Into the Inferno

by Earl Emerson

  Through contacts he had at the University of Washington, Haston had brought an environmental chemist to the meeting, a wisp of a woman named Esther Mulherin.

  When she wasn’t at the University of Washington, Mulherin worked for Electron Laboratory Research in Kenmore. She’d previously made a name for herself researching polymer membranes for studies of ion selectivity characteristics. Ms. Mulherin wore wire-rimmed glasses and had a self-effacing demeanor and manner of dress that I felt sure made her next to invisible in any crowd. She was the only speaker who remained sitting, explaining that the Chem Sources book for this year listed 155,000 chemicals in use in the United States, that most of these had not been tested on humans. In other words, the list of possibilities for this particular offense, if it was chemical in nature, was boundless. One thing that puzzled Mulherin was the lag time between what we believed was the date of the contamination and the onset of symptoms.

  Mulherin expressed a strong desire to be part of the core group studying this, saying she felt it was a wonderful opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a potentially deadly breakthrough. As ghoulish as it sounded, I had the feeling the more people got sick, the better she was going to like it.

  When this one dragged on, I began to remember why I hated meetings. Some of the attendees were convinced we had a problem. Others remained dubious. What everybody did agree on was that if we did have a problem, it would affect other fire departments in the region as well as the public at large. On that basis it was decided to set up a committee to study and follow the events in North Bend, to make findings, to come up with recommendations, and, if any more cases came to light, to alert other state and county departments and the public. Everyone agreed it was too soon to make a media announcement.

  No one wanted to spread needless panic.

  No one but me.

  I tried to argue the point. If we went to the media, maybe we would find somebody out there who knew something. I could have tried by myself, but I wanted the imprimatur of this group behind me. In the end, the panic argument won the day, as if the public were going to run screaming out of their houses and jump off cliffs when they saw this on the evening news.

  Click and Clack, aka Ian Hjorth and Ben Arden, came in late and raised the possibility that our meth lab in the woods back in May might have triggered this. I didn’t think so, but I couldn’t stop them from talking it to death.

  We’d responded on the North Fork of the Snoqualmie River, driving up a steep road used mostly by logging trucks. After a quarter mile of climbing, the road turned into gravel and dirt.

  Two miles in we found a clandestine methamphetamine lab.

  By the time we arrived, the cooks were long gone, although the lab was still brewing product. We called the county sheriff’s office and roped off the area until an environmental cleanup company could dispose of the chemicals.

  We’d hosed and scrubbed our boots thoroughly, but the possibility remained that one or more of us had dragged some poison back to the station. Holly had not been there. Nor had I seen her in person afterward. But what if, asked Ben Arden, the symptoms of exposure to a meth lab were similar to our symptoms?

  The deputy chief for Bellevue said he’d researched drug labs after the Bellevue department found two inside their city limits. While the health effects of the various chemical compounds used in manufacturing methamphetamines were onerous—including, in the short term, headaches, nausea, dizziness, decreased mental function, shortness of breath, and chest pain, which none of us had experienced back in May—the longer-term reactions included cancer, brain damage, miscarriages, heart problems, and even death. The chemicals involved could range from toluene, anhydrous ammonia, and ether to even phosgene gas.

  I had to admit some of those symptoms were chronicled in Beebe’s seven-day cycle. All in all, though, it appeared unlikely that the drug lab was the cause of our problems.

  It was suggested that there were any number of scenarios in which our loved ones might be potential victims, that our causal agent might be chemical, bacterial, or viral, that Jackie’s husband, McCain’s wife, and Beebe’s children were at risk and should be examined. It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment, but it was possible I had placed Britney and Allyson in danger. Morgan Neumann might have it, or Morgan’s mother, Helen.

  Was it possible I’d tracked a virus into the house on my shoes, that Allyson and Britney, who liked to traipse around the house barefoot, had picked it up on the soles of their feet? Could it be that I was going to be brain-dead in June, that my daughters would follow in July?

  The thought paralyzed me.

  For many long minutes I found it difficult to follow the discussion, unable to move or speak.

  The fire department had been my life, as well as the source of a great deal of good in our family. It had given us the money to pay our bills and put food on the table, a roof over our heads. Now I was forced to confront the possibility that it might also be the worst thing that ever happened to us.

  By the time I’d regained my senses, the discussion was waning.

  A study group was formed consisting of Steve Haston, myself, a captain from Eastside Fire and Rescue, Ms. Mulherin, Dr. Brashears, and one other to be named later. Our first committee meeting would be on Monday.

  By Monday I would be strapped into a wheelchair.

  They could wheel me in as exhibit number one.

  I don’t know what I had expected. These people all had jobs and lives to go back to. I didn’t have anything but waxy hands, a headache, and the dilemma of how to tell my daughters they were going to be fatherless. It was clear I was on my own here. These people weren’t going to save me.

  Steve Haston closed the meeting with a lengthy speech, the longest of the day, and it was while he orated that I began to suspect he had preselected himself as the next head of the fire department. Why not? All the rest of us would be over at Alpine Estates sucking mush. This was all speculation on my part, but it was so like Haston, who seemed to reinvent himself every five to ten years. He’d been a cop. A musician in a string band. An accountant. A cuckold. A mayor. Why not fire chief?

  The syndrome seemed to have given me a sixth sense. Yesterday I’d known what Stephanie Riggs was going to say several times before she said it and had actually completed a couple of sentences for her. This morning at Continental Freightways I knew exactly how to terrorize Cleve. Now I knew Haston was angling for the chief’s job.

  As the meeting disbanded, Brashears motioned that he wanted to talk to me in private. After the room emptied, he said, “What day are you on?”

  “You think anybody else noticed?”

  “Not that I could tell.”

  “Day three.”

  “You seeing a doctor?”

  “Yes.”

  “You need anything at all, get in touch. I mean that.”

  “I will.”

  The thought that he was speaking to a dead man made Brashears look at the walls, the carpet, anything but me. Then, without another word, he left.

  25. WHAT WE GOT HERE IS A NICKEL HOLDING UP A DOLLAR

  Outside on the sidewalk, Ms. Mulherin cornered me. She stood so close and was so short that she had to look almost straight up at me, her neck cranked back at an angle that reminded me of a worm on a hook. For a moment I thought she’d made the same observation Brashears had and was going to talk about it here on the sidewalk in front of God and everybody.

  Ms. Mulherin said, “Organophosphates. Have you thought about that?”

  “I’ve been kind of—”

  “Because they’re everywhere. If you think about it. Parathion. Malathion. Pesticides are everywhere. And if you think about it, organophosphates are readily translocated in living organisms. Have you thought about this?”

  “I’m sure that’s more in line with your expertise than mine.”

  “Yes, well, uh-huh. Hmmm. I’m sure you know generally with organophosphates you see symptoms within two hours. Difficulty swallowing, los
s of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, and even diarrhea. Was any of this reported?” She had a face that had seen too much sun, lines around her eyes, even around her ears. Her lips were almost nonexistent, as if she were trying to suck a straw some jokester had put a pea in. “You think I could visit your fire station with some of my grad students? We might be able to pick up traces of—”

  “Be my guest. Show up whenever you like.”

  “Maybe at the end of the week?”

  “Fine by me.” She was going to write a paper on this. I could see it. She was going to gain prestige in the academic world standing on our dead bodies. To her, we were organisms to be studied, questioned, dissected, and eventually autopsied.

  The King County Executive, who’d been glad-handing on the sidewalk with some of the other participants, came over and interrupted Ms. Mulherin, as if interrupting was something he’d been commissioned to do by the county. He was a tall man, almost as tall as my six-three, though easily fifty or sixty pounds heavier, most of it in his belly.

  “Look, Swope,” he said. “A couple of the Eastside guys were talking, and they seem to think you folks probably got into some rat poison or something. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I’m not backing you. Because I am. It’s just that I need to see more evidence before I can commit to anything. Right now I’m about as convinced there’s an epidemic as I’m convinced cows can fly.” Mulherin gave him a dry look. “You get some proof, come see me. We’ll take it to the governor, you and I together.”

  The combination of Mulherin’s detached ghoulishness and this man’s coldly reasoned incredulity lit a fuse in me.

  “I get some proof,” I said, “I’ll take it to the news, and the first thing I’ll tell them is you were stalling while the public health was at risk. That people turning into vegetables wasn’t something you had time for.”

  “Now, now, now. What I said was—”

  “Fuck what you said!”

  I turned and walked away. Nobody concealed what they were thinking better than a former devout follower of the Sixth Element of the Saints of Christ, so the burst of anger surprised me almost as much as it did him.

  I’d cooled off by the time I found the girls in the rec room, knocking balls around on the billiard table. Morgan was officiating good-naturedly. After a few words of encouragement, I went into the officers’ room, where I dialed Holly’s home number in Tacoma.

  It rang eight times before I heard Holly on the answering machine.

  The sound of her voice choked me up.

  I left a brief message and dialed Tacoma General. After a few minutes, a woman informed me Dr. Riggs was no longer affiliated with the hospital.

  “Her sister still there as a patient?”

  “I believe so.”

  “She okay? I’m a friend.”

  “Her condition hasn’t changed.”

  It was hard to realize how much hope I’d invested in Stephanie Riggs, a woman who really had no reason to help me.

  She’d promised to call this morning.

  Promised.

  It was a bigger disappointment than it should have been. Between my dissatisfaction with the meeting and Stephanie’s failure to contact me, I was feeling as forgotten as a puppy in a locked garage.

  I dug through my wallet for Stephanie’s cell phone number, but I’d misplaced it.

  I sat down with the shipping manifest from Continental Freightways. DuPont was a possibility. They were a chemical company. But what bothered me more than the manifest was that I’d been lied to by the guy at JCP, Inc. I picked up the phone and called them back, asked for Mr. Stuart, was told he was out to lunch. No shit, I thought. He was out to lunch when I spoke to him. They took my phone number and promised he would call back.

  In the officers’ room I looked up Jane’s on the Internet. It was a rocket fuel company, or had been. Now they were researching hydrogen fuel cell technology for all sorts of things: spacecraft, jets, automobiles, hovercraft, military vehicles, submarines. A quick glance at their literature told me they used platinum in their work. I didn’t see how platinum could have caused our problems, but then, what did I know?

  While I was on the Internet, on a whim, I went to my favorite search engine and began trying out various phrases: downed firefighters, fatal firefighter illness, firefighter mystery casualty, brain-dead firefighters. After about twenty-five minutes of experimenting, I came across an obituary for a firefighter in Chattanooga, Tennessee:

  Vic Swenson, former all-state tailback for the Olewah Owls and twenty-year veteran of the Chattanooga Fire Department, died yesterday after a long, undiagnosed illness, the result of the controversial Southeast Travelers Freight fire three years ago. For the past three years Vic has resided in the Sunnyside Nursing Home, where he’s made lots of friends. He was active in fishing and hunting and played golf at least once a week, and most of his friends said he was the smartest “cheater” they ever saw. Vic always had a smile for everyone and will be missed by his wife, Sally, and three children, Vic Jr., Echo, and Heather. Memorials may be made to the Citizens’ Fund for Truth about Southeast Travelers.

  For many long minutes I found nothing else on the Internet about the Citizens’ Fund for Truth, and then I came upon a Web site put up by a CFD firefighter named Charlie Drago called “The Truth about the Southeast Travelers Incident.” Unfortunately, the site was bollixed beyond belief, so that there was only the home page. Lots of tantalizing promises of links and other pages, but none of it worked. I tried a different Web browser, but that didn’t produce anything, either. Only the home page. No links. No contact information. No phone number. Also, the word incident had been spelled incedent.

  I phoned the Chattanooga Fire Department main switchboard, told them I was a fire officer in North Bend, Washington, and was looking for Charles Drago. I was told he was on duty today and given a station house phone number, which I then called. “Yeah. Charlie’s working today. Let me get him for you.”

  As did the woman who answered the phone, Charlie Drago had a Southern drawl so thick you could cut it with a chain saw. I explained who I was and detailed my situation. “You told anybody about this?” he asked. “Anybody at all?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Then you’d better watch your ass, buddy. They’ll be coming after you. No shit. They’re probably following you right now. They’ll burn your home down. They tried to burn mine down. They’ll blow you to smithereens. I mean this. No shit. They’ll blow you to Kingdom Come. Your life ain’t worth a plug nickel.”

  “Who will? Who will blow me to smithereens?”

  “Them.”

  “Who’s them?”

  “Whoever was responsible for our incident at Southeast Travelers. Probably the same assholes who’re responsible for what’s happening to you fine folks. We lost three guys there. Well, one’s dead. The other two only wish they were.”

  “Vic Swenson?”

  “Yeah. He was one. How did you know that? You’re not working for the insurance company, are you? You bastard.”

  “No, Charlie. I’m not working for the insurance company. I’m a firefighter in North Bend. What happened to these guys at the freight company fire?”

  “They tried to burn my house down. You see my Web site? It’s all on my Web site.”

  “I was just there. I couldn’t find anything on it.”

  “Damn it! I posted that just yesterday. They trash my site. You know what else? I think they’re following me again. Hey. Check it out. If they’re not following you by now, they will be. Now tell me the truth. You’re not one of them, are you?”

  “Charlie, I’m not sure—” Even as I spoke, the house bells clanged. This guy was crazy. I wondered why they even left him on duty. Battier than bat shit. “That’s our house bell, Charlie. We’ve got a call. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Vaya con Dios, amigo.”

  “Sure, Charlie.”

  I wasn’t on duty, but it was a long-standing tradition that extra
hands hanging around the station responded in the event of a fire call. Had it been an aid alarm, I wouldn’t have bothered, but the tones were for a fire call, and when the dispatcher announced what we had, it came in as a trailer fire. Heavy black smoke reported by cell phone callers on the freeway. More calls were being received from neighbors out on Edgewick Road.

  In our department most “smoke in the vicinity” calls turned out to be bogus, a yard crew burning brush, a hobbyist farmer tuning up his tractor, a woodstove stoked down too far.

  At “working fires” our department relied on mutual aid from nearby departments and on volunteers, who would race from their day jobs or abandon their spouses at night to risk their lives backing us up. It was absolutely the best part of small-town America, and having been raised in the city, I loved every part of it.

  Before I cleared the office, my girls rushed downstairs in a state of breathless agitation.

  “A fire, Daddy! A fire!” Allyson yelled. It was funny to see her shed her matronly manner so quickly. “Can we go?”

  Britney was so intoxicated with the thrill of it, she couldn’t speak at all, just stood next to her older sister gasping for breath. Morgan pretended to be above it all, but I could see she was amped, too.

  Any other day I would have said no, but this might be their last chance to see me doing one of the few things I did well.

  I tossed Morgan the keys to the Lexus. “Do not go over the speed limit. Adjust the mirrors. Obey all the traffic laws. Don’t worry about missing anything. If it’s a good fire, it’ll still be burning when you get there. Park off the roadway. Watch out for firefighters and incoming apparatus. Volunteers out here get pretty jazzed. Don’t get in anyone’s way.”

  “Yes, Mr. Swope,” said Morgan.

  Ian Hjorth, who had already kicked off his station boots and put on his bunking boots and pants, was climbing up behind the wheel of the engine. Without taking off my civilian clothes, I climbed into the cab next to him. Karrie and Ben Arden were seated behind us in the crew cab. They would finish dressing and don air masks while we drove, prepared to step off the rig and fight fire upon arrival.