Backfire

48

EMT Nathan Everett lightly touched Savich’s shoulder. “You all right, sir? Yes, okay, I see now it’s her blood. You need to let us take care of her now.”

Savich raised his face to a man he’d never seen before in his life. “She’s going to be all right.”

“Yes, sir, yes, she will,” Nathan said, and turned to direct two other EMTs to bring a gurney.

Eve pulled Savich to his feet. He watched them lift Sherlock onto the gurney. She looked nearly lifeless. No, she would live, she had to. “I got the boys’ names and addresses.”

Savich forced himself to focus on Eve’s face. “Are you okay, Eve? And Harry and Griffin?”

“Yes, we were just rattled.”

“Have Harry and Griffin gone after Xu?” He looked at her face, really registered it for the first time. “You look like you’ve been in a war.”

She nodded. “All three of us do. The fire and smoke was from an incendiary device, but we made it through. Xu even had a bomb rigged in the room. Luckily, we’d gotten out before he blew it.”

The crowd melted away from Sherlock’s gurney as they rolled her to the ambulance. Savich walked quickly after her. He said over his shoulder, “Who shot her? It sure wasn’t Xu, since I saw her cuffing him. So who was it?”

“We’ll find him,” Eve called after him, as he climbed into the ambulance with Sherlock and they shut the door.

It was slow going getting through the snarled traffic, the gawkers milling around, but finally the ambulance pulled onto Market Street on the way to San Francisco General.

Savich held her hand between his, never looking away from her face.

“I know it’s a lot of blood, sir,” Nathan said, “but head wounds are nasty like that.”

“Yes, I know,” Savich said. “I’ve seen them before.”

He watched the EMT check her pupils again and look at her head wound. He prepped her arm and slid a needle into a vein at her elbow. “My name is Nathan. The bleeding from her scalp has stopped. She needs this IV in case we have to give her medication. She’s getting saline now, nothing more.”

Savich nodded. “My name’s Savich. Give me an alcohol pad and I’ll wipe the blood away.”

Nathan Everett wanted to say No, you shouldn’t touch her, but he saw the big man with only one shirt sleeve, his black leather jacket on the floor beside him, was desperately trying to keep control. “Sure, here you go. But stay away from the wound; we don’t want it to start bleeding again.”

He watched Savich lift up her hair and wash it with sterile dressings Nathan had soaked in saline from a plastic bottle. He was gentle, his touch light. After a half-dozen dressings, he got most of the blood cleared from her hair.

Nathan handed him another dressing. “You need to wash your face as well, sir.”

Savich did as he said. So much blood, he thought, as he wiped his face.

Thank goodness, Nathan thought; the wound wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. It was a deep gouge along the side of her head. But was her skull fractured? Her brain injured? Was she still bleeding inside her skull from a lacerated artery? Nathan didn’t know, but he did know the bullet had passed only a few millimeters away from exploding her head open. Nathan swallowed. The important thing now was that she wake up soon. The sooner she woke up, the better the chance she was still the person she was. He said aloud what he was hoping for. “It isn’t fatal, but she needs to wake up. Are you an FBI agent?”

“Yes, I’m Agent Savich, Dillon Savich.”

“You work with her? Is she an agent, too?”

“Yes, she’s an agent. I live with her as well. She’s my wife.”

Nathan nearly fell over backward when he said that.

“You’re kidding.”

Savich only shook his head. He listened to the ambulance siren blare loud and insistent as traffic pulled over in front of them. Odd, but he hadn’t heard the sirens before now. He wiped a streak of blood off her face. She was pale, nearly as white as Sean’s two percent milk. It looked obscene. It nearly broke him.

Her eyes opened. She looked dazed, like a prizefighter who’d gone too many rounds.

Savich leaned in close, his hand squeezing hers. “Sherlock?”

She blinked, licked her lips. “Why are you up there, Dillon? Or why am I down here? What happened?”

“You don’t remember? It doesn’t matter. You were shot, but you’ll be fine.”

She looked confused, as if she hadn’t understood what he’d said. “Dillon, my head really hurts.”

“I know, but we’re nearly to the hospital now. You had a small accident-nothing, really-only a small hit.”

“A small hit?”

Nathan said, “That’s right. Try to stay awake. That’s right, can you focus on my face?”

“Her name’s Sherlock.”

“Sherlock, what color are my eyes?”

She didn’t say anything, simply closed her eyes again.

Nathan saw Savich’s face go blank and said quickly, “She woke up, she was herself, and that’s an excellent sign. Six more minutes and we’ll be there. She’s not going to die, Agent Savich.”

For the first time, Savich looked and actually registered the face of the man beside Sherlock. He was in his early forties, on the heavy side, with pockmarked skin, deep brown eyes, and a reassuring smile, but most important, as he’d spoken, Savich hadn’t seen any lurking doubt in his eyes.

Nathan cleared his throat. “Who shot her?”

“I don’t know,” Savich said. “I don’t know much of anything except there was a bomb in the Fairmont and she caught the man who blew it up and someone else shot her.”

Nathan said, “Was the man a terrorist?”

A terrorist? “No,” Savich said. “He’s a very careful, very well-prepared man who deserves to be in shackles.” He added, never looking away from Sherlock’s face, “I hope no one died in that hotel.”

Sherlock jerked, took a hitching breath.

Savich felt her hand tighten briefly around his fingers before she let go again. He clasped her hand tighter, and his own breath hitched. He was terrified.

He felt Nathan’s hand on his shoulder. “I do, too, Agent. We’re here, sir.”