The Big Bad Wolf (Alex Cross 9)

“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 fifth 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 Mafiya 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.

“Dr. 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.