Goose shook his head and maintained eye contact with Winters. “No one gave you my name.”
“Maybe we met somewhere before,” Winters suggested. “You said yourself that you’ve seen a lot of media people. We probably met in Glitter City or possibly when I was doing some shooting on the front line.”
“I didn’t see you.”
“Sure you did. You just don’t remember me.” Winters gestured to his face. “I bet I look like raw hamburger right now. If you’d seen me before this happened you might have remembered me.”
“Before what happened?”
Winters didn’t miss a beat, flowing smoothly into the question Goose thrust in the middle of the conversation. “Before I was beaten up and robbed.”
“Did you see the person or persons who did this?”
“No. It was dark. Maybe he followed me.”
“He?”
Shrugging, Winters said, “He, she, it. Pick your pronoun, Sergeant.”
“Followed you from where?”
“The bar.”
“You were in a bar?”
“I told you I was in a bar.”
“No,” Goose said, “you didn’t.” He paused. “What bar would that be?”
“I don’t remember. Some hole-in-the-wall that survived the bombing.”
“Until tonight.”
“That’s right,” Winters agreed testily. “Until tonight.”
“I don’t forget faces,” Goose said. “I’ve never seen you until tonight. But I find it interesting that you know who I am.”
Winters didn’t say anything.
That, Goose knew, showed training. A normal individual caught in a lie tended to try to overexplain or modify his or her answer to take care of any discrepancies. Winters was trained to refuse the kneejerk reflex.
“Did you see who attacked you?” Goose asked.
“No,” Winters replied. “I told you that.”
The answer came too quick and too certain. Goose’s instincts told him the man had lied again. “Do you think whoever did it meant to kill you?”
“No. Probably just wanted to get the camera and pistols.”
“And the film,” Goose said. The answer wasn’t a complete lie. Winters—and Goose doubted that was the man’s real name—knew who had attacked him but not if that person intended to kill him.
“Yeah.”
Goose surveyed Winters’s face. “That’s a lot of damage for a guy who was just intending to rob you. Someone who spends that much time at that kind of beating usually intends it as personal.”
“It could have been a rival photojournalist,” Winters said. “Things have gotten crazy in this city.”
“A rival journalist who decided to take on a guy carrying two pistols.” Winters nodded and decided to stay with his lie. “A really desperate photojournalist who’d broken his own camera or didn’t get the pictures of the attack that I did.”
Raised voices sounded out by the main desk. Goose glanced in that direction and saw the two Rangers posted at guard confronting a tall athletic man with dark hair going gray at the temples. He wore a tailored canvas jacket covered in dust and splintered wood. He stood toe-to-toe with the Rangers, obviously not intimidated.
Winters started to get up again. Goose noticed the look of recognition in Winters’s eyes.
Barnett dropped a big hand on Winters’s shoulder. “Siddown, Mikey. You haven’t been dismissed yet.” He shoved the smaller man back into the chair with a thump.
Goose walked to the doorway. “Something wrong here, Private?” He locked eyes with the civilian.
The Rangers stood with their M-4A1s at the ready, far enough back from the man that he couldn’t impede their ability to use the assault rifles. Three men in lightweight jackets flanked the tall man. All of them had flat-eyed stares that reflected only cold dispassion. Goose had seen the same lack of personal attention in the eyes of trained guard dogs.
“This man says he wants to speak with you,” one of the privates answered.
Goose stared the man in the eye. “Did he ask for me, Private? Or did he ask for whoever was in charge?”
“He asked for you, sir. By name.”
Goose pinned the tall man with his gaze. “Did he identify himself?” “No, Sergeant.”
The man regarded Goose with cold disdain. “You think maybe we can cut the chitchat, Sergeant Gander?”
“Sure,” Goose said. “Tell me who you are, prove it, and we’ll negotiate how chitchat-free we can become.”
“Maybe we can talk in private,” the man suggested.
Goose walked by the desk, not bothering to try to clear the security office as he guessed the man was hoping he would do. The Rangers held their post. The three bodyguards followed their leader.
“You said in private,” Goose reminded. “If you start playing the intimidation game with me, I’ll fill this area with Rangers and conduct this conversation with a bullhorn while we try to figure out who you are.”
Irritably, the man waved off his three associates. They retreated reluctantly but interposed themselves between the man and Goose and the Rangers posted at guard. The psychological impact was clear: Goose was cut off from his men; any help he expected on that front would have to go through them first.
Goose held his M-4A1 comfortably by its pistol grip. One step would put the man between him and his three bodyguards, partially blocking their fields of fire. In addition—judging from the bulky heft of the man’s upper body, Goose was willing to wager that the man wore some kind of body armor.
The three men looked at each other wordlessly, then relaxed their stances. They no longer looked as threatening.
Goose figured that his psychological impact was clear, too. Pistols just didn’t measure up against an assault rifle in an armed confrontation. Okay, boys, all the marbles are on the table. Let’s see how the ante goes.
Sunshine Hills Cemetery
Outside Marbury, Alabama
Local Time 2221 Hours
The earth from the grave site turned easily. Delroy removed shovelful after shovelful of dark loam, adding to the tall heap to one side. Most of the dirt stayed in place, but occasional trickles ran back into the deep hole he’d made.
Rain had saturated the area for days. When the gravediggers had cut the hole in the ground and filled it back in, the replaced soil was free of rocks and roots. The rain had helped when Delroy first started digging, but now the constant flow of water
