by Matt Lincoln
“He’s alive,” she whimpered, trying to wipe her eyes on her shoulder since both of her hands were pressed against Charlie’s wound. “He woke up for just a second and started talking. Then he fainted again, and I thought he’d died, but he didn’t. He’s still breathing. I’ve been checking every few seconds to make sure.” She was crying openly now, gasping between each word.
“Fiona, you need to calm down,” I told her, although my own voice was a lot louder and frantic than I’d intended. “You did great. We need to move him now, okay? I need you to be ready to put pressure back on the wound as soon as we get him on the table.” Fiona wiped her eyes once more and nodded.
Wallace and I lifted Charlie onto the table carefully. Now that I was this close to him, I could see how extensive and severe his injuries were. The entire upper half of his body was littered with cuts and pieces of debris. The worst, however, was a large shard of metal that was embedded over the left side of his face. There was so much blood and torn flesh around the area that I couldn’t make out if his eye had been punctured or not.
I pushed the thought away as we got Charlie onto the table. Worrying wouldn’t do me any good. The best thing we could do now was to keep moving as quickly as possible. Once we were in position and Fiona was securely holding a lump of gauze over Charlie’s face, we started to make our way out of the office.
By now, the pounding in my head had grown into a steady ache, and exhaustion was starting to sink in. My lungs strained to pull in oxygen with every step I took, and my arms were trembling with the effort it took to hold the table steady. I willed the numbers displayed over the elevator doors to move faster as we descended again. As soon as we reached the ground floor and the elevator doors opened, we took off through the lobby. Through the clear windows at the front of the building, I could see that the crowd outside had grown larger. In the distance, I could hear a siren, and I nearly cried in relief.
We set the table down once we were outside but didn’t try to move Charlie off of it. The ambulance would be here any moment, and it would probably be better to let them handle him from here out. I looked around and spotted Castillo and Patel a few feet away on the grass. Once I was sure they were okay, I turned back to Charlie and Fiona.
Fiona had a look of intense determination on her face, and her arms were beginning to shake. I realized it must be physically stressful for her to maintain pressure on his injury for so long. I was about to offer to take over when the first ambulance pulled up, and a couple of paramedics hopped out of the back. One went to assess Miranda while the other one came to look at Charlie, and after a moment, they both came to where we were standing. It relieved me that they were going to treat Charlie first, but a part of me understood that choosing to do so really just meant that his injuries must have been that much worse.
“Ma’am, I need you to move away from him,” the first paramedic said to Fiona as he attempted to push past her. She looked like she wanted to refuse, darting her eyes back and forth between him and Charlie.
“It’s okay, Fiona,” I assured her as I realized that she was beginning to go into shock too. “He’s going to help Charlie. You need to move away so he can help him.”
I spoke as calmly and softly as I could, the way I would have if I had been speaking to the victim in a case. Despite my best efforts, my voice trembled, and I doubted I was doing much to comfort her at that moment.
Nevertheless, Fiona complied, taking her hands off of Charlie’s wound and stepping away quickly, as if she’d suddenly realized she’d touched something hot. The paramedics moved in immediately, and once I knew Charlie was in their hands, I allowed myself to relax. I sat down against the wall of the building and closed my eyes.
By now, two more ambulances, a fire truck, and even a few police cars had arrived on the scene. I tried to shut out the noise, but I could hear Wallace arguing with someone some distance away. One of the paramedics was telling him that we shouldn’t have moved Charlie and Miranda, and Wallace was arguing that we didn’t have a choice considering a bomb had just gone off. I opened my eyes and took in the scene. The police were trying to usher onlookers away from the scene, in case there really were any more bombs inside, and the paramedics were rushing around to get all of my fellow agents loaded into ambulances.
They had carried Miranda away in a stretcher, and I could see Patel a few feet away. I couldn’t hear what she was saying from where I was, but judging by her body language, it seemed like she was refusing to be transported in an ambulance as well. Outside the next ambulance, I could see Nelson. He was clutching his leg and was saying something to the paramedic. A moment later, he was loaded into the back of an ambulance as well, and I wondered how severe his injuries were. He hadn’t appeared to be physically harmed back in the office right after the blast.
I turned back toward Charlie, who was now being transferred onto a stretcher. Beyond him, I could see Fiona, who was crying again. Since she hadn’t been hit by the explosion at all, I figured she must have been having trouble processing the event emotionally if she was this distraught even though she hadn’t been injured. I got up and walked toward her.
“Hey, are you okay?” I asked, only realizing after I’d said it what a dumb question it was. Of course, she wasn’t okay. It was hard to think clearly now that the adrenaline was gone, and I’d allowed myself to relax. Fiona was shaking, and she looked back at me with wide eyes.
“It’s my fault,” she cried. “The bomb was in my office. It’s my fault Charlie and Miranda got hurt.” Her voice broke as she spoke. I gripped her by the arm and pulled her away from the crowd and the first responders until I felt safe that we were far enough away not to be overheard. I hadn’t meant to pull her that hard, but my knee-jerk reaction to her telling me she was responsible for the bombing was to get her as far away from prying ears as possible. Fiona was in shock right now, and the last thing we needed was for her to take the blame for what had happened in her current state.
“Fiona, this is not your fault,” I hissed quietly. I couldn’t say with absolute certainty that she hadn’t caused the explosion, either directly or indirectly, but this was the best way to get her to calm down, regardless. I knew in my gut that Fiona hadn’t been the one to plant the bomb. Even if she had unintentionally done something to cause the explosion, throwing blame on her would only cause her to panic more. “What do you mean it’s your fault?”
“The bomb was in my office,” Fiona reiterated again. “It was the flowers, I think. The ones you brought me, that you said someone dropped off for Valentine’s Day. I wasn’t expecting any flowers. I don’t even have a boyfriend or anything. That must have been it, right?” She had calmed down as she spoke. It seemed like concentrating on speaking had helped her to slow her breathing.
“That could be it,” I realized.
Now that I thought about it, Fiona’s office had been the center of the explosion. It had been blown completely off the side of the building. The theory that a bomb had been hidden inside the flowers fit the way the office had been damaged.
I began to shake as it dawned on me that, if that were true, I was the one who had planted the bomb. I hadn’t meant to, but ultimately it had been me who carried the bomb into the office. A bomb that had been specifically meant for Fiona, I suddenly realized. If they’d just been targeting the office as a whole or even Director Wallace, they could have sent a package or some kind of food delivery. The roses had been addressed directly to Fiona.
I quickly turned and began to scan through the crowd. It wasn’t unusual for perpetrators to return to the scene of the crime to watch the aftermath or to taunt the police. It was possible whoever had done this was here in the crowd somewhere. Normally, I was good at picking up on unusual behavior or spotting anomalies. Unfortunately, I wasn’t my normal self right now.
My head was pounding. The combined noise of the ambulances, the bystanders, and the shouts of police officers as they attempted to gain order was deafening. I couldn’t concentrate. By now, there w
as a massive crowd of people gathered around to gawk at the destruction. News reporters had also begun to show up in droves. As each second ticked by, I knew that my chances of spotting anything out of the ordinary were dwindling. Eventually, I realized I needed to stop. Even if I did spot someone, there wasn’t a lot that I could do in my current state. Whoever had done this had managed to take down our entire team without lifting a finger.
10
Fiona
Junior, Naomi, and I were sitting in silence in a small hospital waiting room. Charlie and Miranda had both gone into surgery, and we hadn’t had any updates since we got here. Nelson had injured his leg on his way out of the building and was currently getting checked out. Agent Howard had gone home after getting a few stitches in his arm. Naomi had been angry that he would just leave the rest of our comrades behind, but to be honest, I understood his desire to be at home. Part of me wanted nothing more than to run from this hospital and not stop until I was safe inside my own house. The guilt of knowing the bomb had been sent to me was gnawing away at my insides.
Junior had told me repeatedly that it wasn’t my fault, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear. Someone had been trying to hurt me, and because of that, everyone else in the office had ended up injured while I got off without a scratch. It wasn’t fair.
Even Naomi and Junior had been hurt a little. Naomi had cuts all over her arms, and a long gash across her forehead that I sincerely hoped wouldn’t leave a scar. Naomi was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met, and I knew how meticulous she was about her skincare and beauty routine. Even if she never said anything, I knew that having a scar on her face would be devastating to her.
Junior had been struck by a piece of shrapnel as well. Thankfully, it hadn’t become embedded in him like what had happened to Charlie, but it had left a large bruise and some swelling. He’d also managed to cut the back of his head open, but luckily, he didn’t appear to have a concussion.
Everything had been so hectic at the scene as the paramedics rushed around, trying to run triage and figure out who needed the most assistance. Junior hadn’t even realized he was bleeding, or so he claimed until one of the doctors at the hospital had insisted on checking him out. The laceration wasn’t that bad, and he’d only needed three stitches. Ultimately, it was lucky that his injuries hadn’t been worse, considering he hadn’t been standing that far away from Charlie.
I looked over at Naomi, who was furiously knitting something. According to Miranda, that was what she liked to do to pass the time during stake-outs. Right now, though, she looked like she was angry at the needles, and her fingers were moving so quickly I was worried she might stab herself. Junior was sitting on my other side, playing some kind of matching game on his phone. I could tell he was distracted by the way he kept missing really obvious matches that I knew he would never have overlooked if he was really concentrating.
“Do you think we’ll be able to get anything out of the flower pot?” I asked. I thought I might scream if I had to sit in this awful silence for another minute. “What’s left of it, I mean?”
“What are you talking about?” Naomi asked as the needles came to a stop in her tight grip.
Oh, right. I’d only told Junior about my suspicions.
“We think the bomb was in a pot of flowers in Fiona’s office,” Junior chimed in before I could respond. I honestly felt relieved at having one less person I had to admit my guilt to. “Someone dropped them off at reception this morning and said they were an early Valentine’s Day gift. I took them into her office. Then a few minutes later, there was an explosion, and half the roof and Fiona’s entire office were gone. It doesn’t take a lot to put two and two together there.”
Naomi looked horrified as Junior explained. I hunched my shoulders and tried to make myself as small as possible as I prepared for her to turn her wrath on me.
“Wait, so that means someone was targeting Fiona?” Naomi asked, and I was surprised to hear not anger but concern in her voice.
“That’s what it looks like,” Junior nodded.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I knew something was off as soon as Junior brought them to me. I’m not dating anyone. I don’t even have any friends aside from you guys. Not IRL ones, at least.”
“IRL?” Naomi asked.
“Oh, it means ‘in real life,’” I explained. “It’s an internet thing. Basically, I don’t have a lot of people in the real world that I communicate with in any capacity. There’s no one that would want to send me flowers or even know how to get them to me. Like I said, aside from you guys and the other agents, no one knows where I work.” I paused to take a deep breath before continuing.
“Anyway, I knew something was up. I poked around the pot, trying to see if there was some kind of explanation, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.”
“You were messing around with it?” Junior asked as his eyes went wide. “Thank goodness it didn’t blow up right then!”
“Yeah…” I agreed, realizing for the first time just how much danger I’d been in at that moment. “So, I left to go talk to Wallace. I felt kind of silly, going to him to complain that there was something suspicious about a pot of roses, of all things. I just knew something was wrong, though. But then I saw you and Charlie in there talking to him. Even though I was seriously freaked out, I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt, so I decided to go wait in the break room. Then, right after that…” I trailed off as the events following the explosion replayed in my mind. I balled my hands into fists, wincing as my nails bit into the skin of my palms.
“If I hadn’t been so damn shy and spineless and just said something, then maybe-” I started to say before Junior cut me off.
“If you hadn’t gone into the break room, you might have been seriously injured,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “There’s no point in worrying about ‘what ifs’ now. In the end, we’re all lucky that you noticed anything at all and got out of your office when you did.”
“He’s right,” Naomi agreed as she carefully set aside her knitting and scooted over, so she was leaning against me. “We all knew when we joined this agency that we’d be putting our lives in danger, so you shouldn’t blame yourself for anything that happens to us. We’re just happy you weren’t in your office when the bomb went off. We wouldn’t know what to do without you.” I bit my lip as tears threatened to spill from my eyes.
“I’d have to go out and buy my own candy, for one,” Naomi teased with a smirk. I gasped and gave her the most offended look I could manage under the circumstances.
“You’re so mean,” I sniffled, although my words were belied with a smile.
“Yes, I know,” she rolled her eyes, moving away from me and leaning back in her own chair. “So, do you have any idea who might have done it? Who’d have a motive to come after you?
“No one,” I answered quickly. “Unless you count all the people I’ve helped MBLIS put away.”
“That would certainly be a long list to go through,” Junior frowned as he leaned forward to rest his arms against his knees.
“As I said, I don’t really have much of a life outside of work,” I shrugged, wracking my brain to figure out who could have had enough of a grudge against me to want to kill me. “I’ve even fallen out of touch with a lot of my online friends since I left my hacking days behind.” Junior suddenly froze at that statement.
“Maybe that’s it,” he exclaimed, suddenly sitting up straight. “The hacker from yesterday. The one who got suspicious of us and tried to break into your computer. Are you sure you managed to stop him?”
“Yes,” I answered immediately. I could remember the event with intense clarity. It had been close, but I had managed to shut him out in the end. “At least, I think I did. I could have sworn I did.” I wasn’t so sure anymore. Now that Junior had planted that seed of doubt, I was frantically going through every keystroke I’d made and every command I’d written. I had been thorough, but I’d also been working in a
rush and under intense pressure. It was possible I had missed something. It would only take one tiny vulnerability, and any decent hacker would be able to make his way in undetected. I didn’t want to admit it, but the more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed that I really had failed to stop him.
“That could explain why the flowers were targeted directly to me,” I realized. “If he did manage to get into my computer, he’d be able to find out my identity. He’d also be able to track down the location of the office based on the IP address of my computer. But how did he get a bomb to the office so quickly? Whoever we were speaking to was trying to meet us in Japan, right? That was only yesterday.”
“Well, he either flew out here the second we stopped talking to him, or he got someone else to plant the bomb for him,” Junior pondered. “Either way, we’re clearly dealing with someone very dangerous and very powerful.”
We fell back into silence then as all three of us considered the implications of what Junior had just said.
“Hello.” I jumped as I heard a voice break through the silence. I looked up to see one of the surgeons who had gone back with Charlie. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” The man smiled at me, but I was too rattled from what we’d just talked about to smile back.
“It’s fine,” I mumbled quietly.
“Well, I just came out to give you an update,” the surgeon smiled. “Agent Hills has come out of surgery. He had multiple cuts and lacerations across his chest and arms, but for the most part, they were superficial and didn’t require stitches. The cut across his face was more serious, and he did require six stitches on that one. He was very lucky, though. Just a few centimeters over, and he would have lost his eye.” I gasped as he said this, and I saw Junior tense up out of the corner of my eye.
“He’ll have to wear an eyepatch for a few weeks to ensure that nothing irritates the wound as it heals. It’s very important that it doesn’t become infected. If it does, the infection could spread to his eye, so he needs to be sure to apply his prescription medicine as required. I’ll tell him all of this when he wakes up as well, but a lot of times, patients have trouble remembering instructions after this kind of event, so it’s best if you help to remind him.”
