An axle of the van, with two wheels still connected, lay like a barbell in the middle of the roadway.
The side of her foot bumped against something that rolled, like a black bowling ball, down the white line of the bridge. It was only as it rotated that she saw it was a perfectly smooth, perfectly burned, perfectly unrecognizable head.
She stopped in her tracks, afraid to move another step or see another horror. Gusts of wind kept picking over things that had fallen back to earth, blowing them around as if for further inspection, but Nika couldn’t bear to look. She lowered her eyes, breathing hard, and saw something shining in the glow of a burning seat cushion. It was a cross, made of silver. With emeralds that sparkled in the light of the fires crackling all around them. What on earth would that be doing here?
“Over here!” the patrolman cried, holding the mask away from his lips.
He was crouched by the railing.
“Over here!”
Nika jumped over a twisted muffler pipe and went to the railing.
A body, nearly ripped in half, was lying with a shredded blanket wrapped around it. Already she could tell it was missing a couple of limbs.
Her heart plummeted like a rock, but then the patrolman, pointing his flashlight, said, “Underneath! Look underneath!”
She brushed the cinders out of her eyes.
And then she saw that someone else lay there, too, shielded by the mangled corpse.
“Help me,” the cop said, snapping his mask back into place and starting to disentangle the two.
They allowed what was left of the body on top to slither to one side. Enough of it remained, even now, that she could recognize Harley Vane.
And beneath him lay Frank, his lab suit soiled with blood and ash, the ivory owl on its leather string draped over one shoulder. When she said his name, she saw his eyelids flutter. His mask was gone, and his face was seared and bleeding. But she saw his lips move.
“Lie still,” she said, tenderly brushing soot from his cheek. “Don’t try to talk.”
But he tried to, anyway … and she could swear he said “Nika.”
Turning to the cop, she said, “Call for a medical evacuation. We need a helicopter as fast as they can get here!”
But he was shaking his head. “I radioed already, and every chopper is on duty enforcing the quarantine. It’ll be hours before any help gets here.”
Hours was not something Nika had to spare.
“Then I’ll need to take your patrol car.”
“Have you seen what’s left of it? You’ll be driving with no hood.”
Her brain was racing. Her only option was the ambulance with the missing windshield, the lone headlight, and not enough gas. “Can you drain your gas tank into the ambulance for me?”
“That I can do,” he said, plainly relieved that he could finally offer some sort of help, and headed back across the smoldering minefield.
Nika bent low over Frank, trying to assess his injuries, but he was so saturated in blood it was hard to tell. His face was covered with cuts and abrasions, and she carefully raked her fingers through his hair, stiff and matted, in search of any gash or obvious wound. To her relief, she found none. Loosening his hazard suit and trying to peer inside, she could see no open wounds or protruding bones, but internal injuries, even she knew, could be a lot less apparent and much more deadly.
When the patrolman returned with the gurney, they lifted Frank onto it, wheeled him to the back of the ambulance. On the way, Nika’s eye was caught again by the silver cross, glinting among the broken glass and metal, so she stuck it in her pocket. She assumed it was a family heirloom that Vane’s wife would want back, and it might make a small peace offering after all that had happened. Way too small … but still, something.
After they had secured the gurney, the patrolman said, “I still don’t know how you’re gonna make it, in this weather and this vehicle.”
But Nika was already hauling out the medics’ gear stashed in back. She slung on a huge red anorak, with white crosses on its sleeves and a voluminous hood. Her face was barely visible under the dirty mask, and even the remainder she covered with a pair of protective snow goggles. Her hands, still in the latex gloves, went into thermally insulated gloves. When she was done, the cop said, “You still in there, Doc?”
Somewhere along the way, maybe because of the white suit and ambulance, he had assumed she was a doctor—and she had been savvy enough not to correct him. She nodded in answer to his question, but even that movement might have been lost in the folds of the hood.