“Stay with me, Kimmie.” Quinn yanked up the hem of her dress, tracing the arcing fountain of blood back to its source midway up her thigh. The entry wound was relatively small, roughly the size of his thumb, but high-speed bullets are made to tumble when they hit bone, and this one had done its job perfectly. Striking Kim’s femur roughly four inches above the knee, it had bounced end over end in an upward line, literally mowing away bone and muscle. Much of her thigh was an unrecognizable piece of burger.

  Fumbling through blood, bone, and flesh, Quinn pushed the fact that he was working on his high school sweetheart out of his mind. The femoral artery was fairly easy to locate. It was the diameter of a wooden pencil and arcing fountains of blood at each pulse of Kim’s weakening heart. But getting a hold on it amid the mess of snot-slick gore so he could stop the bleeding was another matter entirely. Had it been completely severed, she might have bled out before he’d gotten her to cover. Even nicked as it was, her life expectancy could be measured in seconds.

  Quinn moved Ronnie’s hand down to the wound and used a wadded piece of Kim’s dress to apply direct pressure over the bleeder. He yanked off his tie with bloody hands and ripped away his shirt. Using his teeth, he tore away a long strip of cloth to use as a tourniquet, smearing his face in red during the process. Field medicine was a grisly business. Looping the cloth around her thigh, he pulled it snug well above the wound, remembering the tactical medic’s mantra High or Die.

  Kim gave a rattling cough. Wincing. Pain had finally worked its way through the initial shock. “You’re welcome.” She forced a grin, peering at him through dazed eyes. “You’ve wanted to get out of that tie all day.”

  “Good girl,” Jericho said. His heart was a stone in his throat. “Keep talking to me.” He pulled the cloth tight, knotting it, and then glanced at Lavin, who stood over them wringing his hands.

  “Get me a stick or something to tighten this.”

  Lavin looked up and down the concrete walkway but didn’t move. “I . . . I don’t see any sticks.”

  Quinn spied a cheap fountain pen in the man’s breast pocket and stood long enough to snatch it away. Lavin flinched, apparently thinking Quinn had meant to hit him.

  Using the pen as a windlass, Quinn twisted the tourniquet as tight as he dared before tucking it under the knot to hold in place. He cursed for not having the pocket trauma kit he carried with him ninety-nine percent of the time. The trim lines of the mess dress tuxedo left him little room to conceal a pistol, let alone the wallet of QuickClot and bandages. Out of habit, he noted the time he’d applied the tourniquet.

  Ronnie stayed where she was, leaning over Kim with both hands pressing the blood-soaked cloth into the wound cavity.

  Brett Moore’s comforting voice came from behind him.

  “Ambulance is three minutes out,” he said, taking off his jacket and motioning to Lavin to do the same so Quinn could use them as blankets for Kim, who now shook uncontrollably.

  Three minutes. Quinn’s eyes flashed up at Moore. He wondered if she had that long.

  “No more shots,” Moore offered. “That’s good.”

  “Jer,” Kim moaned, licking her lips. “You would not believe how thirsty I am . . .”

  Quinn put two fingers to her neck. Her pulse was rapid and shallow as her heart struggled to send what blood she had left to her brain.

  Steve Brun trotted up with his wife. They’d been on the other side of the cadet chapel when the sniper fired, and it had taken them a few moments to find out Kim was a casualty. Steve had continued as a Combat Rescue Officer, or CRO, after Quinn had moved on to OSI. Connie was an ER nurse. It was natural for them to come running when they found out Kim was wounded, no matter the danger.

  Connie smoothed the skirts of her wedding gown beneath her knees and knelt next to Quinn while Steve made his way to the opposite side.

  “Should I move?” Ronnie asked. A line of blood ran down her chin.

  “No, sweetie,” Connie said, calm as if she was up to her elbows in bloody messes every day. “Go ahead and keep that pressure on for now.” She touched the knotted cloth squeezing the flesh of Kim’s thigh. “Tourniquet looks good,” she said, seemingly oblivious to the red line wicking up the white taffeta of her dress as she assessed the wound. It was good to have friends that didn’t run off screaming at the sight of such trauma.

  She put a hand to Kim’s neck, feeling for a pulse. Avoiding Quinn’s eyes, she looked at her husband with a flash of pity.

  Kim coughed again, weaker now. “Mattie . . .”

  Quinn patted the back of her hand, nodding back tears.

  Veins in his neck knotted in anger and sorrow. “You’re going to be fine.” The words caught hard in his throat. “Just hang on. The ambulance will be here in a few seconds.”

  Kim’s eyes fluttered. She seemed to gather herself up, focusing all the will she had left on this single demand. “Let me talk to Mattie.” Her head fell back against the folded uniforms with an audible thud. Her breathing slowed.

  Quinn waved at Camille, who watched from halfway down the chapel walkway. The Thibodaux boys and Mattie were gathered around her like a brood of chicks. Mattie broke away as if released from the starting block. She was young, but even at the tender age of seven she had a tougher constitution than many men Quinn knew.

  She knelt beside her mother without an apparent second thought over all the blood. Kim kissed her cheek, straining to whisper something in her ear. Mattie nodded. Tears dripped down on her mother’s face.

  Across Academy Drive, the young Japanese woman had settled back into position quickly after the concussion of the shot. She flicked at the peppermint with the tip of her tongue as she watched Quinn’s ex-wife collapse through the reticle of her scope. She shrugged. That was the way of things. Much could happen in the 1.3 seconds it took for the 250-grain bullet to travel from the muzzle to its intended target. She’d heard accounts of birds flying into the path of oncoming projectiles, of strange winds, and targets bending to tie their shoe or pick a flower at exactly the right moment to prolong their miserable lives.

  It did not matter that Kimberly Quinn was not her original objective. The choice had been left up to her, so no one need ever know. The death of his ex-wife would move Quinn in the direction he needed to go. That’s what was important.

  While Quinn and his friends flapped around like headless geese, the sniper was already on the move. She left the rifle resting in the crook of the tree. Though not the most common caliber, .338 Lapua rifles were well known in the community of professional shooters. Trying to trace this one would send the authorities down a dozen different rabbit trails. The serial numbers had been removed and the woman had taken great care to see there was nothing that could be used to obtain her fingerprints or DNA. They would think the rifle was a grand evidence coup and waste time comparing ballistics to hundreds of other shootings in FBI and Interpol databases. In truth, the rifle’s maiden voyage had been this one. While the authorities racked their brains for a connection to other crimes, the woman who pulled the trigger would melt back into the black mist from which she had emerged.

  Dropping lithely from the branches of the juniper, she brushed off her hands and took one last look at her surroundings to be sure she hadn’t left anything unintentional behind. A group of German couples touring the Academy met her on the paved trail when she stepped out of the brush. It couldn’t be helped. None of them were under sixty. If they were questioned, they would describe her as a cute little Asian girl, out for a walk in the woods.

  Two minutes later saw her at the North Gate. She threw a wide smile at the security police officer, who waved her on as he tried to decipher all the traffic on his radio.

  She crossed the bridge over Interstate 25, then turned north, toward the Denver airport. There was a certain liquid nature to things such as this. She would have to hurry if she wanted to stay ahead of the torrent without getting washed away.

  Three uniformed paramedics hustled down the steps with a folded stretcher. Heavy boots echoed off the concrete tunnel, but they looked like angels backlit by the bright sunlight at the mouth of the stairs.

  Only then did Ronnie and Quinn step back.

  Quinn held Mattie’s hand while Ronnie knelt beside the sobbing child. Camille swooped in and took the little girl in strong arms.

  “I’ve got this one,” she whispered to Jericho. “Don’t you worry about her.”

  The lead paramedic, grim-faced and quiet, used a plastic injection gun to insert a thick needle into the bone below the knee on Kim’s good leg. Once he had the needle set, he started IO fluids while the others strapped Kim to the expanded stretcher. None of them smiled.

  Quinn trotted up the steps beside the rescue personnel, holding Kim’s hand. Her skin was cold now, her fingers slack. A red stain soaked the sheet at the site of her wound, but her chest still rose and fell. Quinn focused on that.

  Thibodaux, Garcia, and the Bruns surrounded them in a mobile perimeter, eyes scanning the surrounding buildings and rolling hills.

  Panting with emotion, Quinn held up his hand, knifelike, and pointed across Academy Drive while the paramedics got Kim situated in the waiting ambulance.

  His voice was frayed with despair. He needed something to do, anything besides thinking about Kim’s chances. He’d seen too many wounds like this.

  “Jacques,” he said. “Let the SPs know the shot came from over there. I’d say less than fifteen hundred meters from the sound of the report. I want to know when they find anything.”

  “You got it, l’ami,” the big Cajun said.

  Garcia touched his shoulder, letting her fingers slide off slowly. “You go take care of her. We’ll check it out over there.”

  “We’re ready to go, sir.” A burley paramedic with slicked black hair waved Quinn inside. “It’s a good idea if you ride along.”

  Quinn looked out the window of the ambulance as they pulled away, watching the thick line of cedar trees on the hills across Academy Drive. He ground his teeth. The trauma of working on Kim had knocked his tactics for a loop.

  He pulled the cell phone from his pocket and pushed Thibodaux’s number.

  The big Cajun picked up immediately. “Talk to me, beb.”

  “It’s only been minutes, Jacques,” Quinn said. “There’s a good chance the shooter hasn’t made it off the campus.”

  “Way ahead of you,” the Cajun said. “Security Police just arrived. They’re lockin’ down the gates as we speak.”

  Quinn hung up, torn between the urge to run down the person who’d shot Kim and the responsibility to stay by her side. He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. Her eyes were closed and the oxygen mask covered her face, but he felt her give him a weak squeeze in return.

  “Dammit!” The heavyset paramedic watching the monitor wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of an arm.

  “What?” Quinn held his breath.

  Kim’s hand fell away.

  CHAPTER 3

  Kanab, Utah

  Rick Bedford’s eyes snapped open. He groaned and smacked his lips, trying to figure out where he was. The sheets were soft and free of dirt, and the room was a comfortable temperature—sensations he found completely foreign to recent experience. It took a few seconds for reality to seep back into his addled brain and bring the realization that there was a naked woman clinging to him under those soft sheets.

  He sighed, letting his body relax again. The smell of his bride so close now after such a long absence was balm for his wounded soul.

  His arm tingled from the weight of her head on his shoulder. Muscles cramped in his leg where her thigh draped across his, damp, sweating from skin-to-skin contact. He didn’t care and would have happily drifted back to blissful sleep. Still, he didn’t want to have his arm amputated.

  “Sorry,” he whispered, lifting Marta’s hand. He sighed again as her body slid away from his.

  “It’s all right.” From the sound of her voice, Bedford could tell she’d been awake for some time—probably never even gone to sleep. “The girls will be home from Kendra’s anytime now.” She smiled, hair mussed from the nap—and other things. “They’re pretty smart teenagers, so I should have a shower before they get home.”

  “I’ve been gone the better part of a year.” Rick laughed. “If they’re all that smart, having a shower won’t hide much from them.”

  Marta batted her eyes. A sure sign that she wanted him to stay in bed a few minutes longer.

  “I hired a new girl at work,” she said.

  “Do I know her?” Bedford asked, as much to hear his wife’s voice as to learn about any new employee. He’d never really thought about it, but these little “afterward” talks were something he’d missed.

  “Not unless you’ve had a pedicure in China.” Marta yawned. She threw her arms above her head in a shuddering stretch. “She just arrived in the U.S. and needed a job. Her name’s Haifa.”

  “Haifa doesn’t sound Chinese.” Bedford took a long look at his wife across the pillow. He had to pee but couldn’t quite bring himself to leave her.

  “She’s something else besides Chinese.” Marta shrugged. “Anyway, customers are eating up these pedicures. You should try one.”

  “I thought you warned me about letting foreign women touch my feet.” Bedford swung his feet to the floor, wincing as his hip brushed across the sheets. Naked, he craned his neck to try to see what was causing him so much pain. “Whew!” he gasped, swaying like he might pass out as he moved to the closet mirror. It felt as if something had stung him right above his tailbone. “Take a look at this, sweetie. I can’t really see what it is.” He flipped on the overhead light, then turned so Marta, too, could see.

  She sat up in bed, letting the sheets slide off.

  “Oh, my heck, Richard.” She whispered the strongest language that ever came out of her mouth. “That’s the biggest boil I’ve ever seen. You should have Doctor Todd take a look at it.”

  “Hmmm,” Bedford said, still craning to look for himself. “First you want some Chinese woman to touch my feet and now you want the man that married your sister to check out my butt.”

  “This is serious, Rick.” Marta put on her best pouty face. “Abraham Lincoln’s son died from a boil.”

  “It was his grandson,” Bedford corrected. “And the poor kid died from complications after doctors lanced his boil—which is exactly what your cutthroat brother-in-law will do if I go to see him.”

  “You can’t see it, but I can,” Marta said. “I’m making you an appointment for tomorrow morning.” She pooched out her bottom lip as a sign that any further argument would be futile.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, hobbling to the bathroom, appalled that he was beginning to move like his dairyman father. He cleared his throat to hide a cough. “Set it up. This is probably just all the crap I absorbed in Afghanistan working its way out of my system.”

  He coughed again. This time it was a rattling, phlegm-filled cough that he was unable to hide. Maybe a visit to the doc wasn’t such a bad idea.

  CHAPTER 4

  Colorado

  Kim’s heart stopped twice on the frantic ride between the Academy and the hospital. The paramedic at the wheel of the ambulance bypassed the closer St. Francis in favor of the Level II trauma center at Penrose Hospital just off I-25, south of the Academy. By the time they crashed through the ER doors with her strapped to the gurney, Kim had lost roughly a third of the blood in her body.

  Emergency room staff had pushed her straight through to surgery. Quinn found himself scraped off as she went through the stark double doors. He couldn’t help wondering if that was the last look he’d ever have of her, covered with bloody sheets and surrounded by stone-faced medical personnel.

  She’d been in there for hours and Quinn had yet to bring himself to sit down. Instead, he paced, staring out the windows and beating himself up, oblivious to the fact that he wore only his dress blue slacks and a blood-soaked T-shirt that made him look like he’d been on the receiving end of a messy appendectomy. He could focus on nothing.

  An orderly brought him a towel, and Quinn did the best he could to wipe Kim’s blood off his hands and face. There was little he could do about the sodden T-shirt.

  At the far end of the room, a young couple huddled together under the buzzing television, waiting for their child to get out of some procedure. The woman shot furtive glances at Quinn and whispered repeatedly to her husband. After a short time, the man walked slowly toward Quinn.

  Breathing heavily, with no intention of getting into a long conversation over his present circumstances, Quinn wheeled with the beginnings of a snarling grimace.

  The man stopped, then held out his jacket on tentative hands. “Here,” he said simply. “Take this. You need it more than I do.”

  Quinn forced a half smile as he accepted the fleece. No matter how much he’d scrubbed with the towel, Kim’s blood still rimmed his fingernails and stained the back of his hands.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “No worries,” the man said over his shoulder, already retreating toward the safety of his wife.

  Quinn shrugged on the jacket and zipped it up to cover the blood. He was thankful that he’d met one of the rare, decent people in the world who didn’t feel compelled to dish out advice. He looked up at the sound of a chime. Measured relief washed over him as Thibodaux and Ronnie got off the elevator with two men. OSI was a relatively small organization, especially when it came to officers. Quinn knew the detachment commander at the Academy but wasn’t familiar with either of these agents. One, an African American man in his mid-twenties, wore 5.11 khakis, a blue OSI polo, and a light cotton jacket. The other, older by a decade, had a blond goatee and wore pressed jeans. The senior man’s sport coat was tailored too close to hide the fact that he was wearing a pistol on his left side.

  Garcia snaked her arm around Quinn, oblivious to the blood. They’d all been close enough to the action that each looked as though someone had taken a red paintbrush to their clothes. The stains stood out starkly against Garcia’s bright yellow dress. She snuggled next to Quinn, offering physical and moral support. He returned the gesture, arm around her waist, hand on the swell of her hip, to draw her even closer. Thibodaux raised the brow over his functional eye. Like a good partner, he said nothing, waiting instead for Quinn to fill them in about Kim’s condition on his own time.

 

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