Allison Brennan - Sudden Death

Five of them escaped in the car, leaving the slowest behind. The kid-Megan learned later he was sixteen and his older brother was one of the five who escaped-kept running.

Megan had to find cover as the car made a second, then third pass, trying to kill them and get the kid. Karin disappeared from view and Megan began to panic. She couldn’t leave her partner. The car finally left, and Megan ran toward where she saw Karin turn into an alley.

She didn’t see the shooting, but she heard it.

Megan had thought Karin was dead.

Instead, Karin was standing and the kid was dead, lying in a filthy alley in the worst part of Washington, D.C.

“Karin! Are you okay?”

Karin whirled around, her gun still out, and aimed at Megan, then she pulled it up and relaxed. “Just fine.”

It had been a righteous kill. The kid had a gun out; Karin had no choice but to fire.

Megan didn’t dispute that.

But in her mind, she couldn’t forget the look on Karin’s face when she turned around, gun drawn: excitement. Nor could Megan forget her calmness after the shooting. Megan questioned her own competence because she knew she wouldn’t be so calm and collected if she’d killed a human being-and that bore out the two times she was forced to draw her gun and fire. Megan had been calm on scene, but she’d been a basket case for two days afterward and grateful for the forty-eight-hour administrative leave.

Megan had done a little research after that incident and learned that Karin had killed or shot more suspects in the line of duty than any other active agent. Every shooting had been investigated and ruled unavoidable. Yet … Megan knew Karin was a good liar. She had caught her fibbing about little things. It had never bothered Megan too much because it hadn’t affected her. But suddenly Karin’s rages against the system and criminals who got off with a slap on the wrist took on a far more ominous meaning.

Her mistake-Megan had realized when she thought she was about to die in an alley two blocks from the D.C. jail-was not sharing her concerns with someone. Maybe they could have given Karin a psych test or counseling. Maybe Megan was wrong. She had hoped she was. She’d hoped she was very, very wrong. After all, the people Karin killed were criminals. They were wanted fugitives or suspects in violent crimes. She had no compassion for anyone. Her strength in the FBI had been her relentless and dogged pursuit of criminals. She worked extra hours, took extra training, volunteered for dangerous undercover missions, and turned in clean and prosecutable cases. The U.S. attorneys had loved her. She’d taught Megan to cover all the bases, not giving the bad guys any wiggle room.

But Karin was a sociopath. Because of their friendship, Megan had ignored or excused Karin’s actions for far too long. She couldn’t avoid the truth after the kid in D.C. was killed. Megan might have done the exact same thing in the same situation facing a gun, but it wasn’t the shooting itself that had disturbed her. It was the aftermath. The glee. The satisfaction on Karin’s face.

The day Megan almost died, Karin had confronted her about an in-depth report Megan had on her desk about officer-related shootings. It wasn’t an FBI article, but there were law enforcement statistics about drawing one’s weapon, firing, injuries, and fatalities. Big-city cops were in daily and consistent danger, more than the average FBI agent, but individual cops fired their guns less than half what Karin did.

Not proof of anything directly related to Karin, but enough that Megan wanted to keep an eye on her.

Megan lied about the article, but she was a pitiful liar and Karin didn’t say much the rest of the day. Megan was about to leave when Karin ran up to her, excited. “I have a location for Rentz! Let’s get him!”

Stanley Rentz, twenty-five, was a college dropout wanted for molesting prepubescent girls while traveling the country as part of the stage crew for an alternative rock band. When local and federal agencies figured out who the rapist was, they put together a sting, but Rentz had slipped out before it went down. He’d been hiding out for weeks, and his mother worked as a consultant in Congress. The FBI had received information that Rentz’s mother was helping him financially, so they had kept a close eye on her, her office, home, and commute route.

Megan followed Karin out. “Who’s our backup?”

“Marty and Ted. They’re meeting us at the station. My contact in the building said Rentz’s mother was acting nervous all day. I put a tail on her, and she’s waiting at a different Metro Stop, taking the blue line north instead of the orange south.”

This was the break they needed. Megan was relieved that Karin wasn’t privy to her investigation. She had been feeling guilty about it as it was, but knew she couldn’t go to her boss about Karin without something solid. Something more than her gut. Karin had been preoccupied for weeks; maybe that was her way of handling the trauma of killing a suspect, Megan didn’t know. Maybe all this would come to nothing, and Megan could forget she thought Karin was trigger-happy.

The first inkling that something was wrong was when Megan didn’t see Marty and Ted anywhere at Metro Center. They’d worked with the two agents multiple times when apprehending a fugitive, both as the primary team and as backup. Even though the men were undercover and the station was crowded, Megan should have been able to pick them out.

“Where are they?” Megan had asked Karin.

Without answering the question, Karin pointed out Rentz’s mother to Megan. The fifty-year-old accomplice was carrying her briefcase, her purse strapped over her shoulder, and a small black backpack. She glanced over her shoulder several times as she looked down the tunnel, nervously waiting for the approaching train.

“I told them to get on at the stop before this one,” Karin said absently as the train pulled up.

That made sense, Megan thought as she followed Karin onto the train.

They split up-Megan in the front, Karin in the back-inside the car as Rentz’s mother entered. She got off at Stadium-Armory, a transfer station. She didn’t cross over to another line, but took the escalator up to the street level.

They followed. Though it was dusk, the gray drizzle that had dampened the streets all day had turned into a steady, cold November rain, making visibility poor.

Rentz’s mother approached a small, driverless car parked illegally across the street, near the corner of C and Burke Streets. She opened the passenger door and dropped the backpack inside, then turned around and walked back toward the Metro.

Karin spoke into her walkie-talkie, “Follow the mother.”

Megan turned to her. “What? Rentz is going to be here. We need them here.”

“You’re a wimp, Megan. I always suspected it, but now I know that you can’t do this job. You follow her, I’ll take Rentz down myself.”

“No,” Megan said. “He’s desperate, and desperate criminals do stupid things.” She didn’t want Karin to get hurt. The irony of this thought at that moment stayed with Megan the rest of her life.

“There he is,” Karin said three minutes later. Megan saw a figure that could have been Rentz walking with his head down toward the target vehicle. “We need to get him before he gets to the car.”

“Let him get closer,” Megan said. “He’s too far-”

But Karin jumped. “Rentz! FBI! Stay right there. You’re-”