Everything in Between (30 page)

“It was fine when I was working with it,” Elton said.

“It’s not fine now,” Braeden responded.

Elton dropped his detonator, its clatter on the hardwood floor startling Zae. “I’m getting the hell out of here.”

“Where is the rest of the dynamite planted?” Braeden shouted after him.

Elton backed toward the exit. “You can find it with your sensor.”

“Not if they’re all as unstable as this bundle,” Braeden explained. “There isn’t time. Sound can be enough to trigger a blast. We’re lucky the whole building didn’t go down after that first explo—”

Another explosion cut off Braeden’s words and brought part of the ceiling crashing around them. Braeden put his arms around Zae and tried to hurry her to the door, but then another blast sent them flying backwards. Rubble from that blast struck the wooden column, which initiated a third blast that took the hardwood from under Braeden and Zae, sending them plummeting to the basement while a broken symphony of explosions brought half the science building down on top of them.

* * *

“The gas, water and electricity have been cut so there shouldn’t be any more explosions,” said Fire Chief Early Dunlop. He tipped back his hard hat to scratch his forehead. “The first few blasts should have been enough to set off any degraded TNT within three blocks of this place. I never would have expected something like this to happen here.”

Chief Dunlop pushed news microphones out of his way and ignored questions as he proceeded to the sawhorses and high-beam lights that had been set up around the perimeter of what was left of the science building. The smoldering ruin smoked in places where gas explosions in labs had been triggered by the dynamite blasts. The wreckage remained eerily quiet in the aftermath of the deafening blasts that had driven Chip back when he’d tried to re-enter the building.

Chip kept pace with the fire chief. “One of Dye’s frat brothers said that he got the TNT from an abandoned quarry outside Fenton,” Chip told him. “Apparently, the boys like to go there to party.”

“I’ll send a team out,” the chief said. “He’ll collect a sample of the dynamite and we’ll better know what we’re dealing with.”

“It’s been nearly a half hour since the last blast,” Chip said, panic in his voice. “In my experience—”

“You’ve been very helpful, Mr. Kish,” the fire chief said, “but I think you need to see the paramedics about that head of yours.” He nodded toward the dried blood that had trickled from the gash Chip had received in a shower of flying glass after the final explosion.

“Chief,” Chip began as slowly and calmly as he could, “every minute counts now. There are at least three people in that building. One of them…” His voice broke on his final word. “One of them is my fiancée. And she’s pregnant. I have to get her out of there.”

“I understand what you’re going through, son, but—”

“Chief, you have no idea what I’m going through!”

Sionne broke away from the huddle of Eve, Dawn and Cory to put a restraining hand on Chip’s shoulder.

“I’ve got some of the best search and recovery men in the state on their way here right now,” Chief Dunlop said. “They’re about an hour away. We just have to wait and hope for the best.”

“I can’t afford to depend on
hope
.” Chip stood toe-to-toe with the chief, who wasn’t a small man. His white hair belied his youth, and he matched Chip inch for inch in height and breadth. “I spent six years tunneling through bombed buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan. Every second we leave Zae and Braeden in there brings them that much closer to not making it out alive. They could be breathing residual gas, bleeding or choking on dust. Your best search and recovery men aren’t here, but I am. Let me go in after them.”

“We don’t even know the layout of the building,” Chief Dunlop said. “I can’t let you go in there blind.”

“Blueprints are a matter of public record,” Cory called to them. He pulled a weeping Eve from his shoulder and handed her over to Dawn, then joined Chip and Chief Dunlop. “If the blueprints are online, I can find them.”

“I can’t let you go in there, kid,” the chief told Chip. “I’m sorry.”

“Chief,” Cory said, “Captain Kish was one of the best tunnel rats in the Marines…”

While Cory distracted Chief Dunlop, Chip ran to one of the fire trucks. He rolled up his left sleeve and stepped over to the nearby lamp post. After planting his feet and exhaling through his pursed lips, he took a deep, quick breath. Exhaling forcefully as he spun in a fast circle, he smashed his cast against the lamp post. He pulled the pieces from his hand, dropping them as he went to the back of the fire truck. He exchanged a few words with two firemen, and in the next instant, they were handing him a full-face respirator, a headset, elbow and chest pads, Kovenex gloves and three hand-held oxygen tanks. Chip strapped on the gear as if it had been only yesterday and not more than a decade since he’d last entered a bomb-ravaged building to search for survivors. This was the first time his own survival truly depended on that of the victim he needed to find.

“What’s going on here?” the chief demanded, marching to the truck, where a paramedic was taping Chip’s broken hand.

“He can’t use the hand with the cast on it, but it’s got to have some kind of stability,” the paramedic explained.

“I don’t give a rat turd about what you’re doing,” the chief growled at the medic. “What are
you
doing?” He poked Chip in his shoulder.

“I’m going in,” Chip said. “Don’t try to stop me.”

The chief stared at him hard for a few seconds. “Wouldn’t do me much good, would it? I’d be a fool to turn down the services of a decorated, experienced Marine tunnel rat. Take care in there, soldier, and I’ll do my best to give you the support you need.”

Chip slipped a headlamp on over his respirator and strapped a first aid kit to the small of his back. “Thanks, Chief.”

With bystanders, media, fire and police watching him, Chip strode to the place where the front doors once stood. The building had fallen in pieces, like a house made of giant cards. The science building had been essentially two parts, a glass lobby budding off the main section, a traditional cinder block and drywall structure. The lobby was a pile of glass and steel, crushed by the weight of the front half of the main building, and in the darkness, Chip had to search for an opening large enough to slip through. He used his foot to kick at broken cinder blocks and a slab of drywall. The stuff wouldn’t budge, and with his broken hand, he couldn’t get a solid grip on the cinder blocks to move them. He was ready to scream in frustration when a dark shadow loomed over him.

Sionne, nearly seven feet and more than three-hundred pounds of solid Samoan muscle, eclipsed the light from the high-beam lamps aimed at the rubble. Sionne had already rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. He kneeled and began tossing the cinder blocks aside as if they were no weightier than broken Legos.

“I’ll wait for you right here,” Sionne said, clapping Chip on his shoulder. With a nod, Chip lowered the mask of his respirator and slipped into the narrow opening Sionne had made.

The lobby floor wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Chip found himself staring into a big hole edged with twisted rebar, splintered wood, loose wiring and jagged concrete. His heart sounded in his ears at the thought of that ferocious mouth having swallowed Zae and Braeden.

The gap between what was left of the floor and the layers of rubble that had been the ceiling and part of the main building was no larger than the crawlspace in the average house. The only way Chip could get to the hole was to slide on his belly, and with each inch he progressed, the floor groaned.

“Zae!” Chip yelled. “Braeden!”

No response.

Chip maneuvered as best he could, shining his headlamp all around him. A haze of drywall dust hung in the air, making everything hazy. Chip looked for any sign of life. Or death. Clothing, hair, limbs—anything that could indicate the presence of a human being.

Very close to where the doors had been, he found the evidence he least wanted to see. Blood. A thick trail of it, black in the glaring white light of the halogen beam strapped to his head, led to the sleeve of a red and gold bomber jacket protruding from a pile of glass and steel. The respirator amplified his breathing, so Chip held his breath, to listen for signs of life. Quiet whimpers reached his ears, and Chip pushed emotion aside to inch his way to what was left of Elton Dye.

Still on his belly, Chip grabbed a piece of steel and used it as a lever to loosen the rubble pinning Elton in place. The boy had caught the worst of the broken glass from the doors. Large shards had punctured his back and arms. Chip marveled that he was still breathing through the mangled, bloody shreds of his once handsome face.

“Happy now, you little prick?” Chip muttered as he tugged the first aid kit free from his back. He couldn’t stop Elton’s bleeding. There was too much of it. But he unwrapped a syringe of dilaudid and gently pulled up Elton’s sleeve.

He did not find the hand he expected to.

He pulled a tourniquet and gauze pads from the first aid kit and dressed Elton’s stump as well as he could, then he found a vein in the boy’s forearm and administered the dilaudid. In seconds, Elton’s agonized whimpers became dull gurgles, and Chip knew the pain relief had taken effect. Elton would need it for what was to come.

Chip looked for Elton’s hand but couldn’t find it. He grabbed Elton, who was on his stomach, by the shoulders of his jacket and slowly worked him from the rubble. Sweat burned his eyes and sharp stabbing pains shot through Chip’s broken hand with each tug of Elton’s body. Chip’s shoulders and lower back burned with pain by the time he’d dragged Elton, backwards, to the opening where Sionne still waited.

Mindless of Elton’s injuries, Sionne grabbed the scruff of his bloody jacket and shirt and lifted him out of the hole as though he were a dead gopher. Chip caught sight of paramedics rushing to the site with a gurney, but he didn’t hang around to see Elton carted to safety.

“I’m going back in for Zae and Braeden,” he told Sionne. He stripped off the jacket the firemen had loaned him, leaving his elbow and knee pads his only protection over his blue jeans and dress shirt. “It’s too tight in there. The coat is in my way.”

“I can go with you,” Sionne offered. “You’re at half strength with that broken hand.”

“There’s barely room for a pipsqueak like me to wiggle around,” Chip said with a wry grin. “The last thing I want is for you to get trapped in this glass and mortar pancake.”

“Go get your girl,” Sionne said. “I’ll wait here. Just holler, and I’ll dig you out with my bare hands if I have to, bro.”

Chip gave Sionne a quick hug, flipped down his mask, adjusted his air, then allowed the rubble to swallow him once more.

* * *

On his elbows and knees, Chip slithered deeper into the wreckage. He circumvented the hole in the floor to keep from sliding into it. He flattened himself as much as possible to distribute his weight, to keep from sending more of the floor crashing below.

“I have to get to the basement,” he said. “But I don’t know where I’m going.”

Chip heard voices on the other end of his headset, but no one answered him.

“I need directions, now!”

No reply.

“Chief Dunlop!” he called. “Who’s there?”

“Captain Giancarlo Piasanti, at your service, Captain Kish.”

Chip closed his eyes and offered a silent prayer of thanks. “Good to hear you on the other end, Cap,” Chip said. He enjoyed his first flicker of real hope.

“The twins called me, but I’d already seen the blast on the news and I knew you guys were down here. Cinder’s gone to Zae’s to keep CJ. What’s the situation in there?” Gian asked.

“It’s rough. The lobby floor is perforated with cracks. I’m afraid any real weight will send it crashing down to where Zae and Braden must have landed. They’re below. I have to find a way down and I can’t see. It’s too dark and obstructed.”

“Cory got blueprints for us,” Gian told him. “We’ll walk you through.”

“Let’s get to it, boss. I’m in the southwest corner. Is there a stairwell close?”

“About fifty yards from where the front door used to be. Can you get to it? I can’t see it from out here.”

“Hopefully, it’s just covered in debris,” Chip said, starting his arduous trek anew. “Stairwells in buildings like these usually remain intact.”

“Just take it slow and steady,” Gian advised.

Chip blinked sweat from his eyes. The sound of his own hard breathing deafened him to all but Gian’s voice in his headset. He inched his way forward, burrowing beneath glass, steel, splintered wood and flooring until finally, he butted into a solid wall. “I’ve hit the foundation of the main building,” Chip panted. “I’m working my way left, to the stairwell.”

“Got you on the map, Captain,” Gian said. “Heat seekers just arrived and we’ve got you on radar. You’re only a few feet from the stairs.”

Chip’s heart began to race, but then Gian answered the question hanging between them. “We’ve got two on the floor below you. Both are burning.”

Chip closed his eyes in a quick prayer. “Burning” meant that the two people below were giving off healthy amounts of body heat. They were alive.