Beginning with You (28 page)

He gasped, hearing and feeling a third explosion, and hugged the bulkhead for protection. “We’re carrying five hundred canisters of HTH, along with forty 55-gallon drums of brake fluid on one vehicle, fuel oil for furnaces on another.”

“Any other hazardous materials on board,
Flyer
?

Tony riffled shakily through the manifests. “Wait…just one more, but it shouldn’t be important. I had a scrap copper truck parked in between the fuel tanker and the HTH truck. Over.”

“Roger,
Flyer
. We’re dispensing all available units to your position immediately. Have your crew get the people into life rafts. Our on-scene officer, Lieutenant Caldwell, will be arriving shortly on a cutter, the
Point Countess
. He’ll start coordinating the rescue effort with you. Over.”

Getting to his knees, Tony nodded, daring to look out the shattered windows. In the distance, he saw a white cutter with an orange stripe across its bow hurrying toward them. “Roger, Coast Guard. God, get medical help! There are three hundred people on board, and at least half of them are injured! Hurry!”

The
Flyer
now drifted helplessly, at the whim of the straits’ changing mood, listing to starboard as seawater began to leak into the lower deck through cracks created by the third and worst explosion.

“Rook!” Jim shook her. He sobbed for breath, keeping his body as a shield against her in case there were any more explosions. Screams of terror, pain and anguish bombarded his ears. “Rook! Wake up!” Jim glanced around. Of the thirty people on deck, half of them were hurt. He felt pain drifting up his left arm but ignored it.

Rook’s lashes fluttered. She tasted the metallic flavor of blood in her mouth. Jim’s urgent voice cut through her semiconscious state. She tried to rise, but he kept her down. “W-what happened?” Her voice sounded so far away to her ears. She heard terrible cries of distress and the shrieks of children.

Gasping for breath, Jim glanced over his shoulder. Clouds of gas were pouring out of a side hatch that led down to the parking deck. “I don’t know,” he rasped. “Three explosions. That’s chlorine gas. It’s deadly. Jesus Christ….”

It took her long seconds to digest all of it. Chlorine? She saw the wind taking the billowing clouds that spewed out the bow, carrying them high above the crippled ferry.

“Help me up,” Rook croaked. Dizziness washed over her, and she felt her left temple. There was a cut there, and it was bleeding heavily.

Jim gathered her into his arms, helping her stand. He took Rook to the stern of the ferry, the farthest point from the fire and gas. As long as the wind didn’t shift direction, they would be safe there. He saw people staggering and stumbling blindly out of the upper deck; others were diving through the shattered windows, directly into the water.

“We’ve got to help,” Rook cried, gripping his arms. She pointed to where two struggling crewmen were trying to release the life rafts that were stored on the roof. The huge plastic cylinders sat on six different ramps, at various points, and each needed to be manually released. The rest of the
Flyer
crew jerked bin lids open along the bulkheads of the ferry and tossed out life preservers. “If we could get up there and help release those rafts, people could get off this ferry faster.”

With a nod, Jim said, “You stay here. I’ll help them.”

“But the gas! It’s poisonous!”

“I’ll be all right,” Jim said patiently. “Look, keep an eye on the wind direction and stay out of the gas. Try and get the survivors back here and into life jackets. As we release the barrels, have enough people to fill the capacity of one raft jump overboard.” Jim gripped her hard, looking anxiously down at her. “Do you understand?”

Rook blinked, her eyes watering. “Yes—yes….”

Jim smiled gamely and leaned down, kissing her hard. “I love the hell out of you, lady,” he said, and then he was gone, climbing up the stairs to tackle the release of the cylinders, along with two crewmen. The black clouds were rolling across the roof. Very quickly all three of them were swallowed up in the acrid smoke.

Fear rooted Rook to the spot for an instant. And then her training as a SAR pilot took over. Weaving drunkenly across the slanted deck, Rook began guiding the shocked, terrorized survivors to the safety of the stem. Once, she glanced toward Ediz Hook, some six miles away now. The air station had to know what happened!
Hurry, oh, please, hurry with help
, she prayed.

“Cast off!” Noah shouted to the man below. He went to the conn and took the helm himself. Placing one hand over the twin throttles, he eased the cutter forward, slow ahead. The huge, throaty roar of the diesels rumbled across the dock, and the ship quivered with barely leashed power.

Noah gripped the chrome wheel hard, his knuckles white. Urgency thrummed through the cutter crew. He saw the anguish on his men’s tension-lined faces. It hadn’t been lost on them that his sister and Dave Harper were on board that sinking ferry.

Noah wore the mandatory orange life vest over his one-piece, dark-blue uniform. Looking to port, Noah saw the 41-foot UTB roar full throttle out of its berth, creating huge wakes of white turbulence behind it. Captain Stuart had organized them quickly and efficiently. With Noah’s crew already at the air station, they’d gotten a jump on the plans set in motion.

As the
Point Countess
plowed through the straits, Noah saw that one helo was already airborne. He knew that the other three were being prepared for launch. The air crews were running around like ants over at the hangar bay. He clenched his fist, his eyes dark with anguish as he looked toward the
Flyer
. Was anyone left alive?

Rook and the four
Flyer
crewmen had gathered over 150 survivors on the stern. She had screamed orders for the panicked civilians to put on the life jackets until her voice was little more than a croak. Jim had crawled up on the roof of the ferry, and Rook anxiously tried to divide her attention between the passengers and his location. Sometimes, black clouds of smoke rolled across the roof, totally obliterating him and the other two men. If the wind changed, the deadly yellow-green clouds would roll across the roof, and she knew that it would kill all three of them.

The first cylinder rolled down off the ramp, dropping into the water with a terrific splash. Rook raced to the rail.

“All right, all right! I need a volunteer—a good, strong swimmer to jump in and grab that cylinder. Once you get to it, open the latches. The instant those latches are opened, the raft will inflate.”

Dave Harper, who had been struck by flying glass from the explosions, elbowed through the huddled, stunned crowd. “I’ll get it, Ms. Caldwell.”

Rook stared up at him in disbelief. “Dave…”

Annie squeezed through. Her face had been cut by flying glass, her trousers burned. “We’ll help you, Ms. Caldwell. Just tell us what to do.”

Tears blurred Rook’s eyes. She hadn’t realized they were on board until just now. Grateful, she gripped Dave’s arm.

“Okay…thanks. Dave, can you jump in and get that first raft out and righted?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He climbed up on the edge of the rail and then made a graceful dive into the straits. Surfacing, he swam strongly toward the cylinder and quickly opened the huge, hinged latches. The first raft popped out and began to fill with air.

Rook gave Dave a thumbs-up and then turned to Annie. “Can you see if any more people are unconscious on the upper deck?” Rook grabbed a crewman. “You two go together. Whatever you do, don’t get near that gas. Back off, understand? But, if you can reach any more victims and drag them back here to the stern, do it.”

Annie nodded and flashed the crewman a slight smile. “Let’s get to work,” she said to him.

“Stay out of the gas,” Rook warned her again. She was well aware of Annie’s unflagging courage in the face of a disaster. And Rook knew of the times that Annie had disregarded her own safety to save the life of another. This was one time that ignoring the threat could kill her almost instantly.

Annie threw Rook a thumbs-up. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

The second and third cylinders were released from the first ramp slide on the roof. Harper swam to both and released the rafts, then climbed in one and pulled the three close to the hull of the ferry, waiting for the passengers to begin leaping from the rail.

“Come on, come on,” Rook cried, waving her arm at the crowd. “I need fifty people to jump! One at a time. Hurry!”

Desperately, Rook looked back toward the air station. Her heart raced. She saw one helo lift off. Never had a ’60 looked so good to her. Now Rook understood what it meant to be rescued.

“It’s imperative that all pilots stay upwind of the ferry to effect their rescues,” Ward told his people, who were gathered in the busy hangar. “Rotor wash could suck that chlorine gas back across the ferry, possibly killing more survivors. Thanks to several volunteer fire departments in the area, you’ve all been issued oxygen tanks and masks. Extra tanks are being put on board for yourselves and any survivors who’ll need them. Questions?” Ward looked hard at the strained faces of his pilots, rescue swimmers and flight mechs. The hangar crackled with tension. “All coordination efforts go through Lieutenant Caldwell. He’s the OSC. He’ll then call me for final permission. You want to do something different from the plan I’ve sketched out, call first for approval.” Grimly, Ward added, “There’s going to be a lot of panic and a lot of dying around you. Keep your heads. Dismissed.”

As Gil jogged toward CG 1300 with his copilot, Reno, on his heels, he thought again of Rook and Annie. Angelo Marchetti met them at the open fuselage door, already in his mask, the tank strapped on his back, the harness around his upper body. Getting settled into their seats, they also donned the new equipment.

“Christ,” Reno grumbled, moving rapidly through the preflight check, “I feel like a fighter pilot wearing one of these things.”

Gil nodded, throwing a thumbs-up to alert the mech he was ready to start the engine. “We’re going to war, all right. Okay, let’s roll.” The ’60’s engine whined to life and the rotor blades began to turn slowly. The sunlight was bright through the cockpit windshield, and Gil drew down the dark visor to protect his eyes. He tried to put himself in the right mind frame for this SAR case. It wasn’t going to be a one-shot deal—they would be making landing after landing on the water’s surface to pick up the survivors. It would strain their concentration and test their physical limits of endurance. Already, the wind was picking up, as it always did midmorning, and the waves were five to six feet high out in the straits. That meant water landings would be difficult.

As they roared toward the disaster scene, at an altitude of three hundred feet, Reno whistled. “My God, that’s a mess down there.”

“Radio back to base. Tell them what we’ve got,” Logan ordered tersely. Sometimes, Reno’s excitement got in the way of his normally good judgment. The ferry was on fire. Huge tongues of red flames were mixing into the angry black clouds erupting from the bow area. Gil could see people in orange life vests bobbing a half mile downwind of the listing behemoth, all of them beneath the malevolent cloud of yellow-green gas coiling endlessly from the
Flyer
. There were at least four rafts in the water, and he saw approximately twenty people in each one of them. Good, at least someone down there was thinking on their feet. The more people in rafts, the fewer hypothermia cases they would have.

Logan spotted three men on the roof of the ferry, crawling around, but black smoke obscured any further view of them. Most of the survivors were huddled on the stern of the upper deck. The hull of the
Flyer
near the bow looked warped and cracked. The
Point Countess
and the 44-footer were upwind, already beginning to pluck survivors from the water.

Over his headset, he heard Stuart’s voice as he called to all skippers and air commanders. “This is Captain Stuart. You are advised not to approach the ferry. Repeat, do not approach the
Flyer
. We’ve just gotten word from a hazmat expert that chlorine will explode when it comes in contact with copper. According to the first mate aboard the
Flyer
, there is a truck filled with at least five tons of copper scrap. It’s parked near the truck carrying HTH and brake fluid. If the fire gets hot enough, the copper will begin spontaneous ignition. Until I can get more information regarding this potential danger, you are to stay as far from the ferry as possible when you pick up victims. Acknowledge this order. Over.”

“Great,” Logan muttered, making the mandatory call to the captain. “Copper and HTH? Who would guess those two things could create a problem? That whole mother is probably going to blow right out of the water.”

Reno glanced at him, his eyes widening, “I wonder what the radius on an explosion like that would be?”

“Who the hell knows?” Gil snorted, easing the ’60 down to a lower altitude as he approached the first group of survivors, upwind of the ferry.

“Oh, man….”

“Yeah,” Gil muttered. “I hope that hazmat expert the skipper’s got is going to tell him how far away we have to be so we don’t end up in little pieces if that ferry decides to blow.”

Wiping the sweat accumulating on his brow, Reno muttered, “Man, this is worse than combat.”

“You’re right. It’s a barbecue, and we could all be crispy critters before it’s over.” Gil looked at the
Point Countess
below them. “Noah had better watch his ass, too.”

On the bridge of the
Point Countess
, Noah was in constant radio contact with civilian boats and tugs that had answered Captain Stuart’s emergency call to help in the rescue. He kept the cutter a half mile upwind of the
Flyer
. From his stationary post, he began to direct the awaiting boat traffic that had lined up, waiting for his orders. He’d send them in, one at a time, to either pick up survivors who were in the water or pull alongside of a raft and begin to transfer people.

Whether he wanted it to or not, Stuart’s latest communiqué over the radio bothered the hell out of him. What did it mean? How long did those people on the
Flyer
have if that copper and HTH combined? And how large an explosion was Stuart talking about? Anguish moved through Noah as he steadied the binoculars to his eyes. He could see Rook on the stern, helping to direct the evacuation, along with several
Flyer
crewmen.

“Captain Stuart,” Bob Bancroft began, tapping the map of the straits with his finger. “If we didn’t have the threat of that copper coming in contact with the HTH, you could get your 41-footer in there to start spraying water on that fire. As it is, we can’t even begin to guess when or if those two will combine to create that explosion.”

Ward stared at the tall, gangly man. Bancroft had volunteered his services, having heard the bulletins regarding the
Flyer
disaster on the radio earlier. He was a hazmat technician for the state of Washington who happened to be on vacation in the area. Frustration ate at Ward. “You’re telling me I can’t put out the fire on that ferry?”

Apologetically, Bancroft scratched his thinning blond hair. “I’m afraid so, Captain.”

“And there’s no way to estimate the size of such an explosion?”

“None. But five tons of copper is a lot of metal to put in contact with that much HTH. Right now, every effort should be focused on getting the people off the
Flyer
. No one can estimate when or if that copper will ignite. According to the first mate, Knox, those two trucks are parked close together. It’s a crapshoot, Captain.”

Ward turned and stared out the window of his office. He could see the smoke rising from the ferry. Six miles separated them from the disaster. Hospital ambulances were lined up on the tarmac, waiting for the first load of survivors to arrive in the helos. Mercy Hospital had geared up for a triage emergency situation. The city of Port Angeles had responded en masse to the emergency. Local residents were bringing pickups, vans, buses and even newspaper trucks to the air station to help transport the injured to the hospital. Red Cross volunteers from several local chapters waited tensely out on the tarmac, ready to assist the
Flyer
survivors to the vehicles. Medical personnel from six Seattle hospitals were being flown in by a local airline to help at Mercy. Coast Guard helicopters from adjacent stations were flying in, prepared to take the more seriously injured, after they were stabilized at Mercy, to Seattle hospitals.

Surprisingly, Chief McDonald had managed to scare up one hundred and fifty Coast Guard personnel, and all of them were working on the coordination effort. Ward was proud of his people, and he was worried about his cutter and helo crews. “Dammit, I thought we had enough to worry about with my people exposed to that chlorine gas. Now there’s the possibility of an explosion of unknown proportion,” he growled.

Bob nodded understanding. “Look, Captain Stuart, I don’t want to belabor this point with you, but I think you need to understand the size of such an explosion.”

“Spell it out for me,” Ward said. “Clearly.”

“We’re talking an explosion so powerful that it could make that ferry look like nothing but pieces of shrapnel when it was all over.”

Ward sucked in a breath. “What’s the radius on that kind of detonation?”

“I’d say anyone within half a mile would be killed instantly. Three-quarters of a mile, serious injury.”

“And one mile?”

“Injured, but alive.”

“What about my aircraft?”

“They’ll take one hell of a pounding. I don’t know much about choppers, so I can’t realistically answer that. The pressure wave would be tremendous. Like a tsunami, only an invisible one made of air.”

“All right, you’ve spelled it out for me, Bancroft.” Ward paced, running his fingers through his damp hair. He was sweating profusely. He glanced over at the hazmat technician.

“Give me your best educated guess on how long we have before this could happen,” he demanded tightly.

“Depends upon a lot of variables that we have no way of knowing, Captain.”

“According to the first mate, those trucks are parked within five feet of each other.”

“Then,” Bob offered softly, “those poor people on board may not have much time at all….”

“Next!” Rook shouted, helping several of the walking injured to the rail. One hundred people had climbed over the rail and found safety in the rafts that Jim and the
Flyer
crew had been able to release from the ferry roof. Dave was still in the water, releasing canisters and helping the passengers climb into the rafts. It was a tedious, time-consuming effort.

Rook had seen the
Point Countess
slicing through the water. The cutter had stationed herself a half mile upwind of the ferry to pick up those in the water. She saw at least forty to fifty small craft around the cutter, helping in the evacuation of wounded. The valiant ’60s were landing on the water, plucking three to four people at a time from the water. The rescue was well underway.

Rook’s head ached fiercely where she had sustained the gash on her temple. She moved through the hundred people left on the stern, all the time keeping an eye on which way the wind was blowing. And always, she tried to spot Jim as he crawled from one cylinder ramp to another on his belly. Most of the time she lost sight of him and the other two men in the roiling, twisting smoke as it poured more heavily out of the starboard hatches.

Rook felt the heat under her feet and realized that the fire was spreading. Gagging on fumes from other chemicals burning, Rook staggered toward the starboard side. Annie Locke and Bill Stone had worked without rest, hauling out one unconscious victim after another from the upper deck lounge. Several other men, the least injured, were doing the same. Sooner or later the helos would have to initiate basket drops to the deck of the ferry to take away the worst cases. They couldn’t be lifted overboard to the rafts below.

Annie groaned, tugging and pulling an unconscious two-hundred-and-fifty-pound woman. Rook met her halfway across the deck and came to her side.

“You take one arm, I’ll take the other,” Rook gasped.

Annie nodded, sobbing for breath. Together, they managed to get the woman down the ladder and to the knot of people on the stern. Others were administering CPR to those who had quit breathing after inhaling the deadly chlorine fumes.

Rook saw Annie gag from the chlorine fumes, then fall to her knees, retching. Leaning down, Rook held her.

“Th-thanks.” Annie wiped her mouth with the back of her torn sleeve. Slowly, unsteadily, she got to her feet.

“Go over there, Annie,” Rook begged. “You’re not well. Rest.”

Stubbornly, Annie shook her head. She managed a lopsided grin. “Take a look at yourself, ma’am. You’re a sight for sore eyes, too. You can barely stand….”

Rook ignored her, straightening up. The ferry suddenly groaned, the plates screeching and rending beneath them. They clutched at each other to stay upright as the deck slowly listed more and more. Another explosion occurred below. Annie cringed. Rook ducked.

Fire spewed out of the closest hatch, and shrapnel from an exploding car parked near the opening shot outward in a narrow arc. Another explosion! Rook jerked Annie along, trying to stay upright as they made their way back to the stern.

Two more cylinders were loosened and trundled down the steep ramps, splashing into the water. Rook brought Annie to the rail. They both clung to the steel bar, gasping for breath. Rook’s attention was drawn to Dave. His movements in the water were slow and uncoordinated as he swam toward the cylinders. He was going hypothermic. Annie sobbed, leaning over the rail.

“Dave! Get out of the water and stay out!” she screamed.

He didn’t hear her above the roar of the fire, the helicopters buzzing around like bees and the loudspeakers blaring from the cutter upwind of them. The water was pulling at him.

His legs were tired; he felt as if he was carrying thirty-pound weights. He opened his mouth to grab a breath of air, but instead, he swallowed water. Choking, he vomited and struck out more determinedly toward the next four cylinders, only feet away.

Annie checked out her life vest, making sure it was good and tight around her body. “I’m going in after him,” she told Rook, climbing unsteadily up on the rail. “The damn fool is already past reason. He’ll die if I don’t get him out of there.”

Rook grabbed her arm. “Get him and yourself out of the water—now. That’s an order, Annie. Do you hear me?” she demanded, her voice strained.

Annie was going to argue with her, but then thought better of it when she saw the set of Rook Caldwell’s jaw. “Yes, ma’am. In and out. I’ll get these rafts down to you as soon as I can and then stay out of the water.”