Free Friendly Fire by John Gilstrap Page B

long oval table, at what Jonathan called the command center, directly across from the enormous screen that dominated the far wall. Jonathan sat at the long side to her right, his back to the door. Boxers sat directly across, and Dom sat on Jonathan’s right.
    The big screen displayed images of four men who looked only vaguely familiar. They were black-and-white mug shots of four tired-looking white guys, aged between twenty-five and thirty-five, their images displayed as a grid, Brady Bunch style. They all wore the same sullen expression of every mug shot.
    â€œWhich one’s our boy?” Jonathan asked.
    â€œThe one on the bottom right,” Venice said. That guy fell between the others age-wise, and he by far looked like the most intelligent of the lot. The measurement scroll on the wall in the background showed him to be just a touch over six feet tall, and he sported a shock of blond hair combed straight back in a style reminiscent of old greaser movies. “The other three are Gabriel Potts, Raymond Stanns, and Samuel Din-klage.”
    â€œThey’re the ones we killed, right?” Boxers asked.
    â€œBetter be careful, Box,” Dom said. “When you’ve killed so many that you can’t remember what they looked like, it might mean you have a problem.”
    â€œPeople look a lot different when parts of their heads are missing, Padre,” Boxers fired back. “Judge not lest ye be judged, remember?”
    Dom held up his hands in surrender. “No offense intended.”
    â€œThose assholes were slave traders,” Big Guy pressed. “They sold kids to the highest bidder. My bullets let them off better than they deserved.”
    Dom looked to Jonathan. “Slave traders? Is that right?”
    Jonathan looked down at the table. “Some of the baddest bad guys we’ve ever run across.”
    â€œBut we didn’t know that at the beginning,” Venice prompted.
    â€œNo, not at the beginning,” Jonathan concurred. “The case came to us as they usually do, through the normal cutouts.”
    â€œWe were a lot easier to reach back then, too,” Boxers said.
    â€œTrue.” The higher their profile got, the thicker and more numerous the safeguards. “We got word through the kid’s father that he’d been kidnapped.”
    â€œLawyer,” Venice said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe father didn’t contact us, his lawyer did.”
    Jonathan shrugged. “Fine, his lawyer.” A memory bell dinged. “There was something strange about the contact.” He looked to Venice.
    She clicked a few keys on her computer to bring up whatever she was using for notes. “The first contact was to make a phone call, but when we made the call, they pretended that we had the wrong number. Then they tried to call that number back and were stymied by the rolling numbers we use to prevent detection.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Jonathan said. “I got pissed off that they were trying to double-cross us somehow. At least that’s what I thought at the time.”
    â€œAnother day passed before they reached out again,” Venice said, picking up her momentum. “I suggested we ignore them, but you insisted that we give them a second chance.”
    â€œWe were still trying to learn our own business,” Jonathan explained. He heard the apology in his voice. “Jeeze, that really was a long time ago.”
    â€œThey wanted a face-to-face, but you drew the line on that,” Venice continued. “It turned out that eleven-year-old Ethan Falk left school on his own to walk to football practice. His folks didn’t know he was missing until he didn’t come home for dinner.”
    â€œDid he show up at the football practice?” Dom asked.
    Venice shook her head. “No. And the coach didn’t call because why would he? Kids miss practice all the time.”
    Venice explained, “The kidnapper called