Shielded by the Ruthless Military Boss novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Cold Room

They caught the shooter at two in the morning, in a drainage ditch behind the motor pool.

I know because I was standing behind a pane of glass in the brigade building when four soldiers carried him in.

He was a thin man with a bandaged hand and a wet jacket.

The colonel had told me I could wait in the captain's office.

I had told him I would rather watch.

He looked at me for a long moment, then pointed me to a chair beside the one-way window, and said nothing else.

Now he sat down across the table from the shooter and put a folder in front of him.

He didn't open it.

"Do you know who I am?" he said.

The shooter looked at the table.

"Colonel Kerrigan."

"You put two rounds through my kitchen window tonight. My wife was standing at the counter."

"I didn't know she'd be there."

"You knew."

His voice was very quiet. I had to lean closer to the glass to catch it.

"I'm not going to hit you," the colonel said. "I want you to know that now. Nobody in this building will touch you."

The shooter's shoulders came down a little.

"There are two doors out of here," the colonel went on. "The first goes to a federal courthouse with a lawyer and a deal. You tell me who gave you the permit and who paid for the truck, and you get twelve years instead of life."

"And the second?"

"The second one opens tomorrow morning. The people who paid you will learn that you missed, that you were caught and that you sat in this room for an hour."

The shooter went white to the lips.

"They'll assume you talked," the colonel said. "And I'll let them go on assuming it."

Nobody moved.

I stood on the other side of the glass, and my pulse was loud in my ears.

He had not raised his voice once, or threatened a single thing he could be charged with.

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