The Big Bad Wolf

CHAPTER 7

POP!

I jumped. Someone had pulled open a can of soda and tapped me on the shoulder with it.

I looked up to see none other than Ned Mahoney, head of the Hostage Rescue Team at

Quantico, handing me a Diet Coke, caffeine-free. I had taken a couple of classes from him

during orientation. He knew his stuff in the classroom, anyway.

“Welcome to my private hell,” I said. “What am I doing here, by the way?”



Mahoney winked and dropped down beside me.

“You’re a rising star, or maybe a risen star. You know the drill. Get him talking. Keep him

talking,” said Mahoney. “We hear you’re real good at this.”



“So what are you doing here?” I asked.

“What do you think? Watching, studying your technique. You’re the director’s boy, right? He

thinks you’re gifted.”



I took a sip of soda, then pressed the cold can to my forehead. Hell of an introduction to the

FBI for the FNG.

“Dennis, who wants to kill you?” I spoke into the cell phone again. “Tell me all you can about

what’s going on here. I also need to ask about your family. Is everybody all right in there?”



Coulter bristled. “Hey! Let’s not waste time on a lot of bullshit negotiation crap. I’m about to

be executed. That’s what this is. Make no mistake. Look around you, man. It’s an

execution.”



I couldn’t see Coulter, but I remembered him. No more than five-eight, goatee, hip, always

cracking a wiseass joke, very tough. All in all, a small-man complex. He began to tell his

story, his side of things, and unfortunately I had no idea what to make of what he was

spilling out. According to Coulter, detectives in the Baltimore PD had been involved in large

drug payoffs. Even he didn’t know how many, but the number was high. He’d blown the

whistle. The next thing he knew, his house was surrounded by cops.

Then Coulter dropped the bomb. “I was getting kickbacks too. Somebody turned me in to

Internal Affairs. One of my partners.”



“Why would a partner do that?”



He laughed. “Because I got greedy. I went for a bigger piece of the pie. Thought I had my

partners by the short hairs. They didn’t see it that way.”



“How did you have them by the short hairs?”



“I told my partners that I had copies of records who had been paid what. A couple years_

worth of records.”



Now we were getting somewhere. “Do you?” I asked.

Coulter hesitated. Why was that? Either he did or he didn’t.

“I might,” he finally said. “They sure think I do. So now they’re going to put me down. They

were coming for me today….I’m not supposed to leave this house alive.”



I was trying to listen for other voices or sounds in the house while he kept talking. I didn’t

hear any. Was anybody else still alive in there? What had Coulter done to his family? How

desperate was he?

I looked at Ned Mahoney and shrugged my shoulders. I really wasn’t sure whether Coulter

was telling the truth or if he was just a street cop who’d gone loco. Mahoney looked skeptical

too. He had a don’t ask me look on his face. I had to go somewhere else for guidance.

“So what do we do now?” I asked Coulter.

He sniffed out a laugh. “I was hoping you’d have an idea. You’re supposed to be the hotshot,

right?”



That’s what everybody keeps saying.