Jonathon King - Eye of Vengeance

"Well, hell, no, Mr. Mullins. You're not on the list. You're the architect of the list, man. You're the spotter," Redman said. "And I just wanted to meet you, properly, before we finish."

Redman then reached out his hand in such a formal and courteous way that Nick's muddled reaction was to take it. It was Redman's muscled forearm that gripped and raised the handshake one time and then let it fall. When he turned to go, Nick found his voice.

"Wait. Wait a second, Mike. What do you mean, finish? You mean you're going to kill someone else?"

Redman kept walking and Nick didn't follow. It was against his years of work and instinct to chase after an interviewee, even this one. He stood and called out instead:

"Mike, come on. What are you doing? Why? How many more on your list?"

Redman turned before he disappeared back into the sea grape.

"One more, Mr. Mullins," he called back. "Like I said, you're owed." Nick stared after the bushes, dumbstruck. What the hell 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.

War is hell. Goddamn 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 hell 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.

"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 damn 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 assignment 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 assume 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 fucking possible?" Hargrave said, pronouncing 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 tothe end of his sentence and then listening as the hang-up tone on the cell bleated out over the river water.

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 ass 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 partition. 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 ass for some kind of insubordination or keeping some kind of story away from Ms. Clompy Heels or some damn thing. The words human resources were definitely used and you know what that means when they're pissed at somebody."

Yeah, Nick knew. That and 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 damn lawyerese. Hell, 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 assistant 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…"