The negotiator was a stocky guy with a thick mustache; he was wearing a flak jacket, but it wasn’t secured. “Get the fuck away from me!” he shouted in my face.

“This is a federal case,” I shouted right back. I grabbed the bullhorn out of his hand. The negotiator went at me with his fists, but Mahoney wrestled him to the ground. The press was watching; to hell with them. We had a job to do here.

“This is the FBI!” I said into the bullhorn. “I want to talk to Pasha Sorokin.”

Then suddenly the strangest thing of the night happened, and it had been a very strange night. I almost couldn’t believe it.

Two men emerged from the front door of the Gap.

They held their hands in front of their faces, shielding them from the cameras, or maybe from us.

“Get down on the ground!” I shouted at them. They didn’t comply.

But then I could see—it was Sorokin and the bodyguard.

“We’re not armed,” Sorokin yelled, loudly enough for everybody to hear. “We’re innocent citizens. We have no guns.”

I didn’t know whether to believe him. None of us knew what to make of this. The TV helicopter over our heads was getting too close.

“What’s he doing?” Mahoney asked me.

“Don’t know . . . Get down!” I shouted again.

The Wolf and the bodyguard continued to walk toward us. Slowly and carefully.

I moved ahead with Mahoney. We had our guns out. Was this a trick? What could they try with dozens of rifles and handguns aimed at them?

The Wolf smiled when he saw me. Why the hell was he smiling?

“So, you caught us,” he called out. “Big deal! It doesn’t matter, you know. I have a surprise for you, FBI. Ready? My name is Pasha Sorokin. But I’m not the Wolf.” He laughed. “I’m just some guy shopping in the Gap. My clothes got wet. I’m not the Wolf, Mr. FBI. Is that funny or what? Does it make your day? It makes mine. And it will make the Wolf’s too.”

Chapter 106

Chapter 106

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.