Men in black slickers surrounded me. Easy there, miss, move away, we’ve got it covered, the ka-chung of axes breaking metal, my God—look at that thing in her shoulder, get her an ambulance, a giant gloved hand scooping me up as easily as if I were an infant, not a 140-pound detective, and then, as I sat sideways on the command car’s passenger seat, feet on the ground, panting again, a familiar voice:

“Ms. W., what in Jesus’ name are you doing here?”

I looked up, startled, and felt giddy with relief. “Conrad! Where’d you come from? How did you know I was here?”

“I didn’t, but I might have guessed if buildings were blowing up on my turf that you’d be close by. What happened?”

“I don’t know.” The current of pain was sweeping through me again, tugging me loose from my moorings. “Zamar. Where is he?”

“Who’s Zamar—your newest victim?”

“Plant owner, commander,” a man outside my narrow field of vision said. “Trapped in there.”

A walkie-talkie squawked, cell phones rang, men talked, engines clanged, soot-grimed faces carried a charred body. I shut my eyes and let the current pull me away.

I came to briefly when the ambulance arrived. I stumbled to the rear doors on my own, but the EMT crew had to lift me into the back. When they had me strapped in, awkwardly, on my side, the jolting of the ambulance drew me down to a tiny point of pain. If I shut my eyes I felt sick to my stomach, but the light stabbed through me when I opened them.

As we swooped in through the ambulance entrance, I vaguely noticed the hospital’s name, but it was all I could do to mutter answers to the questions the triage nurse was asking. I somehow got my insurance card out of my wallet, signed forms, put down Lotty Herschel as my doctor, told them to notify Mr. Contreras if anything happened to me. I tried to call Morrell, but they wouldn’t let me use my cell phone, and, anyway, they had me on a gurney. Someone stuck a needle into the back of my hand, other someones stood over me saying they’d have to cut away my clothes.

I tried to protest: I was wearing a good suit under my navy peacoat, but by then the drug was taking hold and my words came out in a senseless gabble. I was never completely anesthetized, but they must have given me an amnesia drug: I couldn’t remember them cutting off my clothes or taking out the piece of window frame from my back.