“Son of a bitch,” Lindsey said.
As they walked back toward the exit, Sam pulled out her phone to call Malone. She got a busy signal. “What does a busy signal mean when you make a call on a cell phone?”
“That the service is out, I think,” Q said.
“Great.” She moved through the crowd, looking for the captain.
“Could be because of an overload of the system from people trying to call us,” Lindsey said.
“The BlackBerry works.”
“It’s on a satellite.”
Normally, she’d ask how Freddie knew that, but nothing about this situation was normal.
“Ma’am,” Q said. “Can we at least get you out of this area and move you to a safe location?”
“Not right now. I need to find Captain Malone. It’s urgent.”
She heard Q’s sigh and understood there’d probably be hell to pay with the Secret Service after this, but she couldn’t think about that when her team needed her to stay focused on the situation at hand. As they rounded the building, Sam caught her first glimpse of the damage from the outside.
She stopped short as the horror registered. Not only was the entire front façade blown off the main entrance, but the press area had been hit, too. EMTs were tending to multiple victims.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
Lindsey put a hand on her arm as they took in the devastating scene. “There’s Malone.”
They moved toward him as he directed people to where they were needed.
“Cap,” Sam said as they approached.
He turned to her, his eyes a little wild as he managed an unprecedented event. “Have you heard from Joe or Jeannie?”
“Not yet. Cell service seems to be out. Listen, our dead Russian was taken from the morgue, and we can’t find Amara Robinson.”
Malone gave a slight shake of his head. “What? The body was taken?”
“Yes, sir,” Sam said. “We’re wondering if the bombing was intended as a distraction with retrieval as the goal.”
“A distraction. We’ve got at least four dead that we know of, three civilians and a reporter from CBC, who was outside the main door. We’re expecting more casualties once we can get back inside. And you’re saying this could’ve been done as a fucking distraction?”
Sam placed a hand on her stomach, which had begun to ache. “Who do we call when we suspect the Russians of bombing our building?”
“We need the FBI,” Malone said. “Hopefully, they’ll send some people over.”
“The BlackBerry is working. I’ll ask Nick to get the FBI here ASAP.”
“I really want to hear from Joe, Jeannie and Helen.”
“I do, too.”
* * *
Jeannie McBride had no idea where she was or what’d happened when she opened her eyes to darkness. Her ears were ringing, something heavy sat on top of her, and a substance that might’ve been dust caked the inside of her mouth. She spat out as much as she could, desperately wishing for some water. In the distance, she could hear people shouting, but they sounded far away. She tried to move, but the heavy thing on top of her made that impossible.
The baby…
She was able to get a hand on her belly and was relieved to feel the baby moving.
