The bathroom tiles were spotted with blood. Grigor had found a cheap motel within a five-minute shuttle ride of the airport terminal, booked a corner room on the second floor, and dropped off his backpack. He’d seen a gas station and convenience store across the street from the motel and gone there to buy a first aid kit. It contained sterile gauze, cleansing wipes, a tube of antibiotic ointment and medical tape.

Now he sat on a chair opposite the bathroom’s full-length door mirror, wearing only a bloody towel around his waist. His shirt and jacket were soaked red on the side where he was shot, but he had wanted to prevent his pants from getting stained as well.

The entry wound was about a quarter inch in circumference. Smaller than the slug by almost a third. When a bullet punctured human flesh, the skin pulled in around the hole it left behind. It was a natural healing mechanism. The body trying to close the wound.

Grigor didn’t think his bleeding was too bad. In fact, it had slowed over the past few hours, convincing him he would not need to stitch the wound shut. If he cleaned and packed it well enough, the flow would stop.

He reached down into the open first aid kit on the floor and used its wipes and ointment to sanitize the wound. Then he got out the roll of gauze, cut a long length with his knife, and folded it into a neat, thick square. He placed it atop the wound and breathed through clenched teeth as he applied steady pressure with his fingertips. Blood squeezed up under the gauze, streamed down his waist and dribbled to the floor, adding new splotches to those on the tiles. But he wanted the gauze to seal the hole in his flesh.

With the gauze pressed down hard on the pad, he reached for the tape and wrapped it around his middle. Two loops, then a third, using nearly the entire roll.

Afterward, he sat breathing deeply and slowly as the pain ebbed from his side. Grigor assumed the bullet had struck a rib after plowing through soft tissue. Otherwise it would have passed straight through him. Probably it had broken apart. But there was no way of knowing how extensively his organs had been damaged in its path. Or which organs. Their internal bleeding was probably worse than what he saw on the outside. Blood could leak into his abdomen and chest. What he had done here was only a stopgap. He would need surgery to remove the fragments and repair whatever injuries they caused.

Still, he thought he would be all right for a while. His flight was in just over two hours. He could rest on board the plane and then conclude his assignment. After that, he would take fuller care of the injury.