Part 4
Rook struck before the bar came down.
His body rose between the man and me, jaws closing on the forearm holding the tool. The man cried out. Steel hit the floor and slid beneath a seat.
The dog’s momentum carried him sideways into the aisle. He fell hard, with Rook still attached to his arm, and the passengers nearest him scrambled backward as far as the seats allowed.
I heard myself make a small, repetitive sound. My hands were still held above my knees, reaching for fur that was no longer there.
The man tried to pull free once.
Rook answered with a growl and held him down. He didn’t move from one place to another or continue biting. He kept the arm he had taken and stopped the man from getting up.
I could see the discarded pry bar under the opposite seat.
It had been meant for my knee. Even after the man was on the floor, that fact wouldn’t settle anywhere I could bear to keep it.
Caleb reached us at a run that stopped abruptly beside my row. His eyes went to the tool, the man, and then my legs.
“Release.”
Rook let go immediately and backed a short distance away, still watching.
Caleb secured the attacker’s uninjured wrist to a seat anchor with a restraint from his belt. The man was crying now, holding his damaged arm close to his chest. His mask had slipped beneath his chin.
His name, I would learn in the federal interviews, was Nolan. He had been the third member of the retrieval crew, placed in our car before any of us knew there was a crew at all.
Caleb knelt in front of me.
“Erin. Did the bar touch you?”
I shook my head.
“Did he get hold of either leg?”
“No.” The word came out in a breath. “Rook didn’t let him.”
Caleb put his hand against the dog’s head. “Good work.”
Rook’s tail struck the seat once. He looked up at me, then back toward the front of the car.
Caleb followed his glance before asking, “At the appointment today, were your braces out of your sight?”
I couldn’t understand the question.
He waited a beat, then tried again. “Did someone take them into another room?”
“Yes. My specialist.” I wiped my cheek with the heel of my hand. “Dr. Bellamy. He said the hinges weren’t tracking properly.”
“How long?”
“About forty minutes. Maybe a little more.”
Caleb looked down at the outside of my left calf.
“I’ve seen him for five years,” I said. “He knows my whole history.”
His fingers moved along the metal strut, very lightly. He stopped near a seam I had never noticed.
“Did he change this section?”
“He said he was reinforcing it. So there wouldn’t be as much strain when I walked.”
Caleb pressed his lips together. For a moment, he looked away from me, toward the window and the wet tunnel wall beyond it. When he turned back, his voice was controlled with obvious effort.
“They put a drive in here. Those men are trying to retrieve it.”
I looked at my brace.
There was a mark beside one strap where I had once spilled nail polish. I knew every adjustment, every place it rubbed through a stocking. It was something I handled before I was fully awake each morning.
“He used me?”
Caleb didn’t pretend otherwise.
“He used the equipment you need.”
I pulled my hands away from the brace as though I had touched something contaminated.
“But I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean, I would never—”
“Erin.” He waited until I looked at him. “I know.”
A passenger on the floor began praying softly. Farther forward, a loose panel rattled with the ventilation system.
“Take it out,” I said. “Give it to them. Please. If that’s what they want, just let them have it.”
Caleb’s answer was immediate.
“They’ve already shot at us. Handing it over won’t save the witnesses.”
I looked toward the mother and her child.
Caleb followed my gaze, then lowered his voice. “We’re getting you out. All of you.”
Glass crunched near the front of the car.
Rook turned before I saw who had entered.
Adrian stood in the doorway with his pistol raised. His glasses were gone, and one side of his shirt was dusted with fragments from the broken window. The leather case had been left somewhere behind him.
Caleb stood.
“Watch,” he told Rook.
The dog stepped into the aisle. Caleb moved behind him and brought his own weapon up.
People who had been whispering fell silent. I could hear the small, uneven breaths of the woman crouched across from me.
Adrian looked from Rook to Caleb.
“You’ve made this expensive.”
“Leave the gun,” Caleb said. “It ends here.”
“Does it?” Adrian’s mouth pulled sideways. “You think the dog makes you untouchable? You’re a long way from your unit, soldier.”
“Working dog,” Caleb said. “Navy SEAL.”
Adrian’s gaze sharpened.
For the first time since he had approached our seat, he looked as though a detail had failed to fit the plan he had been given.
“You don’t understand what you’re standing in front of.” He shifted enough to see me around Caleb’s shoulder. “That brace holds a targeting system worth more than everyone in this car.”
Caleb didn’t answer.
“Veltrix built it under a classified defense contract. A prototype quantum targeting algorithm. The people paying for it won’t stop because an old operator decided to be decent.”
I watched a drop of sweat travel from Adrian’s temple toward his jaw.
“You’ll die for a girl whose name you learned half an hour ago.”
“I know what you are,” Caleb said. “That’s enough.”
Adrian’s eyes moved around the car.
He couldn’t get past Caleb without crossing the narrow aisle. The rear of the car offered no easy route away. Passengers were packed against seats and walls, leaving him too many people to control and nowhere he could move unnoticed.
Then his gaze stopped on a woman in an aisle seat.
She had been crouching behind the seat ahead with one hand against her mouth. She was middle-aged, with a hospital identification badge still clipped to her cardigan. Her name was Lydia Mercer, a nurse finishing her own journey home.
Adrian grabbed her collar and hauled her upright.
Her shoe caught beneath the seat. He dragged her free, pulling her against him before she could find her balance, and pressed the pistol to the side of her head.
“No!” someone cried.
Lydia’s hands rose slowly. She looked toward Caleb with her mouth trembling, trying to hold still enough not to make the gun move.
Adrian jerked her closer.
“Put it down!” His voice cracked across the car. “Now. Or she dies.”
Caleb kept his weapon raised.
My fingers dug into the armrest until my wrists hurt. Lydia’s badge had turned backward on its clip, leaving only its plain white back visible against her sweater.
Adrian pushed the barrel harder against her temple.
“I’m not asking again.”
Caleb eased one hand away from his pistol and lowered it toward his pocket.
“All right,” he said. “Watch me…”
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