Quinn and Pearl ran toward the source of the explosions.
45
When they got to the end of the block, a crowd was beginning to build. Three police cars had arrived, two of which were parked to block traffic and turn it around to detour. A potbellied, uniformed cop was wandering around, waving his arms and shouting for pedestrians to get back. Two others were knee-deep in debris, trying to find people and dig them out. Several civilians had ignored the uniforms and entered the field of wreckage. A ten-story building housing a dry cleaners and apartments had collapsed on a five-story office building. Broken bricks, bent iron rebar, twisted steel, chunks of concrete and marble, stretched before them for blocks. A cloud of dirt and drywall rolled over the scene, the breeze snatching it away from where Quinn and Pearl stood. They could hear a man screaming nearby, beneath the debris.
Sirens yowled, horns blared, voices screamed and pleaded for help. Quinn heard a child’s voice somewhere in the grit that was airborne and distorting the source and direction of sound. It was also blocking his nose and leaving a horrible taste on his tongue.
He was close to the child who had screamed and, along with others, began to dig through and throw debris.
Five feet away, Pearl was working to free a woman who was trapped beneath what looked like a large fallen beam.
Quinn and the others concentrated on the child, who was almost completely buried.
Five minutes later several others joined their efforts. Quinn was surprised to see that one of the rescuers was Pearl. Her expression told him that the woman she’d been trying to save had died. Pearl found space next to Quinn and began gripping whatever wreckage she could reach and tossing it away. She was gasping for breath and he could hear her sobbing.
Someone yelled, a joyous whoop, and across the jagged and blackened pile of rubble two men were carefully removing the child they’d been working to free. No more than three or four years old, the child appeared to be in shock, but definitely alive and still protesting with healthy lungs.
More noise, more calls for help, more people trapped in the rubble. Quinn and Pearl continued to work near where a woman stood sobbing and pleading for help to free her husband, who was trapped beneath bricks and shattered glass. When the woman wasn’t screaming, he could be heard from where he was virtually buried.
A particularly large chunk of concrete was eased aside by several bloody hands, and the man who’d been screaming but now was quiet was carefully removed from beneath the debris. He was white with shock, and his right leg was missing. The sobbing woman who’d directed searchers to him rushed toward him but was restrained by several men and a teenage girl.
Quinn took off his belt and fashioned a tourniquet to stanch the injured man’s bleeding.
Movement and noise around him, more voices. Quinn was nudged aside, not all that gently. The belt was removed and replaced by something else. Something more effective. Then hands wearing huge gloves worked their way beneath the injured man and lifted him. More huge gloves, helping to locate and remove the injured, the people in shock. Playing out hoses. Wearing black T-shirts with white lettering—FDNY.
The Fire Department had arrived.
Sirens of every kind of emergency vehicle were still yowling. Uniforms at both ends of the blocked street were letting them pass in and out with alacrity. No one wanted to come in here unless compelled by compassion or occupation.
A woman obviously in shock, wearing a tattered pants suit, stumbled over to Pearl and collapsed. Pearl held her, helped her to walk, urged her to keep breathing, and led her toward where at least three ambulances were parked, their light strips putting on a colorful but muted display in the thick dust.
Exhausted, Quinn trudged on. He’d taken only a dozen steps when a hand like a claw closed on his arm and squeezed hard.
“Take him, please!” a woman’s voice pleaded alongside Quinn.
He turned and saw a woman holding an infant less than a year old. She was obviously about to pass out and drop the child.
She thrust the infant at Quinn. Said, “My other daughter’s in there.”
He could think of nothing to say, nothing to do but accept the child. The woman turned around and made her way back toward the center of hell. Quinn thought for a few seconds that he’d go after her, help her. But there was the child in his arms.
He gripped the silent, staring boy and walked toward the ambulances. As he strode in shuffling, zombie-like strides, he felt a glimmer of hope that the damage was less than it might be. There seemed to be some control of it now, since more police and the fire department had arrived.
When he reached the ambulances he turned the boy over to white-uniformed paramedics. As the back of the nearest ambulance opened, he saw the woman Pearl had been helping, sitting with others in the ambulance who were sobbing or simply sitting and staring.
He glanced around, walking along the line of parked ambulances, looking for Pearl. Finally he saw her sitting on the back of one of the vehicles with an open back door. It struck Quinn that she was staring with the same dazed expression as the woman who’d just handed him her baby.
When she saw Quinn she smiled, and he felt immensely better. He walked to her and stood next to her.
“The woman find her other daughter?” he asked.
“I think so. Yes.” She seemed to have no idea what he was talking about. He realized she thought he meant the first infant they’d help rescue.
“I meant the second baby,” he said.
“There was a second one?”
He smiled again.
Two in one day, she thought. Not such a tough guy. She drew a deep breath and stood up. “Wanna go back for more?”
“Like you do,” he said.
They walked back toward the fallen buildings. The volunteers, cops, and firefighters were swarming over the debris now, searching for survivors or more of the dead. At least half a dozen dogs and their handlers were roaming the wreckage.
“Let’s pace ourselves this time,” Quinn said, seeing that there were signs of order and progress. “It’s almost twilight.”
Pearl was so tired she simply grunted her agreement.
Quinn knew that even if he tried he couldn’t stop her. Not anymore than she could stop him.
“The Gremlin, you think?” she asked.
“Probably. The little bastard might very well be part of the crowd, standing at the edges, watching and enjoying. And learning.”
“Infuriating,” Pearl said.
Quinn was silent for a few seconds, then stopped and stood still.
Pearl looked up at him.
Quinn said, “I smell gas.”
46
Quinn and Pearl stood still, working the calculus of death. If the buildings had been brought down with bombs, there might still be a few of them around, timed to kill rescuers as well as trapped victims.
Quinn clutched Pearl’s arm and turned her around. They passed a few rescuers going the other direction, toward the collapsed building.
One of them was a cop, covered with grit and what looked like dried blood.
Quinn blocked him, standing squarely in front of him and clutching both his shoulders. “Gas!” He shook the man. “We’ve gotta turn these people around!”
He simply stared at Quinn.
Seeing that the man was in deep shock, Quinn tried to turn him around, but he pulled away and resumed his shuffling walk toward the two buildings that had been reduced to ruins. Half pulling Pearl with him, Quinn started walking faster toward the NYPD sawhorses and yellow tape, and the seemingly impossible geometry of dozens of hastily parked vehicles.
“Gas!” Quinn shouted again, waving his free arm. “The gas lines are broken! We gotta get outta here!”
A few people heard him, then stood still and listened to see what he was yelling about.
When they finally figured it out, they began walking away from the collapsed buildings.