Two heads bobbed in unison as they moved back to the back of the engine.
"Vangel, you son of a bitch, you almost got the probies killed!" I shouted as I pulled on my mask and prepared to enter the building.
"They need to get some on-the-job training sometime," he shouted back. "Don't be such a pussy, Connor!"
"Asshole," I muttered into my mask. Danny nodded at me as if to say he understood and we headed inside. The entire building was in flames, and I could hear people yelling in the back of the room. They'd gone into the back room to escape the flames, but it didn't have a way out and now they were trapped. The building was a textile mill, so there was plenty of material to be burned as the fire leapt from bolts of cloth and machinery used to sew enormous rugs.
"There's a shit load of flammable stuff here," I shouted at Danny as we sprayed the room, trying to get the flames under control enough to get to the people who were trapped. "Be careful, Newsome! Hold the hose, I'm gonna spray it all down."
Danny saluted me as held onto the hose and helped me guide it toward the worst parts of the fire. The rest of the guys were working their way across the floor looking for those who might have been trapped under the tables or injured by the explosion. Mike signaled that he'd found someone, and moments later, he pulled a small girl out from under the table. She couldn't have been more than fifteen, if that. He gave me a "what the fuck?" look as he carried her small body out to the waiting paramedics.
"They're in here! They're in here!" Victor shouted as he pried open a door that had been sealed shut by the intense heat.
"VANGEL, LOOK OUT!" I shouted as he slammed his axe into the door handle and pried the door open. There was a wave of air that cut across the sewing floor and then sucked the fire back into the room before everything exploded. Machinery went flying, and I could see the flames spreading up the walls that hadn't yet been ignited.
Overhead, I heard the sound of cracking wood and looked up to see a large portion of the roof being pulled back by the guys from the ladder. They were venting the fire and looking for the trapped workers, so I aimed the hose at the area where Victor had opened the door and moved forward with Danny right behind me.
"Stay close!" I shouted over my shoulder and felt Danny pat my shoulder to let me know he would. The flames on the far side of the warehouse refused to die no matter how much water we poured on them, and I knew we were running out of time.
Victor had recovered from the blast and was now moving through the warehouse hacking wet equipment out of our way as Danny and I did our best to quell the flames. The guys above us sliced holes in the rest of the ceiling and vented the smoke in the hope that it would keep the oxygen flowing to the people trapped in the back room.
It was almost an hour before we were able to get the fire under control and access the back room. What we found there stunned us all into silence. The workers had all crowded into the small back room that was now filled with soot and ash. Two people were groaning and coughing, but the rest were still, and as we felt for pulses, we came up empty.
"Dammit!" I growled as I walked out of the room and slammed my fist against the doorframe yelling, "This is all your fault, Vangel! You're recklessness cost these people their lives! You're a menace!"
"Me? It's my fault that a bunch of illegals are dead in the back room of a sweat shop?" he shouted. "I don't think so, Connor!"
"You slammed your axe into that door and set off the explosion!" I yelled. "You're careless and dangerous! You could have gotten us all killed!"
"But I didn't," he shot back. "I vented the heat and got us closer to the back room, so I'd be careful about how you go spinning the story, Connor."
"Oh, I'm going to tell the truth, Vangel," I said. "Unlike you, I still value it."
"You'd better be careful how you go about telling your truth, Connor," Victor snarled. "I've got enough ammunition to put you six feet under in no time."
"Try it, and I'll make sure you never work in this town again," I said in a cold voice that made Danny do a double take. I leaned down and lifted one of the moaning workers off the floor and headed out to the ambulance. "Now, let's get these people out of here. MOVE!"
I was furious at myself for losing my cool with Victor, but I was even angrier at him for costing these people their lives. He was irresponsible and reckless and he needed to be stopped before there were more deaths. I wasn't sure how I was going to approach Chief with the problem, but I knew that it couldn't wait.
"Chief, when we get back to the station, I need to talk to you," I said as I grabbed my axe and headed back in to help the guys make sure the fire was completely out before we rolled up the hoses and headed back to base. Chief gave me a funny look, then nodded as he spoke to dispatch over the radio.
I was going to keep Victor from doing any more damage, come hell or high water -- that much was absolutely certain.
#
Back at the station, I stepped into Chief's office and closed the door. It wasn't going to be easy having this conversation with him, but once it was over I wasn't going to have to worry about Victor outing me at the station anymore.
"You wanted to talk, Connor?" Chief Riley said as he looked over the schedules for the next month.
"Chief, I need to tell you something that I've been keeping to myself," I began.
"Shit, Connor, tell me this is not drug or alcohol related," Chief said as he stood up.
"No, no, nothing like that, sir," I said, shaking my head. "It's something outside of the department. Something I do on my own time, sir."
"Jesus, you're not coming out, are you?" Chief asked. "'Cause if you are, we're gonna need to bring in HR and get everyone into sensitivity training, and that's going to take scheduling."
"Chief, it's nothing like that," I said, trying to steer the conversation back to the issue at hand. "But a little sensitivity training never hurt anyone, you know."