face protectors for a "practical" at Hogan's Alley. The exercise involved 
three cars in hot pursuit of a fourth. Sirens blared and echoed. Loudspeakers barked 
commands: "Stop! Pull over! Come out of the car with your hands up." Our ammo, 
Simunition, consisted of cartridges with pink-paint-infused tips.
    




It was five o'clock by the time we finished the exercise. I showered and dressed, and as I was 
leaving the training building to go over to the dining hall building, where I had a cubicle, I saw 
SSA Nooney. He motioned for me to come over. What if I don't want to?
           




"You headed back to D.C.?" he asked.





I nodded and bit down on my tongue. "In a while. I have some reports to read first. The 
abduction in Atlanta."
 




"Big stuff. I'm impressed. The rest of your classmates spend their nights here. Some of them 
think it helps build camaraderie. I think so too. Are you an agent of change?"
  




I shook my head, then tried a smile on Nooney. Didn't work.
        




"I was told from the start that I could go home nights. That isn't possible for most of the 
others."





Then Nooney began to push hard, trying to stir up old anger.
     




"I heard you had some problems with your chief of detectives in D.C. too," he said.
            




"Everybody had problems with Chief of Detectives Pittman," I said.
        




Nooney's eyes appeared glazed. It was obvious he didn't see it that way. "Just about 
everybody has problems with me too. Doesn't mean I'm wrong about the importance of 
building a team here. I'm not wrong, Cross."
   




I resisted saying anything more. Nooney was coming down on me again. Why? I had 
attended the classes I could make; I still had work to do on White Girl. Like it or not, I was 
part of the case. And this wasn't another practical _ it was real. It was important.
                   



"I have to get my work done," I finally said. Then I walked away from Nooney. I was pretty sure 
I'd made my first enemy in the FBI. An important one too. No sense starting small.



 
                  



Chapter 21



                   




MAYBE IT WAS GUILT churned up by my confrontation with Gordon Nooney that made 
me work late in my cube on the lower level of the dining hall building where Behavioral 
Science had its offices. The low ceilings, bad fluorescent lighting, and cinder-block walls kind 
of made me feel as if I were back at my precinct. But the depth of the back files and research 
available to FBI agents was astonishing. The Bureau's resources were better than anything 
I'd ever seen in the D.C. police department.
 




It took me a couple of hours to go through less than a quarter of the white-slave-trade files, 
and those were just cases in the U.S. One abduction in particular caught my attention. It 
involved a female D.C. attorney named Ruth Morgenstern. She had last been seen at 
approximately 9:30 P.M. on August 20. A friend had dropped her off near her apartment in 
Foggy Bottom.
   




Ms. Morgenstern was twenty-six years old, 111 pounds, with blue eyes and shoulder-length 
blond hair. On August 28, one of her identification card was found near the north gate of the 
Anacostia Naval Station. Two days later, her government access card was found on a city 
street.
                  




But Ruth Morgenstern was still missing. Her file included the notation Most likely dead.
      




I wondered: Was Ruth Morgenstern dead?
     




How about Mrs. Elizabeth Connolly?
                   




Around ten, just as I was starting to do some serious yawning, I came across another case 
that snapped my mind to attention. I read the report once, then a second time.
         




It involved the abduction eleven months earlier of a woman named Jilly Lopez in Houston. 
The kidnapping had occurred at the Houstonian Hotel. A team _ two males _ had been seen 
loitering near the victim's SUV in the parking garage. Mrs. Lopez was described as "very 
attractive."
                 




Minutes later, I was speaking to the officer in Houston who had handled the case. Detective 
Steve Bowen was curious about my interest in the abduction, but he was cooperative. He said 
that Mrs. Lopez hadn't been found or heard from since she disappeared. No ransom was ever 
requested. "She was a real good lady. Just about everybody I talked to loved her."
            




I'd heard the same thing about Elizabeth Connolly when I was in Atlanta.
   




I already hated this case, but I couldn't get it out of my skull. White Girl. The women who'd 
been taken were all lovable, weren't they? It was the thing they had in common. Maybe it 
was the kidnappers_ pattern.
   




Lovable victims.
      



How awful was that?



 
                  



Chapter 22



                   




WHEN I GOT HOME that night, it was quarter past eleven, but there was a surprise waiting 
for me. A good one. John Sampson was sitting on the front steps. All six-foot-nine, two 
hundred sixty pounds of him. He looked like the Grim Reaper at first _ but then he grinned 
and looked like the Joyful Reaper.
  




"Look who it is. Detective Sampson." I smiled back.
       




"How's it going, man?" John asked as I walked across the lawn. "You're working kind of late 
again. Same old, same old. You never change, man."
      




"This is the first late night I've had at Quantico," I responded a little defensively. "Don't 
start."
       




"Did I say anything bad? Did I even cut you with the _first of many_ line that's right there on 
the tip of my tongue? No, I didn't. I'm being good _ for me. But since we're talking, you can't 
help yourself, can you?"





"Want a cold beer?" I asked, and unlocked the front door of the house. "Where's your bride 
tonight?"
 




Sampson followed me inside and we got a couple of Heinekens each; we took them out to 
the sunporch. I sat on the piano bench and John plopped down in the rocker, which strained 
under his weight. John is my best friend in the world and has been since we were ten years old. 
We were homicide detectives, and partners, until I went over to the FBI. He's still a little 
pissed at me for that.
                 




"Billie's just fine. She's working the late shift at St. Anthony's tonight and tomorrow. We're 
doing good." He drained about half of his beer in a gulp. "No complaints, partner. Far from it. 
You're looking at a happy camper."





I had to laugh. "You seem surprised."
    




Sampson laughed too. "Guess I didn't think I was the marrying kind. Now all I want to do is 
hang with Billie most of the time. She makes me laugh, and she even gets my jokes. How 
about you and Jamilla? She good? And how is the new job? How's it feel to be a Feebie down 
at Club Fed?"
           




"I was just going to call Jam," I told him. Sampson had met Jamilla, liked her, and knew our 
situation. Jam was a homicide detective too, so she understood what the life was like. I really 
enjoyed being with her. Unfortunately, she lived in San Francisco _ and she loved it out there.
     




"She's on another murder case. They kill people in San Francisco too. Life in the Bureau is 
good so far." I popped open the second of my beers. "I need to get used to the Bureau-crats, 
though."
          




"Uh-oh," Sampson said. Then he grinned wickedly. "Crack in the walls already? The Bureau-
crats. Authority problems? So why you working so late? Aren't you still in orientation, 
whatever they call it?"
            




I told Sampson about the kidnapping of Elizabeth Connolly _ the condensed version _ but 
then we moved back to more pleasant subjects. Billie and Jamilla, the allure of romance, the 
latest George Pelecanos novel, a detective friend of ours who was dating his partner and 
didn't think anybody was onto them. But we all knew. It was like it always was when 
Sampson and I got together. I missed working with him. Which led to the next thought: I 
needed to figure out some way to get him into the FBI.
       




The big man cleared his throat. "Something else I wanted to tell you, talk to you about. Real 
reason I came over tonight," he said.
        




I raised an eyebrow. "Oh. What's that?"
  




His eyes avoided mine. "Kind of difficult for me, Alex."
      




I leaned forward. He had me hooked.
      




Then Sampson smiled, and I knew it was good, whatever he was about to share.
      



"Billie's got herself pregnant," he said, and laughed his deepest, richest laugh. Then Sampson 
jumped up and bear hugged me half to death. "I'm going to be a father!"



 
                  



Chapter 23



                   




"HERE WE GO AGAIN, my darling Zoya," said Slava in a conspiratorial whisper. "You look 
very prosperous, by the way. Just perfect for today."
                  




The Couple looked like all the other suburban types wandering around the crowded King of 
Prussia Mall, the "second largest in America," according to promotional signs at all the 
entrances. There was good reason for the mall's popularity. Greedy shoppers traveled here 
from the surrounding states because Pennsylvania had no tax on clothing.
   



"These people all look so wealthy. They have their shit together," said Slava. "Don' you think? 
You know the expression I'm using, having your shit together. It's American slang."



Zoya snorted out a nasty laugh. "We'll see how together their shit is in an hour or so. After 
we've done our business here. Their fear lies about a quarter of an inch below the surface. 
Just like everybody else in this spoiled-rotten country, they're afraid of their own shadows. 
But especially pain, or even a little discomfort. Can't you see that on their faces, Slava? 
They're afraid of us. They just don't know it yet."
      




Slava looked around the main plaza, which was dominated by Nordstrom and Neiman 
Marcus. There were signs up everywhere for Teen People magazines "Rock and Shop Tour." 
Meanwhile, their target had just bought a sixty-dollar box of cookies at Neimans. Amazing! 
Then she bought something equally absurd called a Red, White, and Blue Dog journal, which 
was prohibitively expensive as well.
  




Stupid, stupid people. Keeping notebooks for a dog, Slava thought. Then he spotted the target 
again. She was coming out of Skechers with her small children in tow.
          




Actually, the target looked a little apprehensive to them at the moment. Why was that? 
Maybe she was afraid that she would be recognized and have to sign an autograph or make 
small talk with her fans. Price of fame, eh? She moved quickly now, guiding the precious little 
ones into Dick Clark's American Bandstand Grill, presumably for lunch, but maybe just to 
escape the crowds.
   



"Dick Clark came from Philadelphia, near here." Slava said." Did you know that?"



"Who the hell cares about Dick Clark, Dick Tracy, or dickless," said Zoya, and hammered 
Slava's biceps with her fist." Stop this stupid trivia game." It gives me a headache. Excedrin 
headache number one trillion since I met you."
      




The target certainly fit the description they had been given by their controller: tall blond, ice 
queen, full of herself. But also tasty down to the last detail, thought Slava. It made sense, he 
supposed. She had been purchased by a client who called himself the Art Director.
 




The Couple waited about sixty minutes. A middle school choir from Broomall, Pennsylvania, 
was performing in the atrium. Then the target and her two kids emerged from the restaurant.
          




"Let's do it," said Slava. "This should be interesting, no? The kids make it a challenge."
               



"No," Zoya said. "The kids make it insane. Wait until the Wolf hears about this. He'll have 
puppies. That's American slang, by the way."



 
                  



Chapter 24



                   




THE NAME OF THE WOMAN who'd been purchased was Audrey Meek. She was a 
celebrity, having founded a highly successful line of women's fashions and accessories called 
Meek. It was her mother's maiden name, and the one she used herself.
    




The Couple watched her closely, tailed her into the parking garage without creating suspicion. 
They jumped her as she was putting her Neiman Marcus and Hermès and other shopping 
bags into a shiny black Lexus SUV with New Jersey plates.
          



"Children run! Run away!" Audrey Meek struggled fiercely as Zoya tried to stuff an acrid-smelling 
gauzy cloth over her nose and mouth. Soon she saw circles, stars, and bright colors for a few 
dramatic seconds. Then she finally passed out in Slava's powerful arms.



Zoya peered around the parking garage. It was nothing much to look at _ cement walls with 
number and letter marks. Nobody anywhere near them. Nobody noticing anything wrong, 
even though the children were yelling and starting to cry.
      




"Leave my mommy alone!" Andrew Meek shouted, and threw punches at Slava, who only 
smiled at the boy. "Good little fellow," he applauded. "Protect your mama. She would be 
proud of you. I am proud of you."
   




"Let's go, stupid!" shouted Zoya. As always, she was the one who took care of all the 
important business. It had been that way since she was growing up in the Moskovskaya 
oblast outside Moscow and had decided she couldn't bear to be either a factory worker or a 
prostitute.
                   




"What about the kids? We can't leave them here," said Slava.
                




"Leave them. That's what we're supposed to do, you idiot. We want witnesses. That's the 
plan. Can't you keep anything straight?"
                   




"In the garage? Leave them here?"





"They'll be fine. Or not. Who the hell cares? C'mon. We must go. Now!"
        




They drove off in the Lexus with the target, Audrey Meek, unconscious on the backseat and 
her two children wailing in the parking garage. Zoya drove at a moderate speed around the 
mall, then turned onto the Dekalb Pike.
            




They traveled only a few minutes to the Valley Forge National Historical Park, where they 
switched cars.
          




Then another eight miles to a remote parking area where they changed vehicles yet again.
 




Then off to Ottsville, in the Bucks County area of Pennsylvania. Soon Mrs. Meek would 
meet the Art Director, who was madly in love with her. He must have been _ he had paid 
$250,000 for the pleasure of her company, whatever that might be.
            



And there had been witnesses to the abduction ,a screw-up ,on purpose.



                   




                   



Part Two



 
FIDELITY, BRAVERY, INTEGRITY




 
                  



Chapter 25



                   




NO ONE HAD been able to
 
figure out the Wolf yet.accrding to information from Interpol and the Russian police, he was 
a no-nonsense, hands-on operator, who had originally been trained as a policeman. Like 
many Russians, he was able to think in very fluid, commonsense terms. That native ability 
was sometimes given as the reason the Mir space station was able to stay in space so long. 
The Russian cosmonauts were simply better than the Americans at figuring out everyday 
problems. If something unexpected went wrong in the spacecraft, they fixed it.
     




And so did the Wolf.
                   




On that sunny afternoon, he drove a black Cadillac Escalade to the northern section of 
Miami. He needed to see a man named Yeggy Titov about some security matters. Yeggy 
liked to think of himself as a world-class Web site designer and cutting-edge engineer. He had 
a doctorate from Cal-Berkeley and never let anyone forget it. But Yeggy was just another 
pervert and creep with delusions of grandeur and an attitude, a really bad attitude.
   




The Wolf banged on the metal door of Yeggy's apartment in a high-riser overlooking 
Biscayne Bay. He was wearing a skullcap and a Miami Heat windbreaker, just in case 
anyone saw him visiting.
               




"All right, all right, hold your urine!" Yeggy shouted from inside. It took him another couple of 
minutes to finally open up. He had on blue-jean shorts and a tattered, faded-black novelty-
store sweatshirt with Einstein's grinning face on it. Quite the kidder, that Yeggy.
 




"I told you not to make me come and see you," the Wolf said, but he was smiling broadly, as 
if he were making a big joke. So Yeggy smiled too. They had been business associates for 
about a year _ which was a long time for anyone to put up with Yeggy. "Your timing is 
perfect," he said.
     




"How lucky for me," said the Wolf, as he strolled into the living room and immediately 
wanted to hold his nose. The apartment was an incredible dump _ littered with fast-food 
wrappers and pizza boxes, empty milk cartons, and dozens, maybe a hundred, old copies of 
Novoye Russkoye Slovo, the largest Russian-language newspaper in the United States.
          




The odor of filth and decaying food was bad enough, but even worse was Yeggy himself, 
who always smelled like week-old sausages. The science man led him into a bedroom off the 
living room area _ only it turned out not to be a bedroom at all. It was the lab of a very 
disorganized person. Ugly brown carpeting, three beige CPU boxes on the floor, and parts in a 
corner, discarded heat sinks, circuit boards, hard drives.
               




"You are a pig," the Wolf said, then laughed again.
        




"But a very smart pig."
         




In the center of the room was a modular desk. Three ?at-screen displays formed a semicircle 
around a well-worn rumble chair. Behind the display screens was a ?re hazard of intertwined 
cables. There was only one outside window, the blind permanently drawn.
     




"Your site is very secure now," Yeggy said. "Primo. One hundred percent. No possible screw-
up. The way you like it."
     




"I thought it was already secure," the Wolf replied.
             




"Well, now it's more secure. You can't be too careful these days. Tell you what else , I 
finished the latest brochure. It's a classic, instant classic."
 




"Yes, and only three weeks late."
              




Yeggy shrugged his bony shoulders. "So what _ what'll you see my work. It's genius. Can you 
recognize genius when you see it? This is genius."
        




The Wolf examined the pages before he said anything to the science man. The brochure was 
printed on 81/2-by-11-inch glossy paper bound in a clear report cover with a red spine. Yeggy 
had cranked it out on his HP color laser printer. The colors were electric. The cover looked 
perfect. The elegance was weird, actually, as if the Wolf were looking at a Tiffany's 
catalogue. It sure didn't look like the work of a man who lived in this shit hole.
             




"I told you that girls number seven and seventeen were no longer with us. Dead, actually," the 
Wolf finally said. "Our boy genius is forgetful, no?"
           




"Details, details," said Yeggy. "Speaking of which, you owe me ÿteen thousand cash on 
delivery. This would be considered delivery."
                   




The Wolf reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a Sig Sauer 210. He shot Yeggy twice 
between the eyes. Then, for laughs, he shot Albert Einstein between the eyes too.
           




"Looks like you are no longer with us, either, Mr. Titov. Details, details."
      



The Wolf sat at a laptop computer and fixed the sales catalogue himself. Then he burned a CD 
and took it with him. Also several copies of Novoye Russkoye Slovo that he had missed. He 
would send a crew to dispose of the body and burn this shit hole later. Details, details.



                   



Chapter 26



                   




I SKIPPED A CLASS on "Arrest Techniques" that morning. I figured I probably knew more 
on the subject than the teacher. I called Monnie Donnelley instead and told her I needed 
whatever she had on the white slave trade, particularly recent activity in the U.S. that might 
relate to the White Girl case.





Most of the Bureau's crime analysts were housed ten miles away at CIRG, but Monnie had 
an office at Quantico. Less than an hour later, she was at the doorway of my no-frills cubicle. 
She held out two disks, looking proud of herself.
    




"This should keep you busy for a while. I concentrated on white women only. Attractive. 
Recent abductions. I also have a lot on the crime scene in Atlanta. I expanded the circle to 
get a read on the mall, owner, employees, the neighborhood in Buckhead. I have copies for 
you of the police and the Bureau's investigative reports. All the things you asked for. You do 
your homework, don't you?"
      




"I'm a student of the game. I prepare as best I can. Is that so unusual? Here at Quantico?"
                




"Eventually, it is for agents who come to us from police departments or the armed forces. 
They seem to like to work out in the field."
        




"I like field work too," I admitted to Monnie, but not until I've narrowed it some. Thank you 
for this, all of this."
   




"Do you know what they say about you, Dr. Cross?"
               




"No. What do they say?"
      




"That you're close to psychic. Very imaginative. Maybe even gifted. You can think like a 
killer. That's why they put you on White Girl right away." She remained in the doorway. 
"Listen. Some unasked-for advice, if I may. You shouldn't piss off Gordo Nooney. He takes 
his little orientation games seriously. He's also basically a bad guy. And he's connected."
              




"I'll remember that." I nodded. "So there are good guys too?"
       




"Absolutely. You'll see that most of the agents are real solid. Good people, the best. All right, 
well, happy hunting," Monnie said. Then she left me to my reading, lots and lots of reading. 
Too much.





I started off with a couple of abductions _ both in Texas _ that I thought could be related to 
the one in Atlanta. Just reading the accounts got my blood boiling again, though. Marianne 
Norman, twenty, had disappeared in Houston on August 6, 2001. She'd been staying with her 
college sweetheart in a condo owned by his grandparents.
          




Marianne and Dennis Turcos were going to be seniors at Texas Christian that fall and had 
planned to be married in the spring of _02. Everybody said they were the nicest kids in the 
world. Marianne was never seen or heard from after that night in August. On December 30 of 
that year, Dennis Turcos had put a revolver to his head and killed himself. He said he 
couldn't live without Marianne, that his life had ended when she disappeared.
           




The second case involved a fifteen-year-old runaway from Childress, Texas. Adrianne Tuletti 
had been snatched from an apartment in San Antonio where three girls said to be involved in 
prostitution lived. Neighbors in the complex reported having seen two suspicious-looking 
people, a male and a female, entering the building on the day that Adrianne disappeared. 
One neighbor thought they might have been the girl's parents coming to bring their daughter 
home, but the girl was never seen or heard from again.
   




I looked at her picture for a long moment , she was a pretty blonde and looked as if she could 
have been one of Elizabeth Connolly's daughters. Her parents were elementary school 
teachers back in Childress.
                  




That afternoon, I got more bad news. The worst kind. A fashion designer named Audrey 
Meek had been abducted from the King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania. Her two young 
children had witnessed the kidnapping. That piece of information stunned me. The children 
had told the police that the abductors were a man and a woman.
 




I started to get ready to travel to Pennsylvania. I called Nana and she was supportive for a 
change. Then I got a message from Nooney's office. I wasn't going to Pennsylvania. I was 
expected at my classes.
 



The decision had obviously come from the top, and I didn't understand what was happening. 
Maybe I wasn't supposed to. Maybe all of this was a test?



 
                  



Chapter 27



                   




"DO YOU KNOW what they say about you, Dr. Cross? That you're close to psychic. Very 
imaginative. Maybe even gifted. You can think like a killer." Those were Monnie Donnelley's 
words to me that very morning. If that was true, why had I been taken off the case?
      




I went to my classes in the afternoon, but I was distracted, maybe angry. I suffered a little 
angst: What was I doing in the FBI? What was I becoming? I didn't want to fight the system 
in Quantico, but I'd been put in an impossible position.
 




The next morning I had to be ready for my classes again: "Law," "White-Collar Crime," Civil 
Rights Violations," firearms Practice."
  




I was sure that I'd find "Civil Rights Violations" interesting, but a couple of missing women 
named Elizabeth Connolly and Audrey Meek were out there somewhere. Maybe one or both 
of them were still alive. Maybe I could help find them , if I was so goddamn gifted.
      




I was finishing breakfast with Nana and Rosie the cat at the kitchen table when I heard the 
morning paper plop on the front porch.
   




"Sit. You eat. I'll get it," I told Nana as I pushed my chair away from the table.
                   




"No argument from this corner," Nana said, and sipped her tea with great little-old-lady 
aplomb. "I have to conserve myself, you know."
                




"Right."
   




Nana was still cleaning every square inch of the house, inside and out, and cooking most of 
the meals. A couple of weeks ago I'd caught her hanging on to an extension ladder, cleaning 
out the gutters on the roof. "It's not a problem," she hollered down to me. "My balance is 
excellent and I'm light as a parachute." Come again?
    




The Washington Post hadn't actually reached the porch. It lay open halfway up the sidewalk. 
I didn't even have to stoop to read the front page.
      




"Aw, hell," I said. Úmn it."
   




This wasn't good. It was awful, actually. I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing.
   




The headline was a shocker: ABDUCTIONS OF TWO WOMEN MAY BE CONNECTED. 
Worst of all, the rest of the story contained very special details that only a few people in the 
FBI knew. Unfortunately, I was one of them.
              




Key was the story told about a couple _ a man and a woman _ who had been seen at the 
most recent kidnapping in Pennsylvania. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach. The eyewitness 
account given by Audrey Meeks children was information that we hadn't wanted released to 
the press.
      




Somebody had leaked the story to the Post; somebody had also connected the dots for them. 
Other than maybe Bob Woodward, nobody at the newspaper could have done it by 
themselves. They weren't that smart.
   



Who had leaked information to the Post?


Why?


It didn't make sense. Was somebody trying to sabotage the investigation? Who?



 
                  



Chapter 28


 



                   




I DIDN'T WALK Jannie and Damon to school Monday morning. I sat out on the sun porch 
with the cat and played the piano _ Mozart, Brahms. I had the guilty thought that I should 
have gotten up earlier and helped out at St. Anthony's soup kitchen. I usually pitch in a 
couple mornings a week, often on Sundays. My church.
                 




Traffic was terrible that morning and the frustrating drive down to Quantico took me almost 
an hour and a half. I imagined SSA Nooney standing at the front gates, waiting impatiently 
for me to arrive. At least the drive gave me time to think over my current situation. I decided 
the best course of action, for now, anyway, was to go to my classes. Keep my head down. If 
Director Burns wanted me on White Girl, he'd get word to me. If not, then fine.
 




That morning the class centered on what the Bureau called a "practical application exercise." 
We had to investigate a ütitious bank robbery in Hogan's Alley, including interviews with 
witnesses and tellers. The instructor was another very competent SSA named Marilyn May.
                   




About half an hour into the exercise, Agent May notified the class of a ütitious automobile 
accident about a mile from the bank. We proceeded as a group to investigate the accident, 
and to see if it had any connection to the bank robbery. I was being conscientious, but I'd 
been involved in actual investigations like this for the past dozen years, and it was hard for 
me to take it too seriously, especially since some of my classmates conducted interviews 
according to the instructional manual. I thought maybe they'd watched cop shows on 
television too often. Agent May seemed amused at times herself.
    




As I stood around the accident scene with a new buddy who had been a captain in the army 
before going into the Bureau, I heard my name spoken. I turned to see Nooney's 
administrative assistant. "Senior Agent Nooney wants to see you in his office," he said.
 




Oh, Christ, what now? This guy is nuts! I was thinking as I walked quickly to Administration. 
I hurried upstairs to where Nooney was waiting.
   




"Shut the door, please," he said. He was seated behind a scarred oak desk, looking as if 
someone close to him had died.
       




I was getting hot under the collar. "I'm in the middle of an exercise."
                  




"I know what you're doing. I wrote the program and the schedule," he said. "I want to talk to 
you about the front page of today's Washington Post," he went on. "You see it?"
   




"I saw it."





"I spoke to your former chief of detectives this morning. He told me that you've used the 
Post before. He said you have friends there."
           




I tried hard not to roll my eyes. "I used to have a good friend at the Post. He was murdered. I 
don't have friends there anymore. Why would I leak information about the abductions? 
What would I gain?"
                   




Nooney pointed a rigid finger my way. He raised his voice. "I know how you work. And I 
know what you're after _ you don't want to be part of a team. Or to be controlled or 
influenced in any way. Well, it's not going to happen that way. We don't believe in golden 
boys or special situations. We don't think that you're more imaginative or creative than 
anyone else in your class. So get back to your exercise, Dr. Cross. And wise up."
          




Without saying another word, I left the office, fuming. I returned to the fake accident scene 
which Agent Marilyn May soon neatly connected to the fake robbery that had been staged in 
Hogan's Alley. Some program that Nooney had written. I could have done a better one in my 
sleep. And yeah, now I was mad. I just didn't know who I was supposed to be mad at. I 
didn't know how to play this game.
                  



But I wanted to win.



 
                  



Chapter 29



                   




ANOTHER PURCHASE HAD BEEN MADE , a large one.
                  




On Saturday night, the Couple had entered a bar called the Halyard, on the water in Newport, 
Rhode Island. The Halyard was different from most of the gay clubs in Newport's so-called 
Pink District. There was the occasional glimpse of a bad-ass boot or spike-studded wristband, 
but most of the men who frequented the place sported tousled hairdos and boating dress, and 
the ever-popular Croakie sunglasses.
              




The deejay had just selected a Strokes tune, and several couples were dancing the night 
away. The Couple fit in, which is to say that they didn't stand out. Slava wore a baby blue T-
shirt and Dockers, and had gelled his longish black hair. Zoya had on a raffish sailing cap and 
had made herself up to look like a pretty young man. She had succeeded beyond her own 
expectations, for she had already been hit on.
               




She and Slava were looking for a certain physical type, and they had found a promising 
prospect soon after they arrived. His name, they would learn later, was Benjamin Coffey, 
and he was a senior at Providence College. Benjamin had first become aware that he was gay 
while serving as an altar boy at St. Thomas_ in Barrington, Rhode Island. No priest had ever 
touched or abused him while he was there, or even come on to him, but he had discovered a 
like-minded altar server, and they became lovers when they were both fourteen. The two had 
continued to meet through high school, but then Benjamin had moved on.
        




He was still keeping his sex life a secret at Providence College, but he could be himself in the 
Pink District. The Couple watched the very handsome boy as he chatted up a thirty-
something bartender whose toned muscles were set off by the track lighting over his head.
       




"The boy could be on the cover of GQ," said Slava. "He's the one."





A strapping man in his ÿties approached the bar. Close behind him were four younger men 
and a woman. Everyone in the group was wearing white ducks and blue Lacoste shirts. The 
bartender turned away from Benjamin and shook hands with the older man, who then 
introduced his companions: Úvid Skalah, crew. Henry Galperin, crew. Bill Lattanzi, crew. 
Sam Hughes, cook. Nora Hamerman, crew."
 




"And this," the bartender said, "is Ben."
       




"It's Benjamin," the boy corrected, and smiled brilliantly.
     




Zoya snuck a look at Slava, and the two of them couldn't help grinning at the skit. "The boy 
is just what we want," she said. "He's like a cleaned-up version of Brad Pitt."
              




He was definitely the physical type that the client had special: slender, blond, boyish, 
probably still a teenager, luscious red lips, intelligent looking. That was a must, intelligence. 
And the buyer wanted no part of chickens," young boys who sold themselves on the street.
      




Ten minutes or so passed, then the Couple followed Benjamin to the bathroom, which was 
white on white and sparkling clean. Illustrations of nautical knots had been drawn on the 
walls. There was a table elaborately set with colognes, mouthwashes, and a teak box filled 
with amyl nitrite poppers.
                   




Benjamin headed into one of the stalls, and the Couple pushed in after him. It was a tight 
squeeze.





He turned when he felt a hard shove. "Taken," he said. "I'm in here. Jesus, are you two 
stoned? Give me a break."
  




"Arm or leg?" said Slava, and laughed at his own joke.
        




They forced him to his knees. "Hey, hey," he called out in alarm. "Somebody help me. 
Somebody!"
    




A gauzy cloth was pressed tightly against his nose and mouth, and he lost consciousness. 
Then the Couple lifted Benjamin up and, supporting him on either side, carried him from the 
bathroom as if they were buddies helping someone who'd passed out.
  




They took him out a back door to a parking lot filled with convertibles and SUVs. The Couple 
didn't care if they were seen, but they were careful not to hurt the boy. No bruises. He was 
worth a lot of money. Somebody wanted him badly.
                  



Another purchase.



 
                  



Chapter 30



                   




THE BUYER_S NAME was Mr. Potter.
     




It was the code name he used when he wanted to make a purchase from Sterling, when he 
and the seller communicated for any reason. Potter was very happy with Benjamin and he'd 
told this to the Couple when they dropped the package at his farm in Webster, New 
Hampshire, population of a little more than fourteen hundred _ a place where no one 
bothered you. Ever. The farmhouse he owned there was partially restored, with white antique 
wood shingling, two stories, a new roof. About a hundred yards behind it sat a red barn, the 
"guest house." This was where Benjamin would be kept, where the others before him had 
been stored as well.
                   




The house and barn were surrounded by more than sixty acres of woods and farmland that 
had belonged to Potter's family and now were his. He didn't live on the farm, but in Hanover, 
about ÿty miles away, where he toiled as an assistant professor of English at Dartmouth.
                 




God, he couldn't take his eyes off Benjamin. Of course, the boy couldn't see him. Couldn't 
speak. Not yet. He was blindfolded and gagged, and his hands and legs were bound by police 
handcuffs.
     




Other than that, Benjamin wore nothing but a sliver of silver thong, which looked precious on 
him. The sight of the very handsome young man took Potter's breath away for the third or 
fourth or tenth time since he'd taken possession of him. The maddening thing about teaching 
at Dartmouth these past five years was that you could watch, but you could not touch the 
boys who went there. It was frustrating beyond belief to be that close to his heart's desire, but 
now _ it almost seemed worth it. Benjamin was his reward. For waiting. For being good.
      




He moved close to the boy, inches at a time. Finally he slid his hand through the waves of 
thick blond hair. Benjamin jumped. He actually shivered and shook uncontrollably. That 
was nice.





"It's all right ...to be afraid," Potter whispered. "There's a strange joy to be found in fear. 
Trust me on that, Benjamin. I've been there. I know exactly what you're feeling now."
       




Potter could barely stand it! This was just too much of a great thing, a dream come true. He 
had been denied this forbidden pleasure _ and now here was this absolutely perfect, 
beautiful, stunning young man.
        




What was this? Benjamin was trying to speak through his gag. Potter wanted to hear the 
boy's sweet voice, to see his luscious mouth move, to look into his eyes. He bent forward and 
kissed the gag over the boy's mouth. He actually felt Benjamin's lips underneath, their 
softness.





Then Mr. Potter couldn't stand it for one second more. His fingers fumbling, incoherent 
whispers seeping from his mouth, his body shaking as if he had palsy, he removed the 
blindfold and looked into Benjamin's eyes.
    



"May I call you Benjy?" he whispered.



 
                  



Chapter 31



                   




ANOTHER OF THE CAPTIVES, Audrey Meek, watched her obscene, deviate, possibly 
insane captor as he calmly and coolly fixed her breakfast. She was bound by rope _ loosely, 
but she couldn't run. She couldn't believe any of this was happening, had happened, and 
presumably would continue happening. She was being held in a nicely furnished cabin 
somewhere, who knew where, and she was still flashing back to the incredible moment when 
she had been grabbed at the King of Prussia Mall, when they had yanked her away from 
Sarah and Andrew. Dear God, were the children all right?
       




"My children?" Audrey asked again. "I have to know for sure they're all right. I want to talk 
to them. I won't do anything you ask until I speak to them. Not even eat."
         




An uncomfortable silent moment passed, and then the Art Director chose to speak.
      




"Your children are just fine. That's all I'll tell you," he said. "You should eat."
   




"How could you know my children are all right?" She sniffed. "You can't."





"Audrey, you're in no position to make demands. Not anymore. That life is behind you."
             




He was tall, maybe six-foot-two, and well built, with a bushy black beard and dashing blue 
eyes that seemed intelligent to her. She guessed that he was around thirty. He'd told her to 
call him Art Director. No reason for the name, not yet, anyway, nor any other explanation for 
what had happened so far.
      




"I was concerned myself, so I called your house. The children are there with your nanny and 
husband. I promise. I wouldn't lie to you, Audrey. I'm different from you in that respect."





Audrey shook her head. "I'm supposed to trust you? Your word?"
   




"I think it would be a good idea, yes. Why not? Who else can you trust out here? Yourself, of 
course. And me. That's all there is. You're miles and miles away from anybody else. It's just 
us two. Please get used to it. You like your scrambled eggs a little soft, right? Fluffy? Isn't that 
the word you use?"
      




"Why are you doing this?" Audrey asked, getting braver, since he hadn't actually threatened 
her yet. "What are the two of us doing here?"
       




He sighed. "All in due time, Audrey. For now, let's just say it's an unhealthy obsession. It's 
more complicated, actually, but let's leave it at that for now."
       




She was surprised by the answer _ he knew he was a freaking nutcase, didn't he? Was that 
good or bad, though, that he knew exactly what he was doing?
    




"I'd like to keep you free like this as much as possible. I don't want you kept in bondage, for 
God's sake. Not even the ropes. Please don't try to run away or it won't be possible. Okay?"
   




He seemed so reasonable at times. Seemed. Christ! Wasn't this the most insane thing? Of 
course it was. But insane things happened all the time to people.
  



"I want to be your friend," he said as he served her breakfast _ the eggs cooked just so, twelve-
grain toast, herbal tea, boysenberry jam. "I've cooked all the things you like. I want to treat you 
like you deserve. You can trust me, Audrey. Start by trusting me just a little bit. ...Try your eggs. 
Fluffy. They're delish."



                   



Chapter 32



                   




I WAS MARKING TIME at Quantico and I didn't like it much. I attended my classes the 
next day, then an hour of fitness training. At five, I went to see what Monnie Donnelley had 
collected so far on White Girl. She had a small, cramped cubicle on the third floor of the 
dining hall building. On one wall was a collage of photos and photocopies of bits of evidence 
from brutally violent crimes arranged in an eye-catching cubist's fantasy.
       




I rapped my knuckles against her metal nameplate before entering the cube.
   




Monnie turned and smiled when she saw me standing there. I noticed glossy photos of her 
sons, a funny portrait of Monnie and the sons, and also a picture of Pierce Brosnan as a 
debonair, sexy James Bond. "Hey, look who's back for more punishment. You can tell by the 
size of my digs that the Bureau doesn't realize yet that this is the Information Age, what Bill 
Clinton used to call the Third Way. You know the joke , the Bureau supports yesterday's 
technology tomorrow."
                 




"Any information for me?"
       




Monnie swiveled back to her computer, an IBM. "Let me print up a few of these choice 
pieces for your burgeoning collection. I know you like hard copies. Dinosaur."
 




"It's just the way I work."
      




I had asked around about Monnie and heard the same thing everywhere: She was bright, an 
incredibly hard worker, woefully underappreciated by the powers at Quantico. I'd also found 
out that Monnie was a single mother of two and struggling to make ends meet. The only 
complaint" against her was that she worked too hard, brought stuff home just about every 
night and weekend.
                   




Monnie shuffled together a thick batch of pages for me. I could tell she was obsessive by the 
way she evened out all the pages. They had to be just so.
            




"Anything pop out at you?" I asked.
          




She shrugged. "I'm just a researcher, right? More corroboration. Upscale white women 
who've been reported missing in the last year or so. The numbers are out of whack, way too 
high. A lot of them are attractive blondes. Blondes do not have more fun in these instances. 
No particular regional skew, which I want to look into more. Geographic profiling? Sometimes 
it can pinpoint the exact locus of criminal activity."
 




"No obvious regional differences so far. That's too bad. Anything in terms of the victim's 
appearances? Any patterns at all?"
       




Monnie clucked her tongue, shook her head. "Nothing sticks out. There are women missing in 
New England, the South, out West. I'll check into it more. The women are described as very 
attractive, for the most part. And none of them have been found. They go missing, they stay 
missing."





She looked at me for a few uncomfortable seconds. There was sadness in her eyes. I sensed 
that she wanted out of this cubicle.
               




I reached down for the pages. "We're trying. I made a promise to the Connolly family."
     




There was a flicker of humor in her light green eyes. "You keep your promises?"
               




"Try," I said. "Thanks for the pages. Don't work too hard. Go home and see your kids."




"You too, Alex. See your kids. You're working too hard already."



 
                  



Chapter 33



                   




NANA AND THE KIDS, not to mention Rosie the cat, were lying in wait for me on the front 
porch when I got home that night. Their cranky body language and the sullen looks on their 
faces weren't good signs. I figured I knew why everybody was so happy to see me. You 
always keep your promises?
       




"Seven-thirty. It's getting later and later," Nana said, and shook her head. "You mentioned 
we might go see Drumline at the movies. Damon was excited."
            




"It's orientation," I told her.
  




"Exactly," Nana said, and the frown on her face deepened. "Wait until the real stuff starts 
up. You'll be coming home at midnight again. If at all. You have no life. You have no love 
life. All those women who like you, Alex _ though God knows why _ let one of them catch 
you. Let somebody in. Before it's too late."





"Maybe it's too late already."





"Wouldn't surprise me."
         




"You're tough," I said, and plopped down on the porch steps next to the kids. "Your Nana is 
tough as nails," I said to them. "Still light out. Anybody want to play hoops?"
 




Damon frowned and shook his head. "Not with Jannie. No way that's gonna happen."





"Not with the big superstar Damon." Jannie smirked. "Even though Diana Taurasi could kick 
his butt at O-U-T."
   




I got up and headed inside. "I'll get the ball. We'll play O-U-T."
            




When we returned from the park, Nana had already put Little Alex to bed. She was back 
sitting on the porch. I'd brought a pint of pralines and cream and a pint of Oreos and cream. 
We ate, then the kids wandered up to their rooms to sleep, or study, or mess around on the 
Internet.
   




"You're becoming hopeless, Alex," Nana pronounced, as she sucked the last ice cream off 
her spoon. "That's all I can say to you."
                   




"You mean consistent. And dedicated. That's getting harder to find. You like that Oreos and 
cream don't you?"
                




She rolled her eyes. "Maybe you ought to catch up with the times, son. Duty isn't everything 
anymore."
                 




"I'm here for the kids. And even for you, old woman."
    




"Never said you weren't. Well, not lately, anyway. How's Jamilla?"
      




"We've both been busy."
     




Nana nodded her head, up and down, up and down, like one of those dolls that people keep 
on the dashboards of their automobiles. Then she pushed herself up and started to gather the 
ice-cream dishes the kids had left around the porch.
    



"I'll get those," I told her.


"Kids should get them. They know better too."


"They take advantage when I'm around."


"Right. Because they know you feel guilty."



"For what?" I asked. "What did I do? What am I missing here?"
     




"Now, that is the main question you have to answer, isn't it? I'm going in to bed. Good-night, 
Alex. I love you. And I do like Oreos and cream."
  



Then she muttered, "Hopeless."


"Am not," I said to her back.



"Are too." She spoke without turning. She always got the last word. I eventually moseyed up 
to my office in the attic and made a phone call I'd been dreading. But I'd made a promise. 
The phone rang and then I heard a man's voice say, "Brendan Connolly."
                  




"Hello, Judge Connolly, this is Alex Cross," I said. I heard him sigh, but he said nothing, so I 
continued. "I don't have any special good news about Mrs. Connolly yet. We have over ÿty 
agents active in the Atlanta area, though. I'm calling because I told you I'd keep in touch 
and to reassure you that we're working."




Because I made a promise.



 
                  



Chapter 34



                   




SOMETHING ABOUT THE ABDUCTIONS wasn't tracking for me. The early kidnappings 
had been committed carefully, then suddenly the abductors began to get sloppy. The pattern 
was inconsistent. Why? What did it mean? What had changed? If I could figure that out, we 
might have a break.
     




The next morning, I got to Quantico about five minutes before the director touched down in a 
big black Bell helicopter. The news that Burns was on the grounds circulated quickly. Maybe 
Monnie Donnelley was right about one thing, this was the Information Age, even inside the 
Bureau, even at Quantico.
                   




Burns had ordered an emergency meeting, and I was informed that I was to come. Maybe I 
was back on the case? The director acknowledged a couple of agents when he entered the 
conference room in the Admin. building. His eyes never made contact with mine, though, and 
once again I wondered what he was doing here. Did he have news for us? What kind of news 
would warrant a visit from him?
       




He sat in the first row as the Behavioral Analysis Unit chief, Dr. Bill Thompson, walked to the 
front of the room. It was becoming clear that Burns was here as an observer. But why? What 
did he want to observe?
    




An administrative assistant to Dr. Thompson passed out stapled documents. At the same 
time, the first slide of a PowerPoint presentation was projected on a wall screen. "There's 
been another kidnapping," Thompson announced to the group. "It occurred Saturday night 
in Newport, Rhode Island. There's been a sea change here. The victim was male. To our 
knowledge, he's the first male they've taken."
    




Dr. Thompson gave us the details, which were also projected on the wall screen. An honor 
student at Providence College, Benjamin Coffey, had been abducted from a bar called the 
Halyard in Newport. It appeared that the abductors were both males.
               




A team.
   




And they had been spotted again.
          




"Anyone?" asked Thompson, once he had given us the basics. "Reactions? Comments? 
Don't be shy. We need input. We're nowhere on this."
    




"Pattern's definitely different," an analyst volunteered. 1/2uction at a bar. Male taken."
             




"How can we be so sure of that at this point?" Burns asked from the front of the room. 
"What is the pattern here?"
          




Burns's questions were met with silence. Like most chief executives, he had no idea of his 
own power. He turned and looked around at the group. His eyes finally settled on mine. 
"Alex? What is the pattern?" he asked. "You have any ideas?"
  




The other agents were watching me. :re we certain it was two males at the bar?" I asked. 
"That's the first question I have." Burns nodded in agreement. "No, we are not sure, are we? 
One of them had on a sailor's cap. Could have been the woman from King of Prussia. Do 
you agree with the opinion voiced about the disconnect between this abduction and the 
others? Has the pattern been broken?"





I considered the question, trying to get in touch with my gut reaction to what I'd heard so far.
        



"No," I finally said. "There doesn't even have to be a behavioral pattern. Not if the abduction 
team is working for money. I'm inclined to think they probably are. I don't see these as crimes of 
passion. But what bothers me are the mistakes. Why are they making mistakes? That's the key to 
everything."



 
                  



Chapter 35



                   




LIZZIE CONNOLLY HAD no sense of time anymore, except that it seemed to be moving 
very slowly, and that she was pretty sure she was going to die soon. She would never see 
Gwynne, Brigid, Merry, or Brendan again, and that made her incredibly sad. She was 
definitely going to die.
           




After she was locked away in the small room/closet, she'd spent no time feeling sorry for 
herself or, worse, feeling panic, letting it rule her for whatever time she had left. Certain things 
were obvious to her, but the most important was the reality that this horrible monster wasn't 
going to let her go. Ever. So she had spent countless hours plotting her escape. But realistically 
she knew that it wasn't likely to happen. She was bound with leather straps, and though she'd 
tried every possible maneuver, every twist and turn, she hadn't been able to break loose. 
Even if she did by some miracle, she could never overpower him. He was probably the 
strongest man she'd ever seen, twice as powerful as Brendan, who had played football in 
college.
  




So what could she do? Maybe try something during a bathroom or food break _ but he was 
so attentive and careful. At the very least, Lizzie Connolly wanted to die with dignity. Would 
the monster let her? Or would he want her to suffer? She thought about her past history quite 
a lot, and took comfort in it. Her growing-up years in Potomac, Maryland, spending nearly 
every spare hour at a nearby stable. College at Vassar in New York. Then the Washington 
Post. Her marriage to Brendan, the good times and the bad. The kids. All leading up to that 
fateful morning at Phipps Plaza. What a cruel joke life had played on her.
          




During the past few hours locked up in the dark, she'd been trying to remember how she had 
gotten through other terrifying experiences. She thought that she knew: with faith, with 
humor, and with a clear understanding that knowledge was power. Now Lizzie tried to 
remember special examples . . . anything that might help.
        




When she was eight years old she'd needed surgery to correct a straying eye. Her parents were 
always "too busy," so her grandparents had taken her to the hospital. As she watched them 
leave, tears had streamed from her eyes. When a nurse came in and saw the tears, Lizzie 
pretended that she'd bumped her head. And somehow she got past the lonely, terrifying 
moment. Lizzie survived.
        




Then, when she was thirteen, there was another terrifying incident. She was returning from a 
weekend with a friend's family in Virginia and had fallen asleep in the car. When she woke 
up she was groggy and confused and completely covered with blood. She remembered staring 
out into the gloomy darkness and slowly beginning to understand. There'd been an 
automobile accident while she was asleep. A man from another car involved in the accident 
lay in the street. He wasn't moving but Lizzie believed she heard him tell her not to be afraid. 
He said that she could stay on earth or leave. It was her decision, no one else's. She had 
chosen to live.
 




"It's my choice," Lizzie told herself in the blackness of the closet. "It's my choice to live or 
die, not his. Not the Wolf's. Not anybody else's.
     



"I choose to live."



                   



Chapter 36



                   




THE NEXT MORNING, just about everybody attached to the White Girl task force 
assembled in the main conference hall at Quantico. We hadn't been told much yet, just that 
there was breaking news, which was good; there had already been too much bureaucracy and 
wheel spinning for me.
     




Senior Agent Ned Mahoney, the head of HRT, arrived when the room was already filled. He 
walked to the front, turned, and faced us. His intense gray blue eyes went from row to row, 
and he seemed more pumped up than usual.
      




"I have an announcement. Good news for a change," Mahoney said. "There's been a 
significant break. Word just came down from Washington." Mahoney paused, then he 
continued. "Since Monday, agents from our office in Newark have been monitoring a suspect 
named Rafe Farley. The suspect is a repeat sex offender. He did four years in Rahway Prison 
for breaking into a woman's apartment, beating and raping her. At the time, Farley claimed 
that the victim was a girlfriend from where he worked. What alerted us to Farley is that he 
went into an Internet chat room and had a lot to say about Mrs. Audrey Meek. Too much. 
He knew details about Mrs. Meek, including facts about her family in the Princeton area, her 
house there, even the physical layout inside.
     




"The suspect also knew precisely how and when Mrs. Meek was abducted at the King of 
Prussia Mall. He knew that her car was used, what kind of car it was, and that the children 
were left behind.
      




"In a subsequent visit to the chat room, Farley provided special details that even we don't 
have. He claimed that she was knocked out with a special drug and then taken to a wooded 
area in New Jersey. He left it vague whether Audrey Meek is alive or dead.
           




"Unfortunately the suspect hasn't gone to visit Mrs. Meek during the period we've been 
watching him. It's been nearly three days. We believe it's possible he may have spotted the 
surveillance. It is our decision, and the director concurs, that we take Farley down.
      




"HRT is already on the scene in North Vineland, New Jersey, assisting the local þld office and 
the police. We're going in this morning, probably within the hour. Score one for the good 
guys," said Mahoney. "Congratulations to everyone involved at this end."
               



I sat in my seat and applauded with the others, but I had a funny feeling too. I hadn't been 
involved or even known about Farley or the surveillance on him. I was out of the loop, and I 
hadn't felt like this for over a dozen years, not since I started with the police department in D.C.



 
                  



Chapter 37



                   




A PHRASE FROM THE BRIEFING kept playing in my head: the director concurs ...I 
wondered how long Director Burns had known about the suspect in Jersey, and why he had 
decided not to tell me. I tried not to be disappointed or paranoid, but still ...I wasn't feeling 
good as the meeting broke up to huzzahs from the group of agents.
   




The trouble was, something felt wrong to me and I had no idea what it was. I just didn't like 
something about this bust.
 




I was leaving the room with the others when Mahoney came ambling up to me. "The director 
asked that you go to New Jersey," he said, then grinned. "Come with me to the helipad. I 
want you there too," he added. "If we don't break Farley down immediately, I don't think 
we'll get Mrs. Meek back alive."
  




A little less than forty-five minutes later, a Bell helicopter set down at Big Sky Aviation in 
Millville, New Jersey. Two black SUVs were waiting, and Mahoney and I were rushed to 
North Vineland, about ten miles to the north.





We parked in the lot of an IHOP restaurant. Farley's house was 1.2 miles away. "We're ready 
to roll on him," Mahoney told his group. "I have a pretty good feeling about this one."
       




I accompanied Mahoney in one of the SUVs. We wouldn't be part of the six-man HRT team 
that would go into the house first, but we'd have immediate access to Rafe Farley. Hopefully 
we'd found Audrey Meek alive in the house.
   




In spite of my misgivings, I was starting to get pumped about the takedown. Mahoney's 
enthusiasm was contagious, and any kind of action beat sitting around. At least we were 
doing something. Maybe we'd get Audrey Meek back.
               




Just then, we passed by an unpainted bungalow. I saw broken porch boards, and a rusty car 
and a camping stove in the small front yard. "That's it," said Mahoney. "Home, sweet home. 
Let's pull over up there."
         




We stopped about a hundred yards up the road, near a stand of red oaks and pines. I knew 
that a couple of surveillance agents in ghillie camouflage suits were already nestled in close to 
the bungalow. These agents did nothing but surveillance and wouldn't be involved in the 
actual bust. There was also a closed-circuit camera aimed at the bungalow and the UNSUB's 
car, a red Dodge Polaris.
        




"We think he's sleeping inside," Mahoney informed me as we jogged through the woods until 
we had the ramshackle house in view.
    




"It's almost noon," I said.
        




"Farley works a late-night shift. He got home at six this A.M. His girlfriend's in there too."
             




I didn't say anything.
                   




"What? What are you thinking?" Mahoney asked as we watched the house from a thick 
stand of woods less than forty yards away.
      




"You said he has a girlfriend in the house? That doesn't sound right, does it?"




"I don't know, Alex. According to surveillance, the girl-friend's been there all night. I guess they 
could be the couple. We're here. My job is to take Rafe Farley down. Let's do it.. . . This is HRT 
One. I have control. Ready! Five, four, three, two, one. Go. Go!"



 
                  



Chapter 38



                   




MAHONEY AND I WATCHED as the breach team moved quickly on the small 
inconsequential-looking house. The six agents were outfitted in black-on-black flight suits 
and body armor. The side yard was littered with two more junked vehicles, a small car and a 
Dodge truck, and a lot of spare parts for appliances like refrigerators and air conditioners. 
There was a standing urinal out back that looked as if it had come from a tavern.
                   




The house windows were dark even though it was midday. Was Audrey Meek in there? Was 
she alive? I hoped that she was. It was a huge break if we got her back now. Especially since 
everybody thought she was probably dead.
      




But something about the raid bothered me.
            




Not that it mattered now.
         




There is no "knock and announce" protocol when HRT is involved. No talking, no 
negotiating, no political correctness.
              




I watched two agents breach the front door. They started to go inside the suspect's house.
     




Suddenly, a muffled boom. The agents at the front door went down. One of them didn't get 
up. The other got up and stumbled away from the house. It was awful to witness, a complete 
shock.
     




"Bomb," said Mahoney in surprise and anger. "He musta booby-trapped the door."
  




By then, the four other agents were inside the house. They had gone in through the back and 
side doors. There were no more explosions, so the other doors hadn't been booby-trapped. 
Two HRT agents approached the wounded pair at the front of the house. They pulled away 
the agent who hadn't moved since the blast.





Mahoney and I ran as fast as we could toward the house. He kept repeating "fuck" over and 
over. There were no gunshots coming from inside.
               




I was suddenly afraid Farley wasn't even in the house. I prayed that Audrey Meek wasn't 
already dead in there. Everything was feeling so wrong to me. This wasn't how I would have 
done the raid. The FBI! I had always hated and distrusted these bastards, and now I was one 
of them.
     




Then I heard, "Secure! Secure!" And "We have a suspect! We've got him! It's Farley. There's 
a woman here too!"
                   




What woman? Mahoney and I barged in through the side door. I saw thick smoke 
everywhere. The house reeked of the explosive, but also of marijuana and greasy cooking. 
We made our way back to a bedroom off a small living room.
    




A naked man and woman were spread-eagled on the bare wooden floor of the bedroom. The 
woman on the floor wasn't Audrey Meek. She was heavy, at least forty or fifty pounds 
overweight. Rafe Farley looked to be close to three hundred pounds and had hideous clumps 
of red hair not only on his head but all over his body.
       




An old poster for the movie Cool Hand Luke was taped over a king-size bed that had no 
sheets or covers. Nothing else caught my eye.
  




Farley was screaming at us, his face deep crimson. "I have rights! I have goddamn legal 
rights! You bastards are in real trouble."
 




I had a feeling that he might be right, and that if this screaming man had kidnapped Mrs. 
Meek, she was already dead.
          




"You're the one in trouble, fat boy!" an HRT agent barked in the suspect's face. "You too, 
girlfriend!"
                  




Could this possibly be the couple who had taken Audrey Meek and Elizabeth Connolly?
                  




I didn't see how.
       



So who in hell were they?



                   



Chapter 39



                   




NED MAHONEY AND I were stuck in a close, dark pigsty of a bedroom with the suspect, 
Rafe Farley. The woman, who assured us she was his girlfriend, had put on a filthy bathrobe 
and been taken into the kitchen to be questioned.
               




We were all angry about what had happened outside. Two agents had been wounded by a 
booby trap. Rafe Farley was the closest thing we had to a break in the case, or a suspect.
 




Things kept getting weirder. For starters, Farley spit at Mahoney and me until his mouth went 
dry. It was so strange and crazy that at one point, Ned and I just looked at each other and 
started to laugh.
      




"Think this is fucking funny?" Farley rasped from the edge of the bed, where he was lodged 
like a beached whale. We'd made him put on clothes, blue jeans and a work shirt, mostly 
because we couldn't stand the sight of his big rolls of fat and his tattoos of naked women and 
a purple dragon eating a child.
        




"You're going down on kidnap and murder charges," Mahoney snarled at him. "You injured 
two of my men. One might lose an eye."





"You had no right comin_ in my house while I'm sleeping! I have enemies!" Farley yelled, 
and spit at Mahoney again. "You barge in here _cause I sell some weed? Or I screw a married 
broad who likes me more than she likes her old man?"
          




"Are you talking about Audrey Meek?" I asked.
      




All of a sudden he went quiet. He stared at me, and his face and neck turned bright red. What 
was this? He wasn't a good actor and he wasn't real smart either.
              




"What the hollered you talking about? You been smoking my shit?" Farley said finally. 
"Audrey Meek? That chick they kidnapped?"
   




Mahoney leaned forward. "Audrey Meek. We know you know all about her, Farley. Where is 
she?"
      




Farley's piggy eyes seemed to be getting smaller. "How the hell would I know where she is?"
          




Mahoney kept at him. "You ever been in a chat room called Favorite Things Four?"
          




Farley shook his head. "Never heard of it."
        




"We have a record of your conversation, asshole," Ned said. "You got a lot of explaining to 
do, Lucy."
      




Farley looked confused. "Who the hell is Lucy? What are you talking about, man? You 
mean, like, I Love Lucy?"
    




Mahoney was good at keeping Farley off guard. I thought we were working okay together.
          




"You've got her in the woods somewhere in Jersey," Mahoney yelled, then stamped his foot 
hard.
        




"Did you hurt her? Is she all right? Where is Audrey Meek?" I picked up.
                 




"Take us to her, Farley!"
  




"You're going back to prison. This time, you don't get out again," I shouted in his face.
  




It was as if Farley were finally waking up. He squinted his eyes and stared hard at us. Lord, 
he smelled, especially now that he was scared.
   




"Wait a fucking minute. Now I get it. That Internet place? I was just showin' off."
          




"What's that supposed to mean?"
  




Farley slumped down into himself as if we'd been beating him. úvorite Four is for freaks to 
talk. Everybody makes shit up, man."
            




"But you didn't make up the stuff about Audrey Meek. You know things about her. You got 
it all right," I said.
        




"The bitch turns me on. She's a fox. Hell, I collect catalogues from Meek, always have. All 
those skinny-ass models look like they need a good unh, unh, uh!"
          




"You knew things about the abduction, Farley," I said.
          




"I read the newspapers, watch CNN. Who doesn't? I told you, Audrey Meek turns me on. I 
wish I abducted her. You think I'd be sleeping with Cini if Audrey Meek was around here?"
          




I jabbed an index finger at Farley. "You knew things that weren't in the newspapers."
          




He shook his huge head from side to side. Then he said, "Got a scanner. Listen in on police 
radios and such. Shit, I didn't kidnap Audrey Meek. I wouldn't have the balls. I wouldn't. I'm 
all talk, man."
            




Mahoney cut in. "You had the balls to rape Carly Hope," he said.
       




Farley seemed to be shrinking inside himself again. "Nah, nah. It's like I said in court. Carly 
was a girlfriend. I didn't rape her none. I don't have the balls. I didn't do nothing to Audrey 
Meek. I'm nobody. I'm nothing."
 



Rafe Farley stared at us for a long moment. His eyes were bloodshot; everything about him was 
pathetic. I didn't want to, but I was starting to believe him. I'm nobody. I'm nothing. That was 
Rafe Farley, all right.



 
                  



Chapter 40



                   




Sterling
   




Mr. Potter
                   




The Art Director
       




Sphinx
     




Marvel
    




The Wolf





The cover names sounded harmless, but the men behind them weren't. During one session, 
Potter had nicknamed the group Monsters Inc. as a joke, and that was an accurate 
description. They were monsters, all of them. They were freaks; they were deviates and 
worse.
                   




And then there was the Wolf, who was in a whole other class.
                   




They met on a secure Web site that was inaccessible to outsiders. All messages were 
encrypted and required a pair of keys: One key garbled the information; the second key was 
needed to recover it. More important, a hand scan was necessary to get onto the site. They 
were considering using a retinal scan or possibly an anal probe.
     




The subject under discussion was the Couple and what to do about them.
         




"What the hell does that mean, what to do about them?" asked the Art Director, who was 
jokingly called Mr. Softee because he could get very emotional, the only one of them who 
ever did.
 




"It means just what it sounds like," answered Sterling. "There's been a serious breach of 
security. Now we have to decide what to do about it. There's been sloppiness, stupidity, and 
maybe worse than that. They were seen. It's put us all in danger."
 




"What are our options?" Art Director continued. "I'm almost afraid to ask."
        




Sterling responded instantly. "Have you read the newspapers lately? Do you have a TV? A 
team of two took a woman in a mall in Atlanta, Georgia. They were spotted. A team of two 
abducted a woman in Pennsylvania and they were seen. Our options? Do absolutely nothing 
or do something extreme. An object lesson is needed for the other teams."
                   




"So what are we doing about the problem?" asked Marvel, who was usually spookily quiet 
but could be nasty when he was aroused.





"For one thing, I've shut down all deliveries for the moment," said Sterling.
  




"Nobody told me about that!" Sphinx erupted. "I'm expecting a delivery. As all of you know, 
I paid a price for it. Why wasn't I informed before now?"
            




No one said anything to Sphinx for several seconds. No one liked him. Besides, each of them 
was a sadist. They enjoyed torturing Sphinx, or anyone else in the group who showed 
weakness.
                 




"I expect my delivery!" Sphinx insisted. "I deserve it.You bastards! Fuck you all."Then he 
went off-line. In a huff. Typical Sphinx. Laughable, really, except none of them was laughing 
right now.
         




"The Sphinxter has left the building," Potter finally said.
   




Then Wolf took over. "I think that's enough idle chat for tonight, enough fun and games. I'm 
concerned about the news stories. We need to deal with the Couple in some decisive manner 
that satisfies me. What I propose is that we have another team pay them a visit. Is there any 
disagreement?"
      




There was none, which wasn't unusual when the Wolf had the floor. All of them were petrií of 
the Russian.
                   




"There is some good news, though," Potter said then. "This fuss and attention...it is exciting, 
isn't it? Gets the blood boiling. It's a hoot, right?"
     




"You're crazy, Potter. You're mad."
                   




"Don't you just love it?"
            




The well-protected chat room was not protected enough.
  



Suddenly, the Wolf said, "Don't say another word. Not a word! I think someone else is on with us. 
Wait. They're off now. Someone broke into the den and now they're gone. Who could have gotten 
in here? Who let them in? Whoever it is, they're dead."



 
                  



Chapter 41



                   




LILI OLSEN WAS fourteen and a half years old, going on twenty-four, and she honestly 
believed she'd heard everything until she hacked into the Wolf's Den.
               




The sick bastards in the well-protected-but-not-protected-enough chat room were all older 
men, and they were gross and despicable. They liked to talk incessantly about women's 
private parts and having vile sex with anyone and everything that moved _ any age, any 
gender, human or animal. The men were beyond disgusting; they made her want to puke. 
Only then it got a lot worse, and Lili wished she had never even heard of the Wolf's Den, 
never hacked into the highly protected chat room. They might be murderers!
                   




And then the leader, Wolf, actually discovered Lili was on the site with them, listening to 
everything they'd said.
        




So now Lili knew about the murders, and the kidnappings,
            




everything they fantasized about and possibly did. Only she didn't know if any of what she 
heard was real or not.
      




Was it real? Or were they making it all up? Maybe they were just nasty, sicko bullshitters. Lili 
almost didn't want to know the truth, and she didn't know what to do about the stuff she'd 
already overheard. She had hacked onto their site, and that was illegal. If she went to the 
police, she'd be turning herself in. So she couldn't do that. Could she? Especially if the stuff 
on the site was just fantasies.
                   




So she sat in her room and pondered the unthinkable. Then pondered it again. She felt so 
bad, so sick to her stomach, so sad, but she was also afraid.
      




They knew she'd hacked onto the Wolf's Den. But did they also know how to find her? If she 
were them, she'd know how. So were they already on their way to her house?
  




Lili knew she should go to the police. Maybe the FBI. But she couldn't bring herself to do it. 
She sat frozen. It was as if she were paralyzed.
                 




When the doorbell rang she just about jumped out of her skin. "Holy shit, holy mother! It's 
them!"
   




Lili took a deep breath, then she scurried downstairs to the front door. She looked through the 
peephole. She could hear her own heart thundering.
     




Domino's Pizza! Jesus!
     




She'd forgotten all about it. It was pizza delivery, not killers, at the front door, and suddenly 
Lili was giggling to herself. She wasn't going to die after all.
               



She opened the front door.



 
                  



Chapter 42



                   




THE WOLF HAD SELDOM been angrier, and someone had to pay. The Russian had a long-
standing hatred for New York City and the smug and overrated metropolitan area. He found 
it filthy, foul beyond imagining, the people rude and uncivilized, even worse than in Moscow. 
But he had to be there today; it was where the Couple lived, and he had business with them. 
The Wolf also wanted to play some chess, one of his passions.
            




Long Island was the general address he had for Slava and Zoya.
       




Huntington was the special one.
              




He arrived in the town just past three in the afternoon. He remembered the one other time 
he'd been here _ two years after he had arrived in New York from Russia. Cousins of his 
owned a house here and had helped set him up in America. He had committed four murders 
out "on the Island," as the locals called it. Well, at least Huntington was close to Kennedy 
Airport. He'd be out of New York as soon as possible.
   




The Couple lived in a typical suburban ranch house. The Wolf banged on the front door, and 
a goateed bull of a man by the name of Lukanov opened it. Lukanov was part of another 
team, one that worked successfully in California, Oregon, and Washington State. Lukanov 
had once been a major in the KGB.
                 




"Where are the stupid fucks?" the Wolf asked, once he was inside the front door.
                  




The bull Lukanov jerked a thumb toward a semidarkened hallway behind him, and Wolf 
trudged down it. His right knee was aching today, and he remembered a time in the eighties 
when members of a rival gang had broken it. In Moscow that kind of thing was considered a 
warning. The Wolf wasn't much for warnings himself. He had found the three men who'd 
tried to cripple him and broken every bone in their bodies, one by one. In Russia this 
gruesome practice was called zamochit, but the Wolf and other gangsters also called it 
mushing.
    




He entered a small, sloppily kept bedroom and immediately saw Slava and Zoya, his ex-
wife's cousins. The pair had grown up about thirty miles from Moscow. They had been in the 
army until the summer of _98, then they immigrated to America. They'd been working for 
him for less than eight months, so he was just getting to know them.
                




"You live in a garbage dump," he said. "I know you have plenty of money. What do you do 
with it?"
         




"We have family at home," said Zoya. "Your relatives are there too."
                  




The Wolf tilted his head. :whh, so touching. I had no idea you had such a big heart of gold, 
Zoya." He motioned for the bull to leave and said, "Shut the door. I'll be out when I'm 
finished here. It might be a while."
   




The Couple was tied up together on the floor. Both were in their underwear. Slava had on 
shorts patterned with little ducks. Zoya wore a black bra with a matching bikini thong.
      




The Wolf finally smiled. "What am I going to do with you two, huh?"
                  




Slava began to laugh out loud, a nervous, high-pitched cackling. He had thought they were 
going to be killed, but this would just be a warning. He could see this in the Wolf's eyes.
       




"So what happened? Tell me quickly. You knew the rules of the game," he said.
       




"Maybe it was getting too easy. We wanted a little more of a challenge. It's our mistake, 
Pasha. We got sloppy."
              




"Never lie to me," the Wolf said. "I have my sources. They are everywhere!"
            




He sat on the arm of an easy chair that looked as if it had been in this hideous bedroom for a 
hundred years. Dust puffed from the old chair as it took his weight.
    




"You like him?" he asked Zoya. "My wife's cousin?"
         




"I love him," she said, and her brown eyes went soft. "Always. Since we were thirteen years 
old. Forever, I loved him."
        




"Slava, Slava," the Wolf said, and walked over to the muscular man on the floor. He bent to 
give Slava a hug. "You are my ex-wife's blood relative. And you betrayed me. You sold me 
out to my enemies, didn't you? Sure, you did. How much did you get? A lot, I hope."
  




Then he twisted Slava's head as if he were opening a big jar of pickles. Slava's neck snapped, 
a sound that the Wolf had come to love over the years. His trademark in the Red Maya.
                




Zoya's eyes widened to about twice their normal size. But she didn't make a sound, and 
because of that the Wolf understood what tough customers she and Slava really were, how 
dangerous they had been to the safety of the organization. "I'm impressed, Zoya," he said. 
"Let's talk some."
    



He stared into those amazing eyes of hers. "Listen, I'm going to get the two of us some real 
vodka, Russian vodka. Then I want to hear your war stories," he said. "I want to hear what 
you've done with your life, Zoya. You have me curious now. Most of all, I want to play chess, 
Zoya. Nobody in America knows how to play chess. One game, then you go to heaven with your 
beloved Slava. But first vodka and chess, and, of course, I fuck you!"



 
                  



Chapter 43



                   




ON ACCOUNT OF SECRETS that Zoya had told him under significant duress, the Wolf had 
to make one more stop in New York. Unfortunate. This meant that he wouldn't be able to 
catch his flight home out of Kennedy and he would miss the professional hockey game that 
night. Regretful, but he knew this was the right thing to do. The betrayal by Slava and Zoya 
had jeopardized his life, and also made him look bad.
                   




At a little past eleven, he entered a club called the Passage in the Brighton Beach section of 
Brooklyn. The Passage looked like a dump from the street, but inside it was beautiful, very 
ornate, almost as nice as the best places in Moscow.
 




He saw people he knew from the old days: Gosha Cher-nov, Lev Denisov, Yura Fomin and 
his mistress. Then he spotted his darling Yulya. His ex-wife was tall and slender, with large 
breasts he'd bought for her in Palm Beach, Florida. Yulya was still beautiful in the right light, 
not so much changed since Moscow, where she had been a dancer since she was ÿteen.
      




She was sitting at the bar with Mikhail Biryukov, the latest king of Brighton Beach. They 
were directly in front of a mural of St. Petersburg, which was very cinematic, thought the 
Wolf, a typical Hollywood visual cliché.
             




Yulya saw him coming, and she tapped Biryukov. The local pakhan turned to look, and the 
Wolf closed on him fast. He slammed a black king down on the table. "Checkmate," he 
roared, then laughed and hugged Yulya.
         




"You're not happy to see me?" he asked them. "I should be hurt."
       




Biryukov grunted. "You are a mystery man. I thought you were in California."
 




"Wrong again," said the Wolf. ;y the way, Slava and Zoya say hello. I just saw them out on 
Long Island. They couldn't make the trip here tonight."
     




Yulya shrugged, such a cool little bitch. "They mean nothing to me," she said. "Distant 
cousins."





"Or me either, Yulya. Only the police care about them now."
                




Suddenly, he grabbed Yulya by the hair and lifted her out of her bar seat with one arm. "You 
told them to fuck me over, didn't you? You must have paid them a lot!" he screamed in her 
face. "It was you. And him!"
                   




With dazzling speed, the Wolf pulled an ice pick from his sleeve and stuck it into Biryukov's 
left eye. The gangster was blinded, and dead in an instant.
              




"No . . . Please." Yulya struggled to get out a few words. "You can't do this. Not even you!"
         




Then the Wolf addressed everyone in the nightclub. "You are all witnesses, are you not? 
What? Nobody helps her? You're afraid of me? Good _ you should be. Yulya tried to get 
revenge on me. She was always stupid as a cow. Biryukov _ he was just a dumb, greedy 
bastard. Ambitious! The godfather of Brighton Beach! What is that? He wanted to be me!"
  




The Wolf lifted Yulya even higher in the air. Her long legs kicked violently and one of her red 
mules went flying, scooting under a nearby table. Nobody picked up the shoe. Not a person in 
the club moved to help her. Or to see if Mikhail Biryukov was still alive. Word had already 
circulated that the madman in the front of the Passage was the Wolf.
 




"You are witnesses to what happens if anyone ever crosses me. You are witnesses! So you've 
had a warning. Same as in Russia. Same now in America."
              




The Wolf took his left hand out of Yulya's hair and wrapped it around her throat. He twisted 
hard and Yulya's neck broke. "You are witnesses!" he screamed in Russian. "I killed my ex-
wife. And this rat Biryukov. You saw me do it! So go to hell."
        




And then the Wolf stomped out of the nightclub. No one did a thing to stop him.
          




And no one talked to the New York police when they came.
      




Same as in Russia.




Same now in America.



 
                  



Chapter 44



                   




BENJAMIN COFFEY WAS being held in a dark root cellar under the barn where he'd been 
brought , what was it now, three, maybe four days ago? Benjamin couldn't remember 
exactly, couldn't keep track of the days.
       




The Providence College student had nearly lost his mind until he made an amazing discovery 
in the solitary confinement of the cellar. He found God, or maybe God found him.
                  




The first and most startling thing Benjamin felt was God's presence. God accepted him, and 
maybe it was time for him to accept God. He learned that God understood him. But why 
couldn't he understand the first thing about God? It didn't make sense to Benjamin, who'd 
attended Catholic schools from kindergarten up to his senior year at Providence, where he 
studied philosophy and also art history. Benjamin had come to another conclusion in the 
darkness of his "prison cell" under the barn. He'd always thought that he was basically a 
good person, but now he knew that he wasn't; and it didn't have anything to do with his 
sexuality, as his hypocritical church would have him think. The way he figured it, a bad 
person was someone who habitually caused harm to others. Benjamin was guilty of that by 
his treatment of his parents and siblings, his classmates, his lovers, even his so-called best 
friends. He was mean-spirited, always acted superior, and continually inflicted unnecessary 
pain. He had acted like this ever since he could remember. He was cruel, a snob, a martinet, a 
sadist, a complete piece of shit. He'd always justified his bad behavior, because other people 
had caused him so much pain.
   




So was that why things had turned out like this? Maybe. But what was truly astonishing to 
Benjamin was the realization that if he ever got out of this alive, he probably wouldn't 
change. In fact, he believed he would use this experience as an excuse to continue being a 
miserable bastard for the rest of his life. Cold, cold, I'm so cold, he thought. But God loves 
me unconditionally. That never changes either. Then Benjamin realized that he was 
incredibly confused, and crying, and had been for a long time, at least a day. He was 
shivering, babbling nonsense to himself, and he didn't know what he really thought about 
anything. Not anymore, he didn't.
 




His mind kept shifting back and forth. He did have good friends, great friends, and he'd been 
an okay son; so why were all these terrible thoughts shuttling through his head? Because he 
was in hell? Was that it? Hell was this foul-smelling, claustrophobic root cellar under a 
decaying barn somewhere in New England, probably New Hampshire or Vermont. Was that 
right?
       




Maybe he was supposed to repent and couldn't be set free until he did? Or maybe this was it 
_ for eternity.
                 




He remembered something from Catholic grade school in Great Barrington, Rhode Island. A 
parish priest had tried to explain an eternity in hell to Benjamin's sixth-grade class. "Picture a 
river with a mountain on the other side," the priest had said. "Now imagine that every 
thousand years the tiniest sparrow transports what it can carry in its beak across the river 
from the mountain. When that tiny sparrow has transported the entire mountain to this side 
of the river, that, boys and girls, would just be the beginning of eternity." But Benjamin didn't 
really believe the priest's little fable, did he? Fire and brimstone forever? Somebody would 
find him soon. Somebody would guide him out.
           




Unfortunately, he didn't completely believe that either. How could anyone find him here? 
They wouldn't. God, the police had lucked out finding the Washington sniper, and Malvo and 
Muhammad weren't very smart. Mr. Potter was.
                




He had to stop crying soon, because Potter was angry with him already. He'd threatened to 
kill him if he didn't stop, and, oh, God, that was why he was crying so hard now. He didn't 
want to die, not when he was just twenty-one and had his whole life ahead of him.
     




An hour later? two hours? three? he heard a loud noise above him and began to cry again. 
Now Benjamin couldn't stop sobbing, shaking all over. He was sniveling too. He'd sniffed 
and sniveled since preschool. Stop sniveling, Benjamin. Stop it! Stop it! But he couldn't stop.
            




Then the trapdoor opened! Someone was coming down.
  




Stop the crying, stop the crying, stop it! Stop it this instant! Potter will kill you.
    




Then the most unbelievable thing happened, a turn of events that Benjamin would have 
never expected.
                  




He heard a deep voice _ not Potter's.





"Benjamin Coffey? Benjamin? This is the FBI. Mr. Coffey, are you down there? This is the 
FBI."
       




He was shaking worse now, and sobbing so hard he thought he might choke behind the gag. 
Because of the gag, he couldn't call out, couldn't let the FBI somehow know that he was 
down here.
        




The FBI found me! It's a miracle. I have to signal them. But how? Don't leave! I'm down 
here! I'm right here!
                   




A flashlight illuminated his face.
                   




He could see a person behind the light. A silhouette. Then the full face peered out of the 
shadows.
                   




Mr. Potter was frowning down at him from the trapdoor. Then he stuck out his tongue. "I told 
you what was going to happen. Didn't I tell you, Benjamin? You did this to yourself. And 
you're so beautiful. God, you're perfect in every other way."
                   



His tormentor came down the stairs. He saw a battered sledgehammer in Potter's hand. A heavy 
farm tool. Waves of fear washed over Benjamin. "I'm a lot stronger than I look," Potter said. 
"And you've been a very bad boy."



 
                  



Chapter 45



                   




MR. POTTER'S REAL NAME was Homer O. Taylor, and he was an assistant professor in the 
English department at Dartmouth. Brilliant, to be sure, but still an assistant, a nobody. His 
office was a small but cozy one in the turret at the northwest corner of the Liberal Arts 
building. He called it his "garret," the place where a nobody would labor in lonely solitude.
    




He had been up there most of the afternoon with the door locked, and he was fidgeting. He 
was also grieving for his beautiful dead boy, his latest tragic love _ his third!
         




Part of Homer Taylor wanted to hurry back to the barn at the farm in Webster to be with 
Benjamin, just to watch over the body for a few more hours. His Toyota 4Runner was 
parked outside, and he could be there in an hour if he pushed it. Benjamin, dear boy, why 
couldn't you have been good? Why did you bring out the worst in me when there was so 
much to love?
     




Benjamin had been such a beauty, and the loss that Taylor felt now was horrifying. And not 
only the physical and emotional drain, there was the great financial loss. Five years ago, he'd 
inherited a little over two million dollars. It was going too fast. Much too fast. He couldn't 
afford to play like this _ but how could he ever stop now?
  




He wanted another boy already. He needed to be loved. And to love someone. Another 
Benjamin, only not an emotional wreck, as the poor boy had been.
       




So he stayed in his office for the entire day to avoid an excruciating hour-long tutorial at four 
o'clock. He pretended to be marking term papers, in case someone knocked, but he never 
looked at a single page.
     




Instead, he obsessed.
                 



He finally contacted Sterling around seven o'clock. "I want to make another purchase," he said.



 
                  



Chapter 46



                   




I VISITED SAMPSON AND BILLIE one night and had a great time with them, talking about 
babies and scaring big, bad John Sampson as much as I could. I tried to talk to Jamilla at 
least once a day. But White Girl was starting to heat up, and I knew what that meant. I was 
probably about to get lost in the case.





A married couple, Slava Vasilev and Zoya Petrov, had been found murdered in the house 
they rented on Long Island. We had learned that the husband and wife had come to the 
United States four years before. They were suspected of bringing Russian and other Eastern 
European women here for the purpose of prostitution, and also to bear children who would be 
sold to affluent couples.
 




Agents from our New York office were all over the murder scene on Long Island. 
Photographs of the two victims had been shown to the high school students who'd seen the 
Connolly abduction and to Audrey Meeks children. They had identified the couple as the 
kidnappers. I wondered why the bodies had been left there. As examples? For whom?
    




Monnie Donnelley and I regularly met at seven before I had to attend orientation classes for 
the day. We were analyzing the Long Island murders. Monnie pulled together everything she 
could find on the husband and wife, as well as other Russian criminals working in the U.S., 
the so-called Red Mafia. She was hot-wired into the Organized Crime Section over at the 
Hoover Building and also the Red Mafia squad in the Bureau's New York office.
      




"I brought _everything_ bagels from D.C.," I said as I entered her cube at ten minutes past 
seven Monday. "Best in the city. According to Zagat, anyway. You don't seem too excited."
 




"You're late," Monnie said, without looking up from her computer screen. She'd mastered the 
droll, deadpan delivery style favored by hackers.
                   




"These bagels are worth it," I said. "Trust me."
                




"I don't trust anybody," Monnie replied.
   




She finally glanced up at me and smiled. Nice smile, worth the wait. "You know that I'm 
kidding, right? It's just a tough-girl act, Alex. Give with the bagels."
 




I laughed. "I'm used to cop humor."
         




"Oh, I'm honored," she muttered, deadpan again, as she looked back at the glowing 
computer screen. "He thinks I'm a cop, not just a desk jockey. You know, they started me in 
fingerprinting. The absolute bottom."
   




I liked Monnie, but I had the sense that she needed a lot of support. I knew she'd been 
divorced for about two years. She'd majored in criminology at Maryland for undergrad, 
where she had also pursued another interesting passion _ studio arts. Monnie still took classes 
in drawing and painting, and, of course, there was the collage in her cube.
       




She yawned. "Sorry. I watched Alias with the boys last night. That will be Grandma's 
problem when she has to get them up this morning."
           




Monnie's home life was another thing we had in common. She was a single parent, with two 
young kids and a doting grandmother who lived less than a block away. The grandmother 
was her ex-husband's mother, which told the story of the marriage. Jack Donnelley had 
played basketball at Maryland, where he and Monnie met. He was a big drinker in college, 
and it got worse once he graduated. Monnie said he'd never recovered from being all-
everything in high school and then just another guard for the Maryland Terrapins. Monnie 
was five-foot even, and joked that she hadn't played any kind of ball at Maryland. She told 
me her nickname in high school was Spaz.
       




"I've been reading all about women being traded and sold from Tokyo to Riyadh," she said. 
"Breaks my heart and it pisses me off. Alex, we're talking some of the worst slavery in 
history. What's with you men?"
     




I looked at her. "I don't buy and sell women, Monnie. Neither do any of my friends."
               




"Sorry. I'm carrying around a little extra baggage because of Jack the Rat and a few other 
husbands I know." She looked at her computer screen. "Here's a choice quote for today.
       




Know what the Thai premier said about the thousands of women from his country sold into 
prostitution? _Thai girls are just so pretty._ And here's the premier on ten-year-old girls being 
sold: _Come on, don't you like young girls, too?_ I swear to God, he said that."
        




I sat down next to Monnie and peered at her computer screen. "So now somebody's opened 
a lucrative market for suburban white women. Who? And where are they working out of? 
Europe? Asia? The U.S.?"
     




"The murdered couple could be a break for us. Russians. What do you think?" she asked.
    




"Could be a ring operating out of New York. Brighton Beach. Or maybe they're 
headquartered in Europe? The Russian mob is set up just about everywhere these days. It's 
not _The Russians Are Coming_ anymore. They're here."
          




Monnie started to spit out information. "The Solntsevo gang is the largest crime syndicate in 
the world right now. Did you know that? They're big here too. Both coasts. The Red Mafia 
has basically collapsed in their country. They smuggled close to a hundred billion out of 
Russia, and a lot of it came here. You know, we've got major task forces working in L.A., San 
Francisco, Chicago, New York, D.C., Miami. The Reds bought banks in the Caribbean and 
Cyprus. Believe it or not, they've taken over prostitution, gambling, and money laundering in 
Israel. In Israel!"
       




I finally got a few words in. "I spent a couple of hours last night reading the ?les from Anti-
Slavery International. The Red Mafia comes up there too."
            




"I'll tell you one other thing." She looked at me. "That kid who was grabbed in Newport. I 
know it's a different pattern, I get it, but I do believe he's part of this. What do you think?"
     



I nodded. So did I. And I also thought that Monnie had great street smarts for somebody who 
rarely left the office. So far, she was the best person I'd met at the Bureau, and here we were in 
her tiny cube trying to solve White Girl.



 
                  



Chapter 47



                   




I HAD NEVER really stopped being a student since my days at Johns Hopkins, and it had 
served me well in the Washington PD, even given me a certain mystique. I hoped it would be 
the same in the Bureau, though it hadn't been so far. I set myself up with a supply of black 
coffee and started in on the Russian mob research. I needed to know everything about them, 
and Monnie Donnelley was a willing accomplice.
              




I made notes along the way, though I usually remember most of what is important enough 
and don't need to write it down. According to the FBI ?les, the Russian mob was now more 
diverse and powerful in America than La Cosa Nostra. Unlike the Italian Maú, the Russians 
were organized into loose networks that cooperated with but weren't dependent on one 
another. At least not so far. A major benefit was that the loose style of organization avoided 
RICO prosecutions by the government. No conspiracies could be proved. There were two 
distinctly different types of Russian mobsters. The "knuckle draggers" were into extortion, 
prostitution, and racketeering, and their particular crime group was called the Solntsevo. The 
second type of Russian mobster operated at a more sophisticated level, often securities fraud 
and money laundering. These were the neocapitalist criminals, called the Izmailovo.
                  



For the moment, I decided to concentrate on the first group, the lowlifes, especially the brigades 
involved with prostitution. According to the Bureau's OC Section report, the prostitute business 
operated "a lot like major league baseball." A group of prostitutes could actually be "traded" 
from an owner in one city to one in another. As a footnote, a survey conducted among seventh-
grade girls in Russia listed prostitution among the top-five career choices of the girls when they 
grew up. Several historical anecdotes had been inserted in the ?le to represent the Russian criminal 
mentality: smart and ruthless. According to one story, Ivan the Terrible had commissioned St. 
Basil's Cathedral to rival, even surpass, the great churches of Europe. He was pleased with the 
result and invited the architect to the Kremlin. When the artist arrived, his blueprints were burned 
and his eyes poked out, thus ensuring that he could never create a finer cathedral for anyone else. 
There were several more contemporary examples in the report, but that was how the Red Mafia 
worked. It was what we were up against if the Russians were behind White Girl.



 
                  



Chapter 48



                   




SOMETHING INCREDIBLE WAS about to happen.
     




It was a gorgeous afternoon in eastern Pennsylvania. The Art Director found himself lost in 
the dazzling blue of the sky, and the relations of the white clouds sliding across his windshield 
were mesmerizing. Am I doing the right thing now? he had asked himself several times during 
the ride. He thought that he was.
   




"You have to admit that it's beautiful," he said to the bound passenger in his Mercedes G-
Class SUV.
        




"It is," said Audrey Meek. She was thinking that she'd believed she would never see the 
outdoors again, never smell fresh grass and flowers. So where was this madman taking her 
with her hands tied? They were driving away from his cabin. Going where? What did it mean?
              




She was terrified but trying not to show it. Small talk, she told herself. Keep him talking.
    




"You like this G-Class?" she asked, and immediately knew it was an insane question, just 
insane.
    




His tight smile, but especially his eyes, told her that he thought so too. And yet he answered 
politely. "I do, actually. At first I thought it was the final proof that rich people are incredibly 
stupid. I mean, it's kind of like putting a Mercedes logo on a wheelbarrow and then paying 
triple for it. But I do like the oddness of the vehicle, the rigid lines of the design, the gizmos 
like lockable differentials. Of course, I'll have to get rid of this one now, won't I?"
            




Oh, God, she was afraid to ask why, but maybe she knew already. She'd seen the car he 
drove. Maybe someone else had too. But she had also seen his face, so he wasn't really 
making sense. Or was he?
  




Suddenly Audrey found that she couldn't talk at all. No words would come out of her mouth, 
which was very dry. This self-professed nice guy, who said he wanted to be her friend but who 
had raped her half a dozen times, was going to kill her very soon. And then what? Bury her 
out here in the beautiful woods? Dump her body in a gorgeous lake with a heavy weight 
attached to it?
              




Tears formed in Audrey's eyes, and her brain buzzed as if there were a short in the circuits. 
She didn't want to die. Not now, not like this. She loved her children, her husband, Georges, 
and even her company. It had taken her so long, so much sacrifice and hard work, to get her 
life right. And now
 
this had to happen, this fluke, this incredibly bad luck.
         




The Art Director turned sharply onto a narrow dirt road, then sped down it much too fast. 
Where was he going? Why so fast? What was at the end of the road?
               




But apparently they weren't going all the way to the end.
         




He was braking. "My God, no!" Audrey screamed. "No! Please! Don't!" He stopped the car 
but let the engine run. "Please," she pleaded. "Oh, please . . . don't do this.
          




Please, please, please. You don't have to kill me."
       



The Art Director merely smiled. "Give us a hug, Audrey. Then get out of the car before I change 
my mind. You're free. I'm not going to hurt you. You see, I love you too much."



 
                  



Chapter 49



                   




THERE WAS A BREAK in White Girl. One of the women had been found
 
alive.
              




I was rushed to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in one of the two Bell helicopters kept at 
Quantico for emergencies. A few senior agents had told me that they'd never been up in one 
of the helicopters. It didn't sit too well with them. Now here I was becoming a regular during 
my orientation period. There were benefits to being on the director's fast track.





The sleek black Bell set down in a small field in Norristown, Pennsylvania. During the flight I 
found myself thinking of a recent orientation class. We'd burned fingernail clippings so that 
everybody would know what a DOA smelled like. I already knew, and I didn't relish 
experiencing it again. I didn't think there would be any DOA's on this trip to Pennsylvania. 
Unfortunately, that turned out to be wrong.
     




Agents from the field office in Philadelphia were there to meet the helicopter and accompany 
me to where Audrey Meek had been brought for questioning. So far there'd been no 
announcement to the press, though her husband had been notified and was on his way to 
Norristown.
                




"I'm not exactly sure where we are right now," I said as we rode to a local state troopers 
barracks. "How far is this from where Mrs. Meek was abducted?"
      




"We're five miles," said one of the agents from Philly. "It would take about ten minutes by 
car."
                   




"Was she held captive near this area?" I asked. "Do we know yet? What exactly do we 
know?"
   




"She told the state police that the abductor brought her here early this morning. She's not sure 
of the directions but thinks they rode for well over an hour. Her wristwatch had been taken 
away from her."
         




I nodded. "Was she blindfolded during the ride? I assume that she was."
           




"No. That's odd, isn't it? She saw her captor several times. Also his vehicle. He didn't seem to 
care one way or the other."
    




That was a genuine surprise to me. It didn't track, and I said so.
  




"Stump the stars," said the agent. "Isn't that what this case is about so far?"
          




The state trooper barracks occupied a redbrick building tucked back from the highway. There 
wasn't any activity outside, and I took that as a good sign. At least I had beaten the press 
there. No one had leaked the story so far.
            



I hurried inside the barracks to meet Audrey Meek. I was eager to find out how she had survived 
against all odds, the first woman who had.



                   



Chapter 50



                   




MY VERY FIRST IMPRESSION was that Audrey Meek didn't look at all like herself, not as 
she did in any of her publicity. Not now, anyway, not after her terrible ordeal. Mrs. Meek was 
thinner, especially in the face. Her eyes were dark blue, but the sockets appeared hollowed 
out. She had some color on both cheeks.
  




"I'm FBI agent Alex Cross. It's good to see you safe," I said in a quiet voice. I didn't want to 
interview her right now, but it had to be done.
       




Audrey Meek nodded and her eyes met mine. I had the sense that she knew how lucky she 
was.
 




"You have some color in your cheeks. Did you get that today?" I asked her. "While you were 
in the woods?"
                   




"I don't know for sure, but I don't think so. He took me outside for walks every day he held 
me captive. Considering the circumstances, he was often considerate. He made my meals, 
good ones, for the most part. He told me he'd been a chef at one time in Richmond. We had 
long talks almost every day, really long talks. It was so strange, everything about it. There 
was one day in the middle when he wasn't at the house at all. I was petrií he'd left me there 
to die. But I didn't really believe he would."
   




I didn't interrupt her. I wanted to let Audrey Meek tell her story without any pressure or 
steering from me. It was astonishing to me that she had been released. It didn't happen very 
often in cases like this one.





"Georges? My children?" she asked. "Have they arrived yet? Will you let me see them if 
they're here?"
          




"They're on their way," I said. "We'll bring them in as soon as they arrive. I'd like to ask a 
few questions while everything is still fresh in your mind. I'm sorry about this. There may be 
other missing people, Mrs. Meek. We think that there are."
         




"Oh, God," she whispered. "Let me try to help, then. If I can, I will. Ask your questions."
                




She was a brave woman and she told me about the kidnapping, including a description of the 
man and woman who had grabbed her. It ?t the late Slava Vasilev and Zoya Petrov. Then 
Audrey Meek took me through the ritual of the days that she was held captive by the man 
who called himself the Art Director.
 




"He said he liked to wait on me, that he enjoyed it immensely. It was as if he was used to 
being subservient. But I sensed he also wanted to be my friend. It was so terribly weird. He'd 
seen me on TV and read articles about Meek, my company. He said he admired my sense of 
style and the way I didn't seem to have too many airs about myself. He made me have sex 
with him."
        




Audrey Meek was holding herself together so well. Her strength amazed me, and I wondered 
if that was what her captor had admired.





"Can I get you water? Anything?" I asked.
    




She shook her head. "I saw his face," she said. "I even tried to draw it for the police. I think 
it's a good likeness. It's him."
  




This was getting stranger by the moment. Why would the Art Director let her see him, then 
release her? I'd never known anything like it, not in any other kidnapping case.
    




Audrey Meek sighed and nervously clasped and unclasped her hands as she continued.
                  




"He admitted that he was obsessive-compulsive. About cleanliness, art, style, about loving 
another human being. He confessed several times that he adored me. He was often 
derogatory about himself. Did I tell you about the house?" she asked. "I'm not sure what I 
said here _ or to the officers who found me."
         




"You didn't talk about the house yet," I said.
                




"It was covered with some material, like a heavy-duty cellophane. It reminded me of event 
art. Like Christo. There were dozens of paintings inside. Very good ones. You ought to be able 
to find a house covered in cellophane."
             




"We'll find it," I agreed. "We're looking now."
           




The door to the room where we were talking was cracked open. A trooper in a brimmed hat 
peeked in, then he opened the door wide and Audrey Meeks husband, Georges, and her two 
children burst inside. It was such an unbelievably rare moment in abduction cases, especially 
one in which someone has been missing for more than a week. The Meek children looked 
afraid at first. Their father gently urged them forward, and joy took over. Their faces were 
wreathed in smiles and tears, and there was a group hug that seemed to last forever.
   




"Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!" the girl shrieked, and clung to her mother as if she'd never let 
go of her again.
                  




My eyes filled, and then I went to the worktable. Audrey Meek had made two drawings. I 
looked at the face of the man who had held her captive. He looked very ordinary, like 
anybody you'd meet on the street.
  




The Art Director.
      



Why did you let her go? I wondered.



 
                  



Chapter 51



                   




WE GOT ANOTHER possible break around midnight. The police had information about a 
house covered with a plastic material in Ottsville, Pennsylvania. Ottsville was about thirty 
miles away, and we drove there in several cars in the middle of the night. It was tough duty at 
the end of a long day, but nobody was complaining too much.
      




When we arrived, the scene reminded me of my past life in
                   




D.C. _ officers used to wait for me there too. Three sedans and a couple of black vans were 
parked along the heavily wooded country road around a bend from a dirt lane that led to the 
house. Ned Mahoney, who had just arrived from Washington, and I met up with the local 
sheriff, Eddie Lyle.
  




"Lights are all out in the house," Mahoney observed as we approached what was actually a 
renovated log cabin. The only access to the secluded property was the dirt road. His HRT 
teams were waiting on his command to go.
      




"It's past one," I said. "He might be waiting on us, though. I think there's something 
desperate about this guy."





"Why's that?" Mahoney wanted to know. "I need to hear."
      




"He let her go. She saw his face, and the house, the car too. He must have known we'd find 
him here."
      




"My people know what they're doing," the sheriff interrupted, sounding offended that he was 
being ignored. I didn't much care what he thought _ I had seen a local, inexperienced rookie 
cop blown away in Virginia one time. "I know what I'm doing too," the sheriff added.
           




I stopped talking to Mahoney and stared at Lyle. "Hold it right here. We don't know what's 
waiting for us inside the house, but we do know this , he knew we'd find this place and come 
for him. Now, you tell your men to stand down. FBI HRT goes in first! You're backup for us. 
Do you have a problem with that?"
                  




The sheriff's face reddened and he thrust out his chin. "I sure as hell do, but it doesn't mean 
fuck-all, does it?"
              




"No, it doesn't matter at all. So tell your men to stand down. You stand down too. I don't 
care how good you think you are." I started walking forward again with Mahoney, who was 
grinning and not trying to hide it. "You're a hot ticket, man," he said. A couple of his snipers 
were watching the cabin from less than fifty yards away. I could see that it had a gabled roof 
with a dormer on the loft level. Everything was dark inside.
      




"This is HRT One. Anything going on in there, Kilvert?" Mahoney said into his mike to one of 
the snipers.
               




"Not that I can see, sir. What's the take on the UNSUB?"
     




Mahoney looked at me.
           




My eyes moved slowly across the cabin and the front and side yards. Everything looked neat, 
well maintained, and seemed to be in good repair. Power lines led to the roof.





"He wanted us to come here, Ned. That can't be good."
    




"Booby trap?" he asked. "That's how we plan to proceed."
                  




I nodded. "That's how I would go. If we're wrong it'll give the locals some yuks."
      




"Fuck the local yokels," said Mahoney.
                  




"I agree with that. Now that I'm not a local anymore."
       




"Hotel and Charlie teams, this is HRT One," Mahoney said into his mike. "This is Control. On 
the ready. Five, four, three, two, one, go!"
                   




Two HRT teams of seven rose up from "phase line yellow," which is the final position for 
cover and concealment. They passed "phase line green" on the way to the house. After that 
there was no turning back.
       




HRT's motto for this kind of action was "speed, surprise, and violence of action." They were 
very good at it, better than anything the Washington PD had to offer. Within a matter of 
seconds, the Hotel and Charlie teams were inside the cottage where Audrey Meek had been 
kept captive for over a week. Then Mahoney and I burst through the back door and into the 
kitchen. I saw stove, refrigerator, cabinets, table.
        




No Art Director.
        




No resistance of any kind.





Not yet.
   




Mahoney and I moved ahead cautiously. The living room area had a wood-burning stove, a 
striped contemporary-style couch in beige and brown, several club chairs. A big chest covered 
by a dark green afghan. Everything was tasteful and
               




organized.
                 




No Art Director.
        




Canvases were everywhere. Most had been finished. Whoever had done the paintings was 
talented.
 




"Secure!" I heard. Then a shout _ "In here!"
      




Mahoney and I raced down a long hallway. Two of his men were already inside what looked 
to be the master bedroom. There were more painted canvases, lots of them, fifty or more.
   




A nude body lay sprawled across the wooden floor. The look on the face was grotesque, 
tortured. The dead man's hands were tightly wrapped around his own throat, as if he were 
strangling himself.
   




It was the man Audrey Meek had drawn for us. He was dead, and his death had been 
horrible. Most likely poison of some kind.
         




Papers lay scattered on the bed. Alongside them, a fountain pen.
         




I bent and began to read one of several notes:
      




To whomever _
       




As you know by now, I am the one who held Audrey Meek captive. All I can say is that it is 
something I had to do. I believe I had no choice; no free will in the matter. I loved her since 
the first time I saw her at one of my exhibitions in Philadelphia. We talked that night, but of 
course she didn't remember me. No one ever does. (Until now anyway.) What is the rationale 
behind an obsession? I have no idea, not a clue, even though I obsessed on Audrey for over 
seven years of my life. I had all the money I would ever need, and yet it meant nothing to 
me. Not until I got the opportunity to take what I really wanted, what I needed. How could I 
resist _ no matter the price? A quarter million dollars seemed like nothing to be with Audrey, 
even for these few days. Then a strange thing. Maybe a miracle. Once we spent time together, 
I found that I loved Audrey too much to keep her like this. I never harmed her. Not in my 
own mind anyway. If I hurt you, Audrey, I'm sorry. I loved you very much, this much.
      




One sentence kept repeating inside my head after I finished reading: Not until I got the 
opportunity to take what I really wanted, what I needed. How had that happened? Who was 
out there fulfilling the fantasies of these madmen?
                  



Who was behind this? It sure wasn't the Art Director.



 
                  



Part Three


 



                   




                   



WOLF TRACKS


Chapter 52



                   




I DIDN'T GET BACK to Washington until almost ten the following night, and I knew I was in 
trouble with Jannie, probably with everybody in the house except Little Alex and the cat. I'd 
promised we would go to the pool at the Y, and now it was too late to go anywhere except to 
sleep.
      




Nana was sitting over a cup of tea in the kitchen when I came in. She didn't even look up. I 
bypassed a lecture and headed upstairs in the hopes that Jannie might still be awake.
                   




She was. My best little girl was sitting on her bed surrounded by several magazines, including 
American Girl. Her old favorite bear, Theo, was propped in her lap. Jannie had gone to sleep 
with Theo since she was less than a year old and her mother was still alive.
       




In one corner of the room Rosie the cat was curled up on a pile of Jannie's laundry. One of 
Nana's jobs for her and Damon was that they start doing their own laundry.
    




I had a thought about Maria then. My wife was kind and courageous, a special woman 
who'd been shot in a mysterious drive-by incident in Southeast that I'd never been able to 
solve. I had never closed the ?le. Maybe something would turn up. It's been known to 
happen. I still missed her almost every day. Sometimes I even said a little prayer. I hope you 
forgive me, Maria. I'm doing the best I can. It just doesn't seem good enough sometimes; 
good enough to me, anyway. We love you dearly.
                




Jannie must have sensed I was there, watching her, talking to her mother. "I thought it was 
you," she said.





"Why is that?" I asked.
    




She shrugged. "I just did. My sixth sense is working pretty good lately."
 




"Were you waiting up for me?" I asked as I slipped into her room. It had been our one guest 
bedroom, but last year we had converted it to Jannie's. I had built the shelving for the clay 
menagerie from her "Sojourner Truth period": a stegosaurus, a whale, a black squirrel, a 
panhandler, a witch tied to a stake, as well as her favorite books.
    




"I wasn't waiting up, no. I didn't expect you home at all."
     




I sat down on the edge of the bed. Framed over it was a copy of a Magritte painting of a pipe 
with the caption: this is not a pipe. "You're going to torture me some, huh?" I said.
              




"Of course. Goes without saying. I looked forward to some pool time all day."
       




"Sure enough." I put my hand on top of hers. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, Jannie."
  




"I know. You don't have to say that, actually. You don't have to be sorry. Really you don't. 
I understand what you do is important. I get it. Even Damon does."
     




I squeezed my girl's hands in mine. She was so much like Maria. "Thank you, sweetie. I 
needed that tonight."
              



"I know," she whispered. "I could tell."



 
                  



Chapter 53



                   




THE WOLF WAS in Washington, D.C., on a business trip that night. He had a late dinner at 
the Ruth's Chris Steak House on Connecticut Avenue near Dupont Circle.





Joining him was Franco Grimaldi, a stocky thirty-eight-year-old Italian capo from New York. 
They talked about a promising scheme to build Tahoe into a gambling mecca that would 
rival Vegas and Atlantic City; they also talked about pro hockey, the latest Vin Diesel movie, 
and a plan the Wolf had to make a billion dollars on a single job. Then the Wolf said he had 
to leave. He had another meeting in Washington. Business rather than pleasure.
                   




"You seeing the president?" Grimaldi asked.
       




The Russian laughed. "No. He can't get anything done. He's all stronzate. Why should I see 
him? He should see me about Bin Laden and the terrorists. I get things done."
     




"Tell me something," Grimaldi asked before the Wolf left. "The story about Palumbo out in 
the max-security prison in Colorado. You did that?"
                   




The Wolf shook his head. : complete fairy tale. I am a businessman, not a lowlife, not some 
butcher. Don't believe everything you hear about me."
                   




The Maú head watched the unpredictable Russian leave the steak house, and he was almost 
certain the man had killed Palumbo, and also that the president ought to contact the Wolf 
about Al Qaeda.
   




Around midnight, the Wolf got out of a black Dodge Viper in Potomac Park. He could see the 
outline of an SUV across Ohio Drive. The roof light blinked on and a single passenger got out. 
Come to me, pigeon, he whispered.
                




The man who approached him in Potomac Park was FBI and worked in the Hoover Building. 
His carriage was stiff and herky-jerky, like that of so many government functionaries. There 
was no confident G-man swagger. The Wolf had been warned that he couldn't buy a useful 
agent and that he couldn't trust the information if he did. But he hadn't believed that. Money 
always bought things, and it always bought people _ especially if they had been passed over 
for promotions and raises; this was as true in America as it had been in Russia. If anything, it 
was more true here, where cynicism and bitterness were becoming the national pastimes.
  




"So is anybody talking about me up on the ÿth floor of the Hoover?" he asked.
                   




"I don't want to meet like this. Next time, you run an ad in the Washington Times."
  




The Wolf smiled, but then he jabbed a finger into the federal agent's jaw. "I asked you a 
question. Is anybody talking about me?"
               




The agent shook his head. "Not yet, but they will. They've connected the murdered couple on 
Long Island to Atlanta and to the King of Prussia Mall."
           




The Wolf nodded. "Of course they have. I understand that these people of yours aren't 
stupid. They're just very limited."
  




"Don't underestimate them," the agent warned. "The Bureau is changing. They're going to 
come after you with everything they have."
     



"It won't be enough," said the Wolf. "And besides, maybe I'll come after them _ with everything I 
have. I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow their house down."



 
                  



Chapter 54



                   




THE NEXT NIGHT I got home before six o'clock. I had a sit-down dinner with Nana and the 
kids, who were surprised but clearly thrilled that I was home so early.
       




The telephone rang toward the end of the meal. I didn't want to answer it. Maybe somebody 
else had been grabbed, but I didn't want to deal with it. Not tonight.
                




"I'll get it," said Damon. "It's probably for me. Some girlfriend." He snatched the ringing 
telephone off the kitchen wall, flipped it from one hand to the other.





"You wish it was a girl," taunted Jannie from the table. Dinnertime. It's probably somebody 
selling MCI or a bank loan. They always call at dinner."
   




Then Damon was pointing at me, and he wasn't smiling. He didn't look so good either, as if 
he'd suddenly gotten a little sick to his stomach. ­," he said in a low voice. "It's for you."
             




I got up from the table and took the phone from him.
       




"You okay?" I asked.
    




"It's Ms. Johnson," Damon whispered.
 




My throat felt constricted as I took the receiver. Now I was the one who felt a little sick, but 
also confused. "Hello? This is Alex," I said.





"It's Christine, Alex. I'm in Washington. For a few days. I'd like to see Little Alex while I'm 
here," she said, sounding as if it were a prepared speech.
  




I felt my face flush. Why are you calling here? Why now? I wanted to say but didn't. =o you 
want to come over tonight? It's a little late, but we could keep him up."
           




She hesitated. "Actually, I was thinking about tomorrow. Maybe around eight-thirty, quarter 
to nine in the morning? Would that be all right?"
     




I said, "That would be fine, Christine. I'll be here."





"Oh," she said, then fumbled for words a little. "You don't have to stay home for me. I heard 
you were working for the FBI." My stomach clenched. Christine Johnson and I had split up 
over a year ago, mainly because of the nature of the murder cases I worked. She had 
actually been abducted because of my work. We finally found her in a shack in a remote 
area of Jamaica. Alex was born there. I hadn't known Christine was pregnant at the time. We 
were never the same after that. I felt it was my fault. Then she'd moved to Seattle. It had 
been Christine's idea that Alex stay with me. She'd been seeing a psychiatrist and said she 
wasn't emotionally ?t to be a mother. Now she was in D.C. ?or a few days."
                 




"What brings you back to Washington?" I finally asked.
            




"I wanted to see our son," she said, her voice going very soft. "And some friends of mine." I 
remembered how much I had loved her, and probably still did on some level, but I was 
resigned to the fact that we wouldn't be together. Christine couldn't stand my life as a cop, 
and I couldn't seem to give it up.
                   




"All right, well, I'll be over at around eight-thirty tomorrow," she said.
        



"I'll be here," I said.



 
                  



Chapter 55



                   




EIGHT-THIRTY ON THE BUTTON.
        




A shiny silver Taurus, a rental car from Hertz, pulled up in front of our house on Fifth Street.
     




Christine Johnson got out, and though she looked a little severe with her hair pulled back in a 
tight bun, I had to admit that she was a beautiful woman. Tall and slender, with distinct, 
sculpted features that I couldn't make myself forget. Seeing her again made my heart catch 
in spite of what had happened between us.
              




I was edgy, but also tired. Why was that? I wondered how much energy I'd lost in the past 
year and a half. A doctor friend from Johns Hopkins has a half-serious theory that our life 
lines are written on the palms of our hands. He swears he can chart stress, illnesses, general 
health. I visited him a few weeks ago, and Bernie Stringer said I was in excellent physical 
shape, but that my life lines had taken a beating in the last year. That was partly because of 
Christine, our relationship, and the breakup.





I was standing behind the protective screen of the front door, with Alex in my arms. I stepped 
outside as Christine approached the house. She was wearing heels and a dark blue suit.
           




"Say hi," I said to Alex, and waved one of his arms at his mother.
                 




It was so strange, so completely unnerving to see Christine like this again. We had such a 
complicated history. Much of it was good, but what was bad was very bad. Her husband had 
been killed in her house during a case I was working on. I had nearly been responsible for her 
death. Now we were living thousands of miles apart. Why was she in D.C. again? To see Little 
Alex, of course. But what else had brought her?
         




"Hello, Alex," she said, and smiled, and for a dizzying instant it was as if nothing had 
changed between us. I remembered the first time I had seen her, when she was still the 
principal at the Sojourner Truth School. She'd taken my breath away. Unfortunately, I guess, 
she still did.
 




Christine knelt at the foot of the stairs and spread her arms. "Hi, you handsome guy," she 
said to Little Alex.
                  




I set him down and let him decide what to do next. He looked up at me and laughed. Then he 
chose Christine's beckoning smile, chose her warmth and charm _ and went right into her 
arms.
       




"Hello, baby," she whispered. "I missed you so much. You've grown so big."
   




Christine hadn't brought a gift, no bribes, and I liked that. It was just her, no tricks or 
gimmicks, but that was enough.
             




In seconds, Alex was laughing and talking up a storm. They looked good together, mother 
and son.
 




"I'll be inside," I said, after I watched them for a moment. "Come in when you want. There's 
fresh coffee. Nana's. Breakfast if you haven't eaten."
        




Christine looked up at me and she smiled again. She looked so happy holding the Boy, our 
small son. "We're fine for the moment," she said. "Thank you. I'll come in for coffee. Of 
course I will." Of course. Christine had always been so sure about everything, and she hadn't 
lost any of her confidence.
        




I stepped back inside and nearly bumped into Nana, who was watching from just beyond the 
screen door.
             




"Oh, Alex," she whispered, and she didn't have to say any more than that. I felt as if a knife 
had been plunged in my heart. It was the first twist, and just the first of many. I shut the front 
door and left them to have their private time.
     




Christine brought the baby inside after a while, and we all sat in the kitchen and drank coffee 
and she watched Alex with his bottle of apple juice. She talked about her life out in Seattle; 
mostly about work at a school out there, nothing too personal or revealing. I knew she had to 
be nervous and stressed, but I never saw it.
      



Then Christine showed the kind of warmth that could melt a heart. She was looking at Little Alex. 
"What a sweetheart he is," she said. "What a sweet, darling little boy. Oh, Alex, my little Alex, how 
I missed you. You have no idea."



 
                  



Chapter 56



                   




CHRISTINE JOHNSON IN D.C. AGAIN.
   




Why had she come back now? What did she want with us?
    




The questions throbbed in my head, and also deep inside my heart. They made me afraid, 
even before I had a clear idea what to fear. Of course, I had a suspicion _ Christine had 
changed her mind about Little Alex. That was it, had to be. Why else would she be here? She 
certainly hadn't come back to see me. Or had she?
      




I was still on I-95, but just minutes away from Quantico, when Monnie Donnelley got 
through to me on my cell. Miles Davis played on the radio in the car. I'd been trying to chill 
before I got to work.
                




"You're late again," she said, and though I knew it was a joke, it still cut me some.
      




"I know, I know. I was out partying last night. You know how it is."
         




Monnie got right to it. "Alex, did you know they grabbed a couple more suspects last night?"
    




Them again. I was so surprised that I didn't answer Monnie right away. I hadn't been told 
anything about a bust!
         




"I guess not." Monnie answered her own question. "It took place in Beaver Falls, 
Pennsylvania. Joe Namath's hometown? Two UNSUBS in their forties, ran an adult 
bookstore, sort of named after the town. The press got a hold of it a few minutes ago."
           




"Did they find any of the missing women?" I asked Monnie.
  




Don't think so. It's not in the news reports. Nobody seems to know for sure here."
                




I didn't understand. =o you know how long they were under surveillance? Forget it, Monnie, 
I'm getting off Ninety-five right now. I'm almost there. I'll see you in a couple of minutes."





"Sorry to ruin your day so early," she said.
        




"It was already ruined," I muttered.
 




We worked straight through the day but at seven, we still didn't have very good answers to 
several questions about the takedown in Pennsylvania. I knew a few things, mostly 
unimportant details, and it was frustrating. The two men had criminal records for selling 
pornography. Agents from the field office in Philly had gotten a tip that the two of them were 
involved in a kidnapping scheme. It was unclear who in the FBI's chain of command knew 
about the suspects, but there seemed to have been an internal communication breakdown of 
the sort I had been hearing about for years before I arrived at Quantico.





I talked with Monnie a couple of times during the day, but my buddy Ned Mahoney never 
called me about the bust; Burns's office didn't try to contact me either. I was shook. For one 
thing, there were reporters out in the parking lot at Quantico. I could see a USA Today van 
and a CNN truck from my window. Very strange day. Odd and unsettling.
          




Late in the afternoon, I found myself thinking about Christine Johnson's visit to the house. I 
kept playing back the scene of her holding the baby, playing with Alex. I wondered if I could 
believe that she'd come to D.C. just to see him and a few of her old friends. It made my heart 
ache to think about losing "the Big Boy," as I always called him. The Big Boy! What a joy he 
was to me, and to the kids, and to Nana Mama. What an unbearable loss it would be. I just 
couldn't imagine it. Nor could I imagine being Christine and not wanting him back.
       




Before I left for the night, I forced myself to pick up the phone and make a call that I was 
dreading. Thinking about Little Alex made me remember the promise I'd made. Judge 
Brendan Connolly answered after a few rings.
      




"It's Alex Cross," I said. "Just wanted to check in with you. Tell you about the news stories 
you've been seeing today."
    




Judge Connolly asked me if his wife had been found, if there was any news about Lizzie.
              




"They didn't find her yet. I don't think those two men were involved with your wife. We're 
still very hopeful that we'll find her."
 




He began to mutter words that I couldn't make out. After listening to him for a few seconds, 
trying to make sense of it, I told him I'd keep him informed. If someone informed me.
           



After the difficult phone call, I just sat at my desk. Suddenly, I realized I'd forgotten something 
else _ my class had graduated today! We were officially agents. The others in my class had gotten 
their credentials, or <reds," as well as their assignments. Right now, cake and punch were being 
served in the lobby of the Hall of Honor. I didn't bother to go to the party. Somehow, it seemed 
inappropriate to attend. I went home instead.



                   



Chapter 57



                   




HOW MUCH TIME did she have left now?
        




A day? Hours?
         




It almost didn't matter, did it? Lizzie Connolly was learning to accept life as it came; she was 
learning who she was inside, and how to keep herself in balance.
                




Except, of course, when she was frightened out of her mind.
       




Lizzie called them her "swimming dreams." She had been an avid swimmer ever since she 
was four years old. The repetition of stroke after stroke, kick after kick could always put her 
in another place and time, on autopilot, let her escape. So that was what she was doing now 
in the closet/room where she was being kept.
                   




Swimming.
                 




Escaping.
                  




Reach, slightly cupped hand, S-figure with her arms, pull at the top, grab the water. Tip 
through to the belly button, then down through the bottom of her swimsuit. Swoosh, swoosh, 
kick, kick, feeling hot inside, but the water was cooling, refreshing, invigorating. Feeling 
empowered because she was feeling stronger.
      




She had been thinking about escape for much of the day, or what she thought of as a day, 
anyway. Now she began to get serious about other things.
     




She reviewed what she knew about this place _ the closet _ and the vicious, horrifying man 
who kept her. The Wolf. That was what the bastard called himself. Why the Wolf?
       




She was somewhere in a city. She was almost sure the city was in the South, and fairly large, 
lots of money in the surrounding area. Maybe it was Florida, but she didn't know why she 
thought that. Maybe she had overheard something and it had only registered in her 
unconscious. She'd definitely heard voices in the house when there had been large parties or, 
occasionally, smaller get-togethers. She believed that her vermin captor lived alone. Who 
could possibly live with such a horrible monster? No woman could.
           




She knew some of his pathetic habits by heart. He usually turned on the TV when he came 
home: sometimes ESPN, but more often CNN. He watched the news constantly. He also liked 
detective shows, such as Law and Order, CSI, Homicide. The TV was always on, late into the 
night.
             




He was physically large and strong, and he was a sadist _ but also careful about not hurting 
her badly, not so far, anyway. Which meant _ what did it mean? _ that he planned to keep 
her around for a while longer?
   




If Lizzie Connolly could stand it here for another minute. If she didn't flip out and make him 
so angry that he'd snap her neck, as he'd threatened to several times a day. "I'll snap your 
little neck. Like this! You don't believe me? You should believe me, Elizabeth." He always 
called her Elizabeth, not Lizzie. He told her that Lizzie wasn't a beautiful enough name for 
her. "I'll break your fucking neck, Elizabeth!"
     




He knew who she was and quite a bit about her, and also about Brendan, Brigid, Merry, 
Gwynnie. He promised that if she made him angry he'd not only hurt her, but he'd do the 
same to her family. "I'll go to Atlanta. I'll do it for kicks, just for fun. I live for that kind of 
thing. I could murder your whole family, Elizabeth."
   




He was desiring her more and more _ she could certainly tell when a man got like that. So she 
did have some control over him, didn't she? How about that? So fuck you too, buddy!
                




Sometimes he would leave her binds slightly looser and even give her free time to walk 
around in the house. Tied up, of course _ on a kind of chain leash that he would hold in his 
hands. It was so demeaning. He told her that he knew she'd be thinking that he was getting 
kinder and gentler but not to get any stupid ideas.
    




Well, what the hell else could she do except get ideas? There was nothing for her to do all day 
in the dark by herself. She was _
  




The closet door swung open violently. Then it slammed against the wall outside.
       




The Wolf screamed in Dizzies face. "You were thinking about me, weren't you? You're 
starting to get obsessive, Elizabeth. I'm in your thoughts all the time."
       




Damn it, he was right about that.
        




"You're even glad for the company. You miss me, don't you?"
      




But he had that wrong, dead wrong.
                   



Lizzie hated the Wolf so much that she contemplated the unthinkable: She could kill him. Maybe 
that day would come. Imagine that, she thought. God, that is what I want to do _ kill the Wolf 
myself. That would be the greatest escape of all.



 
                  



Chapter 58



                   




THAT SAME NIGHT the Wolf had a meeting with two professional hockey players at 
Caesars in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The suite where he stayed had gold-foil wallpaper 
everywhere, windows facing the Atlantic, and a hot tub in the living room. Out of respect for 
his guests, who were big stars, he wore an expensive chalk-stripe Prada suit.
          




His contact happened to be a wealthy cable TV operator, who arrived at the Nero suite with 
the hockey players Alexei Dobushkin and Ilia Teptev in tow. Both were members of the 
Philadelphia Flyers. They were top defensemen who were considered to be tough guys 
because they were big men who moved quickly and could do a lot of damage. The Wolf 
didn't believe the hockey players were that tough, but he was a huge fan of the game.
     




"I love American-style hockey," he said as he welcomed them with a broad smile and a hand 
extended.
       




Alexei and Ilia nodded his way, but neither of the hockey players shook his hand. The Wolf 
was offended, but he didn't reveal his feelings. He smiled some more and figured that the 
hockey players were too stupid to understand who he was. Too many wooden sticks to the 
skull.
        




"Drinks, anyone?" he asked his guests. "Stolichnaya? Whatever you like."
                   




"I'll pass," said the cable operator, who seemed incredibly self-important, but a lot of 
Americans were that way.
          




"Nyet," Ilia said with disinterest, as if his host were a hotel barman or a waiter. The hockey 
player was twenty-two years old, born in Voskresensk, Russia. He was six-foot-five, with 
close-cropped hair, stubble not quite amounting to a beard, and a block of a head sitting on 
an enormous neck.





"I don't drink Stoly," said Alexei, who, like Ilia, wore a black leather jacket with a dark 
turtleneck underneath. "Maybe you have Absolut? Or some Bombay gin?"
          




"Of course." The Wolf nodded cordially. He walked to the suite's mirrored wet bar, where he 
made the drinks and decided what to do next. He was starting to enjoy this. It was different. 
No one here was afraid of him.
             




He plopped down on the pillowed couch between Ilia and Alexei. He looked back and forth 
into their faces, smiling broadly again. "You've been away from Russia for a long time, no? 
Maybe too long," he said. "You drink Bombay gin? You forget your manners?"
                




"We hear you're a real tough man," said Alexei, who was in his early thirties and obviously 
lifted weights, a lot of weights, and often. He was around six feet and over two hundred 
twenty pounds.
  




"No. Not really," said the Wolf. "I am just another American businessman these days. 
Nothing very special. Not tough anymore. So, I was wondering, do we have a deal for the 
game with Montreal?"
                




Alexei looked over at the cable guy. "Tell him," he said.
 




"Alexei and Ilia are looking for a little more action than what we originally talked about," he 
said. "You understand what I'm saying? Action?"
     




"Ahh," said the Wolf, and grinned broadly. "I love action," he said to the businessman. "I 
love shalit too. Means mischief in my country. Shalit."
 




He was up off the couch faster than anyone would have thought possible. He'd pulled a 
small lead pipe from beneath a couch cushion and he cracked it across Alexei Dobushkin's 
cheek. Then he swung it off the bridge of Ilia Teptev's nose. The two hockey stars were 
bleeding like stuck pigs in seconds.





Then and only then did the Wolf take out his gun. He held it between the eyes of the cable 
owner. "You know, they're not such tough guys as I thought. I can tell about these things in a 
few seconds," he said. "Now, down to business. One of the two big bears will allow a score by 
Montreal in the first period. The other will miss a play for a score in the second. Do you 
understand? The Flyers will lose the game in which they're favored. Understood?
            




"If for any reason this doesn't happen, then everybody dies. Now let yourselves out. I look 
forward to the game. As I said, I love American-style hockey."




The Wolf began to laugh as the big hockey stars stumbled out of the Nero suite. "Nice meeting 
you Ilia, Alexei," he said as the door closed. "Break a leg."



 
                  



Chapter 59



                   




A HUGE TASK FORCE MEETING was held in the SIOC suite on the ÿth floor of the Hoover 
Building, which was considered sacred ground in the Bureau. SIOC is the Strategic 
Information Operations Center, and the central suite was where most of the really important 
powwows were held, from Waco to September 11.
         




I had been invited, and I wondered whom I had to thank for it. I arrived at around nine and 
was brought in by an agent who manned the front desk.
       




I saw that the SIOC suite consisted of four rooms, three of which were filled with state-of-the-
art workstations, probably for researchers and analysts. I was led into a large conference 
room. The focal point was a long glass-and-metal table. On the walls were clocks set to 
different time zones, several maps, and half a dozen TV monitors. A dozen or so agents were 
already inside the room, but it was quiet.
       




Stacy Pollack, the head of SIOC, finally arrived, and the doors were shut. Pollack introduced 
the agents who were present, as well as two visitors from the CIA. She had a reputation inside 
the Bureau for being a no-nonsense administrator who didn't suffer fools and who got results. 
She was thirty-one years old, and Burns loved her.
      




The TV monitors on the wall told the latest story: Live-action ?lm was up and running on the 
major networks. Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, said the super.
                   




"That's old news. We have a new problem," announced Pollack from the front of the room. 
"We're not here because of the screw-up at Beaver Falls. This is internal, so it's worse. Folks, 
we think we've learned the name of the person responsible for the leaks out of Quantico."
                 




Then Pollack looked right at me. "A reporter at the Washington Post denies it, but why 
wouldn't he?" She continued, "The leaks come from a crime analyst named Monnie 
Donnelley. You're working with her, aren't you, Dr. Cross?"
  




Suddenly the conference room seemed very small and constricting. Everyone had turned 
toward me.
   




"Is this why I'm here?" I asked.
        




"No," said Pollack. "You're here because you're experienced with sexual-obsession cases. 
You've been involved with more of them than anyone else in the room. But that isn't my 
question."
                  




I thought carefully before I answered. "This isn't a sexual-obsession case," I told Pollack. 
"And Monnie Donnelley isn't the leak."
           




"I'd like you to explain both of those statements," Pollack challenged me immediately. 
"Please, go ahead. I'm listening with great interest."
         




"I'll do my best," I said. "The abductors, the group or ring behind the kidnappings, are in this 
for the money. I don't see any other explanation for their actions. The slain Russian couple 
on Long Island is a key. I don't think we should be looking at past sex offenders as our focus. 
The question should be, Who has the resources and expertise to abduct men and women for 
a price, and probably a very large price? Who has experience in this area? Monnie Donnelley 
knows that and she's an excellent analyst. She's not the leak to the Post. What would she 
have to gain?"
     




Stacy Pollack looked down and shuffled some of her papers. She didn't comment on 
anything I'd said. "Let's move on," she said.





The meeting resumed without any further discussion of Monnie and the charges against her. 
Instead, there was a lengthy discussion of the Red Mafia, including new information that the 
couple murdered on Long Island definitely had connections to Russian gangsters. There were 
also rumors of a possible mob war about to break out on the East Coast, involving the 
Italians and the Russians.
   




After the larger meeting, we broke off into smaller groups. A few agents took workstations. 
Stacy Pollack pulled me aside.
      




"Listen, I wasn't accusing you of anything," she said. "I wasn't suggesting that you're 
involved in the leaks, Alex."
  




"So who accused Monnie?" I asked.
  




She seemed surprised by the question. "I won't tell you that. Nothing is official yet."
               




"What do you mean, _nothing is official yet_?" I asked.
    




"No action has been taken against Ms. Donnelley. We will probably pull her off this 
investigation, though. That's all I have to say on the subject for now. You can go back to 
Quantico."
                 




I guessed I'd been dismissed.
                



 


Chapter 60



                   




I CALLED MONNIE as soon as I could and told her what had happened. She got furious _ 
as she should have. But then Monnie took hold of herself. "All right, so now you know _ I'm 
not as controlled as I look," she said. "Well, fuck them. I didn't leak anything to the 
Washington press, Alex. That's absurd. Who would I tell _ our paperboy?"
              




"I know you didn't," I said. "Listen, I have to stop at Quantico, then how about I take you 
and your boys for a quick meal tonight? Cheap," I added, and she managed to sniffle out a 
laugh.
                   




"All right. I know a place. It's called the Command Post Pub. We'll meet you. The boys like it 
there a lot. You'll see why."
                   




Monnie told me how to get to the pub, which was close to Quantico on Potomac Avenue. 
After I made a stop at my temporary office at Club Fed, I drove over to meet her and her 
two boys. Matt and Will were just eleven and twelve. They were big dogs, though, like their 
father. Both were already close to six feet.
          




"Mom says you're okay," said Matt as he shook hands with me.
           




"She said the same about you and Will," I told him. Everybody at the table laughed. Then we 
ordered guilty pleasures _ burgers, chicken wings, cheese fries, which Monnie figured she 
deserved after her ordeal. Her sons were well mannered and easy to be with, and that told me 
a lot about Monnie.
    




The pub was an interesting choice. It was cluttered with Marine Corps memorabilia, including 
officers_ úgs, photos, and a couple of tables with machine gun rounds in them. Monnie said 
that Tom Clancy had mentioned the bar in Patriot Games, but in the novel he said there was 
a picture of George Patton on the wall, which upset the bar's regulars, especially since Clancy 
had made a career out of being in the know. The Command Post was a Marines bar, not 
Army.
       




When we were leaving, Monnie took me aside. A few Marines were going in and out. They 
gawked a little at us. "Thank you, thank you, Alex. This means a lot to me," she said. "I 
know denials don't mean a damn thing, but I did not leak information to the Washington 
Post. Or to Rush Limbaugh. Or O'Reilly, either. Or anyone fucking else. Never happened, 
never will. I'm true-blue to the end, which apparently could be near."
      




"That's what I told them at the Hoover Building," I said. "The true-blue part."
                   




Monnie rose on her toes and kissed me on the cheek. "I owe you big-time, mister. You should 
also know you're impressing the hell out of me. Even Matt and Will seemed neutral to 
positive, and you're one of the enemy to them _ grown-ups."
              




"Keep working the case," I told her. "You have exactly the right attitude."
    




Monnie looked puzzled, but then she got it. "Oh, yeah, I do, don't I. Fuck them."
               



"It's the Russians," I said, before I left her at the door of the Command Post. "It has to be. We've 
got that much right."



 



Chapter 61



                   




TWO PEOPLE VERY MUCH IN LOVE. Often a beautiful thing to watch. But not in this 
case, not on this starry night in the hills of central Massachusetts.
       




The devoted lovers_ names were Vince Petrillo and Francis Deegan, and they were juniors at 
Holy Cross College in Worcester, where they had been inseparable since their first week as 
freshmen. They'd met in the Mulledy dorm on Easy Street and had rarely been apart since. 
They'd even worked at the same fish restaurant the past two summers in Province-town. 
When they graduated, they planned to be married, then do the grand tour through Europe.
  




Holy Cross was a Jesuit school that, justly or unjustly, had some reputation for being 
homophobic. Offending students could be suspended or even expelled under the Breach of 
Peace rule, which forbade conduct which is lewd or indecent." The Catholic Church did not 
actually condemn "temptation" toward members of the same sex, but homosexual acts were 
often considered "intrinsically perverted" and seen as constituting a "grave moral disorder." 
Because the Jesuits could be hard on homosexual relationships, among the students, anyway, 
Vince and Francis kept theirs as private and secret as they could. In recent months, though, 
they had started to figure their relationship probably wasn't a very big deal, especially given 
the scandals among the Catholic clergy.
 




The Campus Arboretum at Holy Cross had long been a hangout for students who wanted to 
be alone and those who had romantic intentions. The garden area boasted over a hundred 
different kinds of trees and shrubs, and overlooked downtown Worcester, "Wormtown," as it 
was sometimes called by students.
 




That night Vince and Francis, dressed in athletic shorts, T-shirts, and matching purple-and-
white baseball caps, strolled down Easy Street to a brick patio and lawn area known as 
Wheeler Beach. It was crowded, so they continued on to find a quiet spot in the arboretum.
          




There, they lay on a blanket under a nearly full moon and a sky studded with stars. They 
held hands and talked about the poetry of W. B. Yeats, whom Francis adored and Vince, a 
pre-med student, tolerated as best he could. The two men were an unusual couple physically. 
Vince was just over five-foot-seven and weighed one eighty. Most of it was solid, due to his 
obsessive weight lifting at the gym, but it was obvious he had to work hard at it. He had curly 
black hair that framed a soft, almost angelic face that wasn't too much different from his 
baby pictures, one of which his lover carried in his wallet.





Francis could make either sex drool, and that was Vince's private joke when they were 
among coeds, "drool, fools!" Francis was six-foot-one, without an ounce of fat. His white-
blond hair was cut in the same style he had adopted as a sophomore at Christian Brothers 
Academy in New Jersey. He adored Vince with all his heart, and Vince worshiped him.
        




They came for Francis, of course.
  



He had been scouted, and purchased.



                   



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, asshole," 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.



 
                  



Chapter 63



                   




HERE WAS THE DEAL as Francis saw it now, as he tried to be calm and logical about it. 
Nothing that had happened to him could possibly have happened! He couldn't have been 
abducted a few hours ago from the campus of Holy Cross by three absolutely terrifying men. 
It just couldn't have happened. Nor could he have been transported in the trunk of a car for 
four, maybe five hours to God only knew where.
              




Most important, Vince couldn't be dead. That cruel and heartless piece of shit couldn't have 
slit Vince's throat back at the college. It hadn't happened.





So all of this had to be an impossibly bad dream, a nightmare of the sort that Francis Deegan 
hadn't experienced since he was maybe three or four years old. And this man standing before 
him now, this absurd caricature with curly tufts of white-blond hair around the side of his 
balding head, dressed in a tight black leather bodysuit _ well, he couldn't be real either. No 
way.
         




"I'm very angry at you! I'm good and pissed!" Mr. Potter yelled right in Francis's face. "Why 
did you leave me?" he screeched. "Why? Tell me why. You must never leave me again! I get 
very scared without you and you know that. You know how I am. That was thoughtless of 
you, Ronald!"





Francis had already tried reasoning with the madman _ Potter, he called himself, and no, not 
Harry. Mr. Potter. But reasoning didn't work. He'd told the raving lunatic several times that 
he had never seen him before. He wasn't Ronald. Didn't know any Ronalds! That had 
earned him a series of full-handed slaps across the face, one so hard that it bloodied his nose. 
The dweeby Billy Idol - looking freak was a lot stronger than he looked.
        




So out of desperation, Francis finally whispered an apology to the creep. "I'm sorry. I'm so 
sorry. I won't do it again."
    




And then Mr. Potter was hugging him fiercely and he was crying all over him. Wasn't this too 
weird? "Oh, God, I'm so glad you're back. I was so worried about you. You must never leave 
me again, Ronald."





Ronald? Who the hell was Ronald? And who was Mr. Potter? What was going to happen 
now? Was Vince really dead? Had he been killed tonight back at the college? All of these 
questions were exploding inside Francis's throbbing skull. So actually it was easy for him to 
cry in Potter's arms, and even to hold on to him for dear life. To press his face into the 
fragrant black leather and whisper over and over again, "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. Oh, 
my God, I'm sorry."
                  




And Potter answered, "I love you too, Ronald. I adore
      




you. You'll never leave me again, will you?" "No. I promise. I'll never leave." Then Potter 
laughed and pulled away sharply from the boy. "Francis, dear Francis," he whispered. "Who 
the hell is




Ronald? I'm just playing with you, boy. This is just a game of mine. You're in college, you must 
have figured that much out. So let's play games, Francis. Let's go out to the barn and play."



 
                  



Chapter 64



                   




I RECEIVED A STRANGE E-MAIL from Monnie Donnelley at my temporary office. An 
update of sorts. She hadn't been suspended, Monnie said. Not yet anyway. Plus, she had 
some news for me. Need to see you tonight. Same place, same time. Very important news. _ 
M
                   




So I arrived at the Command Post Pub just past seven and looked around for Monnie. What 
was this mysterious news she had? The bar area was crowded with customers, but I spotted 
her. Easy _ she was the only woman. I also figured that Monnie and I might be the only non-
Marines in the Command Post.
                   




"I couldn't talk to you over the phone at Quantico. Does that suck or what? Who do you 
trust?" she said when I walked up to her.
     




"You can trust me. Of course I don't expect you to believe that, Monnie. You have news?"
   




"I sure do. Take a load off. I think I have some good news, actually."
       




I took a stool beside Monnie. The bartender came and we ordered beers. Monnie started up 
as soon as he walked away. "I have a good friend at ERF," she began. "That's the 
Engineering Research Facility at Quantico."
                 




"I know what it is. You seem to have friends everywhere."
            




"That's true. I guess not at the Hoover Building, though. Anyway, my friend alerted me to a 
message the Bureau got a couple of days ago but dismissed as a crank call. It's about a Web 
site called the Wolf's Den. Supposedly, you can buy a lover at the Den, as in, have someone 
abducted. The site is supposed to be impossible to hack into. That's the catch."
    




"So how did he get in? Our hacker."
       



"She's a genius. I suspect that's why she was ignored. Want to meet her? She's fourteen years 
old."



 
                  



Chapter 65



                   




MONNIE HAD AN ADDRESS for the hacker in Dale City, Virginia, only about twelve miles 
from Quantico. The agent who'd fielded the original call hadn't followed up very well, which 
bothered us, so we figured the agent wouldn't mind if we did his job for him.
          




I wasn't actually planning on taking Monnie along, but she wouldn't have it any other way. 
So we dropped her SUV off at her house and she rode with me to Dale City. I'd already called 
ahead and spoken to the girl's mother. She sounded nervous, but she said she was glad the 
FBI was finally coming to talk to Lili. She added that "nobody can ignore Lili for long. You'll 
see what I mean."
   




A young girl in black coveralls answered the front door. I assumed she was Lili, but that 
turned out to be wrong. Annie was the twelve-year-old sister. She certainly looked fourteen. 
She beckoned, and we stepped into the house.
     




"Lili is in her laboratory," said Annie. "Where else?"
     




Then Mrs. Olsen appeared from the kitchen and we introduced ourselves. She had on a plain 
white blouse and a green corduroy jumper. She was holding a greasy spatula, and I couldn't 
help thinking how casual the domestic scene was. Especially if what Lili thought she had 
come upon was real. Had a fourteen-year-old found a possible trail that would lead us to the 
kidnappers? I'd heard of cases solved in stranger ways. But still . . .
      




"We call her Dr. Hawking. Like Stephen Hawking? Her IQ is up there," said her mom, poking 
the cooking utensil upward for emphasis. "Smart as she is, Lili lives on Sprite and Pixie Stix. 
There's nothing I can do to influence her dietary habits."
 




"Is it all right if we talk to Lili now?" I asked.
    




Mrs. Olsen nodded. "So I guess you're taking this seriously. That's so wise with Lili. She's not 
making any of this up, believe me."
      




"Well, we just want to talk to her. To be on the safe side. We're not sure that this is anything, 
really." Which was true enough.
              




"Oh, it's something," said Mrs. Olsen. "Lili never makes a mistake. She hasn't so far, 
anyway."
       




She pointed the spatula up the stairs. "Second door on the right. She left it unlocked for a 
change, because she's expecting you. She instructed us to stay out of it."
 




Monnie and I headed upstairs. "They have no idea what this could be, do they?" she 
whispered. "I almost hope it's nothing. A false lead."
               




I knocked once on a wooden door that sounded hollow.
      




"It's open," came a high-pitched female voice. "Come."
        




I opened the door and looked in on a pine bedroom suite. Single bed, rumpled cow-pattern 
sheets, posters from MIT, Yale, and Stanford on the walls.
              




Seated behind a blue halogen lamp at a laptop was a teenage girl _ dark hair, eyeglasses, 
braces on her teeth. "I'm all set up for you," she said. "I'm Lili, of course, of course. I've been 
working on a decryption angle. It comes down to finding flows in the algorithms."
              




Monnie and I both shook Lili's hand, which was very small and seemed as fragile as an 
eggshell.





Monnie began. "Lili, you said in your e-mail to us that you had information that could help 
with the disappearances in Atlanta and Pennsylvania."
        




"Right. But you found Mrs. Meek already."





"You hacked onto a very secure site. That's right, isn't it?" Monnie asked.
         




"I sent out some stealth UDP scans. Then IP spoofing. Their root server bit on the false 
packets. I planted a source code for the sniffer. Finally hacked in using DNS poisoning. It's a 
little more complicated, but that's the basic idea."
      




"I get it," Monnie said. Suddenly I was very glad she was there with me at the Olsen house.
     




"I think they know I was on with them. Actually, I'm sure of it," said Lili.
                




"How do you know that?" I asked her.
   




"They said so."
       




"You didn't get into too many specifics with Agent Tiezzi. You said you thought someone 
might be _for sale_ at the site?"
               




"Yeah, but I blew it, didn't I. Agent Tiezzi didn't believe me. I admitted I was fourteen, and a 
girl. How dumb of me, right?"
     




"I won't hold it against you," Monnie said, and smiled kindly.
           




Lili finally cracked a smile too. "I'm in big trouble, aren't I? Actually, I know I am. They 
might already know who I am."
         




I shook my head. "No, Lili," I said to her. "They don't know who you are, or where you are. 
I'm sure they don't."




If they did, you'd already be dead.



 
                  



Chapter 66



                   




IT WAS SO EERIE AND STRANGE, being in the young wonderkid's room _ with her life, and 
her family members_ lives, possibly in great danger. Lili had been a little coy in her message 
to the Bureau, so I understood how the tip might have fallen through the cracks. Also, she 
was fourteen years old. But now that we'd met and spoken to Lili face-to-face, I was sure 
that she had something real that could help us.
   




She'd heard them talking.
    




Someone had been purchased while she listened.
             




She was afraid for herself, and for her family.
     




"Do you want to go on-line with them?" Lili asked in an excited voice. "We could! See if 
they're together now. I've been working on some cool anonymizing software. I think it will 
work. Not sure, though. Well, yeah, it'll work."





She smiled broadly, showing those beautiful braces.
     




I could see in her eyes that she wanted to prove something to us.
      




"Is this a good idea?" Monnie leaned in and asked me.
                 




I pulled her aside and lowered my voice. "We have to move her and the family anyway. 
They can't stay here now, Monnie."
          




I looked over at Lili. "Okay. Why don't you try to get online with them again. Let's see what 
they're up to. We'll be right here with you."
        




Lili talked constantly as she went through the various steps to get through the site's passwords 
and encrypted protection. I didn't understand any of what the fourteen-year-old had to say, 
but Monnie got most of it. She was enthusiastic and supportive but mostly impressed.
  




Suddenly, Lili looked up in alarm. "Something's all wrong here." She went back to her 
computer.
                  




"Oh, shit! God damn them!" she swore. "Those creeps. I can't believe this."
  




"What's happened?" Monnie asked. "They changed the keys, didn't they?"
  




"Worse," Lili said, and kept tapping out commands rapidly. "Much, much worse. Awhh, 
horse spit. I can't believe it."
                 




She finally turned away from the glowing screen of her laptop.
                 




?first, I couldn't even find the site. They set up this very cool, very dynamic network _ it was 
in Detroit, Boston, Miami, bouncing all over the place. Then, when I did find it, I couldn't get 
on. Nobody can get into the site now except them."
     




"Why is that?" Monnie asked. "What happened between the last time you got in and now?"
      



"They installed an eye scan. It's almost impossible to fool. The whole thing is run by this guy who 
calls himself Wolf. Wolf's a very scary dude. He's Russian. Like a wolf from Siberia. I think he's 
even smarter than I am. And that's fucking smart."



 
                  



Chapter 67



                   




THE NEXT DAY I WORKED in the SIOC conference rooms on the ÿth floor of the Hoover. 
So did Monnie Donnelley, who still felt as if she were in limbo. We were keeping what we had 
learned from Lili Olsen quiet so that we could check out a few things. The main room was 
humming around us. The abductions were a major media story now. The Bureau had taken 
an incredible amount of heat in the past few years; they needed a win. No, I thought, we need 
a win.
                




A lot of important Bureau people were at the group meeting late that night: they included the 
heads of the Behavioral Analysis Unit_east and BAU-west, the unit chief of the Child 
Abduction Serial Murder Investigative Resource Center (CASMIRC), and the head of 
Innocent Images in Baltimore, an FBI unit dedicated to finding and eliminating sexual 
predators on the Internet. Stacy Pollack led the discussion again; she was clearly in charge of 
the case.





A male student from Holy Cross College in Massachusetts was missing, and a close friend of 
his had been found murdered on campus. Francis Deegan's physical resemblance to 
Benjamin Coffey, the student kidnapped in Newport, led many of us to believe that he had 
been selected as a replacement for Coffey, who was feared dead.
            




"I want to get approval for a reward, maybe half a million," said Jack Arnold, who ran BAU-
east. No one commented on the proposal. Several agents went on making notes or using their 
laptops. Actually, it was dispiriting.
                  




"I think I have something," I finally said from the back of the room.
               




Stacy Pollack looked my way. A few heads popped up, reacting to the break in the group's 
silence more than anything. I rose at my seat.
 




The FNG had the floor. I introduced Monnie, just to be cute. Then I told them about the 
Wolf's Den and our meeting with fourteen-year-old Lili Olsen. I also mentioned the Wolf, 
who, according to Monnie's findings, might have been a Russian gangster by the name of 
Pasha Sorokin. His pedigree was hard to trace, especially before he moved out of the USSR. 
"If we can get inside the Den somehow, I think we'll find out something about the missing 
women. In the meantime, I think we need to put more heat on some of the sites already 
identified by Innocent Images. It seems logical that the pervs using the Wolf's Den might visit 
porn sites too. We need help. If the Wolf turns out to be Pasha Sorokin, we'll need a lot of 
help." Stacy Pollack was interested. She led a discussion in which both Monnie and I were 
given the third degree. It was clear that we threatened some of the other agents in the room. 
Then Pollack made a decision.




"You can have resources," she said. "We'll watch the porn sites twenty-four/seven. Thing is, we 
have nothing better at this point. I want our Russian group out of New York on this too. I can't 
quite believe Pasha Sorokin would be personally involved in this, but if he is, it's huge. We've been 
interested in Sorokin for six years! We're very interested in the Wolf."



 
                  



Chapter 68



                   




DURING THE NEXT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS, more than thirty agents were assigned to 
surveillance of fourteen different porn sites and chat rooms. It had to be one of the most lurid 
"stakeouts" ever. We didn't know exactly who we were looking for _ other than anyone who 
happened to mention a site called the Wolf's Den, or possibly the Wolf. In the meantime, 
Monnie and I were gathering all the information we could about the Red Mafia and 
especially about Pasha Sorokin.
        




Later that afternoon, I had to leave. The timing couldn't have been much worse, but there 
wouldn't have been any good time for this. I'd been asked to attend a preliminary meeting 
with Christine Johnson's lawyers at the Blake Building in the Dupont Circle area. Christine 
was coming after Little Alex.
        




I arrived at a little before five and had to fight the tide of office workers streaming from the 
unusual twelve-story structure, which actually rounded the corner where Connecticut Avenue 
met L. I checked the downstairs registry and saw that the tenants in the building included 
Mazda, Barron's, the National Safety Council, and several law offices, including Mark, 
Haranzo, and Denyeau, which represented Christine.





I trudged to the elevator bank and pushed a button. Christine wanted custody of Alex Jr. Her 
attorney had arranged for this meeting in hopes of resolving things without going to court or 
resorting to alternative dispute resolution. I had talked to my attorney in the morning and 
decided not to have him present, since this was an "informal" meeting. I tried to have only 
one thought as I rode the elevator to the seventh floor: Do what is best for Little Alex. No 
matter what, or how it might make me feel.
          




I got off at seven and was met by Gilda Haranzo, who was slim and attractive, dressed in a 
charcoal suit with a white silk blouse knotted at the throat. My lawyer had competed against 
Ms. Haranzo and told me she was good, and also "on a mission." She was divorced from her 
physician husband and had custody of their two children. Her fees were high, but she and 
Christine had gone to Villanova together and were friends from back then.
         




"Christine is already in the conference room, Alex," she said after introducing herself. Then 
she added, "I'm sorry it's come to this. This case is difficult. There are no bad people 
involved. Will you please follow me?"





"I'm sorry it's come to this too," I said. I wasn't so sure that there weren't any bad guys, 
though. We'd see soon enough.
  




Ms. Haranzo led me to a midsize room with gray carpeting and light blue fabric walls. There 
was a glass table with six tony black leather chairs in the center of the room. The only things 
on the table were a pitcher of ice water, some glasses, and a laptop computer.
     




A row of tall windows looked out on Dupont Circle. Christine was standing near the windows, 
and she didn't speak as I entered. Then she walked over to the table and sat in one of the 
leather chairs.
                   



"Hello, Alex," she finally said.



 
                  



Chapter 69



                   




GILDA HARANZO SLID into her seat behind her laptop, and I chose a spot across from 
Christine at the glass conference table. All of a sudden, the loss of Little Alex seemed very 
real to me. The thought took my breath away. Whether it was a good decision or not, fair or 
unfair, Christine had walked away from us, moved thousands of miles away, and hadn't 
been to see him once. She'd knowingly relinquished her parental rights. Now she'd changed 
her mind. And what if she changed her mind again?
              




Christine said, "Thank you for coming here, Alex. I'm sorry about the circumstances. You 
must believe that I'm sorry."
     




I didn't know what to say. It wasn't that I was mad at her, but _ well, maybe I was angry. I'd 
had Little Alex almost all his life, and I couldn't stand the thought of losing him now. My 
stomach was dropping like an elevator in free fall. The experience was like seeing your child 
run into the street, about to have a serious accident, and not being able to stop it from 
happening, not being able to do a thing. I sat there very quietly and I held in a primal scream 
that would have shattered all the glass in the office.
   




Then the meeting began. The informal get-together. With no bad people in the room.





=r. Cross, thank you for taking the time to come here," Gilda Haranzo said, and threw a 
cordial smile my way.
          




"Why wouldn't I come?" I asked.
      




She nodded and smiled again. "We all want this problem to be settled amicably. You've been 
an excellent caregiver, and no one disputes that."
 




"I'm his father, Ms. Haranzo," I corrected.
                  




"Of course. But Christine is able to take care of the boy now, and she is the mother. She's 
also a primary-school principal in Seattle."
                   




I could feel my face and neck flushing. "She left Alex a year ago."
       




Christine spoke up. "That isn't fair, Alex. I told you that you could take him for now. Our 
arrangement was always meant to be temporary."
               




Ms. Haranzo asked, "Mr. Cross, isn't it true that your eighty-two-year-old grandmother takes 
care of the baby most of the time?"
   




"We all do," I said. "And besides, Nana wasn't too old last year when Christine left to go to 
Seattle. She's extremely capable, and I don't think you'd ever want Nana on the witness 
stand."
    




The lawyer continued, "Your work takes you away from home frequently, doesn't it?"
            




I nodded. "Occasionally it does. But Alex is always well cared for. He's a happy, healthy, 
bright child, smiles all the time. And he's loved. He's the center of our household."
       




Ms. Haranzo waited for me to finish, then she started in again. I felt as if I were on trial here. 
"Your work, Dr. Cross. It's dangerous. Your family has been put in grave danger before. Also, 
you've had intimate relationships with women since Ms. Johnson left. Isn't that so?"
 



I sighed. Then I slowly rose from the leather chair. "I'm sorry, but this meeting is over. Excuse me. 
I have to get out of here." At the door, I turned back to Christine. "This is wrong."



                   



Chapter 70



                   




I HAD TO GET OUT of there and put my mind somewhere else for a while. I returned to the 
Hoover Building, and no one seemed to have missed me. I couldn't help thinking that some 
of these agents squirreled away in the home office had no idea how crimes were solved in the 
real world. They almost seemed to believe that you fed data into computers and eventually 
they spit out a criminal. It happens on the street! Get out of this windowless "crisis" room with 
all the bad air. Work the sidewalks! I wanted to shout.
  




But I didn't say a word. I sat at a computer and read the latest on the Russian mob. I didn't 
see any promising connections. Plus, I couldn't really concentrate after my meeting with 
Christine's lawyers. Just past seven, I packed up my things and left the Hoover Building.
     




Nobody seemed to notice me leave. And then I wondered _ Is that such a bad thing?
   




When I got home, Nana was waiting at the front door. I was just walking up the steps when 
she opened the door and came outside. "You watch Little Alex, Damon. We'll be back in a 
while," she called through the screen door.
      




Nana limped down the front stairs and I followed her. "Where are we going?" I asked.
      




"We're going for a drive," she said. "You and I have some things to talk about."
    




Oh, shit.
   




I got back in the old Porsche and started it up. Nana flopped down in the passenger seat.
      




"Drive," she said.
   




"Yes, Miss Daisy."
 




"Don't give me any of your lip, either, or your sorry attempts at wit."
     




"Yes, ma'am."
         




"That's a good example of your lip."
          




"I know it is, ma'am."
 




I decided to head out west, toward the Shenandoah Mountains, a pretty ride and one of 
Nana's favorites. For the first part of the drive, we were both fairly quiet, unusual for the two 
of us.
        




"What happened at the lawyer's?" Nana finally asked as I turned onto Route 66.
            




I gave her the long version, probably because I needed to vent. She listened very quietly, then 
she did something unusual for her. Nana actually cursed. "The hell with Christine Johnson. 
She's wrong about this!"
   




"I can't completely blame Christine," I said. As much as I didn't want to, I could see her side 
of things.
 




"Well, I do. She left that sweet little baby and went to Seattle. She didn't have to go that far 
away. Her decision. Now she has to live with it."
             




I glanced over at Nana. Her face was screwed tight. "I don't know if that would be 
considered an enlightened point of view these days."
   




Nana waved away what I'd said. "I don't think these days are all that enlightened. You know 
I believe in women's rights, mothers_ rights, all of that, but I also believe you have to be held 
responsible for your actions. Christine walked away from that little boy. She walked away 
from her responsibility."
         




"You through?" I asked.
    




Nana had her arms folded tightly across her chest. "I am. And it felt good, real good. You 
ought to try it sometime. Vent, Alex. Lose control. Let it out."
    




I finally had to laugh. "I had the radio blasting all the way home from work, and I was yelling 
half the time. I'm more upset than you are, Nana."
               



For once _ and I don't ever remember this happening before _ she actually let me have the last 
word.



 
                  



Chapter 71



                   




JAMILLA CALLED THAT NIGHT around eleven o'clock _ eight o'clock her time. I hadn't 
spoken to her for a few days, and to be truthful, now wasn't the best time. Christine's visit to 
D.C. and the meeting with her lawyer had me tense and messed up. Shook. I tried not to show 
it, but that was wrong too.
         




"You never write, you never call," Jamilla said, and laughed in her usual loose and engaging 
way. "Don't tell me you're already wrapped up in a case for the Bureau? You are, aren't 
you?"
              




"A big nasty one, yeah. I'm sort of in and out of it," I told Jam, then quickly explained what 
was happening, and what wasn't, at the Hoover Building, including my mixed emotions 
about being with the Bureau _ all the stuff in my life that didn't really matter right now.
         




"You're the new guy on the block," she said. "Give it some time."
       




"I'm trying to be patient. It's just that I'm not used to this wasted motion, the wasted 
resources."





I heard her laugh. "That, and you're used to being the center of attention, don't you think? 
You've been a star, Alex."
      




I smiled. "You're right, you're right. That's part of it."
      




"You saw the Bureau from the other side of the fence. You knew what you were getting 
yourself into. Didn't you know?"
   




"I guess I should have, sure. But I listened to a lot of promises that were made when I signed 
up."
          




Jamilla sighed. "I know, I'm not being very sympathetic, empathetic, whatever. One of my 
faults."
     




"No, it's me."
            




"Yeah." She laughed again. "It is. I never heard you so down and out. Let's see what we can 
do to bring you up."
          




We talked about the case she was working on, then Jamilla asked about each of the kids. She 
was interested as always. But I was in a sour mood, and I couldn't shake it. I wondered if she 
could tell, and then I got my answer.
        




"Well," Jam said, "I just wanted to see how you were. Call if you have any news. I'm always 
here for you. I miss you, Alex."
      




"I miss you too," I said.
        




Then Jamilla broke the connection with a soft ;ye."
                 




I sat there shaking my head back and forth. Shit. What an ass I was sometimes. I was 
blaming Jamilla for what had happened with Christine, wasn't I? How dumb was that?
         



 


Chapter 72



                   




"HI THERE. I missed you," I said, and smiled. "And I'm sorry."
                  




Five minutes after Jamilla hung up, I called her back to try and make amends.
 




"You should be sorry, you poop. Glad to see your famous antennae are still working all right," 
she said.
        




"Not so hard to figure out. The crucial evidence was right before my eyes. That was the 
shortest phone talk we've ever had. Probably the most uncomfortable and frustrating too. I 
had one of my famous feelings about it."
    




"So what's the matter, Boy Scout? Is it the job or is it something else? Is it me, Alex? You can 
tell me if it is. I have to warn you, though, I carry a gun."
           




I laughed at her joke. Then I took a breath and let it out slowly. "Christine Johnson is back in 
town. It gets worse from there. She came for Little Alex. She wants to take him away, to get 
custody, probably take him to Seattle."
                   




I heard a sharp intake of breath, then, "Oh, Alex, that's terrible. Terrible. Did you talk to her 
about it?"
                   




"I sure did. I was at her lawyer's this afternoon. Christine finds it hard to be tough; her lawyer 
doesn't."





"Alex, has Christine seen the two of you together? How you are with him? You're like that old 
movie Kramer vs. Kramer. Dustin Hoffman and that cute little boy."
 




"No, she hasn't really watched us together, but I've seen her with Alex. He turned on the 
charm. Welcomed her back without any recriminations. Little traitor."
    




Jamilla was angry now. "Little Alex would. Always the perfect gentleman. Like his father."
        




"That, plus _ she is his mother. The two of them have a history, Jam. It's complicated."
          




"No, it isn't. Not for me, not for anybody with a brain. She left him, Alex. Separated herself 
by three thousand miles. Stayed away for a year. What's to say she won't do it again? So 
what are you going to do now?"
      




That was the big question, wasn't it?
 




"What do you think? What would you do?"
        




Jam sniffed out a laugh. "Oh, you know me , I'd fight her like hell."
             



I finally smiled. "That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to fight Christine like hell."



                   



Chapter 73



                   




THE PHONE CALLS weren't over for the night. As soon as I got off with Jamilla, and we're 
talking sixty seconds here, the infernal contraption started to ring. I wondered if it was 
Christine. I really didn't want to talk about Alex right now. What would she want to say to me 
_ and what could I say to her?
  




The phone wouldn't stop ringing, though. I looked at my watch. Saw it was past midnight. 
Now what? I hesitated before finally snatched it up.
          




"Alex Cross," I said.
                   




"Alex. This is Ron Burns. Sorry to call you so late. I'm just flying into D.C. from New York. 
Another conference on counterterrorism, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean right 
now. Nobody seems to know exactly how to fight the bastards, but everybody has a theory."
                   




"Play by their rules. Of course, that would inconvenience a few people," I said. "And it's sure 
not politically or socially correct."
 




Burns laughed. "You go to the heart of the matter," he said. "And you aren't timid about 
your ideas."
              




I said, "Speaking of which . . ."
                   




"I know you're a little pissed," he said. "I don't blame you after what's been happening. The 
Bureau runaround, everything you were warned about. You have to understand something, 
Alex. I'm trying to turn around a very slow-moving ocean liner. In the Potomac. Trust me for 
a little longer. By the way, why are you still in D.C.? Not up in New Hampshire?"
            




I blinked, didn't understand. "What's in New Hampshire? Oh, shit, don't tell me."
         




"We have a suspect. Nobody told you, did they? Your idea about tracking the mentions of 
the Wolf's Den on the Internet worked. We got somebody!"
      




I couldn't believe what I was hearing now, at midnight. "Nobody told me. I've been home 
since I left work."
     




There was a silence on his end. "I'm going to make a couple of calls. Get on a plane in the 
morning. They'll be expecting you in New Hampshire. Believe me, they will be expecting you. 
And Alex, trust me a little longer."
              



"Yeah, I will." A little longer.



                   



Chapter 74



                   




IT SEEMED BOTH UNLIKELY and peculiar, but a respected assistant professor of English 
at Dartmouth was the subject of the FBI surveillance in New Hampshire. He had recently 
gone into a chat room called Taboo and bragged about an exclusive Web site where anything 
could be bought, if you had enough money.
   




An agent at SIOC had downloaded the strange conversation with Mr. Potter . . .
             




Boyfriend: Exactly how much is enough money to buy anything"?
                 




Mr. Potter: More than you have, my friend. Anyway, there's an eyes can to keep out riffraff 
like yourself.
             




The Package: We're honored that you're slumming with us tonight.
          




Mr.Potter:The Wolf's Den is only open about two hours a week. None of you are invited, of 
course.
   




It turned out that Mr. Potter was the moniker used by Dr. Homer Taylor. Guilty or not, Dr. 
Taylor was under a microscope right now. Twenty-four agents in two-person teams working 
eight-hour shifts were watching every step he took in Hanover. During the work week, he lived 
in a small Victorian house near the college and walked back and forth to classes. He was a 
thin, balding, proper-looking man who wore English-made suits with bright-colored bow ties 
and purposefully uncoordinated suspenders. He always looked very pleased with himself. 
We'd learned from college authorities that he was teaching Restoration and Elizabethan 
drama as well as a Shakespeare seminar that semester.
                  




His classes were extremely popular and so was he. Dr. Taylor had the reputation of being 
available to students, even ones who weren't actually taking his courses. He was also known 
for his quick wit and nasty sense of humor. He often played to standing room only, which he 
called full houses," and frequently acted out scenes, both the male and female parts.
            




It was assumed that he was gay, but no one was aware of any serious relationships the 
professor had. He owned a farm about fifty miles away in Webster, New Hampshire, where 
he spent most weekends. Occasionally, Taylor went to Boston or New York, and he'd spent 
several summers in Europe. There had never been an incident with a student, though some of 
the males called him Puck, a few to his face.
        




The surveillance on Taylor was difficult, given the college-town atmosphere. So far, it was 
believed that our agents hadn't been spotted. But we couldn't be certain of that. Taylor 
hadn't been seen doing much beyond teaching his classes and returning home.
        




The second day in Hanover, I was in a surveillance car, a dark blue Crown Vic, along with an 
agent named Peggy Katz. Agent Katz had been raised in Lexington, Massachusetts. She was 
a very serious person whose main hobby seemed to be an avid interest in professional 
basketball. She could talk about the NBA or WNBA for hours, which she did during our 
surveillance time together.
 




The other agents on with us that night were Roger Nielsen, Charles Powiesnik, and Michelle 
Bugliarello. Powiesnik was the special agent in charge. I wasn't really sure where I fit in, but 
they all knew I'd been sent by Washington, and by Ron Burns himself.
 




"The good Dr. Taylor is going out. Could be interesting," Katz and I heard over our two-way 
late that night. We couldn't actually see his house from where we were parked.
     




"He's coming your way. You pick him up first," said Special Agent in Charge Powiesnik.
 




Katz turned on the headlights, and we pulled up to a corner. Then we waited for Taylor to 
pass. His Toyota 4Runner appeared a moment later.
        




"He's going out toward I-89," she reported in. "Proceeding at about forty-five, keeping within 
the speed limit, which makes him suspicious in my book. Maybe headed to his farm in 
Webster. Kind of late for picking tomatoes, though."
 




"We'll have Nielsen precede him on I-89. You stay behind. Michelle and I will be right with 
you," said Powiesnik.
       




That sounded familiar to me, and apparently to Agent Katz, since she muttered, "Right," as 
soon as she signed off.
                  




Once he exited 89, Taylor made turns on a couple of narrow side roads. He was doing close 
to sixty.
    




"Seems to be in a little more of a hurry now," Peggy said.
  




Then Taylor's Toyota veered off onto a drive that appeared to be dirt. We had to stay back 
or be spotted. Fog lay low over the farmlands, and we proceeded slowly until we could safely 
park on the side of the road. The other FBI cars hadn't arrived yet; at least, we didn't see any 
of them. We got out of our sedan and headed back into the woods.
                 




Then we could see Taylor's Toyota parked in front of a shadowy farmhouse. A light 
eventually blinked on inside the house, then another. Agent Katz was quiet, and I wondered if 
she'd been involved in anything quite as heavy as this before. I didn't think that she had.
             




"We can see Taylor's Toyota at the house," she reported to Powiesnik.
                 




Then she turned to me. "So now what?" she asked in a whisper.
  




"It's not up to us," I said.
        




"If it was?"
                  




"I'd move in closer on foot. I want to see if that missing kid from Holy Cross is in there. We 
don't know how much danger he's in."
       




Powiesnik contacted us again. "We're going to take a look. You and Agent Cross stay where 
you are. Watch our backs."
  




Agent Katz turned to me and sniffed out a laugh. "Powiesnik means watch our dust, doesn't 
he?"
   



"Or eat our dust," I said.


"Or suck hind tit," grumped Katz.


Maybe she hadn't seen any action before, but she apparently wanted some now. And I had a 
feeling Agent Katz might get her wish.



 
                  



Chapter 75



                   




"OVER THERE, heading toward the barn," I said, and pointed. "That's Taylor. What's he 
doing?"
  




"Powiesnik is on the other side of the house. He probably can't see that Taylor is outside," 
said Agent Katz.
                




"Let's see what he's up to."
     




Katz hesitated. "You're not going to get me shot, are you?"
      




"No," I said, a little too quickly. This was getting complicated all of a sudden. I wanted to 
follow Taylor, but I felt I had to watch out for Katz too.
        




"Let's go," Katz finally said, reaching a decision. "Taylor is out of the house. He's headed 
southwest," she alerted Powiesnik. "We're following."
                  




The two of us hurried forward for a hundred yards or so. We had some ground to make up, 
and we wanted to keep Taylor in sight. There was a half-moon overhead and that helped, but 
it was also possible that Taylor might see us coming. We could lose him easily now, especially 
if he was suspicious.
                




He didn't seem to be aware of anything going on around him _ at least not so far. Which got 
me thinking that he was used to sneaking around out here late at night. Not worrying about 
being seen by anyone. This was his private reserve, wasn't it? I watched him go inside the 
barn.
        




"We should call in again," Katz said.
    




I didn't disagree completely, but I was nervous about the other agents coming up fast and 
making noise. How many of them had experience in the field?
       




"You better call in," I finally agreed.
          




It took the other agents a couple of minutes to get to the edge of the woods, where we were 
crouched behind tall brush. Light from inside the barn shone through cracks and holes in the 
weatherboarding. We couldn't see or hear much from where we were hiding.
     




Then music blasted from somewhere in the barn. I recognized a choral arrangement by 
Queen. A lyric about riding a bicycle. Totally whacked at this time of night, playing in the 
middle of nowhere.
 




"There's no evidence of violence in his past," Powiesnik said as he crouched beside me.
           




"Or kidnapping, either," I said. "But he might have somebody in that barn. Maybe the kid 
from Holy Cross. Taylor knew about the Wolf's Den, even the eye scan. I doubt he's an 
innocent bystander."
               




"We're moving on Taylor," the senior agent ordered. "He may be armed," he told the agents. 
"Proceed as if he is."
            




He assigned Nielsen and Bugliarello to surveil the far side of the barn in case Taylor tried to 
get out some other way. Powiesnik, Katz, and I were going in the door that Taylor had 
entered.
             




"You okay with this?" I asked Powiesnik. "Going in after him now?"
    




"It's already been decided," he said in a tight voice.
             




So we moved forward, toward the barn door. Queen continued to play loudly inside. "I want 
to ride my bicycle! Bicycle! Bicycle!" This was a strange feeling, all of it. The Bureau had 
excellent resources for getting information, and their personnel were certainly book smart and 
well trained, but in the past I'd always known and trusted those I went into a dangerous crime 
scene with.
    




The wooden barn door hadn't been latched or locked by Taylor. We could see that as we 
crouched in tall brush a few yards away.
      




Suddenly the music stopped.





Then I heard loud voices inside. More than one. But I couldn't make out what was being said 
or who was doing the talking.
                 




"We should take him down. Now," I whispered to Powiesnik. "We're already committed. We 
have to go."
      




Don't tell me _"
        




"I'm telling you," I said.
        




I wanted to take over from Powiesnik. He was hesitating much too long. Once we had moved 
so close to the barn, we shouldn't have stopped.





"I'll go first. Come in behind me," I finally said.
        




Powiesnik didn't overrule me, didn't argue. Katz didn't say a word.
               




I ran very quickly toward the barn, my gun out of my holster. I was there in seconds. The 
door made a heavy creaking sound when I pulled it open. Bright light escaped outside, 
splintering into my eyes for a second. "FBI!" I yelled at the top of my voice. FBI! Jesus!
     




Taylor looked at me and his eyes filled with surprise, fear. I had a clear shot at him. He'd had 
no idea he was being followed. He'd been operating in his own private safety zone, hadn't 
he? I could see that now.
            




I could also make out someone else in the shadows of the barn. He was tied with leather 
bindings to a wooden post attached to a beam in the hayloft. He had no clothes on. Nothing. 
His chest and genitals were bloodied. But Francis Deegan was alive!
                  




"You're under arrest . . . Mr. Potter."
          



Chapter 76



                   




THE FIRST INTERVIEW with Potter took place in his small library in the farmhouse. It was 
cozy and tastefully furnished, and gave no hint of the horrible acts going on elsewhere on the 
property. Potter sat on a dark wooden bench with his wrists handcuffed in front of him. His 
dark eyes boiled over in anger directed at me.
           




I sat in a straight-backed chair directly across from him. For a long moment we glared at each 
other, then I let my eyes wander around the room. Bookcases and cabinets had been custom 
built and covered every wall. A large oak desk held a computer and printer, as well as wooden 
in and out boxes, and stacks of ungraded papers. A green wooden sign behind the desk read 
;less This Mess." There was no hint of the real Taylor, or "Potter," anywhere.





I noticed authors_ names on the spines of the books: Richard Russo, Jamaica Kincaid, Zadie 
Smith, Martin Amis, Stanley Kunitz.
      




It was rumored that the Bureau often had an incredible amount of information on a subject 
before an interview was conducted. This was true with Taylor. I already knew about his 
boyhood spent in Iowa, then his years as a student at Iowa and NYU. No one had suspected 
he had a dark side. He had been up for promotion and tenure this year, and had been 
working to finish a book on Milton's Paradise Lost, as well as an article on John Donne. 
Drafts of the literary projects were laid out on the desk.
       




I got up and looked through the pages. He's organized. He compartmentalizes beautifully, I 
was thinking. "Interesting stuff," I said.
               




3/4 careful with those," he warned.
 




"Oh, sorry. I'll be careful," I said, as if anything he had written about Milton or Donne 
mattered anymore. I continued to look through his books _ the OED, The Riverside 
Shakespeare, Shakespeare and Milton quarterlies, Gravity's Rainbow, a Merck Manual.
     




"This interrogation is illegal. You must know that. I want to see my lawyer," he said as I sat 
down again. "I demand it."
                   




"Oh, we're just talking," I said. "This is only an interview. We're waiting for a lawyer to get 
here. Just getting to know you."
        




"Has my lawyer been called? Ralph Guild in Boston?" Taylor asked. "Tell me. Don't fuck 
with me."
         




:s far as I know," I said. "Let's see, we busted you at around eight A.M. He was called at 
eight-thirty."
               




Taylor looked at his watch. His dark eyes blazed. "It's only twelve-thirty now!"
       




I shrugged. "Well, no wonder your lawyer isn't here yet. You haven't even been apprehended. 
So, you teach English lit, right? I liked literature in school, read a lot, still do, but I loved the 
sciences."
          




Taylor continued to glare at me. "You forget that Francis was taken to the hospital. The time 
is on the record."
         




I snapped my fingers and winced. "Right. Of course it is. He was picked up at a little past 
nine. I signed the form myself," I said. "I have a doctorate, like yourself. In psychology, from 
Johns Hopkins, down in Baltimore."





Homer Taylor rocked back and forth on the bench. He shook his head. "You don't scare me, 
you fucking asshole. I can't be intimidated by little people like you. Trust me. I doubt you 
have a Ph.D. Maybe from Alcorn State. Or Jackson State."
     




I ignored the baiting. =id you kill Benjamin Coffey? I think you did. We'll start looking for 
the body a little later this morning. Why don't you save us the trouble?"





Taylor finally smiled. "Save you the trouble? Why would I do that?"
      




"I actually have a pretty good answer. Because you're going to need my help later on."
           




"Well, then, I'll save you some trouble later on, after you help me." Taylor smirked. "What 
are you?" he finally asked. "The FBI's idea of affirmative action?"
  




I smiled. "No. Actually, I'm your last chance. You better take it."
           



Chapter 77



                   




THE LIBRARY IN the farmhouse was empty except for Potter and me. He was handcuffed, 
totally cool and unafraid, glaring menacingly.
              




"I want my lawyer," he said again.
          




"I'll bet you do. I would if I were you. I'd be making a real scene in here."
        




Taylor finally smiled. His teeth were badly stained. "How about a cigarette? Give me 
something."
              




I gave him one. I even lit it for him. "Where did you bury Benjamin Coffey?" I asked again.
      




"So, you're really the one in charge?" he asked. "Interesting. The world turns, doesn't it? The 
worm too."
   




I ignored his question. "Where is Benjamin Coffey?" I repeated. "Is he buried out here? I'm 
sure he is."
                




"Then why ask? If you already know the answer."
              




"Because I don't want to waste time digging up these fields or dredging the pond over there."
     




"I really can't help you. I don't know a Benjamin Coffey. Of course, Francis was here of his 
own free will. He hated it at Holy Cross. The Jesuits don't like us. Well, some of the priests 
don't."
           




"The Jesuits don't like who? Who else is involved with you?"
      




"You're actually funny, for a police drone. I like a bit of dry humor now and then."
       




I stretched my leg out, struck his chest, and knocked his bench over. He hit the floor hard. 
Banged his head. I could see that it shook him, surprised him, anyway. Must have hurt at 
least a little bit.
            




"That supposed to scare me?" he asked, once he'd gotten his breath. He was angry now, red 
faced, the veins in his neck pulsing. That was a start. "I want my lawyer! I'm explicitly asking 
you for a lawyer!" He began to yell over and over again: "Lawyer! Lawyer! Lawyer! Lawyer! 
Can anyone hear me?"
       




Taylor kept yelling at me for over an hour _ like some sociopathic kid who wasn't getting his 
way. I let him scream and curse until he started to get hoarse. I even went outside and 
stretched my legs, drank some coffee, chatted with Charlie Powiesnik, who was a pretty good 
guy.
  




When I came back inside, Potter looked changed. He'd had time to think about everything 
that had happened at the farm. He knew that we were talking to Francis Deegan and that 
we'd find Benjamin Coffey too. Maybe a few others.
     




He sighed out loud. "I assume we can make some sort of arrangement to my liking. Mutually 
beneficial."
                




I nodded. "I'm sure we can make an arrangement. But I need something concrete in return. 
How did you get the boys? How did it work? That's what I need to hear from you."
        




I waited for him to answer. Several minutes passed.
     




"I'll tell you where Benjamin is," he finally said.
                




"You'll tell me that too."
         




I waited some more. Took another turn outside with Charlie. Came back to the study.
      




"I bought the boys from the Wolf," Potter finally said. "But you'll be sorry you asked. So will 
I, probably. He'll make both of us pay. In my humble opinion, and remember, this is just a 
college professor talking, the Wolf is the most dangerous man alive. He's Russian. Red 
Mafia."
              




"Where do we find the Wolf?" I asked. "How do you contact him?"
           




"I don't know where he is. Nobody does. He's a mystery man. That's his thing, his 
trademark. I think it turns him on."
          




It took several more hours of talking, bargaining, and negotiating, but Potter finally told me 
some of what I wanted to know about the Wolf, this Russian mystery man who impressed 
him so. Late in the day, I wrote in my notes, This makes no sense yet. None of it does, really. 
The Wolf's scheme seems insane. Is it?
                   




Then I wrote my final thought, at least for the moment:
              




The brilliance of it may be that it makes no sense.
    




To us.
      



To me.



                   



 



                   




                   




Part Four INSIDE THE DEN
                  



Chapter 78



                   




STACY POLLACK WAS a solemn and commanding presence in front of the roomful of 
agents gathered on the fifth floor of the Hoover Building. It was standing room only for her 
meeting. I was one of those standing in the back, but just about everybody knew who I was 
after our New Hampshire success bringing in Potter. We had rescued another captive _ 
Francis Deegan was going to be fine. We'd also found the bodies of Benjamin Coffey and 
two other males, unidentified so far.
      




"Unaccustomed as I am to having things go our way," Pollack began, and got a laugh, "I'll 
take this latest development and offer humble thanks to the powers that be. This is a very 
good break for us. As many of you know, the Wolf has been a key target on our Red Mafia 
list, probably the key target. He's rumored to be into everything _ weapon sales, extortion, 
sports fixing, prostitution, the white slave market. His name seems to be Pasha Sorokin and 
he seems to have learned his trade on the outskirts of Moscow. I say seems because nothing 
is a sure thing when it comes to this guy. Somehow he maneuvered his way into the KGB, 
where he lasted three years. He then became a pakhan, a boss, in the Russian underworld but 
decided to emigrate to America. Where he completely disappeared.
           




"We actually believed that he was dead for a while. Apparently not, at least if we can believe 
Mr. Potter. Can we believe him?" Pollack gestured in my direction. "This is Agent Alex Cross, 
by the way. He helped with the takedown in New Hampshire."
             




"I think we can believe Potter," I said. "He knows that we need him; he definitely 
understands what he has to offer us _ a possible lead to Sorokin. He also warned me that the 
Wolf will come after us. His mission is to be the top gangster in the world. According to Potter, 
that's what the Wolf is."
            




"So why the white slave market?" one of the ASAC's asked. "There's not that much money 
in it. It's risky. What's the point? Sounds like bullshit to me. Maybe we've been had."
       




"We don't know why he acts the way he does. It's troubling, I agree. Maybe it's his roots, his 
patterns," an agent from the New York offices Russia group said. "He's always had his 
fingers in whatever he could. It goes back to his days on the streets of Moscow. Also, the 
Wolf likes women himself. He's kinky."
                   




"I don't think he likes them," said a woman agent from
  




D.C. "Honestly, Jeff."
        




The New York agent continued: "There's a rumor that he walked into a club in Brighton 
Beach a couple weeks ago and wasted one of his ex-wives. That's his style. He once sold two 
of his female cousins from the home country on the slave market. The thing to remember 
about Pasha Sorokin is that he has no fears. He expected to die young in Russia. He's 
surprised that he's still alive. He likes it on the edge."
                   




Stacy Pollack took the floor again. "Let me tell you a couple of other stories to give you a 
sense of who we're dealing with. It seems that Pasha manipulated the CIA to get him out of 
Russia originally. That's right, the CIA transported him here. He was supposed to give them 
all sorts of information, but he never delivered. When he first got to New York, he sold babies 
out of an apartment in Brooklyn. According to the stories, in one day alone he sold six babies 
to suburban couples for ten thousand dollars apiece. More recently he swindled a Miami 
bank out of two hundred million. He likes what he does and he's obviously good at it. And 
now we know an Internet site he visits. We may even be able to get on the site. We're working 
on it. We're as close to the Wolf as we've ever been. Or so we like to believe."
       



Chapter 79



                   




THE WOLF WAS in Philadelphia that night, birthplace of a nation, though not his nation. He 
never showed it, but he was anxious, and he liked the emotional charge it gave him.
 




It made him feel more alive. He also liked it that he was invisible, that no one knew who he 
was, that he could go anywhere, do anything he wanted to do. Tonight, he was watching the 
Flyers play Montreal at the First Union Center in Philly. The hockey game was one he had 
arranged to have fixed, but nothing had happened so far, which was why he was anxious, 
and also very angry.
      




As the second period was winding down, the score was 2-1. Flyers! He was seated at center 
ice, four rows back behind the penalty boxes, close to the action. To distract himself he 
watched the crowd _ a mix of yuppies in business suits and loosened ties and blue-collar 
types in oversized Flyers jerseys. Everybody seemed to have plastic tubs of nachos and 
twenty-ounce cups of beer.
   




His eyes shifted back to the game. Players rushed around the rink at dazzling speeds, making 
a slashing sound as the blades of their skates tore into the ice. C'mon, c'mon. Do something! 
he urged.
     




Then suddenly he saw Ilia Teptev out of position. There was the shotgun crash of a slapshot 
as it left the stick. Goal _ Canadians! The crowd erupted with insults: "You suck, Ilia! You 
throwing this game?"
  




Then the announcer came over the PA. Ênadien goal by number eighteen, Stevie Bowen. 
Time of goal, nineteen minutes and thirty-two seconds."
          




The period ended like that, 2-2. The Zamboni chugged out, resurfacing the ice between 
periods. More beer and more nachos were consumed. And the ice became a slick glass sheet 
once again.
               




For the next sixteen minutes, the game was knotted at 2-2. The Wolf wanted to garrote 
Teptev and Dobushkin. Then the Canadian center, Bowen, plowed through a halfhearted 
check and burst into the Flyer zone. He dropped a pass along the right boards. A shot! Wide! 
Recovered by Alexei Dobushkin _ who settled behind his own net with the puck.
       




He skated to his right, then snapped a pass across the ice _ across the goal mouth _ and it 
was picked off by Bowen. Bowen slapped the puck into the corner of the net.
           




Goal _ Canadians!
 




The Wolf smiled for the first time that night. Then he turned to his companion, his seven-
year-old son, Dimitri, whose existence would have surprised everyone who supposedly knew 
the Wolf.
 




"Let's go, Dimmie, the game's over. The Canadians will win. Just like I told you they would. 
Didn't I tell you?"
     




Dimitri wasn't convinced about the outcome, but he knew better than to argue with his 
father. "You were right, Daddy," said the boy. "You're always right."
       



Chapter 80



                   




THAT NIGHT AT eleven-thirty I planned to enter the Wolf's Den for the first time. I needed 
the help of Mr. Potter, though. Homer Taylor had been moved to Washington for the 
purpose. I needed his eyes.





The two of us sat close together, Taylor in cuffs, in an operation room on the fifth floor of the 
Hoover. The professor was nervous, and I guessed that he was having second thoughts about 
our arrangement with respect to the Wolf. "Don't think that he won't get to you. He's 
relentless. He's crazy," he warned me again.
   




"I've avoided crazy men before," I said. "We still have a deal?"
     




"We do. What choice do I have? But you'll regret it. So will I, I'm afraid."





"We're going to protect you."
             




His eyes narrowed. "So you say."
           




The night had been a busy one already. The top computer experts at the Bureau had tried 
password-cracking software to get into the Wolf's Den. So far, everything had failed. So had 
a ''brute force" attack that could often decode encrypted data by feeding in combinations of 
letters and numbers. Nothing had worked. We needed Mr. Potter to get inside. We needed his 
eyes. The blood vessel patterns of the retina and the pattern of specks on the iris provided 
unique methods of identification. Scanning involved a low-intensity light source and an 
optical coupler.
        




Potter put one eye up to the device and then focused on a red dot. An impression was taken 
and then sent on. Seconds later, we had access.
       




This is Potter, I typed as Taylor was led out of the operations room. He would be transferred 
to Lorton Federal Prison for the night, then taken back to New England. I put him out of my 
mind, but I wouldn't be able to forget his warning about the Wolf.
         




We were just talking about you, said someone with the user name Master Trekr.
      




I wondered why my ears were buzzing, I typed, and wondered if I was communicating with 
the Wolf for the first time. Was he on-line? If so, where was he? What city?





I was center stage in the operation room used by SIOC. More than a dozen agents and 
technicians were gathered around me. Most were on computers too. The scene looked like a 
very high-tech classroom.
                




Master Trekr: Weren't really talking about you, Potter. UR paranoid. Same as it ever was.
                




I looked at the other user names:
              




Sphinx 3000
              




ToscaBella
               




Louis XV
 




Sterling 66
                 




No Wolf. Did that mean he wasn't on-line in the Den? Or was he Master Trekr? Was he 
observing me now? Was I passing his test?
         




I need a replacement for "Worcester," I typed. Potter had told me that Francis Deegan's code 
name was Worcester.
                




Sphinx 3000: Take a number. We were talking about my package. My delivery. It's my turn. 
You know that, you fruitcake.





I didn't respond at first. This was my first test. Would Potter apologize to Sphinx 3000? I 
didn't think he would. More likely, he'd come back with a caustic reply. Or would he? I chose 
to say nothing for now.
        




Sphinx 3000: Fuck U, too.I know what UR thinking. U kinky bastard.
  




Sphinx 3000: As I was saying before I was interrupted. I want a southern belle, the more 
hung up on herself, the more self-absorbed she is, the better. I want a nice goddess, who I 
plan to shatter. Totally into herself. She wears Chanel and Miu Miu and Bulgari jewelry, even 
to the shopping mall. Heels, of course. I don't care if she's tall or short. Beautiful face. Pert 
tits.
            




ToscaBella: How original.
  




Sphinx 3000: Fuck original, and, sorry to repeat myself, but fuck U. Give me that old-time 
rock-and-roll music. I want what I want, and I've earned it.





Sterling 66: Anything else? This southern belle of yours? In her twenties? Thirties? Sphinx 
3000: That'd be good. All or any of the
            




above. Louis XV: Teens? Sterling 66: How long do you plan to keep her
      




around? Sphinx 3000: One glorious night of ecstasy and
                   




wild abandon...just one night. Sterling 66: And then? 
Sphinx3000:I_mgoingtodisposeofher.Now,do
         




I get my goddess?
 



There was a pause.


No answer came from anyone.


What was going on? I wondered.


Of course U do, answered Wolf. Just be careful,



                   




Sphinx. Be very careful. We're being watched.




Chapter 81



                   




I WASN_T SURE how to react to the Wolf, or his message to Sphinx. Should I speak now? 
Did he know we were on to him? How could he?
         




Sterling 66: Now what's your problem, Mr. Potter?
                   




This was my chance. I wanted to try and draw out Wolf if I could. But could I pull it off? I 
was aware that everyone was watching me in the operation room.
       




I don't have a problem, I typed. I'm just ready for another boy. U know I'm good for it. 
Haven't I always been?
     




Sterling 66: UR ready for another boy? U just recently received "Worcester." About a week 
ago?
            




I typed: Yes, but he's left us.
                




Sphinx 3000: That's very funny. U R so cute, Potter. Such a cute psycho killer.
   




Sphinx didn't like Potter, did he? I had to assume the feeling was mutual. I typed, I love U 
too. We should get together and bond in person.
                   




Sterling 66: When U say "He's left us," I assume U mean that he's dead?
        




Mr.Potter: Yes, the dear boy passed. I'm over my grieving, though. Ready to move on.





Sphinx 3000: Hilarious.
                   




This bickering was starting to get on my nerves. Who the hell were these sick bastards? Where 
were they? Besides cyberspace?
            




I have someone in mind. I've been watching him for awhile, I typed.
         




Sphinx 3000: I'll bet he's gorgeous.
        




I typed: Oh, he is. One of a kind. The love of my life.
          




Sterling 66: U said that about Worcester. What city?
         




I typed: Boston. Cambridge, actually. He's a student at Harvard. Working for his doctorate. 
Argentinean, I believe. Rides polo ponies in the summer.
 




Sterling 66: Where did U bump into this one, Potter?
              




The next tidbit I'd gotten from Homer Taylor himself. Actually, I did bump into him. He's so 
firm.
          




Sphinx 3000: Where did you meet him? Tell, tell.
  




I typed: I was at Harvard for a symposium.
              




Sterling 66: On?
       



I typed: Milton. Of course.


Sterling 66: He was attending?



I typed: No, I literally bumped into him. In the men's room. I watched him for the rest of the 
day. Found out where he lived. Been studying him for three months.
   




Sterling 66: So why did U purchase Worcester?
               




I knew the question was coming. Impulse, I typed. Then, But this boy in Cambridge, 
that_struelove. Notacasual thing.
    



Sterling 66: So U have a name? An address?


I typed: I do. And I have my checkbook.



Sterling 66: Worcester won't be found? U R certain?
                   




I could hear Potter's voice in my head as I typed.
    



Good Lord, no. Not unless someone goes swimming in my septic tank.



 
Sphinx 3000: Gross, Potter. I love it.




 
Sterling 66: Well, if U have checkbook in hand.




Wolf: No. We'll wait on this. It's too soon,
                   




Potter. We'll get back to you. As always, I've enjoyed our talk, but I have other matters to 
attend to.
               




Wolf signed off. He was gone. Shit. He'd come and gone just like that. The mystery man, as 
always. Who was this bastard?
    




I stayed on-line, chatting with the others for a few minutes _ expressing my disappointment 
at the decision, my eagerness to make a purchase. Then I left the site too.
         



I looked around the operation room at my colleagues. A few began to clap, partly mocking me, 
but mostly it was genuinely congratulatory. Cop-to-cop stuff. Almost like old times. I felt 
marginally accepted by the others in the room. For the first time, actually.



 
                  



Chapter 82



                   




WE WAITED TO HEAR from the Wolf's Den. Everyone in the overcrowded room wanted to 
take the Wolf down in the worst way. He was a complicated and twisted criminal, but besides 
that, the FBI needed a win; a lot of people working their asses off needed it. Snaring the Wolf 
would be a tremendous victory. If we could just find him. And what if we could get all of the 
other sick bastards too? Sphinx. ToscaBella. Louis XV. Sterling.
              




Still, something was bothering me a lot. If the Wolf was as powerful and successful as he 
seemed to be, why was he involved in this at all? Because he'd always been into lots of kinds 
of crimes? Or because he was a sex freak himself? Was that it, the Wolf was a freak? Where 
could I go with that line of thinking?
 




He's a freak, and therefore...?
               




Except for a couple of hours when I went home to see the kids, I remained inside the Hoover 
Building for the next day and a half. So did a lot of other agents on the case, even Monnie 
Donnelley, who was as emotionally invested in this as anybody. We continued to collect 
information, especially about Russian mobsters in the States, but mostly we waited for a 
message from the Wolf's Den to Mr. Potter. A yes or a no, a go or a no go. What was the 
bastard waiting for?





I talked to Jamilla several times _ good talks _ also to Sampson, the kids, Nana Mama. I 
even talked to Christine. I had to find out where her head was at about Little Alex. After our 
talk, I wasn't sure if she knew, which was the most disturbing thing of all. I began to detect an 
ambivalent tone in her voice when she spoke about raising Alex, even though she said she 
was prepared to sue for custody. Considering all she'd been through, it was hard for me to 
stay angry at her.
    




I would rather have given up my right arm than my little boy, though. Just thinking about it 
gave me a headache that throbbed continuously and made the long wait for a resolution 
even worse.
     




The phone on my desk rang around ten on the second evening, and I picked up right away. 
"Waiting for my call? How's it going?" It was Jamilla, and though she sounded close, she was 
all the way across the country in California.
              




"Sucks," I said. "I'm stuck in a small windowless room with eight smelly FBI hackers."
                   




"That good, huh? So I take it the Wolfman hasn't gotten back with an answer."
 




"No. And it's not just that." I told Jamilla about my phone call with Christine.
            




She wasn't nearly as sympathetic to Christine as I was. "Who the hell does she think she is? 
She walked out on her little boy."
           




"It's more complicated than that," I said.
               




"No, it isn't, Alex. You always like to give people the benfit of the doubt. You think people 
are basically good."
    




"I guess I do. That_s the reason I can do my job. Because most people are basically good 
and they don't deserve the shit that gets heaped on them."
   




Jamilla laughed. "Well, neither do you. Think about that. Neither do Little A., Damon, Jannie, 
Nana Mama. Not that you asked for my opinion. I'll shut up now. So what is going on with 
the case? Change the subject to something more pleasant."
                  




"We're waiting on this Russian hood and his creeped-out friends. I still don't understand why 
he's involved in a kidnapping ring."
    




"You're at FBI headquarters, the Hoover cube? That's where you're calling from?"
           




"Yes, but it's not exactly a cube. It's only seven stories on Pennsylvania Avenue because of 
the D.C. building codes. And eleven stories in back."
      




"Thanks for sharing that. You're starting to sound like a Feebie. I'll bet it feels weird to be in 
there."
     




"No, I just figure I'm on the fifth floor. Could be in either part of the building."
                   




"Ha ha. No, working the other side, the dark side. Being in the J. Edgar Hoover Building. 
Being a Feebie. Just thinking about it makes me shiver."
 




"The waiting is the same, Jam. The wailing's always the same."
    




:t least you have good friends to talk to some of the time. At least you have some nice phone 
pals."
      




"I do, don't I. And you're right, it's easier waiting here with you."
                   




"I'm glad you feel that way. We need to see each other, Alex. We need to touch each other. 
There are things we have to talk about."





"I know that. As soon as this case is over. I promise. I'll be on the first plane."
    




Jamilla laughed again. "Well, get cracking, boy. Catch the big bad Wolf psycho bastard. 
Otherwise I'll be on my own plane east."
                   




"Promise?"
               




"Promise."
                



Chapter 83



                   




A DOZEN OR SO AGENTS were sitting around eating thick roast beef sandwiches and 
German potato salad and drinking iced tea when contact with the Wolf's Den was made 
again. "Roast beef" had a special meaning inside the FBI, but that was another story. The 
Wolf was calling.
     




Potter. We've made a decision on your request, the e-mail said. Get back to us.
                   




The group continued to eat. We agreed there was no need to get back to the Wolf instantly. It 
would raise his suspicions if Potter was there waiting for the call. An agent was already 
playing the part of Dr. Homer Taylor in Hanover. We had spread a lie that the professor had 
the flu and wouldn't be conducting any classes for a while. Occasionally, "sightings" of 
Professor Taylor were arranged at his house _ sometimes looking out windows or sitting out 
on the front porch. To our knowledge, no one had inquired about Taylor at Dartmouth or at 
his house in Webster. Both locations were being watched closely by agents.
  




I hoped that the agents in the field knew what the hell they were doing. At this point we had 
no idea how careful the Wolf was or whether his suspicions had already been aroused. We 
didn't know enough about the Russian. Not even if he had someone in the Bureau feeding 
him information.
               




It was agreed that I would wait an hour and a half, since I hadn't been on-line when he 
established contact and the Wolf would know that. During the past day we'd been 
unsuccessful in trying to connect the Wolf's Den to an owner or even to one of the other 
users. This probably meant that a high-level hacker had protected the site well. The Bureau's 
experts were confident they would break through, but it hadn't happened yet.
         




Homer Taylor had been transported to D.C. again, and we used his eyes for the retina scan. 
Then I sat down at a computer and began to type. I was following the model of 
communication to the Wolf's Den provided by Taylor as part of our deal.
 




This is Mr. Potter, I began. Can I have my lover?
                   



Chapter 84



                   




I WAITED FOR the Wolf to answer Potter's insane question. We all did.
                   




No response came. Shit. What had I done wrong? I'd gone too far, hadn't I? He was clever. 
Somehow, he knew what we were up to. But how?





"I'll stay on for a while," I said, as I looked around the room. "I want what he has to offer. 
He knows it. I'm supposed to be horny."
    




This is Potter, I typed again a few minutes later.
            




Suddenly words began to appear on my screen.
                




I read, Wolf: That's redundant, Potter.I know who you are.
  




I typed some more words in Taylor's strident "voice." U R rude to make me wait like this. U 
know how I feel, what I'm going through.
          




Wolf: How could I? You're the scary freak, Potter, not me.
                   




I typed: Not so.U R the real freak. The cruelest of all.
           




Wolf: Why do you say that? You think I take hostages like you?
        




My heart raced. What did he mean by that? Did the Wolf have a hostage? Maybe more than 
one? Could Elizabeth Connolly still be alive after all this time? Or some other hostage? 
Maybe one we didn't even know about?
             




Wolf: So tell me something, faggot. Prove yourself to me.
           




Prove myself? How? I waited for more instruction to come. But it didn't.
   




I typed: What do U want to know? I'm horny. No, not really. I'm in love.
                 




Wolf: What happened to Worcester? You were in love with him too.
           




The chat was heading into uncharted waters. I was guessing, hoping I could maintain 
continuity with things Homer Taylor might have shared before. The other question made me 
edgy: Was this really the Wolf I was speaking to?
            




I typed: Francis was incapable of love. He made me very angry. He's gone now, never to be 
heard from again.
   




Wolf: And there will be no repercussions?
       




Mr. Potter: I'm careful. Like U. I like my life; I don't want to be caught. And I won't be!!!
                   




Wolf: Does that mean Worcester rests in pieces?
       




I wasn't sure how to answer. With a cruel joke of my own? Something like that, I typed. UR 
funny.
    




Wolf: Be more specific. Give me the bloody details, Potter. Give!
              




Mr. Potter: Is this a test? I don't need this shit.
   




Wolf: You know it is.
                   




I typed: The septic tank. I told you that.
 




No response came from the Wolf. He was rubbing my nerves raw.
               




So when do I get my new boy? I typed.
    




A pause of several seconds.





Wolf: You have the money?
  




Mr. Potter: Of course I do.
          




Wolf: How much do you have?
                 




I thought I knew the correct answer to that, but I couldn't be sure. Two weeks earlier, Taylor 
had taken one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars from his account with a money 
manager at Lehman in New York.
        




Mr. Potter: One hundred twenty-five thousand. The money isn't a problem. It's burning a hole 
in my pocket.
                   




No response from Wolf.
        




I typed: U told me not to be redundant.
                   




Wolf: All right then, maybe we'll get you the boy. Be careful! There might not be another!
  




I typed: Then there won't be another hundred twenty-five thousand!!!
                 




Wolf: I'm not worried. There are lots of freaks like you. You'd be amazed.
 




Mr. Potter: So. How is your hostage?
     




Wolf: I have to go back to work....One more question, Potter. Just to be safe. Where did you 
get your name?
       




I looked around the room. Oh, Christ. It was something I hadn't thought to ask Taylor.
                




A voice whispered close to my ear. Monnie's. "The kid's books? They call Harry Mr. Potter at 
the Hogwarts school. Maybe? I don't know."
              




Was that it? I needed to type something; it had to be the right answer. Was the name from 
the Harry Potter books? Because he liked boys? Then something from Taylor's office in the 
farmhouse pushed in my brain.
                




My fingers went to the keys. Paused for a second. Then I typed my answer: This is absurd. 
The name is from the Jamaica Kincaid novel, Mr. Potter. Fuck U!
   




I waited for a response. So did everyone else in the room. Finally it came.
      




Wolf: I'll get you the boy, Mr. Potter.
         



Chapter 85



                   




WE WERE IN BUSINESS again, and I was back working the streets, the way I liked it, the 
way it used to be.
    




I had been in Boston several times before, loved the city enough to consider moving there, 
and was comfortable. For the next two days we shadowed a student named Paul Xavier, 
from his apartment on Beacon Hill, to his classes at Harvard, to the Ritz-Carlton, where he 
was a waiter, to popular clubs like No Borders and Rebuke.
 




Xavier was the ºit" we had set out for the Wolf and his kidnapping crew.
    




Actually, Xavier was being impersonated by a thirty-year-old agent from our field office in 
Springfield, Massachusetts. The agent's name was Paul Gautier. Boyishly handsome, tall and 
slender, with fluffy light brown hair, he looked like someone in his early twenties. He was 
armed, but also being closely watched by a minimum of six agents at all times of the day and 
night. We had no idea how or when the Wolf's team might try to grab him, only that they 
would.
        




For twelve hours each day, I was one of the agents watching and protecting Gautier. I had 
spoken about the dangers of using ºit" to try and catch the kidnappers, but nobody had paid 
attention.





On the second night of surveillance, and according to plan, Paul Gautier went to "the Fens," 
along the Muddy River near Park Drive and Boylston Street. Actually called the Back Bay 
Fens, it had been imagined by Frederick Law Olmsted, who'd also designed the Boston 
Common and Central Park in New York. In the evening hours after the clubs closed, the real 
Paul Xavier often cruised the Fens looking for sexual encounters, which was why we had sent 
our agent there.
       




It was dangerous work for all of us, but especially for Agent Gautier. The area was dark, and 
there were no streetlights. The tall reeds along the river were thick and provided cover for 
pickups and liaisons _ and kidnappings.
            




Agent Peggy Katz and I were on the edge of the reeds, which resembled elephant grass. 
During the past half hour, she had admitted that she wasn't really interested in sports but had 
learned about basketball and football because she wanted to be able to talk with her male 
counterparts about something.
                




"Men talk about other things," I said as I scouted the Fens through night glasses.
 




"I know that. I can talk about money and cars too. But I refuse to talk to you horny bastards 
about sex."
                




I coughed out a laugh. Katz could deliver her lines. She was often wry, with a twinkle, and she 
seemed to be laughing with you, even if you happened to be the butt of her jokes. But I also 
knew that she was very tough, a real hard-liner.
          




"Why did you join the Bureau?" she asked as we continued to wait for Agent Gautier to 
appear. "You were doing well with the Washington PD, right?"
     




"I was doing just fine."
        




I lowered my voice and pointed toward a clearing up ahead. "Here comes Gautier now."
       




Agent Gautier had just left Boylston Street. He was walking slowly across the Fens toward the 
Muddy River. I knew the area pretty well from an earlier scouting trip. During the day this 
same section of the park was called the victory gardens. Area residents raised flowers and 
vegetables, and there were signs pleading with night visitors not to trample them.
           




The team leader, Roger Nielsen, spoke in a whisper that seeped into my earphones. "Male in 
the watch cap, Alex. Stout guy. You see him?"
       




"I've got him." Watch cap was talking into a microphone on the collar of his sport shirt. He 
wasn't one of ours, so he must have been one of theirs _ the Wolf's.
   




I began to scour the area for a partner or two. The kidnapping crew? Probably. Who the hell 
else could they be?
         




Nielsen said, "I think he has a mike on. You see it?"
              




"He's definitely miked. I see another suspicious male. Near the gardens to the left of us," I 
said. "Talking into his collar too. They're moving on Gautier."
                   



Chapter 86



                   




THERE WERE THREE of them, bulky males, and they began to converge on Paul Gautier. 
At the same time, we moved on them. I had my Glock out, but was I really ready for what 
might happen in this small dark park?
     




The kidnappers were keeping close to Park Drive, and I figured they had a van or truck out 
on the street. They looked confident and unafraid. They'd done this before: grabbed 
purchased men and women. They were professional kidnappers.
              




"Take them now," I told Senior Agent Nielsen. "Gautier is at risk."
   




"Wait until they grab him," the response came back. "We want to do this right. Wait."
      




I didn't agree with Nielsen and I didn't like what was happening. Why wait? Gautier was 
hanging out there too much, and the park was dark.
         




"Gautier is at risk," I repeated.
                   




One of the men, blond, wearing a Boston Bruins windbreaker, waved to him.
     




Gautier watched the man approach, nodded his head, smiled. The blond had some kind of 
small flashlight in his hand. He lit up Paul Gautier's face.
          




I could hear them talking. "Nice night for a walk," Gautier said, then laughed. He sounded 
nervous.
 




"The things we do for love," the blond said. He spoke with a Russian accent.
   




The two of them were only a few feet apart. The other abductors held back, but not far.
      




Then the blond whipped a gun out of his jacket pocket. He pushed it against Gautier's face. 
"You're coming with me. No one will hurt you. Just walk with me. Make it easy on yourself."
                   




The two others joined them.
              




"You're making a mistake," said Gautier.
   




"Oh, and why is that?" asked the blond. "I've got the gun, not you."
           




"Take them. Now," came the order from Senior Agent Nielsen.
  




"FBI! Hands up. Back away from him!" Nielsen shouted as we ran forward.
  




"FBI!" came a second shout. "Everybody, hands up!"
          




Then everything went crazy. The other two abductors pulled out guns. The blond still held his 
to Agent Gautier's skull.
        




Back off!" he screamed. "I'll shoot him dead! Drop your guns. I'll shoot him, I promise you! 
I don't bluff."
     




Our agents continued to move forward _ slowly.
      



Then the worst thing happened _ the heavyset blond shot Agent Paul Gautier in the face.



 
                  



Chapter 87



                   




BEFORE THE SHOCK of the gun blast had faded, the three men took off running very fast. 
Two of them galloped toward Park Drive, but the blond who'd shot Paul Gautier sprinted out 
onto Boylston Street.
       




He was a big man, but he was motoring. I remembered hearing from Monnie Donnelley that 
great Russian athletes, even former Olympians, were sometimes recruited into the Mafia. 
Was blondie a former jock? He moved like it. The confrontation, the shooting and everything 
else, reminded me of how little we knew about the Russian mobsters. How did they work? 
How did they think?
                 




I took off after him, an overload of adrenaline rocketing through my body. I still couldn't 
believe what had happened. It could have been avoided. Now Gautier was possibly dead, 
probably dead.
       




I ran as I shouted, "Take them alive!" It should have been obvious, but the other agents had 
just seen Paul Gautier gunned down. I didn't know how much street action, or combat, any 
of them had seen before. And we desperately needed to question the kidnappers once we 
caught them.
       




I was getting winded. Maybe I needed more time in the physical-training classes at Quantico, 
or maybe it was because I'd spent too much time sitting around inside the Hoover Building 
these past few weeks.
    




I chased the blond killer through a tree-lined residential area. A moment later, the trees 
cleared and the glittering towers of the Prudential Center and the Hancock loomed ahead. I 
glanced back. Three agents trailed behind, including Peggy Katz, who had her gun out.
   




The man running ahead of me was approaching the Hynes Convention Center with four FBI 
agents racing behind. I was closing on him, but not enough. I wondered if maybe we'd gotten 
lucky: Could this be the Wolf up ahead? He was hands-on, right? If it was, then we had him 
for murder. Whoever he was, he was still moving well. A long-distance sprinter.
    




"Stop! We'll shoot!" one of the agents yelled behind me. The blond Russian didn't stop. He 
made a sharp, sliding turn down a side street. It was narrow and darker than Boylston. One 
way. I wondered if he'd thought about his escape route before this. Probably not.
            




The extraordinary thing was that he hadn't hesitated when he shot Agent Gautier. I don't 
bluff, he'd said. Who would murder so casually? With so many FBI watching?
                   




The Wolf? He was supposed to be fearless and ruthless, maybe even crazy. One of his 
lieutenants? ...How did the Russians think?
       




I could hear his shoes slapping hard on the pavement up ahead. I was gaining on the Russian 
a little, getting a second wind.
        




Suddenly he whirled around _ and ?red at me!
      




I threw myself down on the ground fast. But then I was up just as quickly, chasing after him 
again. I'd seen his face clearly _ broad, flat features, dark eyes, late thirties to early forties.
     




He turned again, planted, ?red.
           




I ducked behind a parked car. Then I heard a scream. I whirled around and saw an agent 
down. One of the men. Doyle Rogers. The blond turned and started to run again. But I had 
my second wind and I thought I could catch him. Then what? He was ready to die.
             




A shot rang out behind me! I couldn't believe what I saw. The blond dropped, falling flat on 
his chest and face.
        




He never moved once he hit the ground. One of the agents behind me had shot him. I turned 
and saw Peggy Katz. She was still in a shooting crouch.
      




I checked on Agent Rogers and found he'd only been hit in the shoulder. He'd be okay. Then 
I walked back alone toward the Fens. When I got there, I discovered that Paul Gautier was 
still alive. But the two other kidnappers had gotten away. They'd commandeered a car on 
Park Drive, and our agents had lost them. Bad news, the worst.
       




The whole operation had blown up in our faces.
      



Chapter 88



                   




I DON'T THINK that I'd felt this bad about an operation in all my years with the Washington 
PD, maybe in all my years combined. If I hadn't been sure before, I was now. I'd made a 
mistake in coming over to the FBI. They did things very differently from anything I was used 
to. They were by-the-book, by-the-numbers, and then suddenly they weren't. They had 
tremendous resources and staggering amounts of information, but they were often amateurs 
on the street. There was some great personnel and some incredible losers.
     




After the shootout in Boston I drove over to the FBI offices. The agents gathered there all 
looked shell-shocked. I couldn't blame them. What a mess. One of the worst I'd seen. I 
couldn't help feeling that Senior Agent Nielsen was the one responsible, but what did it 
matter, what good to cast around blame? Two well-intentioned agents had been wounded; 
one had almost died. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I felt partly responsible. I'd told the senior 
agent to move in on Paul Gautier faster, but he hadn't listened.
  




The blond man I'd chased down Boylston Street had unfortunately died. Katz's bullet had 
hit him in the back of the neck and taken out most of his throat. He'd probably died 
instantly. He carried no identification. His wallet held a little more than six hundred bucks, 
but not much else. He had tattoos of a snake, a dragon, and a black bear on his back and 
shoulders. Cyrillic lettering that no one had deciphered yet. Prison tats. We assumed he was 
Russian. But we had no name, no identification, no real proof.
                  




Photographs of the dead man and fingerprints had been taken, then sent to Washington. 
They were checking, so we had little to do in Boston until they called back. A few hours later, 
the Ford Explorer commandeered by the two other abductors was found in the parking lot of 
a convenience store in Arlington, Massachusetts. They had stolen a second vehicle out of the 
lot. By now they'd probably switched it for yet another stolen car.
  




A total screw-up in every way. Couldn't have gone worse.
   




I was sitting in a conference room by myself, my face in my hands, when one of the Boston 
agents walked in. He pointed an accusatory finger my way. Director Burns's office on the 
line."
        




Burns wanted me back in Washington _ as simple and direct as that. There were no 
explanations or even recriminations about what had happened in Boston. I guess I was to be 
kept in the dark a while longer about what he really thought, what the Bureau thought, and I 
just couldn't respect that way of operating.
                  




I got to the SIOC offices in the Hoover Building at six in the morning. I hadn't slept. The 
place was humming with activity, and I was glad no one had time to talk about the shooting 
of the two agents in Boston.
   




Stacy Pollack came up to me a few minutes after I arrived. She looked as tired as I felt, but 
she put a hand on my shoulder. "Everybody here knows that you felt Gautier was in danger 
and tried to move in on the shooter earlier. I talked to Nielsen. He said it was his decision."
                  




I nodded, but then I said, "Maybe you should have talked to me first."
                




Pollack's eyes narrowed. But she said nothing more about Boston. She finally spoke again: 
"There's something else. We've had some luck.
                 




"Most of us have been here all night. The money transfer we made to the Wolf's Den?" she 
said. "We used a contact of ours in the financial world, a banker from Morgan Chase's 
International Correspondent Unit. We were able to trace the money out of the Caymans. 
Then we monitored virtually every transaction to U.S. banks with correspondent 
relationships. Had them screen all inbound wire payment orders. That's where our consultant, 
Robert Hatfield, said it got tricky. The transaction zipped from bank to bank _ New York, 
then Boston, Detroit, Toronto, Chicago, a couple of others. But we know where the money 
finally wound up."
          




"Where?" I asked.
  



"Dallas. The money went to Dallas. And we have a name , a recipient for the funds. We're hoping 
that he's the Wolf. At any rate, we know where he lives, Alex. You're going to Dallas."



                   



Chapter 89



                   




THE EARLIEST ABDUCTION CASES we tracked had occurred in Texas, and dozens of 
agents and analysts went to work investigating them in depth. Everything about the case was 
larger in scale now. The surveillance details on the suspect's house and place of business were 
the most impressive I had ever seen. I doubted that any police force in the country, with the 
possible exceptions of New York and Los Angeles, could afford this kind of effort.
       




As usual, the Bureau had done a thorough job of finding out everything possible about the 
man who had received money from us through the Caymans bank. Lawrence Lipton lived in 
Old Highland Park, a moneyed neighborhood north of Dallas proper. The streets there 
meandered alongside creeks under a canopy of magnolias, oaks, and native pecans. The 
grounds of nearly every house were expensively landscaped, and most of the traffic during 
the day consisted of tradesmen, nannies, cleaning services, and gardeners.
        




So far the evidence we'd gathered on Lipton was contradictory, though. He had attended St. 
Mark's, a prestigious Dallas prep school, and then the University of Texas at Austin. His 
family and his wife's were old Dallas oil money, but Lawrence had diversified and now 
owned a Texas winery, a venture capital group, and a successful computer software 
company. The computer connection caught Monnie Donnelley's eye, and mine as well.
         




Lipton seemed to be a straight arrow, however. He sat on the boards of the Dallas Museum 
of Art and the Friends of the Library. He was a trustee for the Baylor Hospital and a deacon 
at First United Methodist.
    




Could he be the Wolf? It didn't seem possible to me.
        




The second morning I was in Dallas, a meeting was held at the field office there. Senior Agent 
Nielsen remained in charge of the case, but it was clear to everyone that Ron Burns was 
calling the shots on this from Washington. I don't think any of us would have been too 
surprised if Burns had shown up for the briefing himself.
   




At eight in the morning, Roger Nielsen stood before a roomful of agents and read from a 
clipboard. "They've been real busy through the night back in Washington," he said, and 
seemed neither impressed nor surprised by the effort. Apparently this had become SOP on 
cases that got big in the media.
                   




"I want to acquaint all of you with the latest on Lawrence Lipton. The most important 
development is that he doesn't seem to have any known connections to the KGB or any 
Russian mobs. He isn't Russian. Maybe something will turn up later or maybe he's just that 
good at hiding his past. In the forties, his father moved to Texas from Kentucky to seek his 
fortune on _the prairie._ He apparently found it under the prairie, in West Texas oil fields."
    




Nielsen stopped and looked around the meeting room, going from face to face. "There is one 
interesting recent development," he went on. "Among its holdings, Lipton's Micro-
Management owns a company called Safe Environs in Dallas. Safe Environs is a private 
security ?rm. Lawrence Lipton has recently put himself under armed guard. I wonder why?
            



"Is he worried about us or is he scared of somebody else? Maybe like the big bad Wolf?"



                   



Chapter 90



                   




IF IT WASN_T so incredibly terrifying, it would be mind-boggling. Lizzie Connolly was still 
among the living. She was keeping herself positive by being somewhere else _ anywhere but 
here in the horrid closet. With this complete madman bursting in two, three, sometimes five 
times a day.
      




Mostly she got lost in her memories. Once upon a time, and it seemed so long ago, she had 
called her girls Merry Berry, Bobbie Doll, names like that. They used to sing "High Hopes" all 
the time, and songs from Mary Poppins.





They had endless positive-energy thoughts _ which Lizzie called "happy thoughts" _ and 
always shared them with one another, and with Brendan, of course.
   




What else could she remember? What? Anything?
     




They had so many animals over the years that eventually they gave each one a number.
  




Chester, a black Lab with a curly tail like a chow, was number 16. The Lab would bark 
constantly, all day and all night, until Lizzie merely showed him a bottle of Tabasco sauce _ 
his kryptonite. Then he would finally shut up.
            




Dukie, number 15, was a short-haired orange calico who Lizzie believed had probably been 
an old Jewish lady in another life and who was always complaining, "Oh no, no, no, no."
         




Maximus Kiltimus was number 11; Stubbles was number 31; Kitten Little was number 35.
            




Memories were all that Lizzie Connolly had _ because there could be no present for her. 
None.
      




She couldn't be here in this horror house.
     




She had to be somewhere else, anywhere else.
        




Had to be!
                 




Had to be!
                 




Had to be!
                 




Because he was inside her now.
         




The Wolf was inside her, in the real world, grunting and thrusting like an animal, violating, 
raping for minutes that seemed like hours.
      




But Lizzie had the last laugh, didn't she?
        




She wasn't there.
     



She was somewhere in her memories.



 
                  



Chapter 91



                   




THEN HE WAS FINALLY GONE, the terrible, inhuman Wolf. Monster! Beast! He'd given 
her a bathroom break, and food, but now he was gone. God, his arrogance in keeping her here 
in his house! When is he going to kill me? I'm going mad. Going, going, gone!
                   




She peered through teary eyes into the pitch-blackness. She'd been bound and gagged again. 
In a strange way, that was good news. It meant he still wanted her, right?
    




Good God, I'm alive because I'm desirable to a horrid beast! Please help me, dear God. 
Please, please, help me.
 




She thought about her good girls and then she turned her mind toward escape. A fantasy, she 
understood, and therefore escape in itself.
       




By now, she knew this closet by heart, even in total darkness. It was as if she could see 
everything, as if she had night sight. More than anything, she was aware of her own body _ 
trapped in here _ and her mind _ trapped as well.
       




Lizzie let her hands wander as much as they could. There were clothes in the closet _ a male's 
_ his. The closest to her was some kind of sport coat with round, smooth buttons. Possibly a 
blazer? Lightweight, which reinforced her belief that this was a warm-weather city.
  




Next was a vest. A smallish ball was in one pocket, hard, maybe a golf ball.
   




What could she do with a golf ball? Could it be a weapon?





A zipper on the pocket. What could she do with a zipper? She'd like to catch his tattooed dick 
in it!
 




Then a windbreaker. Flimsy. Strong, sickening smell of tobacco on it. And then, her favorite 
thing to touch, a soft overcoat, possibly cashmere.
                 




There were more "treasures" in the overcoat's pockets.
                   




A loose button. Scraps of paper. From a notepad?
    




A ballpoint pen, possibly a Bic. Coins _ four quarters, two dimes, a nickel. Unless the coins 
were foreign? She wondered endlessly.
                  




There was also a book of matches with a shiny cover and embossed letters.
     




What did the embossed letters say? Could they tell her the city where she was being kept?
       




Also, a lighter.
          




A half pack of mints, which she knew to be cinnamon because she smelled it on her hands.
     




And at the bottom of the pocket, lint, so insignificant, yet important to her now.
         




Behind the overcoat were two bundles of his clothing still covered in plastic from the cleaners. 
A receipt of some kind on the first packet. Attached by a staple.
     




She imagined the name of the cleaners, an identification number in red, writing by some dry-
cleaning store clerk.
                   




All of it seemed strangely precious to Lizzie because she had nothing else.
        




Except a powerful will to live.
                  



And get her revenge on the Wolf.



                   



Chapter 92



                   




I
 
WAS A PART of the large surveillance detail near the house in Highland Park, and I thought 
we were going to take Lawrence Lipton down soon, maybe within hours. We'd been told that 
Washington was working with the Dallas police.
           




I stared absently at the house, a large two-story Tudor on about two and a half acres of very 
expensive real estate. It looked pristine. A redbrick sidewalk went from the street to an arched 
doorway, which led to a sixteen-room house. The big news that day in Dallas was about a ?re 
in Kessler Park that had incinerated a 64,000-square-foot mega mansion. The Lipton spread 
was less than a third that size, but it was still impressive, or depressing, or both.
                   




It was around nine in the evening. A supervisory agent from the Dallas office, Joseph 
Denyeau, came on my earphones. "We just got word from the director's office. We have to 
back off immediately. I don't understand it either. The order couldn't be any clearer, though. 
Pull back! Everybody head to the office. We need to reconnoiter and talk about this."
        




I looked at my partner in the car that night, an agent named Bob Shaw. It was pretty obvious 
that he didn't understand what the hell had just happened either.
    




"What was that?" I asked him.
                




Shaw shook his head and rolled his eyes. "What do I know? We go back to the field office, 
drink some bad coffee, maybe somebody higher up explains it to us, but don't count on it."
             




It took us only fifteen minutes to get to the field office at that time of night. We filed into a 
conference room at the field office, and I saw a lot of weary, confused, and pissed-off 
agents. Nobody was saying much yet. We'd gotten close to a possible break on this case, and 
now we'd been ordered to pull back. Nobody seemed to understand why.
      




The ASAC finally came out of his office and joined the rest of us. Joseph Denyeau looked 
thoroughly disgusted as he threw his dusty cowboy boots up on a conference table. "I have 
no idea," he announced. "Not a clue, folks. Consider yourselves debriefed."
                




So about forty agents waited for an explanation of the night's action, but one didn't come, or 
wasn't "forthcoming," as they say. The agent in charge, Roger Nielsen, finally called
      




D.C. and was told they would get back to us. In the mean-time, we were to stand down. We 
might even be sent home in the morning.
 




Around eleven o'clock Denyeau got another update from Nielsen and passed it on to us. 
"They're working on it," he said, and smiled wryly.
             




"Working on what?" somebody called from the back.
          




"Oh, hell, I don't know, Donnie. Working on their pedicures. Working on getting all of us to 
quit the Bureau. Then there'll be no more agents and, I guess, no more embarrassing screw-
ups for the media to report. I'm going to get some sleep. I'd advise all of you to do the same."
    




That's what we did.
 



Chapter 93



                   




WE WERE BACK at the field office by eight the next morning. Several of the agents looked 
a little messed up after the night off. First thing, Director Burns was on the line from 
Washington. I was pretty sure the director rarely, if ever, spoke to the troops like this. So why 
do it now? What was up?
  




Agents around the room were looking at one another. Brows crinkled, eyebrows arched. No 
one could fathom why Burns was so involved. Maybe I could. I'd seen the restlessness in 
him, the dissatisfaction with the ways of the past, even if he couldn't effectively change them 
all at once. Burns had started as a street cop in Philadelphia and worked his way up to police 
commissioner. Maybe he could change things at the Bureau.
   




"I wanted to explain what happened yesterday," he said over the speakerphone. Every agent 
in the room listened intently, myself included. "And I also wanted to apologize to all of you. 
Everything got territorial for a while. The Dallas police, the mayor, even the governor of 
Texas was involved. The Dallas police asked that we pull back because they didn't have full 
confidence in us. I agreed to the action because I wanted to talk it through with them rather 
than force our presence there.
       




"They didn't want mistakes, and they weren't sure that we have the right man. The Lipton 
family has a good reputation in the city. He's very well connected. Anyway, Dallas was 
surprised that we listened to their concerns and now they've backed off again. They respect 
the team we've assembled.
              




"We will continue our action against Lawrence Lipton, and believe me, we're going to take 
that bastard down. Then we're going to take Pasha Sorokin down, the Wolf. I don't want you 
to worry about past mistakes. Don't worry about mistakes at all. Just do your job in Dallas. I 
have the utmost confidence in you."
   




Burns went off the line, and just about every agent's face in the room wore a smile. It was 
quite magical, actually. The director had said things that some of them had been waiting 
years to hear; especially welcome was the news that he believed in their ability and wasn't 
worried about mistakes. We were back in the game; we were expected to bring down 
Lawrence Lipton.
     




Minutes after the phone call ended, my cell went off. I answered, and it was Burns himself. 
"So how'd I do?" he asked. I could hear the smile in his voice. I could also almost see the 
cocky upturn of his lip when he grinned. He knew how he'd done.
       




I walked away from the group into a far corner of the room and told him what he wanted to 
hear. "You did good. They're pumped to do the job."
               




Burns exhaled. "Alex, I want you to turn up the heat on this punk. I sold you hard to Dallas 
as a key member of the team. They bought you, and your reputation. They know how good 
we think you are. I want you to make Lawrence Lipton very uncomfortable. Do it your own 
way."
                   




I found myself smiling. "I'll see what I can do."
         




"And Alex, contrary to what I said to the others, don't make any mistakes."
         



Chapter 94



                   




DON_T MAKE ANY MISTAKES. It was a hell of an exit line, I had to give him that. Kind of 
funny, in a sadistic, hard-ass way. I was starting to like Ron Burns again. Couldn't help 
myself. But did I trust him?
         




Somehow, I got the feeling that Burns wasn't that worried about the mistakes, though. He 
wanted to catch the kidnappers, especially Pasha Sorokin _ even if we didn't know yet who 
he really was or where he lived. According to Burns's orders, all I had to do was figure out a 
way to break Lawrence Lipton down, do it in a hurry, and not embarrass the Bureau in any 
way.
 




I met with Roger Nielsen on possible strategies _ we had already resumed surveillance on 
Lipton. It was decided that it was time to put real pressure on him, to let him know we were in 
Dallas and that we knew about him. After Burns's phone call, I wasn't surprised that I had 
been chosen to confront Lipton.
        




We decided that I would go and see Lipton at his office in the Lakeside Square Building at 
the intersection of the LBJ Freeway and the North Central Expressway. The building was 
twenty stories high, with lots of reflective glass. It was practically blinding as I looked 
skyward in the Texas sunshine. I walked inside at a little past ten in the morning. Lipton's 
office suite was on the nineteenth floor. When I got off the elevator, a recorded voice said, 
"Howdy."
        




I stepped into a large reception area with half an acre of wine-colored carpeting, beige walls, 
and dark brown leather sofas and chairs everywhere. There were framed, signed photos of 
Roger Staubach, Nolan Ryan, and Tom Landry on the walls.
       




I was told to wait in reception by a very proper-looking young woman in a dark blue pantsuit. 
She sat self-importantly behind a sleek walnut desk under recessed lighting. She looked all of 
twenty-two or twenty-three years old, fresh out of charm school. She acted and spoke as 
properly as she looked.
   




"I'll wait, but let Mr. Lipton know it's the FBI. It's important that I see him," I told her.
           




The receptionist smiled sweetly, as if she'd heard all this before, then she went back to 
answering the phone calls coming in on her headset. I sat down and waited patiently; I waited 
for fifteen minutes. Then I got back up again. I strolled over to the reception desk.
       




"You told Mr. Lipton that I'm here?" I asked politely. "That I'm with the FBI?"
       




"I did, sir," she said in a syrupy voice that was starting to rub me the wrong way.
         




"I need to see him right now," I told the girl, and waited until she made another call to 
Lipton's assistant.
                   




They talked briefly, then she looked back at me. "Do you have identification, sir?" she asked. 
She was frowning now.
            




"I do. They're called creds."
    




"May I see it, please? Your creds." I showed off my new FBI badge, and she looked it over 
like a fast-food counter-person inspecting a fifty-dollar bill.
                   




"Could you please wait over at the seating area?" she asked again, only now she seemed a 
little nervous, and I wondered what Lawrence Lipton's assistant had told her, what her 
marching orders were.
       




"You don't seem to understand, or I'm not making myself clear," I finally said. "I'm not here 
to fool around with you, and I'm not here to wait."
       




The receptionist nodded. "Mr. Lipton is in a meeting. That's all I know, sir."
          




I nodded back. "Tell his assistant to pull him out of his meeting right now. Have her tell Mr. 
Lipton that I'm not here to arrest him yet."
         




I wandered back to the seating area, but I didn't bother to sit. I stood there and looked out on 
magnificent Technicolor green lawns that stretched to the concrete edge of the LBJ Freeway. 
I was burning inside.
         




I'd just acted like a D.C. street cop. I wondered if Burns would have approved, but it didn't 
matter. He'd given me some rope, but I also had made a decision that I wasn't going to 
change because I was an FBI agent now. I was in Dallas to bring down a kidnapper; I was 
here to find out if Mrs. Elizabeth Connolly and others were alive and maybe being held 
somewhere as slaves. I was back on the Job. I heard a door open behind me and I turned. A 
heavyset man with graying hair was standing there and he looked angry.
     




"I'm Lawrence Lipton," he said. "What the hell is this about?"
  



Chapter 95



                   




"WHAT THE HELL is this about?" Lipton repeated from the doorway in a loud-mouth, big-
shot way. He was speaking to me as if I were a door-to-door brush salesman. "I think you 
were told that I'm in an important meeting. What does the FBI want with me? And why can't 
it wait? Why don't you have the courtesy to make an appointment?"
         




There was something about his attitude that didn't completely track for me. He was trying to 
be a tough guy, but I didn't think he was. He was just used to beating up on other 
businessmen. He wore a rumpled blue dress shirt and a rep tie, pinstriped trousers, and 
tasseled loafers, and he was at least fifty pounds overweight. What could this man have in 
common with the Wolf?
       




I looked at him and said, "It's about kidnapping; it's about murder. Do you want to talk 
about this out here in reception? Sterling."





Lawrence Lipton paled and lost most of his bravado. "Come inside," he said, and took a step 
back.
                 




I followed him into an area of cubicles separated by low partitions. Clerical personnel, lots of 
them. So far this was going about as I'd expected. But now it would get more interesting. 
Lipton might be "softer" than I had expected, but he had powerful connections in Dallas. 
This office building was in one of the most upscale residential /commercial parts of the city.
                   




"I'm Mr. Potter," I said, as we walked down a corridor with fabric-covered walls. At least I 
played Mr. Potter the last time we talked in the Wolf's Den."
       




Lipton didn't turn, didn't respond in any way. We entered a wood-paneled office and he shut 
the door. The large room had half a dozen windows and a panoramic view. A hat rack near 
the door held a collection of autographed Dallas Cowboy's and Texas Ranger caps.
       




"I still don't know what this is about, but I'll give you exactly five minutes to explain 
yourself," he snapped. "I don't think you know who you're talking to."
    




"Actually, I do. You're Henry Lipton's oldest son. You're married with three children and a 
nice house in Highland Park. You're also involved with a kidnapping and murder scheme that 
we've been tracking closely for several weeks. You're Sterling, and I want you to understand 
something _ all your connections, all your father's connections in Dallas, will not help you 
now. On the other hand, I would like to protect your family as much as possible. That's up to 
you. I'm not bluffing. I don't ever bluff. This is a federal crime, not a local one."
                 




"I'm going to call my lawyer," Lawrence Lipton said, and went for the phone.
 




"You have that right. But I wouldn't if I were you. It won't do any good."
                




My tone of voice, something, stopped Lipton from making the call. His "y hand moved away 
from the phone on his desk. "Why?" he asked.
    




I said, "I don't care about you. You're involved in murder. But I've seen your kids, your wife. 
We've been watching you at the house. We've already spoken to your neighbors and friends. 
When you're arrested, your family will be in danger. We can protect them from the Wolf."
                   




Lipton's face and neck reddened, and he erupted with "What the hell is wrong with you? Are 
you crazy? I'm a respected businessman. I never kidnapped or harmed another human being 
in my life. This is crazy."
   




"You gave the orders. The money came to you. Mr. Potter sent you a hundred and twenty-
five thousand dollars. Or rather, the FBI did."
              




"I'm calling my lawyer," Lipton screamed. "This is ridiculous and insulting. I don't have to 
take this from anybody."
        




I shrugged. "Then you're going down in the worst possible way. These offices will be searched 
immediately. And then your home in Highland Park. Your parents_ home in Kessler Park will 
be searched. Your father's office will be searched. Your wife's offices at the museum of art 
will be searched."
          




He picked up his phone. I could see that his hand was shaking, though. Then he whispered, 
"Go fuck yourself."
 




I pulled out a two-way and spoke into it. "Hit the offices and the houses," I said. I turned 
back to Lipton. "You're
    



under arrest. You can call your lawyer now. Tell him you've been taken to the FBI offices." 
Minutes later, a dozen agents stormed into the office, with its gorgeous city views and stylish and 
expensive furnishings. We arrested Sterling.



                   



Chapter 96



                   




PASHA SOROKIN WAS CLOSE by, and he was watching everyone and everything with 
great interest. Maybe it was time to show the FBI how these things were done in Moscow, to 
show them that this wasn't a child's game to be played with rules made up by the police.
            




He had been there outside Sterling's office building in Dallas when the FBI team rushed 
inside. More than a dozen of them came calling. A strange assemblage, to be sure: some 
dressed in dark business suits, others in dark blue windbreakers with FBI boldly imprinted on 
the back. Who did they really expect to find here? The Wolf? Others from the Wolf's Den?
              




They had no concept of what they were getting themselves into. Their dark sedans and vans 
were parked in plain view on the street. Less than fifteen minutes after they had entered the 
office building, they came out with Lawrence Lipton in handcuffs, pathetically trying to 
shield his face.
         




What a scene. They wanted to make a show of this, didn't they? Why do that? He wondered. 
To prove how tough they were? How smart? But they weren't smart. I will show you how 
tough and smart you need to be. I will show you how lacking you are in every way.
            




He instructed his driver to start the car. The wheelman did not look around at his boss in the 
backseat. He said nothing. He knew not to question orders. The Wolf's ways were strange 
and unorthodox, but they worked.
             




=rive past them," he ordered. "I want to say hello."
                 




The FBI agents were casting nervous looks around the street as they led Lawrence Lipton 
toward a waiting van. A black man walked beside Sterling. Tall and strangely confident. 
Pasha Sorokin knew from his informant in the Bureau that this was Alex Cross, and that he 
was held in high regard.
    




How was it possible that a black man was given command of the raid? he wondered. In 
Russia, the American Negro was looked down upon. Sorokin had never gotten past his own 
prejudice; there was no reason to in the U.S.
              




"Get me close!" he told the driver. He lowered the rear passenger-side window. The second 
Cross and Lipton had passed his car, Sorokin thrust out an automatic weapon and aimed it 
at the back of Sterling's head. Then an amazing thing, something he hadn't anticipated, 
happened.
                




Alex Cross threw Lipton down onto the pavement, and they both rolled behind a parked car. 
How had Cross known? What had he seen to alert him?
         



Sorokin fired anyway, but he didn't really have a clear shot. Still, the gunshot rang out loudly. He 
had delivered a message. Sterling wasn't safe. Sterling was a dead man.



                   



Chapter 97



                   




WE TRANSPORTED LAWRENCE LIPTON to the Dallas field office and held him there. I 
threatened to transfer him to Washington if there was any interference from the local police 
or even the press. I struck a deal with them. I promised Dallas detectives they'd have their 
turn with Lipton. As soon as I was done.
                  




At eleven o'clock that night I slumped into a windowless interview room. It was sterile and 
claustrophobic, and I felt as if I'd been there a couple hundred times before. I nodded to 
Lawrence Lipton. He didn't respond; he looked just awful. Probably I did too.
  




"We can help you, your family. We'll keep them safe. Nobody else can help you now," I said. 
"That's the truth."
       




Lipton finally spoke to me. "I don't want to talk to you again. I already told you, I'm not 
involved in any of the shit you say I am. I'm not going to talk anymore. Get my lawyer." He 
waved me away.
     




For the past seven hours he'd been questioned by other FBI agents. This was my third 
session, and it wasn't getting easier. His lawyers were in the building, but they'd backed off. 
They had been informed that he could be formally charged with kidnapping and conspiracy 
to commit murder and immediately transported to Washington. His father was also in the 
building but had been denied access to his son. I'd interviewed Henry Lipton, and he had 
wept and insisted his son's arrest was a mistake.
 




I sat down across from Lawrence. "Your father is in the building. Would you like to see him?" 
I asked.
    




He laughed. "Sure. All I have to do is admit that I'm a kidnapper and murderer. Then I can 
see my father and ask his forgiveness for my sins."
       




I ignored the sarcasm. He wasn't very good at it. "You know we can confiscate the records of 
your father's company, shut it down? Also, your father is a likely target for the Wolf. We're 
not here to hurt your family members," I added. "Not unless your father is involved in this 
too."
 




He shook his head, kept his eyes lowered. "My father has never been in trouble."
 




"That's what I keep hearing," I said. "I've read a lot about you and your family in the past 
day or so. Gone all the way back to your school days at Texas. You were involved in a 
couple of scrapes in Austin. Two date rapes. Neither case went to trial. Your father saved you 
then. It won't happen this time."
       




Lawrence Lipton didn't respond. His eyes were dead, and he looked as if he hadn't slept in 
days. His blue dress shirt was as wrinkled as a used tissue, soaked with perspiration at the 
underarms. His hair was wet, dripping little rivers of moisture down to his shirt collar and 
sideburns. The skin under his eyes sagged and had a purplish tint in the harsh interrogation 
room light.
                  




He finally said, "I don't want my family hurt. Leave my father out of this. Get him 
protection."
       




I nodded. "Okay, Lawrence. Where do we start? I'm ready to put your family in protective 
custody until we catch him."
                




"And afterward?" he asked. "It doesn't stop with him."
          



"We'll protect your family."



Lipton sighed loudly, then said, "All right, I'm the money-man. I'm Sterling. I might be able to 
get you to the Wolf. But I need promises in writing. Lots of promises."
  



Chapter 98



                   




I WAS HEADING into the deepest darkness again, attracted to it as most people are 
attracted to sunlight. I kept thinking about Elizabeth Connolly, still missing and feared dead.
            




Lipton's father visited him a couple of times and the two men wept together. Mrs. Lipton was 
allowed to see her husband. There was a lot of crying among the family members, and most 
of the emotions seemed genuine.
   




I was in the interrogation room with Sterling until a little past three in the morning. I was 
prepared to stay later, as long as it took to get the information I needed. Several deals were 
struck with his lawyers during the night.
       




At around two, with most of the lawyering done, Lipton and I sat down to talk again. Two 
senior agents from the Dallas field office were in the room with us. They were only there to 
take notes and tape-record.
              




This was my interview to conduct.
                   




"How did you get involved with the Wolf?" I asked Lawrence Lipton, after a few minutes 
during which I emphasized my concern for his family. He seemed clearer headed and more 
focused than he'd been a few hours before. I sensed that a weight had been lifted from him. 
Guilt, betrayal of his family _ especially his father? His school records revealed he was a 
bright but troubled student. His problems always centered on an obsession with sex, but he'd 
never received a day of treatment. Lawrence Lipton was a freak.
 




"How did I get involved?" he repeated, seeming to be asking the question of himself. "I have 
a thing for young girls, you see. Teens, preteens. There's lots of it available these days. The 
Internet opened new sources."
                   




?or what? Be as concrete as you can, Lawrence."
      




He shrugged. "For freaks like myself. Nowadays we can get what we want when we want it. 
And I know how to search for the nastiest sites. At first I settled for photos and movies. I 
especially liked real-time films."
        




"We found some. In your office at home."
    




"One day a man came to see me. He came to the office, just like you did."
     




"To blackmail you?" I asked.
          




Lipton shook his head. "No, not blackmail. He said he wanted to know what I really wanted. 
Sexually. And that he would help me get it. I threw him out. He came back the next day. He 
had records of everything I'd bought on the Internet. "So what do you really want?" he asked 
again. I wanted young girls. Pretty ones, with no strings attached, no rules. He supplied me 
with two or three a month. Exactly what I fantasized. Color of hair, shape of breasts, shoe 
size, freckles, anything I desired."





"What happened to the girls? Did you murder them? You have to tell me."
      




"I'm not a killer. I liked to see the girls get off. Some did. We'd party, then they would be 
released. Always. They didn't know who I was or where I was from."
                 




"So you were satisfied with the arrangement?"
        




Lipton nodded and his eyes lit up. "Very. I'd been dreaming of this my whole life. The reality 
was as good as the fantasy. Of course, there was a price."
     




: bill had to be paid?"
     




"Oh, yeah. I got to meet the Wolf, at least I think it was him. He had sent an emissary to my 
office in the early days. But then he came to see me. In person, he was very scary. Red 
Mafia, he said. The KGB came up, but I don't know what his connection to them was."
       




"What did he want from you?"
                 




"To go into business with him, to be a partner. He needed my company's expertise with 
computers and the Internet. The sex club was secondary with him, a throw-in. He was heavily 
into extortion, money laundering, counterfeiting. The club was my thing. Once our deal was 
struck, I went looking for wealthy freaks who wanted their dreams fulfilled. Freaks who were 
willing to spend six figures for a slave, male, female, didn't matter. Sometimes a specific 
target, sometimes a physical type."
         




"To murder?" I asked Lipton.
           




"Whatever they wanted. Let me tell you where I think he was going with the club. He wanted 
to involve very rich, powerful men. We already had one, a senator from West Virginia. He 
had big plans."
    




"Does the Wolf live in Dallas?" I finally asked. "You've got to help me if you want my help."
         




Lipton shook his head. "He isn't from around here. He doesn't live in Dallas. Not in Texas. 
He's a mystery man."
          




"But you know where he is?"
           




He hesitated but finally went on. "He doesn't know that I know. He's smart, but not about 
computers. I tracked him once. He was sure his messages were secure, but I had them 
cracked. I needed to have something on him."





Then Sterling told me where he thought I could find the Wolf. And also, who he was. If I 
could believe what he was saying, Sterling knew the name Pasha Sorokin was using in the 
United States.
                   



It was Ari Manning.


 


Chapter 99



                   




I SAT HIGH in the cockpit of a luxury cabin cruiser in the Intercostal Waterway near 
Millionaires Row in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Were we close to the Wolf now? I needed to 
believe that we were. Sterling swore to it, and he had no reason to lie to us, did he? He had 
every reason to tell the truth.
  




Sightseers came here on motorboat tours, so I figured we wouldn't be noticed right away. 
Besides, darkness was starting to fall. We drove past mansions that were mostly 
Mediterranean or Portuguese style, but an occasional Georgian Colonial supposedly signaled 
"northern money." We'd been warned to tread lightly, not to ruffle feathers in this wealthy 
neighborhood, which, frankly, wouldn't be possible. We were going to ruffle a lot of feathers 
in a few minutes.
  




Onboard the cruiser with me were Ned Mahoney and two of his seven-person assault teams. 
Mahoney didn't ordinarily go on missions himself, but since Baltimore, the director had been 
changing that. The FBI had to get stronger in the field.





I watched a large waterfront house through binoculars as our boat approached a dock. 
Several expensive yachts and speedboats bobbed in the water nearby. We had secured a 
floor plan of the house and learned it had been purchased for twenty-four million two years 
ago. Don't ruffle any feathers.
 




A large party was in progress at the estate, which belonged to Ari Manning. According to 
Sterling, he was Pasha Sorokin, the Wolf.
        




"Looks like everybody's having a fine old time," Mahoney said from the deck. "Man, I love 
a good party. Food, music, dancing, bubbly."
   




"Yeah, it's jumping. And the surprise guests haven't even shown up," I said.
    




Ari Manning was known around Fort Lauderdale and Miami for the parties he hosted, 
sometimes a couple a week. His extravaganzas were famous for their surprises _ surprise 
guests, like the coaches of the Miami Dolphins and the Miami Heat; hot musical and comedy 
acts from Las Vegas; politicians and diplomats and ambassadors, even right up to the White 
House.
    




"Guess we're tonight's surprise special guests," Mahoney said, and grinned at me.
          




"Flown in all the way from Dallas," I said. "With our entourage of fourteen."
              




The guests, the nature of the glitzy party itself, made the operation tense, which was probably 
why Mahoney and I felt compelled to make a few jokes. We'd talked about waiting, but 
HRT wanted to go in now, while we knew the Wolf was there. The director agreed, and had 
actually made the final decision.





A guy in a ridiculous sailor suit was vigorously waving us away from the dock. We kept 
coming. "What's this asshole on the dock want?" Mahoney asked me.
                 




"We're full up! You're too late!" the man on the dock shouted to us. His voice carried above 
the music blasting from the back part of the mansion.
             




"Party doesn't start without us," Ned Mahoney called back. Then he tooted the horn.
        




"No, no! Don't come in here!" Sailor Suit yelled. "Get away!"





Mahoney tooted the horn again.
                




The cruiser bumped a Bertram speeder, and the guy on the dock looked as if he were going to 
have a stroke. "Jesus, be careful. This is a private party! You can't just come in here. Are you 
friends of Mr. Manning?"
                 




Mahoney tooted again. "Absolutely. Here's my invitation." He pulled out his ID and his gun.
   




I was already off the boat and running toward the house.
   



Chapter 100



                   




I PUSHED MY WAY through the crowd of very well-heeled partygoers making their way to 
candlelit tables. Dinner was being served now. Steak and lobsters, lots of champagne, and 
pricey wine. Everybody seemed to have worn their Dolce & Gabbana, their Versace, their 
Yves Saint Laurent couture. I had on faded jeans and a blue FBI windbreaker.
            




Coiffed heads turned and eyes úshed at me as if I were a party crasher. I was. The party 
crasher from hell. These people had no idea.
             




"FBI," Mahoney called from behind as he led his heavily armed teams into the crowd.
     




I knew from Sterling what Pasha Sorokin looked like, and I headed his way. He was right 
there. The Wolf had on an expensive gray suit, a blue cashmere T-shirt. He was talking to two 
men near a billowing blue-and-yellow-striped canopy where the grills were working. Enormous 
cuts of meat and fish were being prepared by smiling, sweaty chefs, all of them black or 
Hispanic.
  




I pulled out my Glock, and Pasha Sorokin stared at me without moving a muscle. He just 
stared. Didn't make a move, didn't try to run. Then he smiled, as if he'd been expecting me 
and was glad I'd finally arrived. What was with this guy?
            




I saw him úsh a hand signal to a white-haired man whose arm was draped around a curvy 
blonde less than half his age. "Atticus!" Sorokin called, and the man scurried over faster than 
kitchen help.
    




"I'm Atticus Stonestrom, Mr. Manning's lawyer," he said. "You have absolutely no reason to 
be here, to barge into Mr. Manning's house like this. You're completely out of line, and I'm 
asking you to leave."
           




"Not going to happen. Let's move this private party inside. Just the three of us," I said to 
Stonestrom and Sorokin. "Unless you want the arrest to take place in front of all these 
guests."
                   



The Wolf looked at his lawyer, then shrugged as if this were no big deal to him. He started to walk 
toward the house. Then he turned, pretending he'd just remembered something. "Your little boy's 
name," he said. "It's also Alex, isn't it?"



                   



Chapter 101



                   




SHE WASN_T DEAD! How good was that? How amazing?
                   




Elizabeth Connolly was lost in her own world again, and it was the best place. She was 
walking a perfect beach on Oahu's north shore. She was picking up the most amazing 
seashells, one after the other, comparing the textures.
  




Then she heard shouts, "FBI!" She couldn't believe it.
   




The FBI was here? At the house? Her heart pounded, then nearly stopped, then pounded 
again even harder.
             




Had they finally come to rescue her? Why else would they be here? Oh my good God!
   




Lizzie began to shake all over. Tears spilled down her cheeks. They had to find her and let her 
out now. The Wolf's arrogance was about to burn him down!
                  




I'm in here. I'm here! I'm right here!
            




The party got terribly quiet suddenly. Everyone was whispering, and it was hard to hear. But 
she definitely heard "FBI," and theories as to why they were here. "Drugs." Everyone seemed 
to think so.





Lizzie prayed this wasn't about drugs. What if they took the Wolf to jail? She would be left 
here. She couldn't stop shaking. She had to let the FBI know she was here. But how? She was 
always bound and gagged. They were so close.. . . I'm in the closet! Please look in the closet!
              




She had imagined dozens of escape plans, but only after the Wolf opened the door and 
leashed her to go to the bathroom or walk in the main part of the house. Lizzie knew there 
was no way to get out of the locked closet. Not tied up the way she was. She didn't know how 
to signal the FBI.
      




Then she heard someone making a loud announcement. A male. Deep voice. Calm and in 
control.
    




"I'm Agent Mahoney with the FBI. Everyone leave the main house immediately. Please 
assemble on the back lawns. Everyone is to leave the house now! No one leaves the 
grounds."
            




Lizzie heard shoes scraping the hardwood floors, rapid footsteps. People were leaving. Then 
what? She'd be all alone. If they took the Wolf away . . . what would happen to her? There 
had to be something she could do to let the FBI know she was in here. What?
              




Someone named Atticus Stonestrom was talking loudly.
  




Then she heard the Wolf speak, and it chilled her. He was still in the house. Arguing with 
someone. She couldn't tell who, or exactly what they were saying.
             



What can I do? Something! Anything!


What, what?


What haven't I thought of before?


And then Lizzie had an idea. Actually, she'd had it before but always dismissed it. Because it 
scared the hell out of her.



                   



Chapter 102



                   




"I'M GLAD YOU'RE HERE to see this for yourself, Atticus," the Wolf said to his lawyer. 
"This is such bullshit harassment. My businesses are beyond reproach. You know that better 
than anyone. This is highly insulting." He looked at me. "Do you know how many business 
associates you've insulted at this party?"
    




I was still restraining myself from responding to his threat to my family, to Little Alex. I didn't 
want to take him down; I wanted to take him out.
             




"Trust me, this isn't harassment," I told the lawyer. "We're here to arrest your client for 
kidnapping."
             




Sorokin rolled his eyes. :re you people mad? Do you know who I am?" he asked. Jesus, I'd 
heard almost the same speech in Dallas.
    




:s a matter of fact, I do," I said. "Your real name is Pasha Sorokin, not Ari Manning. Some 
people say you're the Russian godfather. You're the Wolf."
                   




Sorokin heard me out, then he laughed a crazy laugh. "You are such fools. You, especially." 
He pointed at me. "You just don't get it."
       




Suddenly there were shouts coming from one of the other rooms on the first floor. "Fire!" 
someone was yelling.
    




"C'mon, Alex!" Mahoney said. He and I left Sorokin with three other agents and ran to see 
what the hell was going on. How could there be a ?re? Now?
                 




There was a ?re. It seemed to have started in the large study off the main living room, in a 
closet. Swirls of smoke came from under the door. A lot of smoke.
                   




I grabbed the doorknob, which was hot. The closet was locked. I lowered my shoulder and hit 
the door hard. I slammed into it again. The wood cracked this time. I hit it once more, and the 
door collapsed. Thick black smoke billowed out.
             




I stepped up close and tried to peer inside. Then I saw something move.
    




Someone was in there. I could see a face.
        




Elizabeth Connolly was in there _ and she was on ?re!
       



Chapter 103



                   




I TOOK A BREATH, then lunged forward into the cloud of smoke and heat. I felt the skin on 
my face begin to burn. I forced myself inside the walk-in closet. Stooped down. I grabbed 
Elizabeth Connolly in my arms and stumbled backward out of the closet with her. My eyes 
were tearing, and my face felt blistered. Elizabeth's eyes were open wide as I removed her 
gag. Ned Mahoney worked on the rope bindings around her arms.
       




"Thank you," she whispered in a voice hoarse with smoke. "Oh, thank you," she gasped.
  




Tears ran from her eyes, smudging the soot on her cheeks. My heart thumped a wild beat as I 
held her hand and waited for the paramedics to come. I couldn't believe she was alive, but it 
made everything worthwhile.
                 




I only got to savor the feeling for a few seconds. Shots rang out. I ran from the den, turned 
the corner, and saw two agents down but alive.
       




"A bodyguard came in firing," the closest agent told me. "He and Manning ran upstairs."
                   




I hurried up the stairs with Ned Mahoney following close behind. Why would the Wolf go 
upstairs? It didn't make sense to me. More agents joined us. We searched every room. 
Nothing! We couldn't find the Wolf or the bodyguard. Why had they run upstairs?





Mahoney and I did another full walk-through of all the rooms on the second and third floors. 
Fort Lauderdale police had begun to arrive and helped secure the house.
                  




"I don't see how he got out of here," Mahoney said. We were huddled together in the second-
floor hallway, puzzled and disgusted.
         




"Has to be a way out up here somewhere. Let's look again."
              




We retraced our steps down the second-floor hallway, checking in several guest bedrooms. At 
the far end of the hall was another stairway, probably used by the help. We'd already 
searched it. Sealed it off at the bottom. Then it struck me: a small detail I had overlooked.
              




I hurried down to the first landing. There was a casement window and a window seat there. It 
was just as I'd remembered. Two small cushions on the floor. I opened the cover of the 
window seat.
             




Ned Mahoney groaned out loud. He saw what I'd found. The escape route. The Wolf had 
gotten out!
                  




"He might still be in here. Let's see where this goes," I said. Then I lowered myself into the 
opening. There were narrow wooden stairs, a half dozen of them. Mahoney held a flashlight 
on me as I climbed down.
         




"It's here, Ned," I called back to him. I saw how they'd made it out. A window was open. I 
could see water a few feet below.
         



"They went into the Intercoastal," I called up to Mahoney. "They're in the water!"


 


Chapter 104



                   




I JOINED THE FRANTIC search in the waterway and the rest of the neighborhood, but it 
was already dark. Mahoney and I raced up and down narrow estate-lined streets. Then we 
drove along nearby Las Olas Boulevard, hoping that someone had spotted two men in 
soaking-wet clothes. But no one had seen the Wolf or his bodyguard.
   




I wouldn't give up. I went back to the Isla Bahia estates area. Something was wrong. Why 
hadn't anyone spotted two men fitting that description? I wondered if they had diving gear in 
the cellar alcove. How thoroughly had the Wolf planned his escape? What precautions had 
he taken?
     




Then I let my mind go in a different direction: He's arrogant and fearless. He didn't believe 
we'd find him and come here to take him down. He didn't have an escape route! So maybe 
he's still hiding in Isla Bahia.





I passed my ideas on to HRT, but they'd already begun to go door-to-door at the estates. 
There were now dozens of agents and local police combing the exclusive neighborhood in 
Fort Lauderdale. I wouldn't give up, wouldn't let the others quit. Whatever drove me _ 
perseverance? stubbornness? _ had paid off before. But we didn't find the Wolf, or anyone 
who'd seen him in Isla Bahia.
                 




"There's nothing? No sign? Nobody saw anything?" I asked Mahoney.
     




"Nothing," Mahoney said. "We found a cocker spaniel on the loose. That's it."
                   




"We know who owns the dog?" I asked.
    




Mahoney rolled his eyes. I didn't blame him. "I'll check." He went away and came back 
after a couple of minutes.
  




"It belongs to a Mr. and Mrs. Steve Davis. The Davise's live at the end of the street. We'll 
bring them their dog. Satisfied?"
                




I shook my head. "Not really. Let's the two of us return the dog," I said. "I don't know why a 
dog would be loose this late at night. Is the family home?"
          




Doesn't look like it. The lights are off at the house. C'mon, Alex. Jesus. This is hopeless. 
You're clutching at straws. Pasha Sorokin is gone."
     



"Let's go. Get the dog," I said. "We're going to the Davis house."



                   



Chapter 105



                   




WE HAD STARTED TOWARD the Davis house with the brown-and-white cocker spaniel 
when a report came over the two-way: "Two suspicious males. Heading toward Las Olas 
Boulevard. They've spotted us! We're in pursuit."
  




We were only a few blocks from the shopping district and got there in minutes. The cocker 
spaniel was barking in the backseat. Fort Lauderdale police patrol cars and FBI sedans had 
already formed a tight ring around a Gap clothing store. More patrol cars were arriving, their 
sirens screaming in the night. The street was crowded, and the local police were having trouble 
stopping pedestrian flow.
         




Mahoney drove up to the blockade. We left a window cracked for the dog. He and I jumped 
out and ran toward the Gap. We were wearing black jackets, carrying handguns.
                 




The store lights were blazing. I could see people inside. But not the Wolf. Not the bodyguard 
either.
      




"We think it's him," an agent told us when we got up close to the store.
   




"How many gunmen inside?" I asked.
     




"We count two. Two that we know about. Could be more. There's a lot of confusion."
                




"Yeah, no shit," said Mahoney. "I get that impression."
             




For the next few minutes nothing useful happened, except that more Lauderdale patrol cars 
arrived on the scene. So did a heavily armed and armored SWAT unit. A hostage negotiator 
showed up. Then a pair of news helicopters began to hover over the Gap and surrounding 
stores.





"Nobody's answering the goddamn phone inside," the negotiator reported. "It just rings."
             




Mahoney looked questioningly at me and I shrugged. "We don't even know if it's them 
inside."
   




The negotiator took up a bullhorn. "This is the Fort Lauderdale police. Come out of the store 
now. We're not going to negotiate. Come out with your hands up. Whoever's in there, get out 
now!"
             




The approach sounded wrong to me. Too confrontational. I walked up to the negotiator. 
"I'm FBI, Agent Cross. Do we need to back him into a corner? He's violent. He's extremely 
dangerous."
             




The negotiator was a stocky guy with a thick mustache; he was wearing a black jacket, but it 
wasn't secured. "Get the fuck away from me!" he shouted in my face.





"This is a federal case," I shouted right back. I grabbed the bullhorn out of his hand. The 
negotiator went at me with his fists, but Mahoney wrestled him to the ground. The press was 
watching; to hell with them. We had a job to do here.
                 




"This is the FBI!" I said into the bullhorn. "I want to talk to Pasha Sorokin." Then suddenly 
the strangest thing of the night happened,
                   




and it had been a very strange night. I almost couldn't believe it. Two men emerged from the 
front door of the Gap. They held their hands in front of their faces, shielding
       




them from the cameras, or maybe from us. "Get down on the ground!" I shouted at them. 
They didn't
                




comply. But then I could see _ it was Sorokin and the bodyguard. "We're not armed," 
Sorokin yelled, loudly enough for everybody to hear. "We're innocent citizens. We have no 
guns."
                   




I didn't know whether to believe him. None of us knew what to make of this. The TV 
helicopter over our heads was getting too close.
                   



"What's he doing?" Mahoney asked me.


"Don't know . . . Get down!" I shouted again.



The Wolf and the bodyguard continued to walk toward us. Slowly and carefully.
            




I moved ahead with Mahoney. We had our guns out. Was this a trick? What could they try 
with dozens of ribs and handguns aimed at them?
      




The Wolf smiled when he saw me. Why the hell was he smiling?
  



"So, you caught us," he called out. "Big deal! It doesn't matter, you know. I have a surprise for 
you, FBI. Ready? My name is Pasha Sorokin. But I'm not the Wolf." He laughed. "I'm just some 
guy shopping in the Gap. My clothes got wet. I'm not the Wolf, Mr. FBI. Is that funny or what? 
Does it make your day? It makes mine. And it will make the Wolf's too."



                   



Chapter 106



                   




PASHA SOROKIN wasn't the Wolf. Was that possible? There was no way to know for sure. 
Over the next forty-eight hours it was confirmed that the men we had captured in Florida 
were Pasha Sorokin and Russian Federov. They were Red Mafia, but both claimed never to 
have met the real Wolf. They said they had played the "parts" they were given _ stand-in 
roles, according to them. Now they were willing to make the best deals they could.
      




There was no way for us to know for sure what was going on, but the deal-making went on 
for two days. The Bureau liked to make deals. I didn't. Contacts were made inside the Mafia; 
more doubts were raised about Pasha Sorokin's being the Wolf. Finally, the CIA operatives 
who'd gotten the Wolf out of Russia were found and brought to Pasha's cell. They said he 
wasn't the man they'd help get out of the Soviet Union.
     




Then it was Sorokin who gave us a name we wanted _ one that blew my mind completely, 
blew everybody's minds. It was part of his deal.
 




He gave us Sphinx.





The next morning, four teams of FBI agents waited outside Sphinx's house until he left for 
work. We had agreed not to take him inside the house. I wouldn't let it go down that way. I 
just couldn't do it.
     




We all felt that Lizzie Connolly and her daughters had been through more than enough pain 
already. They didn't need to see Brendan Connolly, Sphinx , arrested at the family house in 
Buckhead. They didn't need to find out the awful truth about him like that.
  




I sat in a dark blue sedan parked two blocks up the street but with a view of the large 
Georgian-style house. I was feeling numb. I remembered the first time I'd been there. I 
recalled my talk with the girls, and then with Brendan Connolly in his den. His grief had 
seemed heartfelt, as genuine as his young daughters.
                 




Of course, no one had suspected he had betrayed his wife, sold her to another man. Pasha 
Sorokin had met Elizabeth at a party in the Connolly house. He'd wanted her; Brendan 
Connolly didn't. The judge had been having affairs for years. Elizabeth reminded Sorokin of 
the model Claudia Schiffer, who had appeared on billboards all over Moscow during his 
gangster days. So the horrifying trade was made. A husband had sold his own wife into 
captivity; he'd gotten rid of her in the worst way imaginable. How could he have hated 
Elizabeth so much? And how could she have loved him?
                




Ned Mahoney was in the car with me, waiting for action: the takedown of Sphinx. If we 
couldn't have the Wolf yet, he was our second choice _ the consolation prize.
   




"I wonder if Elizabeth knew about her husband's secret life?" Mahoney muttered.





"Maybe she suspected something. They didn't sleep together regularly. When I visited the 
house, Connolly showed me the den. There was a bed in there. Unmade."
      




"Think he'll go to work today?" Mahoney asked. He was calmly munching an apple. A very 
cool head to work with.
                   




"He knows we took down Sorokin and Federov. I figure he'll be cautious. He'll probably play 
it straight. Hard to tell."
         




"Maybe we should take him at the house. You think?" He bit into his apple again. "Alex?"
          




I shook my head. "I can't do it, Ned. Not to his family."
            




"Okay. Just asking, buddy."
  




We waited. A little past nine, Brendan Connolly finally came out the front door of the house. 
He walked to a silver Porsche Boxster parked in the circular driveway. He had on a blue suit, 
carried a black gym bag. He was whistling.





"Scumbag!" Mahoney whispered. Then he spoke into his two-way: "This is Alpha One . . . we 
have Sphinx leaving the house. He's getting into a Porsche. Prepare to converge. Vehicle 
license is V6T-81K."
                   




We heard back immediately. "This is Braves One ...we have Sphinx in full sight too. We've 
got him covered. He's ours."
      




Then, ;raves Three in place at second intersect. We're waiting on him."
       




"Should be about ten to fifteen seconds. He's heading down the street. Making a right."
       




I spoke very calmly to Mahoney. "I want to take him down, Ned."
      




He looked straight ahead through the windshield. Didn't answer me. But he didn't say no.
            




I watched the Porsche proceed at a normal speed to the next cross street. The Boxster eased 
into the turn. And then Brendan Connolly ran!
            




"Oh, boy," said Mahoney, and tossed away his apple.
     



Chapter 107



                   




A MESSAGE CAME OVER the shortwave. "Suspect is going southeast. He must have seen 
us!"
        




I gunned our car in the direction the Porsche had disappeared. I managed to get the sedan up 
to sixty-five on the narrow, winding street lined with gated McMansions. I still couldn't see 
the silver Porsche up ahead.
    




"I'm heading east," I said into the two-way. "I'll take a chance he's trying to get to the 
highway." I didn't know what else to do. I passed several cars coming the other way on the 
quiet street. A couple of drivers sat on their horns. That's what I would have done too. I was 
going seventy-five miles an hour in a residential area.
      




"I see him!" Mahoney yelled.
     




I stepped down hard on the gas. I was finally making up some ground. I spotted a blue sedan 
approaching the Porsche from the east. It was Braves Two. We had Brendan Connolly from 
two sides. Now the question was whether or not he'd give up.
  




Suddenly the Porsche shot right off the road and into a thicket of bushes that rose higher than 
the car's roof. The Porsche tilted forward, then disappeared down a steep slope.
          




I didn't slow down until the last second, then I braked hard and went into a controlled 
shudder and spin.





"Jesus Christ!" Mahoney shouted from the passenger seat.
        




"Thought you were HRT," I said.
             




Mahoney laughed. "All right then, partner! Let's go get the bad guy!"
            




I steered the sedan through the bushes and found myself on a steep hill dotted with large 
rocks and trees. When the first branches cleared, I still had limited vision because of all the 
other trees. Then I saw the Porsche smack into a midsize oak and carom to one side. The car 
slid sideways another fifty feet before it finally stopped.
        




Sphinx was down.
   



Let's go get the bad guy!



                   



Chapter 108



                   




MAHONEY AND I WANTED Sphinx, and it was personal with me, maybe with both of us. I 
let our sedan roll another fifty or sixty yards. Then I braked and the car stopped. Mahoney 
and I jumped out. We almost slid down the steep hill, which was slippery with mud.
   




"Crazy son of a bitch!" Ned Mahoney shouted, as we stumbled ahead.
    




"What choice did he have? He had to run."
         




"I mean you. You're crazy! What a ride."





We saw Brendan Connolly lurch out of the damaged Porsche. He held a handgun aimed our 
way. Connolly ?red off two quick shots. He wasn't good with a gun, but he was shooting real 
bullets.
    




"Son of a bitch!" Mahoney ?red a shot and hit the Porsche _ just to show Connolly that we 
could shoot him if we wanted to.
        




"Put the gun down," Mahoney shouted. "Put the gun down!"





Brendan Connolly started to run down the hill, but he was stumbling a lot. Mahoney and I 
kept gaining on him until we were only thirty yards or so behind.





"Let me," I said.
       




Brendan Connolly looked back over his shoulder just then. I could tell he was tired, scared, or 
both. His legs and arms were pumping in a disjointed rhythm. He might work out in some 
gym, but he wasn't ready for this.
            




"Get back! I'll shoot!" he shouted , almost right into my face.
        




I hit him, and it was like a speeding tractor-trailer back-ending a barely moving compact. 
Connolly went down, rolling crazily. I stayed upright. Didn't even lose my balance. This was 
the good part. It almost made up for some of our misses and failures.
              




Connolly's ignominious roll finally stopped after twenty feet, but then he made his biggest 
mistake, he got back up.
              




I was on him in a second. I was all over Sphinx, and it was where I wanted to be. Mano a 
mano with this bastard. He had sold his own wife, the mother of his children.
               




I threw a hard right-handed shot into the bridge of Connolly's nose. The perfect shot, or close 
to it. Probably broke it, from the crunch I heard. He went down on one knee
 
but he got up again. Former college jock. Former tough guy. Current asshole.
 




His nose was hanging to one side. Good deal. I threw an uppercut into the pit of Connolly's 
stomach and liked the feeling so much I threw another. I crunched another right into his gut, 
which was softening to the touch. Then a quick, hard hook to his cheek. I was getting 
stronger.
      




I jabbed his broken nose and Connolly moaned. I jabbed again. I looped a roundhouse at his 
chin, connected, bulls-eye. Brendan Connolly's blue eyes rolled back into his forehead. The 
lights went out and he dropped into the mud and stayed there, where he belonged.
                  




I heard a voice behind me. "That how it's done in D.C.?" Mahoney asked from a few yards 
up the hill.
      



I looked up at him. "That's how it's done, Natty Bumppo. Hope you took notes."



                   



Chapter 109



                   




THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS were quiet, disturbingly, maddeningly so. I found out I was 
being assigned to headquarters in Washington, as deputy director of Investigations under 
Director Burns. : big fat plum," I was told by everybody. It sounded like a desk job to me, 
and I didn't want that. I wanted the Wolf. I wanted the street. I wanted action. I hadn't come 
over to the Bureau to be a desk jockey in the Hoover Building.
     




I was given a week off, and Nana, the kids, and I went everywhere together. There was a lot 
of tension in the house, though. We were waiting to hear what Christine Johnson was going to 
do.
       




Every time I looked at Alex my heart ached; every time I held him in my arms or tucked him 
into bed at the end of the day, I thought about his leaving the house for good. I couldn't let 
that happen, but my lawyer had advised me it could.
                




The director needed to see me in his office one morning during my week off. It wasn't too 
much of a problem. I stopped in after I had dropped the kids off at school. Tony Woods, 
Burns's assistant, seemed particularly glad to see me.
  




"You're something of a hero for the moment. Enjoy it," he said, sounding, as always, like an 
Ivy League prof. "Won't last long."
    




"Always the optimist, Tony," I said.
        




"That's my job description, young man."
      




I wondered how much Ron Burns shared with his assistant, and also what the director had in 
mind this morning. I wanted to ask Tony about this plum job I was slated for. But I didn't. I 
figured he wouldn't tell me anyway.
  




Coffee and sweet rolls were waiting in Burns's office, but the director wasn't there. It was a 
little past eight. I wondered if he'd even gotten to work yet. It was hard to imagine that Ron 
Burns had a life outside the office, though I knew he had a wife and four children, and lived 
out in Virginia, about an hour from D.C.
    




Burns finally appeared at the door in a blue dress shirt and tie, with his shirtsleeves rolled up. 
So now I knew he'd had at least one meeting before this one. Actually, I hoped this meeting 
wasn't about another case that he wanted me to dive into. Unless it involved the Wolf.
   




Burns grinned when he saw me sitting there. He read my look instantly. "Actually, I have a 
couple of nasty cases for you to work on. But that isn't why I wanted to see you, Alex. Have 
some coffee. Relax. You're on vacation, right?"
     




He walked into the room and sat down across from me. "I want to hear how it's going so far. 
You miss being a homicide detective? Still want to stay in the Bureau? You can leave if you 
want to. The Washington PD wants you back. Badly."
   




"That's good to hear, that I'm wanted. As for the Bureau, what can I say? The resources are 
amazing. Lots of good people here, great people. I hope you know that."
        




"I do. I'm a fan of our personnel, most of them, anyway. And on the dark side?" he asked. 
"Problem areas? Things to work on? I want to hear what you think. I need to hear it. Tell me 
the truth, as you see it."
    




"Bureaucracy. It's a way of life. It's almost the FBI's culture. And fear. It's mostly political in 
nature, and it inhibits agents_ imaginations. Did I mention bureaucracy? It's bad, awful, 
crippling. Just listen to your agents."
 




"I'm listening," Burns said. "Go on."
                   




"The agents aren't allowed to be nearly as good as they can be. Of course, that's a complaint 
with most jobs, isn't it?"
            




'Even your old job with the Washington PD?"
       




"Not as much as here. That's because I sidestepped a lot of red tape and other bullshit that 
got in the way."





"Good. Keep sidestepping the bullshit, Alex," Burns said. "even if it's mine."
     




I smiled. "Is that an order?"
   




Burns nodded soberly. I felt that he had something else on his mind. "I had a difficult 
meeting before you got here. Gordon Nooney is leaving the Bureau."
                   




I shook my head. "I hope I didn't have anything to do with that. I don't know Nooney well 
enough to judge him. Seriously. I don't."
     




"Sorry, but you did have something to do with it. But it was my decision. The buck passes 
through here at a hundred miles an hour, and I like it that way. I do know Nooney well 
enough to judge him. Nooney was the leak to the Washington Post. That son of a bitch has 
been doing it for years. Alex, I thought about putting you in Nooney's job."
        




I was shocked to hear it. "I've never trained people. I didn't finish orientation myself."





"But you could train our people."
             




I wasn't sure about that. "Maybe I could struggle through. But I like the streets. It's in my 
blood. I've learned to accept that about myself."
  




"I know. I get it, Alex. I want you to work right here in the Hoover Building, though. We're 
going to change things. We're going to win more than we lose. Work the big cases with Stacy 
Pollack here at headquarters. She's one of the best. Tough, smart, she could run this place 
someday."
                




"I can work with Stacy," I said, and left it at that.
                




Ron Burns put out his hand and I took it.
               




"This is going to be good. Exciting stuff," he said. "Which reminds me of a promise I made. 
There's a spot here for Detective John Sampson, and any D.C. street cop you like. Anybody 
who wants to win. We're going to win, Alex."
 




I shook Ron Burns's hand on it. The thing is, I wanted to win too.
           



Chapter 110



                   




ON MONDAY MORNING I was in my new office on the fifth floor at headquarters in D.C. 
Tony Woods had given me a walking tour earlier that morning, and I was struck by strange, 
funny details that I couldn't get out of my head. Like . . . the office doors were metal all 
through the building, except on the executive floor, where they were wooden. The odd thing, 
though, was that the wooden doors looked exactly like the metal ones. Welcome to the FBI.
                   




Anyway, I had a lot of reading to do, and I hoped I'd get used to being in an eleven-by-
fifteen-foot office, which was kind of bare. The furniture looked as if it were on loan from the 
Government Accounting Office; there was a desk and chair, a file cabinet with a large dial 
lock, and a coat tree that held my black Kevlar vest and blue nylon raid jacket. The office 
looked down on Pennsylvania Avenue, which was something of a perk.
                   




Just past two that afternoon, I got a phone call, actually the first incoming call to my new 
office. It was Tony Woods. "All settled in?" he asked. "Anything you need?"
   




"I'm getting there, Tony. I'll be fine. Thanks for asking."





"Good. Alex, you're going out of town in about an hour. There's a lead on the Wolf in 
Brooklyn. Stacy Pollack will be going with you, so it's a big deal. You fly out of Quantico at 
fifteen hundred. This thing isn't over."
                 




I called home, then I gathered some paperwork on the Wolf, grabbed the overnight bag I'd 
been told to keep in my office, and headed to the parking garage. Stacy Pollack came down 
a few minutes later.
        




She drove, and it took us less than half an hour to get to the small private airfield at 
Quantico. On the way, she told me about the lead in Brooklyn. Supposedly, the real Wolf had 
been spotted at Brighton Beach. At least we weren't giving up on him.
          




One of the black Bells was saddled up and waiting for us. Stacy and I got out of the sedan 
and walked side by side toward the helicopter. The skies were bright blue and streaming with 
clouds that appeared to be shredding in the distance.





"Nice day for a train wreck," Stacy said, and grinned.
             




A shot rang out from the woods directly behind us. I had thrown back my head, laughing at 
Stacy's little joke. I saw her get hit and blood spatter. I went down and covered her body.
                   




Agents ran onto the tarmac. One of them fired in the direction of the sniper shot. Two came 
sprinting toward us: the others ran toward the woods in the direction of the shot.
                   




I lay on Stacy, trying to protect her, hoping she wasn't dead, and wondering if maybe the 
bullet had been meant for me.
           




You'll never catch the Wolf, Pasha Sorokin had said in Florida. He will catch you. Now the 
warning had come true.
          




The briefing that night at the Hoover Building was the most emotional I had seen at the 
Bureau so far. Stacy Pollack was alive, but she was in critical condition at Walter Reed. Most 
of the agents respected Stacy Pollack tremendously, and they couldn't believe she'd been 
targeted. I still wondered if the bullet had been meant for her. She and I had been headed to 
New York to see about the Wolf; he was the chief suspect in the shooting. But did he have 
help? Was there someone inside the Bureau?
 




"The other bad news," Ron Burns told the group that night, "is that our lead in Brighton 
Beach turns out to be bogus. The Wolf isn't in New York, and apparently he wasn't there 
recently. The questions that we have to answer are, Did he know we were going after him? If 
he knew, how did he know? Did one of us tell him? I promise that we will spare nothing to get 
the answers to those questions."
    




After the meeting, I was one of the agents invited to a smaller briefing held in the director's 
conference room. The mood continued to be somber, serious, and angry. Burns took the floor 
again, and he seemed more upset by the Stacy Pollack shooting than anyone else.
            




"When I said that we were going to bring that Russian bastard down, I wasn't using hyperbole 
for effect. I'm establishing a BAM team to go after him. Sorokin said that the Wolf would 
come after us and he did. Now we're going to go after him, with everything we have, all our 
resources."
  




Heads around the room nodded their approval. I'd heard of the existence of BAM teams in 
the FBI but hadn't known if they were real or not. I knew what the acronym stood for: By 
Any Means. It was what we needed to hear right now. It was what I needed to hear.
        




BAM.
       



Chapter 111



                   




EVERYTHING FELT LIKE it was going much too fast, like it was spinning out of control. 
Maybe that was right. The case was out of our control _ the Wolf was running it.





I got a phone call at home two nights later. It was quarter past three in the morning. "This had 
better be good."
      




"It isn't. All hell's broken loose, Alex. It's a war." The caller was Tony Woods, and he 
sounded groggy.
    




I massaged my forehead as I spoke. "What war? Tell me what happened."
              




"We got word from Texas a few minutes ago. Lawrence Lipton is dead, murdered. They got 
to him in his cell."
 




I was starting to wake up in a hurry.
  




"How? He was in our custody, wasn't he?"
         




"Two agents were killed with Lipton. He predicted it, didn't he?"
         




I nodded, then I said, "Yeah."
            




"Alex, they got to the Lipton family too. They're all dead. HRT is on the way to your house, 
also the director's, even Mahoney's. Anybody who worked on the case is considered 
vulnerable and at risk."
        




That got me up out of bed. I took my Glock out of the locked cabinet beside my bed.
       




"I'll be waiting for HRT," I told Woods, then I hurried downstairs with my gun in hand.
              




Was the Wolf already here? I wondered.
                 




The war came to our house a few minutes later, and even though it was HRT, it couldn't 
have been much scarier. Nana Mama was up and she greeted the heavily armed FBI agents 
with angry looks but also offers of coffee. Then she and I went to wake the children as gently 
as we could.





"This isn't right, Alex. Not in our home," Nana whispered as we went upstairs to get Jannie 
and Damon. "The line has to be drawn somewhere, doesn't it? This is bad."
       




"I know it is. It's gotten out of control, everything has. The world is that way now."
       




"So what are you going to do about it? What are you planning to do?"
      




"Right now, wake the kids. Hug them, kiss them. Get them out of this house for a while."
 




:re you listening to yourself?" Nana asked as we arrived at the doorway to Damon's 
bedroom. He was already sitting up in bed. ­?" he said.
  




Ned Mahoney came up behind me. "Alex, can I have a second?" What was he doing here? 
What else had happened?
      




"I'll wake them, get them dressed," Nana said. "Talk to your friend."
              




I stayed behind with Mahoney. "What is it, Ned? Can't it wait for a couple of minutes? 
Jesus."
    




"The bastards hit Burns's house. Everybody's all right. We got there in time."
       




I stared into Mahoney's eyes. "Your family?"
          




"They're out of the house. They're safe for now. We've got to find him and burn him."
        




I nodded. "Let me get my kids up."
      




Twenty minutes later my family was escorted outside to a waiting van. They climbed inside 
like frightened refugees in a war zone. That's what the world was becoming, wasn't it? Every 
city and town was a potential battlefield. No place was safe.
                   




Just before I climbed into the van, I spotted a photographer posted across the street from our 
house on Fifth Street. It looked like he was photographing the evacuation of our house. Why 
was that?
         



I'm not sure how I knew who he was, but somehow I did. He's not from any newspaper, I 
thought. I felt myself filling with rage and disgust. He works for Christine's lawyers.



                   



Chapter 112



                   




CHAOS.
 




The next day, and for two days after that, I found myself in Huntsville, Texas, the site of the 
federal prison where Lawrence Lipton had been murdered while he was in the custody of the 
Federal Bureau. No one there had any explanation for how Lipton and two agents had been 
killed.
      




It had happened during the night. In his cell. Actually, the small suite where he was kept 
under guard. None of the video cameras had a record of visitors. None of the interviews or 
interrogations had turned up a suspect. Lipton had had most of the bones in his body broken. 
Zamochit. The Red Mafia trademark.
     




The same method had been used on an Italian Maú figure named Augustino Palumbo this 
past summer. According to stories, Palumbo's killer had been a Russian mobster, possibly the 
Wolf. The murder had taken place at the super-max prison in Florence, Colorado.
                   




The following morning I arrived in Colorado. I was there to visit a killer named Kyle Craig, 
who had once been an FBI agent, and also a friend of mine. Kyle was responsible for dozens 
of murders; he was one of the worst psychopathic killers in history. I had captured him. My 
friend.
                   




We met in an interview room on death row in the isolation unit. Kyle looked surprisingly fit. 
When I'd last seen him he had been gaunt and very pale, with deep, dark hollows under his 
eyes. He appeared to have put on at least thirty pounds, all of it muscle. I wondered why, 
what had given Kyle hope? Whatever it was scared me a little.
   




"All roads lead to Florence?" he quipped, and grinned as I entered the interview room. "Some 
associates of yours from the Bureau were here just yesterday. Or was it the day before? You 
know, the last time we met, Alex, you said you didn't care what I think. That hurt."
       




I corrected him, which I knew would annoy Kyle. "Not exactly what I said. You accused me 
of being condescending and told me that you didn't like it. I said, _Who cares what you like 
anymore?_ I do care about what you think. That's why I'm here."
           




Kyle laughed again, and the braying sound he made, the baring of his teeth, chilled me. "You 
always were my favorite," he said.
    




"You were expecting me?" I asked.
    




"Hmm. Hard to say. Not really. Maybe at some time in the future."
    




"You look like you have big plans. You're all buffed."
   




"What plans could I possibly have?"
      




"The usual. Grand delusions, homicidal fantasies, rape, the slaughter of innocents."
           




"I do hate it when you play psychologist, Alex. You didn't make it in that world for a good 
reason."
 




I shrugged. "I know that, Kyle. None of my patients in Southeast had money to pay me. I 
needed to start a practice in Georgetown. Maybe I will someday."
                




He laughed again. "Talk about delusions. So why are you here? No, I'll tell you why. There's 
been a terrible miscarriage of justice and I'm being released. You're the messenger of glad 
tidings."
  




"The only miscarriage is that you haven't been executed, Kyle."
      




Kyle's eyes sparkled. I was one of his favorites. "All right, now that you've charmed me, what 
is it that you want?"
                




"You know what I want, Kyle," I said. "You know exactly why I'm here."
           




He clapped his hands loudly. "Zamochit! The mad Russian!"
         




For the next half an hour I told Kyle everything I knew about the Wolf; well, nearly 
everything. Then I gave him the kicker. "He met with you on the night he came here to kill 
Little Gus Palumbo. Did you set up the kill for him? Somebody did."
     




Kyle leaned back and seemed to be considering his options, but I knew he'd already decided 
what he meant to do. He was always a step or two ahead.
           




Finally he leaned forward and beckoned me closer. I wasn't afraid of Kyle, at least not 
physically, not even with his extra pounds of muscle. I almost hoped he'd make a move.
      



"I do this out of love and respect for you," Kyle said. "I did meet with the Russian last summer. 
Ruthless chap, no conscience. I liked him. We played chess. I know who he is, my friend. I might 
be able to help you."



                   



Chapter 113



                   




IT TOOK ME another day at Florence, but I finally negotiated a name out of Kyle. Now, 
could we believe him? The name was checked and rechecked in Washington, and the Bureau 
was becoming confident that he had given us the Red Mafia leader. I had doubts, because it 
came from Kyle. But we had no other leads.
      




Maybe Kyle was trying to blow me up or embarrass the Bureau. Or maybe he wanted to 
demonstrate how smart he was, how well-connected, how superior to us all. The name, the 
person's position, made the arrest controversial and risky. If we went after this man and we 
were wrong, the embarrassment would stick to the Bureau.
   




So we waited for nearly a week. We checked all of our information again and did several 
interviews in the field. The suspect was put under surveillance.
             




When we had completed the due diligence, I met with Ron Burns and the director of the CIA 
in Burns's office. Ron got to the point. "We believe he's the Wolf, Alex. Craig is probably 
telling the truth."
       




Thomas Weir from the CIA nodded my way. "We've been watching this suspect in New York 
for some time. We thought he'd been KGB back in Russia, but there wasn't conclusive 
evidence. We never suspected Red Mafia, never the Wolf. Not this man. Not given his 
position with the Russian government."
           




Weir's look was intense. "We increased the levels of audio surveillance to include the 
apartment where the suspect lives in Manhattan. He's making arrangements to go after 
Director Burns again."
    




Burns looked at me. "He doesn't forgive and forget, Alex. Neither do I."
            




"Is that it? We go to New York and arrest him?"
              



Burns and Weir nodded solemnly. "This should be the end of it," said Burns. "Go and take down 
the Wolf. Bring me his head."



                   



Chapter 114



                   




THIS SHOULD BE the end of it. From Director Burns's mouth to God's ear.





The Century is a famous art deco apartment building on Central Park West, north of 
Columbus Circle, in New York City. For decades it has been a residence of choice for well-to-
do actors, artists, and businesspeople, especially those who are humble enough to share space 
with working-class families who've passed down their apartments for decades.
                   




We arrived at the building around four in the morning. HRT immediately took over the three 
main entrances on Central Park, Sixty-second, and Sixty-third Streets. This was the largest 
bust I had been a part of, definitely the most complicated: The New York City Police, FBI, 
CIA, and Secret Service were all involved in the operation. We were about to take down an 
important Russian. The head of the trade delegation to New York. A businessman himself, 
supposedly above suspicion. The repercussions would be severe if we were wrong. But how 
could we be wrong? Not this time.
         




I was at the Century, along with my partner for the past week or so. Ned Mahoney was 
hardworking, honest, and tough in the clutch. The head of HRT had been to my house and 
even passed Nana's inspection, mostly because he'd grown up on the streets of D.C.
           




Ned and I and a dozen others were climbing the stairs to two penthouse floors, since the 
suspect's apartment was on twenty-one and twenty-two. He was powerful and wealthy. He 
had a good reputation with Wall Street and the banks. Was he the Wolf? If so, why hadn't his 
name ever come up before? Because the Wolf was so good, so careful?
    




"Be glad when this is over with," Mahoney said without a huff or a puff as he mounted the 
stairs.
                   




"How did it get out of hand like this?" I asked. "There are too many people here."
      




"Always too much politics. Better get used to it. World we live in. Too many suits, not enough 
workers."
                   




We finally reached twenty-one. Ned and I and four other agents stopped there. The rest of 
the team continued to twenty-two. We waited for them to get into position. This was it. I 
hoped this was it. Was the real Wolf on one of these two floors?
     




I heard an urgent voice in my earpiece. "Suspect coming out of a window! Man in his 
underwear jumped from the tower! Jesus Christ! He's down on the landing between the 
towers. He's on the roof. Running."
                   




Mahoney and I understood what had happened. We rushed down to the twentieth floor. The 
Century had two towers that rose up from twenty. A large expanse of roof connected them.
     




We burst out onto the roof and immediately saw a barefoot man in his underwear. He was 
burly, balding, bearded. He turned and fired at us with a pistol. The Wolf? Balding? Burly? 
Could this be him?
  




He hit Mahoney!
      




He hit me!
                  




We went down hard. Chest shots! Hurt like hell! Took my breath away. Fortunately, we were 
wearing Kevlar vests.
      




The man in his underwear wasn't.
   




Mahoney's return fire took out a kneecap; my first shot struck his thick stomach. He went 
down, spurting blood and howling.
 




We ran to the side of Andrei Prokopev. Mahoney kicked away his gun. "You're under arrest!" 
Ned yelled into the face of the wounded Russian. "We know who you are."
        




A helicopter appeared between the Century's towers. A woman was screaming from one of 
the windows several stories above us. Now the helicopter was landing! What the hell was this?
            




A man came out of a window in the tower and dropped to the roof.
                  




Then another man. Professional gunmen, it looked like. Bodyguards?
  




They were quick on the draw and began shooting the instant they hit the roof. HRT returned 
fire. Several shots were exchanged. Both gunmen were hit and went down. Neither got up 
again. HRT was that good.
      




The helicopter was setting down on the roof. It wasn't media or police. It was there to get the 
Wolf and whisk him away, wasn't it? There were shots from the helicopter. Mahoney and I 
fired into the cockpit. There was another rapid exchange of gun fire. Then the shooting from 
the helicopter stopped.





For several seconds the only sound on the roof was the loud, eerie whir of the helicopter's 
rotor blades. "Clear!" one of our agents finally yelled. "They're down in the copter!"
               




"You're under arrest!" Mahoney screamed at the Russian in his underwear. "You're the Wolf. 
You attacked the director's house, his family!"
   




I had something else in mind, another kind of message. I leaned in close and said, "Kyle 
Craig did this to you." I wanted him to know, and maybe pay Kyle back someday.
       



Maybe with zamochit.



                   



Chapter 115



                   




I HOPED TO GOD it was over now. We all did. Ned Mahoney flew back to Quantico that 
morning, but I spent the rest of the day at FBI headquarters in lower Manhattan. The 
Russian government had filed protests everywhere they could, but Andrei Prokopev was still 
in custody, and State Department people were all over the FBI offices. Even a few Wall 
Street firms had questioned the arrest.
      




So far, I hadn't been allowed to talk to the Russian again. He was scheduled for surgery, but 
his life wasn't in danger. He was being grilled by someone, just not by me.
     




Burns finally reached me at around four o'clock in the office I was using at FBI New York. 
"Alex, I want you to head back to Washington," he said. "Flight arrangements have been 
made. We'll be waiting for you here." That was all he told me.
                




Burns signed off, so I didn't get the chance to ask any questions. It was obvious that he 
didn't want me to. Around seven-thirty I arrived at the Hoover Building and was told to go to 
the SIOC conference area on five. They were waiting for me there. Not exactly waiting, since 
a shirtsleeves meeting was already in progress. Ron Burns was at the table, which wasn't a 
good sign. Everybody looked tense and exhausted.
                




"Let me bring Alex up to date," Burns said when I entered the room. "Have a rest, kick back. 
There's been a new wrinkle. None of us are very happy about it. You won't be either."
                  




I shook my head and felt a little sick as I sat down. I didn't need new wrinkles; I had more 
than enough already.
  




"The Russians are actually cooperating for a change," Burns said. "It seems that they're not 
denying Andrei Prokopev has Red Mafia connections. He does. They've been monitoring 
him for some time themselves. They hoped to use him to penetrate the huge black market 
still coming out of Moscow."
                  




I cleared my throat. "But."
       




Burns nodded. "Right. The Russians tell us, now, that Prokopev is not the man we're looking 
for. They're certain of it."
              




I felt completely drained. "Because?"
              




It was Burns's turn to shake his head. "They know what the Wolf looks like. He was KGB, 
after all. The real Wolf set us up to believe he was Prokopev. Andrei Prokopev was one of his 
rivals in the Red Mafia."
   




"To be the Russian godfather?"
               




"To be the godfather, Russian or otherwise."
           




I pursed my lips, took a breath. "Do the Russians know
 
who the Wolf really is?"
          



Burns's eyes narrowed. "If they do, they won't tell us. Not yet, anyway. Maybe they're afraid of 
him too."



 
                  



Chapter 116



                   




LATE THAT NIGHT I sat at the piano on the sunporch with one of Billy Collins's poems 
running around my head. It was called "The Blues." It inspired me so much that I sat at the 
piano and made up a melody to go with the poem. We had lost to the Wolf. It happened a lot 
in police work, though nobody wanted to admit it. Lives had been saved, though. Elizabeth 
Connolly and a couple of others had been found; Brendan Connolly was in jail. Andrei 
Prokopev had been caught. But we seemed to have lost the big one, for now, anyway. The 
Wolf was still out there. The godfather was free to do what he did, and that wasn't good for 
anybody.
  




The next morning, I arrived early to meet Jamilla Hughes's flight into Reagan National. I had 
the usual butterflies before her plane got in. But mostly I couldn't wait to see Jam. Nana and 
the kids had insisted on coming to the airport with me. A little show of support for Jamilla. 
And for me. For all of us, actually.
          




The airport was crowded but seemed relatively quiet and peaceful, probably on account of 
the high ceilings. My family and I stood at an exit from Terminal A, near the security check. I 
saw Jam, then so did the kids, who started poking me. She was wearing black from head to 
toe; she looked better than ever, and Jamilla always looked good to me.
              




"She's beautiful and so cool," Jannie said, and lightly touched the back of my hand. "You 
know that, don't you, Daddy?"





"She is, isn't she," I agreed, looking at Jannie now, rather than at Jamilla. "She's also smart. 
Except about men, it would seem."
           




"We really like her," Jannie continued. "Can you tell?"
         




"I can. I like her too."
                   




"But do you love her?" Jannie asked in her usual no-nonsense, get-to-the-heart-of-the-matter 
way. "Do you?"
      




I didn't say anything. That part was between Jam and me.
           




"Well,
 
do you?" Nana joined in.
        




I didn't answer Nana either, so she shook her head, rolled her eyes.
       




"What do the boys think?" I turned to Damon and Little Alex. The Big Boy was clapping his 
hands and smiling, so I knew where he stood.
      




"She's definitely all that," said Damon, and he grinned. He always got a little goofy around 
Jamilla.
   




I moved toward her, and they let me go alone. I snuck a glance back at them, and they were 
grinning like a Cheshire cat family. I had a lump in my throat. Don't know why. I felt a little 
spacey, and my knees were weak. Don't know why either.
      




"I can't believe everybody came," Jamilla said as she slid into my arms. "That makes me 
happy. I can't tell you how much, Alex. Wow. I think I'm going to cry. Even though I'm a 
tough-as-nails homicide detective. You all right? You aren't all right. I can tell."
         




"Oh, I'm fine now." I held her tight, then I actually picked Jam up, set her back down.
      




We were quiet for a moment. "We're going to fight for Little Alex," she said.
        




"Of course," I told her. Then I said something that I'd never told Jamilla before, though it had 
been on the tip of my tongue many times. "I love you," I whispered.
                




"I love you too," she said. "More than you can imagine. More than even I can imagine."
           




A single tear ran down Jamilla's cheek. I kissed it away.
      




Then I saw the photographer taking pictures of us.
           




The same one who was at the house the day we were evacuated for personal safety.
      




The one hired by Christine's lawyer.
   



Had he gotten Jamilla's tear on film?



 
                  



Chapter 117



                   




THEY CAME TO THE HOUSE on Fifth Street; they came about a week after Jamilla went 
back to California.
   




Them again.
             




One of the saddest days of my life.
         




Indescribable.
          




Unthinkable.
             




Christine was there with her lawyer and Alex Junior's law guardian and a case manager from 
Children's Protective Services. The case manager wore a plastic ID around her neck, and it 
was probably her presence that bothered me the most. My children had been raised with so 
much love and attention, never with abuse or neglect. There was no need for Children's 
Services. Gilda Haranzo had gone to court and been granted a declaration of order giving 
Christine temporary guardianship of Little Alex. She had won custody based on the claim 
that I was "A lightning rod for danger," putting the child in harm's way.
         




The irony of what was happening was so deep that I almost couldn't stand it. I was trying to 
be the kind of policeman that most people wanted, and this was what I got? A lightning rod 
for danger? Is that what I was now?
                 




And yet, I knew exactly how I had to act this morning on Fifth Street. For Little Alex's sake. I 
would abandon all my anger and focus on what was best for him. I would be supportive 
during the handover. If it was possible, I wouldn't let anything frighten the Boy or upset him. 
I even had a long printed list of Alex's likes and dislikes ready for Christine.
              




Unfortunately, Alex wasn't buying any of this. He ran behind my legs and hid from Christine 
and the lawyer. I reached around and gently stroked his head. He was shaking all over, 
quivering with rage.





Gilda Haranzo said, "Maybe you should help Christine take Little Alex to the car. Would you 
please do that?"





I turned and tenderly wrapped my arms around the Big Boy. Then Nana, followed by 
Damon and Jannie, knelt beside him for a group hug. "We love you, Alex. We'll visit you, 
Alex. You'll come see us, Alex. Don't be scared."
   




Nana handed Alex his favorite book, which was Whistle for Willie. Jannie gave him his love-
worn plush cow, Moo. Damon hugged his brother and tears started down his cheeks.
    




"I'll be talking to you tonight. You and Moo," I whispered, and kissed my son's darling little 
face. I could feel his heart going fast. "Every night. Forever and a day, my sweet boy. Forever 
and a day."
                   




And Little Alex said, "Forever, Daddy."
  



Then they took my son away.



                   




                   



Epilogue


WOLVES



                   




PASHA SOROKIN WAS DUE at the courthouse in Miami at nine o'clock on Monday 
morning. The van he rode in was escorted from the federal prison by half a dozen cars; the 
route wasn't known by any of the drivers until the last possible moment before departure.
    




The attack took place at a stoplight just before the cars would have gotten on the Florida 
Turnpike. They hit with automatic weapons and also rocket launchers, which took out most 
of the escort cars in under a minute. There were bodies and smoking metal everywhere.
              




The black van that Pasha Sorokin was riding in was quickly surrounded by six men in dark 
clothes, no masks. The car doors were yanked open and the police guards were beaten and 
then shot dead.
                   




A tall, powerful-looking man strode up to the open door and peered inside. He smiled 
playfully, as if a small child were in the prison van.
          




"Pasha," the Wolf said, "I understand that you were going to turn me in. That's what my 
sources say, my very good sources, my incredibly well-paid sources. Talk to me about this."
                




"It's not true," said Pasha, who meanwhile was cowering in the middle seat of the van. He 
wore an orange jumpsuit, and his wrists and ankles were bound by chains. He no longer had 
his Florida tan.
                




"Maybe, maybe not," said the Wolf.
 




Then he fired one of the rocket launchers point-blank at Pasha. He didn't miss.
        



"Zamochit," he said, and laughed. "One can't be too careful these days."


 



 
                  



About the Author


 



                   




James Patterson's most recent major international bestseller is The Lake House. He is the 
author of twenty-three books and lives in Florida.
        




The Alex Cross Dossier and Along Came a Spider Excerpt
   



The Alex Cross Dossier



                   




PERSONAL:
             




Alex Cross, born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is six-three, weighs 200 pounds, athletic, 
and good-looking. He is a widower, with three children: Damon; Janelle (Jannie); and Alex Jr. 
(Alex's son with Christine). His wife, Maria, a social worker, killed in a drive-by shooting when 
the children were toddlers. Murder never solved. Cross calls himself the Dragon slayer. He and 
his children live with Regina Hope Cross (Nana Mama), 81. Nana Mama was an English 
Teacher and assistant principal of Garfield North Junior High School. Cross's mother died of 
lung cancer when he was nine, his father, a heavy drinker, the year before. He was sent to 
D.C. and raised by his grandmother. Three brothers: 2 deceased, not raised by grandmother.
            




Cross's best friend, since they were both 10, is John Sampson, senior detective, six-nine, 250 
pounds, called Two-John and Man Mountain.
                   




Cross's favorite food: white bean soup. Likes beer, fine wine.





Cross's hobby: the piano. Loves Gershwin, classical music. An avid reader of fiction and 
nonfiction.
                  




Favorite vacation spot: Caribbean.
     




Cross is a volunteer in St. Anthony's soup kitchen, where he is called Peanut Butter Man and 
Black Samaritan and offers free therapy. Cross is a family man, gives the children bi-weekly 
boxing lessons. He drives a '74 Porsche.
          




Cross, his three children, and Rosie, their cat, live with Nana Mama on Fifth Street, 
Washington, D.C., Southeast.
       




PROFESSIONAL:
   




Education: Ph.D. in psychology from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. Special 
concentration in the field of abnormal psychology and forensic psychology.
              




Upon graduation Cross worked as a migrant farm worker for a year. He then had a private 
practice in D.C. for three years. Cross joined the Washington, D.C., police department as a 
psychologist and homicide detective. He's been on the force eight years. He works in an 
unofficial capacity with VICAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program) as a liason 
between the FBI and
   
D.C. police. Cross is a profiler.
    




A Washington Post article in its Sunday magazine section published a piece about Cross 
called "The Last Southern Gentleman." The article praised the psychologist-detective for his 
work in Homicide and Major Crimes.
  



Cross's articles about the criminal mind were published in Psychiatric Archives and American 
Journal Psychiatry. He wrote a diagnostic profile of the pyschopathic serial killer Gary Soneji.