A surreal view greeted her as she made the turn. The bomb sergeant, still cloaked in his bulky armor suit, knelt on the floor, applying direct pressure to the wound gushing red from Tyler Wynn’s neck. Heat made a flash assessment of the damage. All of the old man’s wounds were from the torso up on one side of his body, the side that had been exposed to the blast, which she could see-quite graphically-had come from the dining table on the other side of the counter. The eating area had been ripped by the explosion: leather dining chairs shredded; glass from the solarium-style windows gone; vertical blinds-those that remained-wagging back and forth in the breeze, mangled, sawed-off, and powder-charred; the thick glass table shattered into bits. Some of the glass was spread across the floor like fractured bits of ice. The rest of the jagged shards had been broadcast around the place, blending with the shrapnel packed inside the bomb: a mix of screws, nails, and ball bearings that peppered the ceilings and walls.
Wynn had taken the blast while in the kitchen. The granite counter had blocked his lower half from injury; meanwhile, his upper body resembled tartare. Heat knelt beside the man from the bomb squad and reached out to plug another ugly pumper on Wynn’s chest. But she had to pull her hand back. Something sharp etched her palm. She lifted the sopping tatter of his shirt and saw the broken blade of a bread knife the concussion had shot out of the wood block on the countertop and into his ribs.
“Heat,” he coughed out, making it almost sound like “hee.”
“Help’s coming. Hang on. Just hang on.” She found a dish towel on the floor and made a wad to press around a gash on his forehead. The skin had been so flayed, she could see skull. The chest wound still flowed prolifically, so she carefully fit the bread knife blade between two fingers and applied what pressure she dared around the metal.
“Was it…?” He coughed again.
“Don’t try to talk,” she said.
“Was it… Salena?… Did Kaye… find me?”
“Breathe. Don’t talk. Just breathe and stay with me. Look, here come the paramedics.”
In truth, Nikki wanted him to talk. But she wanted him to live first, so he could talk a whole lot. When the EMS crew took over, she stood by, bloody to her elbows and knees, not wanting to leave his side, in case he said anything more. It didn’t seem likely. Even without medical training, Heat had been around enough trauma scenes to know from a paramedic’s tone of voice, when the medic verbalized vital signs, when things were dire. They were having trouble stabilizing him. The paramedic said, “We gotta transport, and now.”
Heat rode down with the gurney and got in the back of the ambulance for the ride. If Tyler Wynn were going to die, she wanted to be there when he did. And, yes, she also wanted to make sure he didn’t get away again.
No sooner had the double doors closed than he rolled his head to her. He raised the hand on his good arm, the one without exposed tendons and bone showing, and beckoned her close. She held the rail of the gurney to steady herself and leaned forward inches from his shredded, monster face. “I’m sorry,” he said. She could see him whimpering a cry and put a hand on his good wrist. “I loved your mom. I…” He choked a sob back and closed his eyes, which made her think he’d died, but then he flashed them open, and they were wild, full of some found strength and determination.
“I sold myself. They made me rich.” He sucked in a gulp of air. “But they made me do awful things. So damn sorry. They made me…”
“Who?”
“Him!” The old spy coughed the name out on frothy blood: “Dragon.”
Heat remembered. The person Salena Kaye had called from the stolen helicopter. “Who is Dragon?” she asked. “Aren’t you Dragon?”
He wagged his head vehemently and moaned a no. The effort drained the fight from his eyes and he blinked. Then in a sudden exclamation, he shouted, “Terror!” And then he sucked more air. “Death, mass death here in New York. Worse than…” He shuddered down a breath. “… Worse than 9/11.” He gagged and labored to swallow. “I’m cold.”
“My mother found out about it? Is that why you-”
“Yes!” he blurted. “I am so sorry.” He sobbed again and said, “She almost stopped them.”
“Who did stop them? Nicole?” she asked. It felt logical that her mom’s friend and fellow agent intervened-and then ended up a frozen body in a suitcase.
His head wagged urgently side to side on the sheet. “Nobody stopped them.”
“I don’t understand. When was it supposed to happen?”
“Not was.” His neck wound gurgled and red froth formed around it. Then he grunted out, “Is!”
“What is? Tyler, what?”
Nikki had to put her ear to his lips to hear him, his voice had grown so weak. “Mass death. It’s coming.” She rose up a few inches to see his face, to try to comprehend. And to believe. With a gaze fixed on hers from under flayed eyelids, he nodded with a message of certainty and warning. “You, Nikki. You stop it.”
Another shuddering, labored breath. Heat could see him slipping away, and the injustice of his exit enraged her. “Talk. Tell me.” She put her face right up to his. “You killed her, you goddamned bastard, and it’s not going to be for nothing. Talk. Tell me what’s coming. When?” The old man didn’t answer. He reached for her cheek, but his hand never got there. It dropped lifelessly to his chest.
The paramedic swept in to try to revive him. For the second time in a month Nikki watched Tyler Wynn paddled by cardiac jolts on his deathbed. And, as before, a shrill flatline tone from the cardiac monitor called it a day.
The difference this time: Tyler Wynn was really dead.
The paramedic switched off the monitor and knuckled the glass behind the front cab. The ambulance driver killed the siren and slowed for the remainder of the trip past Columbus Circle to the ER. Nikki looked at the old spy’s body then out the window as they pulled up to Emergency at Roosevelt Hospital. If Wynn had told her the truth, a terror group was somewhere out there right now-busy making other plans.
ELEVEN
Heat stayed with the body until Lauren Parry arrived to do the preliminary postmortem. The medical examiner had been at Jersey Boys when she saw the text alert after the show and responded that she would handle it herself, since she was merely seven blocks from Roosevelt Hospital. But the real reason didn’t need to be articulated, the part about knowing the deep significance to her friend, Nikki.
“Dr. Parry, now, you double check to make sure he’s dead,” said Rook as the ME pulled a surgical gown over her evening dress. “Use a wooden stake if you have to. This one has a nasty habit of coming back from the grave.”
While the medical examiner went to work, Heat closed the door to an empty exam room and briefed Agents Callan and Bell on what she had been told on the ambulance ride.
Bart Callan asked the same questions they all had. “Was he specific? Did he say what kind of terror event? Did he say when? Or where? Did he say who was behind it?”
“It’s not like I’m holding back,” said Heat. “Wynn flatlined before he could give it up.”
Rook chimed in, “So annoying. This guy always does that. Gets you all sucked in and then dies before he finishes the story.”
Callan began texting as he spoke. “This just popped to a new level. I’m getting NYPD Counterterror in on this right now.”
“Is Tyler Wynn even credible?” asked Agent Bell. “I mean, come on, look at this guy’s history.”
“Really?!” Heat whipped her head to Yardley. Maybe it was the stress of it all. Or the raggedness of this ending and its denial of closure. But something roared inside Nikki. “Are you really going to stand here and pretend to tell me-tell me-about this guy’s history?”