“Buddy Who?”

“What do they teach in school these days? No history?”

“You think this is a game?”

“Absolutely not, several people’s lives are in danger. I don’t really understand why you wanted an SSA, but I can assure you that I have all the same privileges and connections as an SSA, and a whole lot more.”

“Stay there,” the gunman said. “Don’t come any closer.” Then he let the door slam shut.

Carter considered the implications. Either this group wasn’t half as organized as it seemed to be or the man at the door wasn’t the man in charge but merely a messenger. He had suspected as much. The huge man who had played Russian roulette with the pretty Indian woman was clearly the one calling the shots, which implied there was a reason he was using an intermediary.

The gunman returned and said, “I guess you’ll do.”

Carter took a few steps forward, hands still raised in a nonthreatening manner. “Why don’t you tell me what this is all about?”

“First of all, you ain’t in charge here. We are. Just keep your men back from the building, and we’ll send a list of our demands out when we’re ready.”

“Why not tell me now? It’s coming up on midday. It may be hard for us to get things done if all the paper pushers have gone home.”

“You take one more step forward, ask me another question, or do anything that violates the rules I just stated, and we’ll start throwing out corpses.”

Chapter 27

August Burke was sick and tired of Sam Carter and the way the over-the-hill agent had forced him into indentured servitude. All Burke wanted was to be a mechanic at his dad’s shop. He didn’t want to be in the FBI or work cases in the field, and he still couldn’t understand why Carter was so dead set on turning him into a dancing monkey.

Burke still felt sick to his stomach from the little performance Carter had just forced on him. He replayed every word of the briefing and his assessment over and over again. He analyzed and reanalyzed his words and the reactions of all the people gathered in the comm center. And he would continue that analysis for days, knowing from past experience that those mistakes and transgressions would haunt him to the point of interfering with his ability to concentrate.

The guilt and shame from his every action was suffocating him. He felt like a hydraulic jack had popped and dropped a car on his chest. He couldn’t catch his breath, his hands trembled uncontrollably, and he felt like his chest was a canon and his heart the cannonball.

Why did he keep doing this to himself? When he was forced into social situations, the outcome was almost always the same: he hurt, alienated, and, sometimes, all out destroyed people with his words and actions. He felt rude, hurtful, insensitive, stupid, worthless, and unforgivable, all at once.

He wished that he would have just kept his big mouth shut.