Through the Fire

by Shawn Grady

  “It can only get worse.”

  I knew a time of reckoning fast approached. And even though I stood on the shore of a brand new country, with sound footing for the first time in a long time, before me lying a continent of possibilities, I considered that what I had here and now might be all that it ever got to be. That the future for me might soon be cut off, and no matter how adamantly I clung to my hopeful timeline, frayed and loose in space as it were, the end might soon slip from my grasp, irretrievable and unalterable.

  I felt so ready to build. For a change. Ready to establish and root into life’s soil. Had I ever really made anything in my life? Anything that would last and not burn? I’d been running for so long. Death had become my god. And I was tired of fighting. Tired of just corralling chaos and stopping loss. I wanted to lay down my arms and proclaim a truce.

  My faith was eternal, I knew that much. But, as irony is fitting, just as I’d found peace in the here and now, I sensed that my life soon would be asked of me.

  CHAPTER

  46

  A t Station One the reserve ’79 Seagrave sat parked in Engine One’s spot. No air-conditioning apart from the wind. No heater in the open-cab backseats save for the engine cowling against your leg. No AM/FM radio. The only music it made was the mechanical grinder wailing under the weight of the captain’s boot.

  My dad had loved that rig.

  I could hear him and Sower joking. “Great name for a fire engine. Bad name for a boat.”

  I was appointed acting captain on it. Apparently any warm body would do when it all hit the fan. I checked and rechecked my air pack, shut the cabinet door, and climbed up into the front of the cab. The dash was broad like a coffee table; the floor, flat and spacious diamond-plate steel; the grinder button conspicuous in the far right corner. I reminded myself to avoid stepping on it later when I climbed in, though inevitably, I knew I would, and it was sure to be at two in the morning and down in the app bay. I held the black cardboard-bound Central map book on my lap and reviewed the streets, their familiar grid pattern, reciting the order of roads moving south along Wells. Roberts, Thoma, Cheney, Taylor, Crampton, Burns. I wanted to be ready when the time came.

  Tom Flannigan came in on overtime to drive. Despite his twenty-eight years with the department, he refused to bump up to captain. Perhaps I should say because of his time—wisdom coming with age. The Seagrave was familiar territory for him, an old friend, battle-tested and true. He was happy to drive and not shoulder the responsibilities of the officer’s seat. As he walked past the rig and saw me flipping through the map book, he chuckled to himself.

  Timothy Clark had also answered the chief’s call and would be filling the senior fireman role, his jumpseat mirroring mine toward the tailboard, a simple chain strung across the side for safety. I was jealous. Guys loved to stand in back when we cruised through downtown. We’d alert each other when we saw a chief, disappearing like groundhogs, popping up again when the coast was clear. It wasn’t hard to understand one of the simple pleasures of a canine once you’ve stood in the back of an old fire engine, wind in your face, running lights and sirens toward a column of smoke.

  Sortish came in as our fourth. From the expression on his face I sensed he was about to remark, in the presence of Flannigan, on the unfavorably antiquated nature of our reserve engine, so I cleared my throat and shook my head. He wasn’t sure what he’d almost said wrong but showed the good sense to keep his opinions to himself. Flannigan’s eyebrows relaxed and he went about tinkering with the pump panel. Sortish continued on into the station, little knowing what onslaught he’d almost brought upon himself.

  The app-bay windows collected fine soot powder. Orange and apricot beams lit the floor in long rectangles. I studied the concrete skyline, from the highest building—the forty-story Silver Legacy, which would be dwarfed in Manhattan as one among many—to the business buildings and high-rise condos and crafted parapet curves of the old Riverside lofts. Reno lay in an eddy of auburn quiet, holding true to what it purported to be, the biggest little city in the world.

  The rescue rig sat unmanned. Captain Butcher showed up an hour into shift, coming in from out of town for the overtime call to staff the truck. He had his crew pull out the rig to set up the ladder. He threw me a cold and quick glance as he walked out on the driveway.

  I made my way upstairs to the kitchen. The refrigerators hummed. Sortish swept. Timothy Clark sat with a plate of scrambled eggs and the newspaper. He ate twice as much as anyone else in the station but never added a pound to his sinewy frame. I grabbed a water cup from the cupboard and filled it from the pitcher in the fridge. “Feeding your worm, Timothy?”

  He looked up and grinned. “The first plate was for him. This one’s for me.”

  My phone vibrated. Julianne’s number flashed on the screen.

  “Hey,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Hi, Aidan.” Her voice sounded kindred but solemn. “Are you somewhere you can talk?”

  “Sure. One second.” I pushed through the door into the dayroom and sat on one of the reclining chairs by the windows. “Anything new? What are they saying?”

  “It’s not magnesium.”

  “What? No, I’m talking about you. How are you?”

  “They have me on some anti-inflammatory steroids.”

  “But . . .”

  “No change. I still can’t . . .” She paused. “The char isn’t magnesium.”

  “What?”

  “You said that the engine fires burst into more flame with water, right?”

  I looked around the empty room. “Right. Yeah.”

  “But that was once they were already on fire, right?”

  “Right.”

  “This stuff doesn’t need to be on fire first. It’s explosive on simple contact with water.”

  The faint sounds of a train horn filtered up from the railroad trench. “How did you find this out?”

  “I’ve been working on it this morning, balancing a few chemical equations. I’ve narrowed it in probability to either sodium or potassium. Potassium is the more volatile, so I’m leaning toward it. But get either of those metals wet in their pure forms and the results are explosive.”

  “Water starting a fire?”

  “It’s the perfect incendiary device, Aidan.”

  “Okay, so I’m not a chemist. But it doesn’t seem reasonable that—”

  “I know. That’s why it’s perfect. No trace.”

  “But how? With no heat to start it?”

  “If you take pure potassium and expose it to water, a violent chemical reaction occurs. Hydrogen is released. The heat produced from the reaction alone is sufficient to ignite it. Remember the Hindenburg?”

  “So all our arsonist would need is this substance and water, and then—”

  “Kathwoosh.”

  “Ka-what?”

  “Kathwoosh?”

  I smiled. “How’s that go again?”

  She chuckled. “Stop.”

  “No, come on. Did you read comic books as a kid?”

  “Maybe a little Spiderman.”

  “Get out.”

  “I always wanted to see if he’d get together with Mary Jane.”

  I laughed, forgetting for a brief moment the gravity of it all.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I just wanted to let you know.”

  “You’re amazing.” I wanted to be with her, to express my growing feelings. Instead I said, “Have you told Ben?”

  “No, not yet.”

  Juxtaposed pictures met in my mind. The ring of spalled concrete, the way the fires burned fast and hot and bright, the failure of the sprinkler systems to control it. Then it all tied together like a chess game, when you see the path to checkmate half a dozen moves out.

  “I think I know now how the arsonist is doing it,” I told her.

  “Do tell.”

  My palm felt hot and moist against the phone plastic. “The spalled rings, the sprinkler tampering. They’re connected.�
�

  “But if the arsonist shut off the sprinkler system, then there’s no water left for him to use.”

  “That’s not entirely true. Wet systems are charged to the sprinkler head.” The elevator chimed. Flannigan walked out. I lowered my voice as he walked across the room. “This arsonist has been shutting off the water where the street supply meets the building riser, right?” Flannigan tossed me a look. I could almost hear his thoughts. “I don’t know what you’re getting into, Aidan-boy, but you best be keeping your distance.”

  “So,” Julianne’s voice floated into my ear. “There would still be some water left inside the system in the building?”

  “Exactly. Enough to spray a circle of potassium, or whatever.”

  “And ignite a wall of white hot flame.”

  “Consuming the evidence with it.”

  “But,” she said, “I still don’t see how the arsonist gets the sprinkler head to activate in the first place.”

  “He’d have to remove the fusible link somehow.”

  “Remotely?”

  “Yeah. Some kind of small explosive?”

  “That would probably leave evidence. We know we have a savvy chemist. Maybe some kind of slow-acting acid.”

  I nodded, picturing it all in my head. “Giving enough time to bail before . . . kathwoosh?”

  She chuckled. “Yes.”

  “So, what then?” I switched the phone to my other ear. “Without enough evidence, what do we do?”

  “We have to catch the perpetrator in the act.”

  “But by the time we are aware of ‘the act,’ the arsonist is long gone.”

  “Set it and forget it?”

  “Right.” Something still didn’t connect for me. “What about the residential fires?”

  “Good point. No fire sprinkler systems on the ones we’ve had. But potassium is reactive with water, from any source. At a residential structure it could be something as simple as automatic sprinklers or a drip system. Even the morning dew could be enough.”

  Tones.

  “Engine One to a medical emergency. . . .”

  I stood. “I’ve gotta go.”

  “Call me later?”

  “I will.” I opened the pole-hole door. “Bye, Julianne.”

  CHAPTER

  47

  T he day flew by with medicals, minor car accidents, and an activated fire alarm that proved false. We took care of station duties and rig checks, had lunch. A few guys went down to the basement to work out in the afternoon. I sat at a computer in the captain’s office, typing out reports.

  The clock swung to half past four, the sinking sun a red giant in the haze. The news squawked from the thirteen-inch TV on top of the file cabinets. It switched to coverage of the timber fire, so I turned in my chair to see.

  A pony-tailed reporter in a yellow fire-retardant shirt spoke into a microphone, wind whipping loose strands of hair across her face. Her voice elevated and lowered in the sing-song rhythm of professional newscasters. “. . . reporting from the point of origin of the fire. I just finished speaking with the chief investigator for the Bureau of Land Management, who has discovered a piece of key evidence related to the start of this inferno.”

  The video cut to footage of a bearded official pointing to a broad ring of scorched earth and saying, “As you can see, it appears that the fire began here, with a circle-shaped ignition pattern.”

  The reporter appeared. “Anyone having information related to the start of this fire should contact the BLM investigation hotline with the number on your screen. From Truckee, California, I’m Angelica Mann.” An eight hundred number in yellow block digits flashed on the screen with a blue background.

  I ran my hand over my mouth and chin. It was our arsonist. Had to be. But why out there? Under the cover of night and the banking chimney smoke of forest homes, there would be ample time to escape before anybody discovered the fire. But what did that have to do with the Reno Fire Department? Why move to thousands of acres of forested land forty-five minutes away, unless . . .

  Unless that’s exactly what the arsonist wanted.

  A smoke screen.

  The city stripped thin. Stations manned with skeleton crews.

  We had sent the whole world up there. If an arsonist wanted to strike something significant in town, now would be the time to do it.

  Tones.

  I glanced up at the speaker.

  “Battalion One . . .”

  My heart bounded, flush with adrenaline.

  “. . . Engine One, Engine Two . . .”

  I slid the pole and pulled up my suspenders.

  “. . . Truck One to a structure fire, smoke and flames seen . . .”

  Flannigan slid the pole opposite the rig. He started the Seagrave with no wasted motion. The guys in back patted twice on the doghouse cowling. Tom pulled forward and I put us en route over the radio, switching to the tactical frequency. The ladder truck rolled onto the apron.

  Flannigan pulled right, heading north on Evans. “Give me some music, Aidan-boy.”

  I found the grinder button and stepped on it. She came alive, screaming to a pitch. I looked back to see Timothy with one hand on the roof, eyes squinting in the wind.

  I worked my arms into my jacket. A fat plume lifted up in the east. I took a second look at the dispatch printout. District One. Multiple calls. Sixth and Spokane. The address matched . . .

  The museum.

  I felt as if a sledgehammer hit me in the chest. “Tom, this is the—”

  “I know.” He glanced sideways, pushing his foot harder on the pedal. “We’ll get there.”

  I zipped my coat and flipped up the collar. We were going to be first in. “Tom, you know I didn’t set—”

  “I know, A-O. I never once doubted.” He yanked on the air horn wire. Traffic slowed at Evans and Fourth. “Hang on, fellas.”

  The guys in back braced themselves as Flannigan took the corner, smooth and swift.

  I flipped pages in the map book. “We’ve got that hydrant right at the corner.”

  “Son,” Tom said, “you just get in there and do what you know. I’ll get you water. The truck’ll get you vented. Ain’t no arsonist going to take our history, too.” He checked the passenger-side mirrors, then winked at me. “All right?”

  I closed the map book. “All right. Let’s do this.”

  Flannigan hooked north on Spokane and pulled past the museum, giving me a three-sixty view and leaving the address for the truck to position. Smoke belched from second-story windows, many of the panes broken out. The old bowstring truss roof seemed like a lid on a pot, boiling gases spilling out at the eaves.

  I clicked the mic. “Battalion One, Engine One on scene of a large-footprint, two story, unreinforced brick building. We have heavy smoke showing from the second story windows and eaves on all four sides of the structure. The parking lot is empty. We’ll call this Museum Command. Engine One’ll be in live-line operations.”

  I climbed backward out of the rig. The air carried the pungent odors of burning rafters and bubbling roof tar. Flannigan shifted the Seagrave into pump, the motor quieting and then revving with the change. The ladder truck squeaked to a stop, spotting the turntable at the corner. The airbrake hissed and the tillerman and operator hopped out, working to deploy the outriggers.

  Sortish stretched an inch-and-three-quarter line to the door. Timothy Clark worked with a Halligan to force it open. The backdrop of dusk devolved into purples and grays. A glow-tinged cloud puffed from the building.

  I met Timothy at the door and pulled out my axe. “Here.”

  He held the adz end of the Halligan near the lock. I rammed it until it drove between the jam and the door. Timothy levered the tool until the door swung open.

  Smoke stormed out like a penned-up animal. I backed up, knelt, and strapped on my mask.

  I put a hand on Timothy’s shoulder. “Stick close to our new kid.”

  He nodded as Sortish went in with the nozzle. Timothy picked
up the line and disappeared into the chasm. The hose slithered forward beside my boots. I clicked the light on my coat, for all the good it would do, picked up my axe, and followed them in.

  Timothy’s mask appeared in front of mine. “Which way?”

  I sensed the fire in multiple places, one near the back. “Start with a right-hand search.”

  “All right.”

  They dragged the line deeper, and the names on their jackets, for a moment, transformed, like wavy mirages, into O’Neill and Waits. I shook my head and blinked. The Waits twisted, rearranged, and lengthened—this time spelling Hartman.

  Flashes of orange spat overhead.

  “Hold up,” I shouted.

  But they were out of earshot, the hose already angling around the front desk.

  This was too familiar.

  I needed to calm my breathing and get with my guys. We’d knock this down and get on out.

  I progressed foward and reached out with my senses. Where else are you hiding?

  A vision flashed strong and poignant and as clear as anything I’d ever seen.

  A circle of fire stretched across the second floor. And within it stood the silhouette of a man.

  CHAPTER

  48

  I reached down through the smoke and found the hose line. I crawled alongside it, feeling the lugs on the female couplings followed by smooth brass. If we needed to get out we’d follow that opposite pattern. Lugs to hugs.

  But I wanted deeper in, all the way to the perpetrator. At the origin of this inferno lay answers and justice and closure.

  Muffled sounds of machines and metal and shattering glass echoed, a chaotic din like storm thunder. My father’s face flashed in my mind. His eyes stared solemn. “In the end, Aidan, the fire always gets us.”

  I shook my head. No. No, that’s not right. He never said that. The gray-black churned.

  “You going to kill another fireman, A-O?”

  I whispered in my mask. “I didn’t mean for you to die.”

  “But I did.”

  “This is different.”