At 2:07 a.m., Sergeant William Carter was laughing so hard that he had to wipe rainwater from his eyes.
“Look at this guy,” he said, holding a gold federal shield between two fingers as though it were a cheap toy. “He thinks a little piece of metal makes him untouchable.”
Officer Richard Dempsey laughed with him. Officer Colin O’Shea stood beside the patrol car, his weapon still drawn, rain dripping from the brim of his cap. Behind them, two men knelt in the mud with their hands cuffed behind their backs.
One of those men was me.
My name is Terrence Miller. I was a Supervisory Special Agent with the FBI’s Violent Crimes Task Force, and the man kneeling beside me was my younger brother, David Miller, an ATF special agent who had spent nine years investigating illegal firearms trafficking.
We had been working undercover for eleven months.
We had spent weeks tracking weapons that vanished from evidence lockers, following money through shell companies, and documenting the activities of a criminal network that supplied stolen firearms to violent gangs across three states.
The investigation had a name: Operation Iron Rain.
And at that moment, our investigation was in danger of being exposed by three local officers who had made one disastrous mistake.
They had stopped the wrong vehicle.
Then they had assaulted the wrong men.
And when they discovered our credentials, they had decided that lying would be easier than admitting what they had done.
“Tell me again,” Carter said, crouching in front of me. “What exactly are you supposed to be?”
“An FBI agent,” I replied.
He grinned.
“An FBI agent. At two in the morning. Sitting in a black SUV near a jewelry store that just got robbed.”
“We were conducting surveillance.”
“Surveillance?” He looked at Dempsey. “You hear that? We got ourselves a spy.”
Dempsey laughed.
Carter held my shield close to my face. Water ran off his sleeve and splashed onto my cheek.
“You know what I think, Miller? I think you bought this thing online. I think you and your little friend here were planning to rob that jewelry store, and now you’re trying to scare us with fake federal credentials.”
I looked at the shield.
My name and agency were clearly visible.
The credentials had been issued by the federal government. The identification number could be verified through the proper channels. The agency seal was not a decorative emblem that anyone could purchase at a costume shop.
Carter knew that.
He had seen the seal before.
I watched his eyes move across the identification, and for a fraction of a second, his expression changed. He recognized something. Maybe not my name, but certainly the credentials.
Then he closed the wallet and slapped it against my chest.
“Nice prop.”
He stood.
“Put them in the car.”
I could have argued. I could have demanded that he call the FBI field office. I could have informed him that interfering with an ongoing federal investigation was a serious matter.
Instead, I kept my mouth shut.
The first rule of dealing with a volatile person holding a gun is simple: do not turn a bad situation into a fatal one just because you are right.
The second rule is harder.
Never assume that someone who has authority knows how to use it.
Rain hammered the asphalt around us. The blue and red lights of the patrol cars flashed against the wet road, turning every puddle into a distorted mirror.
David was kneeling about six feet away. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and one side of his face was pressed against the muddy shoulder.
He looked at me.
I gave him the smallest possible nod.
Stay calm.
He understood.
He had been in dangerous situations before. He had worked cases involving armed traffickers, undercover informants, and people who would shoot a stranger simply to avoid being arrested.
But this was different.
We were not facing criminals in a warehouse or gang members in a dark alley.
We were facing police officers who had mistaken their badges for permission to do whatever they wanted.
“Search the vehicle,” Carter ordered.
Dempsey moved toward our Chevrolet Tahoe.
“Careful with the equipment,” I said.
Carter turned back.
“What equipment?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
He walked toward me and crouched again.
“You're going to learn something tonight, Agent Whatever-Your-Name-Is. Around here, I decide what concerns me.”
I looked at him steadily.
“Then you should be careful about what you touch.”
His smile disappeared.
For a moment, I thought he might strike me. His hand tightened around the shield, and his jaw moved as though he were grinding his teeth.