Chapter 8
Twist [ twist ] noun
An offensive slur used to describe a dual Talent, the offspring of two different lines with the ability to pull on both. Imbued with a primary and secondary affinity, these Talents are denoted by concentric halos proclaiming their bent.
– Excerpt from A Treatise on Talents , Third Edition
“Rumors of a sixth line have been verified. These so called ‘Shades’ are able to disappear at will, wreaking havoc among our troops with their guerrilla tactics. Dogs, however, have no issue locating the loathsome Talents.”
– R. Heft, Chief of Security,
The Source
They lay together, replete. Kara’s head upon Flynn’s shoulder, her breath slowing as it tickled over his skin, fingers trailing over his chest. It was strange after years of throwing a handful of units on the bed and leaving.
Not that anyone ever wanted him to stay. He’d never wanted to, either. It would’ve meant having to acknowledge how much of a sadistic prick he was.
His gut cramped thinking about doing that shit to Kara. But it was different with her, wasn’t it? What would that be like? Feeling, not just seeing, her reaction to the hard-core smut that got him off. Fuck, he was getting hard just thinking about it.
No. This was enough. He softly kissed the top of her head. He wouldn’t hurt her.
Yeah, he would. Just the idea of it made him sweat. Flynn winced, flexing his hand. Dislocating a joint whenever they screwed wasn’t tenable. At some point, he’d fuck up and then he’d have to see that look on her face every morning over breakfast for the rest of his goddamned?—
No. He could control himself, and he’d bury that shit so deep she’d never sense it, bond be damned. He tipped Kara’s chin up, teasing her lips with his, needing to prove it. Her arousal flowing through their link made him smile. God, he just wanted to make her happy.
“I could get used to this,” he murmured.
A thread of desire, guilt, and something warmer flew between them.
“You’re going to have to. I am sorry, Flynn. I?—”
He sat up sharply at the low rumble of subsonic thrusters vibrating the air and swore, halos flaring. “They’re here.”
She gave a little cry as he grabbed her, pushing her down between the bed and the wall.
“Don’t move,” he hissed, covering her body with his. “No matter what happens, stay still.” Harsh light seared through the window, and boots crunched across the yard.
She drew in a quick breath as he pulled talent, cloaking them from the naked eye. Flynn felt the questions coming, but before she could ask, the door blew inward off its hinges, an icy blast of air following in its wake. He flattened her beneath him, praying the stacks of books were enough cover to keep their heat signatures from being picked up by the thermal sensors embedded in the troops’ face shields. God help them if they had any muties with them. What the hell had he been thinking? Christ, he knew better, and now here he was, literally caught with his pants down. Woman was a goddamned problem.
So was the temperature. His exposed skin burned in the frigid air. He manipulated his cloak to shield them from it. Wasn’t exactly warm, but at least he wasn’t gonna get frostbite on his dick.
Kara cowered beneath him as a bull of a man strode into the room, swathed in Source-issued combat gear. Peeking through the stacks, Flynn watched him take a quick scan of the room, then rip off his helmet. He looked around again with a sweeping glance of disdain, running his hand through sweat-soaked blond hair.
Flynn’s relief clashed with the burst of terror from Kara. Guess that was big brother, but as long as his helmet stayed off, they had a chance of getting out of here. Riegel sure as hell looked like a son of a bitch, and his crimson halos ruled out any chance he was a Binder. What the fuck were they breeding down there? The Breaker mopped at his face, turning to a man waiting just outside the door.
“They couldn’t have gotten far. Scour the premises, Nells.” The man saluted and left. Riegel picked up one of Kara’s knives and tapped it against his palm. His lips tightened, focusing on the bed, and he slammed the knife hilt-deep into the table. Kicking books out of his way, he stalked over, pulling the rumpled sheet from the mattress. Flynn watched the Breaker’s boots from beneath the bed. Heard him inhale. What a fucking perv.
“You were just here.” Riegel spun on his heel, ransacking the room. It didn’t take him long to find her bag. He dumped it out onto the table and plucked a small gold ring from the pile, smirking as he slipped it into his pocket.
Was that a signet? Flynn’s stomach churned at Kara’s dismay.
“Stupid slat.” In a rage, Riegel flung the table across the room. It splintered against the wall, peppering them with wreckage. He gave the rest of the coop the same treatment, the mattress tenting against the wall above them. Nells came back to the doorway, retracting his face shield.
“There’s no one here, and we can’t pick up any residue. I don’t understand it, sir. Maybe the vector gave a false positive? ”
Riegel’s hand balled into a fist. “No. We’re missing something. Kara’s here. Run a thermal scan of the area.”
Shit! If he did that they were fucked. It would pick them up through the coop’s walls. Kara glanced at him, feeling his anxiety. Flynn gave his head a tiny shake. They needed to ride this out.
Nells swallowed, stepping into the room. “That’s not standard tech on this model of craft, sir. You requisitioned the first availab—Whooo! Smells like the Olly in here! That explains the surge, though I can’t imagine how there’s no residue… Whoever he is, they’ve bonded.”
Riegel’s face purpled, backhanding Nells hard enough to bloody his nose. “I see no evidence of that. Do I make myself clear? We’re after a fugitive, nothing more.”
Nells stood straighter, ignoring the blood dripping down his lip. His eyes hardened, and he stuck out his weak chin. “I beg to differ, sir. This changes our mandate. I’ll need to inform?—”
His body fell, toppling books and landing akimbo.
Flynn started. What the fuck!?
“I’ve had quite enough of you disagreeing with me,” Riegel said to the corpse. “Perhaps it is time for me to requisition Ielle.”
Kara whimpered at the name, hiding her face. The Breaker punched in a code on his sleeve. A bot detached from his body armor and flew up into the eaves. Barking out orders, he left, the squad regrouping from around the property. They filed in quickly, re-boarding the waiting craft, and abandoning the cooling corpse on the floor.
The harsh light from the craft winked out, leaving them in the flickering light of the overturned lantern. The punch of the subsonic thrusters engaging went through them, then cut out abruptly as the craft shifted back to the Source.
“Stay here while I take care of that bot,” Flynn murmured, creeping from beneath the overturned mattress. He picked his way over to where it had disappeared. Just because the damn thing couldn’t see him, it didn’t mean it wouldn’t pick up other shit moving around. He found it in the shadows and cloaked its sensors, letting out a sigh and yanking his jeans from under the remains of the table. Pulling this much talent was a problem, the junker, them… They had to go .
“Pack what you can while I bring up the car.” He tipped the mattress back over, and helped Kara rise. She did so timidly, pressing against him and taking in the destruction, her breath wreathing her face.
“Flynn—”
“Get dressed. We’ll talk on the road.” She trembled, and he didn’t think it was just from the bitter cold pouring into the room. He righted the lantern and grabbed a shirt from the rubble the Breaker had made of his life. The place was fucking trashed. He found his boots and jammed them on, then dug his coat out from an avalanche of books.
“I’ll be back.”
Kara nodded, numb, searching beneath the contents of his dresser for her clothes.
He slipped out the gaping hole where the door used to be. They’d sliced through the side of the barn with an arcfire torch and ransacked it. Assholes. Flynn backed the car up to the front door and started pulling what he wanted from the mess.
Kara had dressed and was cramming things back into her bag. Flynn shoved some stuff into a duffle, most of it he wouldn’t need up north. He ran a weary hand through his hair. Christ, all of it could be replaced. They should just go. He toed the corpse, surprised at the cleanness of the kill.
“How’d he drop him like that?” The man’s eyes were frosting over. Someone would return for the body, and a Fetch would have an imprint of the coop now. They needed to move.
Kara cinched up her bag. “Induced aneurism,” she said tightly.
Flynn grimaced. The Breakers he’d run across hadn’t been nearly so precise, blasting through swaths of his men… At least going north would get him farther away from that shit show.
Kara glanced at him, sensing his dark thoughts. He shook his head, taking the overstuffed bag from her. She pulled her knife from the table, spun it around, and slammed it into its sheath. Sure as hell looked like she knew how to use it, and like she wanted to. Her growing anger made the back of his neck itch. He brought the bags out to the car, hoping it wasn’t directed at him.
She waylaid him when he came back, taking his face between her hands and staring at his halos. He tried to look away, then reluctantly met her eyes, vulnerable. For his line it was an intimate thing to have someone see them. More so than sex. Shit, a lot more. His pulse jumped, and he wet his lips.
“You’re not a Breaker. I’ve never seen or heard of green halos before, or heard of a Talent who hides things.”
Flynn ripped his gaze from hers, throwing the last of what he wanted into a crate. Adding the quilt to the top, he sighed again, looking around the room. He felt Kara’s temper recede, sensing his loss. Shit. He wasn’t coming back. Couldn’t now. His temper spiked.
“There’s a reason for that, and no, I’m not a fucking Breaker.”
Her anger met his with a vengeance.
She sent it at him like a slap. Flynn took a step back, feeling it physically. The hell? Goddamn it, she needed to not do that.
“A reason? You’ve got a reason? How about, ‘Well, gee, Kara, I know I don’t have halos like yours, but I can do stuff that might come in handy.’ You’re a liar.”
Flynn gritted his teeth, retrieving his mother’s scissors. He snagged Kara’s bra and flipped it at her. She shoved it into her back pocket. He needed to calm the fuck down.
“I’m a lot of things Kara, but I don’t lie, ever. I omitted. There’s a difference.” He dug out his stash of units from the cabinet.
She was there when he turned, pushing him back against the wall, and that damned perfume—shit made him want to bend her over. She sent another slap of anger at him, and the urge increased exponentially.
“Enough!” That fucking crimson haze cut across his vision, and Kara’s eyes flashed with an emotion he couldn’t make out. It was like she wanted him to come at her. A wash of panic at the low growl in his throat cut through his fury. He riffled his hair in frustration. No! Christ! He wasn’t gonna fucking touch her! Her tangle of emotions with his were a mess, and that goddamned smell?—
“You did lie! You made me think you were a sub, if I’d known you weren’t, I?—”
“You what, wouldn’t have fucked me, or wouldn’t have bonded me? I’ve got a pretty good idea exactly what it is you signed me up for, and I know I still haven’t gotten the full story from you, you fucking twist!” He nodded at the guilt rolling off her. Yeah. He’d thought so.
Kara stepped back, pale, that perfume gone. Seeing her face was like being doused with cold water. There it was. That goddamned look.
He grabbed the crate. “Don’t talk to me about lies. Get the rest of your shit and get in the fucking car. I’ve got a stop to make and then I’m taking you north. Here.” He tossed a sweater at her. “Just put it the fuck on.” His voice caught and he stormed out of the coop.
Damn it.
Flynn slammed the car door and waited, resisting the urge to lay on the horn. Man, he felt like shit losing his temper with her. For Christ’s sake, he’d called her a fucking twist. Fuck, fuck, and double fuck. Everything he’d worked so hard at, blown to shit. All he had to do was pound a fifth of whiskey and he’d be right back where he started.
No. It wasn’t like that. He’d held it together, hadn’t touched her… He could do this. He scrubbed at his face. Two out of three. Yeah. Piece of cake. Goddamn, what the fuck was it about her that brought all this shit up again?
She fucking challenges you, asshole, that’s what. Aways gotta be the one in control…
Goddamn it, it wasn’t like that with her.
Was it?
His fingers itched for a cigar. He drummed them on the steering wheel, eager to be on his way and out of his head. Kara finally got in, wearing the sweater. He put the junker in gear and started down the goat path, his chest aching.
“I’m sorry I said that.”
She shrugged, looking away. “Not like I haven’t heard it before.”
He still felt like an asshole. “It was shitty, and I’m sorry.” He raised her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles. Desire leapt between them, breaking the tension. “I should know better. Christ, I heard it enough as a kid,” he muttered. “You need to buckle up.”
“Are you serious?”
Flynn gave her the most insolent grin he could muster, then swore as the plaz-converter sputtered. Thought I fixed this fucking— He smacked it and it stabilized. “Absolutely. Safety first. ”
Kara laughed, pulling on her seat belt. He felt the last of her anger melt away, leaving them both with a huge sense of relief. The sensation was weird, but he was glad she didn’t hold grudges. He couldn’t say the same.
They hit the main road and turned north. His halos dimmed to a faint luminescence, setting a light cloak so a Finder wouldn’t be able to get a lock on her. He glanced over. An overwhelming sense of her contentment suffused their link. She had to be one hell of an optimist.
She wouldn’t be if she knew what was ahead of them. Or behind. He’d cloaked enough of the car that Omar’s guys shouldn’t be able to recognize it, and he’d kill the plaz-converter once they hit the interway, if it made it that far. Damn thing was a liability on more than one front. They needed to ditch it.
“That bind, what did you mean when you said there was more to it?”
Shit. He glanced over at her, trying to play it cool. No way she knew about the pull, and he wasn’t explaining. She’d think he was bat-shit. “I guess I just wasn’t expecting…” He shrugged, leaving it at that. Not a lie. He hadn’t planned on any of this shit.
“No. Me either.” Kara bit at her thumb, looking out the window.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel again, feeling her beat herself up. Damn it, he should say something. “So…how ’bout them Mets?” Christ, that was dumb. When had he gotten so bad at this?
“What are Mets?”
Flynn laughed. “Ah, some pre-Surge thing. Cal used to say that whenever things got tense.” So at least a dozen times a day when Lot was around. Christ, dealing with his father again was gonna suck.
“You mad?” It was a stupid question; she knew exactly how he was feeling. Which was an issue. He tweaked his cloak, making sure the shit he wanted to hide from her stayed that way. She shot him a look, but didn’t say anything.
“Does it matter?” he asked. They both knew the answer to that, too.
She played with the ends of her sleeves. “Thank you for the sweater. Was it yours? ”
“Yeah.” He swallowed his hurt. “My mom made it. I can’t get her ring for you, but it’s kind of the same thing, sentiment wise.”
“Your mother’s ring?”
“Yeah. She was buried with it. We don’t have consorts up north, Kara. You’re my wife.”
Riegel’s craft docked and the hatch slid open. The command center’s bay was in an uproar; presumably thanks to the report submitted prior to his arrival. He bit back a smirk as he strode down the stark halls to be debriefed, his boots clacking on the cement floor. Encountering resistance Outside, fabricated or not, always caused a furor. The ploy would conceal his part in Nells’s death and justify commandeering a better provisioned craft to collect the damnable man’s body before picking up Kara’s trail.
Riegel paused at the door to a windowless conference room far below the city’s lavish towers. This portion of the Source left no doubt that they were in an industrial complex. The only colors in the utilitarian cube were encapsulated within the hologram floating dead center above the milky Lucite table, and in the eyes of the stern man in uniform seated just past it.
They found Riegel lacking.
The Commandant waved him in, sitting back with a cup of coffee. It was very late, or very early, Riegel amended, glancing at the clock. Its tick was abnormally loud. He sat in the straight-backed chrome chair furthest from the man, ill at ease.
“Report, BrNC37. There are some concerning aspects of your report. I want to know why you had that vector moved where you did, and on whose authority.”
BrNC37… They hadn’t logged his win.
Riegel met his eyes, refusing to be intimidated. “On my authority with Titus’s approval. You charged me with Sector Ten’s security. The circumstances surrounding Kara Jester’s absence led me to believe there had been a breach. Somehow, she was spirited out of here without triggering any alarms and without the use of talent. Sir, if I may be familiar?”
The Commandant’s hand tensed around his coffee, but he nodded.
“Kara and I are…close. I knew something was wrong as soon as she abandoned her duties at the Creche. Requisitioning that vector…” Riegel paused, as if composing himself. “It was a foolish whim, perhaps, but it has borne fruit.” He laid the signet on the table between them.
“This was found at the site.” He met the Commandant’s eyes again, the same crystalline blue as his. “There’s a strong possibility that she didn’t leave of her own free will.”
The Commandant picked up the ring and rolled it between his fingers. There wasn’t a flicker of emotion on the older man’s face at the outrageous statement. Riegel hadn’t expected one. The Commandant had a reputation for stoicism. There were rumors that hadn’t always been the case, but it was difficult to believe.
The Commandant’s fist tightened around the ring, then he tucked it into his breast pocket. “You lost a man. Explain.”
“I was speaking to Nells as he started through the door, then he just dropped. I pulled out, as per protocol H42a outlines when dealing with guerrilla combatants. I hated leaving him like that, but if the Sons were involved?—”
“The vector showed a surge of Breaker activity. The Sons eschew all use of talent.”
“A Breaker?” Riegel’s brow furrowed as if taking in new information, meeting the Commandant’s eyes steadily. “That would explain why he went down so suddenly. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t sense it, but then, I am only thirty-seventh rung.”
The Commandant frowned, the derision not lost upon him. He knew about the bout, damn him. Had it been him or Pax that’d scotched his win? The possibility of the Commandant’s involvement was a nuance Riegel didn’t need. Not when he was so close?—
“You’ll pay five years’ salary to his family, at hazard rate. That includes settling any and all outstanding debts.”
Riegel winced, between that and his valet, he’d have to seriously tighten his belt, but he waved his hand in acquiescence. “Yes, yes, of course, I’ll see it done.”
The Commandant sipped his coffee, his face granite. He was a hard man. It was the one thing Riegel respected about his sire. If the terms of the agreement weren’t honored, Riegel would be formally ostracized from the hierarchy and wouldn’t last an hour before some accident befell him. Pax would gleefully see to that.
“Recommendations?”
Riegel pretended to consider. “Roadblocks should be set up on the interway north, and that vector reassigned for the immediate future. Perhaps a Finder?—”
“That’s Titus’s purview. See to the rest.” Rising abruptly, the Commandant left the room.
Riegel sat mulling over his sire’s reaction. Although he’d gotten what he wanted, there was something… A nagging feeling that he’d mis-stepped.
The Commandant made his way through the maze of sterile white hallways to the transport room. Everything the boy had said rang of truth and stank of lies.
“Albanach Tower,” he barked at the Fetch.
Colors ran, and the Commandant stood in a stark white cube. The wall he was facing had a large red spot over the portlock. A kill-drone hovered before it, dim lights pulsing. Albanach was rarely subtle.
“Designator and agenda.”
“Br2, to speak with Nora Jester.” Would she see him? Her name made his mouth go dry. Swallowing, he presented his barcode. The bot scanned it and his retinas.
“Be welcome, Commandant. This interaction is being recorded. Third floor, library.” The portlock swept open. He stepped through into what could’ve been the receiving room of a gothic manor. His steps took him across the checker-boarded marble floor and up the sweeping staircase without thought. Everything about the cathedral ceilings and wide, oak-paneled walls was too damned familiar. By the time he stood in the library’s arched double doorway, his shoulders ached with the weight of memory.
Despite the hour, a statuesque woman lounged on a fainting couch beneath a low window. A subaltern waiting at her pleasure saw him and murmured to her. Nora put her book aside and dismissed the woman. She’d always kept an odd schedule, waking well before the sun. Her long Grecian-style gown brushed the hardwood floor as she rose. The fabric’s whisper and the crackle of the fire in the hearth across the room competed with the blood thrumming in his ears. His heart ached, never having stopped worshipping at her altar.
“I’ve been expecting you, Marcos. Why didn’t you come sooner?”
“You know why.” He scanned the shadowed heights of the bookcases, the folds of velvet drapes… Everything but her. The scent of lemon furniture polish faded, and tendrils of lavender enveloped him. His veins kept pounding that tattoo. “And I wouldn’t have, but for this.”
He held the ring out to her on his palm. Her eyes flicked to it, then away, confirming his suspicions.
“You got her out.”
“I did.”
“I can have you brought up on charges.”
“You can.” She turned from him, going to the window. He could just make out the pre-dawn gardens through the diamond-paneled panes. His eyes drifted to her long mahogany curls, finely streaked with silver, covering her shoulders like a cape. “Do you have her?”
“Not yet.”
“You need to let her go.”
Marcos closed his hand around the ring, bringing it to his chest. “I can’t do that.”
“Not even if it’s what’s honorable?”
He wet his lips. Damn the woman. She’d never minced words and knew just where to pry at the chinks. He took some solace that by the look on her face, it wasn’t bringing her any joy.
“Riegel is an animal. You know what he’ll do to her.” Her mouth curdled prettily. “What he’s already done.”
“A Talent’s contractual obligation?— ”
“Is predicated upon lies.”
Her statement didn’t surprise him, but the callous manner in which she said it did. This simulacrum before him was made of ice. What had the last thirty years done to them?
“We’ve danced this tango, Nora. The steps haven’t changed.”
“The ring. Riegel knew where it would be.” Her eyes, hard like sapphires, challenged him to disagree. He couldn’t and, somehow, she knew it. “The day our son broke Kara’s leg, he bound her by fear, and has been raping her talent ever since.”
Her words hit him like a gut punch.
That’s how Riegel had known where to position the vector.
Nora sat, playing with the book she’d discarded, her composure fracturing, showing a glimmer of the fiery woman he remembered.
“Why didn’t you report?—”
“Her channel was ripped wide open, Marcos. I couldn’t remove the partial bond that’d formed, and I was so angry—” She threw the book down and turned from him, her voice a rough whisper. “I lashed out at Riegel and used my talent to sterilize him.”
The Commandant blanched; the political ramifications of her admission were enormous. Breakers and Binders already had a heated animosity, but Albanach and Titus? The two Patrons shared a rabid hatred. If this ever got out?—
“If I’d brought Riegel’s crime to light, mine would’ve been exposed, and my life forfeit. Kara needed me so badly afterwards, and Albanach…” Nora gave a pained sigh, and an irrational surge of jealousy swept through Marcos. It was no concern of his whose bed she warmed. “Albanach wouldn’t have given me up. He would’ve fought, and so many would’ve died, may still die, if this is exposed.”
Marcos’s cheeks hollowed as he sucked them in. She wasn’t understating it. The contract that’d culminated in Riegel and Kara’s creation had been hailed as a peace accord between the two titans, ending centuries of hostility. Their uneasy alliance was contingent upon the fulfillment of Titus’s breeding rights.
The ones that Nora had just confessed to sabotaging, on both counts. He closed his eyes, Adam’s apple bobbing, her ring digging into his palm .
What was honorable?
Breakers followed orders, and those rained down from the Alpha. They didn’t have the luxury of ambiguity, moral or otherwise. Which meant returning the girl to her rapist, and exposing Nora’s crimes. He had no doubt that would lead to another war between the two Patrons, the last of which had blackened the continent and sent thousands of his brethren to an early grave.
Marcos’s eyes lit on the larger-than-life portrait above the mantle. Even in oils, Albanach’s flinty glower pierced him clean through. “Does he know?”
She didn’t answer, and he couldn’t venture a guess either way. Her Patron was eccentric, and the only one that didn’t monitor inside his tower, no matter what the kill-drone had said. It was a secret his Talents guarded jealously… But there had been a time when Marcos and Nora had none. His heart broke anew seeing her sit there, worrying at her rings.
He crossed the floor and knelt beside her, taking her shaking hands in his. Thinking of the hundreds of ways a Breaker could meet his end. Titus may control their Alpha, but as Beta, Marcos upheld the hierarchy. The breeders’ tinkering with their genetics made too many of them liabilities, and those without honor were animals that needed to be put down.
Judge, jury, and executioner. His integrity needed to be inviolable.
What was honorable?
“You should’ve told me sooner,” he murmured into her hair. She sighed, resting her head against his broad shoulder. A lance of fury scorched through his bond. Laurellai wasn’t pleased, but he was long past caring. Let the virago choke on it. He took the ring and slid it back onto Nora’s finger, where it belonged.
“It was never meant to come to this, Marcos. She should have had another year…” Nora’s voice was thick, and he allowed himself to hold her.
If only things had been different. His arms tightened, giving him a moment longer to mourn what might’ve been, had their bond not been broken. Nora looked up at him, her golden halos glinting in the firelight. She ran her fingers across his temple. His close-cropped honey blond hair had trended heavily toward silver since the last time she’d done that. He suppressed a shiver, pulling away. Her hand dropped back into her lap.
“A vector detected a surge where the ring was found. It had the signature of a bonding, but the squad couldn’t find any residue related to it.” He looked into her dark blue eyes and caught a flash of triumph. “Who’s out there with her?”
She rose, moving to the window overlooking the dawn-pinked gardens. When she turned to him again, she was composed. The woman he’d loved, gone.
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
Marcos studied her a moment longer before shaking his head. Clearing his throat, he stood. “There’s enough cause to warrant my attention. I’ll oversee the matter personally.” He bowed to her, the breadth of the room and so many years between them.
“Be careful, Marcos. You know what being bonded to a Jester means, and with the damage Riegel’s inflicted, she can’t temper what’s taken from her.”
The Commandant grunted as he left. Wonderful. Not only had an unknown enemy combatant just gained access to Kara’s talent, she couldn’t stop him from using it. If it was anything close to what he’d experienced with Nora, they weren’t just looking at harvesting fugitives, they were hunting down a man with the potential to pull the equivalent of a nuclear event.