Vertical Burn - Earl Emerson [129]
“Whatever it is, I’m with you.”
“Like hell.”
“You’re going to need help, and you know it.”
62. IN THE MOVIES THEY ALWAYS SCREAM
The flashing red, blue, and yellow lights from nearby emergency vehicles reflected off the wet glass on Fifth Avenue, so that it resembled a street full of pirate treasure. The tread on the heavy tires crunched nuggets of broken glass. The street was beginning to stink of burning plastic, as smoke from the fire in the building mingled with fog and the heavy odor of diesel exhaust.
Finney pulled Ladder 9 to a stop, put the transmission into neutral, pushed the parking brake on the dash, and reached across to throw the rocker switch that would allow the transmission to power the aerial.
Without checking to see whether the cops barricading the street on the far corner had recognized him, he put his helmet on and walked around to the small control panel at the rear, where he put the hydraulic outriggers down on either side of the apparatus.
As a group of civilians watched from across the street, he climbed up onto the control tower on the turntable eight feet above the street, placed the toe of his boot on the dead-man control, flipped the switch to raise the RPM on the engine to fast idle, and pulled the black-knobbed elevation lever. The aerial raised out of the bed. He swung it around, extending the sections toward the Columbia Tower. A few moments later, fully extended, the tip grazed a window on what he calculated to be the seventh floor above the street. He wasn’t doing this to bring people down. People trapped on the upper floors in the building had no hope of rescue from outside the building.
Diana ferried equipment to the base of the turntable, while Finney slipped his arms through the straps of one of the MSA backpacks rigged with a one-hour bottle.
As he was cinching up the shoulder straps, Jerry Monahan came out unexpectedly from behind a gaggle of spectators on the corner of Fifth and Columbia. Monahan was wearing all his gear, including a mask in standby position. He was carrying a large plastic suitcase that contained his high-rise civilian escape invention, Elevator-in-a-Can.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to do, John,” Monahan said, breathing heavily, “but you’re not going up there.”
“Get away from me, Jerry. I’m pissed.”
“I don’t want anybody else hurt, most of all you. My God, I . . .” Monahan’s words were heartfelt. “What are you going to do by yourself?”
“He’s not by himself,” Diana said, approaching the turntable with two bags of six-hundred-foot ropes they’d appropriated from Station 14’s inventory minutes earlier, right after they stole Ladder 9.
“John, don’t make me do something we’ll both regret.”
“It would take a conscience to feel regret.”
“No, I feel awful about what’s happened. That’s why I’m going to save those people up there. I’ve got this invention. There’s a few bugs left in it, but I think—” Without warning Finney knocked the older man to the ground. Monahan landed on his hip, his air cylinder striking the pavement with a loud, metallic thunk.
“Okay, okay,” Monahan said, raising a hand as a gesture of supplication. His helmet was upside down beside him, his knuckles cut and bleeding from the glass on the street. “I deserved that. Just remember. You can’t change anything.”
As Finney walked to the rear of the apparatus, screwing the low-pressure hose from his facepiece onto the regulator on his belt, another firefighter approached unexpectedly. Robert Kub had on full bunkers, an hour bottle in an MSA backpack, and a pick-head axe. He was already sweating. “You guys need help,” Kub said.
“You’ve helped enough,” said Finney.
“Give me a chance. I want to do this with you. Whatever it is you’re doing.”
Finney brushed past without a word.
“Okay,” Kub shouted to his back. “But I’ve been inside. Reese is running this like it’s any other fire. The building engineer keeps telling them it will only be a few minutes until he gets water to the sprinklers, so they’re all basically in a holding pattern until that