The Big Bad Wolf ак-9

by James Patterson

  I typed: The septic tank. I told you that.

  No response came from the Wolf. He was rubbing my nerves raw.

  So when do I get my new boy? I typed.

  A pause of several seconds.

  Wolf: You have the money?

  Of course I do.

  Wolf: How much do you have?

  I felt I knew the correct answer to that, but I couldn’t be sure. A week earlier, Taylor had taken one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars from his account with a money manager at Lehman in New York.

  One hundred twenty-five thousand. The money isn’t a problem. It’s burning a hole in my pocket.

  No response from Wolf.

  I typed: U told me not to be redundant.

  Wolf: All right then, maybe we’ll get you the boy. Be careful! There might not be another!

  I typed: Then there won’t be another hundred twenty-five thousand!!!

  Wolf: I’m not worried. There are lots of freaks like you. You’d be amazed.

  So. U didn’t answer my question before. How is your hostage?

  Wolf: I have to go back to work… one more question, Potter. Just to be safe. Where did you get your name?

  I looked around the room. Oh Christ. It was something I hadn’t thought to ask Taylor.

  A voice whispered close to my ear. Monnie’s. ‘The young adult books? They call Harry “Mr Potter” at the Hogwarts School. Maybe? I don’t know?’

  Was that it? I needed to type something; it had to be the right answer. Was the name from the Harry Potter books? Because he liked young boys? Then something from Taylor’s office in the farmhouse flashed in my brain.

  My fingers went to the keys. Paused for a second. Then I typed my answer.

  This is absurd. The name is from the Jamaica Kinkaid novel – Mr Potter. Fuck U!

  I waited for a response. So did everyone else in the room. Finally, it came.

  Wolf: I’ll get you the boy, Mr Potter.

  Chapter Eighty-Six

  We were in business again, and I was back working the streets, the way I liked it, the way it used to be.

  I had been in Boston several times before, loved the city enough to consider moving there, and was comfortable. For the next two days we shadowed a student named Paul Xavier from his apartment on Beacon Hill, to his classes at Harvard, to the Ritz-Carlton where he was a waiter, to popular clubs like No Borders and Rebuke.

  Xavier was the ‘bait’ we had set out for the Wolf and his kidnapping crew.

  Actually, Xavier was being impersonated by a thirty-year-old agent from our field office in Springfield, Massachusetts. The agent’s real name was Paul Gautier. Boyishly handsome, tall and slender, with fluffy, light brown hair, he looked like someone in his early twenties. He was armed, but also being closely watched by a minimum of six agents at all times of the day and night. We had no idea how or when the Wolf’s team might try to grab him, only that they would.

  For twelve hours each day, I was one of the agents watching and protecting Gautier. I had spoken about the dangers of using ‘bait’ to try and catch the kidnappers, but nobody had paid attention.

  On the second night of surveillance, and according to plan, Paul Gautier went to ‘the Fens’ along the Muddy River near Park Drive and Boylston Street. Actually called the BackBay Fens it had been imagined by Frederick Law Olmsted who’d also designed the Boston Common and Central Park in New York. In the evening hours after the clubs closed the real Paul Xavier often cruised the Fens looking for sexual encounters, which was why we had sent our agent there.

  It was dangerous work for all of us, but especially for Agent Gautier. The area was dark and there were no streetlights. The tall reeds along the river were thick and provided cover for pickups and liaisons and kidnappings.

  Agent Peggy Katz and I were on the edge of the reeds, which resembled elephant grass. During the past half hour, she had admitted that she wasn’t really interested in sports, but had learned about basketball and football because she wanted to be able to talk with her male counterparts about something.

  ‘Men talk about other things,’ I said as I scouted the Fens through night-glasses.

  ‘I know that. I can talk about money and cars too. But I refuse to talk to you horny bastards about sex.’

  I coughed out a laugh. Katz could deliver her lines. She was often wry, with a twinkle, and she seemed to be laughing with you, even if you happened to be the butt of her jokes. But I also knew that she was very tough, a real hardliner.

  ‘Why did you join the Bureau?’ she asked as we continued to wait for Agent Gautier to appear. ‘You were doing well with the Washington P.D., right?’

  ‘I was doing just fine.’

  I lowered my voice and pointed toward a clearing up ahead. ‘Here comes Gautier now.’

  Agent Gautier had just left Boylston Street. He was walking slowly across the Fens toward the Muddy River. I knew the area pretty well from an earlier scouting trip. During the day this same section of the park was called the ‘Victory Gardens’. Area residents raised flowers and vegetables, and there were signs pleading with night visitors not to trample them.

  The team leader, Roger Nielsen, spoke in a whisper that seeped into my earphones. ‘Male in the watch cap, Alex. Stout guy. You see him?’

  ‘I’ve got him.’ Watch cap was talking into a microphone on the collar of his sport shirt. He wasn’t one of ours, so he must be one of theirs – the Wolf’s.

  I began to scour the crowd for a partner or two. The kidnapping crew? Probably. Who the hell else could it be?

  Nielsen said, ‘I think he has a mike on. You see it?’

  ‘He’s definitely miked. I see another suspicious male. Near the gardens to the left of us,’ I said. ‘Talking into his collar too. They’re moving on Gautier.’

  Chapter Eighty-Seven

  There were three of them, bulky males, and they began to converge on Paul Gautier. At the same time we moved on them. I had my Glock out, but was I really ready for what might happen in this small, dark park?

  The kidnappers were keeping close to Park Drive, and I figured they had a van or truck out on the street. They looked confident and unafraid. They’d done this before: grabbed purchased men and women. They were professional kidnappers.

  ‘Take them now,’ I told Senior Agent Nielsen. ‘Gautier is at risk.’

  ‘Wait until they grab him,’ the response came back. ‘We want to do this right. Wait.’

  I didn’t agree with Nielsen and I didn’t like what was happening. Why wait? Gautier was hanging out there too much and the park was dark.

  ‘Gautier is at risk,’ I repeated.

  One of the men, blond, wearing a Boston Bruins windbreaker, waved to him.

  Gautier watched the man approach, nodded his head, smiled. The blond had some kind of small flashlight in his hand. He lit up Paul Gautier’s face.

  I could hear them talking. ‘Nice night for a walk,’ Gautier said, then laughed. He sounded nervous.

  ‘The things we do for love,’ the blond said.

  The two of them were only a few feet apart. The other abductors held back, but not far.

  Then the blond whipped a gun out of his jacket pocket. He pushed it against Gautier’s face. ‘You’re coming with me. No one will hurt you. Just walk with me. Make it easy on yourself.’

  The two others joined them.

  ‘You’re making a mistake,’ said Gautier.

  ‘Oh, and why is that?’ asked the blond. ‘I’ve got the gun, not you.’

  ‘Take them. Now,’ came the order from Senior Agent Nielsen. ‘FBI! Hands up. Back away from him!’ Nielsen shouted as we ran forward.

  ‘FBI!’ came a second shout. ‘Everybody, hands up!’

  Then everything went crazy. The other two abductors pulled out guns. The blond held his to Agent Gautier’s skull.

  ‘Back off!’ he screamed. ‘I’ll shoot him dead! Drop your guns. I’ll shoot him, I promise you! I don’t bluff.’

  Our agents continued to m
ove forward – slowly.

  Then the worst thing happened – the heavy-set blond shot Agent Paul Gautier in the face.

  Chapter Eighty-Eight

  Before the shock of the gun blast faded, the three men took off running very fast. Two of them galloped toward Boylston, but the blond who’d shot Paul Gautier sprinted out on to Park Drive.

  He was a big man, but he was motoring. I remembered hearing from Monnie Donnelley that great Russian athletes, even former Olympians, were sometimes recruited into the Mafia. Was blondie a former jock? He moved like it. The confrontation, the shooting and everything else, reminded me of how little we knew about the Russian mobsters. How did they work; how did they think?

  I took off after him, an overload of adrenaline rocketing through my body. I still couldn’t believe what had happened. It could have been avoided. Now Gautier was possibly dead, probably dead.

  I ran as I shouted, ‘Take them alive!’ It should have been obvious, but the other agents had just seen Paul Gautier gunned down. I didn’t know how much street action, or combat, any of them had seen before. And we desperately needed to question the kidnappers once we caught them.

  I was getting winded. Maybe I needed more time in the physical-training classes at Quantico, or maybe it was because I’d spent too much time sitting around inside the Hoover Building these past few weeks.

  I chased the blond killer through a tree-lined residential area. A moment later, the trees cleared and the towers of the glittering Prudential Center and the Hancock loomed ahead. I glanced back. Three agents trailed behind, including Peggy Katz, who had her gun out.

  Then the man running ahead of me turned on to Boylston Street. He was approaching the Hynes Convention Center with four FBI agents racing behind. I was closing a little ground on him, but not enough. I wondered if maybe we’d gotten lucky: could this be the Wolf up ahead? He was hands-on, right? If it was – then we had him for murder. Whoever he was – he was still moving well. A long-distance sprinter.

  ‘Stop! We’ll shoot!’ one of the agents yelled behind me. The blond Russian didn’t stop. Suddenly he made a sharp, sliding turn down a side street. It was narrow and darker than Boylston. One-way. I wondered if he’d thought about his escape route before this. Probably not.

  The extraordinary thing – he hadn’t hesitated when he shot Agent Gautier. I don’t bluff, he’d said. Who would murder so casually? With so many FBI watching?

  The Wolf? He was supposed to be fearless and ruthless, maybe even crazy. One of his lieutenants?… How did the Russians think?

  I could hear his shoes slapping down hard on the pavement up ahead. I was gaining on the Russian a little, getting a second wind.

  Suddenly he whirled around – and fired at me!

  I threw myself down on the ground fast. But then I was up just as quickly, chasing after him again. I’d clearly seen his face – broad, flat features, dark eyes, late thirties to early forties.

  He turned again – planted – fired.

  I ducked behind a parked car. Then I heard a scream. I whirled around and saw an agent down. One of the males. Doyle Rogers. The blond turned and started to run again. But I had my second wind and I thought I could catch him. Then what? He was ready to die.

  Suddenly a shot rang out behind me! I couldn’t believe what I saw. The blond dropped face down, fell flat on his chest and face.

  He never moved once he hit the ground. One of the agents behind me had shot him. I turned – and saw Peggy Katz. She was still in a shooting crouch.

  I checked on Agent Rogers and found he’d only been hit in the shoulder. He’d be okay. Then I walked back alone toward the Fens. When I got there, I discovered that Paul Gautier was still alive. But the two other kidnappers had gotten away. They’d left their van, but commandeered a car on Park Drive. Our agents had lost them. Bad news, the worst.

  The whole operation had blown up in our faces.

  Chapter Eighty-Nine

  I don’t think that I’d felt this bad in all my years with the Washington P.D., maybe in all my years combined. If I hadn’t been sure before, I was now. I’d made a mistake in coming over to the FBI. The Bureau did things very differently from anything I was used to. They were by-the-book, by-the-numbers, and then suddenly they weren’t. They had tremendous resources, and staggering amounts of information, but they were often amateurs on the streets. There was some great personnel; and some incredible losers.

  After the shootout in Boston I had driven over to the FBI offices. The agents who gathered there all looked shell-shocked. I couldn’t blame them. What a mess. One of the worst I’d seen. I couldn’t help feeling that Senior Agent Nielsen was the one responsible, but what did it matter, what good did it do to cast around blame? Two well-intentioned agents had been wounded; one had almost died. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I felt partly responsible. I’d told the senior agent to move in on Paul Gautier faster, but he didn’t listen.

  The blond man I’d chased down Boylston Street had unfortunately died. Katz’s bullet had hit him in the back of the neck, and it had taken out most of his throat. He’d probably died instantly. He carried no identification. His wallet held a little more than six hundred bucks, but not much else. He had tattoos of a snake, a dragon, and a black bear on his back and shoulders. Cyrillic lettering, that no one had deciphered yet. Prison tats. We assumed he was Russian. But we had no name, no identification, no real proof.

  Photographs of the dead man had been taken, then sent to Washington. They were checking, so we had little to do in Boston until they called back. A few hours later, a Ford Explorer commandeered by the two other abductors was found in the parking lot of a bank in Arlington, Massachusetts. They had stolen a second vehicle out of the bank lot. By now they’d probably switched it for another stolen car.

  A total screw-up in every way. Couldn’t have gone worse.

  I was sitting in a conference room by myself, my face in my hands, when one of the Boston agents walked in. He pointed an accusatory finger my way. ‘Director Burns’s office on the line.’

  Burns wanted me back in Washington – as simple and direct as that. There were no explanations, or even recriminations about what had happened in Boston. I guess I was to be kept in the dark a while longer about what he really thought, what the Bureau thought, and I just couldn’t respect that way of operating.

  I got to the SIOC offices in the Hoover Building at six in the morning. I hadn’t slept. The place was humming with activity, and I was glad no one had time to talk about the shooting of the two agents in Boston.

  Stacy Pollack came up to me a few minutes after I arrived. She looked as tired as I felt, but she put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Everybody here knows that you felt Gautier was in danger and tried to move in on the shooter. I talked to Nielsen. He said it was his decision.’

  I nodded, but then I said, ‘Maybe you should have talked to me first.’

  Pollack’s eyes narrowed. But she said nothing more about Boston. ‘There’s something else,’ she finally spoke again. ‘We’ve had some luck. Most of us have been here all night. The money transfer we made to the Wolf’s Den… we used a contact of ours in the financial world, a banker from Morgan Chase’s International Correspondent Unit. We were able to trace the money out of the Caymans. Then we monitored virtually every transaction to US banks with correspondent relationships. Had them screen all inbound wire payment orders. That’s where our consultant, Robert Hatfield, said it got tricky. The transaction zipped from bank to bank – New York, then Boston, Detroit, Toronto, Chicago, a couple of others. But we know where the money finally wound up.’

  ‘Where?’ I asked.

  ‘Dallas. The money went to Dallas. And we have a name – a recipient for the funds. We’re hoping that he’s the Wolf. At any rate, we know where he lives, Alex. You’re going to Dallas.’

  Chapter Ninety

  The earliest abduction cases we tracked had occurred in Texas and dozens of agents and analysts went to work investigating them in depth.
Everything about the case was larger scale now. The surveillance details on the suspect’s house and place of business were the most impressive I had ever seen. I doubted that any police force in the country, with the possible exceptions of New York and Los Angeles, could afford this kind of effort.

  As usual the Bureau had done a thorough job finding out everything possible about the man who had received money from us through the Caymans bank. Lawrence Lipton lived in Old Highland Park, a moneyed neighborhood north of Dallas proper. The streets there meandered alongside creeks under a canopy of magnolias, oaks, and native pecans. The grounds of nearly every house were expensively landscaped and most of the traffic during the day belonged to tradesmen, nannies, cleaning services and gardeners.

  So far the evidence we’d gathered on Lipton was contradictory though. He had attended St Marks, a prestigious Dallas prep school and then the University of Texas at Austin. His family, and his wife’s, was old Dallas oil money, but Lawrence had diversified and now owned a Texas winery, a venture capital group, and a successful computer software company. The computer connection caught Monnie Donnelley’s eye, and mine as well.

  Lipton seemed to be such a straight arrow, however. He sat on the boards of the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Friends of the Library. He was a trustee for the Baylor Hospital and a deacon at First United Methodist.

  Could he be the Wolf? It didn’t seem possible to me.

  The second morning I was in Dallas a meeting was held at the field office there. Senior Agent Nielsen remained in charge of the case, but it was clear to everyone that Ron Burns was calling the shots on this from Washington. I don’t think any of us would have been too surprised if Burns had shown up for the briefing himself.

  At eight in the morning, Roger Nielsen stood before a roomful of agents and read from a clipboard. ‘They’ve been real busy through the night back in Washington,’ he said, and seemed neither impressed nor surprised by the effort. Apparently this had become s.o.p. on cases that got big in the media.