He didn't ask questions. After the first four months, he stopped adding the number of times he slid the brush through his weapon's barrel. He was very good at his job. But unlike his police work, he never knew the dead, whether they were innocent or evil, dangerous or just unlucky. After the brush, Redman squeezed some Shooter's Choice on a soft swab and ran it through the barrel and asked himself, Would Collie have done what I have done?

His SWAT friend, his only true friend, Collie always had a way of working the bugs out of Redman's head after a shoot, sitting in a bar washing the vision of blood down your throat. He'd grab Redman by the neck with those Vise-Grip fingers of his and say, "Moral courage, man. We do the job that no one else will do. We make the hard choices. And don't you think any different, Mikey It ain't the lieutenant. It ain't the sheriff. It ain't the range master. When your finger is on the trigger, buddy, you are ultimately the man. It's your moral courage that lets you pull it."

Would Collie have pulled those triggers in Iraq? Redman couldn't find the answer and it ate at him. But he'd sworn it would be different when he got home, and today he had known his target, he knew the man was deserving, knew he'd exacted a moral vengeance for two little girls whose innocence had been stolen. Collie would have pulled this trigger.

Redman closed his eyes while he worked, his fingers moving with the precision of motor memory in the dark. He wondered what the newspaper story would say in the morning. He wondered if Nick Mullins would get the assignment, if the only journalist he trusted would get it right, would understand.

Chapter 7

The last call Nick made was to Joel Cameron. It was just after eight o'clock and his story was finished and ready to move on to the editors and copy readers. He had named Ferris and given a full background of his murder trial and the rapes and killings of the children.