Point Blank

“It wasn’t about closing this business, Detective,” Savich said. “When Agent Quinlan called me, I knew it could have been Moses Grace. He knows I perform here on occasion and am friends with Ms. Lilly. That’s why I asked for protection for Agent Sherlock. She’s my wife.”

Detective Millbray grew very still. “You mean that crazy old guy every cop in the city is looking for? And that teenage girl?”

Savich nodded.

Detective Millbray shouted for his sergeant and stepped away for a moment. When he returned, he said, “I’ve told him to tell everyone the perpetrators might still be here. And I’ve told him who it might be. If he knew this place, knew the owner was important to you, then why did he just flirt with this pissant little bomb and not make it a full-bore disaster?”

Another plainclothes detective stepped up. “I’m Detective Jim Fortnoy. I’ve called for more police. We’re going to do a sweep for those two.”

Savich nodded, then turned back to Detective Millbray. “You asked me—”

He heard Sherlock yell. She was swinging her SIG upward, to a point beyond his right shoulder. She yelled, “Dillon, get down!”

She fired off two shots as she ran toward him, the four cops running behind her, their guns out, firing up at the two-story building.

But Savich wasn’t looking over his shoulder, he was looking at his Porsche. He thought of the bomb Moses had left at Hooter’s Motel. There were a dozen people milling around the Porsche, and he knew as surely as he knew his name what Moses had planned. He cupped his hands around his mouth, yelled as loud as he could, “Run! Get away from the Porsche! There’s a bomb! Run!”

Fortnoy and Millbray shouted with him even though they didn’t understand. Wasn’t Moses Grace in the building behind them? But there was no return gunfire.

No one hesitated. Nerves on hair triggers from the terror in the club made them scatter fast.

Detective Millbray grabbed Savich’s arm. “Why do you think there’s a bomb there? Your wife and the police have been shooting up at that building. What’s happening, Savich?”

Savich heard the roar as his Porsche exploded into a ball of flame. There was an incredible concussion and a wave of heat that sucked up all the air. The power of the blast flung the dozen people closest outward, forcing them to the pavement or hurling them into one another. Savich heard screams, and a policeman yelling for everyone to stay down and remain calm. Savich, flanked by half a dozen cops, ran toward them. He fell to his knees in front of a young woman lying motionless on the sidewalk, and touched his fingertips to the pulse in her throat. Thank God, she was alive. He yelled for a paramedic. After an eerie moment of quiet, firemen started to rush toward the burning Porsche, some pulling their fire hoses, others pulling people to safety, carrying those who couldn’t walk.

It was a nightmare landscape—the screams, the moans, the weeping, the roaring orange flames that gushed into the night air, the struggle to control panic and fear.

Savich whirled around, yelling Sherlock’s name. He’d seen her for only an instant when she ran toward him, looking up, firing her SIG. He saw her then. Her wool cap was gone, her hair streaming about her shoulders looking like it was on fire in the surreal glow of the orange flames.

Then she was there, right in front of him, her face black, her heavy coat ripped. “I thought I saw him up in a window on the second floor. He was aiming down at you. Some of the cops went up there to look.” She hugged him close, her hands patting him all over. “You all right?”

He nodded against her hair.

She pulled back, studied his face. “He blew up your Porsche. He wanted me to go out with it. Do you think he could have detonated it from that window up there?”

“We’ll find out soon.” For a moment, he couldn’t speak. It had been so very close. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you saw someone up there. It saved your life.” That actually sounded calm, he thought, as he stared down at the most important person in the world.

Then she grinned up at him, filthy and beautiful. “You were the psychic about the car bomb. Where do you think Moses went?”

“Millbray and Fortnoy have half the cops in Washington on it.”

After fifteen minutes of chaos, people began to sort themselves out, growing calmer once their loved ones were close and safe. Many simply left, grateful to be alive, afraid of more explosions. Paramedics went from group to group, leading the injured to waiting ambulances. Television cameras were everywhere, the spectacular footage of the explosion’s aftermath already on the airwaves.