Typically, when an agent fired their weapon outside of a shooting range, the Bureau’s Inspections Division sent out a Shooting Incident Review Team. The SIRT would interview witnesses and use forensics to reconstruct events in order to file a report with the Shooting Incident Report Group. The SIRG, comprised of high-level FBI and Justice Department officials, would then review the findings and determine whether the shooting complied with the Bureau’s policy on using lethal force.
“I know.” J.J. was staring out the windshield. “I’m not worried.”
Sure.
They had both shot to kill on Camden Island. The crucial difference was they had not killed. Today… Well, neither would forget today.
Jason said, “You didn’t have a choice, J.J. It was a good shoot.”
J.J. nodded.
As Jason feared, the rest of his afternoon went to dealing with the fallout from the shooting.
SAC David Warner flew in from the Salt Lake City field office with Brian Dulaney, one of his three Assistant Special Agents in Charge. An attorney from the Department of Justice arrived separately, followed by two representatives from the FBI Agents Association.
Jason and J.J. were again questioned apart and at length.
Most of it was basic, checking-off-boxes stuff. SAC David Warner asked Jason three times in three different ways why he had fired at the oncoming vehicle and not the shooter.
Jason wasn’t completely sure himself, but he didn’t admit that. “I thought the approaching truck posed the greater threat to more people—civilians—than just me and my partner.”
“It was a reasoned and informed decision?” Dulaney inquired.
“It was gut instinct,” Jason admitted. “I’m only thinking it through now.”
Bozwin Supervisory Special Agent James Salazar asked, “Why do you think your partner chose to target the shooter?”
This was what they were really after. Had J.J. had a choice, or had he opted for a lethal resolution in a non-lethal situation?
Jason answered carefully, “I think Agent Russell perceived correctly that the shooter was the immediate threat and that he—Agent Russell—had the better line of sight. Which, as I consider, is another reason I went for the truck. I knew Russell would go for the shooter.”
“Team work at its best?” SAC Phillips was neutral, but maybe a little skeptical. She had been pleasant enough when they’d met the day before, but this afternoon Jason had the distinct feeling she didn’t much like him.
Jason answered, “We’re trained to trust our partners.”
On it went. The same questions reworked and reapplied. But eventually Jason was dismissed and J.J. was brought back in for another round.
Sam, of course, was not part of these interviews. When Jason stepped out to grab a late lunch, he had a quick look for Sam and spotted him through the windows of the conference room, sitting at a long table strewn with laptops, cell phones, and fast-food containers, speaking to a group of agents clearly hanging on his every word.
And no one was hanging tighter than Special Agent Travis Petty, sitting right there at the left hand of God, a.k.a. BAU Chief Sam Kennedy.
Late afternoon, Phillips summoned Jason to her office to inform him Warner was about to make a formal statement to the press.
“Okay. Sure.” Jason was wondering uneasily whether Warner was about to surprise them with some unpleasant development. There was something odd in Phillips’s expression.
Phillips said, “According to Unit Chief Kennedy, any media attention focused on you is undesirable, so I’m giving you a heads-up. We have a friendly relationship with the local papers, and there are liable to be reporters in the building. I’d stay in your office and keep the blinds down for the next couple of hours.”
Right. In case the story was picked up by the national networks and Jeremy Kyser, everyone’s favorite psycho stalker, happened to turn on the TV and see where Jason West was spending the next few days.
It was a little embarrassing—not least because he hadn’t even thought of this potential threat—and he was a little angry too at the reminder of Jeremy Kyser out there and waiting. Even after two months of no sign of Kyser, a knot of nerves and tension instantly formed in his belly at the mere mention of his name.
He could see the curiosity in the back of Phillips’s eyes.
“Thanks,” Jason said, and retreated to the temporary office assigned to him and J.J. during their stay.
He spent the rest of the afternoon answering emails and talking with Supervisory Special Agent George Potts, his immediate boss at the LA Field Office.
“How do you think J.J. is handling the shooting?” George asked.