DONNIE BRASCO

problems of cybercrime, cyber industrial espionage and cyber warfare. No self-respecting law-enforcement agency would want to forgo a slice. From the FBI's vantage point, the US Secret Service stood to gorge itself on three-quarters of a rich budgetary cake. First mover among the cybercops, and still basking in the glory of the Shadowcrew take- down, the US Secret Service was naturally eager to assert its primacy in this embryonic field.

The FBI, the largest and most powerful law-enforcement agency in America, had other thoughts. Its Director, Robert Mueller, was keen to move into cyber both to get the funding but also because he was instrumental in trying to refashion the FBI to become less of a police force and more of a domestic intelligence agency. Mularski's plan was not merely about busting criminals, it was about gathering information as well. This change of direction at the very top helped overcome the objections of some senior officials and Mularski, who had backed his request to mount the bold undercover operation with a dazzling pres- entation, got his authorisation. So when the Iceman fingered him, it was not just Operation DarkMarket that was teetering on the brink of failure. If this went south, those future tax dollars went with it and the apparent ability of the FBI to manage cyber operations. A heavy burden weighed on Mularski's shoulders.

His initial reaction was despair. The game was up, he thought, and his hard-working team would have to prepare a humiliating explanation for the hierarchy, some of whom would be muttering, 'We told you so!' But one of the reasons the FBI had selected Mularski for its agent- training programme in the first place was because he was quick-witted in tight spots. And it was only minutes before he decided he would not give up without a fight.

The fortunes of Mularski's family had closely followed those of twentieth-century Pittsburgh. His great-great-grandfather had secured a passage from Hamburg in 1892, arriving in Baltimore with just a dollar in his pocket. Keith may have been an all-American boy, but the ethnic identity of many of the city's European communities remained strong - Polish, in Mularski's case.

Interspersed among the modest wooden houses, Art Deco cinemas and dance halls of Pittsburgh's now-picturesque South Side are the churches and community centres of the many Slavic communities - Czech, Polish, Serbian, Slovak, Ukrainian and more - who gravitated