“I’ll—do what I can.”
“That,” Nat said, “isn’t good enough. Find him. Get him here. Period.” He hung up and stood staring at the wall.
Giddings and Brown looked at each other and said nothing.
The walkie-talkie one of the uniformed firemen was holding came abruptly to life. “Chief?”
Chief Jameson raised the walkie-talkie. “Right here.”
“Walters. The original fire started on the fourth floor. It’s almost under control.”
“Beautiful,” Jameson said. “Beautiful.” He was smiling. “Not so beautiful,” Walters said. “There are a dozen fires. More. Above us, below us.” He coughed, a deep retching sound. “It’s got to be wiring. Whatever let go down in the subbasement sent just a hell of a jolt through the whole building.”
There was silence. Nat turned from the wall. He looked at Giddings. “Now we know,” he said slowly. “From here on we don’t need to guess.”
Giddings nodded, an awkward, strained movement. “Just pray,” he said.
13
In the office off the Tower Room the fire commissioner listened on the telephone, nodded, said, “Keep in touch,” and hung up. He looked around the office. “They’re sending men up the stairs.” His voice was expressionless.
The governor said, “How long does it take to climb a hundred and twenty-five floors?” He waited, but nobody answered. The governor nodded. “All right, then we’d better try some things ourselves.” He was silent for a moment, pondering the problem. “Ben, you and the commissioner commandeer three or four of those waiters. There are some husky lads. Start working on one of those doors.” He paused and looked at the fire commissioner. “If we get a door open, we’re in the clear, aren’t we? A protected stairwell all the way to the ground?”
The commissioner hesitated.
The mayor said, “Speak up, man. Answer the question.”
“It ought to be clear,” the commissioner said. His tone was reluctant.
“Let’s be plain,” the governor said. “You’re dragging your feet. Why?”
Beth Shirley stood quietly, watching, listening. Moment by moment, she thought, the governor was growing in stature, dwarfing other men in the room. Well, not entirely. Senator Peters in his own sometimes crude, sometimes erudite and understanding way bore up well under scrutiny too. It was a truism, of course, that in crisis you saw more clearly a man’s quality, or a woman’s for that matter, but she had never before realized how vivid the demonstration could be.
The commissioner was still hesitating, and now he glanced quickly at Beth. “The lady—” he began.
The governor’s hand tightened on hers. “The lady,” the governor said, “is just as interested in our predicament as anyone else. You haven’t said it yet, but the implication is clear. The stairwells aren’t the havens we thought them to be. Why?”
“The men on the stairs,” the commissioner said, “have walkie-talkies. They’re—reporting smoke.”
The office was still. “That means what?” the governor said at last. He turned to look at Ben Caldwell.
“I couldn’t say without more information,” Caldwell said. He studied the fire commissioner. “What have you left out?”
The commissioner took a deep breath. “The first fire is contained. By itself it wouldn’t have amounted to much. But what happened down in the main transformer room killed two men and apparently started fires”—he spread both hands—“throughout the structure.”
Grover Frazee waggled his head in denial. “A modem fireproof building—that’s ridiculous. How could it be? You heard it wrong.” He looked at Caldwell. “Isn’t that right, Ben? Tell him.”
Caldwell said, “Fireproof, no. Fire resistant, yes. Now, be quiet, Grover. Let’s find out exactly where we stand.” He pointed at the commissioner. “Call them back. I want to speak to Nat Wilson.”
Frazee said, “There. There’s your proof. The telephone works, so we can’t be out of electricity. Don’t you see that?” He looked around at them all.
Caldwell said almost warily, “Telephones have their own power source. There is no connection.” He accepted the phone from the commissioner. “Nat?” he said, and punched the telephone’s desk speaker.
“Yes, sir.” Nat’s voice was hollow in the office. “You’ll want a rundown. The fourth-floor fire is under control now. What happened down in the subbasement isn’t clear yet, and there may not be enough left to find out ever, but whatever happened somehow managed to short out primary power, and we think, Joe Lewis, Giddings, and I, that the short sent a surge through the entire building and wiring overheated and burned through its insulation and conduit.” Nat was silent.
“That.” Caldwell said slowly, “could account for smoke in the stairwells?”
“We think so.” Nat was unaware that he had dropped the “sir.”
“The men on the stairs report that in places the walls are too hot to touch. What’s happening inside the fire doors is anybody’s guess.” Nat paused. “Only it isn’t a guess. It’s practically a goddam certainty. When Simmons gets here, we may know a little more.”
Caldwell thought about it. “Simmons,” he said, and was silent for a little time. Then, “Joe Lewis agrees that there could have been a current surge?”
“Yes.” They were speaking in shorthand, implications plain.
“And you think Simmons—” Caldwell stopped. “Bert McGraw—”
“Bert’s in the hospital with a heart attack,” Nat said. Then, intuitively, “That may be Simmons’s doing too.”
Caldwell took his time. “The question here,” he said, “is whether or not to try to break down the fire doors. If—”
“Are you getting much smoke through the air-conditioning ducts?”
“Not too much.”
“Then,” Nat said, “leave the doors alone.” His voice was firm, commanding.
Another one, Beth thought, although she had never seen the man, who in an emergency would take charge. She looked up at the governor and watched him nod in understanding.
Ben Caldwell was hesitating.
Nat’s voice said, “We know there’s smoke in the stairwells. There’s nothing to stop it from rising all the way to your floor. If you’re more or less smoke-free now, keep it that way. Leave the doors shut.”
“I think you are right,” Caldwell said.
“Giddings,” Nat said, “thinks the doors may be blocked by radio and TV equipment being taken up into the tower.
They’ve done it before, he says, and I’ve seen it myself. If that’s so, the stairs may be blocked too.”
Caldwell smiled his tight little smile. “Conditions scarcely anticipated in the design, Nat.” He paused. “A concatenation of errors.” He shook his head.
“We’ve got through to the Army,” Nat said. “You’ll see a couple of choppers around in a few minutes.” Caldwell’s eyebrows rose. “Your idea?”
“Brown made the call. He’s assistant fire commissioner, and they listened to him where they wouldn’t bother with me.” Nat paused. “I don’t know what they can do, to be honest with you, but I thought it would be good if they had a look.”
Again Caldwell smiled. “Keep thinking, Nat.”
“And it might be a good idea to keep this line open.” Caldwell nodded. “I agree. I think that is all for now.” He turned back to the room. “Comments?” He addressed them all. “Questions?”
“Just one,” the governor said. “How did all this happen?”
For some from the start it was one of those jobs you writhed in dreams about and awakened sweating. The sheer magnitude of the World Tower was frightening, but it was more, far more than that. The building taking shape seemed to develop a personality of its own, and that personality was malign.