With his arms still raised, Jonathan pointed the forefingers of both hands toward the opposite span. “The shooter’s over there!” he said.

“Now!”

Moron. The cop was so invested in Jonathan as the bad guy that there’d be no reasoning with him. Jonathan did as he was told and lowered his belly to the pavement. Partly to streamline the process, but mostly to steal the officer’s thunder, he went ahead and placed his hands behind his back, cuff-ready.

“Don’t you move,” the officer warned as he approached. “If you so much as blink, I swear to God I’ll kill you.”

Jonathan listened as the footsteps halted on his right side, near his hips, he figured. This would be the time-at this range-when Jonathan could take the guy out if he’d wanted to; but the officer would be aware of that, too, making it that much more important for Jonathan to be on his best behavior. Most of the friendly-fire incidents that Jonathan had witnessed over his years in the military had been tied one way or another to a bad case of the nerves.

“I see you’ve done this before,” the cop said as he placed his knee in Jonathan’s back and gripped his thumbs for control. From the way he fumbled with the cuffs, the guy gave himself away as one who did not do this very often in the field.

“Actually, no,” Jonathan grunted through the pressure on his back. “But I’ve done it enough to others to know the drill.”

The cop hesitated. “What, you’re going to tell me you’re a cop?”

“I’m a lot of things,” Jonathan said. “For tonight, though, I’m a private investigator who was seconds away from killing the son of a bitch who shot up the bridge.”

“Right,” the officer scoffed. “That’s not what I saw.” He ratcheted the cuffs tighter than they needed to be, then climbed off Jonathan’s back and pulled on his wrists to bring him up to his knees. He continued to grasp the chain of the cuffs while he reached into his prisoner’s back pocket for his wallet.