“What's going on down there?” Kate replied with urgency.
“We've got an incident here,” Marla said, walking onto the sidewalk. The smoke in the air was getting thicker, and she could practically feel the heat.
Raul held the binoculars to his eyes as they quickly moved through the courtyard, closer to the ensuing chase. “Fucking hell,” he said. “I think that's the Hudson Building.” The Hudson was one of the tallest downtown buildings, home to over a hundred companies in the city's esteemed business district. If Raul was right, there was no more devastating target in the area.
“Kate, we've got to go live with this,” Marla said, hurrying toward City Hall as it emptied of people. She covered her mouth against the intensifying smoke and then spoke with breathless urgency. “There was an explosion downtown. A building's on fire right down the street.” Kate's silence on the other end meant that Marla either had her full attention or that they had lost communications.
“An explosion?” she said.
“I think so. We don't know, but we can find out.”
“We'll go to you in a minute. Be careful.”
“I will,” Marla said as they hurried alongside the vertical bar fence surrounding City Hall. Crowds of people gathered outside, eyes transfixed onto the distant fire. Marla reached the corner street a few blocks directly from the blast. The building raged with fire in clear view. Raul held up his binoculars with a shout. “Mother of God. It's the Hudson, alright.”
Marla turned around, clutching her microphone, and signaled to Dean. “Let's go. Come on!”
Dean fumbled with the camera and hoisted it onto his shoulder as people rushed past them on both sides. Oddly enough, there were just as many people walking toward the burning building with their cell phones in the air, recording it. Maybe it wasn't so odd after all. Traffic around was at a standstill, with people standing in the road. Sirens blared from afar, growing closer by the minute.
Marla ignored the chaos and trudged forward where they could get a clear shot from only a few blocks away. Kate told her to hurry up and that she'd be live in one minute.
“Reports are starting to come in from social media. Let's start our coverage.”
“But I don't even know what to say,” Marla said, nearly tripping over a pothole.
“Just describe what you see,” Kate demanded. “We'll do the rest.”
It didn't make much sense to Marla, but she pushed on, finding a spot on the corner with the building in clear view, engulfed in ascending flames. Hordes of onlookers stood around, capturing the horror on the phones. Roaring police cruisers quickly dominated the area down the road as traffic crept to a halt. Fire engines and ambulances soon followed, lights flashing in kinetic bursts. Marla centered herself in front of Dean's camera and then turned around to get a quick look at the building. Most of its windows were open all the way to the top of its twenty-five floors. It was then that she realized that there were people at the windows, trapped by the raging fire below.
“Oh my God...” she said, covering her mouth.
Dean shifted his head from behind his camera, anxious. “Are we doing this or not?”
“Hold on,” Marla said, wiping her eyes.
“You're on the air,” Kate shouted. “Say something!”
She spun around and stared at the camera, microphone in hand and unable to speak.
Terrance's voice suddenly came through her earpiece. “We're back with Marla Weller, who is live on the scene in downtown St. Louis, where reports of a building explosion have just been reported.” She glanced up and saw two helicopters racing overhead, far enough removed from the chaos below but headed toward the building. “Marla, you there?” Terrance's voice said.
She looked back to the camera, surprised but quick to regain her composure. “Yes, Terrance. I'm here on Fifth and Main in the heart of downtown, where an explosion occurred in the Hudson Building behind me.” She stepped away from the camera and signaled for Dean to get a closer look. “You'll see that the... the building is on fire. It looks like the mid-section was blown completely out, with black smoke billowing from that hole. We don't know much about what caused this, but an earlier terror alert was raised...”
Marla paused, trying to get her words together as the fire raged on and a barrage of emergency sirens wailed from down the street. “This is just a terrible, terrible situation. Like I said, we have no information on what caused this explosion or any news on casualties. We're here right now, seeing the same thing as you.”
“Marla, you have to get closer. Talk to someone!” Kate demanded.
Marla nodded as though Kate could see her. She'd never felt shaken and terrified, and for good reason. “We'll move in soon and try to get some more information,” she said into the microphone. “If you have work or business in this area, we'd advise you to stay away.” She paused and stared at the building along with what seemed like hundreds of onlookers, watching the fire engines take position and spray the building with water hoses. As the fire spread upward, they didn't seem to be making much of an impact. Marla gripped a traffic pole as her dizziness returned. The thickening haze was beginning to drive people away. Marla covered her mouth and coughed as Dean handed her a handkerchief.
“What's going on?” Kate continued. “We can barely see a thing.”
“There’s smoke!” Marla said as she wiped her stinging eyes. She backed up, drawing back from the building as the danger she was putting herself in became clearer. She looked up and saw a third helicopter dump what looked like a thousand gallons of water onto the building. “We've got emergency responders on the scene doing the best they can,” she said, hoping to wrap things up.
Dean scanned the building with the camera, capturing the diminishing blaze as fire hoses sprayed from all sides. Marla continued down the sidewalk, stopping outside a busy coffee shop and leaning against its porch railing. She felt exhausted, out of breath, but in a hurry to return to the van. “Where'd you go, Marla?” Kate said. “Everything okay?”
She gripped the porch railing and then turned back toward the building, ready to continue her report. “I'm fine. Just had a little scare there.”
“You're doing great. Just stay with us,” Kate said.
Marla returned to where Dean and Raul were. With their full attention on the building, she didn't even know if they had noticed her brief absence. She then stepped in front of the camera, microphone in hand, and continued. “Dozens of emergency responders are flooding the scene, trying to get the situation under control. We-we hope they're able to get everyone out of the building safely.” But there was no denying the fact that an untold number had already perished from the initial explosion. Her heart pounded wildly with her adrenaline racing. She had to hang in there. She had to get the story.
As quick as the thought had entered her mind, a second explosion sent her to the ground. After first, she thought the world had ended. But this time, it was different. A blinding aerial blast sent hundreds of people for cover. The sky seemed to erupt in a massive mushroom cloud, blinding in its fury. Screams ruptured from all over. From the ground, Marla placed her hands over her head, squeezing her eyes shut, but a split second later all that remained was the distant boom, fading beyond the skyline.
“What the fuck was that?” Raul shouted.
Marla turned and saw him behind her, lying on his chest with his hand rising. There were people everyone, all taking cover, either on the ground or behind a pole or newspaper stand. She looked around quickly for Dean and saw him crouched, squatting beside a parked car, his camera on the ground. “Dean, did we get that?” she asked with a desperate tone.
He shot her a panicked glance. “I-I don't know.”
She pushed herself up from the ground and slowly rose. Both her knees had cuts, along with her chin and palms from the hard fall. She observed the discolored sky and its tint of yellow streaked across, trying to make sense of it. An unseen crash suddenly sounded, followed by another. She could hear it from all over.
It almost sounded like gunshots.
“Holy hell,” Raul said, backing away. “We need to get out of here.” He helped Dean to his feet, leading him away as Dean held the camera close, examining the viewfinder.
“It’s dead,” he said, turning toward Marla in confusion. I just put in a new battery too.
“Maybe it’s broke,” Raul suggested, no longer interested in being.
Dean released the battery and tried another one to no avail. Marla no longer heard Kate shouting in her ear. Something had happened to their equipment, and she couldn't quite figure it out. The emergency sirens down the street were no longer flashing. Though the fire had been nearly subdued, the hoses were no longer spraying. The gridlock near the building remained still as ever, only this time she heard no engines, not even from the dump truck or semi-trailers among them. Much of the traffic had been re-routed away from the building, but even those cars weren't running. Worse yet, car doors opened as perplexed drivers stepped outside. Silence gave way to distant cries and panicked screams.
“Come on,” she said, urging her team to follow. “We're leaving.”
“About time,” Raul said, hurrying ahead.
The shops they passed had all their lights off. The trendy neon sign buzzing outside the coffee place only moments ago was out, along with their power inside. They moved quickly around and in between anyone in their way. They weren't far from the van, but danger seemed inescapable. The building explosion was no accident. Marla had already suspected as much but was now certain after the sky blast. She didn't know what else to call it. If it had been a nuclear bomb, they'd all be dead.
The roads around them were filled with motionless vehicles. Several had crashed into each other beyond the gridlock. The traffic lights were out, smoke rose from smashed front ends, and glass and debris covered the ground. Marla hurried past the destruction, drawing closer to the courthouse. A man with a bloody face rushed past them, holding a wrapped towel around his equally bloody arm. Cries of pain echoed from all around them. As she followed Raul through the crosswalk, Marla noticed that not a single vehicle was running. Street after street, it was the same thing.
“Come on!” Raul said, waving to the van with increasing speed.
The ominous yellow tint still dominated the sky above. Smoke had spread from all areas of downtown. Marla held a hand to her face, coughing amid the haze. They soon reached the sidewalk along City Hall. The immense stone building stood as quiet as anything else. There were still people outside, fueled by curiosity. She circled to the front where people were filing out, badged officials and staff alike. The myriad of windows in the front were all darkened. There didn't seem to be any power inside either. A line of people blocked their way as Raul moved around them and hurried ahead.
There was an odd, confused silence in the air among everyone in their path. Most of everyone's attention was on their cell phones and not the havoc around them. Phones clutched in hands brought little solace as the screens were blank and didn't appear to be working. Marla reached into her coat pocket, checking her own phone. It had been vibrating endlessly following the building explosion, so much that she had to ignore it. Now it was dead.
Dean held his camera low as they maneuvered around the crowd and reached the open courtyard. Marla turned around and observed the outpouring of people from City Hall. Security men paced around, directing the crowd away from the building. Like most places around, it was being evacuated. She hoped to see the deputy commissioner or any county official for that matter, but the kaleidoscope of faces blurred, and it was impossible to tell. Their news van was right where they had left it, parked along the sidewalk.
Raul was at the driver's seat already, and she feared for a moment that he would leave them behind in a panic, but the van remained. She hurried over and swung the passenger door open, nearly falling inside. Relief swept over her as she lay across the seat, catching her breath. Raul hit the steering wheel, cursing. She glanced up as he turned the key again and again to the click of the ignition and nothing more. With all the other stuck vehicles around them, some crashed against street lights and railings, Marla hadn't yet considered that their van wouldn't start either.
“Come on!” Raul shouted, hitting the wheel.
“Calm down,” Marla told him like a stern mother.
Raul whipped his head around but relented. “It’s frustrating, okay?”
Marla pushed herself up, nodding. “I understand, but keep it together.”
One glance at their surroundings, and the situation only seemed to worsen. Drivers stumbled out of their vehicles, some injured from the abundance of fender benders along the street. A smoking car lay on its side in the middle of the intersection a block down the road. A cacophony of twisted metal remained as far as the eye could see. Cars and trucks sat motionless and crooked, some jammed onto the sidewalk, others being pushed along by determined passengers, though not getting very far. Marla saw a bicyclist zig-zag through traffic, wasting no time escaping the area. He was the only thing on wheels that was moving. And now, the Channel 9 Action News van was the latest automotive casualty.
Dean swung the back doors open and set his camera inside. Marla went to him as he leaned against the van, out of breath and wiping sweat from his face. She asked how he was doing and received only a pale, shaken glance in return. “This is crazy,” he began. “What the hell is going on out there?”
Marla handed him a bottle of water from the front. “Have a seat and rest. We're going to be okay.” Though she didn't know if she could even begin to say so. The rear van sunk lower as Dean sat on the edge with a hearty sigh. Marla stood in place, observing the city drowning in a sea of chaos. Her instincts told her they needed to get out of there, despite the relative distance from the building explosion. And if there was any greater terrorist target, it was City Hall, which was undergoing an evacuation of its own. Raul soon walked to the back of the van, past the point of frustration. “Anyone want to tell me why the van won't start?”
Dean and Marla looked at each other. Neither one of them had a clue.
“I don't think we're the only ones,” Dean said, after a swig from his water bottle.
Marla tried to turn her phone on with a side button, holding it down much longer than normal. But nothing happened. She wondered if she had forgotten to charge it, which wasn't like her at all. There had to be some reasonable explanation to it and everything else. Wasting no time, Raul climbed into the back of the van and went to the control panel. All the monitors were blank, the lights on the switch panel keys out. He pressed buttons and flipped switches in an agitated state of disbelief. With her assistant slowly losing his mind, Marla asked Dean for his phone.
He patted his pocket and looked at her, dismayed. “Shit. I think I dropped it back there.” He stood up immediately and spun around, eyes on the ground.
“Don't worry about it,” she said, grabbing a backpack near stacked cable. “How about you, Raul?”
“What?” he said, distracted.
“Does your cell phone work?”
He turned around, dug into his pocket, and tossed it onto the carpet near her. “What do you think?”
She took the phone and saw a blank screen. They seemed to be getting nowhere fast as the situation just got worse. Dean grabbed his camera and switched out batteries, trying in vain to get it working. “All this happening, and we can't capture any of it.”
“Maybe that's the idea,” Marla said, watching a man from a car next to them open his hood and look inside.
“What do you mean?” Dean said.
Marla stepped back with her backpack over her shoulder. She always brought extra clothes, depending on the number of assignments she had in a given day. “We should go back to the station,” she said, waiting. But neither one responded. Dean was too invested in his non-functioning camera as Raul pounded on the unresponsive control board. “It's not safe to be here any longer,” she continued.
Raul turned to her and grabbed a nearby wrench,
holding it up. “I know that, Marla. What do you think I'm trying to do here?”
“We can walk back to the station,” Marla said. “It's only about four miles away.”
Raul suddenly moved out of the van, stepping onto the pavement with a small toolbox in hand. “We're not leaving my van here. I can get it running. I know it.”
“People are dead, Raul!” Marla said, glaring at him. “Forget about the van.”
He turned away without a word, went to the front, and opened the hood.
Marla then climbed into the back and closed one of the two doors. “Do you mind?” she asked Dean as he continued to try to fix his camera. He glanced at her, oblivious to his blocking of the other door. “I'm trying to get changed.”
“Oh,” he said, apologizing. He moved out of the way as she slammed the second door shut. Marla felt safe in the back of the darkened, quiet van, even if for a moment. She quickly pulled out a shirt and pants from her bag and got changed, her mind racing at the insanity of it all. She had cuts and fresh bruises on her legs, a cut on her chin, and the faint taste of blood in her mouth. In her moment alone, things started to make sense and a theory formed. A deliberate attack had occurred, crippling their technology in the process. She believed a third strike was inevitable.
She pulled up her jeans and then put on a pair of socks within the limited space of the van and all the equipment surrounding her. The van's antenna was still sticking straight up in the air. They had no power to lower it. Marla put her sneakers on and grabbed a jacket, stuffing her earlier clothes into the backpack. Suddenly a knock came across the back door, accompanied by Raul's pushy tone.
“Hey, hurry up! I’m missing some crescent wrenches.”
Marla opened the door, surprising Raul and Dean with how quickly she had gotten changed.
“Going somewhere?” Raul said.
She hopped out of the van and slipped her gray fleece jacket on. “Lock the van up and let’s go.”
Raul chuckled in response. “Sure thing, senorita.”
Hideaway (Book 1): An EMP Thriller Page 2