“Anything that keeps me from being the unit’s transcriptionist is good by me.” JoJo—who was really Special Agent Josephine Anna Jones—stretched in her chair, throwing her arms up and arching her spine. PsyLED agents didn’t tend to follow regulations in dress or hairstyle, and JoJo was less amenable to rules than most. Today she was wearing red and pink—red beads in her wrapped braids; red leggings under a flowing pink skirt; layered dark pink, skintight, tank-style tunics that flared below her waist; and a short, dark red jacket. Her shoes were black. If for some reason JoJo had to go into the field, the skirt would come off, field boots would replace the shoes, and she would be ready to go. “What else did you find?” she asked.
I almost told her that the mints were happy today, but JoJo would just roll her eyes. “Everyone at the party has interlocking business and personal relationships that sometimes go back generations. They attend the same churches, are either right wing or left in their politics and theology, vacation at the same places, and bank at the same institutions. Their vacations are lavish. They routinely cheat on their spouses. They divorce often, and those divorces are spectacular and vicious, the custody battles brutal. They make money together, they politic together, and they marry into each other’s families. It’s almost incestuous.” And I would know, coming from a church where the bloodlines were mapped out for generations to keep us from marrying our own cousins. “You?”
“More of the same. Nothing that points to a specific reason for murder, terrorism, or even political assassination. There’s been no recent chatter about anyone looking for a hired gun, and nothing on the terrorism boards, international or homegrown. So we still don’t know who the real target was.”
“The Holloways’ blinds and draperies were open, so if there was a specific target, all the shooter had to do was take a hunting rifle and a deer stand, ratchet it up into a tree, and take a single shot,” I said, “or several if he wanted to confuse the objective. This was messy. It feels like terrorism.”
“Look at probie drawing conclusions.” She pointed at me as if showing me off to a crowd. We were alone. I wasn’t sure I understood, but she added, “Not bad, girl. I’m leaning that way too. Evidence that obviates that conclusion?”
“The eight seconds we noticed on the video before he started firing,” I said. “He took time to study the scene, choose his target, raise his weapon, aim, and make a limited fire to take out people with the first rounds. And he had a rate of fire upwards of seven hundred rounds per minute and a caliber of ammo that would punch through brick walls, enough to take out everyone at the party if he’d wanted to. It’s been suggested that he—we’re guessing male—wasn’t used to the weapon or wasn’t a good shot. Or had another agenda.”
“Yeah. Not bad at all, Maggoty. Get back to work.”
I shook my head. The nickname Maggoty had made its way into the official reports. It was embarrassing, though there was nothing I could do about it.
A piercing wail came over JoJo’s computer and her attention snapped back to the multiple screens. “Get your gear,” she said. “We got another one. Knoxville PD just got a ten-eighty-one code. Multiple shots fired into a restaurant. Secret Service is on-site, which means the senator was there. Sending the address to your tablet and your cell.” Her voice rose to follow me down the hallway. “Abrams Tolliver’s family is inside. His security team is pinned down. Wear your vest! Take an AR-15 and a comms unit. More info as I have it.”
“I’m not certified yet on automatic rifles,” I yelled back as I grabbed gear.
JoJo cursed and said, “Take one anyway. Give it to one of the team when you get there!”
“Got it!” I shouted and checked out an AR-15 from the weapons room and added it to my gear.
“Be safe!” JoJo shouted.
I grabbed my gobag and was out the door into the dying light of day while the last words were still dying on the air.
? ? ?
I had requested use of an official vehicle, but the request was taking forever making its way up the chain of command, and so I was still using my old truck for official business. The C10 didn’t have speed, it didn’t corner well, and it drank gasoline like a Saturday night drunk did liquor, but it did have three things going for it. It wasn’t a vehicle that people saw and thought, Cop, it was reliable, and the heater put out hot air like an industrial furnace. It was already warm inside by the time I reached the end of the street and turned on my jerry-rigged blue lights. My new PsyLED car would be here in a day or a week or maybe a month. With official vehicles it was hard to tell. But when it came, I’d have an ugly but city-smart vehicle to drive while on business, and the truck could be for farm activities, as it should be.
Pierced Dreams was the only four-star restaurant in Old City Knoxville, and the location was not good for armed response. East Jackson Avenue completed its evolution into West Jackson Avenue at the intersection with South Central, which was a hub of the Old City revitalization. The intersection was not a perfect ninety degrees, but a skewed crossing of angles, with nearby access to I-40, Highway 158, and Hall of Fame Avenue, as well as industrial sites and multiple railroad tracks. The Tennessee River cut the city in half and it was always close to anything in Old City, not that the river was any sort of getaway route, not with RVACs and drones and such. But the shooter could get away easily by car, motorbike, or bicycle or on foot. Or take hostages. Or hold law enforcement or the populace in place, pinned down, and take them out at his leisure.
Into my comms unit, JoJo said, “More shots fired. And a fire alarm is going off. One report says flames are visible inside Pierced Dreams. Another says flames are shooting up from a nearby building. Rural/Metro Fire and KFD are all en route. This is an active shooter scene. Repeat. This is an active shooter scene.”
“Copy,” I said. I took corners too fast, hearing sirens converging on Old City, seeing the city’s blue law-enforcement lights interspersed with the red flashing of other emergency units and the Christmas decorations on buildings and streetlights. Leaving the rest of the city with a decreased policed presence. If there was a second incident, things could get difficult. Law enforcement concentrated in one area was a major concern. A few well-placed bombs and the city could lose a large percentage of its officers. It also gave criminals the opportunity to commit crimes in other parts of the city, places with less coverage.
My headlights bounced across the greenery as I took a turn too fast. My heart was speeding up, my breath growing fast and shallow. I forced my breathing to slow down and tried to relax my shoulders.