Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
I didn’t say anything, and neither did Bodhi. We’d both seen his bare back a few times when we played basketball, football, or racquetball, and the scars there, from what appeared to have been a flogging, along with various other marks all over him, spoke to hard living. I suspected his brothers-in-arms looked much the same.
“Listen, just take it easy, all right?” I ordered him.
He grunted, but clearly, he wasn’t about to get up and walk out of there. I was thinking our boss had something to do with that.
“Has Kage been here to see you?” I asked Ian.
“Yeah. He had to go back to the office to meet with Calhoun and the guys from Homeland.”
“Who’s watching his house now?” I asked, since Dorsey and Ryan were there, sitting in the room.
“My buddy George Hunt. He’s his daughter’s bodyguard.”
“Is he really a black-ops sniper?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah? I mean, I saw him that one time in their house back in, like, 2021. He was there with you, remember?”
Ian nodded. “Yeah.”
“So that was him?”
Ian made a noise of agreement.
“He looked beat to shit that night.”
“Yeah. He’d just gotten back from a mission in Dakar where the team lost a couple of guys,” he said solemnly. “He’s good now.”
“So tell me what happened with Brodie.”
He shook his head. “It was stupid. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Just tell me,” I prodded him.
“I went to grab some lunch and saw him across the street, and I thought, the fuck is he doing here today of all days, you know?”
“Because of what happened to Eli.”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “The timing was odd.”
“And so you did what?”
“I crossed the street to talk to him, and I called his name, but he didn’t turn around.”
“And you thought he couldn’t hear you.”
“I did, so I followed him, and when I was close enough, he turned so fast. Like one second everything was normal and the next he’s shooting fuckin’ mace at me.”
“Ours, or the cheap shit people buy at gun shops?”
“Ours. Standard fuckin’ issue, and of course I can’t see, and then he hit me with a baton.”
“He could have killed you.”
“Yeah, he could’ve, but I still broke his goddamn nose on the way down.”
I grinned at him. “You’re so mad.”
“Hell yes, I’m mad! Years of training, and fuckin’ douchebag Brodie gets the drop on me? I won’t be able to face any of the guys on my old team. I won’t be able to face Hunt the next time I see him.”
“You realize you never expected him to attack you.”
“But I should have known better. We did not part well.”
“Sure, but really, none of us saw this coming.”
“I know, I get it, but still, that would have never happened in the field.”
“You’ve been lulled into a false sense of security.”
“I have. I’ve lost my edge, and I need to reacquire it.”
I shook my head.
“No?” He was indignant. “Why would you say that?”
“Because you don’t need to be on a hair trigger all the time. You’re the deputy director. You’re the boss now. You have to find the diplomatic solution to the guy with a hammer.”
He growled, I laughed, and everyone got quiet as Ian crossed his arms.
“Right?”
“Yeah,” he said like it was painful.
And then everyone was a bit loud again, but not nearly at the decibel level I knew they could be.
When Chris Becker walked into the room, everyone shut up to hear him.
“Kage wants the following people to go home and go to bed,” he said, and listed the names, Bodhi and I being on the list. “The rest of you need to report to the office now, to be relieved by two in the afternoon.”
Everyone moved quickly.
“You have two guys from Judicial Support on the door,” Becker told Ian, “and CPD officers are walking this floor. Go to sleep, because I’m going to need your brain later.”
Ian nodded.
“He”—Becker pointed at Miro—“stays here with you, because while I respect the hell out of Kage, we are going to protect all our families until this is over. The press release goes wide in ten minutes, listing Brodie as armed and dangerous and for the public to not approach him. It’s a manhunt now, so we need to be ready.”
It was a nightmare, was what it was.
“Go home,” Becker ordered me, and I reached for Ian’s hand. He took mine and squeezed. He did the same with Bodhi, and then we were waiting by the elevators with everyone else.
“Kage didn’t even tell his family,” Cho said as we all entered the elevator. “They’re gonna see it on the news and worry about him when he’s worried about them.”
Bodhi scoffed.
“No?” Lopez asked him. “You think different?”
“They’re not going to be worried about him because all they’re going to see on the news is that a former marshal is wanted for questioning in conjunction with the attack on Kohn yesterday,” Bodhi explained. “There won’t be any mention of Doyle or the explosives—nothing. That’ll come out much later, much quieter, downplayed to something barely notable. Right now, what we know is a manhunt, the public at large will be led to think is merely routine.”