“It’s about time,” Becca said. “Where are your choppers?”
“En route, ma’am,” Borner answered. “ETA seven minutes. Shall I set up at forward command?”
“Stay where you are,” Becca ordered. “I don’t need more people up in this building. Just tell your choppers to get to the roof as soon as they’re on site. I’m going to start sending people up. Over.”
“Understood,” Borner replied.
Becca saw the female firefighter who had escorted the other group of women to the roof earlier. For the first time, she noticed that the firefighter’s uniform identified her as a member of one of the Oceanside fire stations that had responded to this blaze.
“What’s your name?” Becca demanded.
“Ross, ma’am,” was the answer.
“Ross, you’re going to do what you did before: take ten people at a time to the roof and make sure they get on those choppers. Go see Dunston and get the same group of women who just came back from the stairs.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Get those ten on the choppers and then wash, rinse, repeat.”
Ross smiled.
“Understood, ma’am.”
With that taken care of, Becca went in search of a new air tank because hers was getting low.
She had a fire to keep fighting.
***
For a while, everything went smoothly. Working in tandem with O/C Rescue, the Navy choppers managed to airlift load after load of civilians until they were all gone. To his credit—at least in Becca’s eyes—Dunston was the last civilian to board the last chopper.
Then it was time to get her firefighters out.
The building was a goner. Division command made the determination immediately after the last civilian was safely out of harm’s way that the fire was out of control and that all crews needed to evacuate. On eleven, Putnam oversaw the evacuation of his firefighters, all of them managing to escape via the service elevators, which thankfully kept running. If Becca could give machinery a medal, those elevators would get it.
Because the elevators were going to be busy evacuating personnel from eleven on down, Becca ordered all crews fighting the fire above the eleventh floor to the fifteenth for an airlift evacuation.
And for a while, things went smoothly.
The choppers kept airlifting firefighters off the roof while Becca and other firefighters, including Ross, kept battling the flames on the fifteenth floor. Eventually, though, Becca, Ross and seven other firefighters were the only ones remaining.
“Let’s go!” she ordered her small crew. They had done all they can. Dropping the still spraying hoses, they ran to the stairwell and climbed to the roof. Once outside, Becca ripped off her respirator mask and breathed the first fresh air her lungs had tasted since she first arrived on the scene…
How long ago?
She had no idea. All she cared about was that a Navy chopper was descending slowly to the rooftop helipad. Once it was close enough, the six closest firefighters hopped on, one after the other. That left Becca and Ross.
And then…
An air-splitting explosion ripped into the night as a part of the roof suddenly blew outwards, chunks of concrete and steel spraying in all directions with a huge ball of erupting fire belching into the air.
The concussive force of the explosion tossed Becca in the air, to land on her back about twenty feet from where she had been standing just moments ago. But Ross—perhaps because she was smaller—was blown back farther. Even after landing, she continued sliding—right towards the edge of the roof, where she slammed into the parapet.
What happened next, to Becca’s mind, seemed to happen in slow motion.
An ominous cracking could be heard over all the other noises. Becca saw crazed lines develop in the surface of the roof and continue growing. They were radiating out from where Ross was slumped against the parapet, trying to get to her feet.
The cracking sound became louder.