The Big Bad Wolf

Chapter Two

The Phipps Plaza shopping mall in Atlanta was a showy montage of pink granite floors, sweeping bronze staircases, gilded Napoleonic design and lighting that sparkled like halogen spotlights. A man and a woman watched the target – ‘Mom’ – as she left Nike Town 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, Slava. 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, Nike Town, 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 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, a Halloween wreath at Williams-Sonoma. She even made an appointment at Carter-Barnes to get her hair done.

The target had style, and also a pleasant smile for the salespeople who waited on her in the toney stores. She held doors for those coming up behind her, even men, who bent over backward 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’s specs, Mrs Elizabeth Connelly 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-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 crocheted top, slim-fitting slacks. She was bright, religious – but sane about it – tough when she needed to be, at least according to the specs.

Well, she would need to be tough soon. Mrs Elizabeth Connelly 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 Three

Lizzie Connelly 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 co-founder 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, which she’d just seen again with her girlfriends. 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 Gwynnie’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 Mr 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 ‘shortlist’ 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 on it 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 in a BMW logo sweatshirt. Lizzie smiled automatically at him, revealing perfect, recently whitened and brightened teeth, warmth, 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 the maneuver. 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 on to 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 squealing 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 still 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 face, 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 male said. ‘Easy-peasy-Japanesee… Elizabeth Connelly.’

Elizabeth Connelly? 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 in the cloth overpowered Lizzie and she went lights out. She was driven away in the back of her own station wagon.

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

Purchase complete.

Chapter Four

Early on the morning of 16 September, 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 forty inches and thirty-five pounds. That morning he had on a pinstriped overall suit with an Orioles cap. He moved along the street as if a leeward wind were propelling him. His ever-present stuffed toy, 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’, and a gray tee with an Alan Iverson ‘The Answer’ jersey over it. His lean legs were sprouting peach fuzz, and it looked as if his whole body was 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 tee with ‘Aero Athletics 1987’ printed in bright red letters, sweatpant capris with a red strip 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 added, ‘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 and laughed. ‘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. ‘Ba-bye,’ said little Alex, and then so did Jannie and Damon, calling back to their brother, ‘Ba-bye, ba-bye!’

I picked up little Alex and we headed home, then it was off to work for soon-to-be Agent Cross of the FBI.

‘Dada,’ 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 Five

New agent training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, sometimes called ‘Club Fed’, was turning out to be a challenging, arduous, and tense program, if a little repetitive. 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 already I 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 had been thirty-seven years old. I was over forty. Burns had the age requirement waived, 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’d 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 P.D. – 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, previous 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 Psyche, an hour and fifty minutes on understanding psychopathic behavior, something I hadn’t been able to do in nearly fifteen 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 on 95. 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 ‘emotional’ 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 made them only 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 superficial 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 confidence that I would be right on his heels.

I was.

I was in the FBI now.

Chapter Six

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 Reserve 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 on board 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 SSA 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 continued. ‘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 familiar with 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 Obrychi’s once upon a time.’

‘We know,’ said Agent Heekin. ‘He asked for you.’

Chapter Seven

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 everything 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. The Venetian blinds were tightly closed, and 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 been painted recently, which suggested to me that Coulter probably hadn’t been expecting trouble in his life. So what happened?

Several dozen Baltimore P.D., 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 field commander from the Baltimore P.D. ‘He hasn’t fired on anybody, has he?’

The field 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 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 P.D. 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 into 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 and sounded 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 P.D. 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 P.D. has me in its crosshairs.’

Chapter Eight

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, from the Hostage Rescue Team at Quantico, handing me a caffeine-free Diet Coke. 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 at me, 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 wise-ass joke, very tough. All in all, a small man’s 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, several detectives in the Baltimore P.D. had been involved in large drug pay-offs. 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 of 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 Nine

The situation in Baltimore didn’t get any better during the next couple of hours. If anything, it got worse. It was impossible to keep the neighbors from wandering out on their porches to watch the stand-off in progress. Then the Baltimore P.D. 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 shrugged, without agreeing or disagreeing, then I walked away from the others. It looked like we might have another half-hour of light. I didn’t like to think about what would happen once darkness came.

I got back on the phone with Coulter. 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 sniffed 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, buddy – 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 Coulters’. 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 P.D. 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 phone. ‘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 my neck stood up.

An old man in a white shirt, black trousers and braces. An elderly woman in a blowing pink dress and high heels. Tears were streaming down her cheek. 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 Ten

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 crazy. 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 to little Alex’s room. Looked in on him. He was up and working himself into a good wail. I didn’t want Nana or the 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 which I made myself. There are protective bars on either side, to keep him from slipping 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 own father kissing me, so I kiss Alex every chance that 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 right back to sleep in minutes.

So nice. Magical. That sweet baby smell I love. His soft breathing – child’s breath.

The two of us had a nice sleepover that night.

Chapter Eleven

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 face of 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 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 female, Zoya, yawned and gave the phone receiver the finger. With her free hand, she popped a DVD, 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, specifics. 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. Let’s say, four hours from where you are now. I’ll send you directions first. Then specifics on the unit.’

Zoya looked at her partner, who was lounging in an armchair. Slava was idly fingering a pecker leash as he listened on the second phone in the eclectically furnished hotel room. He was gazing out the window at the Candyman sweet shop, a tailor shop, a one-hour photo shop. Typical N.Y.C. view.

‘We’ll do the job,’ said Zoya. ‘Tell the 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 male 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. ‘Four hours. Zamochit. You’ll take the next few hours with you through eternity. Never forget it, darling.’

Chapter Twelve

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 ‘fortress-like’. Inside, it’s even worse. ‘The Bureau’ is library quiet and warehouse ugly. The long halls glow in medicinal white.

As soon as I stepped on to the Director’s floor, I was met by his executive assistant, a very efficient 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 and 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 Bal’more. 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 last night, 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 in 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 Thirteen

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 ACAS 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 post-haste 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 mark-ups. 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 Fourteen

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 Connelly, 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 Connelly 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 already. 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 field office. I walked over and I spoke to two detectives, Pedi and Ciaccio, from the Atlanta P.D.

‘I’ll try to stay out of your way,’ I said to them, then added: ‘I used to be Washington P.D.’

‘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 meant 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 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 has 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. Apparently, 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 Connelly. 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 Connelly. 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. ‘Say 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 something 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 Fifteen

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.

Ironically, Atlanta had been the hub of another kind of sex-slave scandal just a few years back. It involved Asian and Mexican women smuggled into the US, 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 flashing through these unfortunate unpleasantries when I arrived at Judge Brendan Connelly’s home in the Tuxedo Park section of Buckhead, near the governor’s mansion. The Connelly place replicated an 1840s Up-Country Georgia Plantation Home and sat on about two acres. A Porsche Boxster was parked in a 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 Connelly, 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, and had an elaborate chandelier and 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 water-colors. All three of the Connelly 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 the brightest red. ‘Oh, we’re sorry. This isn’t about you.’

‘I understand,’ I said. Finally they smiled, and I saw that they 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 Connelly 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 work-up 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, ‘do you bite, or not?’

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

Brendan Connelly 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 sighed and let out a deep breath. ‘Trying to keep up a front for them. They’re the best girls in the world.’ Judge Connelly 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 Connelly 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 longstanding 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 Connelly?’

Brendan Connelly 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.’

The corners of Brendan Connelly’s eyes suddenly moistened. ‘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 Sixteen

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 gotten the nickname Wolf 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 Mafiya. 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 night in late September, the man called Wolf was throwing a huge party at his 20,000-square-foot house on the waterfront in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The non-occasion was the opening of the Monday Night Football season. The party was a three-year-old tradition among his friends and business associates. Tonight was also special because he was launching a 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 the game on several TVs, including a sixty-one-inch Rumco. 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 knew 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, talked to a lawyer who’d made tens of millions from the Florida tobacco settlement – exchanged a story 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 that led to 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-bes. 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 Connelly 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 American supermodel was on hundreds of billboards all over Moscow. He had lusted for Claudia – all Russian men did – and now he had her likeness in his possession.

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

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

Chapter Seventeen

Lizzie Connelly 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 like 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 who 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 poor six-year-old, like her Gwynnie; 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 Eighteen

But no one could hear Lizzie Connelly. 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 Rs 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 IV with 620 horsepower.

A bronze Bentley Azure Convertible Mulliner – 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 dollars; 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 Nineteen

I flew back to D.C. the next day and was home at six that night, finished 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 Juzeh 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 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 videogame extravaganza featuring Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem and Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.

I hoped we could keep it up like this. Even the videogames. 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 Twenty

The next morning I was told to attend a key-person meeting about the Connelly 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 unidentified suspects (known as UNSUBS) had used to get there before driving away in the Connelly 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 research specialist attached to the case. She talked extraordinarily 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 too. How about that?’

‘Monnie’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 boss, Gordon Nooney, wasn’t in the room of at least fifty agents. Then the meeting on White Girl began.

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 Bureau. 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’s subject was the connection the Connelly abduction might have 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 a biology professor who used to drone on at Hopkins. Smart, nice man, but Jesus.

‘Upscale, attractive, white women’, Zelras was saying, ‘have been disappearing at 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 never traced 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 sizes; ‘true’ color of hair, color of eyes. The women had unlikely nicknames like: Candy, Sable, Foxy, Madonna, 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 specifically bought and sold for the purpose of prostitution. These days, the women are usually Asian, Mexican, 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 Connelly 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 Connelly. She would be high risk, but very high reward. What makes this kind of abduction attractive is that there’s no ransom exchange. The Connelly abduction fits our profile.’

Someone asked, ‘Could a buyer request a specific 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 Connelly 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. Or had somebody specifically asked for Mrs Elizabeth Connelly? 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 Connelly 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 whomever the kidnappers deliver them to – consider them disposable.’

Chapter Twenty-One

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-long 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 was outdoors. We were all dressed in sportjackets, but with black padded throat and face protectors for a ‘practical’ at Hogans 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 bullets with pink-paint-infused tips.

It was five o’clock by the time we finished the practice. I showered and dressed, and as I was leaving the training building to go over to the Jefferson dorm 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, but then I 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, tried to stir up old anger.

‘I heard you had some problems with your Chief of Detectives too,’ Nooney said then.

‘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 a 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 Twenty-Two

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 has 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 US. 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 Saturday, 20 August. 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 28 August, one of her identification cards 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 Connelly?

Around ten, just as I was starting to do some serious yawning, I came across a second murder 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 Connelly 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 killer’s pattern.

Lovable victims.

How awful was that?

Chapter Twenty-Three

When I got home that night it was a 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 and fifty 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 sun porch. 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 I was 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 liked to be 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, or whatever they call it?’

I told Sampson about the kidnapping of Elizabeth Connelly – 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 on to them. But we all knew! It was like it always is when Sampson and I get together. I missed working with him. Which led to the next thought: I needed to figure out some way to get him down to Quantico.

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 grinned, 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 Twenty-Four

‘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’t 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 magazine’s ‘Rock and Shop Tour.’ Meanwhile, their target had just bought a fifty-dollar box of cookies at Neiman’s. 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 bicep 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 fifty minutes. A middle school choir from Broomall, Pennsylvania, was performing in the atrium. Then the target and her two kids emerged from the Dick Clark 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 Twenty-Five

The name of the woman who’d been purchased was Audrey Meek. She was a celebrity and had founded a highly successful line of women’s fashions and accessories called Meek. It was her mother’s maiden name, and the one she still used herself.

The Couple watched her closely, tailed her into the parking garage without creating suspicion. They finally 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 couple of 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/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 Zoya 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 wagon with the target, Audrey Meek, unconscious on the backseat, and her two children wailing uncontrollably in the parking garage. Zoya drove at a moderate speed around the mall’s plaza, then turned on to the Dekalb Pike.

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

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

Then off to New Hope 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.