The Big Bad Wolf

CHAPTER 100

I PUSHED MY WAY through the crowd of very well-heeled partygoers making their way to

candlelit tables. Dinner was being served now. Steak and lobsters, lots of champagne, and

pricey wine. Everybody seemed to have worn their Dolce & Gabbana, their Versace, their

Yves Saint Laurent couture. I had on faded jeans and a blue FBI windbreaker.

Coiffed heads turned and eyes úshed at me as if I were a party crasher. I was. The party

crasher from hell. These people had no idea.

“FBI,” Mahoney called from behind as he led his heavily armed teams into the crowd.

I knew from Sterling what Pasha Sorokin looked like, and I headed his way. He was right

there. The Wolf had on an expensive gray suit, a blue cashmere T-shirt. He was talking to two

men near a billowing blue-and-yellow-striped canopy where the grills were working. Enormous

cuts of meat and fish were being prepared by smiling, sweaty chefs, all of them black or

Hispanic.

I pulled out my Glock, and Pasha Sorokin stared at me without moving a muscle. He just

stared. Didn’t make a move, didn’t try to run. Then he smiled, as if he’d been expecting me

and was glad I’d finally arrived. What was with this guy?

I saw him úsh a hand signal to a white-haired man whose arm was draped around a curvy

blonde less than half his age. “Atticus!” Sorokin called, and the man scurried over faster than

kitchen help.

“I’m Atticus Stonestrom, Mr. Manning’s lawyer,” he said. “You have absolutely no reason to

be here, to barge into Mr. Manning’s house like this. You’re completely out of line, and I’m

asking you to leave.”



“Not going to happen. Let’s move this private party inside. Just the three of us,” I said to

Stonestrom and Sorokin. “Unless you want the arrest to take place in front of all these

guests.”



The Wolf looked at his lawyer, then shrugged as if this were no big deal to him. He started to walk

toward the house. Then he turned, pretending he’d just remembered something. “Your little boy’s

name,” he said. “It’s also Alex, isn’t it?”