Ten yards. Ben watched their hands and shoulders, not their eyes. If anyone’s arm even twitched, he would have the Glock out and they’d have to skip the pleasantries.
Five yards. “Excuse me, sir,” the black guy said. “We need to ask you a few questions.”
Ben checked his flanks again. The black woman was watching them, but with no more than normal curiosity. When she saw Ben looking, she glanced away, just another civilian recognizing possible trouble and not wanting it to recognize her back.
Three yards. “Who’s ‘we’?” Ben asked.
“FBI,” the white guy said. “You need to come with us.”
They stopped, close enough to try to grab him now, if they were that stupid.
“Nah, I don’t feel like going anywhere right now,” Ben said. “Better just ask me here.”
“Look,” the black guy said, his hand easing his jacket back, thumb first. “We can do this the easy way-”
Ben didn’t give him a chance to finish the move, or even the sentence. He shot an open-hand jab into the guy’s throat, catching his trachea in the web between his thumb and forefinger, feeling the cartilage shift unnaturally behind the blow. The guy’s teeth slammed shut and his head snapped forward.
The other guy started to shuffle back to create distance, his hand going for something under his jacket. But he was on the wrong end of the action-reaction equation. Ben caught him by the lapels and smashed his forehead into his face. He felt the guy’s nose break. He took a half step back and shot a knee into the guy’s balls.
He turned back to the black guy, who was clutching his throat with his left hand and groping under his jacket with his right, his eyes bulging. Ben closed the distance, caught the guy’s right sleeve, and yanked him past in the kind of arm drag he’d once favored as a high school wrestler. He hoisted him from behind, rotated him over an upraised knee, and slammed him facedown into the sidewalk.
The white guy was on his knees, his face a bloody mask. He snaked a jerky arm inside his jacket. Ben took a long step over and kicked him in the face. The force of the kick lifted the guy’s supporting arm clean off the sidewalk and he dropped the gun he’d been fumbling for. Ben swept it up-a Glock 23, just like his. He checked the load. Good to go.
He tracked back to the black guy, aiming the Glock with a two-handed grip. No movement. Track back to the white guy. Same.
He stepped over to the black guy and bent to take his gun and check for ID.
A voice came from behind him, feminine, sweetly southern-accented but with steel underneath. “Put the weapon down, sir. Now. Or you’re dead right there.”
He looked up. Son of a bitch, the black woman. She’d taken cover behind a parked car and was pointing a pistol at his face.
“I’ll be damned,” he said, slowly lowering the Glock. “You’re with these guys. I didn’t spot that.”
“Drop. The weapon. Now.”
Ben didn’t know who they were. They felt like law enforcement. From the way they were armed and what the black guy had said, they could have been FBI. And Hort had said the Bureau was investigating.
But he’d be damned if anyone was going to take him into custody again. Not today. Not ever.
He eased the Glock into his waistband. “Yeah, I heard you the first time.”
“Sir, I will shoot you.”
He looked at her. “Then shoot me.”
The black guy groaned and started to get up. Ben kicked him in the face and he went down again.
“Stop that!” the woman yelled.
“You want to ask me your questions, ask,” Ben said. “Otherwise, I’ve got places to go.”
There was a long pause. The woman continued to watch him through her gun sights and for a tense moment Ben wondered whether he’d miscalculated, whether she might actually shoot him.
She watched him for a moment longer, and he could see the tension in her face. Incongruously, he found himself noticing her skin. Smooth, light brown, with a sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks. There was a hint of Asian in the shape of her eyes.
She lowered the pistol and muttered, “Goddamn it.”
She came out from behind the car and approached him, the gun in a two-handed grip but pointed at the ground. Ben noted that she was watching his torso, not his face. She was well-trained.
She walked over to the fallen white guy and knelt next to him. “Bob,” she said, “are you okay? Bob.”
Bob groaned. He got a hand on the street and started pushing himself up. The woman helped him. While she did, Ben reached inside the black guy’s jacket.
“Hey!” the woman called.
Ben extracted a Glock from a shoulder holster. “Too late,” he said. “Doesn’t look like you’re going to shoot me, but I don’t know about this guy.”
The woman walked over. “Drew,” she said. “Goddamn it, Drew, talk to me.” She looked at Ben. “If you killed him, I swear to God you’re going down.”
Drew wheezed, then broke into a coughing fit. He rolled to his side, his hands on his throat.
“Well, he’s breathing,” Ben said. “What were you saying there, chief? Something about, what, doing this the easy way? Well, you were right, it was easy.”
“Shut up,” the woman said. “Drew. Look at me. Can you drive?”
Drew sat up and massaged his throat. Ben didn’t think the guy looked good to drive. He looked good to puke.
But Drew managed a nod.
“Then go.”
Drew wheezed. “That’s not-”
“Just go. I’ll interview this guy and fill you in later.”
She stood up and holstered her gun. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“Go? Where are we going?”
“Wherever you like. A coffee shop. A park. Somewhere we can talk.”
“I don’t think-”
“Just shut up and drive your car, okay? Before I get sorry I didn’t shoot you.”
8. No One Ever Sees Me Coming
They found a Starbucks in the direction of Orlando. At the counter, Ben told the girl at the register, “Just a black coffee. Tall.” Then he walked off and found a table that put his back to the wall.
A minute later the black woman set a couple of coffees on the table and joined him. She looked miffed, whether at having to buy and bring him his coffee or being stuck with her back to the door or both, he didn’t know. It was satisfying either way.
“Who are you?” the woman said.
He picked up the coffee and took a sip. “It’s not going to work that way.”
“What way is that?”
“The way where you ask the questions.”
“Look, if I wanted to-”
“But you don’t want to. Otherwise you would have already.”
She drummed her fingers along the table. He couldn’t help noticing how attractive she was. That great skin; close-cropped, natural black hair; full lips; perfect teeth. Maybe that’s why he’d instantly written her off as a potential threat when he’d first spotted her. Stupid.
She opened her purse and took out an ID. The ID read, Special Agent Paula Lanier, Federal Bureau of Investigation, along with a photo.
Ben looked up from the ID. “Well, Paula, it’s good to meet you.”
“Sorry I can’t say the same. And now it’s your turn.”
Ben didn’t want to get into specifics. The Froomkin identity was backstopped, but someone within the FBI itself could debunk it easily enough.
“Why don’t you just call me Ben,” he said.
“All right, Ben, who are you with?”
“With?”
“Stop messing around with me, okay? I want to know who you are and what you were doing at Marcy Wheeler’s house. And I want to know whatever she told you.”
He took another sip of coffee. “That’s a lot to ask, on short acquaintance.”
“It’s not, really. Not when you consider that you can tell me here, or I can arrest you right now and we can conduct the interview at the Orlando field office instead.”
“Is this the hard way or the easy way again? It didn’t work out well for Bob and Drew back there. You sure you want to go down that road, too?”