The Storm (NUMA Files 10)

Paul slid forward and grabbed the nozzle. “Okay, go!”

Marchetti let go, and it took all of Paul’s strength to keep the hose on target. As Marchetti lumbered forward, Paul washed down the flames to the left and then back to the right on a wide-pattern setting, drenching Marchetti purposefully in the process.

He watched as Marchetti made it through the first wave of flame and continued forward only to be suddenly obscured by a sideways blast of fire and smoke. Paul directed the hose into the blast and forced the flames back, but he still couldn’t see through.

“Marchetti?”

He heard nothing.

“Marchetti?!”

The smoke was so thick, Paul could barely see a thing. He was sweating inside the fire suit, and his eyes were stinging badly from the fumes and the salt of his own perspiration. He washed the walkway back and forth with the spray until he saw a dim light through the darkness. It was down low, close to the ground. Marchetti’s beacon.

“Marchetti’s down!” Paul shouted. “I’m going to get him.”

He shut off the nozzle, dropped the hose and ran forward. The crewmen swept in behind him, washing him down as he went.

He made it past the blast furnace of the open flame and reached Marchetti. Marchetti’s hood was blackened, his mask half off. It looked like he’d run smack into a protruding beam. Paul pressed the mask back onto Marchetti’s face and Marchetti coughed and came around.

“Help me up,” he said.

An explosion shook the engine room, and debris rained down on them from above. Paul lifted Marchetti to his feet, but he immediately stumbled back down to his knees. He put a hand out.

“No balance,” he said.

Paul heaved him up and kept him vertical. They trudged forward like two men in a three-legged potato-sack race. They reached the wall. The manual override beckoned.

“We’ve made it,” Paul shouted into the microphone. “Get out. We’re going to trigger the Halon.”

Paul reached for the handle, flipped the safety aside and put his hand on the override. He waited what seemed like forever. Another explosion rocked the engine room.

“We’re clear of the bulkhead,” one of the crewmen finally reported.

“Now,” Marchetti said.

Paul yanked the handle down hard.

From eighty points around the room Halon 1301 blasted into the compartment at an incredible rate, hissing from the nozzles and flowing in from every direction. It quickly filled the room, smothering the fire. In places the flames jumped and flickered and seemed to cower in a desperate quest for survival. And then, as if by magic, they went out all at once.

Stunning silence followed.

It seemed unearthly to Paul. The raging flames, the explosions, the buffeting currents brought on as the fire sucked air in and expelled heat, all were gone. Only the thick smoke lingered, accompanied by the continued hissing from the Halon nozzles, the sound of dripping water and the creak and groan of superheated metal.

The absence of flame seemed almost too good to be true, and neither Paul nor Marchetti moved a muscle as if doing so might break the spell. Finally Marchetti turned toward Paul. A smile crept over his face, though Paul could barely see it through the smudged, soot-covered face mask.

“Well done, Mr. Trout. Well done.”

Paul smiled too, proud and relieved at the same time.

And then a shrill electronic beeping began, accompanied by the strobe light on the back of Marchetti’s SCBA. Seconds later Paul’s own strobe began flashing and chirping. The two alarms combined into an annoying cacophony.

“What’s happening?” Paul asked.

“Rescue beacons,” Marchetti said.

“Why are they going off now?”

Marchetti looked glum. “Because,” he said, “we’re running out of air.”