Any attempt to make out the scene in front of them would be a Herculean feat on the best of days, but this was an exercise in futility. Sisyphean, you could say.

Every minute that passed meant more bystanders crowding around. It meant less room to maneuver. It meant less space to do their jobs. It meant lives that were already tenuous had their scales tipped against them.

“How did this even happen?” he asked, barely looking askance at the woman on his right. He couldn’t manage to completely divert his attention — not with something like this.

She fumbled around for a beginning before giving up and delivered her assessment; she was, after all, the first responder to the scene.

“At first I thought it was just an old timer who finally lost the fight with his ticker and just runs off the road into a lamp post, stop sign, storefront, whatever.” She paused, choosing her next words very carefully. “But I’ve seen more than a couple of those, believe it or not.

“What I HAVEN’T seen before is a man whose path was diverted with a bullet through the driver’s side dashboard. And what I REALLY haven’t ever seen is that plus what could only be military grade high explosive attached to a timer block underneath the car.”

That last bit managed to pull his attention completely away. “What do you mean?”

“Like you see in the movies. With the block of putty that you—“

Unapologetically cutting her off, he clarified: “I mean how do you know it was on a timer block. That would have blown up with the explosive it was attached to.”

“That’s what I thought, too, and I’m not even sure that part is correct. But I know as soon as I saw the billboard that I had to get every fucking person down here as quickly as I could. This could get even worse.”

Following her eyes as she slowly raised them to the skyline, he saw the billboard that she had fixed on.

Suddenly he understood.

The billboard showed an analog clock.

And it was counting DOWN.