Bear looked down at the phone. “It’s going to be hard for me to get back out of the States again if you need me. They must’ve noticed I’ve left by now.”

  “Whatever is going on here, it’s centered in the States, even if everything else is happening out here. We have to focus on the disease, not the symptoms.”

  Bear knew he was right, but it didn’t make him like it any better. Still, he pocketed the phone and stood up as Jack threw some bills down on the table. The waiter from earlier made his way over to them.

  “Anything else I can get you, gentlemen?”

  “It was great, Elias. Thank you.”

  “It was the least I can do,” Elias said. The gratitude in his eyes made Bear think Jack had been keeping busy while he was on the run.

  Elias shook both of their hands before they headed toward the door, trying their best not to upset any tables along the way. Jack led Bear outside and stood on the sidewalk, rubbing his hands together to stay warm. It was starting to get dark now. There was a chill in the air.

  “You still playing a hero?” Bear asked, hooking his thumb over his shoulder back toward the restaurant.

  “His brother owed a little too much money to the wrong people. I helped even the playing field. Don’t worry, I got my reward for it.”

  Bear chuckled. “I was worried there for a minute.”

  “About what?”

  “That you’d turned into a white knight.”

  It was Jack’s turn to laugh. “No chance of that.”

  “Good to know,” Bear said. “Can’t have you going soft on me.”

  Jack laughed, but whatever he was about to say next was drowned out by an explosion so loud, it momentarily deafened Bear. The subsequent shockwave knocked them off their feet. One second he was standing, and the next he was eating concrete.

  It took Bear a minute to get his bearings. The side of his face burned where it had scraped against the sidewalk. His world was blurry at the edges for a few seconds before it snapped back into crisp focus. He looked around and noticed Jack standing above him, shouting something.

  “I’m okay,” Bear said, allowing Jack to haul him to his feet. His voice sounded strange, like he was yelling in a wind tunnel. He tried to pop his ears, but nothing shifted. Nothing hurt either, which was a good sign, all things considered.

  Bear turned to Jack and blinked the last of the blurriness from his eyes. He looked down at Jack’s lips and got an idea of what he was yelling at him. It was only a few words, but it was more than enough to realize what was going on.

  Explosion. Bomb. Terrorist attack.

  If London was the first domino, then Munich was the second.

  3

  Bear turned back toward the Oktoberfest activities and took it all in. Smoke billowed from the center of the festival. People were screaming, running in all directions. A woman gripped her child against her chest and ran past them at full speed. She wasn’t wearing any shoes and blood trickled from the side of her head. Bear hoped the kid was okay.

  Jack sprinted toward the chaos. Bear cursed and followed after him. So much for not being a hero.

  Any thought of walking in the other direction was immediately thrown away the second Bear saw the destruction before him. Whoever had set the bomb off made sure it was right in the middle of the main square. Bear couldn’t help but wonder if it had been planted the entire time they were there, or if someone had walked forward with a six-pack of C4 and blew themselves up right alongside everything else.

  It took a minute for Bear’s eyes to adjust to the scene. It looked like a kid had dumped out his Lincoln Logs and Legos and left them strewn around the living room. He could only recognize bits and pieces of the stands from earlier. Everything else was just shrapnel.

  As his hearing started to come back, Bear started to make out the wails of people who had been hit by the explosion or the debris. Anyone in close proximity to the bomb would be a paint smear on the ground, but those unlucky enough to have been farther away or shielded now had to deal with the repercussions.

  Jack processed the scene much more quickly than Bear. He was already on his knees, taking the scarf from one woman’s neck and tying it around her thigh. There was a large piece of wood embedded in the muscle. If she got help, she would be fine, but there was a chance she could bleed out before that happened. Bear walked closer.

  “—not going to remove it,” Jack said.

  “Please,” the woman cried. Tears and blood were smeared across her face. Her English was accented, but clear. “Please. Please take it out.”

  “I can’t.” Jack put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, forcing her to look directly into his eyes. “I’m not sure how close it is to the artery in your leg. If I remove it, you’ll start bleeding. You have to wait until they take you to the hospital.”

  The woman started crying harder, but she nodded her head as she looked away from her wound.

  “Stay here,” Jack said. “They’ll come for you. You’re going to be okay.”

  The woman closed her eyes and sobbed. Jack stood up and looked from Bear to the rest of the wreckage. “Go right. I’ll go left. Help as many as you can. We don’t have much time.”

  Bear didn’t question the order. He lumbered into ground zero, being careful to avoid tramping on anything that looked like it had once belonged to a person. Even if it was a single finger or a piece of an earlobe, it might be the only piece of evidence that someone had died here. He didn’t want to take that away from a grieving family looking for answers.

  In less than five steps, Bear came across a man holding a hand to his neck. He was covered in blood and his eyes already looked glassy. He perked up a little bit when he saw Bear and reached his hand out for him.

  Bear didn’t hesitate. He had been in enough combat situations to come to two conclusions instantly. One, this man was going to die. A piece of shrapnel had probably sliced open his neck. Anywhere else and he probably would’ve lived. Unlike the woman, the debris hadn’t lodged itself in there to stop the bleeding. Or maybe the man had pulled it out. Either way, it was only a matter of time.

  The other conclusion Bear had come to was that this man knew he was dying and didn’t want to be alone. Sometimes it’s easier to accept your death if you have someone there with you while you make your way out the door. Even if it’s just a stranger.

  Bear took the man’s hand and gripped it hard. He sat him up, and the man’s hand slipped from his neck. It was a nasty wound. Bear would’ve been able to see inside his neck if it weren’t for all the blood.

  The man tried to speak, but it just came out as a gurgle.

  “It’s okay,” Bear said. He kept his voice quiet, but firm. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. Just relax.”

  Another gurgle. Panic in the eyes.

  Bear looked down at the man’s chest. He was wearing a small, golden cross. Bear hoped he spoke English.

  “It’s okay,” Bear said again. “This next part is easy. You’re in good hands now. It’s time to rest.”

  There was one last gurgle and Bear saw the light slip from the man’s eyes. It was amazing how different it was, watching the life drain from the eyes of someone you’d killed and someone who happened to die in front of you. Bear didn’t particularly like either one of them, but he especially didn’t like the helplessness that was settling in his chest.

  Bear laid the man’s head back and stood up, ignoring the sticky blood on his hands. He took a few steps forward and noticed another person on the ground. It was an older woman, her face slack and her body unmoving. Bear knew she was dead, but he checked her pulse any way. Quiet. He moved on.

  A few people had hauled themselves to their feet now, stumbling forward, gripping bloody limbs. Bear ignored those who could walk. They’d find their way out of the wreckage on their own. He was more concerned about those who were trapped. Those who were about to give up.

  A soft crying sounded from his right, and he made a beeline for it. There was a tarp still burning, giving off a putrid scent of burning plastic. He choked on the fumes, but when a whimper sounded from the other side, he stepped closer.

  “Help.” The voice was weak. Young. “Please.”

  Bear sidestepped the tarp and peered behind it. There was a small girl, maybe sixteen or seventeen, seated against a concrete wall. She gripped her left leg with both hands. Her right arm was badly burned. There were even some pieces of the tarp melted to her skin.

  “Did you see what happened?” Bear asked, kneeling beside her.

  “There was a bomb,” the girl said. She was American. Her voice was distant, like she was still trying to understand her own words. “People started running everywhere. Someone pushed me down and then I just felt my leg crack.”

  Her voice caught, and Bear took the opportunity to speak. “I need to see if it’s completely broken or not. It’s going to hurt, but it’ll tell me whether or not I can move you.”

  The girl looked into Bear’s eyes like she was searching for what kind of person he was. After a few seconds, she gritted her teeth and nodded. Bear wasn’t sure he deserved what she had found there, but he wasn’t going to argue. If he saved at least one person today, it would be enough.

  “My name is Bear, by the way.”

  The girl choked out a laugh. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Amber.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Amber.” Bear gently pushed her hands out of the way. “Just bear with me a moment, okay? The pain will spike, but it’ll dull down shortly.”

  “Bear with you?” Amber said. “Is that supposed to be funny?”

  Bear didn’t answer her. Instead, he ran his hand down the front of her leg. When he got to an area that was bruised and swollen, she hissed through her teeth and groaned. He then ran his hands up the side of her legs to see if anything was badly out of place.

  “The good news is it’s not badly broken,” Bear said. “I don’t think your leg was crushed. It could end up being a clean break.”

  Amber nodded her head and swallowed. She didn’t look at her arm directly, but she did point to it with her chin. “And this?”

  Bear didn’t want to lie to her. She seemed like a tough kid, even if she was scared out of her mind. “It’s pretty badly burned. They’ll need to remove the plastic that’s still attached to you. Does it hurt?”

  “Like a motherfucker,” she said.

  Bear almost laughed. He cracked a smile instead. “That’s a good sign. It might just be a second-degree burn. No nerve damage.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Military,” Bear said. Amber nodded like that was the only answer she needed. Maybe she was an army brat and that was why she was in Germany. Bear didn’t ask.

  Bear grabbed two straight pieces of wooden sticks and found some scrap tent fabric and fashioned a splint around her leg. When he tied it tightly, she hissed and groaned again, but didn’t complain.

  “I’m going to lift you now and take you someplace where it’s easier to get to you, okay?”

  “Okay.” Amber’s voice sounded a little stronger now, a little more hopeful.

  Bear did his best not to jostle her too much, but he knew moving her was going to be painful. Amber cried out but told him to keep going. So he did. He walked Amber back to the woman with the piece of wood in her leg and set her down against a low wall. Amber breathed through the pain, keeping her eyes closed. The woman reached out for the girl and gripped her hand. The two of them remained silent.

  Bear was about to make his way back into the fray when he realized he had been hearing sirens in the distance. They were much closer now. Jack emerged from the wreckage, blood-spattered and sweating.

  “We need to go,” he said. He looked at the two women at his feet and turned back to Bear. “We did what we could.”

  “There’s gotta be dozens more people in there,” Bear said. He felt like he’d done nothing but watch people die.

  Jack shook his head. “The cops are coming. They’ll want statements. Pictures. Evidence. If our faces are anywhere near this, it’s just going to make things worse. This wasn’t an accident, Bear. It wasn’t coincidence.”

  Bear knew he was right. Still, it didn’t make it any easier. “Shit.”

  “Emergency responders are almost here. We did what we could. It’s better than nothing.”

  Bear looked beyond Jack. He could just make out a few people strewn here or there. He didn’t know whether they were dead or alive, but he knew Jack was right. There was nothing else they could do.

  Bear took one last look at Amber. She looked back, confusion and pain plastered across her face with the blood and soot. She clutched her leg with both her hands and whispered, “Thank you, Bear.”

  Bear nodded. Then he turned around and walked away, slipping into the darkness with Jack, knowing that one way or another, this hadn’t been an accident. Someone knew they were in Germany. They had wanted to either catch Jack and Bear in the bombing, or pin it on them entirely.

  4

  Three days later, Bear found himself in Chicago, wondering whether Amber and the other woman had gotten the help they needed. He still felt guilty about leaving them there, but he and Jack had no choice. They’d barely made it out of the city and past the blockade as it was. If they had waited even a minute or two longer, they would’ve been stuck in Germany, or worse—in custody.

  After leaving Munich, Jack and Bear went in separate directions. They parted with few words and no information about where either one of them was going. For his part, Bear found a change of clothes and the cheapest hostel he could. He showered, took care of the scrape on his face, and slept for a handful of hours. It wasn’t even light out by the time he was on a plane back to the United States.

  He was certain someone would be waiting for him at the airport when he landed. He knew that would be the case if he went directly back to New York or Atlanta, so he chose to fly into Charlotte. When he deplaned, it took all his willpower not to sprint to the exit. Instead, he took his time and diligently kept his head about him. No one in the airport seemed to be there for a reason other than to get where they needed to go.

  After that, he rented a car and made his way north. As far as he could tell, the roads were clear. There were no indications he was being watched, but he knew he was. Hughes or whoever was working for him would send out the best of the best to keep an eye on Jack and, by extension, Bear. So, even though Bear didn’t spot a tail, he acted like he had one, getting on and off the highway, taking the long way back to New York, and stopping off at a little-used apartment he kept stocked for situations such as these.

  Bear left the car in one borough and hopped on a train to another. He walked a few blocks in one direction, took a side street, and then started walking in the opposite direction. Shaking a tail was hard when you didn’t know who it was, but Bear did everything he could to make his route as chaotic as possible.

  By the time he had made it to the apartment, he was exhausted. He collapsed on the couch and slept for close to twelve hours.

  The only thing that woke him up was a single text from Jack. All it said was Lady of the Lake in the tallest tower. It didn’t take long for Bear to figure out. He and Jack had some property in Chicago, the City by the Lake. It wasn’t exactly the tallest building in the skyline, but they had a business there called Camelot Ltd. They owned the top few floors and rented the rest out. It’d been a while since either one of them were there, but Bear kept close tabs on it.

  So, Bear showered, changed his clothes again, and hopped on another plane.

  With his paranoia at an all-time high, Bear took extensive evasive maneuvers to ensure that whoever was following him had no idea where he was headed. Jack would’ve laughed, but Bear didn’t care. It was too quiet. That told him that Hughes, if he did know about Bear’s recent trip abroad, was waiting until the opportune moment to make his move.

  Bear didn’t want to give him even a single opening.

  By the time he stood outside the office building, looking up at the glassy façade and shaded windows, Bear had convinced himself Jack had been compromised. He had only heard from him once, that one text message, and the instructions hadn’t been detailed or specific.

  Bear had tried calling the number a few times, but it was out of service. Jack had likely sent the message and then immediately destroyed the burner he had used. That was what they had always done, and yet something felt off to Bear.

  So, he scouted the area. He watched the building. Hours passed and no one came in or out. No one suspicious wandered up and down the sidewalk. They were far enough away from downtown Chicago that it was fairly quiet, but close enough that the traffic was constant . No one passed by twice. No one gave him a second look.

  Bear was about to try Jack one last time when the phone rang in his hands. He swiped it on before the first ring ended.

  “It’s me,” Jack said from the other end. His voice was tinged with the lightest touch of static. “You there?”

  “Yeah.” Relief flooded through Bear. It must’ve sounded in his voice.

  “You okay, Big Man?”

  “I’m already tired of this shit. It feels like my head’s been on a swivel for months.”

  “Good. Keep it that way. We can’t afford to make any mistakes.”

  “You been watching the news?”

  Jack sighed. The static hit a little harder. “Yeah.

  Bear nodded, even though Jack couldn’t see it. There was a lot he wanted to say, like how a hundred people had been confirmed dead but they were still sifting through body parts. About how it seemed like someone knew Jack had been there and that’s why they chose Munich. About how their pictures hadn’t gone up anywhere, but that it felt like it was just a matter of time.

  But, especially, Bear wanted to talk about the handful of Americans that had died and how Hughes would be all over it. He’d get to be the hero and take Jack out of the equation at the same time. He doubted Jack was any more worried than he ever was, but this situation was clearly taking a toll on both of them.