by PT Reade
I tested the handle and found it stuck, or locked. Either way, the boot was going to gain me access once more. I stepped back near the stairwell railing and braced myself, but a screeching from above pulled my attention, I looked up. An entire section of ceiling fell free from the top floor. It crashed down the center of the stairwell, burning as it fell.
I dived to the floor as the flaming debris flashed past my shoulder and plummeted through the stairwell, taking with it the steps I’d been standing on only moments before. It smashed into the basement level three floors below.
The whole goddam building was coming down.
Perfect. If I’m not immolated, I’ll be crushed to death.
Climbing to my feet, coughing to clear the soot and debris from my clogged lungs and not wanting to waste any more time in the flaming death trap, I kicked the door hard. The first kick did little beyond jarring my head and sending a spike of pain up my spine. The second, however, buckled the frame of the door, opening a gap two feet wide.
Pressing my back against the jamb, I edged sideways through the narrow crack, wishing I’d spent more time working out and less time drinking.
Regret was another of my close friends, but right now it wasn’t going to help.
I slid into the central office of what looked like the Homicide department and scanned the smoke-filled room beyond. Luckily this had been one of the first places evacuated. It was a long open-plan space with glass dividers and desks lumped together in groups of four. Most of the glass had shattered and now coated the floor in jagged diamonds. A hazy pall filled the air, and if I breathed too much, I would end up just as dead as the poor bastards caught in the blast outside. For the second time that day, I raised an arm and breathed, open-mouthed, through my sleeve.
The far corner was burning, the section nearest to the south side of the building. At the moment, the fire was restricted to a couple of desks, with small flames licking across the paperwork, but that could change in a heartbeat. I coughed as acrid smoke filled my lungs. Instinctively I ducked lower and briefly felt the cleaner air. With no time to be careful, I freed my Glock and squeezed the trigger three times, shattering the windows. Glass pellets showered the street beyond. In the long run, the fresh air would help the fire consume more of the building, but for now, I needed to clear the smoke and me winding up a pile of ash for some poor city cleaner wasn’t going to help anyone. Least of all, me.
Earlier, Rey had told me either Detective Harper or Detective Kim would be the ones with the Teach files, and more importantly the evidence. Dashing forward I scanned the name tags on the desks. Black soot stains and murky swirls covered most of the once-pristine walls and furniture, but as I ducked between the counters and took in the names, I couldn’t find anything pointing me to Harper or Kim’s desks.
I checked the second cluster of desks and the third. Nothing.
I reached the penultimate bank, the last of the ones not on fire and scanned the names.
Ramirez, Holtz, Baker, Smith … no Harper or Kim.
Damn it, where were these guys?
The final desks filled the corner. They were going up like kindling, fire now spreading to the chairs and filing cabinets nearby. These last desks must have belonged to the men I needed.
Of course. What else?
I spied a used fire extinguisher on the floor, but it was entirely spent, no use to me. My eyes settled on a strange sight—reflections of the fire dancing in waves against the wall. Tracking it back, I spotted a small fish tank on a filing cabinet. One of the detectives must have brought it in to liven up the place, most likely against regulations.
Now the little critter floated on the surface, apparently dead. His sacrifice could be my salvation though. I dashed over to the tank and heaved it into both arms. My lungs fought to cough again, but I battled the sensation down and shuffled as close as I could get to the desks in the corner. The flames were growing. Heat burned my face. With a final heave, I threw the tank across the desks, shattering the glass and covering it all in water.
Water turned to hissing steam and doused the flames, at least temporarily. Relief hit when I found that the blackened surface was just that, superficial. A name tag, partially burned, read ‘Kim.'
Bingo.
Most of the desktops were ruined, either by the flames themselves or the smoke filling the room, but, like any overly busy cop, Detective Kim was horrendously disorganized. Files and papers lay strewn around the desk, cardboard storage boxes sat haphazardly underneath and even the drawers beneath seemed to be filled to the brim with paperwork.
Some might think the evacuation caused such chaos, but the truth is, cops worldwide hate paperwork, and some handle it better than others.
For a case as high profile as Teach, I assumed the files would be in plain view. I coughed into my sleeve and shuffled through the documents. Arrest records, warrants, lunch orders. Everything but the file I needed.
I tore open the drawers beneath the desk and yanked my hand back as the hot metal burned my fingers.
“Son of a bitch!”
Using a discarded stapler, I levered the drawer open and pulled the contents free. More warrants and lots of forms I didn’t recognize. I was about to give up and start searching his partner’s desk when the top tab of one document caught my eye. ‘Teach, R.’
Tugging it free, I spotted a post-it note, fixed to the cover. The note read EV-10.55.8891.
I didn’t have time to read through the file, unless I wanted to turn into a barbeque. But I knew what the note meant. There was an essential item in the evidence locker, relating to the investigation.
The holdall.
Rey had told me they found some luggage on Teach when he was arrested. The evidence inside was the entire reason I had come back to New York. With the contents of the bag, I could find out more about the man I was tracking.
Folding Teach’s record lengthways, I stuffed it into my back pocket and secured it as tightly as I could. Glancing back, the exit called to me. The room was filling with smoke again, and the heat was climbing. Sweat soaked through my clothing, and my head swam.
It would be even more stupid to stay any longer.
I looked ahead, to the other end of the Homicide Department and the single sign pointing to the main building marked ‘EVIDENCE.’
It wouldn’t take long for the fire to consume everything; even the sturdy evidence locker would eventually crumble, destroying everything inside. If I wanted any chance of finding Teach, I had to get that bag.
I crouched once more, dropped to my hands and knees below the smoke and pushed forward.
EIGHT
As a beat officer and then detective in the NYPD for over ten years, I had seen enough to put people off policing for life. Mutilated bodies, industrial accidents, even kids with their lives cut brutally short, but the moment I stepped from Homicide onto the first-floor walkway and looked down into the main lobby of the 10th Precinct Station, it sucked the breath from me.
If there was ever a vision of hell, this was it. The entire space was burning floor to ceiling. Sections of the wall had crumbled, exposing the guts of the structure. Holes punched through from the outside made it look as though someone had taken a Howitzer to the building. Overhead, the modern designs and decorations had gone up like kindling. The sprinklers should have kicked in at the first sign of smoke, but the bomb must have damaged the mechanism in the basement. Instead, a single trickle of water dripped from an overhead pipe, doing nothing to hold back the inferno.
Exposed plastics and fiberglass paneling was melting away, dripping into the central firestorm below, remnants from the third floor where construction had not been finished.
I jumped back when an office window shattered, seemingly of its own accord mere feet from where I was standing.
Jesus.
I focused on the job at hand. Access the evidence locker, find Teach’s bag and get the hell out of the place.
My memory was hazy, as it often is, but I reca
lled seeing the vault in the back of the building—directly across from where I now stood. As if the inferno heard my thoughts, another massive section of ceiling fell with a crash, sending burning debris everywhere and a tremble through the building.
As I recovered my balance, my eyes turned to the route head. The ceiling collapse had destroyed most of the first-floor walkway. Now only one metal I-beam lay in place between me and the room I needed. About the width of my arm, the strut was silhouetted dark against the flames below. I looked around, searching for another route, but found none. It would be tight, and there was no safety net.
For my next trick, a tightrope walk over a fiery death pit.
Just perfect.
The smoke was building and behind me, another crash shook the floor. Going forward was my only hope. I tentatively put a foot on the metal beam. It seemed robust, warm through my shoes, but not too hot. It would do.
One foot in front of the other I began my steady movement forward, throwing out my arms for balance. I fought off the growing nausea, the headache and tried to focus. One wrong move and I would fall twenty feet into the hell below.
I wobbled as another section of the building trembled somewhere out of sight. The gap was ten feet, now nine, eight. Not far, but a chasm given the circumstances.
As I closed to the other side, I almost had a foot on the landing when the phone in my pocket rang.
Shit.
My foot slipped, and I waved my arms. Only a last-ditch shift of weight saved me from a tumble. I glanced down. One beam of metal lay between me and barbeque status. Hell, give me a bullet in the head over a slow roast on a spit any day of the week.
Shaking off that thought, I made the final step and dropped onto the other side and caught my breath.
Thank God. My pulse slowed, but the sweat on my forehead continued to drip soot and salty perspiration into my eyes, stinging, burning.
The phone call had come from my personal cell—it could wait. I turned my attention to the heavy door ahead of me, labeled merely EVIDENCE. It was the grey-green of a turbulent ocean, while the dimpled texture told me the construction was solid metal. At least six inches thick. It would be one of the last places to crumble in the station.
Next to the door, a blackened metal keypad sat silently. It wasn’t a fancy fingerprint scanner or some kind of retinal identification system. Just good old-fashioned numbers and hardware.
Knowing the NYPD as I did, the first combination I tried was 12345. The keypad blinked red. No entry.
00000
Nothing.
The fire was growing closer now. The beam of metal I used to get over to this side of the mezzanine was covered with flame. There was no going back that way.
Think.
91191
Red light. No entry.
The keys were black and smudged now. Hard to see.
My lungs burned as acrid fumes filled them and I coughed once more. This time I couldn’t shake it, and my eyes began to water. I doubled over, trying to clear the toxic fumes from my chest. Not much time. The whole area was fading fast.
Area…
Praying the new Police Station came under the same zip code as the old, familiar one. I punched in the numbers: 10011.
The keypad blinked green, and a heavy thud reverberated through the metal as the evidence door, popped open a crack. A sudden whoosh of fresh air flooded from within across my face and, for a moment, it felt like heaven.
After heaving the door open fully, I stepped into the dark space and palmed the light switch on the wall. Only one of the lights came on, a flickering strip light that bathed the enclosure in an eerie acid yellow.
Primarily an eight by ten reinforced closet, the evidence locker was a secure holding space for items seized in crimes. They were boxed or bagged, and carefully labeled, so as I walked down the shelves I searched high and low for the items I needed.
Finally, it stood out. Nestled in a dark corner, almost invisible in the dim light, sat the box with all the answers I’d risked my life to reach. EV-10.55.8891.
The belongings of the man who killed my family.
NINE
A part of me deep inside—the part filled with rage and grief—wanted to tear open the box right then and pull everything of this man’s life apart. Like the act of ripping his belongings to pieces would rend the man himself asunder. But time was not on my side, and chasing anger had gotten me nowhere. Instead, I opened the lid, grabbed each of the carefully labeled and tagged items in their individual plastic bags and stuffed the lot into the biggest item in the box—Roland Teach’s holdall. It was large enough to carry everything but small enough to move easily.
With the bag full and the evidence firmly secured inside, I swung the holdall over my shoulder and hung it from my back. It was heavier than expected, and I staggered until my body adjusted to the weight.
I heaved open the door to the locker and stepped back into the furnace. My choices were disappearing by the second. The beam I had used that would lead me back to the fire exit was now engulfed in flame and debris. The stairs down to the main lobby were even worse. They had disappeared completely—collapsed under the burning building.
With no other options, I shoulder-barged into the only door available, the one next to the evidence locker, and burst into the room. Flames licked the window at the far end. Toppled chairs were arranged in staggered rows, and a display screen lay shattered and broken on the floor.
A briefing room.
The flames at the far end were already splintering the glass. The window was blackened, and besides, it was the first floor. The door I came in led only to the flames, which left one door at the western wall.
I stepped forward, the weight of the bag slowing me down, but there was no way I’d leave it behind. Not after coming so far.
I reached for the door handle, then paused and stepped back.
Something wrong.
The heat was building and smoke sucking beneath the door in silver trails. Only the creeping sensation in my gut saved me. I dived backward, to the floor as the door crumbled from its hinges and flames exploded into the room and flashed across the ceiling.
I crawled on all fours as a gout of flame filled half the room. Stumbling to a crouch, my mind spun. The door was gone, and a few more seconds I’d suffer the same fate.
Panicking, I scrambled to my feet and pushed against the furthest walls away from the fire, seeing if I could break through, but ironically these seemed to be the one part of the station still strong enough to resist. Besides, there was no guarantee the flames hadn’t reached the other side.
I scanned for another exit, but there was none.
Shit.
My pulse quickened. Panic clawing at my mind. The heat was unbearable. Sweat stung my eyes.
I glanced over a shoulder. Only one option. The window was already in bad shape. The blast had cracked the glass, and the frame had seen better days.
I scrambled closer and heaved the window open as much as I could, but it wouldn’t open fully—mere inches. Peering down into the alleyway below the options weren’t great, but better than roasting alive.
I stepped back ready, freed my gun and fired three shots. Two into the glass, one into the frame. The window splinted more but didn’t break entirely. I was about to reload my gun when a creeping sensation rose beneath me. The world was shifting. The heat from below was growing fast now, and the floor, it was moving, crumbling. First, the corner of the room disappeared, dragging a desk and chairs down as flames rose from beneath and then the cracks spidered outward, heading straight toward me.
Go!
I sprinted across the room and using the last of my strength, threw myself at the damaged window. My foot lifted just as the last of the floor collapsed beneath me. I crashed into the window with my shoulders and back taking the impact and gasped as it gave way under me.
Eyes shut, my senses spun. I fell for what seemed like an eternity.
The ground rushed up to
meet me, but the dumpster got there first. I crashed into the garbage bags as the impact forced the breath from my lungs. Pain exploded in my chest, and my head turned inside out.
It hurt like hell, but not as much as the concrete would have done. For a moment, I lay still, wanting more than anything to sleep. To wake up somewhere else and realize that it was all a dream.
A massive crash from inside the building forced me to open my eyes. A ball of fire rolled skyward from the window I had just exited. Taking it as my cue, I slowly heaved myself out of the dumpster and rolled over the lip into the alleyway. My head pounded, hands and arms covered in cuts and bruises, while my ankle resisted any weight.
Blackened from the fire, lungs half full of smoke and with a spinning head, I was a wreck. But the bag slung over my shoulders was my prize, and I prayed it had been worth it.
TEN
I don’t remember much about my journey out of the blast zone. The building was crumbling behind me, and my escape was nothing short of miraculous. Beyond that, I simply put one foot in front of the other until an ambulance crew discovered me shuffling around in the smoke.
Someone had propped me up on a bed in a makeshift triage tent, a block away from the bomb blast. It had been hastily erected to handle the casualties, both at the police station and the damaged post office next door.
An EMT briefly looked me over. I guess I looked pretty bad, covered in smoke and dust and sporting an unhealthy collection of injuries. She applied a dressing to the top of my forehead where the gash had initially been and treated some of my minor cuts and bruises with similar bandages, before giving me a quick scan and deciding she had more critical patients to deal with.
I took it as a good sign. It seemed as though I wasn’t about to meet my maker just yet. My injuries were painful but not debilitating.
Some of the other folks around me weren’t so lucky. I propped myself up and looked across the tent to a man crying in the corner. Two doctors worked on him, but the twist of his leg was worrying. In the bed, directly across from me, a woman groaned with a weak, sickly cry and clutched her chest. The elderly gent next to her was gray and still.