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  A mile from the Baptist Church in Brookston, I called Sheriff Brodsky to let him know I was back at work in his town.

  “They put you back on the case?” he wanted to know.

  “Back on the case? I’m still on the case if that’s what you mean.”

  “So it was you who sent the other man?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What man?”

  “Bennett. Agent Bennett.”

  The hair on my arms started to buzz.

  “Big guy,” Brodsky continued. “Broken nose. He was just in here. Left about twenty minutes ago.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Same thing you and Agent Sands asked me about. Brenda Thompson. And the preacher, too. Reverend Johnson.”

  My body stiffened. I mashed the accelerator to the floor. The car leapt toward Brookston.

  “Where did he go, Sheriff? Where was he going when he left your place?”

  “To the preacher, to the church out on Falls Road. I gave him directions.”

  My hands tightened on the steering wheel, the knuckles white. I felt my face turn to ice.

  “The church, Brodsky … get to the church. Now! And bring a shoulder weapon!”

  “Damn it, Monk, what the hell’s going on? What are you—?”

  “Do it!” I hollered. “Just for Christ’s sake do it!”

  I cut him off, punched numbers for Lisa. She’d still be at her desk, she didn’t do anything but work. But she wasn’t there. I let her phone ring a dozen times, then called the switchboard.

  “Puller,” Gerry Ann Walsh said. “I was just talking about you.”

  “I’m looking for Lisa Sands. She’s in the office, but I can’t reach her at her desk. Can you page her for me?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you. She left three hours ago. Told me you might call.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “Hold on a second, let me check her three-card.” A pause, then, “Brookston, Puller. A church down there. She told me you’d know what it means.”

  I hurled the phone aside, floored the gas, skidded around the next corner and up Falls Road. Seconds later I slid to a stop in front of the church. I saw Lisa’s Pontiac as I threw open the door and raced up the walk. The church door was ajar as I smashed through it and felt my heart stop.

  Their bodies lay a dozen feet inside the church.

  Squarely in the center of the aisle, Lisa and Reverend Johnson shared the same sticky pool of thick, dark blood.

  EIGHTEEN

  My vision turned gray. I slumped in the doorway, then fought an attack of lightheadedness and nausea that left me gasping. I turned away, unable to look, then back at the bodies, wanting them to disappear, hoping they would no longer be there, that I’d somehow …

  I raced to Lisa’s side, then stopped, jerked the Smith-10 from my belt holster. The son of a bitch might still be here! Then I looked at the bodies again and realized he wouldn’t be here anymore. Blood changes very quickly in the open air. It was already beginning to mat. Bennett was long gone. I holstered my weapon and bent to Lisa, forced myself to examine her corpse.

  Her body lay crumpled against the preacher, her chrome-plated Sig Sauer in the fingers of her right hand. Reverend Johnson’s face was gone, most of the back of his head gone. Bone and blood stretched away up the aisle.

  I fell to my knees next to my partner. The front of her suit jacket was frazzled by the shots that had ripped through her body. Her head was intact, but her hair was matted with blood. I rocked back and forth on my knees.

  “Oh, Christ, Lisa. Oh, Christ … oh, Christ … oh, Christ.”

  I realized what had happened.

  She and the preacher had heard their killer at the door, had come to see who it was. He’d burst through and shot them. Lisa had drawn her weapon but she’d been too late. She’d been hit squarely in the chest, had gone down immediately. The taller preacher had taken a round directly in the face.

  Ears singing with shock—unable to accept her death—I willed myself to go through the motions of checking for a pulse. Felt nothing at her neck, or her right wrist. I pulled at her clothing to get at her chest, but my fingers struck something hard.

  My head seemed to explode as I realized what it was.

  I ripped her clothing away, tugged the armored vest aside.

  I crouched over her, yanked at her bra, jerked at the clasp in front until it came loose and the cups fell away. Her chest was already purple from one side of her rib cage to the other, but I could see no blood on her breasts, no penetrating wounds anywhere on her torso.

  The Kevlar had stopped them.

  The bullets were still in the vest, but they hadn’t reached her body.

  They were imbedded so deeply in the flexible armor I couldn’t have pried them out with a crowbar, but they hadn’t even punctured her skin.

  I laid my head on her chest. Now—my ear directly over her heart—I could feel a heartbeat, thready but regular.

  Yes! Oh, dear God, yes!

  I raised my head and began to shout.

  “She’s alive!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “You didn’t get her, you son of a bitch! She’s still alive!”

  I grabbed my cell phone to call for an ambulance, but before I could dial 911 Sheriff Brodsky burst through the door. The shotgun he carried looked small in his meaty hands.

  “She’s alive!” I yelled. “Get the paramedics!”

  He grabbed for the radio on his belt, barked commands into it, then sprinted back out the door. Had to have some emergency medical equipment in the patrol car.

  I tilted Lisa’s chin up, parted her lips, and started mouth-to-mouth. Three breaths … gentle chest massage … three more breaths, more chest massage.

  As I pushed gingerly against her damaged ribs, I examined Lisa’s head and felt a heaviness in my throat. Her hair was soaked with blood. So much of it she had to have been hit in the head as well. Probably when the killer turned his weapon on the preacher.

  I used one hand to rub the worst of it away, not sure I wanted to see the damage underneath. As I rubbed, fresh blood welled from an area above her right ear. But the wound wasn’t deep, I discovered. Like all scalp lacerations, even minor ones, it had bled like hell, but it hadn’t killed her.

  I looked back at the door, listening for sirens, for an ambulance to give Lisa what I couldn’t. I stared at her bloody face, shouted at Brodsky again. My throat tightened, my hands clenching and unclenching. C’mon, people! I wanted to scream out, but there was a better way to use the time.

  I bent to Lisa again, held her head in my hands, and spoke quietly to her. There was no sign she could hear me, but I kept talking anyway. As much for me as for her, I realized, but it didn’t matter.

  I thought about the man who’d done this to her. Bennett. Robert Bennett. A rage strong enough to blur my vision rose through my body and into my brain. I didn’t know who he was, or why he was, but when I found out—when I did know—I would finish him.

  I would hurt him first, but when I was through, he would be dead.

  At the Brookston Community Hospital, Sheriff Brodsky was waiting when I climbed down out of the ambulance, as the paramedics lowered the gurney with Lisa on it and raced away through the double doors to the emergency room.

  “Agent Monk,” he began, but I pushed him aside.

  “Not yet,” I shouted as I ran after Lisa.

  I could hear his feet pounding as he came after me.

  But I needn’t have hurried. In the emergency room they wouldn’t let me stay with her while they worked.

  It would be better for everyone, the ER nurse told me, if I returned to the waiting room. She went back inside and pulled a white drape around the team as they struggled to get Lisa stabilized. I turned around and looked for Brodsky who signaled for me to follow. He led me through a short corridor into an empty waiting room. Linoleum floor, cheap chairs and couches, fluorescent fixtures overhead. We stood facing each other just inside the do
or. The harsh light rebounding from the pale yellow walls gave the sheriff’s heavy face a ghastly hue that only added to the horror of the last hour.

  “I’m sorry about your partner,” he said, “but you do realize this changes things between you and me.”

  I nodded, but he continued before I could speak.

  “This isn’t Washington,” he said. “We do not have murders here. We do not have shootings in churches. We don’t have FBI agents gunned down, and I have no more time for games.” He pointed to a pair of upholstered armchairs facing each other in the far corner. “We’re going to sit down. We’re going to start over. You’re going to tell me the truth. What you’re really doing in Brookston.” He paused. “And what it has to do with Judge Thompson.”

  I stared at him. It was pretty clear he wasn’t going to be stonewalled, not when a murder had been committed in his town, one of his citizens blown away in a church, of all places, but still I had to be careful. At least for a while longer. In the end—just like with Lieutenant Barra and the Cheverly P.D.—I’d have to come clean, but for now it was going to be business as usual.

  So I told him nothing.

  Nothing but the bureau mantra about national security and his lack of need to know.

  His eyes narrowed. “Who’s Robert Bennett? And where was he when you got to the church?”

  I just shook my head.

  “I saw his credentials, Monk. I’ve seen enough of you people to know he’s an FBI agent. Unless you tell me differently, I also know he killed Reverend Johnson, tried to kill your partner.”

  I said nothing.

  He rose to his feet. “I’ll be at the district attorney’s office, in case you change your mind. And at the Hoover Building with a warrant for obstruction of justice as soon as I can get there.” He paused. “Unless we go up to D.C. together. Unless we can work this thing together.”

  “There’s no we, Sheriff. Assault on an FBI agent is federal. My bosses will never let you get involved. You know the drill.”

  He slid forward in his chair, his voice hardening.

  “Look, Monk, I knew the drill before you were an FBI agent. I knew the drill when I was working homicide in L.A., getting fucked over by you people out there.” His tone got even sharper. “I could write you a book about the drill!” He paused and took a breath, trying to regain his poise, but it didn’t work. “And I know something else,” he said. “Reverend Johnson doesn’t have anything to do with the federal government. He’s one of my people. An FBI agent killing him gets me involved, has already got me involved. And nothing you say makes a goddamned differ—”

  “It isn’t my decision, Brodsky. From here on, this is way out of my hands. I can’t do anything on my …”

  My voice died as I saw a doctor come through the door.

  I rushed to him. Bloodstains matted his green scrubs. His mask hung around his neck. He peeled his gloves off and held them in one hand.

  “Your partner’s stable,” he said, and I began to breathe again. “The body armor saved her life, but her ribs are bruised, and the gunshot wound above her ear is more serious than it looks. Had to be a .45 caliber or even bigger. The shock of even a glancing blow has caused some swelling inside her brain.”

  My throat tightened. Brain damage. Christ. I felt myself shrink from the words. I couldn’t even imagine Lisa like that. “Is she conscious? Can I see her?”

  He shook his head. “We gave her something for the pain. She’s sleeping.”

  “Can she be moved? Please don’t misunderstand me, but wouldn’t she be better off in a trauma center?”

  “I’m not offended. We don’t see these kinds of things here. It would be better for her in Washington.”

  “The swelling in her brain. Should we wait till it goes down?”

  “In a perfect world we would, but you’ve got to weigh the risks either way. Trauma to the brain can turn very dangerous very fast. The helicopter they send will have better equipment than we do to deal with a sudden emergency. And they’ll be computer-linked with ER docs on the other end who see hundreds of gunshot cases.” He rubbed his hand across his eyes, pulled his surgical mask up over the top of his head. “If she were my partner, I’d get her up to D.C. as soon as possible.”

  The hospital’s helipad was crude by big-city standards, nothing more than an addition to the parking lot out back. I was standing with the sheriff in the rain at the edge of the tarmac, my eyes shut against the blast of wind-driven rainwater when the medevac chopper landed.

  The first two people out of the aircraft were clad in white. They ran toward us in a crouch as the massive blades continued to whip the surroundings into a frenzy. I pointed toward the emergency room doors as they jogged past. The next two were FBI agents, had to be. Blue suits, red ties. I didn’t know them, couldn’t remember ever having seen them. They came forward in the same crouch, motioned in the shriek of noise for us to follow them back into the hospital.

  Inside the ER waiting room, the taller of the two showed me his credentials. “Tom Jeffreys,” he said. “Office of professional responsibility. I’m assuming you’re SA Monk.”

  I nodded, introduced Sheriff Brodsky. Nobody shook hands.

  “We need to speak with SA Monk in private, Sheriff,” Jeffreys said. “I’m sure you understand.”

  Brodsky glared at them, then at me. He looked like a man who wanted to hit someone, but a moment later he turned and walked away. I could hear the pounding of his footsteps down the hallway.

  “OPR?” I said to Jeffreys after the sheriff was gone! “So Robert Bennett really is an FBI agent.”

  Jeffreys said nothing. Doing to me exactly what I’d just done to Brodsky. Clearly I was in the middle of something far above my need to know.

  “I’m not here to answer questions, Monk,” he said. “What I really want to know is what you’re doing here.”

  Which was exactly what Kevin Finnerty demanded to know when I got back to him an hour and a half later at WMFO. It was pushing nine o’clock on Saturday night when I sat down on the couch in front of his big desk. I didn’t bother watching for his tell this time. He was already manhandling his paperwork before he lit into me.

  “I warned you,” he said, “you and Agent Sands. I told you the Thompson case was over. I made it clear that her report was the last thing she was expected to do. She ignored me. You supervise her. I can only assume you authorized her to continue.”

  “I ordered her to continue,” I lied. “I know what you said, but I know how the system works, too. I couldn’t close Thompson without reinterviewing the preacher. I understand your anger, but don’t take it out on Special Agent Sands. She was doing nothing more than following my orders.”

  “Am I supposed to be impressed? Am I supposed to admire your attempt to cover for one of your people?” He sat forward in his chair. “If I had my way—if Mr. Hoover were still alive—I would fire you on the spot. But I can’t … not yet anyway. Sands is a different story, she’s still in her first year. The moment she gets out of the hospital, she’s history. In the meantime, both of you are suspended. Neither of you will set foot in this or any other FBI office until I say so.”

  “What about Robert Bennett?” I said, with nothing much to lose at this point. “Who the hell—?”

  “Damn it, Monk, there is no Robert Bennett. No FBI agent Robert Bennett, at any rate. I have no idea what happened down there in Brookston. My OPR people will sort it out and get back to me. Whatever they find, it’s no longer your concern.” He stared at me. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? That I will not tell you again?”

  I rose without a word and left the room.

  NINETEEN

  Thirty minutes later I was at Queen of Angels Hospital near L’Enfant Plaza, the D.C. trauma center to which they’d airlifted Lisa. They’d transferred her to ICU, I was told, and I couldn’t get in to see her. I wasn’t about to leave, however, so at half an hour before midnight I settled into a chair in the ICU waiting area and began to fre
t.

  Just before three o’clock Sunday morning, a nurse came to find me. I bolted from the chair and she answered my question before I could even ask it. “Ms. Sands is stable,” she said. “She’s conscious, but we’re keeping her in IC until the swelling in her brain is completely reduced. You can have a few minutes with her, but I’m afraid that’s all.”

  She led the way. I had a hard time slowing down enough to keep from walking right up her back. Along the way I glanced at some of the other patients, old people mostly, really old people. Desiccated faces attached to withered bodies, empty eyes staring at nothing as they waited for the end. The sight did nothing to make me feel better.

  Lisa was in room 24, a large room divided into separate enclosures by light-blue draperies on metal runners around each bed. Her eyes were closed. I glanced around the cubicle. She was hooked up like an astronaut to a six-foot stack of electronic monitors, every function of her body under continuous observation.

  The nurse left me alone with her.

  Lisa was sleeping, I decided, although under the garish fluorescent lighting her skin had a greenish pallor that startled me. I touched her arm. Her eyes opened, then widened.

  “Puller,” she said, her voice raspy and weak. She held her hand out to me. “I was hoping you’d show up.”

  I squeezed her fingers, then turned and grabbed the single metal chair shoved against the drapes around her bed. I pulled it up close.

  “I don’t know what to say, Lisa. I’m so goddamned glad you wore your vest.” I looked at the floor, then back at her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you.”

  “It was the same guy … huge … smashed nose. The guy who beat you up.”

  “They’re looking for him now. We’ve got people down in Brookston already.”

  “What about Finnerty? What’s he have to say about all this?” She closed her eyes as she winced from the pain she still had to be feeling despite her meds. “I guess what I’m really asking is am I fired?”

  I looked at her, at the bandages covering her head and half her face. She would need to know the truth sooner or later, but not while she was still like this.