Nick stared after the bushes, dumbstruck. What the h.e.l.l did that mean? I'm owed? I don't do anything but write the stories. Then he pulled the notebook out of his back pocket and knelt right there, next to the seawall, and wrote down everything he could remember of the conversation, the exact words.

The now-silent subjects of those stories created those situations on their own. Yeah, alright, Nick thought. Yeah, alright, Nick thought.

War is h.e.l.l. G.o.dd.a.m.n Sherman quote. But if Redman had gone to Iraq, he either joined up or went as a guardsman. A lot of guardsmen from Florida went over there. Nick had done several stories about locals who packed up and shipped out, leaving families behind. That would be easy to check out. G.o.dd.a.m.n Sherman quote. But if Redman had gone to Iraq, he either joined up or went as a guardsman. A lot of guardsmen from Florida went over there. Nick had done several stories about locals who packed up and shipped out, leaving families behind. That would be easy to check out.

This is just a list, my friend. One that's got to be cleaned out before I go.

OK, his list. He's working his own list. Would it be a physical thing? Or all in his head? And was it the same as any of the samples Nick already had, the one with his byline all over it?

You're not on the list. You're the architect of the list, man. You're the spotter.

That can't be right. What's that mean? I'm the spotter. Nick knew enough about SWAT operations and snipers to know what a spotter was. He's the guy that calls the shots in a two-man team. I'm not on this guy's team. How the h.e.l.l did I get on this guy's team?

One more, Mr. Mullins. Like I said, you're owed. Nick scribbled down the last quote, the final words Redman had used. Nick scribbled down the last quote, the final words Redman had used.

"I'm owed?" he said out loud. Why am I owed? I'm not the subject of my stories. I have never been the subject of my stories. Your career, your journalism is not supposed to be about you, it's supposed to be about other people.

The sound of Nick's cell phone caused him to jerk and he had to put his hand out on the rough concrete to keep from tumbling into the d.a.m.n water. He looked at the readout and the calling number was blocked.

"Nick Mullins," he answered.

"Mr. Mullins," announced Detective Hargrave's quiet voice. "You have a flair for the dramatic that I didn't expect from you. I got your message about going out to meet with a homicide suspect on your own and tossing me an Internet research a.s.signment as a bone. This is exactly why we don't bring amateurs in on investigations, Mullins. They always tend to do stupid things."

Nick said nothing. The guy was right. What do you say?

"Can I a.s.sume that you have already met with your possible sniper, or are you standing around in some open field waiting for him to put a round through your head?" Hargrave said in a muted, conversational tone.

Nick looked around at the open lot.

"No. I mean, yes, I met with him. It's Michael Redman, one of your own, a former SWAT guy for the Sheriff's Office. But I'm not a target. At least that's what he said. I think it's the subjects of my stories that are his targets and he said he's going to do one more before he goes."

"Might I suggest, Mr. Mullins, that you come in to the Sheriff's Office as soon as f.u.c.king possible?" Hargrave said, p.r.o.nouncing the expletive in such a calm manner as to make it seem nearly inoffensive.

"Absolutely. I will get there as soon as possible," Nick said, almost adding a sir sir tothe end of his sentence and then listening as the hang-up tone on the cell bleated out over the river water. tothe end of his sentence and then listening as the hang-up tone on the cell bleated out over the river water.

Chapter 24.

When Nick got back to the newsroom, the place was starting to warm up to the day. He took advantage of the fact that the editors were having their early news meeting and he could slip in and out without being noticed by the powers that be.

He walked the long way around to his desk and started gathering up his notes and printouts from the research library. But he wasn't invisible. His desk phone rang.

"Nicky, man. Your a.s.s is in the stew, brother."

Nick instantly recognized Hirschman's voice.

"Yeah, has been for some time," Nick said.

"No, no. Not like this time."

Nick sat and booted up his computer.

"What do you have, Bill?" he said and looked around the corner to see the top of Hirschman's head bobbing just below his part.i.tion. It was the norm these days in newsrooms and other offices. Employees didn't get up and go talk to each other, they called you from fifteen feet away or sent you e-mails. Nick had learned long ago that the company could scan the contents of every e-mail sent either in or out of the building, so he rarely used it. And this clandestine technique of calling the guy next to you was as distasteful to him as interviewing people over the phone. But it was what it was and you didn't ignore information even if that's the way it was spread.

"They're gunning for you, man," Hirschman said, using a low, conspiratorial voice. "From the stuff I overheard, they're going to fire your a.s.s for some kind of insubordination or keeping some kind of story away from Ms. Clompy Heels or some d.a.m.n thing. The words human resources human resources were definitely used and you know what that means when they're p.i.s.sed at somebody." were definitely used and you know what that means when they're p.i.s.sed at somebody."

Yeah, Nick knew. That and due to economic considerations we are forced to separate certain employees from the company. due to economic considerations we are forced to separate certain employees from the company. Christ, they couldn't even bring themselves to say you're fired. It had to be couched in some d.a.m.n lawyerese. h.e.l.l, if he wrote something like that in the paper, he'd deserve to be fired. Christ, they couldn't even bring themselves to say you're fired. It had to be couched in some d.a.m.n lawyerese. h.e.l.l, if he wrote something like that in the paper, he'd deserve to be fired.

"Thanks for the heads-up, Bill," he said. "I'll expect all of you to pull together in this time of eight percent profit margins instead of the usual twelve percent," he said.

"Ha!" Hirschman answered and hung up.

Nick only smirked at the long-standing criticism of a newspaper industry that earned higher profits than almost any other business in the country and started cutting employees long before that margin came anywhere close to flat.

At his desk he slipped a rewritable CD into the computer and called up a list of contacts he'd put together over a decade and copied it. He did the same with all of his notes on the sniper case. He also copied every e-mail address that he'd recorded. All of his personal stuff he could leave. If they ended up sacking him, they couldn't deny him those, but he knew they could confiscate his computer and all of the files in his desk drawers and claim them as work products that belonged to them. He slipped the CDs and notepads into his briefcase and made it halfway down the hallway to the elevator when an a.s.sistant editor came swinging out of the break room with a cup of coffee in one hand.

"Hey, Nick. There you are, man. Hey, I think we've got a big pileup on 95 up near Hillsborough Beach Boulevard that we're going to have to check out. You know, no fatalities or anything, but photo got some pictures so we're gonna need some cutline information at least."

Nick slowed but did not stop moving as he turned to sidestep the man.

"But other than that I think we're pretty clear, so what's the word on this vigilante thing, because, you know, Deirdre's going to get out of that meeting pretty soon and she's going to want to see you. . . ."

The editor's scattergun spiel started to slow as Nick kept backpedaling and he first noticed the briefcase in Nick's hand.

"You're not taking off again, are you, Nick, because, you know she's really gonna be p.i.s.sed, and-"

"I'll call you, man. I need to make this meeting with the cops and I'll just have to call you. Alright?" Nick said and now he was walking backward with the editor following him. "I've got my cell. But I can't miss this meeting. Tell her that, OK?"

He joined several other people at the elevator and saw the door to the conference room open at the end of the hallway. The editors' meeting was breaking up. He ducked into the elevator and watched the doors close, perhaps on his career. He could stay and fight with Deirdre or go out to work a shooting that hadn't yet occurred, but would, all because the shooter thought Nick was owed something.

Chapter 25.

This time they met him in Canfield's small office and they weren't nearly as accommodating as in the last round. Hargrave was standing, leaning against a bookcase jammed with big tutorials with t.i.tles on the spines like Bomb and Arson Specialties in the Field Bomb and Arson Specialties in the Field and and The ATF Field Guide to Indeterminate Explosive Devices The ATF Field Guide to Indeterminate Explosive Devices and three of the middle volumes of the Florida statutes that Nick knew as those that dealt with felony arrests. and three of the middle volumes of the Florida statutes that Nick knew as those that dealt with felony arrests.

Canfield was in the chair behind his desk but stood when Nick and Joel Cameron entered.

"You can sit, Mr. Mullins," he said, indicating a chair positioned in front of the desk. It was both a greeting and an order. Cameron took a step back but also remained standing and Nick got a flash scene in his head of some d.a.m.ned interrogation in a gulag described by Solzhenitsyn.

"Let's start with you telling us about this meeting with Mr. Redman this morning, Mr. Mullins. And then we'll go from there," Canfield said and Nick swallowed any idea of holding out on them, though that had not been his intent when he came in. After all, he had agreed to work with them. He just hated the feeling of being bullied.

He took the reporter's notebook from his back pocket and flipped the page.

"a.s.suming everybody now knows Mike Redman, I got an e-mail from him that the timing signature said was sent at seven forty-five this morning. I didn't read it until two hours later when I checked my computer at the office. I already gave Detective Hargrave the information on the e-mail account that it was sent from," Nick began, hoping to first show that he had indeed tried to keep them in the loop, sort of.

"The tech guys that do computer crime and Internet p.o.r.n investigations are running down the commiekid commiekid account," Hargrave said. "Looks like some student type, on the surface. They're going to get an address and we'll go from there." account," Hargrave said. "Looks like some student type, on the surface. They're going to get an address and we'll go from there."

Nick couldn't tell by his tone whether Hargrave was defending him or just making a verbal report to Canfield. The detective wouldn't meet his eyes, so he went on.

"The message was signed 'm.r.' in lowercase letters and asked me to show up for a meet at ten, so I really didn't have a lot of time to, you know, alert anyone other than to just call the detective and tell him what I was planning to do, to meet with the guy."

He was dancing, but it was truthful dancing.

"Description?" Canfield said like he knew what Nick was doing and wasn't swallowing it.

"I'd say he looks just like he used to when you used to work with him only a little more worn," Nick said, putting it back on the former SWAT supervisor. "Clean-shaven. In pretty good shape. Tanned. Same blue-gray eyes. He was wearing some kind of uniform like a maintenance man, you know, blue work pants and a light blue short-sleeved shirt."

"Carrying anything you you could notice?" Canfield said, slightly emphasizing the could notice?" Canfield said, slightly emphasizing the you you as if Nick would not have the kind of powers of observation that a trained law enforcement officer would. as if Nick would not have the kind of powers of observation that a trained law enforcement officer would.

"He had a navy jacket draped over one arm, so he could have had something wrapped in it, but nothing as long as a McMillan M-86 or even a broken-down MP5," Nick said, using what little he did know to defend his ground. "He might have had an ankle holster, but I really couldn't tell."

"OK, OK, boys," Hargrave chimed in. "Enough of the p.i.s.sing match."

Canfield looked down, even though he did officially outrank Hargrave. Nick took a deep breath and nodded in a.s.sent.

"What the h.e.l.l did the guy say, Mullins?" Hargrave said.

Without realizing it, Nick was sitting on the front edge of the chair, like he was ready to pounce on something, or run. He sat back, took in another breath and flipped another page in his notebook.

"First of all, he never clearly said that he killed anyone," Nick began. "I mean, he was being real careful about the exact words, like he thought I might be wearing a wire or something."

Nick saw both Canfield and Hargrave raise their eyebrows at the suggestion.

"Oh, is that why you guys wanted to see me before I met with the guy? To wire me up?"

"Don't go Hollywood on us, Mullins. We don't wire anymore. We usually just put a microphone inside your cell phone. That gets most of them," Hargrave said with that grin in the corner of his mouth, his way of leaving a doubt in the veracity of every statement.

Canfield just made the motion of a wheel turning with his hand. "Go on."

Nick looked at the notebook. He was about to continue when he heard the door behind him open without a knock and all heads turned. Fitzgerald, who Nick now knew was working with the Secret Service, stepped in and said, "Excuse my lateness, gentlemen. I hope you haven't begun without me."

Canfield kept a straight face. "Just some preliminaries. Nothing pertinent," he said. "We were just going into Mr. Mullins's contact this morning with Redman."

The look on Fitzgerald's face said he didn't believe a word of it. He also never asked who Redman was, so Nick figured he'd already been briefed. "Go on, then," he said as if they needed his permission.

"Redman said he'd been in Iraq. I was going to check that out," Nick continued and then looked up with his eyebrows raised, a silent question.

"Yeah, he was," Canfield said. "It was while he was still on the job. They called up his reserve unit and he went over there as a specialist. He was working as a sniper with some other military group because of his skills, according to his reserve CO. But he's been back for over a year."

Nick turned his head and saw Fitzgerald take out a small notebook of his own. For some reason it p.i.s.sed Nick off.

"Like I said, he was being very careful. I was trying to draw him out a little about the recent shootings and he said the victims brought it on themselves, like he'd convinced himself that they deserved to die. But he never said in any specific words that he shot them," Nick said.

"And you didn't ask him?" Fitzgerald said, using the same incredulous tone Canfield had used.

"It wasn't an interrogation," Nick snapped. "I'm not a cop. I talk to people, I don't grill them."

Hargrave jumped in to keep things from derailing again.

"Did he say anything about what's next, Nick? What his plans were?" Hargrave asked.

Nick smiled. Now Hargrave was on a first-name basis.

"He said he had a list that had to be cleaned out before he left," Nick said, reading from his notes. "He called me his spotter-'the architect of the list' are the words he used. Then he said I wasn't personally on the list but that he was going to do one more because I was owed."

The room went silent. It was a good fifteen seconds, a vacuum quiet enough to imagine the wheels turning in each man's head.

"Did he say anything about hating the war and the man who sent him there?" Fitzgerald said, his professional focus made obvious.

"He used the phrase 'War is h.e.l.l,' " Nick said.

"Christ!" the agent said.

"But he didn't say anything about the Secretary of State," Nick said, trying to cut him off. "Not a word."

Fitzgerald's mask of professional decorum cracked at the mention of the secretary. His lips went into a thin hard line and he stared at Nick and then at Canfield.

"But he called you his spotter. Which dovetails into the list, our list, of those convicts you've personally written about that are now dead," Hargrave jumped in. "So if he's working off a list he made up from your bylines, who else is there? Who else have you done a piece on who was a blatant a.s.shole like these other guys who he figures deserves to die?"

Nick had been running the same question through his head. He couldn't remember every one of the victims he wrote about. He used to be able to recall their faces, before his own family took their places.

"I've done dozens of stories like that," he said. "I'd have to go through them all."

"So go through them all," Fitzgerald said.

"Hey, it's not like you just put my byline and the word a.s.shole a.s.shole in the search field," Nick said, getting irritated by someone telling him what to do again. in the search field," Nick said, getting irritated by someone telling him what to do again.

"OK, Nick," Hargrave said. "Just do a search with your byline and the word killed killed or or raped raped or or abused, abused, something you know would be in the real bad ones. We could start there." something you know would be in the real bad ones. We could start there."

"Start with the ones that have ranked politicians or their cabinet members in them," Fitzgerald said and all eyes turned to him and Nick let the order go this time. "The Secret Service is here for a reason, which you all now appear to know," he said, again cutting his eyes toward Canfield. "Intelligence has indicated a sniper on the wing in this country, gentlemen, and it's not a threat that we think is idle. We have credible reason to believe the gunman we're looking for is somewhere in Florida and with the political climate as it is, we're not turning away from any leads, no matter how thin. The fact that you have possibly identified a suspect who has a military background and was recently in Iraq raises that profile."

The room went quiet, with each man running the possibilities through his own head.

"I'm doing my job, gentlemen," Fitzgerald said before anyone else could speak. "We have been tracking this for over a year now. Does that not coincide with your Mr. Redman's return to this country from a position in Iraq where he could have easily come in contact with people who are a danger to the command decision makers within our government?"

Nick was weighing the possibilities: Redman targeting the Secretary of State? Redman killing someone for Nick that might be considered a favor? The two possibilities had no tie-ins. But Fitzgerald had the floor. Don't f.u.c.k with him now, Nick thought.