Jonathon King - Eye of Vengeance

Nick could take the fact that the lieutenant would have pulled a copy of the dossier they undoubtedly put together on him when they invited him into this mess. But the suggestion of letting Walker be shot down in the street was one that made all three of them shift their eyes and go quiet. Nick had spun that scenario in his head a thousand times. He even thought of doing it himself but dismissed the notion by thinking of Carly having to come on visiting days at the prison. He'd done jail-house interviews himself and had seen children, dressed in their Sunday best, standing fidgety and unsure while their fathers, dressed in blue prison garb, tried to coax them into a smile. Could you trade retribution for that?

Canfield finally shifted his weight, stood up. The heat had caused dark semicircles to form under the arms of his uniform shirt.

"Mo, I can't believe you're going for this," he finally said to Hargrave, using a shortened form of the detective's first name that had not been used in Nick's presence before.

Hargrave shook his head. "Hard to judge this shooter, Lieutenant, I think we can all agree on that," he said, his voice flat and deliberately lacking in emotion. "The fact that he contacted Mullins gives a hell of a lot of credence to the theory that he's picking victims from Mullins's stories. That leads into the logic that he's read Mullins's work and has some kind of connection to him and would know about the accident that killed his family. So I'm not convinced it's that far of a jump to figure that the statement Redman made to Mullins-'One more. You're owed'-could mean he's going to take out this Walker character."

Nick remained silent. He couldn't have put it any better.

"I'm sorry, guys. I just can't go for it. I've already got deputies all over this OAS meeting and the Secretary of State coming to town and now some goddamn public relations thing they're going to do. You want to tell this guy Walker what you're thinking, go ahead, Mo. But I can't authorize some kind of protective custody or some damn sniper watch on a theory. You want to make it part of your investigation, go to it."

Canfield started to leave when Hargrave stopped him. "Sir, how about our man Fitzgerald? Did he show any interest in the story Mullins did about the secretary?"

Nick was looking at the tabletop when he heard the question. His head snapped up like he had been yanked by the hair.

"What the hell are you… What story?" he said, staring stupidly at Hargrave.

The detective pulled a folded sheet of paper from his back pocket and handed it to Nick. "Your research person faxed this after you left," he said. "Remember you asked them to send you anything political you'd done that mentioned the Secretary of State?"

Nick unfolded the sheet and read the headline:

Someone had highlighted certain lines in the story, including a quote by the dead boy's father blaming the Secretary of State for keeping his son overseas beyond his assigned date to come home.

"I've kept Fitzgerald in the loop on your investigation all along," Canfield said to Hargrave. "I'm not sure how seriously he's taking this connection between Mullins and the sniper, but he did seem interested in talking to Redman if we ever find him. But that mention of the secretary carried a lot more weight than any mention of this Walker character." He nodded at the clipping in Nick's hands. "I got the feeling that Fitzgerald was going to do his job protecting the secretary, but wasting manpower on Walker was not his inclination."

Hargrave remained sitting on the edge of the picnic table until Canfield disappeared around the corner of the building.

"Not his inclination," he said in a mocking voice just loud enough for Nick to hear.

"What?" Nick said, just finishing the story and flipping the paper to see if it continued on the backside.

"Nothing," Hargrave said and then pointed at the clipping. "What do you think?"

"Hell, I don't even remember that quote," he said, tapping the backs of his fingers on the sheet of paper. "I remember doing this story on the National Guard kid, but not that quote about the secretary. I mean, that's kind of reaching. Unless Redman somehow knew the guy or his parents."

The story had been written shortly after Nick had returned to work. At the time he was doing both the cop shift and some home-front stories about area soldiers who were shipped out to Iraq. Some of those stories were obituaries, like the one in his hand. By Nick Mullins, Staff Writer South Florida friends and family of Corporal Randy Williams gathered at his parents' home Friday to remember a young man "who never walked away from a pal and always covered your back," when he grew up here in Fort Lauderdale.

Williams, 28, was killed in Iraq earlier this week during a routine patrol according to the Defense Department. He had been serving with a National Guard unit based in Homestead and was sent to the Gulf more than a year ago. He had been scheduled to return home in January but a change in policy in which guardsmen were to serve only one year of active duty was altered.

"If the Secretary of State had honored her promise, my boy would be back here now, alive and safe with us. He did his job," said Williams's father, Vern.

Vern Williams later said he was referring to a speech made last week by the secretary that defended the military's controversial ruling.

"The interpretation of the contract for guardsmen is that deployments are to mean twelve months, boots on the ground, in the service of the country and do not include the months of stateside preparations and training they spent away from their homes and stateside jobs," the secretary said at the time. "We hope this clears up any confusion and we regret if those families of the soldiers protecting our nation misinterpreted that commitment."

The secretary's words did not mollify the Williams family.

"That's not what our son's commanders told us before he shipped out. They said he'd be home three months ago. If you make a promise to these boys and then ship them off to risk their lives, you should honor that promise," said Vern Williams.

Williams was a highly regarded member of his unit and was guarding the rear flank of his patrol in Iraq when he was killed by a single gunshot fired by an insurgent sniper.

"We still have not taken down his stuff in the barracks," wrote Josh Murray, a fellow unit member from Coconut Creek in an e-mail sent to the Daily News yesterday. "He was a special guy. Always watchin' out for us."

The story went on, quoting friends and other members of Williams's Guard unit praising the kid's intensity and loyalty both at home and in Iraq. But Hargrave had circled the paragraphs that held the secretary's name.

"And Canfield showed this to the Secret Service?" Nick said, working it in his head.

"You heard the man," Hargrave said.

"Do we have any connection between Redman and this guy Williams?"

"Checking. But they weren't with the same Guard unit, nor did their units work together over there as far as anyone can find," Hargrave said. "But then it hasn't been easy to nail down exactly what Redman was doing over there. The information officer with the Florida National Guard will only tell us that he was with a special operations group that was farmed out across the country. No specifics."

"So what? You're thinking Redman reads this piece by me and gets juiced up about avenging this kid's death by assassinating the secretary who justified keeping him over there?" Nick said, to himself as much as to Hargrave.

"Hell if I know," the detective said. "I showed it to Canfield, just like that tight-ass Fitzgerald asked."

Nick could feel the sun cooking the back of his neck. He folded the story and unconsciously slipped it into his back pocket. Hargrave noticed and extended his hand and flexed his fingers in a give-it-back signal. Nick shrugged his shoulders and returned the paper.