Triple Threat

local field office of the FBI. He’d worked with Dance’s husband, Bill Swenson, a bureau agent until his death. She’d met Nichols once or twice. He was a competent agent but ambitious in a locale where ambition didn’t do you much good. He should have been in Houston or Atlanta, where he could free-style his way a bit further.
    He said, “I never got the file on this one.”
    Don’t you read the dailies?
    Dance said, “We didn’t either. Everybody assumed the BOL would strike up near San Francisco,
that
bay, not ours.”
    Nichols said, “Who’s he?”
    Keplar stared back with amused hostility toward Nichols, who would represent that most pernicious of enemies—the federal government.
    Dance explained his role in the group and what it was believed they’d done here.
    “Any idea exactly what they have in mind?” another agent with Nichols asked.
    “Nothing. So far.”
    “There were two of them?” Nichols asked.
    Dance added, “The other’s Gabe Paulson.” She nodded toward the warehouses some distance away. “He was wounded but I just talked to my associate. It’s a minor injury. He can be interrogated.”
    Nichols hesitated, looking at the fog coming in fast. “You know, I have to take them, Kathryn.” He sounded genuinely regretful at this rank pulling. His glance wafted toward O’Neil, too, though Monterey was pretty far down on the rung in the hierarchy of law enforcement here represented and nobody—even the sheriff himself—expected that the County would snag the bad boys.
    “Sure.” Dance glanced toward her watch. “But we haven’t got much time. How many interrogators do you have?”
    The agent was hesitating. “Just me for now. We’re bringing in somebody from San Francisco. He’s good.”
    “Bo?”
    “Right.”
    “He’s good. But—” She tapped her watch. “Let’s split them up, Steve. Give me one of them. At least for the time being.”
    Nichols shrugged. “I guess.”
    Dance said, “Keplar’s going to be the trickiest. He’s senior in the organization and he’s not the least shaken by the collar.” She nodded toward the perp, who was lecturing nearby officers relentlessly about the destruction of the Individual by Government—he was supplying the capitalization. “He’s going to be trickier to break. Paulson’s been wounded and that’ll make him more vulnerable.” She could see that Nichols was considering this. “I think, our different styles, background, yours and mine, it’d make sense for me to take Keplar, you take Paulson.”
    Nichols squinted against some momentary glare as a roll of fog vanished. “Who’s Paulson exactly?”
    O’Neil answered. “Seems to be the technician. He’d know about device, if that’s what they’ve planted. Even if he doesn’t tell you directly, he could give something away that’d let us figure out what’s going on.” The Monterey detective wouldn’t know exactly why Dance wanted Keplar and not Gabe but he’d picked up on her preference and he was playing along.
    This wasn’t completely lost on the FBI agent. Nichols would be considering a lot of things. Did Dance’s idea to split up the interrogation make sense? Did she and he indeed have different interrogation styles and background? Also, he’d know that O’Neil and Dance were close and they might be double teaming him in some way, though he might not figure out to what end. He might have thought she was bluffing, hoping that he’d pick Wayne Keplar, because she herself wanted Gabe Paulson for some reason. Or he might have decided that all was good and it made sense for him to take the wounded perp.
    Whatever schematics were drawn in his mind, he debated a long moment and then agreed.
    Dance nodded. “I’ll call my associate, have Paulson brought over here.”
    She gestured to the two CHP officers towering over Wayne Keplar. He was hoisted to his feet and led to Dance, O’Neil and Nichols. Albert Stemple—who weighed twice what the suspect did—took custody with a no-nonsense grip on the man’s scrawny arm.
    Keplar couldn’t take his eyes off the FBI agents, “Do you know the five reasons the federal government is a travesty?”
    Dance wanted him to shut up—she was afraid Nichols would change his mind and drag the perp off himself.
    “First, economically. I—”
    “Whatever,” Nichols muttered and wandered off to await his own prisoner.
    Dance nodded and Stemple escorted Keplar to a CBI unmarked Dodge and inserted him into the