Page 65 of Into the Fire

“The old loft copies,” I said. “The equipment records from 2021. Has anybody else asked you for them?”

He looked into my eyes. “Why are you asking? You know what my answer is worth to you. Same as it was worth to Boone.”

Teller came in behind me with his letdown rope over his shoulder. He saw Nash and stopped in the doorway, already rehearsing his defense.

“Bring it here,” Nash said. Teller handed it over. Nash turned the mess over twice. “Huh. You got the first two wraps right.”

He was being nice. The wraps were wrong. Nash undid the whole thing. “Watch. Then you do it, and I’ll watch.”

I took my pins and left. At the door, I looked back once. Nash was bent over the rope with Teller, showing him the wraps again.

By one o’clock the heat had come up out of the valley. The north wind was absent. We ate in the shade of the ready room wall, backs against warm cinder block, paper plates of whatever Ramirez had created with leftover chili.

“Sloppy joes,” Shep said, inspecting his. “This is chili on bread.”

“It’s a sandwich,” Ramirez said.

“It’s yesterday with a bun under it,” I said.

Shep went back for seconds and then lay in the shade with his hat over his eyes while Hollis read the weather forecast out loud.

We had one agenda item left for the afternoon. The tower rig had been stripped, cleaned, inspected, and rebuilt. Somebody had to ride it to verify it was all in working order. A man needed to clip into the letdown station, jump off the platform under load, and sign off on the morning work.

Hollis’s clipboard listed me as the man.

I was two rungs up the tower when Boone exited Operations and called across the yard.

“Dante. Phone.”

“Take a message.”

“It’s Prentiss.”

I climbed down off the ladder. Hollis looked at the sun, then at the clipboard, and did scheduling math with his face.

“Go,” Nash said. “We’re not standing around holding a certification open while Regional spells his name wrong. I’ll do it.”

Shep sat up and took the clipboard from Hollis, speaking out loud as he made the change, “Coyle for Vega.”

I started toward Operations. Boone held the door open, and behind him I heard Marty saying my full name over the phone.

I had one foot inside the Operations door.

Then there was a loud sound that was wrong. A snap, high and metallic.

I turned. “Nash—”

He was falling.

The letdown line hung loose above him. He kept his knees together and his arm in, exactly as he’d been trained, but he was falling toward the edge of the pit instead of into it. He hit half in the sawdust and half on the packed dirt.

I ran.

Shep got there first and reached for him.

“Don’t move him,” I said, arriving. “Nash. Nash, hold still.”

He was on his side, one arm under him wrong, sawdust in the gray of his hair. His eyes were open. He was already trying to get an elbow beneath him.