It Had To Be You (11 page)

Twelve firefighters met in the bay. Beck
jumped into his turnout pants and boots but left off his coat, like
the others. Climbing onto the truck, he took his seat next to
Felicia. She turned to him. Over the wail of the siren, she said,
“It seems stupid to prepare you for this, after what I know you
must have seen in Afghanistan, but it’s my job. This isn’t going to
be pretty.”

“
I know, Lieutenant. I’m
ready.”

They rode to the scene in silence. All three
trucks reached the site simultaneously. Gawkers stood off to the
right, on the sidewalk, as the firefighters descended from the rig.
A strong scent of gasoline filled the air. Exhaust still puffed out
from the vehicle. Beck steeled himself against what he saw. A bus
had hit the concrete wall in front of a big building. It had
traversed the sidewalk, and the front looked like an accordion.
About ten feet away, a two-seater motorbike sprawled on the ground;
two bodies had been thrown farther. A man and a woman. Young.

Chief Erikson said somberly, “Zach, you and
O’Malley take the bikers until the ambulances get here.” They were
both paramedics. “The rest of you wait for instructions.”

Erikson approached Mitch along with Gabe
Malvaso and Holmes, the captain of the Quint/Midi. While they
conferred, Beck heard moans coming from the inside of the bus. Then
a scream.

Erikson hurried back. “Beck and White, get
the chocking out. Quint 7 has the right wheel. You brace the left
side. Sands, you’re going inside with Gabe. The Quint will set up a
ladder after the bus is stabilized.”

Like a well-oiled machine, firefighters flew
into action, dragging out blocks to wedge the wheels to keep them
from moving. In minutes, the huge vehicle was steady, the ladder
stable, and Sands climbed up it, followed by Malvaso.

The loud sound of the engines, still running,
and the shout of victims created a cacophony around them, but Group
2’s attention was focused on the bus rescue.

Erikson yelled out, “Beck and White, get
ready for victims.” Holms, captain of the Quint, gave the same
order to LoTurco and Waterman from the Quint/Midi.

Minutes later, Beck accepted the first body
from Gabe—that of a boy—and carefully placed him on a backboard.
The kid had lacerations marring an unlined face, and his arm hung
limply at his side. O’Malley and Malvaso were waiting to tend to
him. When Beck took charge of a woman, probably the mom, he got her
on a backboard, too. Sirens rent the air as the ambulances and
another set of trucks reached the area.

The third victim Beck received was
deadweight. As in
dead
. He was an older man with a shock of
white hair. Beck turned away from the ashen face and lolling head
after he set the man on the ground.

A fourth person came out, screaming and
kicking. She was a teenager with a huge gash on her forehead. White
set her down near the triage and spoke soothingly. Finally, the
girl quieted.

Another one. Oh, hell! Beck took a baby, of
not even a year, into his arms and saw he wasn’t breathing. Setting
him down quickly, Beck called out, “Got a baby here. Needs
bagging.” Meanwhile, Beck bent over and covered the child’s mouth
with his own. In. Out. Jesus, he’d never worked on someone this
small. In, out. But just as a medic delivered the miniature bag,
the tiny chest began to move. A cheer went up. Beck joined the
chorus with a punch in the air and a happy, “Yes!”

A half hour later, the bus had been cleared,
the victims in ambulances speeding to the hospital. He wondered if
Lela was on and if she would have to deal with the gruesome
aftermath.

Adrenaline crashing, Beck dropped down on his
ass next to White, who sat with her knees drawn up and her hands
linked between them. He said, “Well, that was hell.”

“
We get ‘em once in a while. No time to
think. We just react.” She punched his arm. “You did good,
probie.”

“
Thanks.” He shook his head. “We lost
the old man.”

“
Yeah. It’s tough. But you got a baby
breathing.”

A genuine smile. “I did.”

After a few minutes, they boarded the rescue
rig and headed back to the firehouse. Traffic swirled around them
and horns blew, but inside the truck, everyone was quiet, lost in
their own thoughts. Beck had been surprised the first time this had
happened, because this group was boisterous. But he guessed they
all needed time to process what happened.

Inside the kitchen, Gabe went to a cooler,
opened it and tossed everybody a bottle of water. “You did well
today,” he began just as the PA clicked on. “House fire on Addams
Street. Rescue 7, go into service.”

With a heavy sigh from each of them, the
group turned and quickly strode out of the kitchen. Though he rued
the circumstances, Beck was glad they were busy. It gave him less
time to think.

About anything…or anybody.

o0o

Lela had been a wreck all day thinking about
what had—and hadn’t—happened with Beck last night. At least he’d
been sane enough to reject her ridiculously dangerous offer. So she
was glad when the ER got busy again. Called to the desk, she
watched an ambulance crew wheel in victims, but firefighters
weren’t helping this time. Good. The last thing she needed was to
come face to face with Beck, whom she’d held intimately last night
and would have done more with if he hadn’t been so strong. Mind
blank, she strode to the two victims on gurneys and met up with
Christian, who’d just come from a nap in the on-call room after the
night shift.

The EMT gave them the run-down. “Bus
accident. These two were on the bike that got hit. Female, in early
twenties. BP 60/80. Labored breathing.” Hence, the oxygen mask.
“Right leg bone protruding. We suspect internal bleeding. Face
banged up.” The EMT stopped. “Jesus, she’s in bad shape.”

Christian turned to the nurse behind him.
“Call all available personnel. There’s going to be a lot of
injuries.”

Lela squeezed The EMT’s arm. “Thanks. We’ll
take it from here.”

They wheeled both patients into a double
room, followed by other nurses and a brand new intern. Lela and
Christian tied masks on and donned gowns. He looked over at her.
“Boy’s coming around. I’ll take him. Lela, you’re in charge of the
girl.”

They turned to their patients. Lela took out
her stethoscope. As she checked the girl’s vitals, she noticed her
leg. The medics hand bandaged it, but the gauze was soaked through
with blood.

Behind her, Christian snapped out orders for
his patient, which the nurses followed. As he worked on the boy, he
asked, “Status on your patient, Nurse Allen.”

She said, “Heart rate thready. Pulse erratic
and really slow. I think her leg needs immediate attention,
Doctor.”

“
Patient conscious, here. Mark”—the
intern—”take over.”

Christian crossed to assess Lela’s patient.
Slowly, he undid the bandages on the girl’s leg. Lela stared
unflinchingly at the bone sticking up and the torn and mutilated
flesh. There were murmurs of “Oh, God, Oh, no,” from others.

“
Get an OR stat, Lela. Jenny, call
Neuro and Ortho to meet us there. We need a trauma staff assembled
ASAP.”

Lela rushed to the phone on the wall and
called Surgery. They agreed to free up a room immediately. She was
monitoring the girl’s vitals when the phone buzzed. “OR4 free,” the
orderly told them.

Suddenly, the monitor on their patient gave
off a deadly, even beeeeeep. Everybody stopped. “Coding!” Singer
said. “Lela, be ready for chest compression.” Jenny was already
getting the paddles.

When the equipment was in place, he called
out, “Clear,” and zapped the young girl’s chest.

Nothing.

“
Go to two hundred.… Clear!” A loud
buzz as the body bucked.

Nothing.

“
Three hundred. Clear!”

Stillness. Nothing.

“
Start chest compression.”

Lela mentally calculated, “One, two, one
two…” as she pressed hard on the girl’s chest.

Christian gave an order for an eppie.

Still nothing.

And, later still, nothing.

Ripping off his face mask, Christian stepped
back and checked the clock. “Time of death, 8:05 a.m..”

Leaning against the rails of the bed, Lela
drew in a heavy breath, struggling to calm herself. After a few
seconds, she helped take care of awful details necessary after a
patient died. When she finally walked out of the ER, she was
drained. Death was a part of this job, but wrenching in one so
young. Really, nobody had time to waste.

Leaning against the nurse’s desk, entering
some information on a chart, Christian looked up when she
approached. “Let’s take a break, Lela.” He set down the file. His
eyes were sad and his mouth grim. “Get some coffee.”

“
Okay. I can’t keep going without some
energy boost.”

Silently, they headed down to the staff
lounge. When they arrived, Christian poured them both mugs of
coffee, then pointed to the TV. “Want to see how this
happened?”

“
I do.”

The bus collision was prime time in the local
news. A TV crew had been downtown for a speech by the mayor, and
although they didn’t have footage of the crash itself, they’d
caught the whole rescue on tape: trucks screeching to a halt.
Firefighters pouring out of trucks. Close-ups of the bikers, then
the cameras were shooed away from the ghastly sight of two kids,
one now dead.

The bus was fair game, though, and the video
was right there. Several uniformed firefighters whose names she
knew were in various stages of the rescue; she recognized three
names scrawled across the backs of turnout coats: G. Malvaso,
White, Sands. Then the camera shifted off to the left.

To Beck. With a baby in his hands.

Dear God
, she prayed,
please don’t
let the baby have died!

o0o

The desert dust gritted through his teeth. He
tried to keep his face covered with a kerchief, but it kept
slipping as he trekked through a maze-like, mud-walled compound
searching for Taliban fighters in the Helmand Province. He was
almost blinded by the thick, gray curtain, and the air around him
was unnaturally still. He imagined that he could feel the sand
fleas bite his ankles. Then the world exploded.

“
Nick, what...? Nick, where are
you?”

He tried to shake off the Afghan who had him
by the arms. But the fighter was strong. Nick bucked. “Get off
me.”

The soldier didn’t move, only held Nick down.
Rummaging for his gun, he felt the cold metal and knocked the guy
off him with its muzzle.

“
Ow! Ouch! Jesus!”

Why was that a feminine voice?

“
Nick, it’s me, Lela.”

His body began to calm and sweat cooled on
his skin. It took him a minute to open his eyes. Fuck! “What…what’d
I do?”

“
It’s okay,” she murmured softly. Just
like Amy used to. “You had a flashback.” She muttered something
under her breath about this happening a lot lately. Nick scrambled
to a sitting position, gripping the TV remote, and Lela hunched
back on her legs. “You all right now?” she asked.

“
Yeah. What happened?”

“
I don’t know exactly. I came in on an
off day to take inventory in the clinic, and you were in front of
the TV. Something must have been playing to trigger an attack,
because suddenly you started yelling. I rushed out of the clinic to
find out why.”

Clearing his mind, he thought back to the
show he’d been watching. “A documentary about the Marines was on.
They were in Kandahar. I knew I shouldn’t watch it but…” He gulped
in a breath. “Hell, I thought I was looking for insurgents in a
dust storm and you were the Taliban.”

“
If I had a nickel for every time I’ve
heard
that
line.”

He gave her whatever kind of smile he could
conjure. “I hit you.”

“
Yeah, clipped me with the remote.
Don’t worry, I was knocked around on the front.”

Studying her, he felt the darkness encompass
him. He hurt people all the time without his conscious intent.
“Your…your neck is bruising already.” He winced at the
discoloration.

She touched the space between her jaw and
shoulder. “I’ll put some ice on it. Get up and sit on the sofa
while I get a pack.”

She left and returned with the ice. They took
places on the couch. He wanted to move away from her, but he
couldn’t manage anything more than dropping down on the
cushion.

“
Want to talk about it?”

“
No.”

Her brow furrowed. “Geez, you guys are all
alike.”

“
Excuse me?” Was she mocking
him?

“
I was with an army colonel this week
and he had an attack in the parking lot of the Fire
Academy.”

“
He from the PTSD group you go
to?”

“
Uh-huh. He didn’t want to talk,
either, or go inside to the group afterward, but he did and he told
everybody what happened.”

Nick looked away. “He’s a brave man. Braver
than me.”

“
Oh, I don’t know. Walking in a dust
storm looking for terrorists counts as brave in my
book.”

Feeling okay about her comment, he
shrugged.

She stared at him. “Nick, would you talk to
the army colonel? It might help.”

“
Nah, there are vets here I can talk
to. And the shrink.”

“
Do you?”

He shook his head.

“
Then this is kismet, don’t you think?
I happened to be with two men who had an attack within a few
days.”

“
I don’t know.”