I threw myself down on the ground fast. But then I was up just as quickly, chasing after him again. I’d seen his face clearly—broad, flat features, dark eyes, late thirties to early forties.

He turned again, planted, fired.

I ducked behind a parked car. Then I heard a scream. I whirled around and saw an agent down. One of the men. Doyle Rogers. The blond turned and started to run again. But I had my second wind and I thought I could catch him. Then what? He was ready to die.

A shot rang out behind me! I couldn’t believe what I saw. The blond dropped, falling flat on his chest and face.

He never moved once he hit the ground. One of the agents behind me had shot him. I turned and saw Peggy Katz. She was still in a shooting crouch.

I checked on Agent Rogers and found he’d only been hit in the shoulder. He’d be okay. Then I walked back alone toward the Fens. When I got there, I discovered that Paul Gautier was still alive. But the two other kidnappers had gotten away. They’d commandeered a car on Park Drive, and our agents had lost them. Bad news, the worst.

The whole operation had blown up in our faces.

Chapter 88

Chapter 88

I DON’T THINK that I’d felt this bad about an operation in all my years with the Washington PD, maybe in all my years combined. If I hadn’t been sure before, I was now. I’d made a mistake in coming over to the FBI. They did things very differently from anything I was used to. They were by-the-book, by-the-numbers, and then suddenly they weren’t. They had tremendous resources and staggering amounts of information, but they were often amateurs on the street. There was some great personnel and some incredible losers.

After the shootout in Boston I drove over to the FBI offices. The agents gathered there all looked shell-shocked. I couldn’t blame them. What a mess. One of the worst I’d seen. I couldn’t help feeling that Senior Agent Nielsen was the one responsible, but what did it matter, what good to cast around blame? Two well-intentioned agents had been wounded; one had almost died. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I felt partly responsible. I’d told the senior agent to move in on Paul Gautier faster, but he hadn’t listened.