Trial by Fire (2 page)

T
he fire alarm blaring at four
A.M.
jerked Nick Foster from a sound sleep. He swam through his groggy stupor and sat up, slipping his feet into the turnout pants and boots scrunched together next to his bunk. Mark Branning and Dan Nichols stumbled into their own gear and raced out of the room.

Adrenaline snapped Nick to attention, and his heart rate, which had gone from sleep to sprint in a matter of seconds, brought him fully awake. He grabbed the radio mike. “Midtown to Simone,” he said to the dispatcher who sat in an upstairs room at the police station next door. “It's Nick.”

“Nick, the church is on fire. Sounds bad.”

“What church?”

“Your church, man! Calvary Bible Church.”

Nick froze as the words filtered through his consciousness, then settled hard in the pit of his stomach. He forced himself to think clearly and grabbed his helmet from its hook. Pulling it on, he bolted out to the truck bay.

“Where to?” Mark yelled from the driver's seat of the pumper.

“The church.” Nick grabbed his turnout coat and helmet and leaped onto the truck. “My church is on fire!”

Mark didn't comment that it was his church too, and Dan's as well. He turned on the siren, chasing away any remnants of sleep that might have dulled their senses, and drove into the warm October night as fast as reason would allow. A faint yellow glow lit up the night sky in the distance, and Nick could see the smoke billowing through the air as the fire truck approached Calvary Bible Church.

“Faster!” Nick shouted, but he knew Mark was driving as fast as he could. Maybe it was just in the rec hall, he thought. Maybe they could save the sanctuary.

But as they reached the street, he saw that the building was fully engulfed. Every wall was in flames, and the roof was a stage on which the fire did its wicked dance. The truck stopped and Nick leaped out, pulled on his tanks, and snapped on his mask. As he unwound the hose from the truck, he broke into warrior mode.

He heard the other fire truck from across town coming up Jacquard Boulevard, and behind their truck, the rescue unit screeched to a halt. The hose opened, blasting the way in front of him. As he entered the building and saw how thoroughly the fire had taken hold, he forced himself to think like a firefighter and not a preacher.

The fire had already consumed the west side of the building where all the children's Sunday school classes were held just yesterday, and the north side where they had fellowship and ate dinner together on Wednesday nights. He sprayed his way into the sanctuary, searching for the origin of the flames. The sanctuary was engulfed as well, and the air billowed with black smoke. It was tangible evil, blinding him to the source of the fire. But he would not give up. He was David facing down Goliath. His hose was like a few small stones, but if he aimed it well, he could knock Goliath to the ground. God would help him.

The gates of hell would not prevail against this church!

 

S
tan Shepherd—Newpointe's only police detective—arrived on the scene just as the firemen began fighting the flames. As if he were watching his own home being consumed, he sat paralyzed behind the wheel. How had this happened?

Not so long ago, he and Celia had made the decision to lower their lifestyle so they could donate money for the building now going up in flames. All that money wasted…all those hours of work sanding and scraping and painting…

Stan tried to shake off his shock and got out of the car. A crowd of people was gathering in the street.

“Back up,” he told them. “All the way across the street.” Slowly, they did as he said.

“Stan, are they gonna save the building?” Mildred Buford asked.

He didn't want to pronounce the building dead, but it didn't look good. “I don't know, Mildred. Now get back.”

“But I had some fish and a hamster in my Sunday school room. The kids'll never get over it if they can't save 'em! If I could just run in and get 'em—”

“You can't go in there. Now, come on, Mildred. I need you to get across the street.”

“But could you tell the firefighters to look for them?”

“No! They're trying to put the fire out, Mildred. They don't have time to look for your pets.”

He could tell that she was offended, but he couldn't worry about that now. As several more police cars came to the scene, he yelled for the uniformed officers to block off the street so that no other cars or curiosity-seekers would be able to come this way. Then he headed into the crowd reassembling on the opposite side of the street. “Did anybody see what started the fire?” he yelled. “Who made the call?”

“I did,” Zeb Fox said. He was the old man who lived next door to the parsonage—Nick's home—across the street from the church. Zeb worked the night shift, seven to three, at the Mason Dean steel factory. “I seen smoke comin' up out the roof when I got home,” he said, “then it started comin' out from under the doors and I knowed I'd better call somebody. I was just fixin' to call the po-lice when I seen the flames comin' from 'round the back.”

“But did you see anybody nearby?” Stan asked. “Was there anybody in the church or any cars around?”

“I seen somebody,” Thelma Fox piped in. She was Zeb's wife, and kept up with everything that happened in the community. She had mounted a rearview mirror at the perfect angle on her sink window, so that she wouldn't miss a thing while she was washing dishes. “I was fixin' breakfast for Zeb, and I seen a car full of young'uns over there just before the fire started. Three or four of them, and when I seen 'em in the parking lot, I knew they was up to no good.”

“Did you get their tag number?” Stan asked.

“Why, no, I didn't think to do that,” she said.

“Well, what about the kids? Did you recognize any of them?”

“No, but I believe it was a red car.”

“What kind of car?”

“All I know is red.”

“I seen those kids too,” Cliff Breaux said. “I was rollin' my newspapers when they screeched around the corner and like ta hit me.”

“Could you see them well enough to identify them?”

“No, it was too dark. But like Thelma said, they was young folks.” He tapped his pockets for a pack of cigarettes and shook one out. He pulled it out of the pack with his lips. “Oh, I almost forgot. There was some bumper stickers on the car. One o' them Nazi symbols.”

“A swastika?”

“Yeah, that's it. And they had a KKK sticker too.”

Stan gathered the rest of the information the bystanders had to give him, then hurried back to his unmarked car and radioed the dispatcher.

“Simone,” he said, “put an APB out on a red car full of kids, with a swastika sticker and a KKK sign on the bumper. Possible suspects in the church burning.”

He looked out through the windshield and saw that George Broussard and Cale Larkins, as well as several other off-duty firefighters, had arrived on the scene to help. Most of them kept turnout gear in their trunks in case they were called from home.

For the first time, he wished he was a firefighter so he could go in there with them and take on this raging enemy.

R
ay Ford, the fire chief of Newpointe, had heard the call on his scanner as he got ready for work that morning. He hurried out the door without telling Susan goodbye, and sped to the scene.

He got out of his car and reached for his boots and gear, gaping in horror at the building that meant so much to him. But like the others, he shoved his emotions down. There was no time for grief or shock now. He had a job to do.

He saw Mark and Dan emerging from the building, and bolted toward them.

“What happened?”

“Looks like arson,” Mark said. “I don't know how else it could have gone up so fast. The place wasn't locked, so anybody could have walked in.”

They heard yelling from inside. Ray recognized Nick's voice, but he couldn't make out what he was saying. He headed for the door, when something cracked overhead. “Get 'em out!” Ray yelled. “The roof's cavin'!”

 

I
nside, flaming roof beams fell, missing Nick by inches. He jumped back, almost tripping on something under his feet. He bent down and tried to see through the smoke. It was a body, lying facedown. He had stepped on a hand.

“Over here!” he yelled. “I've got a victim!”

He saw the fluorescent stripes of two turnout coats as firemen headed toward him, but he couldn't make out their faces through their masks. “Unconscious, unresponsive!” he yelled.

“Is he alive?”

He bent to check, but another beam fell, cracking around them and spreading across the carpet.

He turned the victim over to lift him, but froze when he saw his face. “Aw, no…”

Another beam dropped, just missing the four of them. “We gotta get outta here!” George Broussard said.

Nick slung the victim over his shoulder as George and Cale headed out. A beam cracked overhead, and the front half of the flaming roof caved in. Nick screamed as beams and sheet rock knocked him to his back, the victim on top of him. Pain shot through his chest and legs, and he fought to throw off the beams that lay across them both. The tanks under his back must have been damaged, and his mask had been knocked askew, so he could no longer get the air that they had provided. He managed to move one of the beams from his chest, but one on his shins was flaming, burning through his fireproof clothes, melting his skin…

He tried to kick it free, but his legs were trapped.

More of the roof caved and bounced on the floor behind him. He'd have to get out of here on his own. No one could come in after him. Smoke seeped under his mask and filtered through his lungs.

With one adrenaline-filled, panic-driven kick, he got the flaming beam off his legs, and wincing at the pain, tried to get up with the victim. But he couldn't do it. Collapsing in a fit of coughing, he fell back.

 

W
hen Ray saw George and Cale emerge without Nick, then saw the roof cave in, he broke into a run, Mark was right behind him.

They heard muffled screaming, and behind them, Dan came in with the hose, spraying a path through the flames, George and Cale followed on their heels. “Where's Nick?” Dan shouted.

“He was right behind us when the roof caved!” Cale shouted.

“He found somebody hurt,” George said. “I couldn't see 'im in all the smoke.”

Ray yelled, “Broussard, Larkins, go out and surround and drown. The fewer of us in here, the better.” George and Cale hesitated, obviously reluctant to leave Nick again.

“Nick!” Mark yelled.

“Over here!” they heard, then coughing, and they fought their way to where Nick lay.

Cale threw off his mask and shrugged out of his tanks, handed the gear to George, then ran out, holding his breath until he was in fresh air.

Ray saw from the soot around Nick's nose that he was breathing smoke instead of oxygen, and it was clear from the scald marks on his torn turnout legs and boots that he had been burned. Mark got on his knees, and working fast, threw off Nick's dysfunctional mask and replaced it with Cale's. “Help me get him!”

They got Nick to his feet and threw him over Mark's shoulder, knowing he could be doing terrible injury to his spine if there was a break, but there was no time to hesitate. They would all be dead if more of the roof fell.

But Nick yelled something incoherent, then pointed frantically toward the pile of flaming beams. Dan soaked it down, temporarily extinguishing the flames, until they could see the victim lying under them.

Ray and George attacked the beams. Ray managed to lift the victim, but the smoke was so thick that he couldn't see his face. “Outta here!” Ray cried. “Everybody!
Now!”

As they burst out into clear air, Ray checked the victim for a pulse. He couldn't find one.

He put him down to try again, and only then saw his soot-covered face.

It was Ben, Ray's only son.

The sound that shrieked out of Ray's mouth seemed unnatural and foreign. Life seemed to screech into slow motion as Ray took his son from George and carried him further from the flames and the smoke and the yelling firefighters and the tumbling, fiery roof, to the paramedics waiting just out of the perimeter of the smoke. It was as if his spirit stood back in shock and looked on, helpless to save his child's life. But his body continued to do as it would do for anyone they had found in a fire, and his mind ran through practical facts about Ben's condition. He was burned badly on his legs and back, worse on his hands. His legs looked broken where the beams had crushed him. The smoke alone would have been enough to kill him, and Ray knew he had probably been inhaling it from the beginning. The paramedic pushed him out of the way and fell to Ben's side, urgently searching for a pulse.

And then he saw the worst injury of all, the one that made all the others seem like nothing at all…

“Noooo!” he shouted. “His head!” he wailed. “A bullet hole.
Somebody put a bullet into my boy!”

Not able to accept the verdict Issie Mattreaux was about to declare, Ray threw off his mask and fought his way back to his son. His face dripped with sweat as he pressed a finger against his neck, waiting for some hope, any hope at all.
“Please, God,”
he whispered,
“please…”

When he felt nothing, he shook his son, then gritted his teeth. “You listen to me, Ben Ford. You better not be goin' nowhere!
You listen to me!”

Issie tore open Ben's shirt. “We need to defibrillate, stat!” she yelled, and opened the megaduffel to hand Steve an oxygen cylinder. “Ray, do compressions while I get the defibrillator!” she ordered, and Ray began compressing his son's chest, desperately trying to force his heart to beat. As Ray worked, Steve put an oral airway down Ben's throat, then pressed the mask against Ben's face and began administering pure oxygen.

Issie pulled the two pads out and peeled off the backing. She attached one at his ribs and another under his collarbone. She looked at the small screen of the monitor and yelled, “Stop!”

Ray rested a moment, streams of sweat and tears dripping into his eyes. He heard the whine of the machine charging, then the automated voice, “Press to shock.”

“Clear!” Issie yelled. Steve and Ray got back, and she pressed the button. A 200-joule jolt shook through Ben, and Ray held his breath, praying for a pulse. But there was none.

The machine whined again, recharging, and they repeated the process. “Come on, Ben!” he shouted through his teeth, his eyes as hot as the flames swallowing the building. Issie pressed the button to shock him again. “Fight! Don't leave me, son!” But, again, there was no pulse. Someone behind him pulled Ray away as Steve and Issie made last-ditch attempts to revive him. Ray was shaking and could hardly stand on his legs. He felt as if his knees would buckle and he would collapse like a marionette. He thought he might throw up.

“Nooooooo!” The word ripped out of his heart with the same violence as if he'd torn off a part of his body.