Bill Tucker watched stoically as the last members of his failed task force filed out, carrying cardboard boxes filled with their personal effects.   In his forty years with the FBI he’d had his wins and losses, but this one hurt bad.  Partly because it was his last case, but more because it had been his procedural error that had let Charlie "Bad-to-the-Bone" Baker walk on a technicality, when he should have been facing life in prison for the kidnapping, rape and torture of a woman whose only mistake was working at the bank he had decided to rob.

            Now, he turned and stared, perhaps for the last time at the tattered map of the states that hung on his office wall.  Twenty yellow push pins depicted the locations where Baker, an avid outdoorsman, had camped over the last year.  Twelve of them coincided with red push pins denoting the locations where mutilated and cannibalized corpses had been found after he moved on.

            The FBI psychiatrist had actually coined the nickname in his profile and predicted that Baker would continue to commit increasingly heinous crimes if he went free.  Regrettably, he had been right.  But still, after decades investigating all manner of antisocial scum, Tucker had thought nothing could surprise him, but Baker had.   Cannibalism, for Pete’s sake! He hadn’t seen that coming!  And worse yet, even with a team of six pros following him around the country, Baker had been able to commit atrocities right under their noses, leaving barely any evidence.  Hell, they hadn’t even connected him to the crimes until three months after the first corpse showed up.  And now Baker had won.  The suits in Virginia had pulled the plug on the whole investigation, saying the evidence wasn't sufficient to justify further expense.  Well, the shrink had pegged Baker as a sociopathic genius, but that didn’t make Tucker feel any better about winding up on the losing end of things.

            When the outer office was empty, he got up and closed his office door, and after settling his large frame back into the squeaky chair that had come with the broken down desk, he turned to Angela Vasquez, the last remaining member of his team.

            “Thanks for staying behind, Ms. Vasquez,” he began, “I guess before I start I should state that what I’m about to say cannot leave this office.  And if it does, I’ll disavow it.  Shall I go on?”

            Vasquez nodded, but said nothing.

            “You’ve probably wondered why exactly I chose you as part of this team,” he continued, "seeing as you’re not FBI.”  She had her own theories on that matter that she figured Tucker was about to confirm.  After ten years in the military, the last six as a member of Special Forces in Iraq tracking down and killing people who needed killing, she had applied with the FBI.  Her application had somehow crossed Tucker's desk and he had hired her on a contract basis, ostensibly for her outsider perspective, strategic and analytical skills, blah, blah, blah.

            “The main reason,” he went on, “was in case of this eventuality.  We’ve failed, and Baker is going to continue doing what he’s been doing unless he’s stopped.  I want you to stop him.”  Knowing that Vasquez was the only one on the team actually smarter than Baker, he didn’t worry that she might not get his drift.

            The request hung in the air uneasily for just a few seconds before Vasquez shrugged and replied simply, “I was going to do it anyway.”

            Knowing that Vasquez needed no further assistance, Tucker simply said, “Could you call me when it's done?  Just so I'll know.”

~

            Baker had the terrain on his side, having grown up as a redneck Arkansan, hunting and tracking in the Ozarks, but Vasquez was confident that it wouldn't matter.  She was smarter, tougher and far more merciless.  Hiking through the woods, she imagined Tucker, at home in his BARCO lounger, worrying that she might end up as Baker’s next dinner, and the thought amused her.  She thought of the twisted look of distain on his face when he discussed cannibalism and laughed at his weakness.  Animals ate each other every day.  Tucker wanted Baker dead and her ability to act, without moralizing was going to accomplish in a day what a year's worth of by-the-book bullshit never came close to accomplishing.  Her team in Iraq had done things their way, covertly, without meddling by bureaucrats or armchair generals, and that's how this was going to go down.  

            It turned out to be a simple matter.  Knowing that he’d see her coming before she saw him, she just dressed as provocatively as an innocent, lost hiker could and walked around in the woods near his campsite until he showed up.  He'd been a little edgy, but ultimately he  took the bait and invited her back to his campsite.  Once there, she unceremoniously beat him to a pulp.  It had been fun.  He was a tough son-of-a-bitch alright, but it hadn't mattered and by the time his brain stopped rattling around in his skull and he’d put the pieces together he was tied to a tree and looked like a bloodied side of beef.

            She had to hand it to him, though.  He didn’t beg or cry.   He knew why she was there and had the cajones to spit one of his own teeth at her before sputtering defiantly, “Those assholes have been harassing me for a year, but if they could prove anything they wouldn’t have sent you.  And you’re the only murderer here you bitch, because I didn’t kill those people.”

            Before cutting his throat she just shrugged and stated flatly, “I never said you did.”

~

            After settling in she called Tucker on her cell, and when he answered she said plainly, “It’s done.”

            “Did he give you any trouble?” Tucker asked.   He was unable to disguise the surprise and relief in his voice and this amused Vasquez. Despite being aware of her qualifications, he was just another in a long line of people who had underestimated her.  No one ever saw her for the badass she was, which she supposed worked to her advantage.

            “No trouble,” Vasquez replied.

            “Well,” Tucker continued, seemingly searching for something else to say that would bring closure to the whole affair, “I guess he wasn’t bad-to-the-bone after all.”

            “Nope,” replied Vasquez, chewing on a piece of gristle and turning the meat on the spit over the campfire, “not at all.”