The Burning Point

by Mary Jo Putney

  "That's pretty much what Rainey said, and she's a terrific judge of stories." Kate turned back to the hotel, where the light was fading from red-orange to indigo. "Can you imagine how that scene will look on the big screen, shot from a low angle and maybe with a little slow motion?"

  "Your imagination is better than mine. I'm just an engineer."

  "Not 'just. The best damned explosives engineer in the world. If you want to rebuild confidence in your company, you have to think big."

  Her hard hat was smudged and grime was ground into her clothing, but her smile was that of the radiant girl who'd had his heart from their first meeting. A wave of emotion flooded through him. On the night of Sam's funeral, he'd told himself that he wanted to help Kate get over the past. That he wanted what was best for her, and the best wasn't him. All very noble and objective.

  Now any semblance of detachment dissolved as he recognized that he loved Kate in the same way he always had. He wanted her as his wife, forever and ever, amen. He had always loved her like that, even when he'd tried to deny it because there was no point to loving her anymore.

  Was a real future possible?

  Kate had taken off her hard hat, and her expression was relaxed as she watched the movie crew swarming around the tank. Their first falling in love had been so easy, so natural. She had accepted him with open arms. But her innocent trust and acceptance were long gone. He'd already seen proof that just beneath her pleasant, business-like surface were anger and profound, visceral fear. She despised his violence--as he did himself.

  Yet they were still connected by a shared past, and Sam's outrageous legacy was giving them a chance to rebuild their relationship. He had changed from what he was at nineteen, and he was capable of changing more. Kate was the best possible incentive for him to deal with his dark side. Already he had told her the whole truth about his family, which he'd never done with anyone but his therapist.

  Could he change enough to win her trust?

  When rebuilding confidence, you have to think big.

  Chapter 21

  Kate checked her watch. Half an hour until demolition time. The air pulsed with anticipation as thousands of people waited behind barricades around the site. In the distance she heard the bark of a bullhorn as a policeman ordered some onlookers back behind the barriers. Over a hundred officers were here for traffic and crowd control. Las Vegas loved a good show, and finally she was part of it.

  Under Donovan's direction, they'd worked endless hours to get to this point, slitting the column coverings so the dynamite could be loaded. A stick and a half per column, more than three hundred pounds in all. The charges had been connected with detonating cord, which contained an explosive that burned with incredible speed. If "det cord" could be run from coast to coast, it would burn from New York to Los Angeles in a quarter of an hour.

  The delays had been installed and triple-checked, because the timing sequence was critical to bringing the building down in a controlled fashion rather than with dangerous randomness. Earlier Donovan had spent an hour alone in the building, communing with it as he descended from top to bottom in a sort of meditation to insure that he understood the structure well enough to give it the coup de grace.

  Kate had to admire his calm. With so much riding on this shot, he must be strung tight as a drum, but it didn't show. He was in charge, in control, and aware of every detail.

  Her walkie-talkie crackled into life. "We're getting close," Donovan said. "Kate, check the gardens behind the Palace--it's the one place where some idiot who snuck by the police lines to get a better view might be able to hide."

  "Right, boss." She swung around to the back of the building. Weeks of heavy equipment in the area had been hard on the gardens, but there were still shrubs large enough to conceal a thrill seeker. Though the area had been searched already, double checking was part of the PDI assume-nothing philosophy.

  The sky wasn't quite as dramatic as the night before, but it was still a good sunset. The menacing throb of rotor blades intensified as she neared the point where a television station helicopter hovered, preparing to broadcast the implosion live. Between television, the movie crew, and PDI's own videotaping, every angle of the shot would be covered.

  Kate moved through the gardens, checking everything. The shrubs were uninhabited, the fountain dry and filled with grit, and there were only a few small trees.

  In the last tree she discovered a young man perched in the foliage, a cut branch in each hand. He tried to cover himself with the greenery when she spotted him.

  "Down!" she ordered. "Now!"

  "Aww, please, lady, I really want to see this from close up, not back in that crowd."

  "You're only twenty yards from the building, and that's way too close. You want to look like chopped liver? I don't think so. Now move."

  With a long-suffering sigh, he clambered down. He couldn't be more than sixteen. "I thought you dudes could bring down a building that's touching another one and not cause any damage."

  "We can, but that's not how this shot is set up. Now move it. Your death would raise our insurance rates, and we wouldn't want that."

  Trying to maintain his air of cool, the youth trudged toward the barricade. Kate waited until he was safely under the eye of a policeman, then went back to work, shaking her head at the dangerous allure of explosives. Not that she had a right to criticize the kid, when she was just as bad.

  After finishing her sweep of the gardens, she reported, "I found one fool anxious to be turned into hamburger, but the garden is clear now."

  "Human nature never ceases to amaze," Donovan said. "Return to the command post, Kate."

  When she entered Berrigan's trailer, the tension was thick enough to taste. The broad window that faced the Palace was partially open, admitting wires, sounds, and cool evening air. Clustered in front were Donovan, Bull and Carmen, and Jim Frazer, the PDI engineer. Jim was carefully connecting the wires to the blasting machine, which sat on the table in front of the window looking innocuous.

  Tensely Berrigan said, "Tell me again how it's going to come down, Donovan."

  "It should twist on its axis about fifteen degrees to the left, shearing all that steel reinforcing and tearing loose from the outside staircase, then drop almost straight down." Donovan sounded as if he'd answered that question more than once. After checking his watch, he said, "Carmen, it's almost time. Do you want to do the honors?"

  "No way! This is better than a Super Bowl game, but I'll throw up if I have to push the button. Kate, you do it."

  "Kate it is." Donovan glanced at her. "You know the drill."

  Fighting the urge to hyperventilate, she wiped damp palms on her jeans and moved to stand by her former husband. As a child, she'd innocently yearned to push the button, not understanding the implications. Now she felt the weight of the symbolism and the gritty consequences far more vividly.

  As she pressed the first button to warm up the blasting machine, Donovan spoke into his walkie-talkie. "Okay, people, let's have a nice, safe shoot here. Luther, what's the electrical resistance?"

  "Just where it should be, nine point five. We're ready for lift-off!"

  Donovan switched to loudspeaker mode to begin the countdown. His voice boomed across the vast site, distorted by echoes. "Ten...nine...eight..."

  The movement in the crowd ceased as everyone waited, many counting along with Donovan in a massive chorus. As the seconds trickled away, Kate lightly touched the firing button. The little red light came on.

  Three...two...one.

  Fire! She depressed the second button. So swiftly that it seemed instantaneous, flashes of light pierced the mirrored windows of the shot-floors, followed a moment later by flat, crackling sounds like giant firecrackers as the detonators went off.

  Then...nothing. The seconds seemed to stretch forever. A soft, collective groan of disappointment came from the onlookers. Kate gave Donovan an agonized glance.

  Gaze riveted to the structure, he murmured, "Come on now, o
ld girl. Show the world you know how to go out with style."

  A second series of detonations thundered through the structure, generating a bone-shaking boom that rocked the trailer and hammered eardrums. The mirrored surface of the Palace shimmied like a monstrous snake, the hot colors of sunset sliding over the glass. With slow, breathtaking grace, the building twisted on its axis to the left and debris sprayed outward.

  The hotel and its memories began to fold like an accordion. What had seemed eerily slow became too swift for the eye to follow as twenty-five thousand tons of steel and concrete collapsed, emptying the sky with shocking suddenness. Flames from the aviation fuel added for the sake of the filmmakers blazed spectacularly, accompanied by billows of suffocating dust that rolled out and up, turning the sunset into premature night.

  Screams of excitement ripped the air as the crowd went wild. Triggered by shock waves, car alarms blared a surreal chorus. Berrigan wrapped an arm around Carmen, who was bouncing with elation, and pulled her into a jubilant kiss. "Harem, here we come!"

  Pure adrenaline shot through Kate at the glorious release from tension, the catharsis of violence without consequences. She turned to Donovan, who exuberantly swept her from her feet, shouting, "Yes!"

  For a crazed moment she gloried in the strength of his embrace, the familiar, beloved body hard against her. The euphoria of the shot vanished, leaving only him, and the blood beating through her veins. Oh, God, Patrick, Patrick...

  She felt his awareness also shift as camaraderie transmuted into man and woman. The sheer rightness of his touch made her want, for an instant, nothing more than to stay forever in his arms.

  Fear followed in the space of a heartbeat. Not the panic generated by her accident in the elevator shaft; more of a bone-deep anxiety that made her feel...unsafe. A need to be elsewhere before she lost her remaining wits.

  Determined not to humiliate herself by losing control this time, she detached from his embrace as if it had been only a casual hug. "You did it, Donovan, a perfect shot. It came down exactly the way you said it would. You've proved PDI is as good as ever."

  For an instant, his eyes mirrored the disorientation that she had felt. Then a young woman stuck her head in the trailer. "Mr. Donovan, would you come outside for an interview?"

  "Sure," he said. "Come on, Kate, you should be part of this, too."

  Before she could protest, Donovan had her outside with the wreckage of the Palace behind them and lights and microphones in their faces. A reporter barked, "What does it feel like to destroy a piece of Las Vegas history?"

  "Very humbling," Donovan said.

  A female reporter asked, "How much dynamite was used?"

  This time Kate replied. "Three hundred and thirty-one pounds."

  "So little to cause so much destruction," the newscaster said.

  "Eighty-five percent of a building is air," Donovan explained. "Our job was to convince the other fifteen percent that it no longer wanted to stand upright. Kind of like kicking a football player's legs out from under him."

  He glanced at Kate. Taking his cue, she said solemnly, "Gravity. Not just a good idea--it's the law."

  The reporters chuckled. Then one said, "Phoenix Demolition used to be considered the best in the world at explosive demolition, yet the company founder was just killed in one of your own blasts. How will that affect your business?"

  Kate felt as if she'd been sucker-punched, but she spoke up. "When the great aerialist families of the circus world have suffered tragic accidents, they continued with their work. My father would have wanted the same."

  The reporters hadn't made the connection that she was Sam's daughter. After an awkward pause, the female reporter asked, "Ms. Corsi, what's it like to a woman in the tough world of demolition?"

  "Not much different than when I did construction as an architect. But with demolition, I get paid for the privilege of knocking things down with a big bang."

  There was more laughter, and the press conference broke up. After the cameras and reporters had left, Kate released her breath. "Does that happen after every shot?"

  Donovan nodded. "Pretty often. Frankly, I prefer taking down oil drilling platforms, alone on the sea."

  "That might be your preference, but you're pretty smooth with the media."

  "Goes with the territory. Speaking of which, you did well. Very well. Join me for a closer look at the wreckage?"

  Kate nodded, and they headed across the site. Dust was still settling in a thick layer, and there was activity everywhere as spectators scavenged souvenirs from the wreckage and the movie crew began packing to leave. The production designer called out, "Great job! It's going to look fa-a-a-bulous," before returning to his work.

  The rubble had fallen into a huge mound of glass, concrete, and broken steel, but much of the roof was intact. The outside stairwell lay across like it like a violin bow. Kate said, "You're good, Donovan."

  "Damn good," he agreed. "We all are."

  After circling the site, they returned to the trailer, which was filling up with people for a post-shot party. Donovan was immediately cornered by Bull, while Kate literally ran into Jock Van Meeren, the seismologist who had been taking air-blast and vibration readings at PDI shots since Kate was a girl. "Hi, Jock, how's the seismograph? Are you all prepared if someone sues us for damaging their fish tank?"

  "I half wish someone would sue. I have all this great data showing how little disturbance PDI causes, and I never get a chance to testify about it."

  She laughed. "Forgive me if I don't share your taste for litigation."

  After a few minutes of catching up on news, she worked her way through the crowd to Carmen's desk, which had been turned into an impromptu bar. Kate was pouring herself a glass of wine when Berrigan boomed, "Come on back here, Kate. Got something to show you."

  In the developer's office Donovan was setting up his laptop to show the digital recording of the shoot. Berrigan clicked his remote, and the Palace crumbled once again.

  What had seemed like an endless wait was much swifter now, a catching of breath between the detonators going off and the pulverizing explosions that shattered the support columns. They viewed tapes shot at different angles, both in real time and slow motion, as Donovan and Berrigan analyzed the patterns of the drop.

  "A great job, Donovan," Berrigan said. "You can blow up my buildings any time you want." He winked at Kate. "And be sure to bring along Miss Corsi. A dynamite moll is almost as sexy as a biker babe."

  Carmen, who had drifted in, said, "Just don't forget that word 'almost'"

  Her husband put an arm around her waist. "Nothing is as sexy as a biker babe."

  Carmen glanced at Kate, and winked.

  Chapter 22

  Charles Hamilton had always thought of himself as having more than his share of willpower. He was a lawyer, a profession noted for calculation and detachment, and he'd managed to stay away from Julia for days. He hadn't even phoned.

  But his willpower snapped the evening he drove through Roland Park. A winter storm had struck in late afternoon, so he stayed at his office through rush hour to avoid the bumper-car traffic. Though conditions improved later, the Jones Falls Expressway was closed due to icing, so he took slower surface roads home. The route took him within two blocks of the Corsi house.

  Without conscious decision, he detoured, skidding a little on the narrow side street when he pulled up to the curb. The downstairs windows were golden with light. Julia was home.

  He sat with his hands on the steering wheel, knowing he should leave. She'd been distraught when she'd fled his house, and he understood why.

  But surely a friendship that had lasted for half a century couldn't have ended forever because of a few minutes of mutual madness. Since she was probably too embarrassed to break the ice between them, it was up to him to make the first move.

  He climbed from his Lincoln and went up the slippery walk to ring the bell. Then he held his breath, feeling as if he were sixteen again.

&nb
sp; The door swung open. Julia was there, wearing tailored navy slacks, a cool blue sweater, and a wary expression. "Charles. How...unexpected."

  Since she didn't slam the door in his face, he stepped inside. "I've been worried about you. I wanted to see how you were doing."

  "I'm fine."

  Oscar trotted up and pressed Charles's ankle. He ruffled the Sheltie's fur. "How are you doing, watch dog?"

  "He is definitely a lead-the-burglar-to-the-family-silver dog," Julia said as she went into the living room. "Would you like a drink?"

  "Please." He hesitated, wondering how to speak his piece without making a total ass of himself.

  He'd been an ass before and survived. "Julia, you were understandably upset by what happened between us, but maybe you need to think more about where you are in your life at the moment. What...what will help you through the worst of times."

  She turned from the drinks cabinet. "I don't quite follow you."

  "You're vulnerable and hurting. You need some human warmth to help you endure. Where better to find it than with an old friend?"

  Her aristocratic brows arched. "Are you saying that I should sleep with you for medicinal purposes?"

  Damn, he was making a hash of this! "I was talking about friendship, not sex," he said. "Though I'd be a liar if I pretended that I haven't been thinking about what happened that night."

  "I've been thinking, too." She set down the bottle of Scotch she'd taken out. "I've also been reading the books about widowhood and loss and grief that friends have given me. Apparently it's not uncommon for someone who has recently lost a spouse to...to seek comfort elsewhere, and to keep very quiet about it, for fear of what other people might say. Knowing that makes me feel less of a monster."

  "Never that, Julia."

  "After Barbara died--did you find another woman to help you through some of the bad spells?"

  "No, but that's probably because there were no women I cared about who were single and willing. There were times when I felt I was dying from the lack of human touch." He took one of her hands, warming it between both of his. "Let's be friends again, Julia. I'm not asking you for love or commitment or to be disloyal to Sam. Simply companionship. The sharing of doubts and fears. Shelter from the storm, for both of us."