“Do any of you three have first aid experience?” Agent Murphy asked.
“I do,” Kira said, raising her hand like she was in a classroom. “I volunteered as a firefighter when I was younger.”
“You did?” Blayne asked.
“I’m a woman of many talents,” Kira said with a playful wink. Kira may have been trying to make light of the situation, but Blayne saw right through her steeled resolve. She was shaken. Blayne thought helping would give her a sense of purpose in all this chaos.
“Great,” Murphy said. “Agent Harper,” she yelled. “I have a pair of hands for you—ex-firefighter.” Blayne watched as Kira approached Agent Harper, who gave her a small medic kit and a pair of rubber gloves.
“So, what the hell just happened?” Blayne asked, looking at Agent Murphy, who stood in the middle of the wreckage and carnage, taking it all in.
“I wish I had answers for you, Mr. Dickenson.”
“How’s everyone on your team?” Ethan asked the agent.
“We have two dead and another three wounded. Trust me. This could have been much worse with the amount of firepower that group had. Hell, I think it should have been much worse.”
Blayne found it hard to imagine what he saw around him being any worse than it was. “How could this have been worse?”
“Well, we were outnumbered and outgunned. I don’t know who those guys were, but they were fast and skilled. They came here for one objective and killing us was not it.”
“Okay?” Blayne started. “I don’t get your logic. Admittedly, I’m just a graduate student in education with zero military knowledge, so walk me through this one.”
Agent Murphy stopped looking around and turned to speak to Blayne and Ethan directly. “The two agents who died were killed in the initial attack. From what I can tell, whatever ballistics they used, those rockets could have taken out the vehicles and not just incapacitated them. After that, the only shots made to our men were superficial. Whoever they were, they knew what they wanted. And as soon as they got it, they left.”
“I think we know what they wanted,” Ethan admitted.
Agent Murphy stared Ethan down as he told them about their escape, his tumble to the ground and the woman with the gun.
“So, this was all about your phone?” Agent Murphy said as she let out a low whistle. “Too bad there’s nothing on it now. Whatever they wanted, we accidentally deleted it when we tried to clone it earlier.”
“Do you think they’re going to come back?” Blayne said, his voice shaking a bit more than he intended. He looked down and saw his trembling hand caused Ethan to shake a little, too. Blayne took a calming breath and tried to center himself like they’d taught him in the one yoga class he’d taken as an undergraduate.Fuck Namaste! She didn’t prepare me for this.
“If it was the phone they were after, well whatever was on it, they have it now. I wish we knew whotheywere. The woman you talked to, did she have any kind of discernible accent?”
“You mean, did she soundforeign?” Blayne asked, disdain entering his voice at the seemingly uncouth question.
“Any kind of accent,” Murphy corrected. “Foreign or domestic. Anything that could help us identify her.”
“American, I guess,” Ethan said. “Blayne?”
“I heard nothing unusual, either. Her voice was cool and collected. She could have just as easily been scolding her kids at a playdate as she was pointing a gun at us.”
“Can we go home now?” Ethan asked.
“Not yet,” Agent Murphy said. “We need to go back over to the Emerald City.” Then, realizing what she said, she corrected herself. “The Houston FBI Field Office. to get official statements from you. We should have you finished by sometime this evening.”
Over the next ten minutes, a range of Houston Police, ATF and FBI descended on their little stranded group. Several ambulances arrived to whisk the injured FBI agents to area hospitals. An emergency medical technician tended to Blayne’s arm. Thankfully, he’d only popped one of his stitches, which the EMT quickly replaced.
When the other groups arrived, a dark sedan took Blayne, Ethan and Kira back to the Emerald City, which Blayne found aptly named.
Blayne found himself singingIf I Only Had a Brainas they entered the subbasement, they’d left less than an hour before. It may have been an hour, but it seemed like a lifetime ago.
“How appropriate,” Kira remarked, quirking her head in Blayne’s direction. “If you’re the Scarecrow, does that make me the Lion?”
“Nah,” Blayne said. “You showed a hell of a lot of courage out there.”
“What does that make me?” Ethan asked.
