Vertical Burn - Earl Emerson [99]
On their right was another door leading to what Finney assumed was the loading dock area where they’d originally seen fire. The golden rule in firefighting was to not pass up any fire, to put it out as you came to it, and through the crack in the door he could see a sheet of solid orange, the metal push-plate on the door hot to the touch. Should the fire breach these doors, it could cut off their escape. Going forward was risky, but going back for a line would mean depleting much if not all of their air. Finney would have gone back for a line, but he wasn’t making the decisions.
When they encountered a large, walk-in freezer, he was again assigned the task of doorkeeper. Gary was babying him, and Finney didn’t like it, in fact, was getting pissed off. Still, there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He knew he was in better shape than Sadler, and he knew that if one of them was to stand and wait, it made more sense that it should be Sadler. As Finney waited, a pair of firefighters approached from the general direction in which he and Gary had been traveling.
They told him they’d found a pair of victims upstairs on a mezzanine not far away and their portable radios weren’t getting out of the building, that they were going for help. They gave Finney directions to the victims and said they would stay but they were almost out of air. As if to underscore their plight, one of their alarm bells began ringing. Before Finney could ask why they hadn’t simply brought the victims out with them, they vanished into the smoke.
It occurred to him that they hadn’t mentioned the condition of the victims. If they were unconscious or dead, they might have told him. He had to assume they were at least unconscious, or they would have followed them out of the building. If they were dead, it would have explained the lack of urgency in their demeanor. In a body recovery, the investigators usually wanted to see the corpses where they lay.
When Sadler came out of the freezer, Finney said, “Somebody came by and told me where they are.”
“Why didn’t they stick around?”
“Out of air.”
“Okay, let’s get going, man. I don’t want to be breathing through my T-shirt.”
“Me neither.” Finney felt his way through the smoke for another fifteen paces and, just as described by the firefighters, found a set of wooden steps running alongside a wall.
They were halfway up the stairs when the abandon building sequence went off on their portable radios. The hi-lo signal meant fire tactics were being switched from an interior to an exterior attack, that any and all firefighters inside the building were to exit forthwith.
“Jesus,” Sadler said. “They’re bailing out.” He grabbed his portable radio. “Marginal Command from Engine Twenty-six. We’re in what appears to be the east end of the factory. We have a confirmed report from other firefighters of victims. We’re going to complete our search.”
Seattle’s portable radios made a high-pitched clinking sound at the beginning of a successful transmission, a lower-pitched bonk to signal a blocked transmission, but Sadler’s radio had made no sound whatsoever. It was possible the concrete walls of the building were obstructing the signals. Or that the amount of fire traffic had made it difficult for the repeater tower to pick up their message and relay it. Sadler tried twice more with no better results.
“You want to keep on?” Sadler asked.
“Absolutely.”
“I don’t know why those assholes walked out. When I find out who they are, I’m going to break their balls.”
The higher they went on the stairs, the hotter the smoke. By the time they reached the top of the stairs, they were on their bellies.
Thrusting their feet and free arms toward the center of the room, they proceeded along the right-hand wall.
“You sure this is where they said?” Sadler asked.
Finney was about to reply when Sadler slapped at his arm, kicked his helmet hard, and then pulled on him. At first he thought he was being assaulted, but Sadler was thrashing about the way a drowning man