Joan Johnston - Invincible

Kristin heard a clap of thunder and eyed the dark clouds overhead. “Do not rain,” she muttered. “Do not rain.” It had been unseasonably hot the entire month of April and unseasonably rainy, as well. She drove as fast as she dared around the enormous MFO parking lot searching for a spot, anxious to get inside before the downpour started.

She started jogging when the first large raindrops hit her cheeks and eyelashes, but before she reached the door, the heavens let go. Kristin was breathing hard by the time she got inside and stood dripping—and swearing under her breath—at the security checkpoint.

“You look like a drowned rat, Lassiter.”

Kristin turned and saw her boss, Special Agent in Charge Rudy Rodriguez, ready to exit the building, umbrella in hand. In the four years since she’d come to Miami from the FBI Academy at Quantico, Kristin had never seen the Miami SAC caught unprepared.

Rudy was several inches under six feet, big-chested, with a thick waist and dark, sharp eyes. The SAC brushed his receding black hairline straight back from his brow with a palm and said, “I thought your meeting with SIRT was at 3:00.”

“It is.” Kristin had never gotten used to the SAC’s gravelly voice, the result of being nearly strangled to death in an undercover drug operation gone bad.

Rudy glanced at his watch, then reached into his suit coat pocket and came out with a neatly ironed white handkerchief, which he handed to her. “You might want to dry off a little before you head upstairs.”

She took the monogrammed cotton cloth, dabbed at her forehead, cheeks and chin, brushed off the shoulders and lapels of her suit jacket, and handed it back. “Thanks.”

She noticed Rudy didn’t offer advice about what she should say at the hearing. Or console her for having to go through the process of being questioned by SIRT again.

“Good luck,” he said. Then he was gone.

Kristin cleared security as quickly as she could, then took the elevator up to the office of Supervisory Special Agent Roberta Harrison, who was in charge of the MFO’s Office of Professional Responsibility. The OPR was charged with ensuring that agents conducted themselves with the highest level of integrity and professionalism. SSA Harrison did everything by the book, which made her good at her job.

But Harrison had never worked in the field, so she had very little idea how quickly decisions had to be made in moments of extreme duress. And therefore little—make that no—tolerance for honest mistakes.

Which was what the shooting incident Kristin had been involved in four months ago had been. Kristin was aware of how much it had irked SSA Harrison that no disciplinary action had been mandated by the Shooting Incident Review Team in that instance.

Unfortunately, there was no way to excuse what Kristin had done four days ago as an honest mistake. It was dereliction of duty, at the very least. Agent Harrison was finally going to get her pound of flesh. And maybe Kristin’s badge and gun.

Kristin’s crisply ironed shirt had been wilted by the rain, but she squared her shoulders anyway as she was ushered into the hearing room by a civil service secretary. Because she’d so recently been examined—interrogated—by SIRT, she knew what was coming.

Her heartbeat ratcheted up another notch and she took a calming breath to try to slow it down. Her stomach made a rumbling sound and she realized she hadn’t eaten lunch. Maybe that was the reason she felt so nauseous. Or maybe it was the result of a life rocketing out of her control.

“Sit down, please, Agent Lassiter,” SSA Harrison said. Technically, Agent Harrison wasn’t part of SIRT, but she’d apparently decided to attend the meeting.

Kristin seated herself and looked from one sober face on the SIRT panel to the next seated across from her. Three of the four FBI special agents on the Shooting Incident Review Team identified themselves as being from the Criminal Investigative Division, Training Division (Ballistics) and the Office of General Counsel.

“We’ve met,” the fourth special agent reminded her. “I’m Todd Akers, Inspector in Charge of this investigation.” Akers reminded her he was from the Inspection Division.

Kristin surreptitiously wiped her sweaty palms on the front of her trousers under the conference table as she eyed her inquisitors. No one on the Shooting Incident Review Team looked sympathetic.

She didn’t blame them. The charges against her were serious. She and her partner had been ambushed inside a home in Liberty City while they were questioning the occupants about an armed bank robbery. Because she’d hesitated before drawing her weapon—and then hesitated too long before firing it—her partner had been shot and seriously wounded. And because she’d fallen apart after her partner was wounded, the suspected bank robbers had escaped.

“I wondered whether SIRT was letting you off too lightly the last time, Agent Lassiter,” Roberta Harrison said. “I thought at the time you were acting with reckless disregard for human life when you shot that sixteen-year-old boy. You were lucky the local authorities decided not to prosecute.”

“I believed he had a gun.” Kristin felt her face flushing with the heat of anger. She’d been cleared of any wrongdoing in the previous shooting incident by SIRT, and here was Roberta Harrison, who wasn’t even part of the review team, trying her all over again.

“That poor boy didn’t even have a gun, did he?” Harrison said. “It was a cell phone. You shot an unarmed sixteen-year-old.”

“He matched the description of a suspect in an armed bank robbery. I identified myself as FBI. I told him to keep his hands where I could see them. Instead, he reached into his jacket pocket.”

“You didn’t wait to see whether he had a weapon. You just shot him.”

“If I’d waited, I might have been killed. Or seriously wounded, as my partner was when I failed to shoot quickly enough four days ago.”

“So, you admit you failed to back up your partner?” Harrison said triumphantly.

Kristin let out a shaky breath. How easily she’d fallen into the trap Harrison had laid for her. She looked toward the Agent in Charge of the review team, who wouldn’t meet her gaze.

The truth was, her failure to draw her weapon—and to shoot it—was almost predictable. She’d been warned by the psychiatrist she’d been required to see after the shooting four months ago that she might hesitate to shoot in the future.

She’d been on administrative duty for months. After she completed counseling, she’d been asked if she thought she could go back to work and fire her weapon without hesitation. She’d said yes.

She’d been wrong.

“I hesitated before drawing my weapon. And I hesitated before firing—to make sure the suspect had a weapon. By the time I realized he had a gun, he’d already shot George.” Her brand-new partner, who was busy manhandling another suspect, who was unarmed.

“In fact, the suspect shot Agent Parker twice before you fired your weapon, isn’t that true?” Harrison said.

Kristin nodded curtly. “I fired, but the suspect darted around the corner out of the kitchen, and I missed. Once George was down, the suspect he was cuffing took off. He was unarmed, so I didn’t shoot. He knocked me down and fled, along with the other suspect, through the back door. I could tell George was seriously wounded, so I stayed with him.”

“Rather than pursuing the suspects, even though one of them had shot your partner.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kristin said. “I thought we had enough information to find them again. And I wanted to render all the aid I could to my partner.”

She’d visited George in the hospital yesterday, where he was in serious but stable condition. He didn’t blame her, but he no longer wanted to be her partner.