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nine-millimeter and thrust it into his belt holster. Although he had not technically shot anyone, this was still
     an SRB—or Shooting Review Board—matter now, since Web had most definitely fired his weapons. They had confiscated his guns,
     which was akin to taking his hands. Next, they had advised him of his rights and he had given them a statement. It was all
     standard, by-the-books practice and yet it still made him feel like a criminal. Well, he wasn’t about to walk around without
     hardware. He was paranoid by nature, and the massacre of his team had made him a walking schizoid, capable of seeing real
     threats in babies and bunnies.
    He went out to the garage, cranked up his 1978 coal-black Ford Mach One and headed out.
    Web had two vehicles: the Mach, and an ancient and iron-gutted Suburban that had carried him and his Charlie Team to many
     Redskin football games, to the beaches in Virginia and Maryland, to beer-drinking outings and on assorted other manly campaigns
     up and down the East Coast. Each guy had had his own assigned seat in the Suburban, based on seniority and ability, which
     was the way everything was divvied up where Web worked. What outstanding times they had had in the big machine. Now Web wondered
     how much cash he could get for the Suburban, because he didn’t see himself driving the beast anymore.
    He jumped on Interstate 95, headed north and fought through the obstacle course that was the Springfield Interchange, which
     apparently had been designed by a highway engineer strung out on cocaine. Now that it was undergoing a major overhaul scheduled
     to last at least ten years, the driver navigating it each day had the option of laughing or crying as years of his life slipped
     by while the traffic’s progress was measured in inches. Web sailed over the Fourteenth Street Bridge, cleared the Northwest
     quadrant where all the major monuments and tourist dollars were kept and was quickly in a not-so-nice part of town.
    Web was an FBI special agent, but he did not see himself as such. First and foremost he was a Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) operator,
     the Bureau’s elite crisis response group. He didn’t dress in suits. He didn’t spend much time with fellow agents outside HRT.
     He didn’t arrive on the crime scene after all the bullets had stopped flying. He was usually there from the get-go, running,
     dodging, firing, wounding and occasionally killing. There were only fifty HRT operators, because the selection process was
     so grueling. The average time at HRT was five years. Web had bucked that trend and was going on his eighth year of duty. It
     seemed that HRT was being called upon a lot more often these days and to hot spots all over the world, with HRT’s unwritten
     policy of being wheels up in four hours from Andrews Air Force Base. Well, the curtain had fallen on his part of that show.
     Web was teamless now.
    It had never occurred to Web that he would be the sole survivor of anything. It just didn’t seem in his nature. They all had
     joked about it, even had morbid betting pools on who would die one moonless night. Web had almost always been first on the
     list, because he always seemed to be first in the line of fire. Now it was torturing Web, though, not knowing what had gotten
     between him and the seventh coffin. And the only thing worse than the guilt was the shame.
    He pulled the Mach to the curb and got out at the barricade. He showed his ID to the men posted there, who were all stunned
     to see him. Web ducked down the alley before the army of reporters could glom on to him. They had been reporting live here
     since the massacre from their tall-mast satellite broadcast trucks. Web had caught some of the news from the hospital. They
     were feeding the public the same facts over and over, using their little charts and pictures, and sporting their little dour
     expressions, and saying things like, “That’s all we know right now. But stay with us, I’m certain