Page 16 of Operation: Valiant Angel

“Honest, we didn’t mean to damage anything, didn’t know that window on the house would break,” the other one said.

“But you fired on us again, anyway?” Wilson yelled. “You knew that thing of yours was powerful enough to break a window. What the hell did you think it was going to do to a car?”

Both boys shrugged. “Dunno,” Freckles said. “But that guy who’s staying here is a dick. We were riding our dirt bikes, and the jerk threw rocks at us after he yelled at us for riding in the field. He don’t own it. We can ride there!”

Wilson grabbed their modified snowball throwing contraption and pulled it out of the shack. “I’ll take this weapon. You get home and stop being assholes. I don’t care what that guy said or did. You don’t fire weapons at people, houses, or vehicles. You got that?”

“That’s mine,” Freckles said.

“I’m confiscating it,” Wilson said. “We can do this one of two ways. The first is we all go to your house and talk with your parents about this weapon and the damage you caused and arrange payment for it. Or we take it, and you go home and stop being juvenile delinquents. Do something good.”

Both boys’ eyes went wide. They exchanged guilty looks. “Fine, take it,” Freckles said.

“How’d you get here?”

“Our snowmobiles are over there.” He pointed to a stand of pine trees.

“Get on them and go home,” Wilson said. He walked away from the two boys, still huddled in the shack. After placing the weapon in the back of the SUV, he climbed back in beside Jackowski and Roth as Tessman slid behind the wheel. “Stupid kids.”

“That was kids?” Jackowski asked.

“Yeah, two pre-teens you yelled at and threw rocks at on dirt bikes?” Wilson asked.

“That was those two little fuckers? Had I not been hiding out here, I would have called the police on them multiple times,” Jackowski said. “You need to arrest them and teach them a lesson.”

“Do you want more attention drawn to yourself?” Roth asked.

“No,” Jackowski admitted.

Wilson nodded an ‘I told you so’ at him.

When they arrived at the vehicle Wilson and Roth had abandoned when they’d hiked in, Wilson had Saxton and Cooper transfer to it. The rest remained with the protectee. The remainder of the drive to Schaumburg was slow due to the continuing bad weather conditions, but it was uneventful. They met the U.S. Marshals in the garage of a police station for the transfer.

“Good luck to you,” Wilson told Jackowski before they separated.

“Yeah, we’ll see if these guys can keep me alive to testify,” Jackowski said.

“That’s the plan,” one of the Marshals said.

As the Shepherd Security Team drove out of the garage, heading for their own parking garage nearby, Wilson received a text from Rae. “Hi Jimmy. I hope all is good. I’d like to talk when you have time, nothing important.”

He smiled as he read her message. He tapped out a reply. “I’ll have time in about an hour. Can I call then?”

As expected, they had a short debrief with Shepherd when they arrived at the office. Madison also sat in. “You showedprofessionalism and control when your vehicle was attacked,” Shepherd said. “Had you returned fire without investigating the source, the outcome would have been much different, though justified, and we’d be having a much different conversation right now. This was a perfect example of remembering the environment which we are operating in before we react.”

“Yeah, something just didn’t feel right about it,” Wilson said. “And that was before Saxton identified the projectiles as ice.”

“I don’t think those dumb-shit kids will be doing anymore firing ice at vehicles. You should have seen their faces,” Tessman said. “I think the one little shit pissed himself when we kicked the door in.”

“Freckles recovered quickly though. That little fucker actually argued with me when I confiscated the ice chucker,” Wilson added.

“I would like to get a look at this weapon they made,” Madison said.

The corner of Shepherd’s lips tipped up. “Those two could make good future Operators. I’m sure none of you were choir boys in your youth, either. Again, I appreciate your restraint in the situation. You handled it well. And as always, the Marshals were appreciative of our assist. Our flexibility and ability to change direction quickly is valuable to the agencies we interface with.”

“That’s one benefit of Operating with less red tape,” Madison said. “From an Ops point of view, having a weather-resistant drone in the air could have helped identify the threat. Michaela and Miraldi have been working on fortifying our drones to make them able to withstand the elements and capable of having guidance transferred to Ops to free up a team member on the ground of manning the controls. I believe we need to useavailable technology to a greater extent than we currently do. This mission could have ended very badly with two dead kids.”

They all agreed with her that was true.

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