Cody McFadyen: Shadow Man

"A few more cases solved, glowing performance reviews. And then you were made the NCAVC coordinator in Los Angeles in '96. Charged with creating an efficient local unit, and repairing relations with local law enforcement that your predecessor had damaged. Some might have thought this was a demotion, but the truth is, you were handpicked for a difficult task. It's where you really began to shine."

My mind wanders back to that time. Shine is the perfect word. 1996 was a year when nothing seemed to go wrong. I'd had my daughter in late 1995. I was appointed to the LA office, a huge feather in my professional cap. And Matt and I were going strong, strong as ever. It was one of those years when I woke up every morning excited, fresh. Back when I could reach over and find him next to me, where he should be.

It was everything that the here and now is not, and I feel myself getting angry at Dr. Hillstead for reminding me of this. For making the present all the more bleak and empty by comparison.

"Is there a point here?"

He raises a hand. "Just a little bit more. The office in LA hadn't been doing well. You were given carte blanche in restaffing it, and you picked three agents from offices around the United States. They were thought, at the time, to be unusual choices. But they proved out in the end, didn't they?"

That, I think to myself, is an understatement. I just nod, still angry.

"In fact, your team is one of the best in Bureau history, isn't it?"

"The best." I can't help it. I'm proud of my team, and I'm incapable of being modest when it comes to them. Besides, it's the truth. NCAVC

Los Angeles, known as "NCAVC Coord" or internally as "Death Central," did its job. Period and always.

"Right." He flips through a few more pages. "Lots of solved cases. More glowing reviews. Some notes that you were being considered to become the first female acting Director ever. Historic."

All of this is true. All of it also continues to anger me, for reasons I can't quite understand. I just know that I am getting pissed off, coming to a boil, and if this continues, I am going to have an explosive meltdown.

"Something else in your file caught my eye. Notations about your marksmanship."

He looks up at me, and I feel blindsided, though I don't know why. Something stirs in me, and I recognize it as fear. I grip the arms of the chair as he continues.

"Your file states that you possibly rank within the top twentieth percentile, worldwide, with a handgun. Is that true, Smoky?"

I stare at my therapist, and I feel myself going numb. The anger is disappearing.

Me and guns. Everything he's saying is true. I can pick up a gun and shoot it like other people grab a glass of water, or ride a bike. It's instinctive, and always has been. There's no genius to it that you can put a finger on. I didn't have a father who wanted a son and so taught me how to use a gun. In fact, my dad disliked them. It was just something I could do. I was eight years old, and my dad had a friend who had been in Vietnam as a Green Beret. Now he was a gun nut. He lived in a rundown condo in a run-down area of the San Fernando Valley--which fit him. He was a run-down man. Even so, to this day I remember his eyes: sharp and youthful. Sparkling.

His name was Dave, and he managed to drag my father out to a shooting range in a somewhat disreputable area of San Bernardino County, and my dad had brought me along, maybe in hopes of keeping the trip short. Dave got my dad to shoot a few clips, as I stood, watching, wearing protective earmuffs that were too big for my little-girl head. I watched them both as they held the weapons, and I was fascinated by it. Drawn to it.

"Can I try?" I piped up.

"I don't think that's a good idea, honey," Dad said.

"Aww, come on, Rick. I'll get her a little twenty-two pistol. Let her squeeze off a couple of shots."

"Please, Daddy?" I looked up at my father with my best pleading look, the one I knew, even at eight, could bend his will to mine. He looked down at me, the struggle apparent in his face, and then sighed.

"Okay. But just a few shots."

Dave went and got the twenty-two, a tiny little thing that fit my hand, and they dug up a stool for me to stand on. Dave loaded the weapon and placed it in my hands, standing behind me as my dad watched, apprehensive.

"See the target down there?" he asked. I nodded. "Decide where you want your shot to land. Take your time. When you pull the trigger, you want to do it slow. Don't jerk it, or that will throw off your aim. You ready?"

I believe I replied, but the truth was, I barely heard him. I had the gun in my hand, and something was clicking inside me. Something right. Something that fit. I looked down the range at the human-shaped target, and it didn't seem far away at all. It seemed close, reachable. I pointed the gun toward it, took a breath, and pulled. I was startled and thrilled by the jerk of the little pistol in my small hands.

"Damn!" I heard Dave crow.

I squinted down toward the target again and saw that a little hole had appeared in the center of the head, right where I had wanted it to go.

"You just might be a natural, young lady," he said to me. "Try a few more."

The "couple of shots" turned into an hour and a half of shooting. I hit what I aimed for over ninety percent of the time, and by the end of it, I knew I'd be shooting guns for the rest of my life. And that I'd be good at it.

My dad supported this habit in the years to come, in spite of his distaste for guns. I guess he recognized that this was a part of me, something he wouldn't be able to keep me away from. The truth? I'm scary-good. I keep this to myself, and I don't show off in public. But alone? I'm an Annie Oakley. I can shoot out candle flames and put holes in quarters that you toss in the air. One time, at an outdoor shooting range, I put a Ping-Pong ball on the back of my gun hand, the same one I use to draw my weapon. It sat on the back of my hand, and then that hand flew down to grab my gun. I came back up and blew the Ping-Pong ball away before it could fall to the ground. A silly trick, but I found it very satisfying.

All of this goes through my head while Dr. Hillstead watches me.

"It's true," I say.

He closes the file. Clasps his hands and looks at me. "You are an exceptional agent. Certainly one of the best female agents in the Bureau's history. You hunt the worst of the worst. Six months ago a man you were hunting, Joseph Sands, came after you and your family, killed your husband in front of you, raped and tortured you, and killed your daughter. Through an effort that could only be called superhuman, you turned the tables on him, taking his life."

I am fully clothed in the numbness now. I don't know what all of this is leading to, and I don't care.

"So here I am, in a profession where two plus two doesn't always equal four, and things don't always fall when you drop them, trying to help you go back to all of that."

The look he gives me is so filled with honest compassion that I have to look away from it; it burns me with its feeling.

"I've been doing this for a long time, Smoky. And you've been seeing me for quite a while. I develop feelings about things--you'd probably call them hunches in your line of work. Here's what my hunches have to say about where we're at. I think you're trying to choose between whether or not to go back to work or kill yourself."

My gaze snaps back up to his, an involuntary admission that's been shocked out of me. As the numbness rushes away from me in a scream, I realize that I've been played, played with great finesse. He's talked around, rambled, prodded, keeping me unaware and off balance, and then moved in for the kill. Right for the jugular, without hesitation. And it's worked.

"I can't help you unless you really lay it all on the table, Smoky."