The Big Bad Wolf

PASHA SOROKIN wasn't the Wolf. Was that possible? There was no way to know for sure. Over the next forty-eight hours it was confirmed that the men we had captured in Florida were Pasha Sorokin and Ruslan Federov. They were Red Mafiya, but both claimed never to have met the real Wolf. They said they had played the "parts" they were given - stand-in roles, according to them. Now they were willing to make the best deals they could. There was no way for us to know for sure what was going on, but the deal-making went on for two days. The Bureau liked to make deals. I didn't. Contacts were made inside the Mafiya; more doubts were raised about Pasha Sorokin's being the Wolf. Finally, the CIA operatives who'd gotten the Wolf out of Russia were found and brought to Pasha's cell. They said he wasn't the man they'd help get out of the Soviet Union. Then it was Sorokin who gave us a name we wanted - one that blew my mind completely, blew everybody's minds. It was part of his "deal." He gave us Sphinx. The next morning, four teams of FBI agents waited outside Sphinx's house until he left for work. We had agreed not to take him inside the house. I wouldn't let it go down that way. I just couldn't do it. We all felt that Lizzie Connolly and her daughters had been through more than enough pain already. They didn't need to see Brendan Connolly - Sphinx - arrested at the family house in Buckhead. They didn't need to find out the awful truth about him like that. I sat in a dark blue sedan parked two blocks up the street but with a view of the large Georgian-style house. I was feeling numb. I remembered the first time I'd been there. I recalled my talk with the girls, and then with Brendan Connolly in his den. His grief had seemed heartfelt, as genuine as his young daughters. Of course, no one had suspected he had betrayed his wife, sold her to another man. Pasha Sorokin had met Elizabeth at a party in the Connolly house. He'd wanted her; Brendan Connolly didn't. The judge had been having affairs for years. Elizabeth reminded Sorokin of the model Claudia Schiffer, who had appeared on billboards all over Moscow during his gangster days. So the horrifying trade was made. A husband had sold his own wife into captivity; he'd gotten rid of her in the worst way imaginable. How could he have hated Elizabeth so much? And how could she have loved him? Ned Mahoney was in the car with me, waiting for action: the takedown of Sphinx. If we couldn't have the Wolf yet, he was our second choice - the consolation prize. "I wonder if Elizabeth knew about her husband's secret life?" Mahoney muttered. "Maybe she suspected something. They didn't sleep together regularly. When I visited the house, Connolly showed me the den. There was a bed in there. Unmade." "Think he'll go to work today?" Mahoney asked. He was calmly munching an apple. A very cool head to work with. "He knows we took down Sorokin and Federov. I figure he'll be cautious. He'll probably play it straight. Hard to tell." "Maybe we should take him at the house. You think?" He bit into his apple again. "Alex?" I shook my head. "I can't do it, Ned. Not to his family." "Okay. Just asking, buddy." We waited. A little past nine, Brendan Connolly finally came out the front door of the house. He walked to a silver Porsche Boxster parked in the circular driveway. He had on a blue suit, carried a black gym bag. He was whistling. "Scumbag!" Mahoney whispered. Then he spoke into his two-way: "This is Alpha One... we have Sphinx leaving the house. He's getting into a Porsche. Prepare to converge. Vehicle license is V6T-81K." We heard back immediately. "This is Braves One... we have Sphinx in full sight too. We've got him covered. He's ours." Then, "Braves Three in place at second intersect. We're waiting on him." "Should be about ten to fifteen seconds. He's heading down the street. Making a right." I spoke very calmly to Mahoney. "I want to take him down, Ned." He looked straight ahead through the windshield. Didn't answer me. But he didn't say no. I watched the Porsche proceed at a normal speed to the next cross street. The Boxster eased into the turn. And then Brendan Connolly ran! "Oh, boy," said Mahoney, and tossed away his apple.