He was up off the couch faster than anyone would have thought possible. He’d pulled a small lead pipe from beneath a couch cushion and he cracked it across Alexei Dobushkin’s cheek. Then he swung it off the bridge of Ilia Teptev’s nose. The two hockey stars were bleeding like stuck pigs in seconds.

Then and only then did the Wolf take out his gun. He held it between the eyes of the cable owner. “You know, they’re not such tough guys as I thought. I can tell about these things in a few seconds,” he said. “Now, down to business. One of the two big bears will allow a score by Montreal in the first period. The other will miss a play for a score in the second. Do you understand? The Flyers will lose the game in which they’re favored. Understood?

“If for any reason this doesn’t happen, then everybody dies. Now let yourselves out. I look forward to the game. As I said, I love American-style hockey.”

The Wolf began to laugh as the big hockey stars stumbled out of the Nero suite. “Nice meeting you Ilia, Alexei,” he said as the door closed. “Break a leg.”

Chapter 59

Chapter 59

A HUGE TASK FORCE MEETING was held in the SIOC suite on the fifth floor of the Hoover Building, which was considered sacred ground in the Bureau. SIOC is the Strategic Information Operations Center, and the central suite was where most of the really important powwows were held, from Waco to September 11.

I had been invited, and I wondered whom I had to thank for it. I arrived at around nine and was brought in by an agent who manned the front desk.

I saw that the SIOC suite consisted of four rooms, three of which were filled with state-of-the-art workstations, probably for researchers and analysts. I was led into a large conference room. The focal point was a long glass-and-metal table. On the walls were clocks set to different time zones, several maps, and half a dozen TV monitors. A dozen or so agents were already inside the room, but it was quiet.

Stacy Pollack, the head of SIOC, finally arrived, and the doors were shut. Pollack introduced the agents who were present, as well as two visitors from the CIA. She had a reputation inside the Bureau for being a no-nonsense administrator who didn’t suffer fools and who got results. She was thirty-one years old, and Burns loved her.

The TV monitors on the wall told the latest story: Live-action film was up and running on the major networks. Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, said the super.

“That’s old news. We have a new problem,” announced Pollack from the front of the room. “We’re not here because of the screwup at Beaver Falls. This is internal, so it’s worse. Folks, we think we’ve learned the name of the person responsible for the leaks out of Quantico.”