Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

COUNTDOWN TO ZERO HOUR 14 HOURS AND 21 MINUTES

THE HOT, ROILING fire billowed in a rush through the van and out the open door as the flames engulfed everything—and everyone—in its path. The firefighters stumbled backward in the fire flash, hands instinctively raised to protect themselves—but Dani rushed forward.

“Connor!” she screamed, not needing the megaphone. The flames receded as quickly as they’d come. The smoke mushrooming up from around the van cleared. She prayed the flash was over fast enough not to burn him, like snuffing out a candle with your fingers, when from somewhere in there, she could hear Connor coughing and crying.

The wind shifted and as the smoke blew out of the van, they saw the little boy sitting on the floor with his knees to his chest, his back against the far side of the van, his body shielded by the seat and car seat. He wailed but appeared to be physically unharmed. Dani called his name, telling him it was going to be okay, that the fire was gone. But the child was inconsolable.

By now he knew better. The fire wasn’t gone. And they didn’t know if he would be okay.

“Look,” Levon said. “We need to get creative, fast—”

But just then, a loud noise downriver got their attention. They turned, and coming upstream was a Waketa Police Department patrol boat.

Carla pulled the hazmat suit out of the bag with a shake, slipped one foot in, then the next, careful not to rip the plastic material. Marion watched her, arms crossed.

“I’m sure he’ll—”

“Well, I’m not sure,” Carla shot back, cutting Marion off. “We went through this. I’m not sure Matt will do anything reasonable.”

“It’s not safe out there.”

Carla stopped zipping up to stare at Marion. “Why do you think I’m going after him?”

“Then I’ll go,” Marion said, reaching for his own suit.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Marion. Marion, stop—” She grabbed his suit. “C’mon,” Carla said, her voice low enough that only he could hear. “We both know someone’s got to go after Matt. And we both know it should be me.”

Marion shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Exactly,” Carla said. “We don’t know where Dani and Levon are. We don’t know if they’re okay. So tell me: What happens to her if something happens to you too?”

Marion glanced at the bathroom, hearing Brianna flush the toilet inside.

“Well, what if something happens to you ?” he said.

“Then it’s tragic. But it’s just me. No one’s counting on us. It’s just Levon and me.”

Her voice cracked as she said it, and by the look on his face, she knew Marion heard. Carla looked away quickly. Marion went to say something, but before he could, the bathroom door opened, and Brianna came out to stand beside her granddaddy. Carla could smell the Irish Spring soap on her freshly washed hands.

Carla finally looked back to Marion, and Brianna watched the adults stare at each other. Finally, Marion laid his hazmat suit to the side and helped Carla into her gear. While Marion tightened the straps around her wrists and then her ankles, Brianna stood next to him watching Carla finish tucking her hair into the hood. Miss Carla looked down at the little girl and winked. Brianna tried to wink back, but it came out more like a blink. Carla chuckled.

All that was left was her mask at the top of the stairs, so Carla took a deep breath and turned to go—but Marion pulled her back and, taking her face in both hands, kissed her lightly on the top of the head.

Carla swallowed the lump in her throat, remembering the last time he’d done that. It was after her mother’s funeral, at the reception in the church’s basement. She’d been holding a paper plate full of small scoops of untouched potluck casseroles when she suddenly realized: This was it. Both her parents were dead. Her siblings had moved away. Levon was all she had left.

Marion had been watching her from across the basement and he came over, placed his rough, weathered hands on either side of her face, gently tipped her head forward, and kissed the top of her head with soft, warm lips.

Both times, then and now, it didn’t make the pain or fear go away. But it did make her aware of some inkling deep inside her, some quiet voice that was trying to get her to understand: You’re not alone. It’s going to be okay.

Carla took the steps two at a time. At the top, she reached for her mask—when a voice that wasn’t Marion’s or Brianna’s suddenly filled the bunker. Carla froze, trying to make out what the voice was saying, when Marion called out, “Carla! Wait!”

Steve stood alone in the hallway outside the decontamination zone stewing silently, more furious with his son than he’d ever been. What was Matt thinking? Hearing footsteps down the hall, he looked over as Ethan came around the corner.

“He’s in?” Ethan asked, pointing at the decontamination zone. Steve nodded. “Good. For what it’s worth,” Ethan continued, “we found the comms line to the bunker, and Matt was right. They’re there. And apparently, they’ve been trying to talk to us the whole time.”

Steve didn’t say anything, just grunted an acknowledgment. The tension was so palpable that Ethan felt bad for the kid, knowing the wrath he was—albeit deservingly—about to face. They stood there awkwardly for a bit, stuck together in the kind of moment even your best friend or brother might not know how to handle, let alone a coworker you barely knew. Finally, Ethan just walked away, but before he got to the corner, he turned.

“My grandpa tells this story of how one spring during planting, when he was a little boy, he was out in the field with his older brother, Roy. My grandpa was real young at the time. Six? Maybe not even that? And they’d stopped to adjust something with the seed drill—and somehow, Roy’s hand got caught in the seed drive. Blood is everywhere. My grandpa is crying. His big brother’s hurt bad and it’s a real nasty, real scary scene. So Roy tells his little brother to run back to the barn to get the tool they need to disassemble the part where his hand is stuck. So my grandpa says okay. Takes off for the barn. He’s running across the field, fast as he can, and he’s thinking about Roy. He’s thinking about his big brother and all that blood, and he’s scared. So halfway to the barn, he gets so worried—that he turns around and runs back to check on Roy and see if he’s okay.”

Steve couldn’t help himself and smiled. “Did they get his hand out?”

“Minus a few fingers, yes. He got in big trouble for that. My grandpa got in big, big trouble.” Ethan waited a few beats. “Kids make bad choices when they’re scared.”

“A few fingers aren’t the same as a nuclear meltdown.”

“Might not feel that way to him.”

The door opened and Matt came out, hair wet, wearing a Clover Hill sweatsuit that was way too big for him. Ethan left for the control room, his footsteps fading as he got farther away. Steve stared down at his son, who stared down at the floor. Steve waited to hear the control-room door close before he spoke.

“Look at me.”

Matt looked up reluctantly, withering under his father’s glare.

“What were you thinking, being out there?”

“Dad, I—”

“Look at me!”

Matt looked back up, and that stubbornness he got from his mother flashed in his eyes, and just for a second, it was like she was there. Keeping her husband in line, reminding him, Babe, he’s just a kid . And in that split second, Steve wasn’t mad about the bullshit stunt Matt had pulled. Because she was back.

But as fast as she came, she was gone.

Steve turned away and made for the other end of the hallway. Matt followed, trying to keep up with his dad’s long strides.

“You know how dangerous the plant is. You know this isn’t a place for messing around. And you come here today with your drone. You leave the people trying to keep you safe.”

“I’m sorry.”

Steve didn’t even turn around. “You are? Now you are? Well. You’re going to have to do better than that. Not here, not today. But you will do better than that. Do you understand?”

When Matt didn’t respond, Steve turned. Matt was halfway back down the hall, standing on tiptoes, peering through the glass panel in a door.

Steve knew what he was looking at, but he didn’t need to go down the hall to see for himself how much worse Vinny’s burns were. He could read the horror on his son’s face.

Watching his boy stand on tiptoes in adult clothes that were way too big, Steve thought Matt seemed once again like the kid he knew and not the preteen he barely understood. It broke his heart to witness more of his son’s innocence and joy ripped away by yet another trauma. He was a child. He wasn’t supposed to know suffering and pain and death as intimately as he did. It was so unfair.

If Claire were still alive, Matt wouldn’t be here, exposed to radiation and seeing things no one should have to see. Claire would have him safe with her. And she’d still be alive if she hadn’t gotten cancer. And she wouldn’t have gotten lung cancer if she hadn’t smoked—a habit he had gotten her into when they first started dating. A habit he was able to kick but she never was. Steve would always blame himself for her death, and now he was putting their only child in harm’s way too.

He didn’t know which was worse, the guilt or the grief, and most of the time they were indistinguishable from each other, just a daily, ever-present sensation that he was suffocating.

“Hey, bud,” Steve said, his voice a little gentler. “C’mon.”

The break room was empty when they went in. Steve set Matt up with a soda, a snack, the remote for the TV. Told him to stay there.

“Can I help?” Matt asked as his dad made for the door. “I want to do something.”

“Absolutely not,” Steve said. “Unless I come get you or a voice over the PA says to do something, you stay in this room and you do not leave. Do you understand me?”

Matt was back to staring at the floor. That had been colder than Steve wanted it to be, but he didn’t know how to express all the things he actually wanted to say. It came out hard because it was easy to be hard.

“I’ll check on you later,” Steve mumbled as he left, knowing he should go to the boy, be with him, be the comforting parent he needed. But with Matt, there was what Steve wanted to do and what he actually did. And every day, it felt like the space between those things was only growing wider.

The boat had seemed like a good idea at the time.

The firefighters knew they couldn’t reach Connor from the ground, and a helicopter rescue was still a ways out, if at all, so that left only one way to get to the boy: from the river. But as they stared down at the small-town police boat, they didn’t know what they had been thinking.

The fast-moving river tossed the small patrol boat around, its single outboard motor fighting a losing battle against the current. As soon as the vessel arrived, it was obvious that keeping the boat stationary would be nearly impossible. And what good would it do if they could?

“We bring a ladder down to the boat, extend it up, lean it against the van, pull him out,” Boggs said.

“With an unstable base? Nothing to anchor to on top?” Frankie shook his head. “No.”

“How deep is the river right there?” asked Boggs.

“Too deep for anchor,” Dani said.

“So we tie mooring lines to the bridge. Anchor the boat that way, then stick a ladder—”

“And anchor the ladder to what ?” said Levon. “We already know the van is unstable. All of it is. We don’t want to put any more stress on it. We mess with it too much, I’m worried the whole thing might collapse.”

“The van?” asked Boggs.

“No,” said Dani. “The bridge.”

Down on the water, the three policemen in the boat seemed to be having a similar conversation. Lots of pointing: the van, the bridge, the fire truck. Lots of heads shaking: No, that won’t work . A bright orange life vest similar to the one everyone in the boat was wearing dangled from one of the cop’s arms.

“What if the kid jumps?”

The firefighters turned to Frankie.

“There’s no way we could get him to jump,” Levon said. “And even if we did, then what? Freezing water. Fast current. Seriously, then what?”

“The boat goes after him. Gets him out. Gets him dry.”

Boggs was skeptical. “What happens if they can’t get him in time?”

“They will,” said Frankie.

“Say they don’t. Say he goes under. Doesn’t come up. With that current?”

“They will .”

“And if they don’t, ” said Boggs, “we’re saying he’s got to choose between drowning and burning to death?”

“Can the kid even swim?” asked Levon.

The firefighters didn’t have an answer. Levon grabbed the megaphone.

“Hey, Connor. Can you swim?”

Connor looked up but didn’t reply. He’d stopped crying, but he still sat on the floor hugging his knees to his chest. Dani took the megaphone.

“Batman,” she said. “Are you a swimmer yet?”

The little boy shook his head no.

With that, they knew there was only one option.

Helicopter pararescue.

Engine 42’s initial call to dispatch requesting a chopper rescue had been met with We’ll work on it. There had been no update since. If help did come, it would be federal, likely the National Guard. But Engine 42 had no way to contact them, and anyone who did was busy at the plant or the I-35 pileup. Essentially, it was exactly as the firefighters had feared: There was too much happening too fast with too high stakes elsewhere. Connor would be a last priority.

They were on their own.

The patrol boat motored over to shore, where the firefighters met them.

“I’m sorry,” one of the officers called out once they were within earshot. “This is a no-go. You need pararescue.”

“We tried,” Levon said.

“‘We’ll work on it,’” Frankie said, making air quotes. “The priority is the plant.”

“They won’t even spare one of the choppers that just left?”

The firefighters stared at the officer.

“The what ?” said Dani.

Engine 42 had been at the bridge all day. They had no idea what was going on at the plant.

“The three National Guard helicopters that just left Clover Hill.”

Levon, Frankie, Boggs, and Dani all looked at one another, and for the first time since they’d spotted Connor sitting in the van all alone and crying, they felt hope.