The Big Bad Wolf

CHAPTER 67

THE NEXT DAY I WORKED in the SIOC conference rooms on the ˙th floor of the Hoover.

So did Monnie Donnelley, who still felt as if she were in limbo. We were keeping what we had

learned from Lili Olsen quiet so that we could check out a few things. The main room was

humming around us. The abductions were a major media story now. The Bureau had taken

an incredible amount of heat in the past few years; they needed a win. No, I thought, we need

a win.

A lot of important Bureau people were at the group meeting late that night: they included the

heads of the Behavioral Analysis Uniteast and BAU-west, the unit chief of the Child

Abduction Serial Murder Investigative Resource Center (CASMIRC), and the head of

Innocent Images in Baltimore, an FBI unit dedicated to finding and eliminating sexual

predators on the Internet. Stacy Pollack led the discussion again; she was clearly in charge of

the case.

A male student from Holy Cross College in Massachusetts was missing, and a close friend of

his had been found murdered on campus. Francis Deegan’s physical resemblance to

Benjamin Coffey, the student kidnapped in Newport, led many of us to believe that he had

been selected as a replacement for Coffey, who was feared dead.

“I want to get approval for a reward, maybe half a million,” said Jack Arnold, who ran BAU-east. No one commented on the proposal. Several agents went on making notes or using their

laptops. Actually, it was dispiriting.

“I think I have something,” I finally said from the back of the room.

Stacy Pollack looked my way. A few heads popped up, reacting to the break in the group’s

silence more than anything. I rose at my seat.

The FNG had the floor. I introduced Monnie, just to be cute. Then I told them about the

Wolf’s Den and our meeting with fourteen-year-old Lili Olsen. I also mentioned the Wolf,

who, according to Monnie’s findings, might have been a Russian gangster by the name of

Pasha Sorokin. His pedigree was hard to trace, especially before he moved out of the USSR.

“If we can get inside the Den somehow, I think we’ll find out something about the missing

women. In the meantime, I think we need to put more heat on some of the sites already

identified by Innocent Images. It seems logical that the pervs using the Wolf’s Den might visit

porn sites too. We need help. If the Wolf turns out to be Pasha Sorokin, we’ll need a lot of

help.” Stacy Pollack was interested. She led a discussion in which both Monnie and I were

given the third degree. It was clear that we threatened some of the other agents in the room.

Then Pollack made a decision.

“You can have resources,” she said. “We’ll watch the porn sites twenty-four/seven. Thing is, we

have nothing better at this point. I want our Russian group out of New York on this too. I can’t

quite believe Pasha Sorokin would be personally involved in this, but if he is, it’s huge. We’ve been

interested in Sorokin for six years! We’re very interested in the Wolf.”