Alexandria, Virginia, February, 2078, Wednesday…

They had agreed to meet in a small bar on Route 1 in Alexandria about three miles south of the airport. Frank Suarez was the first to arrive and picked a booth in the back that had some privacy. At three in the afternoon there was only one other customer, a woman. She was nursing a martini. Unfortunately she looked like a reporter.

Frank ordered a light beer and waited. While waiting, his thoughts turned to his life as a cop. The psych always had him pegged.

"You're a natural-born killer, Frank. Your first solution to any problem is violence. I see many like you on the force. Your kind doesn't last long."

She was drop-dead-in-your-tracks pretty. A little Guatemalan wench, perky and about three years out of school. He resented her talking down to him when she could have been his kid sister.

"What do you mean, 'your kind?'" he asked. "Do you mean 'Latino ex-gang member?' I never belonged to a gang, Doc. I had no use for them."

She looked at his file again.

"But your brother did. Says here he was killed by them. Is that why you became a cop, Frank? To get back at them?"

He had just brought in three drug dealers, all dead, all gang members. Two innocent bystanders had died in the wicked cross fire. Hence the mandatory visit to the psych.

"You don't know the half of it. But I'm just doing my job. Why is everybody getting so bent out of shape because three lowlifes are now worm food?"

"Because two innocents died that maybe didn't have to die. That's not for me to say. I'm supposed to determine if you have issues and help you through them if you do. Don't get all pissed, detective. I'm just doing my job too." She smiled at him.

"Yeah, I guess. Your job being to hassle me? Forget the damn issues. Just tell me what you want me to say, I'll say it, sign your papers, whatever. I'm wasting my time here."

"Are you? Why is it that you're so violent? Why is that your preferred means for solving an encounter with the bad guys? Think about this: if they were alive, you, your buddies, anyone could grill them and get information that might crack other cases. Ever think of that?"

"Of course. But when some guys are coming down on you with automatics, you know that the only grilling you're going to get done is when you buy it and the Devil has your dick on his menu down below."

"There's no need to get vulgar, detective. I fully understand that you were in the line of fire. Did you even try to get the bystanders to safety?"