“Yes.”
“We have a problem.”
Paul walked toward the bedroom for extra privacy.“I’m listening.”
“There’s been another officer-involved shooting.”
His shoulder twitched at the news.“Who?”
“A rookie named Mason Watt.He took a high-powered round to the upper quadrant of his safety vest.It was a bullseye to the center of the chest.”
“Jesus,” Paul said.“Is he okay?”
“He’s a little shaken up, but the protective plate did its job.He’s lucky to be alive.”
Paul hadn’t met the guy, or heard of him.Houston was a big city that employed hundreds of uniformed officers.“Where did it happen?”
“The 1400 block of El Camino.”
He almost dropped the phone.Watt had been shot in the same general area as him.“That’s not a coincidence.”
“No,” Kyle agreed.“I don’t have all the details yet, but I know they’ve been using a couple of different partner teams to cover your beat.Last week, they put this guy in the rotation.A new hire.He, ah, resembles you.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Light hair, tall and lean.He’s only twenty-five.”
Paul sank into a crouched position.The room had no furniture, so he couldn’t sit down.“Why would they put someone who looks like me on my beat?”
“I have no idea.I assume it was an oversight.”
“I have to come back.”
“You can’t come back.”
“We have to fix this,” he said, straightening again.“They thought he was me.That guy got shot because of me.”
“It wasn’t because of you.”
“The hell it wasn’t,” Paul said, his voice raised.“I’ll drive back this afternoon, and we’ll sit down with special ops.We can set up a sting with an undercover team.The next time I go out on patrol, we’ll be ready for them.”
“We’re not doing that,” Kyle said.
“Why not?”
Kyle sighed into the receiver.“Because we can’t anticipate the time and place of another attack, we don’t have the budget for a mobile team to follow you around indefinitely, and we don’t use officers as bait.”
Paul fell silent for a moment, unable to fault this logic.“Did Watt see anything?”
“No.It was a long-range weapon, fired from a considerable distance.”
“Aiden Mendez was a sniper in Iraq.”
“He’s our prime suspect.”
“Maybe he never left Houston.”
“Maybe not,” Kyle agreed.“The media already has the story.”
