Storm Prey

behind.
    Marcy got the cops in order, and they began sweeping through the hospital, working with janitors, opening every door, blocking every exit.
    There had been a half-dozen media people waiting in the cafeteria for the end of the twins operation, and now they were walking through the hospital, completely out of control, questioning everyone. Marcy moved to get them out, and got filmed pushing a reporter.
    When the reporter screamed at her, Marcy shouted back, “What is it you don’t understand about hand grenades? You think this is a fuckin’ talk show?”
    Lucas, who’d been hiding, said with a grin, “That’s prime time.”
     
     
    IN THE MIDDLE of the carnival, a bomb-squad cop told Lucas, “The thing is, a grenade’s not all that powerful.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Think about it. People are supposed to throw these things—and they weigh almost a pound. Most guys couldn’t throw them a hundred feet, in an open field. They get maybe thirty, thirty-five yards, unless they’re really strong. And lots of times, they’re used pretty close-in. You can’t have them killing your own people. So you get solid kills out to about five yards, solid wounding out to about fifteen. After that, not so much.”
    “What if somebody drops one on you, when you’re in a stairwell?”
    “Well, in that case, you’re toast,” the guy said. “But, you slam the door ...”
    “That’s what we did.”
    “And you’re good. If you’d done that in a movie, the grenade would have blown down the door and most of the wall. In real life, you probably won’t even punch a hole in a fire door. You won’t punch through a concrete block.”
     
     
    WEATHER HEARD only one far-off grenade, which sounded more like a door slamming hard; but not quite like that. She looked up, and then back down. Slowing a little bit, taking twenty seconds for neatness.
    Then, “I’m out.”
    “I’m two minutes out, I think I’m okay,” Cooper said. The people up above, in the observation area, were standing now, watching him finish, and Weather realized that everybody in the OR was doing the same.
    When he finished, he held his hands up, like a referee signaling a touchdown, and said, “Out.”
    Up above, in the observation desk, people began to applaud.
     
     
    SHRAKE SHOWED UP and said to Lucas, “I heard about it. You know what we need?”
    “What?”
    “We need for Cherries to be open,” Shrake said. “If Cherries were open, we could block the place up, and squeeze them, and somebody would know the skinhead’s name.”
    Lucas tapped him on the chest. “Call everybody in the files—the Seed guys. Call the guy down in Cottage Grove, and what’s-his-name across the river, in Minneapolis.”
    “One more thing,” Shrake said. “The guy might not have registered the van, but he might have insured it. Remember, Joe Mack told him that he was going to cancel his insurance. If he called it in to his insurance company, with a VIN ...”
    “Get somebody to start calling insurance companies. Get Sandy on it.”
    Shrake left.
     
     
    VIRGIL CAME UP and said, “The twins are good. They’re gonna make it, seventy-five percent. The Frenchman is happy, Weather is happy, they’re all happy. They’re putting the kids back in the ICU and turning them over to the overnight team, then they’re gonna do a press conference, and then they’re going to a place called Le Moue and eat frogs.”
    “Aw, for Christ sakes ...”
    “Weather’s going with them. I told her you were fine. Should I go?”
    “Absolutely ... Tell you the truth, with the doc dead and the skinhead either running or locked up here, she’s probably safer eating frogs than she would be here.”
    Virgil said, “Think what would have happened if that asshole had pitched one of the grenades through the observation window into the OR.”
    “I think the windows are Lucite,” Lucas said. “The grenades probably would have bounced.”
    “And then would have blown ten thousand Lucite splinters into the OR,” Virgil said.
    “Maybe not,” Lucas said. “Contrary to what most people believe, from looking at movies, grenades aren’t all that powerful.”
    “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “Think about it ...”
     
     
    WITH ALL the cops systematically working every hallway, every overhead, every closet, every bin, they found not a thing. A uniformed sergeant from Minneapolis told Lucas, “He might still be here. There are more holes in this