Roll to Your Rifle – Chapter Three
Agent Darling followed Tim's progress up the hill until he was out of sight. He turned to Art with a bemused expression.
"I'm sorry, what's his name?"Agent Darling asked Art.
"Tim Gutterson."
"He seems pretty confident about this rifle idea."
Art shrugged. "He was a sniper with the Army Rangers. I get the impression he was pretty good. Doesn't talk about it much, though."
"He knows his stuff," Rachel added curtly, not liking Darling's tone.
"If he was a Ranger, I don't doubt it," he said, delivering a disarming smile to smooth relations.
She stared stonily back and his smile spread.
The DEA agent who had been yelling at Tim earlier approached and interrupted their conversation, giving Darling a curt nod. "We're done here. My team's heading back to Louisville. Let's meet up in our office."
"Perfect," replied Darling. The DEA agent turned and walked away without acknowledging the Marshals.
Darling looked a bit embarrassed and shrugged at Art and Rachel. "DEA – Dicks, Egoists and Assholes."
Art chuckled and decided he could like Special Agent Darling if only he wasn't FBI.
"I can see the advantage to having the Marshals Service involved," Darling continued. "Can you spare some people to join us tonight?"
"Son," Art replied, shaking his head at him, "with diplomacy skills like that, what are you doing in the Louisville office? Did you piss someone off in Washington?"
Agent Darling kept eye contact with Art, but grinned like a kid caught stealing.
"Tell you what," Art offered, smiling back. "We'll write up our report on Westman and close out the case. I'll have someone look a little extra hard into him and the others in this mess here and I'll keep you in the loop, let you know if we turn up anything. And you can keep me in the loop, especially if this is going to kick up into a storm in my district. As for tonight, how about I send Deputy Gutterson to join your pow-wow to talk rifles. I suspect that's really what you want."
"Are all the Lexington Marshals so direct?" Darling asked amused.
"You should hear us after we've been into the bourbon," interjected Rachel.
"Was that an invitation?" Darling responded, smiling at her.
She sniffed and looked down her nose at him, a difficult feat considering he was a foot taller than her.
Darling took down Tim and Art's cell numbers and gave Art the address in Louisville for the meeting. He tried to get Rachel's cell number as well but she just smiled coolly and told him to contact her through Tim if it was necessary. He shook both their hands and headed to his car.
"Was he flirting with you?" Art asked indignantly. "Shit, just when I was beginning to like him."
Special Agent Darling slid into the passenger seat of his car, letting his junior agent drive back to Louisville. Once on the road he started giving orders.
"I need someone to find me a better map of this area, preferably one that has all these back roads on it. And Anita," he said turning to an agent in the back, "run a quick check on that Marshal, Deputy Tim Gutterson. He's ex-military, a Ranger. I want to make sure he's not a flake or a fraud before we meet the DEA guys later. I don't want him embarrassing me if I let him present his ideas."
Everyone was on their phone in seconds and Darling turned to his notes. Their investigation to date was pretty sparse on fact. The FBI only had rumors and a growing suspicion that drugs were being moved in small amounts through a number of different states from one source in Texas, the same source apparently that the DEA were investigating. Now both their efforts were at a dead end, literally, in Kentucky. It was an interesting idea, spreading out the risk by dividing the product among a number of smaller carriers as soon as it crossed into the US, but obviously things hadn't worked out on this route.
"So," Anita said ending her call and tapping Darling on the shoulder, "I was just talking to Neil."
"Neil?" Darling repeated. "Who's Neil?"
"Neil at the office," she clarified. "I called him first. I remembered that he was a Ranger."
"Right, that Neil. Good thinking."
"And, coincidentally, he and Deputy Gutterson are friends. They went through Ranger school together."
Darling turned around in his seat, interested now. "And?"
"And, Gutterson's legit – talented sniper, a number of tours in Afghanistan. Got sent to the Marine Scout Sniper School at one point, graduated, did more tours. Honorable discharge. The only disciplinary note occurred when he threw-up during a medal ceremony – he and his spotter were apparently shit-faced. Neil's choice of words."
"I like him already," commented the agent driving.
"Neil said that when he left the military he was courted by a number of private security companies and law enforcement agencies - including ours for CIRG," she noted with a meaningful look at her boss. "He settled for the Marshals Service and has been pretty quiet since."
"Huh."
"Yeah, huh. I don't think he'll embarrass you," she concluded.
"Do we take it personally that he ditched us for the Marshals Service?" asked the driver with a wry grin. "Should I get a hate-on going for him?"
"Save it for the DEA guys," Darling suggested with a look of distaste.
Tim pulled into a parking spot on the street near the Louisville DEA office and sat in his truck thinking. Art had taken Rachel back to Lexington and suggested that Tim go directly to the meeting. Tim wondered why he was even bothering. He was pretty sure of his assessment of the situation but who from the DEA or the Feds was going to believe him.
He had made a call to his friend at the FBI before he headed to Louisville and left a message, so when his phone rang he wasn't surprised to see Neil's number on the display.
"Hey," Tim answered casually.
"Hey, Tim," said Neil. "What kind of trouble are you in now?"
"Excuse me?"
"My boss called earlier asking questions about you," he replied.
"Darling?" Tim asked.
"Yes, sweetie," Neil responded.
Tim could hear Neil giggling.
"Ha, ha," he said flatly.
"That's such an old joke around here. It's nice to have someone new to use it on," Neil said. "So you met Darling, huh? Did you piss him off or something? Anita wanted a full background on you."
"What exactly did you tell them?" Tim demanded, concerned.
"That you were an asshole, that you couldn't shoot worth shit and that you had to beg the Marshals Service to hire you," Neil summarized.
"Well, what a relief," Tim responded sarcastically. "I'd hate to think of you lying just to make me look good."
Tim watched a car pull up and several people, including Darling, got out and headed to the DEA building. "I gotta go," he said. "Your boss just pulled up. Can I call you back later?"
"Sure thing," replied Neil. "Where are you?"
"About ten minutes from your place. If I'm done early enough do you have time for a beer?"
"Call me when you're leaving."
Tim locked his truck and jogged across the road, catching up with the FBI agents as they entered the building. Darling greeted him and signed him in as one of his team and the group headed to the elevators.
When Tim was introduced to the lead DEA agent, Anthony Ortiz, the jerk from the porch, he had trouble keeping a straight face. A young FBI agent standing behind Ortiz was pretending to vomit for Tim's amusement. He stuck out his hand when Ortiz moved away.
"I'm Pete," he said.
"Tim Gutterson," Tim replied shaking his hand and grinning.
Pete was the only one in the room who didn't look comfortable in his suit. Tim figured he was new at the job and decided to like him.
"Ortiz is such an asshole. I was there when he was yelling at you on the porch," Pete said. "So you know Neil?"
"I'm afraid so," Tim replied, nodding his head sadly.
"Did you really throw up during a medal ceremony?" Pete asked grinning.
"Neil told you that?" Tim responded surprised. "What an asshole!" He laughed and looked embarrassed. "Yeah, well, we were just off a nasty three-day patrol. I should've had more to eat before we tackled that bottle."
Pete looked like he wanted to ask more about it but Agent Darling was making motions to start the meeting. Tim helped himself to a coffee and leaned against the back wall, wishing Art or Rachel was here with him. Pete settled in beside him instead and gave him a running commentary on the characters.
Darling ran the meeting efficiently, keeping people on track and the information flowing smoothly. At some point he introduced Tim by describing his weapons experience and asked him to fill them in on his conclusions. Tim treated it like a debriefing, nothing but the facts. There was never room for opinion when he gave his reconnaissance reports in the Rangers and he assumed the same attitude would prevail here.
Agent Ortiz spoke up when he was finished. "I'd like to hear from forensics. I just don't believe you could do that much damage with a rifle."
"Agent Ortiz," said Tim, speaking without any emotion, "I've seen first-hand what an M107 is capable of."
"Thank you, Deputy," Ortiz replied dismissively. He smiled at the group. "Can we move on?"
Tim told himself it wasn't worth pursuing and it certainly wasn't worth expending any effort being angry at Agent Ortiz. He took a deep meditative breath and focused his mind and his eyes on a spot in the neutral middle distance between himself and the asshole across the table.
Pete elbowed him and whispered, "Don't take it personally, he's always a dick."
Darling called for a break after an hour and Tim took the opportunity to slip out. He called Neil and met him for a beer before he headed home to Lexington, pulling up in front of his house just before midnight. Miljana was stretched out on the couch waiting for him.
She turned off the TV and twisted around, not wanting to miss her favorite part of the day, watching Tim unpack his arsenal. It was a source of endless amusement for her. She didn't think it possible to carry that much hardware and still function.
"Sucks working on Saturday," she said when the show was finished and he was taking off his boots.
"Drugs and murder, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week," was his jaded reply.
"Which was it today?" she asked.
"Both."
"No wonder you're so late. You should have woken me this morning," she scolded.
He walked over. She stood up on the couch and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. "Bedtime?"
"Mmmm," he answered.
She let him do the all the work climbing the stairs.
Author's Note: For anyone who hasn't read Aimpoint, Miljana is an OC introduced in that story. You don't need to read it first. Just know she's a psychologist who got under his skin.