Beginning with You

by Lindsay McKenna

  As they roared toward the disaster scene, at an altitude of three hundred feet, Reno whistled. “My God, that’s a mess down there.”

  “Radio back to base. Tell them what we’ve got,” Logan ordered tersely. Sometimes, Reno’s excitement got in the way of his normally good judgment. The ferry was on fire. Huge tongues of red flames were mixing into the angry black clouds erupting from the bow area. Gil could see people in orange life vests bobbing a half mile downwind of the listing behemoth, all of them beneath the malevolent cloud of yellow-green gas coiling endlessly from the Flyer. There were at least four rafts in the water, and he saw approximately twenty people in each one of them. Good, at least someone down there was thinking on their feet. The more people in rafts, the fewer hypothermia cases they would have.

  Logan spotted three men on the roof of the ferry, crawling around, but black smoke obscured any further view of them. Most of the survivors were huddled on the stern of the upper deck. The hull of the Flyer near the bow looked warped and cracked. The Point Countess and the 44-footer were upwind, already beginning to pluck survivors from the water.

  Over his headset, he heard Stuart’s voice as he called to all skippers and air commanders. “This is Captain Stuart. You are advised not to approach the ferry. Repeat, do not approach the Flyer. We’ve just gotten word from a hazmat expert that chlorine will explode when it comes in contact with copper. According to the first mate aboard the Flyer, there is a truck filled with at least five tons of copper scrap. It’s parked near the truck carrying HTH and brake fluid. If the fire gets hot enough, the copper will begin spontaneous ignition. Until I can get more information regarding this potential danger, you are to stay as far from the ferry as possible when you pick up victims. Acknowledge this order. Over.”

  “Great,” Logan muttered, making the mandatory call to the captain. “Copper and HTH? Who would guess those two things could create a problem? That whole mother is probably going to blow right out of the water.”

  Reno glanced at him, his eyes widening, “I wonder what the radius on an explosion like that would be?”

  “Who the hell knows?” Gil snorted, easing the ’60 down to a lower altitude as he approached the first group of survivors, upwind of the ferry.

  “Oh, man….”

  “Yeah,” Gil muttered. “I hope that hazmat expert the skipper’s got is going to tell him how far away we have to be so we don’t end up in little pieces if that ferry decides to blow.”

  Wiping the sweat accumulating on his brow, Reno muttered, “Man, this is worse than combat.”

  “You’re right. It’s a barbecue, and we could all be crispy critters before it’s over.” Gil looked at the Point Countess below them. “Noah had better watch his ass, too.”

  On the bridge of the Point Countess, Noah was in constant radio contact with civilian boats and tugs that had answered Captain Stuart’s emergency call to help in the rescue. He kept the cutter a half mile upwind of the Flyer. From his stationary post, he began to direct the awaiting boat traffic that had lined up, waiting for his orders. He’d send them in, one at a time, to either pick up survivors who were in the water or pull alongside of a raft and begin to transfer people.

  Whether he wanted it to or not, Stuart’s latest communiqué over the radio bothered the hell out of him. What did it mean? How long did those people on the Flyer have if that copper and HTH combined? And how large an explosion was Stuart talking about? Anguish moved through Noah as he steadied the binoculars to his eyes. He could see Rook on the stern, helping to direct the evacuation, along with several Flyer crewmen.

  “Captain Stuart,” Bob Bancroft began, tapping the map of the straits with his finger. “If we didn’t have the threat of that copper coming in contact with the HTH, you could get your 41-footer in there to start spraying water on that fire. As it is, we can’t even begin to guess when or if those two will combine to create that explosion.”

  Ward stared at the tall, gangly man. Bancroft had volunteered his services, having heard the bulletins regarding the Flyer disaster on the radio earlier. He was a hazmat technician for the state of Washington who happened to be on vacation in the area. Frustration ate at Ward. “You’re telling me I can’t put out the fire on that ferry?”

  Apologetically, Bancroft scratched his thinning blond hair. “I’m afraid so, Captain.”

  “And there’s no way to estimate the size of such an explosion?”

  “None. But five tons of copper is a lot of metal to put in contact with that much HTH. Right now, every effort should be focused on getting the people off the Flyer. No one can estimate when or if that copper will ignite. According to the first mate, Knox, those two trucks are parked close together. It’s a crapshoot, Captain.”

  Ward turned and stared out the window of his office. He could see the smoke rising from the ferry. Six miles separated them from the disaster. Hospital ambulances were lined up on the tarmac, waiting for the first load of survivors to arrive in the helos. Mercy Hospital had geared up for a triage emergency situation. The city of Port Angeles had responded en masse to the emergency. Local residents were bringing pickups, vans, buses and even newspaper trucks to the air station to help transport the injured to the hospital. Red Cross volunteers from several local chapters waited tensely out on the tarmac, ready to assist the Flyer survivors to the vehicles. Medical personnel from six Seattle hospitals were being flown in by a local airline to help at Mercy. Coast Guard helicopters from adjacent stations were flying in, prepared to take the more seriously injured, after they were stabilized at Mercy, to Seattle hospitals.

  Surprisingly, Chief McDonald had managed to scare up one hundred and fifty Coast Guard personnel, and all of them were working on the coordination effort. Ward was proud of his people, and he was worried about his cutter and helo crews. “Dammit, I thought we had enough to worry about with my people exposed to that chlorine gas. Now there’s the possibility of an explosion of unknown proportion,” he growled.

  Bob nodded understanding. “Look, Captain Stuart, I don’t want to belabor this point with you, but I think you need to understand the size of such an explosion.”

  “Spell it out for me,” Ward said. “Clearly.”

  “We’re talking an explosion so powerful that it could make that ferry look like nothing but pieces of shrapnel when it was all over.”

  Ward sucked in a breath. “What’s the radius on that kind of detonation?”

  “I’d say anyone within half a mile would be killed instantly. Three-quarters of a mile, serious injury.”

  “And one mile?”

  “Injured, but alive.”

  “What about my aircraft?”

  “They’ll take one hell of a pounding. I don’t know much about choppers, so I can’t realistically answer that. The pressure wave would be tremendous. Like a tsunami, only an invisible one made of air.”

  “All right, you’ve spelled it out for me, Bancroft.” Ward paced, running his fingers through his damp hair. He was sweating profusely. He glanced over at the hazmat technician.

  “Give me your best educated guess on how long we have before this could happen,” he demanded tightly.

  “Depends upon a lot of variables that we have no way of knowing, Captain.”

  “According to the first mate, those trucks are parked within five feet of each other.”

  “Then,” Bob offered softly, “those poor people on board may not have much time at all….”

  “Next!” Rook shouted, helping several of the walking injured to the rail. One hundred people had climbed over the rail and found safety in the rafts that Jim and the Flyer crew had been able to release from the ferry roof. Dave was still in the water, releasing canisters and helping the passengers climb into the rafts. It was a tedious, time-consuming effort.

  Rook had seen the Point Countess slicing through the water. The cutter had stationed herself a half mile upwind of the ferry to pick up those in the water. She saw at least forty to fifty small craft around the cutter,
helping in the evacuation of wounded. The valiant ’60s were landing on the water, plucking three to four people at a time from the water. The rescue was well underway.

  Rook’s head ached fiercely where she had sustained the gash on her temple. She moved through the hundred people left on the stern, all the time keeping an eye on which way the wind was blowing. And always, she tried to spot Jim as he crawled from one cylinder ramp to another on his belly. Most of the time she lost sight of him and the other two men in the roiling, twisting smoke as it poured more heavily out of the starboard hatches.

  Rook felt the heat under her feet and realized that the fire was spreading. Gagging on fumes from other chemicals burning, Rook staggered toward the starboard side. Annie Locke and Bill Stone had worked without rest, hauling out one unconscious victim after another from the upper deck lounge. Several other men, the least injured, were doing the same. Sooner or later the helos would have to initiate basket drops to the deck of the ferry to take away the worst cases. They couldn’t be lifted overboard to the rafts below.

  Annie groaned, tugging and pulling an unconscious two-hundred-and-fifty-pound woman. Rook met her halfway across the deck and came to her side.

  “You take one arm, I’ll take the other,” Rook gasped.

  Annie nodded, sobbing for breath. Together, they managed to get the woman down the ladder and to the knot of people on the stern. Others were administering CPR to those who had quit breathing after inhaling the deadly chlorine fumes.

  Rook saw Annie gag from the chlorine fumes, then fall to her knees, retching. Leaning down, Rook held her.

  “Th-thanks.” Annie wiped her mouth with the back of her torn sleeve. Slowly, unsteadily, she got to her feet.

  “Go over there, Annie,” Rook begged. “You’re not well. Rest.”

  Stubbornly, Annie shook her head. She managed a lopsided grin. “Take a look at yourself, ma’am. You’re a sight for sore eyes, too. You can barely stand….”

  Rook ignored her, straightening up. The ferry suddenly groaned, the plates screeching and rending beneath them. They clutched at each other to stay upright as the deck slowly listed more and more. Another explosion occurred below. Annie cringed. Rook ducked.

  Fire spewed out of the closest hatch, and shrapnel from an exploding car parked near the opening shot outward in a narrow arc. Another explosion! Rook jerked Annie along, trying to stay upright as they made their way back to the stern.

  Two more cylinders were loosened and trundled down the steep ramps, splashing into the water. Rook brought Annie to the rail. They both clung to the steel bar, gasping for breath. Rook’s attention was drawn to Dave. His movements in the water were slow and uncoordinated as he swam toward the cylinders. He was going hypothermic. Annie sobbed, leaning over the rail.

  “Dave! Get out of the water and stay out!” she screamed.

  He didn’t hear her above the roar of the fire, the helicopters buzzing around like bees and the loudspeakers blaring from the cutter upwind of them. The water was pulling at him.

  His legs were tired; he felt as if he was carrying thirty-pound weights. He opened his mouth to grab a breath of air, but instead, he swallowed water. Choking, he vomited and struck out more determinedly toward the next four cylinders, only feet away.

  Annie checked out her life vest, making sure it was good and tight around her body. “I’m going in after him,” she told Rook, climbing unsteadily up on the rail. “The damn fool is already past reason. He’ll die if I don’t get him out of there.”

  Rook grabbed her arm. “Get him and yourself out of the water—now. That’s an order, Annie. Do you hear me?” she demanded, her voice strained.

  Annie was going to argue with her, but then thought better of it when she saw the set of Rook Caldwell’s jaw. “Yes, ma’am. In and out. I’ll get these rafts down to you as soon as I can and then stay out of the water.”

  “Do that.”

  Annie held her breath and stood. She leaped, feet first, into the icy water. The life vest she wore popped her quickly to the surface. Shaking the water out of her eyes, Annie swam strongly toward Dave, who was weakly trying to keep his head above water. Her years of rescue experience made it easy to slide her arm around his chest and beneath his arm to keep him from drowning.

  “I’ve got you,” she gasped.

  Dave gagged and stopped flailing around. He relaxed immediately when Annie’s strong, thin arm went about him. His throat and nose burned from the saltwater he’d inhaled. He was barely coherent, and black dots danced before his half-closed eyes. “Annie…I-I’m losing…” He blacked out before he finished.

  Alarmed, Annie twisted a look down at him. Taking powerful strokes with her free arm and legs, she reached a raft half-filled with people. Hands stretched downward to help Dave as soon as she maneuvered him so they could reach him. Sucking in huge gulps of air, she moved aside as two men hauled Dave into the raft.

  “Cover him!” she shouted up to them, trying to be heard over the cacophony of sounds. “He’s hypothermic! Put your coats or anything else you have around him.” And then she pushed off, striking out for the cylinders floating alongside the Flyer.

  Rook divided her attention between coordinating the passengers with Tony Knox and trying to search for Jim. There was one more ramp, near the bow, that had to be released. He knew, as she did, that the hundred people left on deck would have no way of getting off the ferry to be rescued without the remaining rafts. Tears blurred Rook’s vision. She wanted to scream for Jim to get back to her. He’d been up there for so long. She’d seen wisps of chlorine gas slide across the roof. Had Jim breathed in the poisonous fumes? Was he unconscious somewhere up there? She ached to go find him, but when she saw the anxious, shocked looks on the passengers’ faces, she knew her duty was here, with them. No one else knew about emergency rescue procedure like the Coast Guard, and she couldn’t jeopardize all of them for the sake of one life….

  Noah heard the announcement over the radio, and his blood turned icy. He gripped the console, staring hard at the ferry. Captain Stuart had just ordered everyone to remain one mile away from the Flyer, because of the danger of an explosion that could occur at any time. Already, the Flyer was listing twenty degrees to starboard. It was only a matter of time before it slid into a watery grave, if that explosion didn’t do it first. Earlier, he’d spotted Rook, Harper and Annie Locke, but not Jim Barton. With Commander Nelson now acting as on-scene commander from the 250-foot cutter, the Osprey, Noah was relieved of his extra duties. He’d taken the Point Countess very close to the Flyer to pick up survivors. And now he waited impatiently for the last of them to be helped off the cutter to dockside.

  “We’re ready to roll, Skipper!” the bos’n shouted from the dock. The last person had been led down the ramp to awaiting volunteers and medical people.

  Good. Noah gave orders to place a large, heavy gangplank on the cutter. He eased the Point Countess from the berth, pointing her bow out toward the straits once again. Noah had a plan, and he prayed that the captain would approve of it. Rook didn’t know the danger she was in, and he was damned if he was going to lose her like this. He picked up the microphone to call Stuart.

  Ward rubbed his tired eyes, listening to Noah’s plan. He wanted to say no, but he couldn’t. The first mate, Knox, had reported twenty gravely injured people lying on the stern of the Flyer. Right now, all helos were busy either picking up people in the water or refueling. The injured who could walk or move were the last of the passengers to be transported. There was no way to get the last twenty people, except to send someone or something in to pick them up. Noah wanted to take the Point Countess alongside, drop the gangplank on the Flyer’s slanted deck and rescue them. Should he risk a multi-million-dollar cutter and the lives of eight men? Ward rubbed his eyes again.

  “Stand by, Lieutenant Caldwell,” he ordered gruffly, trying to analyze the best way to handle the situation. Noah was right. They had to get the critically injured off the ferry in a hurry, or they’d
all go up with the coming explosion. What way was best with minimal risk to life and property—helo’s or a cutter? The blade wash from a ’60 could pull the chlorine gas to the stern of the Flyer, endangering everyone. His aircrew would be jeopardized, too. They were running low on extra oxygen tanks from the fire departments. If he chose wrong, people could die because of his decision.

  “Captain, I’ve got to have your answer,” came Noah’s anxious voice. “I’m one mile to port of the Flyer.”

  “Get the Point Countess in there and get her out, Lieutenant Caldwell,” he snapped.

  “Yes, sir!”

  Ward cursed, setting down the microphone. He stared over’ at several officers manning other phones and radios. Had he made the right decision? The rescue of twenty people, plus those few attending them, would take too long by helo. The ’60 could only hold four, maximum, plus a crew of three. The cutter, on the other hand, could take all survivors, minimizing the time factor but maximizing the loss of people if that ferry exploded while they were in the act of evacuating them. Turning, Ward glanced out the window toward the straits.

  Rook’s eyes widened as she saw the Point Countess’s clean, sleek shape turn and bear down directly on the ferry. And then, she understood. A sob escaped her and she quickly returned to her role as leader for the group.

  “Listen! Everyone, listen! They’re going to move the cutter alongside the Flyer. We’ll all be able to cross over and make it to safety. Do you understand?” Her voice cracked with emotion. The few people who were still coherent nodded. Twenty lay unconscious or seriously injured at Rook’s feet. Blood covered the deck. Others were administering CPR. Their faces were worn, their arms tired, but they continued the life-saving procedure.