Chapter Nineteen

Nutsbe offered his arm to Olivia, and she took it, walking alongside him, her hip brushing his as they moved easily together.

He'd prefer to hold her hand, but he had to be ready if he needed to jump into action.

Beowolf trotted along on a loose lead. As they made their way to the SUV location, Iniquus sent to his phone. Nutsbe was using Beowolf as his barometer, watching to see if he was predicting an impending shitstorm. Right now, Beowolf's posture seemed relaxed.

"Hey, Nutsbe, how would Beowolf have known to drag me to the ground the way he did?" Olivia asked as they moved down the sidewalk.

"Beowolf lives at the Cerberus Kennel with the tactical dogs, so I'm not sure what he's seen other dogs do and picked up from dog-to-dog mentorship. And beyond hospital visits and court support, I'm honestly not sure what Beowolf's trained to do. Certainly not tactical stuff." Nutsbe pointed to the left, so Olivia would know they were rounding the corner.

"Like?"

"He doesn't fast rope out of helicopters strapped to an operator's ruck."

"At two hundred plus pounds?" Olivia looked bemused. "That would be tough."

"It's possible Beowolf was in a training group to spot the reflection on a scope. That makes sense to me. Back at the parking lot, he was acting agitated for a while before he grabbed you. I focused up where he had been looking and saw the glint just as he started to pull you to the ground." Nutsbe thought it was good to keep Olivia talking. In all the years that his team had been pulling victims out of life-or-death situations, he noticed that they always did the worst when they shut down and went silent. Nutsbe was going to encourage conversation.

"And then you jumped on the pile," she murmured.

"Again, I just met Beowolf, I don't know his training, but I can tell you that the K9s that go out with my team are all trained to watch the weapon's finger. As long as the finger is in a safe position, a weapon won't get a bite. Move the finger into the trigger guard, and the fur missile launches without command and gets that wrist locked down between, say, two hundred pounds of bite pressure, and the attacker cannot flex the finger."

"From that distance, he could discern that tiny movement of the finger? That seems improbable."

"I have no idea."

"And he bit me. No, he didn't bite," Olivia corrected. "Dragged me to the ground. It was a strong enough grip—what should I call it?— I had no choice but to move where he wanted me to go. But he didn't pierce my skin."

"His breed tackles and traps."

"That's one way to describe it. It was unexpected, for sure. I didn't know what was happening."

Nutsbe pointed at the SUV painted the Iniquus branded charcoal gray.

Before they reached the vehicle, Nutsbe decided to go ahead and ask the uncomfortable question. "Do you think that could have been Pauley up there?"

Another thing Nutsbe had learned over his years with Iniquus, if you're asking a survivor about something with a lot of emotion attached, it was best to do it while moving. That way, some of the sparking energy could dissipate.

"It occurred to me, yes," Olivia said without hesitation. "He has the skills and the motivation. But going back to the arc you drew. I'm not a thousand percent that either you or I were the specific target. I know these irregular wind gusts are confounding. And it makes sense to me that the bullets were landing erratically in the area and not in a sniper's ‘one-inch box at a hundred yards,' which is their standard requirement. But that one-inch mastery can only happen when the air current is predictable, and the calculations can be done."

"True," Nutsbe acknowledged.

"The Offsed brothers have been threatening my team. They'd have some skills—mmm, I don't know their skill level. They like to practice shooting with a militia group."

They arrived at the vehicle, and Nutsbe reached under the running board to extract the magnetic box with the car's fob. He swiped open his phone app and tapped in the code that would turn the radio waves on, activating the fob's connectivity. Pressing the button, the vehicle chirruped as the back gate lifted.

Rounding to the back with Beowolf, Nutsbe discovered a dog bed and a blankie ready. "Beowolf, load." Nutsbe put his hands under Beowolf's rump to help heft him up. Once Beowolf smelled the beef jerky treats that Automotive had left for him, he scrambled the rest of the way up just fine on his own.

As Nutsbe closed the hatch, Olivia climbed into the passenger side and pulled on her belt.

Nutsbe slid under the steering wheel and adjusted the mirrors before sending Olivia a check-in glance. He pressed the engine button and flicked on his directional light, then waited for a break in traffic to merge and head down the road. Over here, away from the crime scene, everything seemed to be humming along like normal.

"It could have nothing to do with any of us," Olivia continued where they'd left off. "It could be a random shooter who thought that he'd sit on the roof and take potshots at the federal judges. Something could be moving through the courts that didn't align with his politics, and he might have just lumped everyone into the same pot. Could have been stochastic terror."

"He?" Nutsbe looked at her, then flicked on his turn signal.

"Statistically, we're looking at a white male under forty."

"And you have something going to the grand jury?"

"Yeah." She brushed at her skirt. "I can't talk about that."

"Would those players land on this list? Are they motivated and capable?"

"They are, yes. Motivated without doubt. Capable? Definitely." She pulled down the visor to look in the mirror, then fussed with her wind-knotted hair.

Nutsbe didn't share—couldn't share—that it might have been he who put Olivia in the crosshairs. Could Russia or Albania have done that? Improbable. It wasn't their style. Could it have been the FBI? Absolutely. Yeah. Definitely their style.

As if reading his mind, Olivia spoke the words he'd been thinking, "The FBI will be knocking on our doors. It will be tricky because there is so much that I can't share with them." She slapped the visor back in place. "I'd like to change the subject, please."

"You choose." Nutsbe was paying close attention to the flow of traffic around him. He didn't know if he was still primed from the sniper or what was happening, but a prickle across his scalp told him to stay vigilant.

Olivia watched him work the gas and brake pedals. "So how is it you can drive the car? I'm trying to work it out in my brain. I have a friend who has M.S., and once she lost sensation in her feet, she had to give up driving a standard car. She had the assistive technology installed for her hands."

"Let me start by telling you that I can, at any point, use my hands. I've trained extensively and been tested for proficiency in using my bionic limbs. There's just no leeway in state law, so I am required to have the hand capability. That's this here." He pointed. "Now, to answer your question, the surgeons I was telling you about in Afghanistan?"

"Yes."

"They kept as much of my nerve and muscle tissue as possible in my residual limbs. Later, they mapped out what touch point triggered what sensation in my brain. When they touched here, it felt like my pinky toe. If they touched there, it felt like my heel. So that's one set of sensors. Then, other sensors read the muscles in my thighs, knees, and glutes. The AI system determines the movement associated with which sets of muscles are firing. The software puts it all together, and while not perfect, it's darned good. That group keeps making strides forward." He sent her a smile so she'd pay attention to his play on words. "Today, I'm field-testing new prostheses. They have a system they're experimenting with to help with stability. So far, high marks."

"Science being accumulative," she let that thought trail off, then said, "Another friend, acquaintance really, she has an ALS diagnosis. She's watching this research group who just did their first brain implant. It's supposed to be going really well. The implant is attached to a computer, and the patient can communicate and access the computer by thinking things. Can you imagine the impact on someone with, say, quadriplegia or Parkinson's? I can think of a host of other issues that might really benefit."

"An incredible achievement if it's safe." Nutsbe focused on his rearview as Beowolf got to the back of the cargo space and stared out the window, panting.

"In the future, I wonder if something like that could somehow get integrated with prosthetic limbs. Maybe someday cyborgs might actually be a thing."

Yeah, the magical what-if. One of Nutsbe's least favorite topics. "I don't need that," he said evenly. "I work with the research scientists because I'm one of the few who can help them. They were there for me at a time when they could make a huge difference in my life, and I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity to pay that back. But I'd be fine either way. Alive is good."

"Alive is good. Yes." She was quiet for a moment. "So what risks?"

He glanced her way.

"Besides infection and other obvious things, you seemed to have more than that in your voice when you said, ‘If it's safe.'"

"Extrapolate out from this story: I have a friend whose pregnant wife and baby were kidnapped. The criminal hacked into her car's computer system and was able to follow her GPS. When she was on a remote stretch of road, they used the car's computer brake system to stop her vehicle. The criminal walked over with a gun, and there was nothing his wife could do but comply."

"What?" Olivia screeched. "They had outside control of her car?"

Maybe the wrong thing to bring up at the wrong time. He'd switch it back to medical. "Can you imagine if a bad guy could hack a medical pump? A pacemaker? A brain with a new sensor?"

"When the enemy is inside the house," Olivia whispered.

"Exactly."

"Yeah, that's a lot to weigh into the equation." She looked down at her hands knotted in her lap and seemed to force herself to ask. "Is your friend's family okay?"

"Smart woman. Very pragmatic. She figured a way out. Iniquus has a program for our significant others on how to handle situations. She put that training to good use. And she saved her family."

Olivia scooted around in the seat, looked out the back window for a long moment, and then faced Nutsbe. "Would you train me?"

"To be a significant other?"

"I-I-I," she stammered.

Nutsbe reached over and squeezed her arm. "I'm giving you a hard time. You're asking about what to do when? If you were getting carjacked like she was?"

"Yes, carjacking. It's a major problem in D.C. right now. The other day, the thieves shot that dad. I know they will often bump your car, and when you get out to exchange information, someone runs up, jumps in, and takes off. I know that you're supposed to let them go."

"Right," Nutsbe agreed.

"The guy happened to be standing at the door." She skated a hand out. "I'm not blaming the victim in any way. I'm just saying that sometimes things go okay, and sometimes they just don't. We don't have any control except, in my mind, in trying to be kind. So I guess my question is, what should I do beyond trying to be a good person and not give karma a reason to create havoc?"

Nutsbe nodded. "Okay, some carjacking, basics."

"Just a minute. Nutsbe, could we go back to the first part of this conversation?"

He looked over to her and pulled his brows together. He didn't know what she meant by ‘the first part of this conversation,' but her tone told him she had some big emotions brewing, and he gripped the wheel.

"I like you. And so I need to say this." She licked her lips. "I don't have your lived experience, and I'm going to make mistakes and say the wrong things. I'll learn with time. I hope I haven't offended you so much that you'll avoid me. It's not my intention—"

"You know what, Olivia?" Nutsbe grinned. She liked him. "As long as you're not crying, we can talk most anything out. Classified is off the table, of course."

"Okay, how about we talk about why you keep looking in your rearview mirror like that?"