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“Well, there’s nobody here.”
And a thought occurred.
She ripped her phone from her pocket and scrolled for a number. It was the mobile of the operator from the first collapse, Garry Helprin. She tapped it.
Buzzing, buzzing …
Thinking, Please answer.
Please …
But he didn’t.
Voice mail.
Hell.
She cleared her throat. “Garry, it’s Detective Sachs. There’s another crane coming down. It’s aimed at a hospital. We want any thoughts you have about slowing it. They’re rigging tether lines, but I don’t think they’ll last. Call me or Lincoln Rhyme.”
She gave both numbers, then turned to the incident commanders. “I’m going to help with the evac. I’ll call you if I hear back.”
Another glance at the crane. It had sagged another two degrees.
How much longer?
No point in speculating. She grabbed the oxygen tank from the Torino and a Motorola from the coms van, then ran toward the entrance.
Inside the dim, chaotic lobby, she saw the elevator doors openand the lights above them blinking. Of course, risk of fire. They’d been put in fire service mode. She looked at the stairway, people streaming down.
Stairs.
Steep stairs.
Eight flights.
Oh, man.
Three deep hits of sweet O, and she slung the green tank over her shoulder and started up.
Gasping for breath with every step.
39.
THE SCENARIO UPSTAIRSwas worse than she’d thought.
On the eighth floor, the top, thirty patients, visitors and staff remained, clustered at the east and west exits at the far end of the hallway. But then, wait—she had to supplement the count by doubling the number of patients; it was the ob-gyn and delivery ward.
These narrow fire exits were the only routes that could be used since the main exit—the elevators—was not available. The backlog was due to the number of patients who were not ambulatory. Mothers who had given birth minutes before, C-section patients, and several, she was told by a nurse, who were here not as ob-gyn, but had been moved to recovery rooms from downstairs, presumably because of space shortage. The latter two groups were confined to beds. Several were still unconscious.
Sachs joined the other rescue workers, wheeling to the exits chairs and beds of patients who couldn’t walk.
Out the window facing south, the tower was clearly visible, the tubes glowing in the morning sun. It was not very close, but that structure itself was only half of the risk. When the collapse came,the mast would cut through the side walls of the hospital, the jib the top.
As she looked, it eased forward another few feet.
Were the tether straps holding?
Not very well, apparently.
