Vertical Burn - Earl Emerson [153]
As he settled his weight on the sill, a burning loop of nylon slapped his shoulder from above. He’d avoided a free fall into the fog by seconds.
He hauled his tools up, then rolled onto the blackened floor.
Near the window a current of foggy air allowed him to breathe almost as freely as if he were downstairs in the street. Wisps of dark smoke snaked up from various objects in the room. Even though he wanted to stay and revel in the fact that he hadn’t plummeted sixty stories or been burned to death, he knew if he loitered here for any length of time, he’d become too lethargic to do what he had to.
This was the floor where he’d last seen Diana.
Carrying the axe and Halligan over his shoulder, he made his way to the freight elevator and found it filled with bodies like junked manikins at a going-out-of-business sale. There were lighter spots on the blackened clothing of some of the victims that indicated they’d been moved after death. Diana had come and gone.
He walked toward Stairwell B on legs that felt wooden. In the stairwell, from above, he could hear the Darth Vader sounds of three masks as the men wearing them waited for him to burn to death. It was like standing in the back row at his own execution. In a moment, he’d be in the front row.
76. FREE FALL
2133 HOURS
Finney caught the first man completely off guard, grabbed the bottle on his back and jerked him down hard. The man flew past him in the smoke. There was a series of thuds and muffled yelps before he came to rest out of sight in the smoke on the next half-landing.
With barely a pause, Finney turned back and swung the flathead axe at ankle level, blade leading.
A man screamed into his facepiece and collapsed on top of Finney, who quickly lifted the heavy body off his shoulders, flipping it down the stairs to join the first man. He knew by their voices neither was his brother.
“What’s going on? Can’t you morons keep your balance in the smoke?” barked Lieutenant Balitnikoff.
Finney raised the axe over his head and swung downward. But the blade bounced off the concrete with a jolt that went through the axe handle and into his arms like an electric current. He must have misjudged the distance.
An instant after the axe hit the concrete, something small and metallic clattered to the floor. It took Finney a second to realize he’d missed Balitnikoff but had nicked the gun out of his hand.
“Hey, who is that?”
“The ghost of Christmas past, big boy.”
“Who?”
“Next time you kill a man, do it face-to-face.” Finney’s voice was hoarse.
When Balitnikoff ran up the stairs, Finney tried to give chase, stumbling to his knees just as a gunshot rang out from below. A bullet ricocheted against the wall next to his face, and chips of concrete spattered his cheek. He groped around on the floor, picked up the Halligan, then raced up to sixty-four, where the door was just closing on its pneumatic closer. At least one of the men behind had a gun, and though he believed Balitnikoff had lost his, he couldn’t be certain.
When he stepped through the door onto sixty-four, he could see the rooms were absorbing heat and poisons from the fire below through the ductwork and pipe chases. This would be the next floor to explode into flame. Even so, he could see here more clearly than on the stairs.
Marion Balitnikoff stood facing him, an open Buck knife with a four-inch blade in his left hand. No gun in sight. He weighed in at two-fifty, was quicker than a cat in a dog fight, and had a keen little smile on his face that he reserved for situations such as this. It occurred to Finney that he’d never been in a fight as an adult. By all reports, including his own, Balitnikoff had been in dozens of brawls over the years.
Finney stepped forward with the Halligan bar raised over his head. Balitnikoff feinted, then forced Finney back, then feinted again. Even with all that equipment on, the knife blade moved with surprising swiftness.
Careful not to place himself in a position where Balitnikoff would step inside his swings and gut him, Finney swung