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Showered and dressed in his Iniquus uniform of gunmetal gray compression shirt and gray camo tactical pants, Nutsbe shook hands with FBI Joint Task Force members Kennedy and Finley as they came through the door, taking their usual seats at the conference table.
Those two had been both Iniquus adversaries and close partners on a number of cases over the years.
Nutsbe wondered which side of the coin they landed on with this case.
The only other guy in the room was Sy Covington, one of Iniquus’s top lawyers, so either way, Nutsbe knew this was bad.
“Let’s dive straight in,” Kennedy said. “I was working at an FBI station in Eastern Europe. Your name is lighting up communications between Russia and Albania.”
“Oh.” Yup. This was what Nutsbe had been afraid of.
“It’s hard to tell what’s going on from the context of the conversations,” Kennedy said, a worry line formed between his brows.
“It’s my name explicitly?” Nutsbe’s heart thumped hard against his breastbone. They had his name. Shit. “Nutsbe Crushed?”
“Thaddeus Crushed,” Kennedy said, “explicitly. Looks like you’ve ruffled some feathers.”
Nutsbe laced his fingers, planted his forearms on the table, and leaned forward. “So you didn’t hear my name in your New York office?”
Finley and Kennedy turned to each other, checking to see if their partner had that information.
Finally, Kennedy turned back with his lips pursed. “Is New York working with you on a case? We aren’t here to step on toes.”
“If they were working with me, they’d say Nutsbe, not Thaddeus.” He unraveled his fingers and knocked on the table. “Thaddeus is my legal name.” Nutsbe swallowed hard and focused on Kennedy since he worked internationally. Finley worked out of D.C., where he worked on terror threats, and he was probably here as a backup of some kind. “Did Russia mention that I was targeted for a hit?”
Again, the two looked at each other before turning back to Nutsbe. “A hit?” Kennedy asked.
“Plutonium tea?” Nutsbe asked. “Nerve agent on my doorknob? A quick trip down a long flight of stairs?”
“Why would they care about you?” Finley asked.
“No one in your chatter is talking about specifics?” Covington sat to Nutsbe’s right, pressed back in the captain's chair with his ankle comfortably on his knee. His elbows relaxed on the armrests while his hands perched on his stomach. Zero tension. But then again, he was legal counsel, and no one was potentially putting him in the crosshairs.
“From what we’ve picked up, it seems that Nutsbe—Thaddeus—created a problem that they hadn’t considered.” Kennedy looked directly at Nutsbe. “My sense is that you opened a can of worms. We wondered if it was an Iniquus mission. Yours was the only name we picked up.”
“But you knew it was my name. Not some rando Thaddeus Crushed from elsewhere.”
“Thaddeus Crushed, working in Washington D.C., connected to the FBI,” Finley said. “We did a public search of the area, and there are no other Thaddeus Crusheds on the East Coast. Closest one is in Ohio, and he’s in his mid-seventies. We could have done a deeper dive into government records, but our team member, Prescott, remembered being on a mission to save DARPA scientist Zoe Kealoha when you mentioned that name to the good doctor.”
“Yeah, she wasn’t keen on calling me Nutsbe. Small world. And damned good memory on Prescott’s part.” Nutsbe slid his palms down his thighs to his knees and left them there. “Well, Russia and Albania are chatting about me. Listen, I need a heads-up if they decide to kill me. If you hear anything, I’m an immediate call.”
Kennedy’s brow drew in a little tighter. “Of course we would.”
Nutsbe jutted forward. “There’s no, of course, about it. That’s not how these things work. What you’d do is weigh me and my life against whatever was going on, and you’d figure out what outcome was the most advantageous to you.”
Covington shifted in his chair.
“Respectfully,” Nutsbe added.
“So you know what this is about, the whys of your name on the channels,” Finley’s even tone was a counterpoint to the agitation that Nutsbe was feeling. “We’re hoping you can share the information with us. That way, we can do our due diligence and keep you safe if things go from a simmer to a rolling boil.”
Nutsbe turned to Covington. “What do I do here?” His lips were buzzing. That had only happened to him on a few occasions in his life: his first jump out of a plane, his F16’s engines dying in the sandstorm, waking up to find that he’d had both of his legs amputated.
“Command prefers that you cooperate with the D.C. Joint Task Force once they’ve assured you that they’ll protect your confidence,” Covington said with carefully chosen words.
“How do you see that playing out?” Kennedy asked.
“Simple,” Covington offered an easygoing smile. “You didn’t get the information from Thaddeus Crushed. You came across the information. I know your protocols will create chain of command and process issues.” He opened his palms upward. “But this is a choice you need to make,” He laced his fingers again and gave a nod as if the decision was a done deal.
