Line of Duty

by Terri Blackstock

  She felt woefully unequipped. Her own rescue unit had been crushed in the collapse, so none of the things that they needed for a catastrophe such as this had been available until rescue units from other towns had come to help.

  She watched as they quickly strapped the woman to the board and moved her into an ambulance. The firefighters and police officers resumed their digging.

  “We got another one over here!”

  Issie took off toward the voice and watched as they uncovered another one. But she knew without checking that this one hadn’t made it. Burned beyond recognition, it wasn’t clear if this one had been a man or woman, a firefighter or civilian. She breathed back a sob and told herself that she had to stay strong. There was no time to fall apart now.

  She tried to find a place on the body where she could feel a pulse, but there was none. She couldn’t get any words out, so she just shook her head.

  The grief in the faces of the workers looked as thick as the smoke still floating over the place. Issie just sat there, waiting for someone else to be uncovered, praying that the next one would be alive.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was 11:30 when Stan came home from the Icon site. He was dead tired, and his body ached from digging for his buddies. But he had been called back to help with the investigation. The FBI had asked all of the surrounding police departments to be on the alert for anyone suspicious and had given them a long list of information they needed about citizens in their towns, businesses that might have sold to terrorists, and witnesses who could provide any evidence. He had come home to shower before going to the station.

  Celia—who had come home just moments before—had greeted him like he’d been raised from the dead. She drew a hot bath for him to soak the soreness out of his muscles. He lay in the hot tub, wishing he could relax and drift off to sleep.

  But Dan was still missing, and so were so many of his other friends.

  How dare he relax when his colleagues were still there?

  The phone rang, and he heard Celia answer it. Knowing it was probably for him, he got out and wrapped a towel around him.

  “Hello? Yes, he’s here.” Celia brought him the cordless. “The station.”

  He took the phone. “Yeah?”

  “Stan, we got a tip that there are three Middle Eastern men staying at the Best Western over on Huey Long Boulevard. The manager said they checked in tonight and were acting suspicious. Thought you’d want to know.”

  “Yeah. How long ago did you get the tip?”

  “Just now. We dispatched four cars.”

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  He hung up and rushed into his closet for some clean clothes.

  “What is it?” Celia asked.

  “Possible bombing suspects at a motel.” He stepped into a pair of pants, then pulled on a shirt.

  “In Newpointe?”

  “Looks like it.”

  He pulled on some shoes and started through the house, buttoning his shirt.

  “Have they made the arrest yet?”

  “Not yet.” He slipped his shoulder holster on.

  “Stan, be careful!” she cried.

  He slowed down and kissed her. “Don’t worry. Lock the door,” he said as he bolted out of the house.

  He got to Huey Long in just a few minutes. Blue lights flashed in the Best Western parking lot, and he saw that officers already had the three suspects. They looked young, no more than nineteen or twenty. They were clean cut and appeared to be scared to death.

  Stan went to the car to question one of them.

  “We did not do anything!” the kid spat out in a heavy accent. “You are arresting us because of our nationality! You have no evidence against us.”

  Sid Ford—the fire chief’s brother and the other detective on the force—leaned into the car. “Hey, Stan, we just got the warrant to search the car.”

  Stan nodded and turned back to the kid. “What’re you doing in Newpointe?”

  “We are exchange students at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. We were coming to New Orleans to help with the rescue but could not find a hotel there, so we had to get one here. We were in class this morning, three hours north. We have dozens of witnesses.”

  Stan would see about that. “Where are you from?”

  “Iran,” the kid said. “But we have respect for the American people. We are not terrorists.”

  Stan instructed some of his colleagues to take the men back to the station to await questioning while he and Sid searched the car.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Since the gym was overcrowded, those in charge asked anyone who didn’t need to be there to go home, thus making room for the ones who would be there all night. Celia and Allie had decided to go home and rescue Aunt Aggie from their children, or vice versa. But Susan had stayed there with Jill, intent on holding her hand all night and getting her through this horror.

  People from local churches had been bringing cots and mattresses all night so that everyone had a place to lie down. One by one, the survivors had left to go home to their families and had been replaced by family members waiting for word on loved ones who had not been accounted for.

  Ashley still hadn’t showered. She lay coiled on her cot with her arms hugging her knees, her eyes constantly scanning the faces, as though her mother could have slipped in without her seeing her. Jill knew it was no more likely that Ashley’s mom would come through that door than it was that Dan would.

  As the night grew old, Jill sat on her little mattress against the wall, alternately praying and crying. Susan dozed on the cot they had given her. Jill forgave her. She knew that she was exhausted after such an emotional day. She couldn’t blame her for not being able to keep vigil with her tonight.

  Jill got up and paced in front of her cot. Allie had called Susan’s phone to check on her twice since she’d left, but she’d had no news about Dan. Aunt Aggie had called a prayer meeting, she’d been told. The church was praying for Dan and the others who were missing.

  But God didn’t seem to be listening.

  If Dan were alive and able, he would have contacted her by now. She knew he’d been buried under several stories of concrete.

  Were his bones crushed? Had his neck snapped? Was he bleeding? She took some comfort in realizing that if he was conscious, he was praying to the same God as she. Wouldn’t she know if he were dead? Wouldn’t there be some feeling in her gut that her soul mate was no longer on this earth?

  The waiting was killing her. She was useless here. One more set of hands might make them reach him faster. If she could just get to the site, she knew she could find him.

  The idea took hold in her mind, and she wished she had thought to get Celia and Allie to bring her one of Dan’s T-shirts with NFD on the front and back, so she could pretend to be a firefighter and join in the rescue. Maybe she didn’t need it. Maybe by now they had stopped turning people away and needed more help. Maybe they would let her in.

  She leaned over to Ashley and whispered, “I’m going out for some air.”

  Ashley’s red eyes were dull as she stared across the room. “There’s no air,” she whispered. “Just smoke.”

  Jill recognized the commentary on the girl’s life. She stroked her filthy hair. “I know. But I need a change of scenery. If Susan wakes up, tell her I’ll be back.”

  Ashley didn’t respond, so Jill cut through the cots. She could hear sobbing from different beds around the room. So much anguish. She went to the registration table where the volunteers had finally gotten organized. They were keeping lists of those who were accounted for, the living and the dead, and they updated them hourly.

  She got in the line of people waiting, and when it was her turn, she bent over the table. “Has there been any word on Dan Nichols?”

  The woman—who looked as weary as she—did a quick search on her laptop. “No, ma’am. No word.”

  Jill almost felt sorry for her. Almost all of the news she was giving out was bad.
Earlier in the day there had been times of celebration for different groups around the floor, when someone had been discovered alive. But those celebrations had become fewer and farther between as the night went on.

  “What about Debbie Morris?” she asked.

  The girl scanned her list. “No, I’m sorry.”

  Jill got out of line, her chest as heavy as if someone’s foot was wedged on top of it, stomping the life out of her. She went to the front door and stepped out into the night.

  The air was still heavy with smoke, and she could hear machinery working just three blocks away as they dug for people. She hoped they weren’t just bulldozing through the rubble. She hoped they were digging carefully.

  She walked up to Canal Street, in an area she would never have ventured alone after dark. Just blocks away, the seedy French Quarter probably carried on as usual. Bars were probably still open, bands still played, and ladies of the night probably peddled their wares as if nothing significant had happened that day.

  But there was no one hanging around here. Thugs and muggers didn’t expect unsuspecting tourists to be in this area, and the smoke was a deterrent. Besides, what greater danger could befall her than what she’d already survived?

  She slowed her step as the war zone came into view. Beacons and spotlights hung from various heights around the site, lighting the areas where rescuers worked, illuminating the fallout.

  She froze, staring at the horror that lay before her. As she looked up at thirty floors of rubble compressed into the height of three or four, she realized how unlikely it was that Dan—or anyone else—would be pulled from it alive.

  She wished she had died under that rubble herself.

  “Ma’am, are you supposed to be here?”

  She turned around and saw a police officer shining a flashlight into her face. Why wasn’t he helping to dig? “I . . . I came to help with the rescue effort,” she said weakly.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’ve got all the help we need. We’re asking all civilians to stay out of the way.”

  “I’m not a civilian,” she lied. “I’m a firefighter from Newpointe. I was off-duty, but I thought I might be needed.”

  He clearly didn’t believe her. “Ma’am, do you have any identification?”

  She knew she’d been caught. She didn’t have anything that said she was a firefighter, nothing to convince them to let her stay. “I forgot my ID. Look, I just want to help. We have people missing.”

  “We need experienced emergency personnel, ma’am, and if you don’t have ID then I can’t let you go in. Too much is at stake to have inexperienced people digging through there, possibly endangering the lives of those who could still be saved. And if you’re media—”

  “I’m not media,” she said. “I told you—” Her voice broke off, and she realized what he’d just said. The lives of those who could be saved. “So you do think some could still be alive?”

  “We’re hoping,” he said. “Now, please, you’ll have to leave.”

  She could see the trauma on his own face. He’d been through a lot today, maybe even more than she had. She didn’t want to make his job harder for him.

  She stood a moment, staring at the expanse of destruction. She might be just yards from where Dan lay. Tears assaulted her.

  The cop’s face softened. “You’re not really an emergency worker, are you?”

  There was no use continuing the lie. “My husband’s a firefighter. He’s in that rubble somewhere.” She caught her breath on a sob.

  He dropped the light, allowing her the darkness. “My brother’s in there, too.”

  It was clear that he knew what she was going through. But it wasn’t the same, because he was able to stay. If they pulled him out, dead or alive, he would be here.

  “I could help!” she cried. “I’d be another set of hands, so they could dig faster. Time is critical. Please—”

  As she spoke, a dump truck came through, its headlights illuminating the road in front of it. She froze at the sight of a line of bodies, laid out in the dirt. “What are they—” Her voice caught in her throat. “Oh, no, they’re dead, aren’t they?”

  “Ma’am, I really need you to—”

  She jerked free of him and went toward the corpses. The headlights passed, but there was enough residual light for her to see a yellow fluorescent stripe from a turnout coat. She stumbled toward it. The man, burned beyond recognition, was too small to be Dan.

  “Ma’am, I asked you to leave!”

  She saw another dead fireman and lunged toward him. He wasn’t Dan, either.

  Dan hadn’t been wearing his NFD T-shirt. He’d been off duty, and had been wearing something else. What? What had he been wearing? If he’d taken off his turnout coat because of the heat, he would look like anyone else.

  The cop followed her as she went from body to body, searching all the faces of the dead for her own husband until she got to the end of them. He wasn’t among them.

  “Okay, now let’s go.” The officer’s voice was gentler now. “Please, ma’am.”

  Nausea roiled up in her, and she turned and retched onto the dirt.

  Someone touched her back. “Jill, you shouldn’t be here.”

  Jill turned, saw Issie, and threw her arms around her. The two of them wept together. “Isn’t it horrible?” Issie said. “They’re all dead, Jill. We couldn’t save any of them.”

  Jill pulled back and grabbed Issie’s shirt. “Where is Dan? Where is he?”

  Issie’s face twisted, and tears left mud trails down her face. “Don’t give up hope, Jill. We’ve pulled a few survivors out. They’re not all dead.”

  “I want to help,” Jill said. “I want to dig!”

  Issie put her arms around her. “It’s very tedious, careful work.”

  “It doesn’t look careful, with all the dump trucks and machinery around here.”

  “It is, though. The ones working on the mounds have a bucket brigade, and they’re passing debris—just a little at a time—in buckets. That way they can make sure that they’re not overlooking anything. Then the debris is dumped into the dump trucks, and the trucks haul it off for the forensics teams to go through, looking for evidence. The heavy equipment helps lift the steel beams and slabs of concrete. We’ve found several pockets. They’re doing it with the best possible care, Jill. Just let them work.”

  Jill watched as several brigades on the rubble worked in just the way Issie described. “But what about where they aren’t digging? There are hundreds of people in that gym who could come and help. We could start our own brigade.”

  Issie put her hands on Jill’s face and made her look at her. “Go back and wait with the families, Jill. I know it’s hard. You’re not alone, are you?”

  “No, Susan’s with me.”

  “She let you come over here by yourself?”

  “She didn’t know. She dozed off.” Jill shook Issie’s hands off her and turned back toward the site.

  “Jill, I don’t want you to put yourself through this. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Jill looked back at the line of bodies, wondering if she would ever get that image out of her mind. Muffling her anguish, she said, “What are they going to do with them?”

  “Transport them to a place where they can be identified,” Issie said. “But for now, as we pull them out, we’re just lining them up. We don’t have enough rescue units.”

  Suddenly Jill felt the fatigue of the day pull at her, and she realized she hadn’t eaten since this morning. How could she be nauseous with nothing in her stomach? She turned to throw up again. Issie waited, then put her arm around her shoulder.

  “Ma’am, you’re in no condition to deal with this,” the cop said. “Please go back.”

  “Come on, Jill,” Issie said. “I’ll walk you back to the end of the block, and then you have to go, okay?”

  Jill finally nodded and let Issie lead her to the end of the street.

  She made her way back to the school
and went back into the gym. So many people, unable to sleep, watched the door or stared up at the ceiling. How many of them would have found their loved ones in that line of corpses?

  She thought of the verse in the Bible that said God kept our tears in a bottle. How many bottles had he lined up to catch the tears of all these people? Most of them would have funerals to plan this week.

  She met Ashley’s eyes across the room. She was still watching the door, waiting. Behind her, Susan still dozed on her cot.

  When she got back to her bed, Ashley sat up. “You were gone longer than I expected. You didn’t go to the site, did you?”

  She thought of Ashley running out of here, seeing those bodies. . . . It would haunt her for life. “No,” she lied. “They wouldn’t have let me in, anyway.” She sat next to her. Ashley’s eyes were vacant and distant as she stared toward that door.

  “She’s gone,” Ashley whispered.

  “Maybe not. Maybe my husband’s in a hole somewhere taking care of her. He would do that. If she was injured, he’d be seeing to her.”

  Ashley was silent for a moment. “I never said good-bye.”

  Jill hadn’t said good-bye to Dan either. She’d been in a hurry that morning, and he’d been getting ready to go help paint the floral shop. She’d run out with nothing but a kiss on his cheek and a plea for him to pick up their clothes from the dry cleaners.

  “I should have stayed with her,” Ashley said, “but she was screaming for me to go.”

  “Thank the Lord,” Jill said. “If she hadn’t, you might not have gotten out.”

  “I wish I hadn’t,” Ashley said. “I wish I’d stayed with her.”

  Jill wanted to tell her she had just had the same wish, but there was no point. “Where’s your father, Ashley?”

  “Died when I was five. Car accident. My mom raised me by herself.”

  Jill felt sick again. What was going to happen to this girl, if indeed she was an orphan? “How old are you, honey?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Isn’t there anyone you can call to come get you? Or someone who can just be here for you?”