Backfire

“Is there something wrong with her exam?” Savich asked.

Nurse Blankenship hastened to say, “No, sorry—I only meant she’s had a concussion, that’s all. I tell you what, I’ll go back in and check on them again, so you’ll know what to expect, okay?”

She smiled at them all, walked quickly down the hall into Sherlock’s cubicle, and returned in under a minute. “They said she’d be going for a CT scan in a few minutes, just to be sure. The doctors say the odds are good the scan will be normal and that she’ll be staying for only a day or two, that she’ll make a complete recovery with only a small scar for a souvenir.

“Now, if all of you would repeat to Agent Savich that his wife should be up within the week, I would appreciate it.” She patted Savich’s arm and excused herself.

There was a collective sigh of relief. Harry studied Savich’s face, saw he’d finally accepted Sherlock wasn’t going to die. Savich turned toward them, focused again. “What information do you have? Do you know who shot her? Do you know what happened to Xu?”

Harry said, “A couple of Virginia’s officers who were positioned two blocks up on California ran into a young guy waving his fists and yelling after a white Infiniti that was fishtailing down the street. Xu had jerked open the guy’s car door, clouted him in the head, and shoved him into the road. We’ve got an APB out on the car and the license plate number.

“Xu is hurt. One of us”—Harry nodded toward Eve and Griffin—“shot him in the suite from behind a wall of flames. Agent Gaines, our maid in the hallway, said Xu was shot in the upper arm and bleeding pretty heavily when he took off down the stairs. He broke her nose but didn’t kill her. When she got herself together, she came in to help us get out, a good thing, since Xu had left a bomb to detonate when he got clear. Griffin’s singed a bit around the edges; we all are, inside and out, coughing a bit, but nothing worse.

“We followed Xu’s blood trail down the stairs to the lobby, and we were in the stairwell when he detonated the bomb. There was pandemonium in the lobby, but we didn’t stop to help, we ran directly outside to find Xu. You were already there, leaning over Sherlock.” Harry looked at the others. “That’s all we know.”

Agent Kain, who’d been one of the agents manning the van with Sherlock, said, “Sherlock spotted Xu. She didn’t say a word, jumped out of the van and took off. We ran after her fast, but there were people clogging the road and the sidewalk. Then that window blew out on the top floor, and people were screaming and trying to escape the flying shards of glass. When we got to you, Savich, you were with her along with those three teenage boys.”

A second agent said, “She had him flattened on his belly with one of the cuffs already snapped on when we heard that single shot. It sounded like a rifle, which meant it could have been fired from anywhere behind us. We’ll have a trajectory as soon as they get forensics out there.”

Savich said, “But who? Xu didn’t know we’d be there at the Fairmont waiting for him. How could he have arranged for someone with a rifle to be covering his back?”

Cheney said, “I don’t know, Savich, but how likely is it that a brand-new player suddenly shows up when Sherlock has Xu down and nearly restrained and then, for whatever reason, shoots her?”

Savich slammed his fist down on the counter. “She had him, it should be over, but now he’s in the wind again. And it must be that Xu isn’t flying solo.”

“The Chinese?” Eve asked.

“It’s possible,” Savich said, “but I don’t see the Chinese doing this. In their position, I would have shot Xu, if anyone, not Sherlock.”

Virginia Trolley said in a voice that could cool boiling water, “We’ve got half the force out near the Fairmont. Someone must have seen him, seen something. Keep the faith, Dillon.”

Cheney said, “It’s a mess at the Fairmont, the streets blocked with fire trucks and police cars. We moved your Taurus, Savich, not to worry. So far, Sherlock’s the only one they seem to have ambulanced out. There were only cuts and bruises, from what I could see.”

“The media were already there when we left,” Eve said. “It’s national by now, since it’s the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. They’ve got everything going for them with this story—a bomber they’re calling a terrorist and an FBI agent shot in the head.”

Cheney’s cell rang. He glanced down and frowned. “It’s KTCU.” Savich watched him think for a minute, then answer. He turned away from them as he said, “Agent Stone.”