Heaven's Fire (3 page)

"
Quiet, Irish.
"
Simon put his hand on the dog’s head.

Martha Malone was speaking.
"
...trying to get more information here for you, but I think we can be fairly certain that something has gone horribly wrong at this year’s Refresh Yourself Lake Days Fireworks.
"

The male anchor, George Eagleton, picked up from there.
"
Let’s recap what we know so far. Apparently, there has been an explosion on the center barge. That’s where Pasquale Firenze is, and also where the three
sixteen-inch fireworks shells--
tha
t's sixteen inches in diameter--
are. The shells
:
one red, one white and on
e blue,
were billed as the largest ever fired in the state. We saw two of those three shells, the red and the white, go up. The blue shell did not. I should note, however, that the explosion we saw on the barge was not blue, meaning, perhaps, that it was not the third shell that exploded, but something else.
"

Or that the shell exploded deep in the mortar, Simon thought.

Eagleton's voice again.
"
I understand we have a closer look at what happened. Is that tape ready?
"
A hesitation, then a wide shot of three barges, a mass of white flickering lights suspended over the one on the right. The titanium salutes of the finale.

Then the promised close-up of the center barge. A barrel-shaped figure with a torch--Pasquale--moving toward the middle of the barge. Stopping. Then backing away from the mortars.

A flash in the first mortar as the lift charge ignited and the red shell went up. The time fuse on the shell would have been ignited at the same time the lift charge was, Simon knew. The slow-burning time fuse was designed to give the shell enough time--probably ten seconds on a shell this size--to climb to the appropriate height before it actually broke.

Simon hunkered down, keeping his eyes on the screen. Irish turned and licked his face. She smelled like peanut butter and chocolate. Simon snagged the torn cellophane package of Oreos and tossed it onto the chair. As the cookies landed, a second mortar flashed on his screen and the white shell went up.

Simon waited.

He could see Pasquale moving back toward the center of the barge with the flare.
The view was so close-in that he
felt like it all was happening in the same room with him.

"
Jesus, Pasquale, don’t be a fool,
"
he muttered under his breath. Pasquale and the flare stopped dead center of the barge.

Fireworks on TV generally sucked.

Still, standing there in his living room twenty miles away from Liberty, Simon Aamot could practically feel the concussion as the third mortar on the barge exploded, and fire engulfed the place where Pasquale Firenze had been.

*****

The close-up made Jake sick to her stomach.

And if she felt that way, how would the Firenze family feel when they saw it?

It was
her own
fault. In
Jake's
haste to get the story to air, she hadn't previewed all of the footage Luis had fed her, and it proved far more graphic than she had expected. She'd had no idea Pasquale had returned to the mortar, that he'd been right there, leaning down, when...

"Jake!" Martha's insistent voice came over the radio. "Do you have that background?"

"Sorry, Martha." Jake looked down at the scribbled notes in front of her. "Two years ago, Pasquale's brother, Francesco Firenze, was killed in an explosion at the factory. ATF investigators ruled that lightning was the cause."

"Were there any
other
lightning strikes in the area at the time?" Martha's image on the monitor asked.

"Not that were reported," Jake was still sorting through the papers on her console. "Oh," she said, remembering Luis’s ‘mussel-burst.’
"
That shell that exploded low about half-way t
hrough tonight's show
wasn't
'very special.' I
t broke too low, and debris from it landed in a box of unexploded
fireworks
. Pat Firenze managed to pull it out before it set the whole thing off. We have tape."

"Good, good." Jake could hear Martha scribbling notes. "Who’s the source on that?"

"Luis
Burns
," Jake said, her stomach doing another flip. Luis’s link had gone down again right after he'd fed her the close-up of Pasquale.

On cue, the radio squawked. "This is Luis. Come in, Jake. Over."

Jake stabbed at the switch so quickly she'd have broken a nail if she had any left. "Luis? Are you okay? What happened to your signal?"

"Jake?" Martha again, talking over the top of her. "For God's sake, is that it? Is that all you have to give me?"

In truth, Jake was dying to give her something else, but settled for, "That's it, Martha. We're out of the break in one minute."

Now, back to Luis.

"I'm okay, Jake," his voice was saying, "but we were rocked pretty good, and..."
He let it trail off.

"And what?" There went her stomach again. "Is everybody else on that barge all right?"

"Sure, we're okay, but the microwave truck sort of..."

"The truck was hit?" Jake imagined the battered truck, all four tires blown, being towed off the barge. Competing local stations would be covering it along with, in her imagination, all the national and cable news--

"Actually, Jake," Luis cleared his throat. "It's gone."

"Gone?"

"Yeah. That corner of the barge was swamped, and it went over."

"The truck went...?"

"...over."

And out.

****

"Jesus Christ, is anybody out there? Dad? Ray? Angela?"

Pat Firenze tried to switch frequencies from "1" to "2", bu
t his hand was shaking so badly
the toggle switch on the side of the radio kept landing back on "1."

Tudy took the radio from him, pushed the switch to "2" and handed it back to him. "Take a deep breath, son. Getting yourself all worked up isn't going to help anybody."

Well then what was? Pat tried the radio again, this time on the alternate frequency. "This is Pat Firenze. Can anybody tell me what happened?
"

His message was interrupted by another voice: "Hey, Manny? Is it okay to lift Gate Four? That way we'll empty the structure faster."

Manny? Structure? He had Manny's fuckin' Parking Garage on the radio. Pat winged the radio into the lake.

"That probably wasn't so smart," Tudy said as the radio disappeared into the dark water.

Pat knew the old man was right, but he sure wasn't going to admit it. "Fat lot of good the radios are. We're closer to Dad's barge than anyone, and we don't even know what happened." He waved at TV8's lights on shore. "They probably know if my father's okay, the whole fuckin' world probably knows, except us."

Pat stopped and looked around. "Hey, where's that camera man? He'll have a radio."

Tudy shrugged. "Haven't seen him since he unplugged himself from that truck of theirs as it went down. Couldn’t have gone far though."

"N
ext time," Pat said, "we get radios from TV8 so we can communicate with them, not just with each other. Next time..." He let it go, realizing there
might
not
be
a next time.

"Ray!" Tudy called out to his son across the water. "Ray, you hear me?"

Why hadn't Pat thought of that? Maybe now that the boat horns and sirens had quieted down some, Ray could hear them.

Pat gave it a try: "Angela? Dad?"

"Pat? Is that--" His sister Angela's voice wafted across the water, but was drowned out by the motor of a small Coast Guard boat streaking by.

*****

Half the crowd had already left by the time Simon Aamot arrived at Shore Park. Or they were trying to leave, clogging every street leading from the lakefront. The other 125,000 people milled around talking and gawking.

Most times in situations like this, local agencies were just as happy to have ATF take the mess off their hands. Simon didn’t figure this one would be any different, once everyone was done marking his territory. Like a bunch of dogs, himself included. Piss on it, it’s yours. Even though you didn’t really want it in the first place.

Because the fireworks show was on the lakefront, it was considered a marine event. That meant the Coast Guard had primary jurisdiction. The park land, though, was probably city or county. Depending on which, Simon would also be working with either the Liberty police or the County Sheriff.

Nobody paid Simon much attention as he wound his way through the crowd. He approached a uniformed city officer who was talking to a motorcycle cop
by his bike
.
"
Went up like a Roman candle,
"
the officer was saying.

Simon identified himself
to the two, then asked for the command post.

The cop eyed him.
"
You guys taking over?
"

Simon shrugged.
"
Maybe. I’m just trying to get the lay of the land right now. Who’s in charge?
"

"
Coast Guard, but I’m not sure who exactly. There’s a command center set up just over the bluff." The cop nodded toward the south. "Check with them.
"

Simon thanked him and headed off in the direction indicated.

The command center was a white aluminum motor home with the words
"
County Sheriff’s Department
"
stenciled in black and gold on the side.

Well, one question answered, anyway.

As Simon approached the door of the command center, a burly figure stepped out. Simon recognized Thomas Watson, the Liberty County Sheriff.
"
Thomas.
"

Watson was a little shorter than Simon’s 6’4
"
but looked bigger, probably due to the extra forty or so pounds he had on him. The forty had b
een muscle at one time, but
as the sheriff approached middle-age and settled into an administrative position, the muscle was softening to fat.

The sheriff turned toward Simon, extending a pudgy right hand.
"
Figured you’d be here. Your RAC was on the line to me before the barge stopped rocking.
Quite the eager beaver.
"

Simon shook with him.
"
Collins is new
," Simon said, referring to his RAC, or the Regional Agent in Charge of the ATF office.

"Yeah
?
Give him a couple
more years. He'll burn out, too.
"

None of them was getting any younger, Simon thought
, watching Watson hitch up his pants
.
"
I saw what happened on TV. It looked like Pasquale took the full blast.
"

Watson shook his head sadly.
"
Likely blown to kingdom come. The Coast Guard and our boats are out there looking, but so far they haven’t found any sign of
Firenze
. To make matters worse, his son-in-law,
"
he checked his notes,
"
a Guida, Raymond, is missing off the barge to the south."

Watson looked back up. "You know, I’ve known Pasquale Firenze since he started doing shows here seventeen years ago. I’ve never seen him do anything outright dangerous.
"

Besides routinely firing a ton of explosives, Simon thought.

Watson read the look on his face.
"
You know what I mean, man. Firenze was careful. He didn’t take chances. Shit, he drove his people crazy with all his rules. I just don’t get why he went out there all by himself with those big-ass shells.
"

Simon shrugged.
"
Knowing Pasquale, he didn’t trust anyone else with them.
"

But Watson was looking past Simon’s right shoulder.
"
Well, look who’s coming.
"

Simon turned and saw
TV8's
Martha Malone and a camera man bearing down on them.

Simon turned back to the sheriff.
"
Who’s in charge for the Coast Guard?
"

"
Jeff Longenecker. He’s inside.
"
Watson was still watching Malone’s approach.
"
She’s got great hooters, you ever notice that?
"

Simon shook his head, spared from answering by Malone's
arrival
. The reporter ignored Simon and grabbed Watson's hand, pumping it professional-to-professional.
"
Sheriff, Martha Malone, TV8.
"