"Understood. If I have something, I'll call General Palisade." And he'd call Admiral Kettering. It was almost an amusing turnaround given that she and Riyad were the junior ones on the totem pole. Almost. "Good hunting."
"You, too."
He hung up.
She was about to make a second attempt at the fridge when a low, deep rap reverberated on the opposite side of the door behind her.
"Come on in."
The door swung wide. Staff Sergeant Tulle's still suited, though now rumpled, Nordic bulk entered the room, her laptop's strap slung over his left shoulder, her crime kit in the same hand. And in his right?
A gorgeous, oversized takeout cup of coffee…which he was extending to her.
"Oh, Lord, Tulle. I could kiss you."
The blond giant actually blushed, causing the scruff on his cheeks and jaw to appear burnished.
She met him at the foot of the empty bed to accept the cup with her steady hand and pop the lid. Not only was the coffee within still steaming, it was blacker than a brand new Humvee's tires. Despite everything that'd happened, and everything she was terrified might happen, she smiled and promptly gave credit where it was due.
"Outstanding instincts."
"Yeah, not really. The major might've mentioned your addiction in passing."
John had spoken about her?
For some reason, her heart clenched—painfully.
Tulle shifted her kit to his right hand. "Any news on his condition?"
She shook her head. "Not since we last spoke." She took a sip of the coffee, savoring the anticipatory rush that hit, then nodded to the small, makeshift sitting area. "You can set my gear down over there." It was where she'd be staying—and, hence, working—until further notice. "Any news on the mob?"
"It's over here, lined up outside the doors of the blood donation lab, down the hall and out of the hospital, wrapped halfway around the block. And it's still growing."
"What?" He was joking, right?
But the staff sergeant nodded, shrugging those massive shoulders that reminded her so much of John's. "We owe it all to Chaudhry, too. The chief justice stopped by the lab before he returned to the embassy. He donated a pint of his very own life's juice for the brave and honorable American major who took a bullet for him this morning—and he made sure everyone knew it. Before Chaudhry got to his car, folks were tweeting out what he'd done and calling the local stations with the tip. Pakistanis are driving across the city to donate blood as well. Heck, I heard they're even gathering in the mosques to pray for him."
The last warmed her more than the rest, especially since the hospital probably had plenty of blood. Naturally, Harun Chaudhry would've known that. But he'd also known that his symbolic act would speak volumes where even his voice couldn't.
And it had.
As for those prayers in the mosques, admittedly, she wasn't particularly religious. The raw end of her grandfather's belt had seen to that. But neither could she shake the belief that someone might be up there, looking down. And if they were, she darned sure wanted the celestial conversation bending in John's favor today of all days.
Especially since—
"No."
She stiffened. "What?" She hadn't—
"It's not your fault."
Great. Was Tulle's Rae-dar now in full-tune mode, too?
Or was it because of John? The terror and the guilt she couldn't quite seem to push to the back of her mind, much less off her face.
As deeply as she wanted to accept the staff sergeant's absolution, she couldn't. She shook her head. "I took the shot, Tulle. But it was early. My hand, it jolted. And I—"
"Saved his life." He nodded in the face of her disbelief. "I was there, Chief. I saw it go down, and clearly. I was fifteen feet behind that bastard and penned in by all those frantic, flailing bodies. I couldn't get to my mic, much less my weapons. I watched that fucker line up his shot. Your round went into his right shoulder, knocked off his aim at the last second. And this part I won't tell Chaudhry—or any of the Pakistanis, at least not today—but that bastard? He wasn't aiming for the chief justice. He had a hard on for the major. If you hadn't taken that shot—however it happened—when you did, his bullet would have punched clean through the major's skull." The staff sergeant's second, confirming nod was for her shock. "Yeah, that bastard was setting up a headshot."
But why?
It didn't make sense. "Why would Webber go to all that trouble to infiltrate that unruly mob to target John?"
Tulle shrugged. "Dunno. That's for you to figure out—and I'd really like you to do that, and soon. But there's more. Like everyone else, I lost that asshole in the moments that followed. The crush of bodies knocked me back. By the time I was able to right myself, he was gone. But I kept pushing forward, hoping I'd get another glimpse of him, or at least find that bullet of yours with some blood on it. There was no sign of it, so it's still in that fucker's shoulder. But I did find his shades. At least, I think I did. They were on the ground where he set up his kill shot. Must have got knocked off by someone during the panic. They were wraparounds, yellow tint."
Yes. "That's them."
Despite the loss of the round she'd fired, adrenaline surged. Because with those sunglasses came the same holy grail of forensic evidence that she'd have gotten from a bloodied bullet: DNA. Especially since they were all assuming Webber had taken that shot, but no one was certain. Even her. Despite all those floodlights, there had still been too many shadows flitting within that mass of bodies; the bastard's features obscured that much more by those wraparound lenses he'd been wearing.
But the odds were excellent that those glasses would contain epithelial cells, possibly even recoverable fingerprints.
"Don't get so excited. They're already gone. I gave the glasses
