Author's Note: I keep forgetting to say I don't own these characters or the show, Justified. It just seems so obvious a point. I've quoted something in here too, so I footnoted it. Of course, no one's getting paid here, but...

Aimpoint - Chapter Three

On Monday Raylan knocked at Art's door after the morning meeting. Art was working at his computer and glanced up.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, turning back to his typing.

"I'm heading down to Harlan," Raylan replied.

"Why?"

"I'm looking for someone."

"Who?"

"I should have just left without saying anything," Raylan responded impatiently.

"So why didn't you?" Art asked.

"Beats me. Maybe I'm procrastinating."

Art finally stopped typing and gave Raylan his full attention. "So, is this Marshal business or personal?"

Raylan walked in and took a seat. "That was Ava that called at the bar Friday night."

"Uh-oh," Art responded. A call from Ava was never a good thing, not even before she hooked up with Boyd. Art suspected that Raylan somehow felt responsible for pushing Ava into Boyd's arms and consequently into the criminal world she was currently embracing. Either that, or, heaven forbid, he still had feelings for her. No matter which, it spelled trouble for Raylan and trouble for Art.

He really didn't want to know, but he sighed loudly and asked, "So, what did Ava want?"

"The place she runs, Audrey's, got robbed last week. She identified one of them, a guy named Harold Lair. He used to work for the Bennetts and she thinks Dickie might be behind it – pay back. It certainly sounds like the kind of dumb move Dickie would pull," Raylan explained wearily, tired of the maze. "Lair is out on parole, probably crossed paths with Dickie recently up at the penn. Obviously if Lair's into armed robbery, that's a violation of terms. I'm looking for him."

Art shrugged. "Okay. Anything I can do?"

Raylan shook his head. "I spent most of yesterday asking around. Talked to Ava, even visited Limehouse. Nobody's going to protect Lair if he's working for Dickie. Nobody's backing the Bennett's interests anymore with Mags and Doyle out of the picture. Anyway, Harold's not too bright. I'll find him. I'd like to hear what he has to say about Ava's theory."

"Raylan, yesterday was Sunday. You're supposed to be relaxing, and you know I can't approve overtime for this."

Raylan nodded, "I know. I didn't have anything better to do."

"And you'd be happy to add some extras onto Dickie's charges," Art said. He looked at Raylan, searching for other motives.

"I won't deny I'd be happy to see him rot inside for a long time."

Raylan played with his hat. He still hadn't made a move to leave the office.

"Why don't you take a holiday?" Art prompted. "Go sit on a beach and drink some margaritas. Forget about the mess in Harlan for a week or two. I'll put someone else on Lair."

"I don't like tequila."

"Drink rum."

"I don't like rum, either."

"Fine, pack a bottle of bourbon," suggested Art, exasperated.

"I'll be back later," Raylan said, finally getting up and walking out.

Tim was multitasking, typing on his keyboard, dotting the i's and crossing the t's in a report he was late filing, and talking into his phone tucked against his shoulder, pulling information from his buddy at the FBI for a case Rachel was working. He dropped the phone back in the cradle having jotted down a name and address on a piece of paper and was reaching over the barrier waving it at her when Art beckoned for him.

"Tim," he called coming out of his office. "I just got a call from the locals down in London. They've got a shooter up on a roof and were wondering if they could borrow you."

Tim stood up, grabbed his jacket and his cap and headed for the door.

"I'll sign out a car and meet you in the parking lot. Grab my vest." Art called after him. Tim stopped and gave him a questioning look. Art just waved at him to hurry up.

"Rachel, are you going anywhere this afternoon?" he asked.

"I'm buried in reports and waiting on phone calls," she said gesturing to the stack of papers on her desk.

"Well then, lucky you. You're in charge. I'm going with Tim," he said giving her a meaningful look. He didn't want Tim going alone if he possibly had to shoot someone today.

She smiled and nodded her understanding.

Down in the parking lot, Art unlocked the trunk for Tim to stow his rifle and their vests then handed him the keys.

"You drive. I have to make some phone calls," he said, and settled into the passenger seat.

Tim pretended not to understand why Art was coming with him. He kept his mouth shut and drove while Art made his calls. After almost an hour of listening to the bureau chief smooth feathers, explain requisition orders, justify budget overages and overtime costs, and discuss employee allocation, Tim decided to consider a career change before his knees got bad.

He thought maybe he should go back to school part-time and work on a degree or a diploma. Maybe become a psychologist. Maybe become the psychologists' psychologist and fuck with them all. He thought about that for a moment and decided to qualify it – he'd fuck with them all except the new girl. It brought back a memory of a Pashtun saying he heard in Afghanistan, "If you take your revenge in a hundred years, you are rushing things."ᶧ He liked the idea of the cold patience and the certainty of justice inherent in their ancient culture, a culture with a collective memory of thousands of years. But Tim didn't think he had it in him to wait that long. After all, he was born in Kentucky not Paktia.

As they drove through the National Forest, he wondered what the people of Paktia would think of all the green in Kentucky. They would probably think they'd died and gone to heaven, just fewer virgins.

Traffic was light and they made good time, pulling up an hour and a half later behind a collection of police cruisers marking the scene. The officer in charge walked over to meet them and introduced himself. He pointed up to the roof of a food market where the shooter was holed up. He had barricaded the door to the roof and was taking occasional shots at the bank across the street. No one had been hurt so far. They figured out his name and spoke to his wife and found a phone number for his cell. The officer had been talking to him off and on for an hour but couldn't convince him to give himself up.

"I don't want to see this end badly," the officer told them. "He's just a local guy, fed up with not being able to find work, behind on his bills. It's just another sad story."

"You want me just to scare him down?" Tim suggested.

"If you can do that, I'd be happy. I don't think he really wants to shoot anybody, but this has been going on long enough. And if he starts aiming any better we may need you to do more than scare him. It's only going to take one bullet to turn this from a comedy to a tragedy."

Tim did a quick check of the area and decided on a good spot to position himself while Art got more details about the shooter and jotted down the officer's cell phone number. Tim interrupted them and pointed out an apartment building a couple of blocks over that was a floor taller than the two-story market with a low wall around the roof.

"Can you get me up there?" he asked the officer, pointing to the building.

"No problem. We'll call the super. You can head on over."

They drove the car and parked it out of sight on the opposite side of the apartment building. Tim popped the trunk, slipped into his vest and lifted out the rifle case. He was jogging around the corner when Art yelled to him.

"Wait up."

Tim stopped abruptly. He hadn't expected Art to come up with him. He waited patiently while Art put on his vest and closed the trunk. The two walked to the apartment building entrance where the superintendent met them and showed them to the roof. Tim ducked out the door and ran to the front corner to set up his rifle while Art chatted inside with the super for a bit.

When Tim was ready, Art joined him, settling awkwardly on the ground. He pulled out his phone and called the officer in charge.

"We're set up. Why don't you go ahead and tell him what's going on. Let him know what we're capable of. Hopefully that'll be that. If it doesn't work, maybe we'll have Tim give him a demonstration."

They waited. Tim settled into position, turned his baseball cap around and looked into the scope. It would be an easy shot, just over a hundred yards and very little wind. He watched the shooter talking into his phone.

"He's not biting," he said to Art.

A minute later Art's phone rang and Tim gave him a wry look.

"Yeah, we can see that," Art said on his end. "A demonstration then? Okay, hold on a sec."

He turned to Tim, "He doesn't believe you can shoot him from here. What do you want to do?"

"He's got a cup of coffee," Tim said, amused by the situation. "Have him put it on the ground against the wall and tell him to move back a bit."

"Is it safe?" Art asked.

"The wall will eat the bullet."

"Okay." Art spoke the instructions to the officer and hung up again. "We're probably breaking a few dozen regulations."

"Beats shooting the guy," Tim replied.

Tim looked through his scope again and watched as the man carefully set his cup by the wall, picked up his rifle and backed up a bit.

"This guy's a winner," he remarked, shaking his head. He made his adjustments, lined up the shot, and steadied his breathing, letting his finger rest on the trigger.

Art watched him closely, curious. It always amazed him how still Tim was before he pulled the trigger. He was so intent studying Tim's breathing that when he squeezed and the shot fired, Art jumped. So did the shooter. The bullet exploded the coffee cup before he even heard the crack from Tim's rifle. He dropped his own weapon like a hot potato, threw his hands in the air and ran to the door of the roof.

"I give up! I surrender! Don't shoot!" he yelled as he frantically started removing the barricade to the let the police onto the roof.

Tim handed the scope to Art so he could watch the scene while he broke down his rifle. The shooter practically threw himself at the police when they opened the door. They put him in handcuffs and collected his weapon. It was all rather funny and anticlimactic. Art chuckled in appreciation at the antics. This was a part of the job he could get some satisfaction from since the outcome was happy enough.

"Nice shot."

"Thanks," Tim replied. "Funny, I suddenly have a craving for a coffee. Can we stop on the way back and grab a snack?"

"Didn't you get lunch?"

"Yeah, but that was a few hours ago. I'm starving," Tim complained.

He stood and offered Art a hand up.

"We'll probably get a letter from his lawyer demanding we pay for his dry cleaning," Art grunted as Tim helped him to his feet. "There was coffee all over him."

The two Marshals left the building and headed to the car, when they turned the corner they both stopped dead in their tracks.

"Where's the car?" asked Tim.

"Shit," Art swore. "Did somebody steal it? I thought you couldn't steal it with all the alarms and stuff."

"I didn't lock it," Tim confessed.

"What? Why not?"

"I didn't know you were coming up with me," Tim replied. "Shit." He covered his mouth with his hand, his eyes wide.

"What?"

"I left the keys in the ignition."

"What!"

"Like I said, I didn't know you were coming up with me and then I started thinking about the shot and the wind…" Tim trailed off, feeling pretty stupid, then indignant. "Who would steal a Marshal's car? They've got to know it's got a tracker in it."

Art squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his head. "Dammit. You're as bad as my daughters."

"Do you swear at them, too?"

"Shut up, I'm mad," Art snapped. "I'm calling Rachel." He stomped off down the sidewalk taking out his frustration on the phone with each jab of his finger.

Tim watched him storm off then plunked himself down on the curb and waited.

Art wandered back a few minutes later. He said calmly, "I talked to Rachel. She said Raylan is on his way back up from Harlan. She's going to call him and get him to swing by and pick us up. She's putting the call in about the car, too. They'll trace it and send out someone local when it turns up."

He put his hands on his hips and looked down at Tim. He was still sitting on the curb, the rifle case across his lap, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He hadn't even looked up yet. Art sighed, "There's a diner around the corner. Do you still want a coffee?"

ᶧ Quoted in Robert Young Pelton, Licensed to Kill (Three Rivers Press, 2006)