Chapter Thirty-Two

Olivia stood at her office window, pulling back the drape and looking over at Nutsbe's house. It was dark. So was the house next door, the house where Nutsbe said Clive and Milly lived. They must have gone to bed. Nutsbe said he had to go back to the office for an overseas call.

She felt better knowing he was just over the fence.

Olivia looked down at Henrietta. "We'll be okay, right?" She wandered through the house, checking the windows, checking the locks. She regretted that she hadn't fixed the back door yet. But if someone wanted to get in, what was breaking a pane of glass other than a bit of a warning sound?

Standing in the hall, her thoughts vacillated with indecision.

She had showered and was dressed in her nightshirt, ready for bed.

Olivia thought back to that fear-prickle and Mickey. Remembering her thoughts about the intuitive flashespeople had before the moment of violence and that inconvenience pushed them forward into the path of the criminal, she examined her own decisions.

She had protected her aunt by sending her to a hotel.

Until her divorce, maybe she should do that for herself as well. "Tomorrow, I'll go to a hotel." She took a step toward her room, and her body convulsed. Her shoulders were up to her ears. She was frozen in place. "Henrietta, did you hear something?" she whispered.

Nope tonight. Tonight, we'll go to a hotel. We won't take my car. I'll call a taxi.

Olivia hustled to her room and grabbed an overnight bag. "Ten minutes, and we're out of here, Henny. Five minutes." Her hands shook as she gathered her toothbrush and a comb. "Three. I can be out of here in three."

She stilled.

Were those footsteps on the stairs?

Olivia looked down to find Henrietta staring at the bathroom door and was startled to hear her dog rumble warning noises that Olivia had never heard her make before.

Grabbing up her phone, holding it impatiently to her face to open the screen, Olivia jabbed at the phone pad to call 9-1-1.

The door burst open.

A smack to her hand sent the phone flying. It hit the wall with a crack and fell silently onto the bathmat.

A gun at her temple had an enormous power of persuasion.

Following instructions, Olivia walked slowly to her office.

Henrietta snarled and danced, trying to be brave and helpful when she, too, was so obviously terrified. The next lunge and the second man gave Henrietta a kick that sent her sailing back into the bathroom. And he shut the door.

Olivia listened hard.

Henrietta sounded freaked. But those weren't the sounds she made when she was in pain.

And with the cold metal pressing against her temple, there was nothing Olivia was willing to do right now except to try very hard to remember that if they wanted to pull that trigger—if they wanted her dead—it would be over.

Over might be the better outcome here, was the thought that whispered just under her breath.

Death might be their endgame. But there was at least a middle. And in that middle, she had an opportunity to survive, she reasoned. And that began with compliance.

Did she learn: Hide. Run. Fight?

Yes.

Was that going to work here?

No.

They didn't teach her in those shooter scenarios how her body would stop functioning, that she was basically an autonomic system—heart beating, eyelids blinking, the inhale and exhale of oxygen, though that was strangled and shallow.

No, Olivia couldn't get her body to fight or run, couldn't make her mouth open and scream.

She fell into the desk chair that had been dragged to the middle of her office.

She offered nothing by way of counter when her forearms were duct taped in place.

She watched them do it like she was an indifferent observer.

Somewhere in her mind, Olivia remembered that duct tape was an illusion. One could get out of it. But that would take privacy and time. And Olivia had neither. Nor did she have control of her limbs or thoughts in any meaningful way.

A gun to the head had magical powers, debilitating, enfeebling powers.

The man—in his jeans and biker boots, his heavy leather jacket, and wallet chains, with his shoulder-length gray hair slicked back into a ponytail, and the neck tattoo—sat at her desk behind her, opened the laptop, tapped the screen open, and walked over to show the security app her face. "Thank you." He sat at her desk and started looking through her files.

Olivia had tried a lot of cases. And she had learned about the depravity of humanity.

This was her midnight.

Things were dire.

The sniper and even the ambush, by comparison, felt benign.

Olivia knew that there was nothing she owned—no valuable in the physical world, no piece of intelligence in the factual world that she was willing to suffer for.

Take it.

What was she willing to protect with pain?

Those she loved.

And all she could think was that Mickey had done this. These were some bikers that owed him. He'd let them get away with some crime along the way, and he was pulling in his chit.

She was one day closer to her divorce.

He was one day closer to being locked out of his millions-of-dollars payday.

Olivia wished her aunt was poor. Olivia didn't need or even want the money. At this moment, Olivia wished Aunt Jo had never mentioned her will in passing. Mickey would have never guessed she was rich; Aunt Jo led a frugal life.

How long could she hold out against these men to protect her Aunt?

Her only hope was that somehow Nutsbe would look out his bedroom window and see too many shadows through the curtain and call her, and then …

Olivia mentally swiped at that thought hoping to pocket it before it became a prayer—a wish—a self-fulfilling anything. No, she didn't want Nutsbe to come. Because he would try to protect her. And as brave and strong and wonderful as he was, he was one against two.

This guy had a gun.

And yes, seeing a problem—just like when Mickey was trying to dognap Henrietta—he'd swipe, calling into Iniquus, and Iniquus might well barrel full force their way—but could any reasonable person think they'd get here in time to make a difference?

Candace had called for help for her and her friends, but she alone survived.

Olivia hated that she lived behind Nutsbe. She honestly couldn't imagine he wouldn't come.

Mickey was a piece of shit. May he rot in hell.

Only one of what she'd counted as two intruders was sitting in front of her. Olivia could hear the other one downstairs emptying her drawers onto the floor.

Ponytail pushed a wheeled chair over in front of her. Looking at her with an easy smile. "Hello, Olivia,"

She pressed her lips together.

"I'm going to tape our little talk."

What is that accent?

He placed a micro recorder on the side table and pulled it closer to them.

Shit.

"Did you know that recently, the Middle East lost a top nuclear scientist?" he asked.

What?

"A machine gun was propped up in a parked car, and the man was killed by remote control." He reached out and swiped the piece of hair that had fallen across her eyes and tucked it neatly behind her ear. "Do you believe in tit-for-tat?"

"I'm not a scientist," Olivia said.

"That's not really how it happened. You can't remote-control an assassination like that. Assassinations are personal. They're the poetry of retribution. They should be performed with attention to nuance and detail."

Olivia blinked at the biker.

Nuance?

She'd never met a biker who would lace that word into a sentence. Was this guy in a costume, acting a part? She remembered the story of the motorcycles and the CIA. But the CIA's job was to gather foreign intelligence. In the U.S., it would be the FBI who worked domestically.

Who was this guy?

Why was he talking to her about the poetry of assassinations?

Did this have to do with the grand jury?

Did this have to do with the Offseds? What had Kyle been ranting about? Was Kyle having a psychotic break at court, or was it an act? Is it possible he was part of a cult?

Yes, maybe this man was a cult member.

Knowing what Olivia knew about Candace's story, she froze in space. The fear was a stranglehold.

"Do you know who did a good job with his attempted assassination? He drew his finger across Olivia's lips.

Olivia forced herself to blink.

"There was the man in Brussels with the hostages on the train. Unfortunately, he went with only an ax. He wasn't able to kill anyone, let alone his required number, before the police shot him. He died beautifully, though. His body was elegant as it fell."

Elegant?

In court, Olivia looked at people's clothing and listened to their word choices. From those clues, she decided how best to question them. This man was an enigma. He confused her. Bird-like, her thoughts jumped from branch to branch as she tried to find a place to nest, the right tune to sing.

Henrietta was scratching furiously at the bathroom door. Her shrill bark sparked Olivia's high-voltage nerves.

"Sixty officers came. It's a lovely number sixty. Round. I like the zero at the end. It feels complete." He put his hands on her knees. "And there was the man in Bern. And another one in Rome. These were accomplished by a string of asylum seekers who tried to leave their countries behind. It turns out that their families" pain weighed heavy on them, so they did as they were instructed. Failed, obviously, but the attempt was made."

Families? Aunt Jo? Jaylen? To whom was he referring to here?

"Do you know which country has not listened to a symphony of sadness for a while or in decades, really? Here. In your United States. It would be good for America to throb with grief."

Throb?

He'd said, "Your United States." He wasn't from here. What was that accent? Canadian? But Canadians were known for being nice. This wasn't nice.

"Olivia," he whispered. "You know, don't you, that last year the FBI stopped a terrorist plot here in Washington."

Her case with the grand jury?

"The FBI spied on its own citizens with a digital spying authority. We waited until this year. Do you know what was happening this year? Congress is in disarray. The potential is that the foreign surveillance authority would be one of the many important pieces of US security that would fail to renew. And if that happened? We would have so much power to make so many vital changes in American infrastructure. Buildings would come down, subways taken offline, power grids could cease, and the beauty of a well-crafted assassination could be rendered." He squeezed her knees and looked into her eyes. "The House acted, thwarting our hopes. And alas," he shook his head. "our assassin was scraped up in the FBI's net."

Olivia swallowed.

Not Mickey. And not the Offseds. This was about her grand jury. Shit.

The FBI had done herculean work stopping domestic terror. And now it was on her team to put the would-be terrorists in jail.

"And so we need someone to take our assassin's place. And we feel that you would be the person to do this. But first," he smiled and tapped the recorder, "I was sent here to gather some understanding of who is talking to the grand jury, what they've said, and how we can find them."