Apprentice in Death (In Death #43)(76)

“How bad are you?”

“Just got banged up some in the panic. Came with a couple buddies from the lab. We’re all okay, but . . . People running, screaming, trampling each other trying to get out. They thought it was going to blow again.”

His breath short, his eyes a little glazed as he looked around. “Christ, Dallas, fucking Christ.”

“Do you need a medic?”

“No. No. I got some basic medical training, but I don’t know if I’ve got enough to do anything here.”

“There’s Feeney coming through. You’re with him and EDD. Work the program.”

“Yeah, I can do that. I can do that,” he repeated, limping toward Feeney.

No way to preserve the scene, she thought, and she’d done what she could to secure the area for now. So she took another breath, cleared everything else out of her head, and looked.

Wait for the concert to end—probably being streamed, probably a way to watch it on screen or at least get updates.

Was a target here? A name from the list? Or was this just a way to show how much you could do?

Doors open, people start streaming out. Did you wait? How long did you wait until you gave yourself the green?

She walked back to Summerset, noted he’d stopped the bleeding and was carefully tending the more superficial head wound.

“You’re drafted as an expert consultant, medical.”

“I—”

“You see that MT over there?” She gestured. “She’s solid. You’re going to work with her to arrange for the minor injuries to be taken inside. I want them comfortable but contained. One of my people will talk to them, and they’ll be released when cleared. More severely injured will be triaged where they are, and transported asap to a medical facility. I need to tend to the dead, you get that? You can help tend to the living.”

“Yes, all right.”

“I need a running list of names of anyone you treat or move. Understand?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll tap you when I need you otherwise.”

She saw Roarke and Feeney going inside, with Berenski limping behind them.

“See that guy, the one with a head like an egg, limping?”

“Yes.”

“When you have time, look him over. He got banged up. He’ll be with Roarke and Feeney.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“If you see Mavis, tell her . . .”

“That is also understood.”

“Okay.” Shifting her field kit, she walked away to begin tending to the dead.

—

She’d identified two, had begun her work on a third when Peabody rushed to her.

“I’m sorry. Jesus, Dallas, we couldn’t get through. It’s damn near a riot behind the barricades. Whitney called out every cop in the city, or it seems like it, to get people off the streets. Do you want me to start on IDs?”

“We’ve got the target here. Rothstein, Jonah, age thirty-eight, attorney. This is going to be the lawyer we couldn’t nail down. This gut shot wound? He’d have bled out before anyone could do anything for him, but he’d have had a few minutes of agony first. He tried to crawl—see the blood smears. And see his legs. Gut shot, then she put two more strikes into him, one in each leg. It’s the first I’ve seen where she hit more than once. This is the target.”

Eve sat back on her heels. “He comes out, moving with the crowd, probably juiced from the concert. Maybe he’s with somebody—he’s divorced—and she’s watching for him. This time, yeah, I say this time, she puts him down first. Wouldn’t want to lose him in the crowd when the panic starts. Then she just picks at random. That’s not for cover now, no need for cover now. That’s for fun.

“Contact Morris.”

“I already did. He’s on his way. He might have beaten us here.”

“I haven’t seen him. We need this victim transported first. Have Rothstein bagged and tagged, tagged priority.”

“I’ll coordinate with Morris. Dallas, do you know how many dead?”

Eve got to her feet. Medicals continued to triage the wounded, but many had been taken inside, the uninjured were cleared and released.

It looked, she thought, like a battlefield after combat, bodies strewn over the cold and bloody pavement. She could count fourteen down, beyond help. There could be more.

“Let’s take it one at a time.”

In the end it would be sixteen dead on scene, two others who died of their wounds within hours. Another eighty-four injured.

They would weigh on her, every one, as in the cold, cold hour before dawn she left the dead to go inside. To do what came next.

She looked around the huge sweep of the lobby, the marble floors under the brilliance of the lights. Crossed to Jenkinson.

“Fill me in,” she said.

“Conflicting reports. Most people don’t know what the hell. The bulk of them never got outside, got banged up, knocked down, trampled in here. Somebody started yelling about a bomb and that lit the fricking fuse.”

Face grim and tired, he, too, looked around the lobby area, cleared of wounded now, but with smears of blood still on the floor, and scattered belongings dropped and forgotten in the panic.

“Same deal outside, from what we’re getting. Conflictings on the first strike, but I got a security guard who kept his head, and he’s firm the first couple went down around one-fifty, one-fifty-five. Say ten minutes after people began crowding out.