“Of course we have!”
“Then you know this apartment block is burning to ground.”
“There’s no time to argue about some stupid policy! We have to get out now.”
“How then? If we can’t go up and we can’t go down-”
“We jump.”
“Are you insane? We’re three floors up!”
“She’s right,” Uri interjects. “We get out through windows. It is only option.”
“But if we jump ...”
“Then we have chance to live.”
“We’re three floors up! We can’t jump.”
“We use rope.”
“Whose got a rope?”
“Me! In the lock up—outside!”
“What use is it outside?”
“I didn’t know we’d need it!”
“We can make rope,” Uri suggests.
“How in the hell are we supposed to make a rope?”
“Bedsheets,” Uri says with growing determination. If he can get them to co-operate they all have a chance. “Which flats are open here?”
“Mine.”
“Does it look out over road?”
“Yes.”
“Then we use your flat.”
“But-”
“Take us to your flat.”
CHAPTER THREE
Inside the apartment Uri unlocks the window’s latch and pushes the glass open. The air is heavy with smoke, acrid and thick. Only hard tarmac waits for them below. He baulks at the thought of Anna or Viktoria falling and smashing to the ground. Stay calm, Uri! Stay in control.
Taking a breath, easing the tension in his chest, he turns to the people gathered behind him.
“Close door!” he shouts above the noise of frightened voices, “and ... be quiet.”
The door closes with a bang and a hush descends across the room. A child whimpers. Realising the whimper is Anna’s, he strokes her hair. “To get out of here we work together.”
“How?” a woman’s voice shouts from the back of the group. “We’re trapped.” The pitch of her voice rises. “We’ll be burned alive.”
“Calm it, Brenda!” a man chides.
“But we will be!” she returns. “We will be!” her voice risen in panic breaks into a sob.
“We will get out of here, Brenda,” Uri calls. Keep them calm. If they panic their chances of getting out will only get worse. “Quiet!” He waits. “We need bedsheets. We make long ropes-”
“Bedsheets!”
“I’ve seen that in a film!”
“Yeah, films. That’s not real life.”
“Do you have better idea?” Uri challenges the grumble of discontent. “It will work.” Making a length of rope from bedsheets is the only thing he can think of. It has to work.
No dissent.
“I have sheets.” The flat’s owner waves his hand then disappears into the hallway.
“Good! Who else lives on this floor?”
“Me!” a woman calls out. A young boy clings to her, his dark head pushed against her belly, his arms around her waist.
“Go back to your flat. Bring me your bedsheets. We need to make strong rope.”
She nods and moves to the front door pulling at her child to keep pace. He stumbles as she moves.
“Why don’t you leave your son with me?” Viktoria calls.
“No!” the child shouts and grasps his mother’s waist tighter.
“No time for discussion,” Uri says. “Go!”
“Come on!” The woman tugs at the boy, lifts him to her hip, and they disappear into the hallway.
“Can anyone else get bedsheets? We need more.”
“I’m not going out there!”
“It’s dark!”
“Listen!” Uri shouts. “We do not have time. The fire is burning below us. In few minutes it will be here.”
Sobs. Shuffling feet. A moan.
“Do you think we don’t know that?”
“Then do something!” Viktoria shouts.
“I will.” A willowy boy, long fringe covering one half of his face, steps forward.
“No, Craig!”
“I have to go. We both should go, Mum.”
He pushes at his fringe as he turns to leave. The woman at his side falters then follows. Uri nods his thanks and looks around at the others.
“Me,” a woman steps forward tugging her arm from the man next to her.
“Yes, me too.” A man of about sixty steps from the right and walks to the front door.
“Good. Please go. Be quick.”
As they leave, the flat’s owner reappears from the hallway and drops a pile of folded sheets at Uri’s feet. He falls to them, shaking out the first bedsheet and tying its corner to the next. There are four—not long enough, but he dangles them out of the window, measuring the drop. The rope needs another five sheets at least if they were to get down without injury.
The door swings open and the first of the tenants returns with an arm full of bedding. Within minutes they’ve worked the bedding into two long ropes.
“Smoke!”
“It’s coming in through the letterbox!”
“It’s getting hot!”
The room explodes with voices.
Keep them under control! “We’re ready,” Uri shouts above the rising panic and pulls at Viktoria’s shoulder forcing her towards the open window.
“Hey! Who said she could go first?” A balding man with the first hint of middle-aged paunch pushes his way to the front. He jostles against Viktoria and looks at Uri with defiance.
“Shame!”
“I’m first,” he retaliates.
“It’s his flat!”
“She’s first” Uri responds. The balding man fidgets but doesn’t move. He glares back at Uri. “You’re first,” he says to Viktoria and ties the end of the rope around her waist.
“It’s my flat and,” the man continues, “I’m going first.”
“Wait your turn, Harry!”
“Why is she going down first?”
“The women go first.”
“Pah! It’s my flat!”
If the man keeps pushing, Uri won’t be able to hold back his anger. Stay in control! Uri leans forward, his eyes locked to the man’s. Grey eyes flinch. He has the belligerent stare of a small man—a cockerel strutting in the henhouse. Uri will show him who is in charge. “Because I say so,” Uri growls and stands almost directly over him, nudging him away from Viktoria. “Anyone else got problem with that?” He asks looking around at the crowd. No one speaks. He sighs in frustration. “We have not got time for this,” he says staring back at the man. “My wife and daughter go first—end of discussion. There are two ropes—if we work together we can get everyone out.”
“You!” he shouts to the strongest looking man in the room. “What is your name?”
“Clarke.”
“Clarke, go to other window. Take this,” he says throwing him the other rope, “and help people out.” The man nods. Uri counts. “Take six people, Clarke.”
Without question, Clarke counts six people and leads them to the neighbouring window as Uri helps Viktoria slip her legs across the window’s ledge. He checks the outside of the building. Good, still no sign of fire on the outside.
“Uri-”
He smiles as she speaks. Let her see you’re in control. “Let yourself down gently.” She hesitates. He can smell her fear. “Just keep your legs against the wall—like the rock climbers do when they’re descending.”
“But-.”
“Just focus, Viktoria.”
He waits as she manoeuvres herself out of the window and shores herself up against the wall. The rope is taut, her feet are wedged against the wall.
“Wait,” he instructs then reaches for his daughter. “Take Anna.”
“What! Uri, no!”
“Yes, Viktoria.” His voice invites no questioning. “How else are we to get her out?
“You bring her, Uri!”
“No! I have to
stay here to help the others.”
He stares into her face. All colour drained from her cheeks he keeps her gaze. “You will take our daughter, Viktoria. You can do this. You will do this.”
She nods. Eyes locked to his she pulls at the rope, testing its strength. “Pass her to me.” Her voice is cold, determined. Good girl!
Heart thudding in his chest, Uri passes the girl to her mother, keeping a tight grip on her clothes.
“Are you ready?”
With the child’s arms around her neck and her legs about her waist, Viktoria pushes away from the wall. Her progress is torturously slow. Hurry, Viktoria! As she lowers past the window of the flat below she speeds up and to Uri’s relief practically runs the last feet down. She jumps to the ground with a grunt.
“Yes!” Uri shouts unable to hide his elation.
Her smile freezes as she looks above him. “Get inside!” she screams and runs with Anna to the road.
He pulls back with a jerk just as a dark and heavy shape plummets past the window.
Thud!
Anna screams.
Sprawled on the grass below, where Viktoria had jumped only seconds before, the body of a man lies sprawled and unmoving.
“My turn!” A finger prods at Uri’s shoulder. Startled he turns back to the group.
A middle-aged woman stands directly behind him her arms crossed, determined to fight for her place as the others pull at her shoulder.
“Calm down,” he shouts with the image of the man, twisted and broken, seared into his mind. That could have been him if he’d listened to the others. “You will all get your turn.” He pulls in the rope and nods at the demanding woman. “Your turn.”
The room is becoming hotter and a dark patch sits at the centre of the door. The fire is eating its way through. He orders Harry to lay the wet towels at the bottom of the door as he ties the rope around the woman’s waist. “Hurry!” he urges as she lifts her leg to swing it over the sill. Following his instruction, she lowers herself out of the window.
“It is OK,” he soothes as she looks at him with a worried frown. “You can do it. Viktoria is waiting down there.”
She nods and begins to move—too slowly.
“That’s right,” he encourages biting back his frustration. “You can do it.” She moves a little quicker.
He checks the door. The black patch has grown bigger and its centre glows orange.
Thud!
The woman edging down the wall screams. Another body lies broken. “Don’t look down,” he calls. “Look at me. Yes, that’s right. Look at me. Just go down.”
At the next window Clarke lowers another woman. Her hands slip as she falls the last few feet, but she scrambles to her feet and quickly unties the rope.
A hand thumps Uri’s shoulder.
“My turn”, a short and wiry man repeats. A woman, equally short, but twice as wide, yanks at the man’s shirt sleeve.
“I’m first Frank!”
He pulls his shoulder away from her. “Not a chance, Lily,” he replies and pushes closer to Uri. “Me,” he says with thin lips.
“You damned snake! My mother said I should never have married you.”
“Wish you hadn’t!” he replies with spite as he grabs the rope.
“Shut up, both of you,” Uri says with disgust. There was nothing like desperation to show someone’s true colours. The break in this marriage was a rift. “Grab this rope and get out of window, Frank.” Uri didn’t care whether the man or the woman went first. Frank was closest and quicker. “That’s right, let yourself down slowly.”
Frank clambers down the side of the wall quickly. His wife follows with huffs and disgruntled expletives. Across the room Clarke grunts as he helps the last man down, the wiry youth who’d collected the bedsheets. Only Clarke and Uri remain.
The door has given way to the fire and it licks through the hole to the ceiling. Flames spread across the walls and smoke fills the room. Clarke coughs and pulls the neck of his jumper over his nose.
“You go down now, Uri,” Clarke says as the last of the men is untied below. “Go to your wife and daughter.”
“There is nothing to tie rope to, Clarke and I am too heavy for you—too big. You go next. I let you down.”
“But what about you?”
“I know what to do. Come on. We have not much time,” Uri urges as the flames begin to eat into the carpet.
With a reluctant nod, Clarke ties the rope around his waist and eases himself over the ledge.
“Uri!” Viktoria shouts. “Hurry!”
Clarke jumps as he reaches the top ledge of the ground floor flat and unties the rope.
“Come on, Uri!” he shouts up.
“Uri!” Viktoria shouts again.
“Coming,” he calls.
The heat behind him is intense, the smoke churning and black. He coughs, pulls his jumper up over his nose and scours the room for somewhere to anchor the rope. There has to be something. The chair would fall through the window and him with it. A wide coffee table sits in the middle of the room. It doesn’t look too sturdy but is too big to pass through the window lengthwise. It would have to do. There were no other options and he was running out of time.
The fire crackles as it consumes the settee and orange flames brighten the room as it licks along the walls and carpets. Uri’s heart beats hard as he pulls at the long coffee table. It’s lighter than he thought it would be and rickety. He ties the rope around its middle just as the fire engulfs the sofa and works its way to the easy chair on the other side of the electric fireplace. He grits his teeth, ignores the heat, pushes down the wrenching knot in his belly, and swings his legs over the window ledge. He pulls at the table as flames burn beneath its top. It jerks and tumbles onto its side, the rope slipping around its belly. He tugs again, yanking it away from the flames and the table judders across the carpet. Black smoke, thick and acrid fills the small flat as the fabric and sponge burns. Toxic fumes burn his eyes and make him heady. He gags.
Giving the rope a final tug, Uri wedges the table against the wall then clambers out of the window. He drops to the next level. The table thuds, clatters, then scrapes up to the open window. He stops for a moment. If the table comes out at an angle he’ll fall to the tarmac and from this height there would be broken bones. He eases down a little further. The table shifts and jumps to the window frame. It’s going to come through! Uri waivers. Should he get down as quickly as he can or go slowly? His heart beat is fast and painful. He moves down a little further. The tension in the rope gives way. The table slams against the window as it turns over and Uri jolts to a stop. Caught only by the lip of the table’s top, the legs jut out of the window. Smoke billows. Uri’s chest will burst if his heart hammers any harder. He tugs at the table. It creaks but doesn’t shift. Go! He works his way quickly down the wall, willing the table to stay in place. Flames lick at the window. He prepares to jump the last six feet. The rope breaks. Uri falls to the ground with a thud. The rope, burned through at its end, lands beside him.
“Uri!”
Hands reach for him and then he’s on his feet being pulled away from the building and out onto the road. His backside and right leg aches from the fall but he ignores the pain and grabs Viktoria, walking away from the burning building with a quick step. He doesn’t stop until she pulls at him.
“Stop, Uri. We’re safe here.”
The entire apartment block is on fire, flames burn bright behind each window and leap out where the glass has broken. On the roof a figure stands waving. Uri closes his eyes and turns to his wife. He’s seen too much death already today.
“We’re out, Viktoria, but we’re not safe.” Something bad was happening to the city, something evil, and he had to get his family to safety. “Bolstovsky has a house in the countryside—we’ll be safe there.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Nothing moves but the plumes of smoke spiralling into the sky as Jessie walks along the road. From her vantage point on the hill she counts eig
ht tall black and billowing columns. She clenches her jaw as the gnawing in her stomach tightens.
“We should have gone straight to the police!”
“We couldn’t have done this any earlier, Jessie.”
“We could—we should have left as soon as-”
“If we’d left any earlier then the house would have burnt down and perhaps your mum too.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “But, if we’d gone out before the fire started-”
“We may not have got back in time. Listen. We can’t stop them on our own.”
“No, of course-”
“We inform the authorities-”
“If we can find any!”
“There’s bound to be someone at the police station—it’s not like at Stainthorpe—this is the city—there has to be someone there.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“There will be, you’ll see.”
Torn as she looks out across the city, she pulls at her rucksack. The sooner they’ve informed the authorities about the terrorist plot to burn its way through the country the sooner she can get back home and get her mother and sister to a safer place.
“It feels wrong to be walking away from them.”
“I understand.”
“It’s the right thing to do though, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. Come on,” Alex urges and takes quicker steps.
Within seconds, he’s jogging at a steady pace. His arms pump rhythmically as his boots pound along the tarmac, his breathing steady. Determined to keep up, Jessie maintains his faster pace for the next ten minutes.
“The station’s on the next street,” Jessie says relieved as they take the road leading to the police station. Alex grunts in return and follows her lead as she runs faster. “Right at the top,” she says with a heavy breath.
The police station stands as a wide block along the street, banked either side by iron railings. The windows are dark. She’s disappointed. She had expected there to be lights, for the police station to be operating as normal, not sitting dark and sombre in the first thin light of morning. She runs up the steps with burning thighs and pushes against the door, half expecting them to be locked. They open inwards and she stumbles through.
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