The sound of shattered glass turned their heads toward the bank—and then two loud and brilliant detonations staggered them.

Flash-bang grenades led the charge into the bank. A phalanx of Emergency Service Unit tactical officers advanced on the doors with a battering ram, forcing their way inside the smoke-filled bank. The ensuing gunshots and screams were barely audible under the ringing in Odessa’s ears caused by the concussive grenades. Uniformed officers spilled into the street from the barricade, prohibiting any further advance by Odessa or Blackwood.

Smoke streamed out. No other people exited the bank. Then the news arrived, relayed to police officers via their radios: “Shooter down! Shooter down!”

Odessa and Blackwood had to wait while the incident scene was secured and the smoke was ventilated. The street filled with police personnel. The injured would be evacuated, and then the crime scene processing would begin.

“What do we do?” asked Odessa. “Is it jumping into someone else?”

Blackwood said, “Most likely.”

“It could be anyone,” she said. “How can we know? What do I look for?”

Blackwood said, “I will sense it.”

Odessa pushed forward, getting them as close to the bank as possible. FBI agents clustered on the street outside the entrance, waiting for the air quality inside to improve. Odessa had to stay back from them.

ESU members began to exit onto the street. They removed their helmets once they got outside, many of them coughing, chugging bottles of water to clear their throats. This gave Blackwood a clear line of sight to their faces.

Odessa didn’t know what they were going to do if he identified the body the Hollow One had seized. Especially if it had jumped into a tactical agent with an assault rifle—as she assumed was its goal. She didn’t even have a handgun with which to defend herself. She was looking back and forth between their faces and Hugo Blackwood, awaiting some reaction from him.

The ESU members regrouped, then began filing out for a debriefing. Blackwood watched them go with concern.

“Nothing?” Odessa said.

“No,” he said. “We have to get inside that bank.”

“Never going to happen,” Odessa told him.

They moved up another few steps, Odessa looking in past the breached front doors, through the ATM vestibule into the main lobby. The smoldering pile of scorched cash had been soaked with water, many thousands of dollars mutilated and irredeemable.

Straining, she eyed the teller windows, and the open gate through which the bank manager had moved back and forth with cash. She saw what could have been an arm and a shoulder of the dead manager. A dark patch of blood on the floor struck something in her.

“Where are the wounded?” she said.

They had been so focused on the weapons-toting tactical officers, she hadn’t seen the wounded tellers and customers being brought out.