Where There's Smoke (Holiday Hearts #1)

by Kristin Hardy

  Nick slid on his face mask. “If he’s going in, he’s coming with me. Come on, Sorensen. You want fire, you got it. And switch on your Orienteer. We’re going to need it.” He set his own unit, watching the blue display spring up on the right side of his face mask. One by one, blue spots labeled with each crew member’s initials popped up in a tight tangle. “Okay, watch yourselves. Keep track of your direction, make sure you know where you came from. And keep track of the time.”

  Nick looked across to where Sloane stood, eyes enormous, face pale even in the growing light of the flames. He ached to go to her but there way no way to fix this, no way but to do the job that was his life. The job that could save a life. Instead, he raised a hand in salute.

  Then he turned toward the inferno.

  Smoke hazed the air as they climbed the stairs, stepping around the hoses that snaked their way to the upper levels. The rasp of Nick’s breathing mask echoed in his ears as if he were Darth Vader. They could hear the fire growling and popping through the walls. Feet pounded on the metal stairs above them. Nick didn’t waste his voice on shouting, just motioned Sorensen to follow him out the fire door to the third floor.

  Hose stretched ahead of them down to the end of the wide hall where the team from Engine 58 knelt, knocking down the blaze that burned a dull orange through the smoke. Pinpoints of light showed on the wall to his left where the wash of arc light from the fire equipment outside had searched its way through holes and gaps in the thick plywood sheets covering the windows. To his right rose the wall that hid the warren of sound studios.

  They crossed to the vestibule halfway down the hall. He motioned to Sorensen and pressed their masks together. “Okay, we’ve got the doors to the rooms here. Three on each side. I’ll take the doors on the left, you go to the right.” To the right, away from the fire. “Be careful going through the doors. Make sure you keep track of your moves and don’t get turned around. If you find something, shout on the radio.” His voice sounded flat and muffled through the plastic of his mask. Sorensen nodded and they plunged off into the smoke.

  Nick started with the door closest to him, fumbling for the handle with his thick gloves. The heat clenched him like a fist. He ignored it, intent on his task. Keep to a search pattern, he thought. Getting lost in the maze of doors and halls and smoke would be deadly.

  Setting his shoulder to the wall, he moved around the perimeter of the room, swinging his ceiling hook across the floor in a broad arc to search for objects. To search for bodies. Amid the freight-train rumble of the flames, the creak and groan of burning wood, softening beams, he strained to hear a hint of a voice.

  And on his display, the other blue dots moved in their own restless circles.

  Sloane stared at the fire, reduced to watching and waiting. The LCD display on her master Orienteer gave her only the illusion of control. She concentrated on the blue dots, knowing that the image before her showed just a fragment of the picture. It might reveal the locations of the men in the bewildering tangle of rooms. It didn’t show the heat and smoke and power of the flames creeping closer and closer.

  The blaze reflected out of the service doors on the ground floor. Two engine companies were inside, working it with two-and-a-half-inch lines, but the temperatures were too high to keep it knocked down.

  Glass shattered as flames broke through a window on the third floor.

  Where Nick was. She saw the dot with his initials pause and her heart hammered against her ribs. An agony of tension gripped her as she watched and waited. Had he found something? Had he been hurt? It was excruciating, not knowing what was happening to any of the men she’d come to know and care for.

  Not knowing what was happening to Nick.

  “Chief!” She heard O’Hanlan holler behind her from the controls of the ladder. “Where are the other companies?”

  “A drunk driver missed the siren and T-boned Rescue 1. Engine 29 was right behind them, couldn’t stop in time.” He had to shout to be heard over the throbbing engines of the pumpers and the ladder truck.

  “Anybody hurt?”

  “A couple got banged up. The apparatus is out of commission. We got more help on the way. I called in another alarm.”

  More pumpers, more trucks. There would be more hands but would they get the water into the maze that was the inside of the building?

  And would they help the men inside get out?

  The building groaned. It might have been brick outside, but the skeleton was wood, massive timbers, long stringers. And as the fire progressed, the building suffered.

  Nick hardly noticed the bulk of his protective clothing, the weight of his helmet and breathing apparatus. The smoke thickened, banked down toward the floor. Life, normally so complicated, was reduced to utter simplicity—enter right, exit right, shoulder to the wall. Sweep the ceiling hook, strain to hear, strain to see, strain to keep a sense of direction.

  The door had led to a hallway with two more doors, each with studios and offices behind. Through the door, straight, right, door to the left, search, door to the right, search, through the door, search, then door, right, door, left, straight, right, left, straight, through the door. And pray he’d find the vestibule.

  The inferno grew hotter still.

  The smoke was down within a few inches of the floor now, He couldn’t see, searched by contact. Enter right, shoulder to the wall, sweep with the hook, move forward, sweep with the hook, move forward, sweep—

  The hook jolted in his hand. He’d touched something. Or someone. Adrenaline vaulted through him.

  And then he was scrambling across the floor. It was a man, passed out facedown. Facedown was probably the only reason the guy was still alive, Nick thought as he tore off his helmet and mask to give the man a breath of oxygen. Now he just needed to get the guy out. He dragged him to the hall outside, slipping into the rhythm of buddy breathing. He turned and passed through another doorway, turned again.

  And found himself in a dead end.

  The building shook with the sound of something—a beam, maybe—crashing down. Nick focused on keeping his breathing calm. A man hyperventilating could go through a sixty-minute tank in ten, and he was already sharing it. He retraced his path in his mind. It was important to get back to the original room, figure out an escape before the man in his arms died.

  His stomach tightened. He stared through the swirling smoke.

  And blinked at the blue lines in front of his face. The Orienteer. The schematic. The way out. He’d gone through the wrong door, he realized, a door he hadn’t seen when he’d entered the room. He was in a hall now that led directly back to the vestibule. It would be quicker than retracing his steps.

  If it were right.

  Did he believe it? Did he trust it? Did he trust Sloane?

  And it was that thought that had him tossing the man over his shoulder and following the blue lines.

  Sloane stared at her monitor where Nick’s marker had stopped. The building gave a rending sound and a wall of flame roared up from the roof. Her hands clenched convulsively. She could hear the deputy chief on the radio.

  “Ladder 68, roof team, are you hurt?”

  The radio crackled. “Negative. We nee—off quick.”

  McMillan cursed as the transmission was interrupted by a call for the motor squad to the back exposure of the building. It was the chaos of a fire scene with dozens of radios, any one of which could be keyed on at any time. “Say again, 68?”

  “We need off. This whole damned thing is going to go.”

  “Comin’ to get ya, guys,” O’Hanlan boomed as he guided the aerial ladder to pluck the roof team off.

  The deputy chief keyed the radio mike again. “All hands inside, the roof is unstable. Get out now.” The air horns from the pumpers blared out the high-low tones of a mayday signal.

  The radio crackled. “Ladder 67.”

  Adrenaline spurted through Sloane as she heard Nick’s voice.

  “I found our guy. He’s hurt—”

/>   His fragmentary words were stepped on by another transmission and Sloane bit off a curse. “He needs air. I’m getting him out.”

  Knapp’s voice broke in. “Ladder 67, we’ll meet you on the stairwell.”

  The building was unstable, Sloane thought in anxiety. They had to hurry.

  The radio crackled again and another voice came on, this time coughing and choking. “Ladder 67, need assis—” Another transmission broke in for a moment. “—lost. Did you copy, Command?”

  “Say again.”

  “—run out of air. I’m lost—”

  And Sloane stared at her monitor, where Sorensen’s marker sat unmoving, deep in the building.

  “Ladder 67, inside, did you get that? Ladder 67?” The chief shook his radio in frustration, but there was no answer. “Trask, get your man out of there.”

  The universe was fire and black smoke, raging heat and rumbling fury. The engine company had pulled out. Nick stepped into the stairwell. “Knapp?” he bellowed and began pounding his ceiling hook against the metal railing.

  He watched the blue dots of Knapp and Beaulieu coming closer and suddenly they appeared through the smoke like apparitions.

  “This the guy?”

  “Get him out.” Nick handed him over. “I’ve got to go get Sorensen.” Suddenly, Nick caught a breath. “What the hell? What is he doing?” he demanded, watching the blue dot that represented Sorensen burrowing deeper into the building.

  And closer to the fire.

  He didn’t bother to say goodbye, just turned around and plunged back into the hall.

  The smoke had thickened, furling around him like black velvet, so heavy that he moved blindly along, staying low. He wore the standard high-wattage shoulder lamp. It didn’t matter. He might as well have turned it off for all the good it did.

  “Come on, come on,” he muttered to himself. The building shuddered as Nick drew near the vestibule. Suddenly there was a ripping sound and the ceiling at the end of the hall collapsed.

  Nick dove into the vestibule, feeling the wave of heat shoot over him as the fire roared in triumph. He stayed by the floor, scrambling toward the door that his display told him led to Sorensen. Somehow the kid had gotten disoriented, crossing the vestibule and going behind the far door on Nick’s side rather than toward the exit. The blue dot was motionless. Sorensen’s personal alert siren would be sounding but it was silenced by the walls of acoustic shielding.

  The door opened into swirling blackness. Nick moved down a short hallway, tracking his location on the Orienteer. Right at the end, then through another door. More smoke inside this one, and heat eddying around him, but no flames. It was here somewhere, though, stalking him with the relentless cunning of a predator.

  Heading blindly across the room, Nick stumbled over something, cursing. It wasn’t Sorensen, but a heavy light fixture that had fallen from the ceiling. Ignoring the ache in his shin, Nick plowed forward. Then his boot hit something else. Not a piece of the ceiling, this time, he thought, shining his light on it. Through the oily black smoke, he saw Sorensen’s black leather helmet.

  And his stomach tightened. He fought the urge to sweep his ceiling hook, looking for Sorensen. He couldn’t afford to waste the time. The display said he was further in. Nick had to trust it.

  There was a rumble ahead of him. His radio crackled. “Ladder 67, the roof is going. Get out, repeat, get out.”

  “Negative, Command. I’m getting my man.”

  “Ladder 67—”

  Nick turned it off.

  He went through the next door more cautiously, watching for fallen debris. Another hallway, another turn. His mask began a thudding vibration against his face, warning him he had only a handful of minutes left on his tank. The mayday signal sounding faintly from the pumper told him to get out and get out now. Not a chance. Sorensen’s marker said he was behind this door and that was where Nick was going.

  He put his hand on the final door, feeling the heat as he touched it. Taking a breath, he turned the knob to open it.

  And walked into hell.

  Her eyes stung and watered from the smoke. Her head pounded from the fumes. The heat had grown so that even she could feel it now as it turned the November night balmy. And Sloane didn’t care, all she cared about was the monitor in her hand. On the display, she watched Nick fight his way through the labyrinth, closer to Sorensen.

  Further from safety.

  Negative, Command. I’m getting my man. He would never consider doing anything else. No firefighter would. She knew that, she knew it.

  And still she wanted to scream as she stared at the display, watching the little blue dot with Nick’s initials creep away from the salvation of the stairwell, inch by torturous inch deeper into the maze.

  The building rumbled and she looked up to see flame shooting out of the windows on the upper floors. The plywood had been consumed now, leaving openings for the hungry flames, showing the line of fire that would cut off Nick’s retreat. The tower truck poured hundreds of gallons a minute of water through the openings, fighting back the flames, fighting to leave him with an escape, a chance.

  There was a crunch and a whoosh of flame as another part of the roof fell in and she had to fight not to cry out. Nick, she thought in agony.

  I never told you…

  Fire and brimstone. Heat and fury. The far end of the room was bathed in flame that spat and popped and snarled. Black smoke wreathed the blaze, making it seem as though he were looking into the fires of hell themselves. Melting paint dripped down the walls. Even down low the temperature slammed into him, making it nearly impossible to think, to move.

  And Sorensen lay on the floor, edging toward a door that would take him away from the exit. His mask dangled from his neck, straps broken, faceplate cracked. A trail of torn and blistered skin ran up into his hair where blood poured from a gash on his scalp. He’d been trying to breathe the cooler air down low, coughing and retching from the smoke.

  Suddenly, the flames up by the ceiling brightened. The orange shaded to sunburst yellow, a yellow bright enough to burn through the shrouds of black, a yellow that shimmered and spread fluidly across the ceiling.

  And Nick’s stomach clenched in fear. He knew the signs, every firefighter knew the signs.

  The room was about to explode.

  “Come on,” he roared, vaulting into the room to grab Sorensen, throwing him toward the door and not caring because they had to get out of that room and get out now.

  Or die.

  He slammed the door and dragged the probie down the hallway, watching the blue lines for the route to escape. There was a whoof of explosion behind them and a rush of heat that sent the smoke before him roiling.

  Sorensen was half-conscious, weak and heavy. Maybe head injury, maybe smoke inhalation, it didn’t matter. They needed to get out. Nick dragged off his mask and put it over Sorensen’s face, giving him several seconds of the rapidly dwindling supply of air before taking it back. Only a handful of minutes left. Only a handful of minutes to escape.

  Passing the mask back and forth, Nick hauled Sorensen through the maze in grim determination, knowing it was only a matter of time before the roof went, the floor went and it all came tumbling down. If they didn’t run out of air first.

  He keyed his radio mike. “Ladder 67 to Command, we’re coming out into the third-floor hallway. Low on air, repeat, low on air.” He handed the mask to Sorensen and reached for what should have been the door.

  And his hands hit a blank wall.

  The building groaned. Cold fear swept through Nick as he spread his arms blindly, searching to either side for the way out. He knew it was there, he’d seen it on the display seconds before. They were not going to die in this building. It was not going to happen. His fingers touched a doorjamb and he moved to it in relief.

  Until Sorensen caught at his sleeve. “Wrong door!” he yelled, handing Nick the mask.

  For an instant, Nick froze, shaken at how very nearly he’d taken them
back deeper into the maze. The mask chattered against his face, galvanizing him into action. There was no time to waste. The blue lines. The blue lines would take them to safety.

  One more set of doors and they’d be in the vestibule. He sipped a little air and passed the mask to Sorensen, feeling the warmth of the door up top. It was a risk they’d have to take. They edged to one side of the doorjamb and Nick reached for the handle. The building rumbled around them.

  Swiftly, he opened the door.

  The freight-train roar of the fire outside staggered him. They were walking into an inferno. It rolled along the ceiling and licked down the walls, fed by air from the now-open windows. The mask jittered in Nick’s hand as he handed it to Sorensen. Maybe they were walking into an inferno but they had no choice. They were out of time.

  They scrambled out into the vestibule. Ahead, water pounded in through the windows. The torrent gave way before the growling advance of the flames, though, neutralized as a hissing steam that boiled back toward them as they lurched around the corner to the main hallway.

  Everything to their right was a seething mass of fire. To their left, Nick caught glimpses of the fire door to the stairwell behind a flickering wall of flames. There was no good escape. An ominous creaking sounded overhead. And throwing Sorensen’s arm over his neck, Nick plunged through fire, hauling ass for the stairwell door.

  Then they were through and in the stairwell. Stumbling down the steps, Nick shared the very last gasps of air with Sorensen. Almost there. They were almost there. They were going to get out. Adrenaline spiked in his veins as together they hit the crashbar of the fire door at the bottom of the stairs.

  And the world came tumbling down.

  Don’t let anything happen to him, don’t let anything happen to him, please don’t let anything happen to him. The words ran together in Sloane’s head like a witch’s chant.

  Except that she had no power to control or protect. All she could do was watch the display in her hand. Every fiber of her being was bent on it as she watched the markers creeping closer, ever closer to the door. She was desperate to help him, desperate to see him, desperate to get him out.