The Blackout

by K J Kalis

  Kat could tell by looking at Van that he had more questions. His brow was furrowed, and he kept tapping his foot on the floor. “So, whatever got the transformer off the pole had a lot of power.”

  “Yeah, and if it had hit the ground in a fire-prone area, the amount of sparking could have set off wildfires at a record pace.”

  “And these were all at the same spots as the pictures Theresa sent us?”

  “Yup. That’s why I called Yasmin. We need to find her.”

  Kat’s stomach dropped. Her gut told her that it might already be too late for Theresa.

  27

  Connor closed the lid to his laptop. The darkness of night had covered the valley and the surrounding mountains like a blanket. The people in California were greedy. Connor had discovered that himself with Bart Walsh. They all needed too much, wanted too much and required too much attention. Connor shook his head. He wished he had never met Bart Walsh. He’d probably still have his idea if that had been the case.

  Connor glanced out the window. It was nearly time. The anger that had been eating at him nipped at his heels. It was something that he just couldn’t control anymore. It wasn’t his fault, he thought, standing up and plugging in his laptop to charge. None of it was. Bart had started this whole thing. Connor would finish it, no matter what it took. Bart would finally see him and see what he did.

  From the counter, Connor picked up the keys to the truck. With the gas cans full and ready, there was nothing else to do other than finish this part of his project. Connor felt his teeth clench, sending a ripple of pain through his head. He’d been having headaches for months. He guessed it was from grinding his teeth. Once this was over, it wouldn’t matter anymore.

  Connor passed Janet’s car on the way out to the truck, giving the trunk lid a little knock as he went by. There was no response. Part of him wanted Theresa Walsh to be alive, to smell Janet’s perfume in the trunk of the car and feel as terrified as she had. Part of him wanted Theresa to be dead, another part of Bart’s life destroyed. He kept walking.

  The night air had cooled a bit but was still dry enough that he could feel his throat tighten with the grit in the air. The winds had picked up. Based on the information from his laptop, the weather service was predicting sustained winds of twenty miles per hour overnight with gusts up to thirty-five. That was all he needed.

  Connor drove for forty minutes through light traffic, the radio humming in the background. He didn’t know what it was playing or who was talking. It didn’t matter. The signs for the Bar Harbor Marina loomed ahead of him. They were a little harder to see at night than they had been during the day.

  The marina itself was beautiful. Connor had come to visit as a potential boating member two weeks before, on a day with crystal clear blue skies and calm waters. The young man that had walked him around, Drake, was wearing a red polo shirt and khaki shorts. He even had on boat shoes. “Do you already have a boat, sir?”

  “No, I don’t. But I’d like to get one soon. Probably a forty-foot Tiara. That’s why I’m here.”

  “That’s a great boat, Mr. Lewis. One of the finest out there.”

  Drake had spent the best part of an hour showing Connor all around the boat club, from the clubhouse with its oak bar to the docks that might be available should he decide to apply for membership.

  “How many members do you have at the club right now?” Connor asked, taking a few pictures of the club. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  Drake smiled. “We have two hundred and twelve members right now. And no, you are welcome to take as many pictures as you’d like. I know it can be a tough decision.”

  “Yes. There are so many boat clubs out there. I want to be able to compare the pictures when I get home.”

  “Certainly. Right now, many of our members are staying on their boats with the blackouts. It’s a very friendly community.”

  After his trip to the boat club, Connor went home and loaded the pictures onto his computer. The membership paperwork was still on the seat of the truck. He spent the next two days creating a virtual map of the marina, one that was far more extensive than the one the marina had given him. He added wind speeds, currents and the tide cycle to his assessments so he’d be ready when the time came.

  * * *

  Pulling into the marina, he knew the time was right. The winds had shifted. As he got out of the truck, he could feel them pushing down the hill. He knew that fires didn’t like to move downward, but he didn’t need them to in this case.

  He stopped to take in the boat club before he started to work. Below him, on a slight grade was the fuel dock and the gate that led to the boats. The water was lapping on the edge of the docks and the shed that the club used to process sales was dark. Connor could hear the clanging of the lines against the masts of the sailboats. They sounded like church bells. There was some faint squeaking from the docks. Connor imagined it was from the fenders rubbing between the sides of the boats and the docks.

  Across the water, only half of the bay was lit. The other half was part of the newest blackout imposed by Palm Coast Electric & Power. Connor’s skin began to itch just looking at it. People like Bart Walsh had to be stopped. They couldn’t be allowed to continue to take advantage of people. Connor set his jaw, the pain in his head surging, and got to work, pulling what he needed out of the truck.

  * * *

  His first stop was the fuel dock. There were two tanks of fuel bolted on the deck, one filled with gas and one filled with diesel. He walked as quietly as he could to the side of the tanks, his boots making a crunching sound on the gravel. At the bottom of each tank was a relief valve that, if left open, would leak fuel. Based on the manufacturer's specifications, which he found online, those valves were only to be used when the tanks were being transported. Under no circumstances were those valves supposed to be open while the tanks were filled. Out of his back pocket, he pulled a wrench. The relief valves started to stream fuel the second he opened them, the liquid spilling out over the decking and running into the water. As he stood up, he could see a glassy sheen moving on the water’s surface. It was just a matter of time now.

  Connor climbed back up the slight incline back to the truck, taking his time. All the fuel didn’t need to leak out of the tanks. He just needed the gas to have a little head start.

  Out of the back of the truck, he pulled three of the gas cans. Based on what he knew from his area studies, it wouldn’t take much to complete his project. He stepped away from the truck, moving two of them on the first trip. He went back for the third. He pulled the stopper out of the first gas can and turned it on its side, the odor of raw gas filling the air. He did the same with the other two. With each can carrying twenty gallons of gas, he now knew that he had sixty gallons of flammable liquid running down toward the fuel dock.

  Connor walked back to the truck and started it, pulling it back up on the service road, away from where the fuel was leaking down the hill. He got back out of the truck and looked over the bay one more time. He knew he could walk away. He could stay in his truck and drive back home. No one would ever know who he was. There were no video cameras in the area. The EPA would come out and fuss and fume because of the fuel leak, but that would be the end of it. The engine of the truck vibrated beneath his hands. He realized he was gripping the steering wheel so hard that his hands were cramping. Connor let go and slid out of the truck.

  It only took one match...

  28

  Freddie Henderson woke up at three o’clock in the morning to the alarm bells at the firehouse ringing. After a long night of research, he ended up grabbing a bed in the bunk room with the rest of the guys that were on duty. As the firefighters ran to get their gear, Freddie got up with them and headed downstairs. “What’s the call?”

  “Fire at the Bar Harbor Marina.” Chief Ned already had his turnout gear on and his white chief’s helmet strapped to his head. “You might as well come. Gonna be bad. Dispatch has the address. Meet us there.”

&n
bsp; Freddie nodded and got his own gear on. Although he didn’t fight fires anymore, Cal Fire kept him equipped and trained with the latest firefighting uniform. There were times that he needed it, for sure. He pulled on his turnout pants and boots and threw his jacket and helmet into the SUV that he used for arson investigations. His oxygen mask and a fresh tank were in the back along with his evidence collection kit.

  As soon as he pulled the SUV out on the road, he sighed. It wasn’t that the call had interrupted a good night’s sleep. It hadn’t. He’d been tossing and turning fighting his way through the three fires that he saw the day before, the transformers blown off of the poles, the lines pulled away from their housing and the equipment so far away from where it was supposed to be that it was hard for Freddie to imagine how it got there. There were no easy answers. Adding to his frustration was the disappearance of Theresa Walsh. Was it connected or not? Freddie knew he had to stop thinking about the case for a little while. There would be no way to solve the mystery if all he did was dwell on it. He needed to let the problem rest a little. That’s when the answers usually came for him.

  Maybe the fire in the marina was a good distraction, he thought. Probably someone smoking a cigarette caught the boat club’s building on fire. Or maybe someone had been trying to make a sandwich after hours and they had started a kitchen fire. He cracked a window in the SUV, the cool night air flowing in. The GPS in his SUV told him he was about seven minutes out, but as Freddie sniffed the air, he could tell that the fire he was heading to was more than just a carelessly abandoned cigarette or a simple kitchen fire.

  During his time with the fire service, he and his buddies could tell how serious a fire was by how far out they could smell the smoke and what it smelled like. As Freddie got closer to the marina, he realized that the winds must have been blowing straight at him for him to be able to catch the scent so far out. It didn’t smell like a regular fire, but he couldn’t put his finger on what he was smelling. He closed the window and turned the ventilation back on in the SUV. He didn’t need any more particulates in his lungs than he had already accumulated, he was sure of that.

  Before a fire, Freddie always got a little hyped up. He reached into the center console of the SUV and pulled out a fresh toothpick. He preferred the ones that were individually wrapped in cellophane and were flavored. He put it in his mouth and rolled it around, spearmint making its way through his mouth. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, wishing he’d ridden in one of the rigs. It was always better to work off the pre-fire jitters with the team of people who were used to the process. They all felt the same way, the same nervous energy flowing through their bodies. Some of them joked, some of them were silent and sullen. They all had their own ways of dealing with what they didn’t know. They knew, with a fire, what you didn’t know could kill you.

  The GPS said he was two minutes out. Freddie ran through possible ignition sources and issues for marine fires. There was a chapter about that in his book. Having been raised outdoors, dealing with boats and their engines was part of his life. Most boats were fiberglass these days, which meant they would melt, not burn. The problem was that pretty much everything else on a boat would. The upholstery, the curtains, the carpet — they were all flammable. If the fire was limited to the clubhouse, they would treat it like a typical land-based fire. Now, if the boat club had a significant sailing fleet, which he knew was popular in the area, then they would be dealing with a whole different problem. Many older boats, both cruisers and sailboats, were made of wood. Manufacturers had gone to fiberglass because it wouldn’t rot, but some purists still preferred their wood boats. Even fiberglass boats had layers of flammable wood trim on them.

  Freddie rounded the bend to the marina. The GPS said he was one minute out. Ahead of him, he could see the trucks parked about halfway down what looked to be a hillside. He slowed the SUV down, the GPS announcing his arrival. He pulled up and parked behind one of the trucks from the local department, leaving the keys in the ignition. Using one of his long arms, he reached back and grabbed his helmet. Most of the guys had black helmets. The Chief had a white one, but when Freddie joined the fire investigation service, he’d had to trade in his black helmet for a red one. The black helmet was in his office, complete with the dents and scratches he’d accumulated over the years. He knew he was good at his job in arson, but the black helmet, and all it represented, meant a lot to him. It always would.

  The trucks and equipment parked in front of him blocked his view. From where he was standing at the side of the SUV, he couldn’t see the extent of the fire, but from the smell, he knew there was some sort of fuel involved. He could hear shouting and orders being yelled. He turned his radio on to the command channel to listen in, pulled a halligan out of the back of the SUV, and strode past the trucks.

  As he got to the front of the line of trucks that were the closest to the flames, Freddie stopped dead in his tracks, his stomach curling into a tiny knot, adrenaline surging through his legs. He stood on a slight rise above the marina. Everything above the waterline was on fire or was sinking. What looked to be a small shed next to two fuel tanks had nearly burned to the ground, the glow of the flames casting an eerie shadow. The boats nearest the tanks were fully engulfed and had started to pull away from the docks, their lines clearly burned through. Out further in the marina, there were eight or nine boats he could count that were just burning platforms drifting out with the current. Screams of “Help! Save us!” echoed throughout the marina, matched by yells from firefighters who were trying to put out the flames. Yells of “Get back!” interrupted his view of the scene. Firefighters were running toward him, one of them yanking his arm nearly out of the socket as he was pulled behind the firetrucks and shoved to the ground. An explosion roared through Freddie’s ears, the blast knocking him off his feet. He landed on the ground hard, on the shoulder that had been injured in the floor collapse. Pain seared through his body. Before he could get up, there were more shouts of “stay down, stay down!” Within seconds, a second blast that was just as loud rocked the parked trucks.

  By the time Freddie got up, the front-line firefighters had already begun running back to the flames. Sirens approached from the water as the Cal Fire marine rescue unit and the Coast Guard approached. Freddie stood up just in time to see two paramedics, gloved and helmeted, running toward the flames, towing a gurney and an equipment bag. A billow of smoke passed by. Out of it, came the Chief. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. What in the world was that?” Freddie got up and brushed himself off, following the Chief.

  “Fuel tanks. They blew like a couple of bombs.”

  “Everyone okay?”

  “Think so. Couple of guys got knocked down, but that’s about it.”

  Freddie and the Chief walked to the edge of the action but stayed behind. Freddie had gotten used to staying away from the actual fire fighting, not that he liked it, but he did what his position allowed. The urge to jump in and help was enormous, but he wasn’t cleared for active duty. “You ever feel like jumping in the action, Chief?”

  “At a scene like this? It takes everything I have to stay back and do my job. You?” Chief Cleary said.

  “For sure.” Freddie watched the chief. Ned never looked away from the scene. His eyes were always scanning, his fingers on his radio, ready to call orders to crews or call for more help. “Can’t believe this. Bad one.” Freddie had seen a lot of fire scenes in his career, both during and afterward. The ones that were the hardest were when people got hurt or lost their lives, especially children. The only thing worse was when they lost a firefighter. Freddie glanced down to the waterline. He could see the teams of firefighters moving quickly, staying back from the edge of the docks that were burning as fast as the boats themselves. The crews couldn’t even go out on the docks to help. The docks themselves were ablaze. All the crews could do was try to stop the flames from moving to more boats. Freddie looked at Chief Cleary, “You have an estimate on how much of the m
arina is gone?”

  “Take a look for yourself, Freddie. It’s pretty much a total loss. We’re gonna find a bunch of bodies. Just talked to the marina owner. He’s out of town but said that lots of people were staying down here because of the blackouts.”

  Freddie’s chest constricted. The job of a firefighter was to protect lives, not to allow them to get in harm’s way. The Chief was right. The devastation of the marina was nearly complete. The Coast Guard and marine units were working as fast as they could to save any boats that weren’t already on fire and the bodies of people in the water.

  29

  The firefighters had the blaze at the Bar Harbor Marina relatively under control. At least enough that Freddie could start doing what he’d been sent to do. He stepped away from the action, getting himself mentally set to do his job. Watching and not being able to help was physically painful. As he walked back to his SUV, he rubbed his shoulder, the ache starting to set in after the way he landed. In his vehicle, he pulled out a digital camera with a medium-range lens and video capability, a large flashlight and a notebook with a pen attached. He started by taking pictures and video of the scene as it was unfolding. He normally didn’t get to do that. He was almost always at the scene well after it had happened, when someone decided the way the fire moved seemed fishy. It was usually a call that the field commander or battalion chief made to Cal Fire, and it usually had to do with wildfires or insurance claims. But today was different.

  He took a few pictures and checked to make sure the resolution and settings were giving him the information he needed. Satisfied he could work with the information, he took a short video, panning from one side to another, from the burning boat club building out to the water where a few people were swimming away from the fire wearing orange life vests, to the bent metal of the two fuel tanks that had exploded, their sides twisted and black. He took some photos of the boats that were burning, adrift in the lagoon, a few of them out in the bay area already. He knew the EPA would have a field day with the fuel in the water from the tanks as well as the hazardous materials from the burning and sunken boats. The salvage operation alone would likely take months. Hauling what was left of the charred boats out of the water with their tangled wires, fuel tanks and batteries was a delicate procedure. More than one diver had lost his life working in salvage.