Vertical Burn - Earl Emerson [130]
Finney turned and looked at Kub. “No.”
“Let me help. I have to prove myself.”
Finney had already calculated that if they each carried a spare bottle and paced themselves, he and Diana might just be able to climb seventy-odd stories before running out of air. That they would drain most or all of both air bottles on the way up was a given. A third person to help pack equipment up might make the difference.
“Take me with you. You need me, and I need to do this.”
Finney looked into Kub’s eyes for a few moments. Kub was right. They needed help. He extended his hand; they shook. “Go get another hour bottle.”
Kub said, “They sent a team to rescue three or four people on fifty-one, but they never got past twenty because of the heat. Two of ’em got burned and are headed for the medics. What happens if you can’t get up?”
“We’ll get up.”
While he waited for Kub to ready his equipment and begin his ascent, Finney turned to Diana. “If we don’t get out of this, I love you.”
Gray eyes twinkling, she said, “And if we do get out of it, you don’t?”
He laughed. “I know we haven’t known each other that long. And my life has been in such turmoil. But I do love you.” When she didn’t reply, he continued, “So? What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I guess I need more information.”
He took her in his arms, an awkward maneuver, considering they were both wearing close to sixty pounds of equipment, MSAs on their backs, facepieces slung around their necks, portable radios in their chest pockets, axes in scabbards at their waists, full bunking trousers with multiple layers of heat and vapor barriers, rubber boots, and Nomex coats. Her lips made him want to whisk her away and watch the fire on TV over the bar in some cozy Italian restaurant in Belltown. When they separated, two or three spectators across the street whistled and applauded. “Is that the sort of information you were looking for?”
She smiled, and he knew that if she didn’t love him now, she would. Then, as he looked into Diana’s eyes, Finney said, “Look, if things get too rough, I want you to turn back.”
“Sure, you, too.”
“I mean it.”
“Yeah? What else? You going to open the doors for me? Carry my handbag? Listen to yourself. Ordinarily, you’re stronger than me. I’ll grant you that. But you’ve had a lot of shocks to your system. You’re not anywhere near a hundred percent, and you’re going to need all the help you can get.”
Finney put his helmet back on and looked up at Robert Kub, who had secured his spare bottle and a rope bag and was making his way up the rubber-coated rungs of the aerial. Shards of glass were embedded in the soles of his rubber boots. His progress seemed painfully slow until Finney remembered how much weight he was carrying: fifty-odd pounds of personal protective equipment, a spare bottle, a rope bag with six hundred feet of rope in it. They all knew this could be their last fire. If they succeeded, they would be terminated. If they failed, they would be dead.
Before they could follow Kub, two chairs and a flaming desk fell to the sidewalk, crashing to the pavement forty feet away in sequence like lopsided meteors. When it landed, the desk sounded like a gun going off.
Moments later a large yellow package struck the pavement with the sound of a tree breaking in half, bouncing as high as the roof of Ladder 9 before dropping back onto the ground. A yellow helmet bounced off the base of the building and spun in the street like a broken top. A firefighter had tumbled into the street.
Diana, who’d been facing the other direction, realized what had happened, and said, “Oh, God. No.”
The face was unrecognizable, but the name across the tail of his jacket said “Spritzer.”
“Barney,” Finney said. “Works on Engine Nine. He’s got kids.”
“I just saw him at the funeral,” Diana said. “He’s the nicest guy in the world.”
Kub, who’d stopped halfway up the ladder, glanced down and said, “The street’s going to