Through a window in the door, Ben Hawkins watched special agents run the prisoner’s leg chains through a hook in the floor of the interrogation room, then tighten the screws on the top of the hook to clamp the hook down into a notch in the floor.

     A former FBI special agent now on special assignment, Hawkins was about to begin the interrogation, and he was nervous. This would likely be the first of a couple of interrogation sessions, and he was studying the prisoner to form a picture of the man in his mind. He didn’t like what he saw.

     Sammy Gill sat unmoving at the folding table, staring ahead at the wall. Tall and lithe, with the frame of an athlete, Gill had black hair, dark eyes that smoldered. The man was a killer, having cut a bloody swath through the Morretti criminal empire like General Sherman cutting through Georgia. Gill had obliterated Morretti crews, destroyed Morretti operations on both coasts and earned the moniker “Whack Job” from FBI investigators. He also had unknowingly bumped off a couple of mob snitches lined up to testify for the feds. Cold-blooded. Trouble. Hawkins had hunted him for weeks, finally landing him here in an interrogation cell at 1 Justice Park Drive in northwest Houston, site of the local FBI Field Office, or FO for short.

     Now, despite having lost his whole family to another killer just the day before, Gill sat with an unnatural calm that gave him the look and feel of a dangerous animal sitting deathly still before springing to attack its prey.

     Hawkins was stumped, puzzled; he could not imagine how Gill could pull off this cool act after yesterday. How he could remain so detached. Hawkins himself had looked into that closet, had seen Gill’s slaughtered wife and children, and the image had shaken him. He doubted he would ever forget it.

     After a deep breath, he banged in through the door as the agents left. Carrying folders under his arm, Hawkins strode to the other side of the table from Gill. Slowly, studying Gill’s face, he took a seat in a folding chair. “You’re a tough man to catch, Mister—Gill is it? Or whatever the hell your name is. You know, you’ve been causing me a lot of grief. So much, I have to admit I was looking forward to the day you’d be sitting across from me in chains, but…”

     Gill didn’t look at him, didn’t answer.

     “But all I can think about right now,” continued Hawkins, “all I can see in my mind’s eye…well, I just want to say I’m sorry about what happened to your family. And your in-laws—Carr, isn’t it?”

     No answer. Gill’s skin was sallow, eyes rimmed with red, stare vacant. A look of desolation. It was the first time Hawkins saw grief in the man’s eyes.

     Hawkins opened a couple of folders, shuffled around documents. Pulling on a pair of reading glasses, he read one or two pages. “I see here we’ve got a little information. I’m just going to ask you a few questions, simple questions, then I’ll leave you alone for the night. Get out your hair, let you have some time to yourself. Okay?”

     Hawkins leaned over the table. “Look, to be honest, I don’t know what I’d be feeling in your place right now. Maybe I’d just shut down. I don’t know.”

     Gill didn’t look at him.

     Hawkins frowned. “So, a few answers for me, I’m out of here. Leave your interrogation to others. For that, they’ll be moving you to Virginia tomorrow. Give you a day or two off before they start.”

     He was referring to the Bureau, which was about to take Gill off his hands, transporting him to Quantico for another level of questioning.

     Gill shifted slightly, almost imperceptibly, in his chair.

     “At that point, lot of people will be joining into the discussion over in Virginia,” continued Hawkins. “Seems your profile’s of interest to a number of government agencies. Course, we get first dibs, being we caught your ass.” Hawkins stared at him, taking the opportunity to study his face, looking for any expression, any hint that a conversation might be brewing.

Hawkins took on a friendlier tone. “Look, wouldn’t hurt you to talk a little here and now. See—I’m with you. I saw what happened yesterday. I want to cut you some slack. Some others might not be so sensitive. Hear what I’m saying?”

     No answer.

     “I’ll be up front with you.” Hawkins stood and paced. “I can guarantee you’ll be up all night till you tell us something. We’ll work shifts, we have to. Me, I just want a couple things answered, and I’ll make sure they leave you alone for a while. Till later on. You showing the good faith and all.”

     Gill just stared at the floor.

     Standing before Gill, Hawkins leaned over, hands on the table. At 6-foot-4 and 220, a black man built like a linebacker, which he once had been, Hawkins could intimidate most of those he interrogated. Yet, Gill didn’t flinch away from him. He hardly blinked.

     “They’re giving me first crack at you because you derailed an investigation I’ve taken on,” continued Hawkins. “You whacked a few government witnesses. We put a lot of blood and sweat into that damn investigation, only to see you screw it up. But you can help me put that investigation back on the rails. Few details on how your system worked, how you contracted the jobs, assassin services you worked with. Most important—why’d you go for Morretti? Who hired you for that?”

     Gill shrugged. “I’m not in the information business.”

     Hawkins was surprised. “Oh, he talks! No, you’re in a whole different kind of business, aren’t you?” Anger flared in Hawkins’ eyes.

     Gill sighed wearily. “I only dealt with those who had it coming.”

     “You get to decide that? You a judge now?” In two long strides, Hawkins was around the table. He sat on the edge by Gill.  “Maybe you guess wrong sometime. See, you’re encroaching on my job now. Comprende? I am the law. And let’s clarify here: don’t make out you’re some kind of angel of justice. Okay? You’re somebody killed people for money, pure and simple.”

     “I never said I was righteous,” answered Gill.

     “You got that right! You got that damn right!” Hawkins deflated a little, quelling the emotion rising in him. He sighed. “Truth is, none of us righteous, to quote a little Word.”

     Hawkins stood and paced back around behind the table. “You need to think about doing some talking. It’ll be around the clock questioning till you do, so you might as well get started. Comprende? But I’m gonna cut you a little slack and break for a few. I’ll be back in.”

     Barging out into the hallway, Hawkins strode toward the break room. “I hope we got some fresh coffee around here!” he declared, to no one in particular.

     Sarah Landis approached him. Tall and black-haired, with the build of a runner, which she once was, Landis was the special agent who had actually made the Gill arrest—being technically a contractor now, Hawkins had no arrest authority.

     “Ben, got a call for you,” she said. “You can take it over here at this extension.” She indicated a wall phone, one of the lines blinking.

     “Who is it?” Hawkins asked her.

     “Special Agent Campbell.”

     Hawkins grabbed the phone. “Don.”

     “Any news on Cariti?”

     Antoine Cariti was the killer—of monstrous size—who had butchered Gill’s family, among many others. Just the day before, Cariti had escaped arrest at Bush Intercontinental in Houston with a shootout engineered by the mob, a firefight that had mown down cops and special agents right in the lobby. Hawkins had thought he’d put down Cariti but learned he’d shot a different man. Now Cariti had disappeared.

     “I’ve got a BOLO out for him: state troopers, local PD. Especially up the I-45 and I-10 corridors. We finally got a clear shot of the bastard on cameras at IAH. Had them enhanced by Achilles. Sent out as part of the BOLO. Hopefully we’ll get movement on it.”

     “Right,” answered Campbell. Achilles was an experimental system at MIT that was supposed to enhance facial recognition to a degree unparalleled in any other existing program. So far, it had seemed to work. “You don’t sound too hopeful.”

Hawkins was glum, felt at blame for the killer’s second escape in a day. “If everyone keeps on top of it here, we got another chance at him.”

“Good luck. I hate it he’s still on the loose.”

“I know. Hate it, too.”

“Listen, something’s come up. I was planning on being there in a couple of hours, but it’s not happening. I can’t get away. You’ll have to push the interrogation along yourself.”

     “Gill doesn’t seem to think he’s taking any questions.”

     “You need to change his mind on that!”

     “I’m at him again in a minute.” Hawkins paused to think. “He did seem to want to talk, but only to justify himself.”

     “Maybe you can use that as leverage. You don’t have long. Understand?”

     “Right. They’re coming to take him to Quantico. If I don’t get him to talk, they probably will.”

     “Just get him to talk to you first. Damn, wish I could be there to do it.”

     “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Hawkins was puzzled by Campbell’s urgency. He still believed he was just a preliminary interrogator before the real questioning happened at Quantico, whatever answers he was able to pull from Gill just a  little bit of icing on the cake but not crucial.

They talked a moment longer. Thrown together for the new organized crime task force—the director having assigned Campbell to supervise Hawkins—neither man much liked the other. However, their brief cooperation had resulted in the capture of Gill, which, Hawkins feared, probably meant they would be cooperating even more in the future.

     Hanging up, Hawkins strode into the break room. Landis was popping the top on a Dr. Pepper. Hawkins headed for the coffee maker. “Where’d you take Whitis?”

     Tim Whitis had been his partner for years, till Hawkins had learned Whitis had been feeding information to Gill, all during the manhunt for Gill.

     “To a cell.” She stared at him. “You okay?”

     Hawkins was not okay. Crushed by despair, fighting to get it all under control, he battled urges from simply quitting the job to guzzling a fifth of whiskey to putting a bullet in his head.

     “You know,” he muttered. “I worked with him a long time. Considered him a friend.” He paused. “Real friend. Shows you what the hell I know.”

     “I’m sorry,” she replied. “It’s hard to believe. What happens to him now?”

     “He’s gonna go up for what he’s done.”

     She studied his face. “And you don’t like that.”

     He shook his head no. He turned for a look through the door window into the interrogation room. Gill sat staring at the wall, just as Hawkins had left him. Hawkins felt like staring at a wall himself.

 

* * *

 

     Don Campbell was too nervous to sit and wait. He paced, drank too much coffee—which he usually avoided—and took glances out the window onto a Pennsylvania Avenue jammed with traffic, as usual.

     A special agent out of the Hoover headquarters, he stood just under six feet but looked taller because of his straight-backed military bearing, which matched his short-cropped haircut, sense of decorum and decided lack of humor. He was known around the office as sort of a stuffed shirt, actually, but also as a systematic and unflinching investigator. He possessed the most experience of anyone in the Bureau tracking mercenaries and Islamist cell groups around the planet, and he had the files and head knowledge to prove it.

     This morning, he had his office door closed. If the director knew he what he was doing, he’d earn a reprimand, probably an official one. He was supposed to be focusing on the organized crime task force. Counter-terror was off his plate. It was off everyone’s plate, the country supposedly moving on, the War on Terror way behind them now.

     Instead, he was waiting for a video call—from his counterpart in the German Ministry of the Interior (German acronym: BMI)—relaying a live feed of a GSG 9 raid about to go down in Hamburg, hotbed of Islamic extremism and intrigue.

     His desk phone beeped. He picked it up.

     “Click the link,” directed the voice of his counterpart on the other end of the line.

     Campbell did, to see a startling image pop up on his laptop screen, from the camera mounted on the helmet of one of the GSG 9 commandos. He sat and leaned forward to watch.