TONY: Slow Burn (Raging Fire Book 1)

by Kallypso Masters

  Tony shivered, not from cold, but from the memories he wanted desperately to put behind him. Rafe joined the BC at the board, added some detail, and diagrammed the apparatus that had been in place at the scene. When they were both in agreement with the layout, the BC asked Rafe to describe the scene.

  “By the time we made it to the victims, the water had risen another ten inches since our arrival on scene. After we got to the end of the ladder, Tony jumped onto the roof and was ready to get the woman into a PFD vest when a huge amount of large debris came toward the vehicle. We didn’t know at the time, but there had been a mudslide upriver on the slope that had burned in the wildfire a year ago this month. A large tree trunk slammed into the vehicle, sending Tony and the two victims into the water.” He paused and stared in Tony’s direction. “Tony disconnected himself from the safety rope in an attempt to grab them but wasn’t able to make contact.”

  A deafening silence filled the room. Tony maintained his focus on the whiteboard and Rafe turned to mark their positions in the water with different colored Xs.

  “First, what went right?” The battalion chief asked Brad, Michael, and Tony to chime in. Brad talked about the performance of the ladder truck and dealing with the challenge of finding level ground nearby. Luck had been on their side having the rest area parking lot free of vehicles.

  “We also had an extra pair of hands with Tony,” Michael said, “who wasn’t on duty Sunday but happened to be at the station when the call came in.”

  Some help he’d turned out to be.

  Tony remained quiet. A few more actual positives were tossed out, including that the EMS unit had just finished a call and was able to arrive on scene quickly. Tony had nothing to add.

  Then talk went to what could have gone better. “Maybe if we had upstream spotters warning us about debris coming?” Rafe suggested.

  While that would have helped, Tony finally had something to contribute. “I could have gotten the PFD to the mother sooner if I’d tossed it while Brad was setting up the ladder truck.”

  “They were too far out for any precision,” Rafe said. “And both her hands were busy holding on to the toddler.”

  “Maybe I could have reached them after they fell in if I’d had my fins on.”

  “Tony, do you believe you could have saved them by risking your own life?” the BC asked.

  Rafe glanced at Tony and interjected before Tony could respond. “I know it seemed like all they had to do was reach out to grab your hand, but she seemed to be in the first stages of hypothermia. All the strength she had left was expended holding on to her daughter.”

  Ignoring Rafe, Tony answered the BC directly. “Yes, sir.” He cleared the frog from his throat. “But you risk a lot to save a lot. I was within inches of them. I swam as hard as I could, but the current pulled them away faster than I could reach them.”

  The BC’s gaze bore into Tony until he squirmed in his seat. “What was going through your head when you were thrown into the water, Tony.”

  “I was the strongest swimmer in the swift-water training course we took in May. I should have been able to reach them. That’s why I pulled my quick release.”

  “You tried your best.”

  No. I failed to complete my mission.

  The BC continued. “Was your gear working? Did any of it fail?”

  “No. Everything worked perfectly.” Except me.

  “Would you do it that way again?” the BC asked.

  Given the same circumstances and conditions, would he? “Yes, sir.” This is why I became a firefighter—to save lives.

  The BC nodded, but didn’t pursue it any further. He moved on to the placement of the safety lines and their visibility. They discussed the benefits of changing from white rope or string to neon colors. While more visible, they didn’t know if it would have changed anything in this situation, though.

  “We might have had a more favorable outcome,” Rafe suggested, “if we had our own water-rescue team instead of relying on another county’s.”

  The BC agreed, but added, “Our county’s budget won’t support one. Not this year, anyway.”

  It always came down to money, but Tony couldn’t understand putting a price on lives that way.

  After they’d discussed more positives and negatives, the BC complimented them on their teamwork and professionalism and informed them they’d all be expected to attend the CISD scheduled to begin in an hour at town hall.

  There goes the rest of my day.

  The Critical Incident Stress Debriefing was similar to the AAR but included all first responders, SAR volunteers, and anyone else affected by the drownings in an attempt to make sure they were aware of counseling services available to them, among other matters.

  Tony had no intention of admitting to any signs of weakness around his colleagues. First responders dealt with death all the time without cracking up.

  After the AAR adjourned, Tony was about to leave the station to catch a little downtime before the CISD when Rafe called him into his office again.

  What now?

  Chapter Eight

  Inside the office, Tony sat down across from Rafe. “I just have one more thing to say that’s more from a brother’s perspective than from that of the lieutenant on the scene.” There was an awkward pause before Rafe leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk. “Watching you come off that safety rope took ten years off my life. The debris was hitting you from all sides, and I worried something might strike you in the neck or head and paralyze you—or worse.” Rafe leaned back and scrubbed his face before piercing him with a stern look. “If you ever put yourself in danger like that again, I’ll wring your neck.”

  Tony had always respected his oldest brother, but he called bullshit. “You know you’d have done the same thing if you thought there was any chance of saving them.”

  Rafe thought a moment then relaxed with a shrug. “Hard to say. Maybe.” He glanced away. “I guess a similar situation happened with me in a house fire where I didn’t give up the search fast enough after it had been called off.”

  “The time you fell through the floor?”

  Rafe nodded and returned his gaze to Tony. “I caught hell for it from my superiors too.” Rafe had spent several days in the hospital and many months doing PT to overcome his injuries from that incident. “Giving up when there are lives at stake—especially young ones like on Sunday—is the hardest thing we ever have to do in this job. But safety measures are in place to make sure we go home at night and are able to work our next shift to maybe make a difference on the next call.”

  “I hear you, as both a brother and a lieutenant.” Tony couldn’t stop there. “In that moment, though, I truly thought I could save them.”

  But I failed.

  “You wouldn’t be fit to be in this career if you didn’t care enough to try.” So Rafe wasn’t going to rip him a new one after all? Good. Tony was too tired to fight back. “Probably best Mama doesn’t find out what happened, though. You’re her baby, and she’d only worry unnecessarily.”

  Tony rolled his eyes at the baby remark. Angelina was the only baby in the family. But Tony was used to his big brothers treating him like one too.

  “Now, how are you sleeping? Any nightmares?”

  Tony’s own lieutenant had grilled him last night to make sure he hadn’t gone off the deep end. Tony shook his head.

  You have to sleep in order to have nightmares.

  “I’m fine. Stop worrying about me.” Tony stood, ready to make a hasty exit before his brother asked any more questions. “I’ll see you at town hall in a little while. I’m going to go grab some breakfast.”

  “Good idea. Get out of here.”

  Exiting the station, Tony made his way to the river bridge in the middle of town instead of to the diner. He wouldn’t be able to eat anyway and already would have to make a pretense of being hungry at Mama’s tonight. He stared down into the still-muddy river, feeling desolate, cold, and alone.

 
The swirling waters mesmerized him until he remembered this same river had claimed two lives on Sunday.

  Maybe three. Tony’s life would never be the same.

  But I’m alive. They aren’t. Big difference.

  Later that morning, the CISD dragged on for more than an hour but finally appeared to be winding down when Tony’s phone buzzed. He pulled it from his pocket as several others in the room reached for theirs as well. It was a text from SAR command reporting a search-and-rescue operation under way on Capitol Peak after two climbers had failed to return to base camp last night. Apparently, the call for volunteers had been extended to as far away as Aspen Corners and Fairchance, both nearly two hours away. He knew that mountain well, and it would take every available searcher to find them.

  Tony’s adrenaline pumped life back into him immediately. He needed to do something besides sit around and rehash what had happened Sunday. No, he needed a chance to redeem himself—to himself at least.

  The meeting quickly adjourned, and he gathered with members of his SAR team to see who planned on going. Tony offered to drive up with as many as three others who could be ready to leave within the half hour, but only Ryder accepted. The others would take their own transportation.

  They agreed to head home to pack their gear and meet again at the town hall in case anyone else wanted a ride. But no one was there when they returned.

  “Ready?” Ryder asked after Megan dropped him off with his gear.

  “You bet,” Tony said.

  He prayed they’d be the team to find the missing couple—alive this time. He needed a rescue today, not another goddamned recovery.

  Carm had been awake since before sunrise Wednesday to lead Nick, Shawana, and Joyce back up to the K2 peak where they wanted to practice rappelling on the North Face. There hadn’t been much use for ropes on the summits of K2 or Capitol yesterday, but today they intended to rappel down a steep section known to extreme skiers as The Plank. The best time to attempt a ski/rappel down this section of the slope had been weeks ago in early June, but some patches of snow and ice remained in shadowed areas far down the mountain so they could do a little of both.

  The remainder of the New York group planned to hang out at the campground enjoying a late, leisurely breakfast and a day of relaxation at the lake after the taxing climb yesterday. Most weren’t candidates for ropes yet anyway.

  The three had made their second rappel of the day when Carm heard a helicopter approaching from the direction of Aspen and looked down the mountain to watch it lower two people in flight suits to their campground near Capitol Lake. She recognized the yellow and orange helicopter as being from Aspen’s mountain rescue team.

  “What’s going on down there?” Shawana asked.

  “Looks like some kind of medical emergency. The search-and-rescue operation appears to be getting ready to use the campground as a staging area.”

  Worried about the others she’d left at camp, Carm pulled out her satellite phone to call Roger at camp and soon learned what had happened.

  “Two climbers were reported missing from the camp this morning.”

  Carm had a sinking feeling she knew exactly who they were concerned about. “Can you describe them?”

  “Remember that man and woman you were worried about yesterday who took a shortcut?”

  Crap. I should have been more forceful in my warning to them.

  “Yeah.” Carm glanced back up at K2 and Capitol and tried to determine where they might have ventured off the standard trail. It couldn’t be too far from where she was now. Their small backpacks couldn’t have carried rappelling equipment; they were woefully unprepared for the treachery of a night on this side of the mountain.

  Nick came closer as Carm disconnected the call. “We don’t have any medical training, but can we help with the search?” He’d obviously overheard the conversation.

  “I have advanced first-aid certification,” Carm said. That could be beneficial until the first responders could get to them, if they could locate the climbers. “Let’s try.”

  First, Carm called out and waited to hear if anyone responded. Nothing, although the howling winds probably would have carried off their voices even if the two were nearby.

  If they were just above or below them, wouldn’t the lost climbers have heard the four of them rappelling and called out for help? What if they were unconscious? Carm couldn’t rule out the possibility that they might be at the same elevation and merely farther away than her voice could carry, either.

  Surveying their location, she decided it might be best if they did a horizontal search before descending any farther down the slope. She hadn’t brought climbing equipment because Nick had only expressed an interest in rappelling.

  By the time the victims realized they’d chosen a dangerous descent yesterday, it would have been too late for them to climb up again without the proper equipment. Carm hoped they’d found shelter of some kind and that they’d brought food and water with them. Not to mention thermal protection.

  She prayed someone would reach the couple before it was too late. Exposure to the elements for another night would be devastating, assuming they’d survived last night’s temps in the forties and any injuries one or both might have sustained that had kept them from returning to camp.

  “Let’s hike a few hundred yards in that direction and look for any signs of them. But first, let me call in our position so other search teams can focus elsewhere.”

  After a quick call to the rescue squad’s dispatcher, identifying herself and her credentials, the three set out. It was a laborious effort. The steepness of the slope forced them to anchor themselves by ropes to boulders in several precarious sections. Carm continually scanned the gray rocks surrounding them while being careful to warn the others of potential missteps.

  She stopped often to call out to the missing climbers, but still received no response. When the rock beneath their feet became so loose that she feared raining debris down on the heads and bodies of the missing climbers, she called a halt.

  “Let’s rappel down to that section over there and continue searching a few hundred feet down the mountain.”

  “Sounds good,” Nick said with a nod.

  Here in the shadow of other slopes on the North Face, the snowpack was thicker and required them to put crampons on their boots to give themselves a solid foothold. Carm went down first to be the safety for the others. This section of packed snow and ice would make it possible to traverse the slopes without the need for ropes or the fear of dropping debris onto anyone below, including SAR volunteers and first responders.

  Spreading out but staying within visual range, the others followed Carm’s lead. They were fifteen minutes into their search of this area when she heard a faint response to her call.

  “Help! Hurry!” Sounded like the man.

  “Nick! Shawana! I think we’ve found them!” Well, almost. She didn’t have visual yet but set out in the direction from which she’d heard the call for help. After a few more shouts back and forth to help her pinpoint their location, Carm slid down to where she found the couple tucked under an outcropping of rock. Using her hands to climb up a field of scree that had crumbled beneath the cliff, Carm moved in while Nick, Shawana, and Joyce approached from the other side of the outcropping.

  “Man, are we happy to see you,” the man said.

  “Same here,” Carm said. “A lot of people are out looking for you both.” Nick’s group soon joined them.

  The two climbers had been able to find refuge in an ice-free area, but Carm worried about hypothermia. There wasn’t any sunlight to warm them under here, but thankfully, he and the woman were wrapped in mylar blankets.

  Carm didn’t know the condition of the silent woman, but she sat upright at least. Pulling out her satellite phone to report that the missing climbers had been found, she gave their GPS location.

  Looking in the direction of her companions, Carm said, “Can you share your water and snacks with him?” Kneeling n
ext to the woman, she tried to reassure her. “Help will be here soon. Do you have any injuries?”

  “I rolled my ankle when I fell over this ledge.”

  Carm pulled out water and energy bars to share with the woman and checked in with the dispatcher to see if there was anything she could do in the meantime to help.

  Soon after the Black Hawk had lowered Tony, Ryder, and other SAR workers and first responders to their search sector about four hundred feet above Capitol Lake, the nearby campground had quickly become their staging area in the search for the missing two.

  He didn’t like the look of the ominous clouds off to the west and hoped any rain—or worse, lightning—would hold off until they completed their mission. Being on a mountainside in a thunderstorm would definitely complicate matters.

  Staying about fifty feet apart as they climbed and searched, surely one of them would see or hear something if the couple was in this sector. The terrain became more rugged as they climbed, but not enough to require ropes yet. The rock gradually became brittle and loose, making it more difficult to gain traction. They’d begun scoping out their first belay line when a report came through on the sat phone that the climbers had been found by some mountaineers in the area above them.

  Thanks to their extensive training in climbing and rope rescue, Tony and Ryder ascended quickly. Dispatch reported that one victim might have a broken ankle or leg. Good thing he’d packed splints, just in case.

  As Tony scrambled over the lip of a shelf, someone shouted. “We’re over here!” The voice sounded oddly familiar, but he couldn’t place it. Of course, this wasn’t his usual SAR response area, either.