Fugitives can't hide from this deputy U.S. marshal It is 6:24 a.m., the sun has not yet risen and the parking lot remains a lattice of shadow and orange-yellow streetlight as Deputy U.S. Marshal Willard King and four other deputies march toward the target of their raid, an apartment in Upper Marlboro where they think a fugitive is hiding. King, wearing a bright red winter cap, gray sweatshirt and jeans, stations one deputy outside the rear of the complex in case the fugitive - a 23-year-old robber wanted for skipping a court appearance - leaps from the apartment's third-floor window. Then he and the three other deputies slip through the unlocked entrance and up the stairs to apartment 303. Cupping his ear to the black door, King listens. Silence. The deputy, who at 6 feet 4 and 225 pounds has the solid build of a college tight end, starts pounding on the door - so hard that its metal frame rattles. "Maintenance," King screams in a Spanish accent, a common ruse. No answer. More pounding. Finally, a rustle and a woman's groggy voice from just behind the door: "Who is it?" Pol-leece! King yells in a menacing bass, a voice so deep that it has enticed offers for him to join his church choir. Ma'am, I need you to open this door! The deadbolt clicks, and the door opens a crack to reveal King's quarry, wearing only a pair of cartoon-decorated boxer shorts and black socks. The fugitive blinks against the hallway lights. "Did I miss my court date?" the man asks while the deputies snap on the cuffs. The arrest is a dramatic start to a typical shift for King and a 16-member squad of deputy U.S. marshals in the District that focuses on capturing fugitives. The deputies don't solve crimes, and they don't care whether fugitives are guilty; their job is to find them. In doing so, they play an indispensable role in the criminal justice system. Murderers, rapists, armed robbers, prostitutes, drug dealers, defendants who skip court dates and reluctant witnesses - deputies chase them all. Hunting fugitives is dangerous - two deputies were fatally shot serving warrants last year in Missouri and West Virginia - and aspects of the job are just like what you see in movies such as "The Fugitive." On almost every shift, it seems there is a requisite adrenaline-coursing rush of storming through a door, a high-speed pursuit, the use of high-tech tracking tools and a good-cop/bad-cop routine that can be just as dramatic as the ones you see on "Law & Order." But the work is also complex and nuanced - it's combing databases to build a dossier on a "bandit," a term deputies have used to describe fugitives since at least the Wild West era; it's unspooling web upon web of lies; it's carefully finagling information from a fugitives" relatives; it's pre-dawn raids to catch a slumbering fugitive followed by frenetic day-long dashes across the region in search of six more; it's shivering in a stale-smelling government sedan during days-long stakeouts. Most of all, it's a cat-and-mouse chase that pits deputy against bandit, a competition that requires the careful weighing of facts and instinct on the fly - as demonstrated by the effort needed to nab the robber on this frigid Tuesday in Upper Marlboro.