Our agents continued to move forward—slowly.

Then the worst thing happened—the heavyset blond shot Agent Paul Gautier in the face.

Chapter 87

Chapter 87

BEFORE THE SHOCK of the gun blast had faded, the three men took off running very fast. Two of them galloped toward Park Drive, but the blond who’d shot Paul Gautier sprinted out onto Boylston Street.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suddenly he whirled around—and fired at me!