Page 74 of Sharp Force

“Where are they?” Dana Diletti asks the pilot in an acid tone. “Do we even know?”

“No, I don’t know!” He glares at our car and the FBI police officers.

I guess him to be in his forties, wiry in faded jeans, a gray hoodie and snow boots with leather uppers. He’s wearing a baseball cap,Hollywood, CAon the back of it.

“They can’t fucking do this! The same fucking thing they did last time!” he shrieks, the film crew looking on, frustrated and useless.

He storms over to them, sloshing through icy puddles, complaining and gesturing, so incensed it occurs to me that he might hit someone. He continues shooting us hateful glances as the helicopter gets quieter, retreating toward the Maryland shore on the other side of the Potomac.

Ripping off his headset, the drone pilot clamps it around his neck. He stalks over to the three officers clustered near the barricades, accusing them of violating his civil rights, calling them fascists and Nazis. All the while he’s flipping us off behind his back.

“You can’t shoot my drones out of the air! It’s illegal!” he yells.

“Sir, you need to calm way down. You need to back way off,” an officer orders, a woman solidly built, her long brown hair lifted by the wind.

“Don’t tell me what to fucking do!” He holds up his phone, filming her.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“I don’t have to tell you a fucking thing!” he menaces.

“Don’t get any closer and show me some form of identification.” She’s not smiling, her left hand near her taser. “A driver’s license. Something with your picture on it.”

“You can’t ask me that!”

“I can and did,” she answers with flat calm.

“This is why people hate police!”

“Show me an ID, sir.”

He pulls his wallet out of a back pocket as he continues to film with his phone. Awkwardly producing his driver’s license one-handed, he shoves it at her.

“Enzo Satterly, an Arlington address, is that you?” She makes sure everyone can hear her.

“Abuse of power!” he snarls. “Police brutality! This is what it looks like, folks.”

“Nobody’s done anything to you, sir. We just need to make sure who you are, and that you don’t interfere with the investigation going on.”

“This is private property, and we have permission to be here! Our First Amendment right.” He’s almost in her face.

“The island is an active crime scene, and the only one giving permission is us. You need to back away from me, sir. Don’t make me tell you again,” she warns, and her partners have moved in closer.

Using her phone, she takes a photograph of the license, returning it to the infuriated drone pilot.

“How am I supposed to retrieve the drones you shot out of the air?” he demands. “They’re my damn property! I want them back!”

“Maybe you should have thought about that before flying them over an active crime scene,” she suggests.

“The hospital gave me permission!”

“It’s not up to the hospital. We’ve asked you politely to stop.”

“You know how much those commercial-quality quadcopters cost? Well, you’re about to find out!”

Enzo Satterly storms back to the van, his boots squishing through slush. Sliding open the door, he bangs it shut behind him.

“Someone’s unhappy,” Benton says.