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“Agents Baker and Zalenski have a few questions,” Dempsey said after handing Baker my report. He left the office and closed the door.
At least I wasn’t in an interrogation room.
Zalenski started a recorder. “Why don’t you describe the events for us.”
“I just put it all in my report.”
Baker tapped the pile of paper. “We’ll get to that, but first you can run us through the timeline.”
I started, and they listened without interrupting.
When I finished, Baker asked me to go through it again. They started down the endless-repetition road—the interview process we used on suspects to ferret out inconsistencies.
By about the tenth time through it, Zalenski was asking the endless what-happened-next questions.
Baker looked up from my report, which he’d started reading. “Why didn’t you include that Agent Boxer disagreed with your decision to relocate to the east side?”
“Come again?” I asked. Exactly what I’d included in my report was fuzzy at this point.
“Agent Boxer stated clearly that he warned you not to relocate to the east side, and yet you did, which resulted in the west side going unmonitored, and you losing the opportunity to apprehend the suspect without gunfire.”
I had to be careful. “Agent Boxer suggested we stay in place for a while after Miss Benson started moving, which we did.”
Zalenski jumped in. “But when you did reposition, that left the west side uncovered and led to the running gun battle with the suspect in a crowded urban environment.”
I tugged at my collar. It was getting hot in here. “A call needed to be made, and I made it,” I said firmly. “The west side went unmonitored because the ASAC pulled the two agents necessary for full coverage less than an hour before we deployed.”
Baker smiled. They’d just gotten me to react emotionally.
Zalenski leaned forward. “And your decision to move was purely tactical?”
“Protecting our asset was my top priority.”
Baker smiled again, which meant I’d fucked something up.
“You saidmypriority, not our priority,” he noted.
Now I understood where this was going, and it wasn’t good. “As lead, our priority becomes my priority.”
This time Zalenski asked the question. “Isn’t it true that identifying and apprehending the SMK killer was the true priority of the op?”
“This op was part of an ongoing protection operation for Miss Benson.”
Zalenski opened a folder while Baker kept up the attack. “And none of this had to do with your relationship with Miss Benson?”
“She’s the protectee I was assigned. And that came down from the AD.”
Zalenski started laying out photos. “It looks to me like this had become more than an assignment for you.”
The pictures showed Kelly and me walking the Mall on Sunday. Warm memories of that day flooded over me.
Neil had been providing backup, and he had to be the source of the photos. Many of them showed the two of us holding hands, kissing, and acting goofy, but more importantly, looking completely smitten with one another.
I did my best to hold back the smile the pictures provoked. We were in a happy place—happy most of all to be with each other. To these guys, they were incriminating, but to me they only confirmed what I hadn’t dared admit to myself. In a very short time, Kelly had snuck past the emotional armor I’d erected and into my heart.
“I’m undercover as her boyfriend,” I said.
“And where did she spend the night last night?” Baker asked.
