The Innocent

He didn’t get an answer.

The explosion knocked them both off their feet.

CHAPTER 16

Robie came to first. He had no idea how long he’d been out, but it couldn’t have been very long. There were no cops, no first responders. It was just him and a bus that was no longer there. He gazed over at the skeleton of burning metal that had once been a large piece of transportation equipment and thought that, like a plane crashing nose first into the earth from a great height, there could be no survivors.

This area of D.C. was deserted at this late hour and there were no residences nearby. The only people wandering out to see what had happened were obviously homeless.

Robie watched as one old man dressed in ragged jeans and a shirt turned black by living on the street stumbled out onto the sidewalk from his home of cardboard and plastic trash bags inside a doorway. He looked at the bonfire that had once been a bus with passengers inside and called out between rotted teeth, “Damn, anybody got something good to grill?”

Robie slowly rose. He was bruised and sore and would be even more bruised and sore tomorrow. He looked around for the girl and found her ten feet from where he had landed.

She lay next to a parked Saturn whose side windows had been blown out by the blast. Robie raced to her and gingerly turned her over. He felt for a pulse, found it, and breathed a sigh of relief. He checked her over. No blood, a few scratches on her face from where her skin had collided with the rough pavement. She would live.

A few moments later her eyes opened.

Robie eyed the grenade that she still clutched in her hand.

“Did you leave a real one of those on the bus?”

She sat up slowly, looked toward the demolished bus.

Robie expected the sight to evoke some reaction from her, but she said nothing.

“Somebody really wants you dead,” he said. “Any idea why?”

She got to her feet, spotted the knapsack lying a few feet away, and retrieved it, dusting off the outside and putting the strap over her shoulder. She looked up at Robie, who towered over her.

“Where’s your gun?” she asked.

This caught him off guard. He didn’t know where his gun had gone. He looked around, then squatted down and looked under a few cars parked on the street. There was a storm drain. It might have fallen in there when he’d gotten blasted off his feet.

“I’d find it if I were you.”

He looked at her. She was watching him from a few feet away.

“Why?”

“Because you’re probably going to need it.”

“Why?” he asked again.

“Because you’ve been seen with me.”

He rose. He could hear more sirens. Someone had finally called it in, because they were getting louder. The responders were heading this way. The homeless guy was now dancing around the bonfire yelling about wanting some “damn s’mores.”

Robie said, “And why is that significant?”

She glanced at the destroyed bus. “What? Are you stupid?”

He gave up the search for his gun and came over to her.

Robie said, “You need to go to the police. They can protect you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You don’t think they can?”

“If I were you I’d get out of here.”

Robie said, “There’s no one left alive on that bus to tell the cops what happened.”

“What do you think happened?” she asked.

“Over thirty people just lost their lives on that bus, including a guy who was trying to kill you.”

“That’s your theory. Where’s your proof?”

“The proof is in that bus. Some of it. The rest is in your head, presumably.”

“Again, your theory.”

She turned and started to walk off.

Robie watched her for a few moments. “You can’t do this alone, you know,” he said. “You’ve already screwed up, or got ratted out.”

She turned back. “What do you mean?” For the first time she sounded interested in what he had to say.

“They already followed you to the bus or they were waiting for you. If the latter, you were set up. They had advance intel. Knew the bus, the time, everything. So either you screwed up and let them follow you, somehow, or else someone you trusted turned on you. It’s either one or it’s the other.”

She looked over his shoulder at the burning mass of metal and flesh.

He asked, “How did you spot the guy on the bus? Looked to me like he had a clean kill angle.”

“Reflection in my window. Tinted glass, overhead light inside, dark outside equals a mirror. Simple science.”

“You were reading a book.”

“I was pretending to read a book. I saw the guy sit down behind me. He passed by three empty rows. Made me think, you know? Plus I saw him get on. He was doing his best not to let me see him.”

“So you would’ve recognized him?”

“Maybe.”

“I was behind you too.”

“Too far behind to do you any good.”

“So you spotted me too?”

She shrugged. “You just get used to checking stuff out.”

“So he followed you to the bus. Did he chase you? I see the dirt on your hands and knees. Looks like you took a tumble before you got to the bus.”

She looked down at her knees but didn’t answer him.

Robie said, “But you still can’t do this alone.”

“Yeah, you already said that. So what do you suggest?”

“If you won’t go to the police, you can come with me.”