John Gilstrap - Threat warning

“I still don’t get why you’re so quick to dismiss the apartment buildings,” Gail said.

“I’m not dismissing them. They’re just not the perches I would choose. Ven, you’re cross-referencing the names of the apartment tenants with all things Copley, right?”

“Didn’t you ask me to?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Then what does that mean?”

Jonathan mouthed to Gail, It means she’s doing it.

Over the course of the next hour, Jonathan piled more and more on Venice. As a practical matter, it was impossible to go door-to-door through multiple buildings surveying for a shooter that they weren’t one-hundred-percent certain was even going to be there. They needed something-any bit of data-to winnow the list to a manageable size.

“You know this is going to take hours, right?” Venice said as the spitballing session ended.

“What, you want overtime?” Jonathan poked.

“Just appreciation,” she said. “I have no life, after all. I live to serve.”

She was being ironic, but Jonathan knew she was speaking the truth. “Can we be done for a while? I need rest.”

“What time do we reconvene?” Venice asked.

“Not later than six, but right away if you get something hot.”

“No,” Boxers said. All heads turned to him. “I need to sleep. I don’t need to get up again at two-freaking-thirty because you think there’s an interesting tidbit I need to hear. Make it six o’clock. We’re less than a mile from anyplace that can matter.” He stood and when he got to the door, he turned and ostentatiously placed his hand on the grip of his Beretta. “I’m going to put the do-not-disturb sign on my door, and I’m going to shoot anyone who ignores it.”

He left.

“Sounds like we’re in recess,” Venice said. “I’ll use my best judgment in calling you, Dig. Get some rest.”

The line when dead.

Jonathan shut down his computer and did his best seductive crawl across the bed toward Gail. When he arrived, he placed his head on her lap and gently stroked her leg. “What would you like to do?” he teased.

“Not what you’re thinking,” she said.

He rolled over to look at her face. “What, then?”

She stroked his hair from his forehead and gave a little smile. “You’re such a little boy,” she said. “It’s all a game to you.” Her teasing tone seemed dissonant with her very serious expression.

“What are we talking about?”

“All of it.” She rolled her hips to eject his head from her lap and she stood. “Life. Your job. Everything’s a game to you.”

Jonathan sat up. “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.” “Jon, we killed people last night. I murdered a young man in the woods just because he happened to walk into the wrong place.”

“You killed him before he could kill you,” Jonathan countered. “That’s hardly murder.”

She brought her hands to the top of her head, as if to keep it from exploding. “That’s it for you,” she said. “That’s as complicated as the world is.”

He shrugged. “It’s not as if I haven’t been around the block a few times. I know right from wrong, and I know life from death. Life is better.”

“Is it?” she said. “Is living with this kind of guilt on my conscience really part of the good life?”

An alarm sounded in Jonathan’s head. “Jeez, Gail, it was self-defense. We killed a lot of people last night, and they were all self-defense.”

“Not according to the law.”

“Oh, forget the law.”

She looked stunned. “Really? That’s all you’ve got? Forget the law?”

“We’ve met, right?” He extended his hand in greeting.

“Hi, I’m Jonathan Grave. I save lives for a living.”

“I don’t need your sarcasm, Jon. You also kill people for a living.”

“I’ve always killed people for a living.”

“It’s not the same, and you know it.”

“It is the same,” Jonathan countered. “That’s the simplicity that you don’t see. Ask Pablo Escobar’s family if it makes a difference that the guy who pulled the trigger on him was operating with permission from Uncle Sam. Dead is dead.”

“There’s-” She cut herself off and paced a bit, gathering her thoughts. “In a nation of laws, individual citizens do not get to make the decision who lives and who dies.”

“Wrong again. I spent nearly two decades of my life killing bad guys by order of the individual citizen who happened to be commander in chief.”

“With the constitutional authority to do so.”

Jonathan gaped. “So every bozo who’s occupied the Oval Office is somehow endowed with more wisdom than you or me or the average guy on the street? I don’t buy it.”

“Presidents have the authority,” she repeated.

“And I have the ability.”

“So, what makes you different than a punk murderer on the street? The elements of the law are the elements of the law. I swore an oath, Digger.”

He felt as if he’d been slapped. “I don’t know what to say. I just know I’m on the side of the angels.”

She walked to him and allowed herself to be enfolded in his arms. “Jon, I love you,” she said.

A whole new warning bell clanged in his head. “Why do I feel there’s a ‘but’ at the end of that statement?”

She released her arms, and took a step back. “But I don’t know if I can keep doing this.”

“You mean saving lives?” He said it with a wink.

“If everything we suspect turns out to be right, we’re going to kill again tomorrow,” she said.

He considered that. “Probably,” he said.

She cocked her head. “Only probably?”

Jonathan inhaled deeply. “The asshole we’re looking for has killed a lot of people. Dozens.”

“So we’ll be judge, jury, and executioner.”

Jonathan thought it through for a long time. Finally: “Yes.”

Gail grabbed his face gently with both hands and pulled his mouth to hers.

“Good night,” she said. She closed the door to the adjoining room as she left.

“I’ve got nothing,” Venice said, opening the telephone call at 06:01. “Of the three potential bad guys in the apartment buildings, all three have already been contacted by the Secret Service, according to ICIS, and all three are under intense observation. My guess is they’re each going to spend their mornings somewhere else, or with their drapes closed. Here’s the really bad news among the merely bad news: Michael Copley has nothing to do with anything.”

“What about the office buildings?” Jonathan asked.

“A lot of security,” Venice explained. She spent the better part of ten minutes delivering the minutiae of the various security systems, which, at the end of the day, were mostly dependent on the security guard in the lobby.

“I almost hesitate to tell you this,” Venice said toward the end of her prepared presentation. “I know you, and I know how you obsess over coincidence; but the General Services Administration has an office at 1101 Coolidge.”

Jonathan perked up. “This would be the same GSA that provides the Model 9000 Symphonic Reflector to the Secret Service?”

“Yes,” Venice hedged, “but it’s also the same GSA that provides toilet paper to the Department of Commerce. It’s a big agency.”

Jonathan wasn’t interested in the qualifiers. “That’s the address,” he said.

“Just like that?” Gail said.

“It’s a place to start,” Jonathan replied. The chill between them lowered the temperature in the room by ten degrees.

“Suppose it’s the wrong place to start?” Boxers asked.

“What difference will it make? We can sit here and twiddle our thumbs, or we can go there and pretend that we’re right. We will be or we won’t be, but at least we’ll be doing something.”