114 (2)

Will Hetfield’s mind was a mess. It was a jumble of images and sounds, and none of them were helping him relax. He kept flashing back to the black Cadillac, in a moment there, and the next moment gone. He remembered getting up and grabbing his head, and seeing his hands bloody as he looked around. There was broken glass everywhere, and Tina’s body was limp and partially on top of his. He remembered hearing sirens in every direction, and stumbling into the station, only to be hauled out to an ambulance. Now, he was sitting in a waiting room with an ice pack on his head, squinting to see the closed captioning on the KELO newscast.

“Mr. Hetfield?”

Will looked up and to his left. He vaguely recognized the doctor who had worked on him earlier. He was a middle-aged Hispanic man, and his face looked alert and serious. “Yes…I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“I am Doctor Henriquez. I treated you and several others who came in today. Thankfully, there were very few severe injuries.”

“What…what happened to me?”

“You have a mild concussion, and a piece of debris nicked your head. We had to do a few stitches, but you’re free to go.”

“How, how is officer Tina Vig?”

Doctor Henriquez took a deep breath. Will had seen that before, whenever a doctor was telling a family bad news. “She isn’t good. We had to dig several pieces of shrapnel out of her back. She has a concussion, and she lost a lot of blood. She’s still unconscious and in intensive care.”

Will lowered the ice pack from his head and stood up. He teetered for a moment and the doctor quickly caught him. “Can I…whoa…”

“Easy Mr. Hetfield. You do have a slight concussion, and you’ve had a long day. I think you seriously need to get some rest.”

“I’ll rest later. I need to see her.”

***

“Hale, who’s all there?” The police chief’s voice boomed through the speaker phone. Captain Hale leaned forward.

“I’m here sir, along with N.R.O. agent Garrett, N.G.A. agent Lewis, and F.B.I. agent Iron-Horse.”

“What the hell are we going to tell the press? Who do we pin the blame of this cluster on?” The chief’s voice was angry, and the speaker crackled in spots.

“I have a story ready to go about a training exercise with explosives that we can pin back on the explosives manufacturer.” Garrett closed his laptop as he bent towards the phone. The four of them were all bent slightly forward around Hale’s desk.

“Who on Earth is going to buy that malarkey?”

“It’s textbook, but it seems to work most of the time.”

“I want options dammit! The mayor is on my ass to ease the public’s mind about this!”

“Say the matter is under investigation but have the boys in the lab cook up a reason that it was mechanical failure, causing the gas tank to blow.”

“Not bad Hale.”

“Actually, bad. Anyone who’s watched Mythbusters knows that gas tanks don’t explode at the level that car blew.” Clayton finished his statement and felt all eyes shift to him, and few of them looked happy.

“Is that the F.B.I. guy? Well, what’s your bright idea?” The chief’s question echoed for a moment, and Clayton carefully considered his response.