The smoke was getting heavier now and it was more difficult to see.
Then he rounded a corner and the smoky flames were a few dozen feet ahead. A backup team was spraying the primary crew that was battling the fire.
The smoke billowed down the corridor and sought the natural vent of the elevator shaft on his left. The elevator doors were open to one of the cages; the interior was blackened and charred, the flocked paper that had covered its walls hanging in soggy, scorched strips.
The corridor dead-ended just ahead -and he backtracked. Miller had said the last feeder corridor… . He went back a few yards, found it, and walked down it, trying not to stumble over debris that littered the floor.
The smoke was thicker than in the main corridor and visibility was almost zero. The corridor seemed deserted and he could sense the smoke closing in behind him, hiding him from view of anybody in the main hallway.
The mask felt warm on his face and Fuchs suddenly realized he wasn’t getting enough air. He could smell the smoke penetrating the outlet valve of the mask as well. He felt down at his side for the main-line valve.
Demand regulator, my ass, he thought. Then he felt for the mask itself. The outlet valve wasn’t functioning properly. He heard it pop as it bowed under the pressure of his exhaled breath but the valve itself wasn’t opening.
Instead, the pressure was building up inside the mask and his exhaled breath was escaping about the seal on the sides of his face.
He struggled with the mask but couldn’t open the valve.
Don’t panic, he thought dispassionately. You’ve been through this before. Hold your breath and take the goddamned thing off. Now.
Thirty to sixty seconds to free the valve.
. Only it wouldn’t free.. He jiggled the valve, his breath pushing against his lungs. He used to be able to hold his breath for several minutes, but that was a long time ago.
He was feeling panic now and could hear a ringing in his ears.
The respirator was a dead loss; he’d have to make it back to the main corridor and the landing in a hurry. He turned, stumbled over a piece of fallen tile, and fell forward. He broke the fall with his arms but the effort drove the air from his lungs and he involuntarily inhaled.
The next instant, his lungs filled with a thick oily smoke.
He coughed and pulled in more air, then desperately tried to hold his breath. It was too late; convulsive coughing seized him again and he took in more lungfuls of the corridor air-a thick, resinous smoke with far too little oxygen and far too much carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. He struggled to his feet, still coughing, took a step, and was suddenly too weak to continue.
It was too much for him; he was too old and too tired.
He should have listened to Miller. He sank back down to the floor, hoping that the rescue team would find Mark before it was too late.
Before-he lost consciousness, he thought: What a stupid way to go.
CHAPTER 55
A dozen emergency lanterns had been set at straight points in the lobby and Barton could now see his way around without tripping over the folds in the salvage covers or bumping into the furniture. Donaldson was trying to locate a mobile emergency generator. If he succeeded they could start stringing lights up the stairwells for the firemen.
Most of the tenants in the lower lobby lunchroom had elected to transfer to nearby hotels after the explosions.
The lobby now reminded Barton more than ever of a ship at sea stripped for action.
“Mr. Barton?” Garfunkel had returned from an inspection tour of the basement garage.
“How is it downstairs, Dan?”
“It’s empty now-the tanks are pumped out and all the cars have been transferred. There was one casualty.”
Barton tensed. “What do you mean?”
“It was a car,” Garfunkel added hastily. “When the lights went out, one of the hikers smashed into a pillar -totaled the front end.
The car’s already been-towed.
Incidentally, Joe wants to go home. Says he’s freezing his balls off down there.”
Barton nodded. “Let him go-and tell him thanks. I’ll see to it that Leroux says thanks in a more substantial way.”
“He could probably use it, but I think he’ll appreciate your thanks more.”
“See how Donaldson’s doing on that generator, will you, Dan? And if there’s any coffee left in the lunchroom, bring me a cup. I don’t care whether it’s cold or not.”
Garfunkel disappeared and Barton went back to his blueprints, staring at them but not actually seeing them.
Shevelson was down in the lunchroom and Barton was by himself when Infantino came up.
Barton looked up at him. “Bad?”
“Sixteen through eighteen are gutted, nineteen through twenty-five are on fire, and it’s going to be slow going there.
I’ve asked Southport to send all the men an equipment they can spare, including shape charges.”
“Got any plans for them?”
Infantino shrugged. “Not really, but if we want them, we’ll have them on hand.”
“And the fire in the sixty-fourth-floor machinery room?” Barton asked slowly. “There’s no way of getting to that ‘ is there? We just stand here and let it burn, right?” Infantino looked tired. “Wrong, ‘Craig. Southport’s sending a Seagrave pumper that’s a monster-it’s a new model that will deliver more than fifteen hundred gallons per minute at over 400 p.s.i.”
“That’s Greek to me, Mario. What’s it mean?”
“It means we don’t need the booster pumps-we can hook it up to the dry standpipe and we’ll have usable water pressure to more than eight hundred feet. The pumper was one of the items in disagreement between Fuchs and me; he couldn’t see any use for it except maybe once in a blue moon. By his lights, he had a point.
Neither of us expected a blue moon so soon.” He glanced around the lobby, then noticed several hosemen disappearing into the stairwell.
“I’ve already started to send hosemen up in relays so they can connect up as soon as the pumper gets here. Between now and then He shrugged.
“Any more casualties from the explosion?”
Infantino looked strained. “A rookie named Lencho.
The puppy-dog type that you rag a lot; I knew him pretty well. The first explosion killed him instantly.”
“Young Fuchs?”
“They haven’t found his body yet, so I guess there’s still hope.
I’m more worried about the chief. Miller tells me he went in on sixteen looking for his son and nobody’s seen,him since. Five, ten more minutes and he’ll be out of air.”
Barton started to ask another question when there was the distant rumble of a muffled explosion. Infantino said, “Oh, Christ! ” and ran over to the comm center in the cigar stand. He came back a few moments later. “Another gas explosion on sixty-four-it’s really going up now.”
He hesitated. “One of the hosemen was almost up there and he had a walky-talky with him.
He reports that the stairwell is filling with debris blown out by the explosion. It’ll be more difficult to get men up there now.”
The Promenade Room was two floors above, Barton thought, and it would be a while before the Southport pumper got there. Whoever was in the Promenade Room was now directly threatened. And if Jenny wasn’t in the elevator, she was there. For a moment he felt his emotions start to buckle, then deliberately throttled his feelings. You did the best you could, and for the rest you hoped. And prayed.
Shevelson came up from down below and handed Barton a cup of coffee.
“Compliments of your security chief -says he warmed it with his -lighter.” He looked at Infantino. “Didn’t know you were here, Chief, or I would’ve brought you one as well.”
Infantino nodded. “Thanks anyway.” He turned to Barton. “Can we get Donaldson back up here? He’d know the fire loading on the floors just below the machinery room, wouldn’t he?”
Shevelson interrupted. “
So do I.” He shrugged at Barton’s questioning look. “I’ve never lost touch, Barton.
I was curious how they were going to fuck it up and I’ve got lots of friends in contracting. They kept me informed.” He riffled through the blueprints until he found those of the upper floors. “You’ve got five floors of unfinished apartments-“
“Infantino?”
Quantrell had walked up behind them, minus his cameraman.
“I told y6u to get the hell away from my working crews,” Infantino said tightly. “You can consider this a working crew.”
Quantrell ignored him. The faintly mocking look was gone from his face. “We’ve got our news helicopter up there and they’ve made a few passes past the Promenade Room. The pilot says there’s maybe twenty or more people in the room-it’s hard to tell since it’s lit only candles.”
He glanced at Barton, paused a moment, continued. “He also took a pass by the. scenic elevator.
He swore it slipped a little while the photographer was taking his footage. He thinks the emergency brakes may be going.”
It was Barton who said “Thanks” in a soft voice as Quantrell walked away. Infantino touched his shoulder briefly, then turned to Shevelson. “Five floors of unfinished apartments,” he repeated.
“What’s on them?”
Shevelson started to methodically list the contents-the stacks of tile and lumber, the sheets of plywood, the five-gallon cans of paint and varnish, cans of sealer and adhesive, wallboard, rolls of carpeting and wallpaper, cartons of kitchen appliances packed in excelsior, a dozen other items. Barton caught Infantino’s eye. The upper floors were a tinderbox. ‘ . “Once they start to go,” Shevelson finished quietly, “I don’t think you’ll be able to stop them.”
There was silence for a long moment afterward. Suddenly Infantino looked puzzled and held up his hand for quiet just as Barton was about to speak. Barton heard it then. A faint pounding from the doors to the elevator shaft, far too regular to be debris falling into it.
Infantino shouted over to the comm center: “Get a couple of men in here with pry bars!”
A moment later several firemen lumbered in and Infantino motioned them over to the elevator shafts, pausing by the doors until he located the one from which the noises came. Barton and Shevelson walked up as the men wedged their pry bars between the shaft doors and slowly muscled them open. For a moment all they could see was the darkness of the shaft with a faint glow from the bottom where burning debris had hit.
Barton found a lantern and held it close to the doors. Three men were hanging on a cable about five feet in. One of them held a pulldown hook with which he had been tapping on the shaft. doors.
Infantino grabbed the extended end and pulled the man and the cable slowly toward the doors until the firemen in the lobby could grab the hands of the others hanging to the cable and swing them onto the floor.
The three men collapsed on the salvage covers and one of them immediately vomited. The other two just huddled on the floor, their faces strained and blank.
Barton got a quick look at their hands and felt like turning away; their palms were black and bleeding.
“What happened?” Infantino asked after a second.
The youngest of the men was the first to speak. His eyes looked wild. “Four of us were trapped in an elevator about the eighteenth-floor level. There was no way out but to come down the cables.”
Infantino said, “You say there were four of you. What happened to the fourth?”
“He was Ron Gilman,” the young man said. His voice started to break then. “He never got a good grip to begin with and he couldn’t hold on.
He was the last one on the cable. When he felt himself slipping, he jumped to one side so he wouldn’t take us with him.” The tears were leaking down his face now, mixing with the grease and the soot and the mucus from his nose. “He made me go first because he was afraid I would slip. Oh, Jesus Christ!” He broke completely then and started to cry.
CHAPTER 56
The scenic elevator was halfway down the side of the building when the explosion ripped away the wall below it. The elevator bucked and dropped for an agonizing second. There was the harsh squeal of metal on metal and then the car jerked to a halt. The overhead lights flickered out’and Jenny Barton was left in semidarkness, surrounded by the elevator’s hysterical passengers.
“What happened? What happened?” somebody kept Yelling. There were shouts and screams and the sound of somebody close by sobbing.
And then over all the babble was the bellow of Wyndom Leroux’s voice shouting something unintelligible.
Oh my God, Jenny thought, we’re going to fall the rest of the way.
She sank to her knees, fear knotting her stomach. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. Beneath her, the floor of the car shuddered as the elevator slid an additional foot down the rails before stopping.
For a moment she wasn’t sure whether the floor was slightly canted or whether it was her imagination. No, she decided, the floor now had a distinct tilt to it.
Leroux’s voice roared out again over the babble of shouting and crying. “Listen to me, listen to me, everybody. Don’t panic-we’re perfectly safe!”
“What happened?” a man’s voice demanded once more.
“Explosion down below!” Leroux shouted. “It bent the rails outward.
We’re jammed in the rails or the friction brakes under the cage have been activated. In either case, we’re safe.”
“Safe?” The man sounded incredulous. Looking up, Jenny could see him outlined against the glass walls of the cage. S.he remembered him from the dining room-a big man who had been drinking far too much and whose loud voice had set everybody in the restaurant on edge.
“Safe? What happens when the brakes let go, mister?”
It was quieter in the cage now, the passengers listening intently to the exchange between the questioner and Leroux. “Nothing happens if the brakes fail,” Leroux said calmly. “If they do the cables will hold us. There are six of them and any one will be sufficient. The hoist motor has braked automatically-the brakes go on when the electricity is shut off.”
“That’s great,” the man said sarcastically. “So how the, hell do we get down?”
“We don’t,” Leroux said. “We wait out the fire and then they hoist us back up.”
Jenny recognized Thelma’s voice next. “We can’t get down, Wyn?”
Leroux spoke directly to her. “I’m afraid not, Thelma.
The rails are gone below us. We’ll have to wait until they can activate the hoist motor. Right now the power is out-the explosion must have cut the electric lines.”
“Just great,” the man muttered sourly. “We hang out here and freeze.” Jenny suddenly realized two things-the cage was noticeably cooler and the man seemed more calm. She wished that she was; she was still shaking. In her mind’s eye she could see the cage falling into the night to scatter her and the other passengers over the terrazzo plaza below.
“Are you all right?” Thelma Leroux asked, kneeling beside her.
Jenny started to get up and Thelma motioned her back, then tucked her own skirts beneath her and sat down. “There’s room enough; we might as well be comfortable since we’re going to be here awhile.”
Jenny detected the nervousness in her voice but admired the effort to keep it calm. The passengers standing around them loomed up like a wall, sealing them into a little world all their own. “It’s a matter of waiting,” Thelma continued.
“To let yourself be afraid won’t help anything at all.”
Jenny tried to shut out the fear but she couldn’t keep from trembling and she couldn’t control her voice.
“I’m scared stiff,” she said, and bit her lip to keep back the sobs she felt within. She fought them back for a minute, acutely aware of the passengers around them.
She now knew what it meant when they said a dog could smell a person’s fear-the cage stank of it. “I guess I don’t have your fortitude.”
<
br /> Thelma was silent for a moment, then laughed a little.
Her voice was easier now, even more in control. “I’m being unfair.
Perhaps I feel less fear because I know I’ve lived the most of my life and you’ve yet to really start yours.”
It wasn’t philosophic, it was personal, Jenny suddenly thought.
The idea caught at her for a moment and she became slightly less aware of the people pressing around them. “You mean Craig and I,” she said flatly, not quite sure whether she welcomed the chance to, talk about it or resented the statement as an intrusion of her privacy.
“We’ve been married two years.”
“Really?”
For a moment it seemed like the car was moving again and Jenny caught her breath, then forced herself to talk, anything to take her mind off of being suspended in space If she let herself think about it she was deathly afraid she would come down with screaming hysterics.
“No-not really, I guess. I have competition. Craig’s job.” She realized what she had said as soon as she had said it, and whom she had said it to. But it was true and she had been wanting to say it for two years.
“I know,” Thelma said quietly. “Jobs have a way of being more demanding than any mistress. If they had a choice I sometimes think a new wife would prefer their husbands have a mistress. At least their time demands are predictable.”
Jenny flushed. It had been common gossip in the company.
Thelma laughed quietly in the dark, in contrast to the muffled sobbing around them. “Of course I know. I’m hardly that - isolated.
The Glass Inferno Page 37
