Lone Wolf

by Sara Driscoll

  To outsiders, rescue efforts at disaster sites always looked like chaos run amok. But to the experienced, there was order and hierarchy in the chaos. Even while weaving through fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances, Meg tried to locate the emergency operations center. She found it set up at the edge of the Mall, across the street from the Whitten Building. The District of Columbia Emergency Management Agency must have made it across the Potomac from their home base in the Barry Farm neighborhood in less time than the crow flies. Sturdy, portable tables were set up under the shade trees, with large building maps spread wide over them and men and women huddled around in groups. Meg spotted Craig, with his dark hair and craggy face, in his FBI windbreaker speaking to one of the local district fire chiefs. She headed toward him.

  Craig glanced up from the map, relief fractionally relaxing the deep lines of concern around his eyes. “Good, you’re here. Chief Campbell, this is Meg Jennings and Hawk, one of the search and rescue teams in the Forensic Canine Unit.”

  They shook hands. “What’s the status?” Meg asked. “Can we get in right away?”

  “Fire’s extinguished.” Chief Campbell studied the building from under the rim of his battered white helmet. “The blast took out some of the sprinkler systems in the building, allowing the fire to take hold, but we have it under control now.”

  “Is the building evacuated?”

  “Of anyone who can walk. We got a dozen or more out while we extinguished the fire, but we know there are more inside. We’ve had cell phone calls from people trapped here”—he tapped a spot on the first-floor map with a heavy, gloved finger—“and here on the second floor. And no one has been able to reach the secretary of Agriculture.”

  “You know for sure he was inside the building?” Craig asked.

  “He was. And the president knows it too. His chief of staff is breathing down Emergency Response’s neck right now, looking for answers.”

  “Because if the secretary is dead, it’s more important to the president than a bunch of dead kids?” The words slipped out before Meg could stop them, but one look at the furrow deepening Craig’s brow told her she’d gone too far. She held up a hand to stave off a well-deserved rebuke. “And that wasn’t fair. Sorry. I hate cases with kids. They never bring out the best in me. Do we know what happened here?”

  “We’ve had reports of a drone flying over the Mall. Several people saw it go up over the Whitten Building ten or fifteen seconds before the explosion.”

  “A drone?” Turning, Meg considered the Washington Monument, the top of which speared majestically into the blue sky above the trees of the Mall. “Those things aren’t legal inside DC’s no-fly zone. Why the hell wasn’t it taken down?”

  “There are snipers on the roof of the White House, but they’re not stationed out here on the Mall. Even if it was reported, there’d be no time to stop it. Not that most people would assume it was dangerous. They’d think it was just a stunt or someone shooting video footage.”

  Meg glanced toward the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles clustered around the Whitten Building. “Couldn’t be farther from the truth. The drone delivered a bomb?”

  “No one got that good a look at it, but that’s our current theory,” Campbell said. He outlined a wide rectangle on the map’s ground floor. “This ground floor courtyard is surrounded by a balcony on the second floor. Overhead is a huge skylight, and the third to fifth floors of the building encircle the courtyard outside the skylight. We think the drone flew in from the top of the courtyard and either landed on the skylight or hovered just above it. When the bomb detonated, it shattered the skylight, brought down most of the balcony, and took out the offices lining the courtyard. It was damned ingenious. Central delivery for the most damage possible. The outside walls of the Whitten Building are solid white marble, but that inner courtyard was never meant to be seen by the public. It was just brick, which doesn’t have nearly the same structural integrity. And there were a lot of windows. We’re seeing significant glass-related injuries from in the offices surrounding the blast site.”

  “Deaths?”

  Campbell’s jaw hardened and he nodded curtly.

  Shrugging off her backpack, Meg knelt beside her dog. After a moment of rooting inside the bag, she pulled out four mesh and leather dog boots with sturdy rubber soles. They only used Hawk’s boots for the worst of scenes, when he was at greatest risk of injury, and this scene certainly qualified. Hawk lifted one foot at a time, allowing her to easily slip on the boot and Velcro it securely into place. “Where do you need us?” Meg asked, glancing upward.

  “The courtyard, where the worst structural damage is. We know some people are trapped there, and we’re already going after them.”

  She pulled her gloves out of her hard hat and jammed it firmly on her head. “What radio channel do you want me on?”

  “Twelve.”

  “Will do.” She started to step away, but Craig caught her arm. Her eyes rose questioningly to his.

  “The courtyard. We’re getting reports that’s where some of the kids were on their tour when the bomb went off. They were on the second-floor balcony or on the courtyard floor when it collapsed. They’re fifth graders, Meg. Maybe nine or ten years old. They’re going to be hurt and they’re going to be scared. Bring home the ones you can.”

  His message was clear—some of the kids might be dead. If she found any, she was to move on. Concentrate on the living. “Got it.” Meg pulled on her gloves and squared her shoulders. As well prepared as she might try to be, she suspected there was no way to prepare for this. “We’re going in. Hawk, heel.”

  Tuesday, April 11, 4:34 PM

  Washington, DC

  It was like going through the gates of Hell.

  The shock wave accompanying the explosion had blown out the glass-paneled front doors. Shards of glass were scattered over the front sidewalk and spilled into the front parking lot, now full of ladder trucks, snaking fire hoses, and lakes of water. Smoke continued to roll through the arched doorways of the three entrances, set deeply into the heavy stone of the ground floor.

  Rising majestically to the fifth floor, twelve tower-ing Corinthian columns skimmed the classic Beaux Arts building, framing rows of windows, now shattered, cracked, or opaque with smoke and grime. The deeply etched words DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE were carved above the portico.

  Meg unsnapped Hawk’s leash, coiled and stuffed it into one of the many pockets in her coveralls. After taking one last big breath of relatively clean air, she stepped through the center door and into a dim foyer leading directly to the center courtyard. In the distance, from deep within the building, came the shouts and reverberating crashes of a full rescue in progress. “Hawk, with me.” Hawk fell into step at her side, stepping around the largest chunks of detritus.

  They crossed the foyer, daylight receding as they moved into the building. As in any fire scene, all power to the building was cut, so the only light poured in from outside and was quickly snuffed out in the dark corners of the lobby. This peripheral area of the building wasn’t in bad shape, as it was protected from the worst of the centralized blast by the bulk of the structure. Deeper inside, more and more debris littered the ground, hampering their progress. Papers had blown in from surrounding offices, concrete and brick dust coated every surface, and a crumpled wedding photo lay half buried in crushed plaster, one corner missing, as if ripped from its frame before coming to rest here.

  The light grew stronger as they approached the courtyard, and then they were standing in the doorway, staring into a war zone. Time wound down to a stop, finally holding motionless as Meg’s breath caught in her lungs.

  Above their heads, daylight streamed in through the skeleton of the shattered skylight. Originally covering nearly the entire length and breadth of the courtyard as a series of small square panes embedded in larger panels, now only the edges of the skylight still held misshapen fragments of glass. The middle of the span was simply empty air, rent by the tangled st
eel trusses that once supported the weight of the arched glass. The brickwork of the inner walls had fractured and crumbled to litter the ground, rising in piles toward the outer edges of the courtyard. Sections of balcony still jutted from the wall, mere inches that wouldn’t have been enough to prevent a child from dropping into the abyss.

  The remains of a Grecian fountain still dominated the center of the room, but the tiered, scalloped bowls had toppled to the floor in shattered fragments. Water leaked from the cracked basins and ran in rivulets over the floor, washing the dust of destruction from shiny marble. Scraps of material, some bright, some charred black and crumbled, littered the floor or mixed with chunks of brick and concrete. In some long-disused portion of her brain, Meg recognized tattered sections of the state flags she’d learned in elementary school.

  With a gasping indrawn breath, time abruptly snapped back, marching forward once again. All around were the shouts of the firemen—“Fire department! Call out!”—the sounds of power tools, moans of the injured, and weak cries of those still trapped. Meg bent down to meet Hawk’s eyes. “Hawk, find them.”

  Hawk jumped into action, climbing the piles of rubble, his nose down, every inch beneath his feet sniffed before moving on with agility and sureness. Meg struggled behind him, acrid smoke rising from the wreckage in dark wisps to choke her. The air was filled with a particulate haze that coated the lungs and covered her teeth with grit. She thought of the mask in her pack, the one all first responders were supposed to wear in the post-9/11 era. Then she looked down at Hawk, unprotected in the environment. What was good enough for her dog was good enough for her.

  Hawk was only four or five feet up the pile when he gave a whine and suddenly swerved left, pushing his nose frantically against ragged pieces of brick and chunks of plaster. Awkwardly balanced on the pile, he lowered his haunches in a half sit.

  Meg clambered up behind him. “Good boy. Let me see.” Grabbing a large chunk, she started lifting pieces out of the way as fast as she could. She nearly shrieked when a hand shot from under a section of wooden flooring to grab her wrist. “Hang on, we have you. Hang on.” Turning to glance backward, she yelled, “I need some help here.”

  Two firefighters across the courtyard dropped the hoses they carried and ran toward her. Meg slid backward and watched them make quick work of the debris, carefully extracting a rail-thin boy. He was covered in dust and blood, and cradled his arm against his chest, struggling not to cry as the firefighters did their best not to jostle him.

  “Wait.” The boy’s voice was a rough rasp, but carried enough urgency that the men froze. He reached out with his good arm and lightly grasped Hawk’s fur. “What’s his name?”

  Meg knelt down near the boy. “Hawk.”

  Hawk, hearing his name, moved closer to the boy, who tipped his head against the dog’s neck. Meg only heard the barest thread of his whispered “thank you” before the men carried him away.

  Pulling off a glove, Meg ran a hand over Hawk’s head. “Good boy, Hawk. Find them.” She tugged her glove back on and their search continued.

  Over the next hours, they found five more victims—three injured children and two women, one injured, and one dead—a blessing perhaps considering the extent of the burns on her body. One boy was in critical condition. The rescued woman, the children’s teacher, was nearly hysterical when they pulled her free, asking about each child by name.

  They’d been at it for nearly nine hours when they found a victim close to the west wall, near the World War I Memorial. Hawk alerted as usual, but then gave a frantic whine. The bottom fell out of Meg’s exhausted stomach. That kind of audible signal could only mean one thing: Hawk sensed a critical victim. So far they’d been lucky and the only fatalities had been adults, but they all knew the longer the search went on, the higher the chances of losing a child.

  Getting to the victim was not going to be easy. Close to the epicenter of the blast, large portions of structural steel had been ripped away when the balcony collapsed, and the bricks and rubble were trapped under and woven through dense sections of twisted metal.

  Meg started digging while simultaneously calling for help. At the sound of heavy boots behind her, she looked up to meet the dark eyes of a firefighter who’d helped her several times already that day. Because they’d crossed paths a few times, she’d taken note of the name on the back of his turnout coat—Webb.

  “Let me get in there.” Not unkindly, Webb pushed past her, using his superior strength to lift larger pieces of debris out of the way.

  While he worked, Meg shifted back to avoid getting in his way. To her left, part of a marble memorial showed above the tangled steel, brick, and concrete. A navy sailor stood facing an army soldier, each carrying a rifle. Between the two men were listed the names of the dead lost during World War I. A beautiful work of art, carved of stark white marble, a meaningful memorial to those gone before. Now it was defaced with splatters of blood and tiny bits of charred tissue hurled by the force of the blast. The honorable memory of war marred by the dishonorable remnants of a warlike act. She turned back to Webb, unable to look at the memorial any longer.

  She frowned, studying Webb’s progress. This is taking too long. Turning toward the courtyard, Meg glanced around to see if anyone else could lend a hand. Brian and Lacey were taking a very quick break by the fountain, Lacey thirstily lapping water from the collapsible bowl Brian held for her. She finished and Brian stuffed the bowl into his bag. Turning, he caught Meg’s eye and gave her a nod before they climbed the pile against the south wall, Lacey already searching for the next victim.

  Across the room, a number of firefighters shored up one of the walls in an attempt to free at least one hidden victim. No one was free; time to lend a hand, whether Webb wanted it or not. A life could be in the balance.

  Trying to stay out of his way as he strained to move some of the larger chunks, Meg cleared some of the lighter pieces, constantly checking to see if they could get a visual on the victim. Between their efforts, in only a few minutes, they could look into the framework of metal beneath the rubble, light radiating from the portable rescue spotlights filtering through to illuminate the space below.

  Beneath them lay a girl, her huge eyes locked on them. Her face was covered with dust and grime, several tear tracks washing her pale skin clean.

  Meg leaned closer. “Sweetheart, we’re going to get you out. Are you hurt?”

  “My side.” The reply was weak and shaky.

  “Hold on.” Without looking away from the girl, Meg held out a hand to Webb. “Hand me your flashlight.” She waited while he pulled a flashlight from one of the pockets in his heavy pants and laid it across her palm. Flipping it on, she shone it down into the gloom, only allowing herself a brief moment to take in the crimson stain spread over the girl’s torso and the jagged edge of the metal support beam nearby covered in a dark gleam that could only be blood.

  She’s watching you. Don’t stare or you’ll scare her more. She forced her voice to stay steady and to calmly meet the girl’s eyes, even as adrenaline rushed like ice through her system. “Hang on, honey. You’re doing great. You’re going to be fine. Just hang on, we’re almost there.”

  Meg pulled back and turned to Webb, the harsh beam of the flashlight illuminating his face and highlighting the gold flecks in his brown eyes. “How’s your medical training?” She kept her voice low, so only he could hear her over the ambient noise.

  “Great. I’m dual-trained as a firefighter and EMS.” He matched her volume, his eyes narrowing on her face. “Bad?”

  She nodded. “I think so.”

  Webb took back the flashlight and leaned in. “Hi, honey, my name’s Todd. What’s yours?” His gaze slid from one end of the void to the other, taking in the girl’s condition.

  The girl’s weak voice floated up. “Jill.”

  “Okay, Jill. We’ve just got to figure a few things out up here, but we’ll have you out real soon.” He turned off the flashlight and pulled back. He
caught Meg’s arm, drawing her away from the opening.

  “What do you think?” Meg whispered.

  “She’s under a lot of debris.” He kept his tone low and even, but the flat press of his lips and his pinched forehead clearly conveyed his concern. “And she’s been sliced pretty badly by that support beam. The question is how deep the laceration goes and whether it’s hit any internal organs.”

  “If it has, could she bleed out before we get to her?” Meg’s attention jerked back to the gap at a painful keening from below.

  “It’s a possibility.” He pulled his radio off his belt and relayed the situation, then asked for additional men and several pieces of equipment.

  Still sitting near the opening, Hawk gave a whine. Meg touched his shoulder. “What’s wrong, boy?”

  Hawk pulled away to pace back and forth as well as he could over the uneven surface around the gap.

  “What’s wrong with your dog?”

  “He’s distressed that she’s hurting. He feels useless and wants to be down there.”

  “Could he get there?”

  “Could he—” Meg pulled back. Send Hawk down into the rubble? If he tried, it could be a disaster should he get stuck or the area collapsed. She and Hawk were bonded; if anything happened to him, it would be a devastating blow. To lose a dog through old age or illness was one thing, but to purposely send him to his possible death?

  Not again.

  Icy cold washed over her at the thought of losing her dog, and her fingers involuntarily rose to touch the necklace she always wore . . . except when working difficult recovery scenes. Her gloved fingertips touched only the flat cloth of her coveralls. In her mind’s eye she saw the necklace where she’d left it laid across her jewelry box—a flat glass pendant of electric blue and midnight black, interspersed with twining lines of powdery gray. It was a remembrance necklace, and only her family knew the secret of those lines—they were all she had left of her first K-9, Deuce. A glass artist had taken some of his ashes and made the keepsake for her so she always had a piece of him close.