“No.” She shook her head slowly in emphasis. “You are the people in charge. I am content.”
“Lady—” the commissioner began, and stopped at the sudden ringing of the telephone.
The mayor picked it up, spoke his name, listened briefly. “All right, Brown,” he said. “I’ll put the commissioner on. Give him your report.” He paused. “The whole report, no punches pulled, is that understood?” He handed the phone to the fire commissioner.
The senator said, “When somebody’s on the phone and you can hear only his side of the conversation—” He shook his head. “I never “know whether to look at him or stare out the window.” Then, with no change of tone, “Quite a little party you people are throwing, Bent.” He was remembering his vague hunch back in Washington.
“In case you were wondering,” the governor said, “it wasn’t planned quite this way.”
“Understood,” the senator said. “The topless waitresses failed to show, so you had to do something, no?”
Ben Caldwell walked in. He looked at the fire commissioner on the phone, glanced around at the rest, and nodded without expression. He said nothing.
The governor said, “Where’s Bert McGraw? He ought to have been here.”
“McGraw,” the mayor said, “had a heart attack. That’s all I know.”
The governor closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, he said softly, “I always thought of him as indestructible.”
“We’re none of us getting younger, Bent,” the senator said. “I haven’t had any intimations of immortality for a long time.” He was silent as the fire commissioner cupped his hand over the phone and cleared his throat.
“Brown says,” the fire commissioner said, “that the fire above grade in the lower floors isn’t good, but the battalion chief thinks it can be controlled. He’s called in more units, equipment and men.”
There was silence. Beth’s hand tightened on the governor’s arm. He covered it with his own.
“But the real problem,” the fire commissioner said, “is down in the mechanical-equipment basements. As near as they can figure—and one of your men is there, Mr. Caldwell—”
“Nat Wilson,” Ben Caldwell said, “I hope.”
“And,” the fire commissioner said, “Will Giddings, clerk of the works, they’re both there. Near as they can figure, like I said, some maniac got inside the building by pretending he was an electrician sent for some minor job. They found him down in the major transformer room, fried to a crisp. Somehow he managed to short out everything, near as they can tell, but the smoke’s so thick they can’t know for sure what happened except that there isn’t any power.”
Ben Caldwell said, “The standby generators?”
The fire commissioner raised his massive shoulders and let them fall. “There isn’t any power,” he said, “period.” Ben Caldwell nodded. He had lost none of his neatness or calm. “The elevators do not respond,” he said. “I checked them all. There are the stairs, of course, and if the fire in the lower floors is in any way contained, as it ought to be, then the stairs will be perfectly safe. The fire doors are for just that purpose. I suggest that we start sending everybody down the stairs, half on one side, half on the other.”
The governor nodded. “With marching orders,” he said, “and a dozen or so men on either stairway to enforce them. No running. No panic. It’s a hell of a long way down and there are going to be some who won’t be able to make it on their own power and will have to be helped.” He looked around the room. “It is a ridiculous way to run a railroad, I’ll admit, but does anybody have a better suggestion?” He squeezed Beth’s hand gently.
Grover Frazee started through the doorway and stopped. He was sweating. “The doors to the stairs,” he began, and the words ran down. He tried again. “The doors to the stairs—are locked.”
The fire commissioner said, “They can’t be. You’ve got it wrong, man. There’s no way—” He shook his head, raised the phone, and spoke into it. “Stay by the phone,” he said. “We’ve got some looking to do.” He hung up.
“Ben,” the governor said to Caldwell, “you and the commissioner go see.” He looked at Frazee. “And you come in here and sit down and pull yourself together, Grover.’ He looked at Beth and squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry for all this, my dear.”
“In a way,” Beth said, “I’m not. I don’t think in any other circumstances I’d ever really have gotten to know you.”
“The lady looks on the bright side of life,” the senator said. “I applaud.”
12
The building was in torment, gravely wounded. For a time, perhaps’ minutes, perhaps hours, many of its more serious rounds would not be visible, merely discernible, as in diagnosis, through sheer deduction.
Then, had been an explosion: that much was obvious. Much later bomb experts would assess the structural damage in the main transformer room and estimate the power of the explosive Connors had carried in his toolbox.
Plastic explosive is safe to carry: it is brownish-gray putty-like stuff that can be dropped or molded or otherwise pushed about without protest. It is set off by a probe inserted into its body and a small electric current sent through wire to the probe. Its explosive force is almost unbelievable.
The main transformers had been badly damaged, and although the fire that started immediately after the explosion destroyed or distorted much material which might have been studied later, Joe Lewis’s computers in a sense working bad* ward from known results did a creditable job of reconstructing probable cause.
There had been a massive short-circuit in the primary power, undoubtedly caused by the explosion. No other explanation fit the facts.
The resultant surge of uncontrolled power shot far beyond the cables thick as a man’s leg designed to carry the voltage in safety, through the crippled transformers, and undiminished into wiring designed to transmit only such voltages as are required to light fluorescent fixtures or run electric typewriters.
The surge of uncontrolled power lasted only a matter of microseconds. That infinitesimal time was enough.
The result, as the battalion chief had feared, was immediate and catastrophic.
Wiring melted and in melting burst its insulation.
In some instances there were further short-circuits which, acting like arc-welders, threw the enormous heat of an open electrical spark against wall material, soundproofing, insulation—all heat-resistant but never totally fireproof.
In the final analysis, nothing is. Far less than the ultimate heat of the sun’s body will incinerate most substances. Witness Hiroshima, Nagasaki, or Hamburg.
Within the interior walls of the building, then, creeping fires developed.
Some of these would die for lack of oxygen, leaving only hotspots as their legacy.
But some would break into ducting or burst into open shafts or corridors, there to breathe deeply of fresh air, gather force and fury, and roar on, consuming paint, woodwork, fabric draperies, rugs, flooring, materials easily consumed, but also materials usually considered fire-resistant.
Overhead sprinklers, their fusible links quickly melted, would come on and for a time stem the fires’ spread.
But too much heat generates steam in waterpipes, which sooner or later burst, and then the sprinklers are dead.
The fires would be slowed here, slowed there, skirmishes, even battles against the multiple enemy would be won.
But from the beginning, as Joe Lewis’s computers later showed, the outcome of the war was never in doubt.