“If everything goes according to plan,” she repeated. “The way things are going, that’s an awfully big assumption. What if the doors don’t shut? Worse yet, what if they don’t open?”
The chief said nothing, but she guessed from his body language that he had already thought of that.
DOWN IN THE ENGINE ROOM, Paul and Marchetti had begun fighting toward the far wall. It seemed to take forever to cross the cavernous space. In one section debris and burning fuel blocked their path. In another, steam was blasting from a broken waterline.
With Marchetti’s crewmen at their backs to keep them from getting cut off, they forged onward one yard at a time, beating the fire back as they went. Eventually they saw a path through.
“Hold the line,” Marchetti said. “Keep the fire back while I run through. I’ll signal you when I get there.”
Paul slid forward and grabbed the nozzle. “Okay, go!”
Marchetti let go, and it took all of Paul’s strength to keep the hose on target. As Marchetti lumbered forward, Paul washed down the flames to the left and then back to the right on a wide-pattern setting, drenching Marchetti purposefully in the process.
He watched as Marchetti made it through the first wave of flame and continued forward only to be suddenly obscured by a sideways blast of fire and smoke. Paul directed the hose into the blast and forced the flames back, but he still couldn’t see through.
“Marchetti?”
He heard nothing.
“Marchetti?!”
The smoke was so thick, Paul could barely see a thing. He was sweating inside the fire suit, and his eyes were stinging badly from the fumes and the salt of his own perspiration. He washed the walkway back and forth with the spray until he saw a dim light through the darkness. It was down low, close to the ground. Marchetti’s beacon.
“Marchetti’s down!” Paul shouted. “I’m going to get him.”
He shut off the nozzle, dropped the hose and ran forward. The crewmen swept in behind him, washing him down as he went.
He made it past the blast furnace of the open flame and reached Marchetti. Marchetti’s hood was blackened, his mask half off. It looked like he’d run smack into a protruding beam. Paul pressed the mask back onto Marchetti’s face and Marchetti coughed and came around.
“Help me up,” he said.
An explosion shook the engine room, and debris rained down on them from above. Paul lifted Marchetti to his feet, but he immediately stumbled back down to his knees. He put a hand out.
“No balance,” he said.
Paul heaved him up and kept him vertical. They trudged forward like two men in a three-legged potato-sack race. They reached the wall. The manual override beckoned.
“We’ve made it,” Paul shouted into the microphone. “Get out. We’re going to trigger the Halon.”
Paul reached for the handle, flipped the safety aside and put his hand on the override. He waited what seemed like forever. Another explosion rocked the engine room.
“We’re clear of the bulkhead,” one of the crewmen finally reported.
“Now,” Marchetti said.
Paul yanked the handle down hard.
From eighty points around the room Halon 1301 blasted into the compartment at an incredible rate, hissing from the nozzles and flowing in from every direction. It quickly filled the room, smothering the fire. In places the flames jumped and flickered and seemed to cower in a desperate quest for survival. And then, as if by magic, they went out all at once.
Stunning silence followed.
It seemed unearthly to Paul. The raging flames, the explosions, the buffeting currents brought on as the fire sucked air in and expelled heat, all were gone. Only the thick smoke lingered, accompanied by the continued hissing from the Halon nozzles, the sound of dripping water and the creak and groan of superheated metal.
The absence of flame seemed almost too good to be true, and neither Paul nor Marchetti moved a muscle as if doing so might break the spell. Finally Marchetti turned toward Paul. A smile crept over his face, though Paul could barely see it through the smudged, soot-covered face mask.
“Well done, Mr. Trout. Well done.”
Paul smiled too, proud and relieved at the same time.
And then a shrill electronic beeping began, accompanied by the strobe light on the back of Marchetti’s SCBA. Seconds later Paul’s own strobe began flashing and chirping. The two alarms combined into an annoying cacophony.
“What’s happening?” Paul asked.
“Rescue beacons,” Marchetti said.
“Why are they going off now?”
Marchetti looked glum. “Because,” he said, “we’re running out of air.”
CHAPTER 29
KURT AUSTIN HELD THE AWKWARD POSITION HE’D LANDED in as long as he possibly could. Even after the vehicles drove off, even after the rumbling of their engines had faded and he was left with only the sound of flies buzzing in the dark, he remained still.
They zipped here and there, settled for a moment and then buzzed around again. Even when they landed on him and crawled on his face, Kurt did all he could not to flinch in case someone was watching. But eventually he had to move.
With a glance up to the circular opening high above, he slid one arm to the side, rolled over slowly and then propped himself up. From there he managed a sitting position and eased back until he was leaning against the wall. Every movement brought new levels of pain, and once he’d settled against the wall he decided to stay there for a minute or two.
He checked his leg. Something hit it during the shooting, but he found no bullet hole and figured it was a piece of the wall blasted off when a shell ricocheted. His shoulder hurt like crazy, but it seemed to move okay.
He reached over and checked Joe, shaking him gently.
Joe opened his eyes halfway like a man coming out of a deep sleep. He moved a few inches, grunted and generally appeared confused. Looking around at their surroundings didn’t seem to bring any clarity.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“You don’t remember?”
“Last I remember, we were being dragged by a truck,” he said.
“That was the high point of our journey,” Kurt said, looking up. “Literally.”
Joe forced himself to sit up, an act that seemed to cause as much pain for him as it had for Kurt.
“Are we dead?” Joe asked. “’Cause if not, this is the worst I’ve ever felt while still alive.”
Kurt shook his head. “We’re alive all right, at least for now. We’re just stuck at the bottom of a well without a rope or a ladder or any other way out.”
“That’s good,” Joe said. “For a second I thought we were in trouble.”
Kurt looked around, taking note of the other bodies in the sand. Two of them seemed to have been there for a while. The stench emanating from them was horrendous, almost enough to make him gag. The third was the guy he’d shoved over the edge just prior to being tossed in himself. A large gash split the man’s forehead. His neck was bent at a grotesque angle. He wasn’t moving.
Kurt was surprised to be alive. “I guess the sloping pile of sand and dropping feet first helped. It looks like this guy hit his head.”
“Plus we dropped from a little lower,” Joe said. “Or, at least, I did. What about those other two?”
“No idea,” Kurt said, looking at the bodies half covered with flies. “Must have made the boss angry.”
“If we ever leave NUMA,” Joe said, “remind me not to work for an egomaniacal dictator, madman or other type of thug. They don’t seem to have adequate channels for working out grievances.”
Kurt laughed, and it felt like he was being stabbed. “Oh, that hurts,” he said, trying to stop. “No more jokes.”