James Born - Shock Wave

“No, wait,” was all he got out before she hit the button and covered him with orange spray. He immediately felt his eyes burn. He blinked, but it did no good as he went to his knees. “Jesus, what is it with your family and Mace?”

“Just leave us alone. Daniel didn’t do nothing wrong.” She stared to cry.

He coughed and felt snot pour from his nose. He coughed out, “Just want to talk to him.”

“Bull. He says you’re gonna arrest him.” She started to move away from him. “Please leave us alone.”

One of the cops from the dance club had trotted down the street when he heard both Sutter and Alicia yell. The wide, young black officer saw them on the sidewalk.

Just as the cop arrived, Sutter tried to stand. The cop put his hand on Sutter’s shoulder and said, “Hold on.” Sutter jerked away, not knowing who had grabbed him. Without warning, the cop pulled his own spray. Sutter opened his eyes just in time to realize a cop was with him and he was being sprayed again.

This time the accumulation of different pepper sprays caused him to go to his knees and vomit. He tried to gasp, “I’m a cop,” but it didn’t come out. He heard the cop yell to Alicia Wells, then spit up again.

Five minutes later, he listened to the cop’s apologies after he’d identified himself. Alicia Wells had gotten away without a trace. He was still in distress, but a hose near the parking lot of the dance club had given him some relief.

The young uniformed cop said, “Detective, I didn’t recognize you. I am really, really sorry.”

Sutter didn’t want this incident getting around any more than his earlier Macing. He gathered his breath and said, “If you and your partner can keep your mouths shut, I’ll forget the whole thing. But if someone comes up to me and mentions this, I’ll whip your ass. Understand?”

The young man nodded his head vigorously.

Sutter decided just to head home and call it a night. It had to be close to dawn anyway. As he stood up, his face burned again and he had to reach for the hose.

He thought, What a shitty couple of days.

It had been four or five months since Bill Tasker had been asked to enter the Miami office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. During the time he had worked on the robbery task force, Tasker had been housed in the off-site building a few blocks east. The FBI liked the idea of keeping local cops in a site that didn’t require as much security. The plain FBI building a few blocks south of Northeast 167th Street held a constantly shifting number of agents that nobody ever seemed able to pin to an exact figure.

As Camy parked in the small, tree-lined lot in front of the building, Tasker’s pulse began to rise and he felt a film of sweat forming on his forehead. He just stared at the building, thinking how the occupants had nearly ruined his life just a few weeks before. He’d never been a fan of the FBI, but now he had real anxiety about even going inside.

Camy looked over at him in the passenger seat. “Good Lord, Billy. You look like that kid from The Omen when they tried to take him into a church.” She smiled, but it had no effect on him. “Don’t worry. I want to keep our part in this case as low-key as you do. I think it’s important you come with us when we talk to the profiler. Jimmy says she’s a friend of his.”

Tasker just nodded silently.

“C’mon, relax.” She reached over and placed her hand on his shoulder. “What’re they going to do, arrest you?”

“They tried that once.”

“Believe me. No one is even gonna recognize you.”

Tasker sucked in some air for a good sigh. When he first became a cop, he never thought he’d be afraid of the FBI. In the academy, he had even thought about joining the storied outfit. It wasn’t until after he worked the streets that he realized how they operated. While most of the agents were generally good guys, the politics of the agency left him wondering how anything ever got done. He looked up at the plain building. “You think Lail is parked in the back yet? I don’t want to wait.” Tasker had sent the young FBI agent with his own building pass ahead so he could walk them through the front door.

“Billy, you need to move past all this. I bet most people inside don’t even know who you are. They’re so wrapped up in politics and media they couldn’t care less what we do.”

He nodded and followed Camy slowly from the car, his anxiety staying steady. He’d purposely left his gun in the car. He didn’t know how he might react if he saw the wrong person or someone said something insulting. They entered the small waiting area with the receptionist behind a thick sheet of ballistic glass. No Jimmy Lail.

“May I help you?” asked the middle-aged woman at the desk.

Camy stepped up and showed her ID. “Agent Lail is taking us to see someone in behavioral science.”

The woman smiled, looking at Camy’s credentials. “And you, sir?”

Tasker looked up, “What?”

“Identification?”

Tasker stepped to the glass and held up his FDLE credentials.

The woman looked up and copied down his name, then cut her eyes to him with more interest. “Oh, Mr. Tasker, I didn’t recognize you.”

The tone said it all. Tasker felt heat surge through his body. He looked at Camy, who just shrugged, then sat in one of the small plastic chairs facing the receptionist.

After several minutes, Jimmy Lail stuck his head out the door. “Yo, peeps, ready to talk to the shrink?”

They followed him to the elevator, then up to the third floor. Tasker felt several sets of eyes on him during the short trip, and he didn’t think he was imagining it, either. Camy gave him a reassuring look once in a while. Jimmy Lail, typically, was oblivious. Tasker noticed that no one really acknowledged the FBI agent, either.

After clearing another security point, Jimmy led them into a small set of offices with one shared window in the common conference room. Stacks of magazines and papers sat on the floor and several of the desks. A poster for the movie The Silence of the Lambs hung on the main open wall. A woman in a precise business suit, about thirty-five, with her hair pulled back, walked out to greet the visitors.

“Hi, Jimmy, these must be the people you told me about.” She held out her hand limply, reminding Tasker of an old-time school marm. “I’m Alice Quills, FBI agent and Ph.D.”

Camy giggled at the self-introduction as she took her hand. “I’m Camy Parks, ATF agent and B.A.”

Agent Quills was visibly annoyed, so she turned her attention to Tasker and extended her hand again.

“Bill Tasker, FDLE.” He reached for her hand as she suddenly withdrew it.

“Oh my, the Bill Tasker.”

He shrugged. “I guess.”

“I’m sorry, I just meant that I’ve already been involved in two of your cases.”

“Which two?”

“I profiled the Stinger seller at Jim’s request.” She looked at Jimmy Lail with something approaching lust. “And I actually profiled your case. I mean the case where you were charged.”

“I was never charged.”

“You know what I mean. The case…”

“The one where I was framed?” Tasker kept her gaze so she couldn’t weasel out of a response.

“The Alpha National Bank robbery case.”

Good recovery, thought Tasker. He felt his senses returning to normal. Maybe this was the kind of therapy he needed.

Agent Quills said, “Jim tells me you are interested in my profiling of the cruise-ship bombing from a couple of years ago.”

Camy said, “I didn’t know that case was ever profiled.”

“Oh yes, right after it happened. Then I did an update a year later.”

“Why didn’t I know about it?”