Atlantis (10 page)

A police officer came and took the woman by the arm. “Ma'am, you have to wait behind the lines. They're doing the best they can.”

The cop led the woman away and Dane sat back down. He could sense Chelsea's unhappiness. In New York, not only had he and the other handlers had to play with their dogs to keep their spirits up; some had staged mock rescues. They'd go into a cleared section and “find” a rescuer who pretended to be a victim. The dogs reacted positively and it kept them going. Dane was content tossing the frisbee to Chelsea; she was too smart to fall for the mock rescue technique.

Dane was bone-tired. They'd been here for ten hours now, searching in the rubble, without anything longer than a thirty minute break to gulp down some coffee. Dane hadn't eaten; he never ate during a search.

“Mister Eric Dane?” a low voice came from behind.

Dane turned his head without getting up. He saw a slender black man in an expensive suit walking toward them.

The man halted, looking at the dust and sweat encrusted coveralls Dane wore, searching for a nametag, but there was none. “Are you Eric Dane?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Lawrence Freed. I work for Michelet Technologies.”

Freed looked past him to the ruins. It had been a paint factory until last night; now it was a graveyard. Something had gone wrong with a batch of the chemicals used and there had been a massive explosion. The three story structure, poorly built during the thirties and poorly maintained, had pancaked until now there was only a ten foot mound of rubble. As part of his job, Dane had studied building structure and he knew that unexpected forces applied in an unforeseen direction could have devastating consequences on any structure.

“Never heard of it or you.” Dane said. He had turned his attention back to the ruins. A crane was lifting a large piece of steel reinforced concrete up into the air. There was a bustle of excitement.

“I would like to talk to you about acquiring your assistance.”

“My assistance in what?” Dane asked. A pair of firefighters in long yellow coats and helmets were coming toward them.

“A rescue.”

“As you can see, I'm already occupied,” Dane said.

“This is a different sort of--” Freed paused as two firefighters arrived and Dane stood.

“Dane, we're in to the southeast side,” the first of the firefighters said.

Dane nodded. He walked away from Freed without further acknowledging the other man's presence and headed in to the ruin. Freed began to follow but the firemen stopped him. “It's not safe in there. Authorized personnel only. Whole thing could shift and then we'd have to dig you out too,” one of them said.

Dane climbed over what had been the outer wall of the factory, carefully picking his way through shattered brick. At least there wasn't much glass in the building. He always had to be concerned for Chelsea's paws getting cut. Chelsea nimbly followed him, surprisingly agile for her weight.

Dane passed areas they'd already searched as he went farther into the building. Over his head was open to the sky, the path that the heavy equipment operators had forged, torn between the rush to get into the building and the fear of shifting some of the rubble and possibly killing someone who was trapped inside some void area.

The woman's confrontation outside showed the paradoxes of Dane's and Chelsea's work, yet everyone here worked under dual pressures that conflicted. Dane paused and put his hands to his head. He felt a driving pain over his left eye and the eyelid flickered uncontrollably. It was always like this. He'd taken some painkillers on the second job, but he'd found they interfered too much. Since then he'd accepted the pain as the price to be paid.

A group of firemen were gathered around a dark opening. They turned as Dane and Chelsea came up. The leader had a steel cable in his hand and he pointed into the hole. “I've been down. You get to the first floor, then move horizontal. Goes about thirty feet. There's void areas all along what used to be a corridor. One interior wall is holding good and appears solid. I couldn't see too well.”

From long experience, Dane knew that void areas were what rescuers prayed for. Open spaces in the rubble where a person might have survived. Dane had seen many destroyed structures over the years, but all of them had had some spaces in them.

“What's on the plans?” Dane asked as he knelt and looked in, shining a flashlight that one of the firemen handed him.

“Down there is the first floor, admin section.” A fireman laid a set of blueprints on a piece of shattered concrete. “It's the last place we have to get to, but it's also where there were the most employees who were at work at the time. Best we could find out was that there were seven, maybe eight people in there.”

Dane closed his eyes as the pain in his head picked up the beat. Seven, maybe eight. Throughout the rest of the factory they'd found eight bodies, spaced among the machinery. This would be different. Seven or eight all together. He's seen that, and worse.

“Did you run a mike down?”

The fireman nodded. “No noise. We yelled and got nothing back. Ran fiber optic as far as it will go and nothing either.”

Dane glanced at Chelsea who had settled down on the dusty remains of a heating duct, her head between her paws. She looked reluctant to go in. Dane wasn't exactly keen on it either, but there was always the chance someone was unconscious down there.

“Let's do it,” Dane said, standing. He switched on the light he wore on his hard-hat and pulled the chinstrap down.

The fireman hooked the steel cable to the harness that Dane wore then to Chelsea's harness. Dane hooked a leash from his harness onto the Chelsea as an extra safety. Then he looked down once more into the hole. He closed his eyes for a second and concentrated, then he slid his legs in. Chelsea was on her feet, her muzzle next to his face as he lowered himself down. “Good girl,” Dane said.

He felt with his toes, getting support, then he reached up. The firefighters handed her to him and he grunted from the weight. “Big fat dog,” he whispered affectionately. “I'm going to have to put you on a diet.”

Chelsea growled and nuzzled her head into his armpit. Awkwardly and with great difficulty, Dane made his way down until he reached the ground level, then he put Chelsea down. He shone his flashlight around. To his right was a cinder block, load bearing wall, the reason this void space existed. The opening extended about thirty feet straight ahead, at one point narrowing to a two-foot opening.

Dane turned the flashlight and the light on his helmet off. He slowed his breathing and ignored the pain over his left eye. He stayed perfectly still for a minute, then he turned the lights back on and looked at Chelsea. “Search,” he whispered in her ear.

Chelsea moved forward, her head down, sweeping back and forth, her tail straight up and erect. Dane watched her, his face resigned. She stopped after six feet and turned her head to the left. She raised a paw. Dane pulled a small red flag out of his backpack and marked the spot. Another body lay somewhere underneath.

They continued down the corridor, leaving three more red flags. As he was placing the last one, Dane suddenly lifted his head. He looked to his right. The cinder block wall was solid on that side. He pressed up against the wall as Chelsea watched him curiously, until as much of his body as possible was touching it. He stayed like that for thirty seconds, then he suddenly pushed away.

“Stay!” he ordered Chelsea. She obediently sat down as Dane made his way back until he was at the bottom of the shaft.

“I need a jack-hammer!” he called up.

“Right away.” Ten seconds later the equipment was lowered on a rope. Dane dragged it behind him back up the corridor, making sure the air pressure hose didn't get snagged on rubble. He returned to where Chelsea waited.

He placed the tip of the hammer against the cinder block and went to work.

Chips of cinder flew, but his steel rimmed glasses protected him. He carefully took out eight blocks, one at a time, making sure that those surrounding the hole remained intact, a technique he had learned from a rescue expert in Houston during a job there.

As he removed the last block, Chelsea suddenly lunged forward and pressed against, him, her nose in the hole, barking furiously, her tail wagging, thumping Dane on the leg. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Dane said, patting her head. “Good dog.”

He pushed the jackhammer aside and slithered into the hole. The beam of light from his helmet caught the suspended dust and raked over the edge of a desk that had taken the impact of the concrete floor from above. Dane could see a tiny space where the metal front of the desk didn't touch the tiled floor. He slid his hand through, fingers probing into the space under the desk.

His entire focus was on the ends of his fingers, feeling tile, dust, the outline of the desk well, the splintered leg of a chair. Then he felt something warm and yielding: skin. Living skin, he knew as soon as he touched it.

Dane turned on the small FM radio for the first time. “I've got a live one,” he whispered into the mike.

“We're coming down!” was the immediate reply from the firemen waiting above.

Dane kept his fingers pressed against the flesh. He knew whoever it was, was unconscious, but he also knew the importance of human contact, even to an unconscious mind.

Soon the small space on the other side of the cinder block wall was filled with men and equipment. Dane remained where he was as they carefully widened the hole in the wall and then came through. The firefighters shored up the collapsed ceiling so they could rip the desk out of their way and not have everything tumble in on them.

Finally they went to work on the desk with the jaws of life, carefully tearing sections of it away until they exposed the person on the other side. A fireman shone his light in, illuminating a young woman, her features covered with dust and blood. They carefully scooped her out and Dane finally let go. He rolled onto his back as the woman was strapped to a stretcher and hustled down the corridor and out to the surface.

“Want to come up?” the head rescue man asked him.

Dane slowly shook his head. He wanted to just lie where he was and for everyone to leave him alone. “There's three or four more missing. Maybe somebody else made it.” But he knew there weren't any more survivors, even an unconscious one. The building was dead and everyone who had been in it were dead. He knew it, but he had to go through the paces.

Dane got to his feet, hunched over under the collapsed ceiling. “Come on, Chelsea. Just a little further.”

Chelsea whimpered disapprovingly but she moved. Dane knew she knew what he did, but they could at least locate the other bodies. They slowly went down the remains of the corridor and by the time they reached the end of the void space, they'd planted three more flags where Chelsea had tapped her paw.

Dane finally turned her around and led her out, handing her up to rescuers who helped them out of the shaft.

“The woman's going to be all right,” one of them told Dane, slapping him on the back. “Couple of broken bones and a knock on the head, but otherwise she's going to be fine.”

Dane nodded. There was a lighter mood in the air. Fifteen bodies and one survivor, but that one was what everyone here had worked for. The reality of the dead would come home to all later, when they were in bed and their mind played back the crushed and mutilated bodies.

Dane shook hands and walked out of the wreckage. He gratefully accepted a cup of coffee from a Red Cross worker, but only after getting a bowl of water for Chelsea and watching her loudly slurp it up.

Dane removed his glasses and ran a dirty hand across his face. The headache wasn't as bad now.

“Mister Dane.”

Dane didn't even turn his head. “Mister Freed,” he said.

“I wasn't sure you heard me before you went into the building,” Freed began.

“You want me to help you with a rescue,” Dane said.

“Yes.”

“You don't seem very concerned,” Dane said, finally looking at the other man. “Or in much of a rush.”

“Time is of the essence,” Freed said, somewhat taken aback by Dane's comments.

“Isn't it always?” Chelsea pressed her head against Dane's leg and his hand automatically began scratching behind her ears. “I work through FEMA,” Dane said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “They contact me, fly me to the site, and then we get to work.”

“This doesn't fall under FEMA's jurisdiction,” Freed said.

“Everything in the States' falls--” Dane paused. “All right, why don't you just tell me what the situation is and why you want my help?”

“A plane has crashed and we need your help in finding survivors.”

Dane frowned. “I haven't heard of any plane crash on the news. And besides, Chelsea's a search dog, not a tracking dog.”

“The plane went down in Southeast Asia,” Freed said, “and it's not Chelsea we want. It's you.”

Dane slowly went to one knee and ran his hand through Chelsea's coat, from the nape of her neck to the root of her tail. It comforted him as much as it did her and right now he needed the comfort.

“The plane went down yesterday,” Freed continued. “We don't have much time.”

“Surely you have people closer,” Dane said.

Freed ignored that statement. “I have a limousine waiting and a private jet at the airfield. All I ask is that you go with me to California and listen to an offer. You say no, I'll fly you back wherever you like. Plus you get ten thousand dollars just for going to California.”

After a few moments, Dane finally spoke. “I don't understand. Why do you want me?”

“I think you do understand, Mister Dane. Because you're the only person we know of who ever came out of there alive.”

“Where--” Dane began, but Freed answered the question before it was asked.

“Cambodia. North-central Cambodia.”

***

The Lear Jet was two hours out of Washington. Only one man was in the passenger compartment, lounging in a deep leather chair. A single overhead light glowed over his head, otherwise it was dark in the cabin. He had long wavy hair that had turned completely white. His face was well tanned, the lines hard, as if cut from stone. Much had happened but one could still recognize the young marine gunner who had looked out over the ocean after Flight 19 had disappeared so many years ago, listened to the disappearance of the
USS Scorpion
and the SR-71 and sent a special forces reconnaissance team deep into Cambodia.