Through the Fire by Shawn Grady

Author:Shawn Grady [Grady, Shawn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2009-06-30T20:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

27

T he next morning gave me all of five minutes at work before the tones went off. The dispatch printer etched in a frenzy.

“Battalion One . . .”

Here we go.

I pulled on my turnouts as Kat slid down the pole beside me. Butcher jogged across the app bay. Peyton slid the pole by the ladder truck’s tiller cab. A loud smack sounded off like pieces of wood clapped together. Peyton yelled, clutching his ankle on the floor.

“What happened?”

He winced, squeezing his eyes together. “Pole was wet. My foot slipped.”

Engine One growled to life. Butcher shouted out his window. “Let’s go.”

Sower saw Peyton lying on the floor. “We need a tillerman?”

Peyton stood, using the pole to pull himself up. He yelled even louder when he bore weight on his ankle. He cursed again.

Sower motioned to Butcher. “You guys go. I’ll take Aidan to tiller.”

“Go,” said Peyton. “I’m out, man. Go.”

Engine One drove off. In its empty bay, the Nederman exhaust tube swung like a giant dark elephant trunk. My eyes trailed to the buildings along the horizon and the dark column of smoke rising beyond.

My pulse sprinted.

Sower climbed into the captain’s seat of the ladder truck and threw his helmet on the dash.

I swung on my coat and climbed the ladder to the tiller cab.

Throwing on the headset, I wrapped my hands around the steering wheel.

“All set back there?” Donovan’s voice met my ears.

“Yeah.” I stepped on the floor ignition button to allow him to start the truck. Through the channel of the ladder bed I watched the tractor cab shudder.

“All right. Pulling out.” Donovan accelerated onto the apron.

“Whoa. We do got us a fire.”

Sower said, “You didn’t see that before?”

“No. The Cairo, right?”

“Yep, I’m pulling the preplan right now.”

The rig bounced into the street. Donovan cranked the cab right just as the tiller box cleared the app-bay door. I clung to the open cab door with one hand, and with the other I spun the tiller wheel left and then back to center, bringing the trailer in line with the tractor. A visceral blast of brisk air rushed past. The sound of tires on the dirt-littered road, the roaring transmission, and the wailing siren all tore through the air.

As a kid I’d always wanted to be an astronaut or a tillerman.

“Sixth floor, south side,” Sower said.

Donovan replied, “Copy that.”

We turned west and screamed down Fourth Street, air horn blasting across intersections. From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Christine’s car going north down a side street, a dark haired man sitting in the passenger seat.

Blake?

The radio clicked. I blinked and looked forward, turning the wheel just in time to follow the tractor into the hotel parking lot.

Butcher transmitted, “Battalion One, Engine One on scene, multistory high-rise, heavy smoke showing from the C and D sides of the building at the sixth floor. We do have occupants visible in the windows. Engine One will be heading to the fire floor.”

“Battalion One copy. Break. Truck One, Battalion One.”

Sower responded.

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