Chapter 19 supplement   by Cory Cramer



Washington D.C.

Lieutenant Amy Hunt stopped the zigzag pattern she'd been tracing and sprinted after Alan, who appeared to be on a suicide mission. Hunt moved as quickly as she could without lowering her weapon. She held the stock firmly against her shoulder, finger resting lightly on the trigger guard.

Alan remained in view, but was slowly pulling away from her despite her increased speed. Another few seconds and he would be too far away for her to lay cover fire without risking hitting him with an errant shot.

Alan twisted and fired his handgun. Lieutenant Hunt saw someone wearing a red baseball cap drop to the ground. Then she saw a second shooter approach Alan from behind. The shooter raised a shotgun to Alan's head. Lieutenant Hunt stopped and took aim.

It had been over 20 years since Amy Hunt had shot someone. Many of the same emotions flooded her senses now as she prepared to kill the man with the shotgun.

She had been eight years old the last time she aimed a loaded weapon at a living person. Back then, she had been speechless, terrified, and unsure if she should pull the trigger or run for her life. The sweat-and-blood covered man who had just stepped out of her parent's bedroom had paused when he saw her, seemingly unsure if he should flee or attempt to snatch the .38 caliber pistol from her as she stood there in her nightgown, crying, shaking, and squeezing the pistol with both hands.

Today, near the Washington Monument, Amy's hands didn't shake, she wasn't crying, and even though she was just as terrified, she was a much better shot than she'd been 20 years earlier. She gingerly tapped the trigger of her automatic weapon and fired a three shot burst at the dirt bag with the shotgun, dropping him instantly, sparing Alan's life. The action was quick, concise, and definitive. To anyone watching, Hunt appeared to have all the calm and professionalism of a seasoned SWAT team member.

But back when Amy was eight, things hadn't gone so smoothly. She'd closed her eyes and emptied an entire clip at short range, only hitting her family's murderer three times, none vital. The action had given her enough time to run to the neighbor's and call the police, but the bad guy didn't die like the dirt bag with the shotgun just had. He had survived the encounter - And so had Amy. Her mother, father, and twin younger brothers—every living relative she had—weren't as fortunate. They'd all fallen victim to now infamous Lewis Mares.

Mares managed to flee the scene despite his wounds and wasn't apprehended until three days later when the FBI located him at a hospital three states away. It was then that an aspiring prosecutor saved Amy's life.

The young attorney fought hard to shield Amy from a frenzied press desperate for information and ratings, and even though he had acquired enough evidence to send Mares to the electric chair, the prosecutor proposed a plea bargain instead, offering Mares 25 to life if he pled guilty and came clean on any other killings.

Mares accepted the offer. As part of his plea he admitted to 14 murders and 32 rapes, most of them girls under the age of twelve.

The press went wild. The story ran in nearly every major publication. Talk show hosts questioned the plea bargaining system all together. Rage boiled among the other victims' families. They all wanted Mares's head on a stake, and the fact that he would be eligible for parole when he was 55 years old instead of facing execution sickened them.

The prosecutor, however--despite all his ambition and his desire to make a name for himself on the national political scene--had gotten exactly what he wanted.

Amy never had to take the stand; she never had to look into the sick eyes of the man who murdered her family; she never had to be escorted through a crowd of ravenous reporters perched on the courthouse steps; and she never had to be interrogated by Mares's sleazebag defense attorney. In exchange for lessening Mares's sentence the prosecutor had kept Amy almost completely out of the press, and he'd given her a shot at a fresh start. A new life. He also used contacts at the witness protection program and arranged to have Amy adopted anonymously, at which time her name was changed from Kate Henderson to Amy Hunt.

Amy never saw the prosecutor in person again until earlier that day in the White House just before the alien attack. And although after twenty years the prosecutor didn't recognize her, she knew his face in an instant, former U.S. Attorney Alan Kelly, her hero, and the man who put his career on the line to give a little girl a second chance at a normal life.

funny bunny says:
2007-09-08, 06:45
gtyhujiikkkkiikkkkk
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Me says:
2007-10-27, 13:33
Este e o novo método de comentar...
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says:
2008-01-21, 04:36
This rocks...
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