She missed again. She fumbled with her own weapon and it slipped from her hand to the sidewalk.

And then, to her horror, the back door of the car flew open. The man she had wounded, blood all over his face and upper chest, his eyes alive with hatred and pain, raised another automatic weapon in her direction and prepared to kill her.

He was no more than ten feet away, the car door wide open. He lurched out, bracing himself with one leg. But the motion of the car dislodged him. He fumbled wildly, forced to use his “wrong” hand for his weapon.

The car continued to move and knocked him off balance. He fired again at her, and the bullets flew wide over her head as Alex lunged for her Glock.

She grabbed it and raised it, coming up firing point blank with the final three shots of a ten-round clip. Her volley of bullets smashed the man directly in the center of the chest. He spun wildly and fell backward toward the car. Then as the car swerved, swayed, skidded, and cut out into the street, his huge body spilled away from the vehicle for a final time. He was on one knee. There was still life in him and he tried to raise the weapon again.

Alex knew she was out of bullets. She scrambled to her feet, bolted forward and threw a vicious kick at the man’s head. Her foot smashed across the lower part of his face and jaw, as if she were drop-kicking a rugby ball.

As the gunman on the sidewalk tumbled backward, the car swerved erratically a final time, careened, fishtailed and went out onto the road, its rear door flying loose until it slammed shut from momentum. The car disappeared down the block and turned the corner with a long screech of the tires as it spun out of control.

Seconds later, Alex heard a crash. Then she heard the police sirens grow louder as they approached, and she looked at the lifeless body of the man she had shot. She picked up his weapon from the sidewalk to safeguard it.

She tried to feel compassion. She felt none. She felt sick instead. Sick, and surprised to be alive.

Breathing heavily, Alex felt a pain and saw that her knee was bloody, even through the denim of her jeans. For an instant a jolt went through her like a electric shock. Staring at her injury, she realized that it was only a bad scrape, most likely from when she had hit the sidewalk outside. And her left shoulder started to sting again, this time hotter and deeper. She reholstered her own weapon.

An armada of DC police cars arrived, lights flashing, uniformed officers jumping out, weapons out.

By reflex, she reached again to her FBI ID, holding it aloft and open so the badge could easily be seen. She was shaken but alive and Janet, though terrified, was safe and physically unharmed.

But as police cars with strobelike flashing lights in red and blue continued to surround her, Alex already knew that the night would be as long as it had been violent. Then she looked at the left arm of her coat and saw that, beneath the rain, the sleeve was crimson from the shoulder down. She looked for the rip from a shard of glass from the store window but she saw none.

Instead, there was a much smaller hole, one made by a bullet. As the realization came upon her, her knees felt rubbery, then very weak.

Two DC cops were suddenly next to her, one male, one female. So was Janet.

One of the cops put an arm around her.

“We’ll get you an ambulance,” she said. “Or do you want to go in a sector car?”

“What are you talking about? Go where?”

Numbness was starting to sink in. Alex felt faint-headed.

“The hospital,” the male cop said.

“Why?” She thought it, but didn’t say it. Yet her expression must have asked the same question.

“You’ve been shot.”

You were lucky this time,” the doctor said softly, looking at the bandage.

“I know,” Alex said.

The physician, Dr. Christiashani, was a tall, thin man with a trim dark beard, a fastidious and fortyish Sikh in a turban, a blue tie, and an impeccable white lab coat. He had been in the emergency room when the police brought Alex and Janet in. Janet had phoned Ben, who had driven over, and the two of them now stayed quietly to the rear of the room as the doctor finished with his patient. Alex’s back was to her friends.

It was 2:00 a.m. and Alex was seated upright on the edge of a bed at George Washington University Medical Center. She still wore her jeans, but on top of that, her unhooked bra and a hospital robe. Right now, the robe was only half on, as was the bra. Her upper left side was completely exposed as the doctor carefully but authoritatively inspected the bandage on her gunshot wound. A nurse stood by also.

“Ow,” Alex said with a little wince.

“Could have been much worse,” the physician said.

Dr. Christiashani was indulgent, smart, and calming. His accent was clipped and sounded very last-days-of-the-Raj.

“If the bullet had struck six inches lower, it would have severed a major artery under your armpit,” he said. “Another few inches it would have hit you in the heart. More to the right and you get hit in the face. What can I say? You get off with a two-inch grazing to the outer muscle. God did not want you to die tonight.”

“Apparently not,” Alex said.

“Why do you not wear a bulletproof vest?” he scolded.

“A vest wouldn’t have protected my arm. And I wasn’t even on duty,” she said.

“You drew your weapon. Then you’re on duty. The bullet could have hit your heart as easily as your arm.”

“What was I supposed to do? Go home and change and come back?”

“I am just saying,” he insisted, “I am concerned. You were very lucky tonight. You can get dressed now.”

She slid the robe off and rehooked her bra.

Her arm hurt when she moved it, even though an anesthetic still gave it a tingly buzz. She turned and faced her friends. Ben had gone to an all-night pharmacy attached to the hospital and purchased Alex a sweatshirt to wear home. He tossed it to her now. In a way, she felt self-conscious in front of him in just a bra and a bandage, though it was less revealing than anything she wore to the beach.

The sweatshirt was one of those gaudy red, white, and blue things for the tourists, but it fit, and at least Alex was alive to wear it. She pulled it on.

“Do you play chess?” Dr. Christiashani asked.

“I haven’t played in years,” she said. “Why?”

“My father was a grand master. He used to say, ‘At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box.’ My advice is, please be more careful.”

“Right,” she said.

“You are unconvinced?”

She slid off the bed. Her arm buzzed when she used it. As a counterpoint, her head pounded. She also had a bandage on her knee and various other points on her body that had obviously taken some sort of hits.

The wound to her arm would have buzzed worse but she knew she was on a major painkiller. She had a prescription to continue it, along with antibiotics against a possible infection.

“No, I’m not unconvinced,” she said. “I appreciate your concern. As well as your care tonight. Thank you. And I hope your father didn’t carry a gun for a living like I do so that he lived to a ripe old age.”

Ben stepped forward, and Janet rose.

“He’s ninety-two and lives in Mumbai,” the doctor said. “He was a soldier for fifty years in the Indian National Army. He retired as a general.”

“Bless him,” Alex said.

“God already has,” replied the doctor.