Page 55

For a while now, the motorcycles hung back far enough that they couldn’t be heard over the rest of the traffic. He’d catch flashes of them far back in his mirror. Now that he’d turned onto the empty road heading toward Headquarters, Nutsbe could hear them again.
Rounding the curve where a speed adjustment wouldn’t be as visible, Nutsbe took his foot off the gas pedal. He kept his focus on the rearview. And there they were.
Olivia heard it now. She twisted in her seat. “Oh shit. Do you think it’s them?”
“If it is, it’s hard to imagine that they’d do anything out here. We’re almost to Iniquus.” Nutsbe reassured her. “It’s a protected campus. If they’re still following us when we get near the security gate, our cameras will pick up the license plates, and we can identify the owners.” He resumed his speed. He didn’t want to spook them. Nutsbe wanted those pictures of the plates. “If these two follow us all the way to Iniquus, we’ll take steps.” Nutsbe’s focus slid to the red toggle on the instrument panel, and Olivia followed his gaze.
“What’s that red thing for?”
Nutsbe grinned. “It opens up a can of worms.”
“Helpful worms?” Her voice was equal parts curious and worried.
“This is an Iniquus vehicle. Iniquus tracks their fleet. That toggle would light me up on the board. They’d be moving assets into place. Remember how I used your phone to keep Iniquus looped in? That toggle opens up that comms line. It allows me to explain the situation and effectuate the right response. For example, if satellite is available, they’d watch from the sky and advise.”
“Movie scenarios.” Olivia exhaled.
“Real-world scenarios.”
She turned around. “They’re still following.”
“At a specific distance. If I speed up, so do they. If I slow down, so do they. It’s poor tracking craft.”
“Do you do that?” Olivia yanked her seat belt so tight Nutsbe was afraid she’d cut off her circulation. “Follow people? Track them?”
“I track them on my computer. I’m not an operator. I train like an operator, so I understand what’s possible and what’s not possible in the field. Movies are make-believe, and I can’t ever just imagine something can be done. We’re not actors. There’s no fake blood to wash off at the end of the day, as you’ve experienced earlier.”
“That’s,” Olivia pushed her hair from her face, “frightening.”
“More frightening than what you do day in and day out with criminals like Kyle Offsed?”
“This case was actually my gentle case. I have another one that makes me feel really scared for the first time. There’s a big damned dragon my office is trying to slay.”
“What can you tell me about that?”
“Nothing other than they just seated a grand jury.”
As they approached the underpass, the car that had been a good distance ahead of them swerved to the center of the road and came to a sudden stop just inside the mouth of the tunnel, effectively blocking the road.
Nutsbe braked as his hand toggled the emergency switch.
The motorcycles roared up from behind. And there was the Beowolf rumble that Nutsbe had anticipated; motorcycles equaled bad guys.
“Iniquus communications. Identify yourself.”
Four men swarmed for the car and were running toward them. “Nutsbe Crushed. Panther Force. Code red. Code red. Code red. Ambush. Possible carjacking.”
As they raised their hands and Nutsbe registered their firearms, he yelled, “Guns. Guns. Guns.” His foot moved from brake to the gas, and he managed, thanks to his ongoing vehicular evasion training, to floor it with enough finesse that he didn’t spin the wheels.
The SUV rocketed forward.
The men in his path were too busy jumping out of the way to point and pull the trigger.
The open doors were a mirage. Nutsbe only needed to calculate the side of the car body, the side of the underpass, and the width of this behemoth of an SUV. He thought maybe it was possible.
His only other out was backing up.
He could do a lot in his car with evasive driving, but he wasn’t there with his lower limb or hand control agility to whip the car around in a one-eighty to get out of Dodge.