Quake (12 page)

Then he looked down into the spent fuel pool. Alex White's blue form floated lifelessly over the array of turquoise rectangles.

The hospital lights began to flicker just as Mendoza reached the stairs. He took them two at a time, using the railing to compensate for his weak ankle. Four little flights of stairs were not going to keep him from seeing Jana as soon as possible. But as he rounded the second floor landing and started up to three, the lights blinked out and stayed out. It was pitch-black in the stairwell.

He halted his upward progress, cursing the fact that he didn't have a flashlight on him, not even a little penlight.
Getting sloppy in my old age.
He smiled to himself and shook his head in the dark as he recalled all the optional gear he used to carry when he'd first started at the bureau and been very active in the field. Tactical flashlights, multi-tools, folding knives, a lock-pick set—little mini-backup versions of each attached to his keychain. What he wouldn't give now for even the stuff he used to carry on his keychain.

He took inventory of what he did have while he waited to see if the lights would come back on. His wallet: cashless. Also a mistake, he realized. He'd grown so accustomed to buying everything with a plastic card or electronic transaction that he rarely carried cash anymore. But paper money was no doubt king in the apocalyptic here and now. He knew there would be a few adventurous storekeepers here and there who kept their doors open in the dark, lighting lanterns and putting handwritten signs in the window proclaiming,
OPEN, CASH ONLY
. Some would be gougers, charging twenty dollars for a bottle of water or a single AA battery, while others would simply be opportunists—out to make an honest buck while providing a needed service at the same time. But none of them would be accepting MasterCard or American Express.

He had his keys, too, but the only attachment to them he carried these days was a computer flash drive.
Great. I'm ready to transfer documents for people,
he thought bitterly.

But he did have his trusty Glock, and with a spare clip to boot. If he could only have one thing, he supposed the Glock would be it. He'd gotten that right, at least. He'd get through this.

Mendoza decided that the lights weren't coming back on so he started inching his way up the stairs, right hand making exploratory sweeping motions out in front of him, the left clutching the railing. He registered
three
to himself as he reached the third floor landing and then made the turn up the final flight to the fourth floor. He heard screaming from one of the floors—the fourth? Had the lights gone out throughout the entire hospital? He thought about how difficult it would be to find Jana in that situation, but then told himself that this was a hospital, they must have emergency lighting, even beyond the main generators. He sure hoped so, anyway, as he pushed open the door to Four.

The hall was lit mostly by lengths of LED strip lights along the floor, like the kind they had in airliner aisles, and the occasional ceiling fixture such as a red EXIT sign or small utility light of some kind, a smoke detector. Some of the patients' rooms did seem to have auxiliary lighting, though, as an occasional cone of light flooded into the hallway through an open door. To Mendoza, the lighting was more than adequate after spending the last few minutes in absolute darkness, although he realized that for the people who worked here—including his wife—it would be a most unwelcome development.

He passed a patient's room and heard a doctor say, “You'll have to do without that for the time being but you'll be okay.” The doctor told the patient he had to go now, and the patient hollered obscenities in protest. Up ahead, Mendoza saw a reception area of some sort and picked up his pace toward it. He saw several people clustered in front of a long desk, huddled in conference. Mendoza approached the group, but before he got to them, a bulky male orderly cut him off and asked him if he required assistance. He told the man he was looking for his wife, Jana, and the orderly relaxed.

“Jana's fine, she's been working nonstop since the quake. I don't know what we'd do without her,” the orderly said, beckoning Mendoza to follow him a short distance down the hall. They reached an open area with a row of unoccupied surgical beds, and Mendoza spotted Jana talking to a female nurse. He heard her say, “I'll go. I can do it. You stay here and triage north wing. There's no attending physician.”

Mendoza uttered a quick thanks to the orderly and walked toward her.

“Jana!”

Both women turned to look at him.

“Frank!”

“I'm here, baby. I'm here!”

The couple locked in an embrace. The nurse Jana had been talking to observed the reunion momentarily and then left the area. For a long time the two only held one another, not speaking. Then Frank gave her a recounting of the courthouse collapse, his rescue by Nick, and their split on Seventh Avenue.

“I'm just so glad you're here,” Jana said. “I was so worried about you. I wanted to go look for you but . . . But people were dying here, Frank. So many . . .” She broke down, sobbing into Mendoza's shoulder.

“It's all right,” he said, trying to comfort her, but he knew it was a stupid thing to say. What was all right about this? Other than the fact that they were together again—nothing.

She raised her head, regaining some of her composure. “I'm glad you got here when you did. I was getting ready to leave, to go to another hospital to get supplies.”

Mendoza's eyes bugged out. “
What?
Who's making you do that?” He looked around, as if he could spot the person and confront him right now.

“Nobody's
making
me do it. I
volunteered
to do it. I
want
to do it.” She pulled him even closer. “Frank, we have nothing to work with here. The quake damaged our infrastructure and more than quadrupled our patient influx at the same time. We've had a few doctors go AWOL to be with their own families, and a few that were killed in the quake. One slipped and fell on a ruptured Sharps container.” She winced with the memory. “Anyway, if I can make it to another hospital I can explain our situation, get some supplies—maybe even some doctors—to bring back here. We are
desperate
.” As if in confirmation of this fact, they heard someone shout, “Get somebody in here,
stat
. . . . Find a way, damn it, she's
flat-lining
.”

Mendoza took a deep breath. “From what I've seen so far, Jana, it's not going to be much better anywhere else around here.” Then he perked up.

“What is it?” she asked. “I know that look. You've got an idea.”

Mendoza nodded. “Nick was heading to Columbia University, to find his daughter. There's a hospital there, right?”

Jana's face brightened. “Yes, a research hospital.”

“And it's a little farther away, so it might have fared better in the quake.”

“Okay. Let's go.”

“You weren't really considering going out there alone, were you?”

“Well, I don't know. I haven't been outside yet—how bad is it?”

Mendoza slowly shook his head. “You'll see. C'mon.”

The married couple headed for the stairs.

“Oh, wait a minute, hon. Can you get a flashlight up here somewhere? Stairs are pitch-black.”

Jana smiled and reached into a pocket of her scrubs. She produced a slender penlight, pointed it at Mendoza and flicked it on.

“You
are
the light of my life,” Mendoza said, taking his wife's hand. “C'mon, let's get to Columbia.”

Whap!

She was woken by what sounded like the slap of a hammer.

Whap!

The sound reverberated inside the bookcase.

Whap!

Lauren felt it in her stomach.

Whap!

She counted. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi.

Whap!

The
whaps
were coming roughly every three seconds.

Whap!

She counted again; she'd need to time her scream impeccably.

Whap!

“
Help me,
” she cried. And waited.

Silence. Whoever was out there pounding away had heard her.

“
Help,
” she cried again. And listened.

A voice so muffled it could have been sounding from underwater touched her ears. Whose was it? Who cared? She needed to get out from under here. She felt woozy and was sure she wouldn't last much longer.

Another sound—a scratching sound—emanated from somewhere near her knees. Her fingers balled up into fists and she clenched her jaw. The sound was steady, but whoever it was didn't seem to be making much progress. Whatever they were trying to do.

“
Please, help,
” she shouted.

The sound ceased. Then she heard the clatter of a tool dropping on top of her bookcase and she startled. Then whoever it was went to work on the spot down by her knees again.

Finally, after several grueling minutes that felt like hours, a sliver of
light
.

“
Lauren?
”

She recognized the voice but her mind was slow in registering whose face it belonged to.

“
Ray?
” she cried.

“Lauren, are you all right?”

“I-I can't move, Ray. One of the shelves is pinning my legs down. They might be broken, I don't know.”

“All right. Listen, I can't get this bookcase off you. . . .”

Lauren felt her heart sink.

“But I was able to shoehorn it just enough to let in some air. And my voice.”

“What's happening out there?” Lauren cried, trying helplessly to keep the anguish out of her voice.

Ray hesitated. “I think it was an earthquake.”

“Is everyone all right?”

Again there were a few moments of silence before she heard Ray's voice. “The library's a disaster zone, Lauren. Everyone who was on the first floor was crushed.”

She pictured the scene she'd walked in on hours earlier and suddenly the blackness she'd been staring into all day started turning white.

No, you can't pass out now! Help is here.

“Crushed?” she said. “What do you mean? How?”

“The ceiling has caved in. The bookcases and the floors above us saved you and me. But no one else was so lucky.”

Tears trickled down the sides of her face. Her cheeks, in fact. But how? Her tears had been falling freely into her ears for as long as she could remember after coming to.

“Ray?”

“There's something else, Lauren. I don't want you to be scared. Because we're going to get out of here, you and me.”

“What is it, Ray?” But she thought she knew.

“Our floor, it's sort of on a diagonal. Pointing downward. We're . . . Well, we're sliding. We've been sliding for a long while. But we're moving very, very slowly. We should be fine, so long as someone finds us in the next few hours.”

“How long have we been here?”

“I don't know exactly. But it's dark outside. And it's been that way for a while.”

Lauren swallowed hard. “Can't you get help?”

A sigh. “My left leg is broken in at least two places,” he said. “There's no way for me to get downstairs without killing myself, and possibly toppling this entire floor.”

Now that he said it, Lauren realized that the intense pain had been evident in his voice. That was why she hadn't recognized whose voice it was when she first heard it. The edge had vanished completely, replaced by sheer horror. Ray sounded now like a frightened little boy.

“Don't
leave
me,” Lauren suddenly shouted, unsure why.

“I'm not going anywhere. But I've been fading in and out from the pain. If I'm silent, Lauren, it won't be because I left you here, I promise.”

Of course, Lauren had been struggling with consciousness all day as well. She worried now that it may be a head injury. That she may be suffering a brain bleed. She thought of that lovely British actress who'd been married to Liam Neeson. What was her name? She couldn't remember. All she remembered was that she'd died after a skiing accident. She'd been fine at first. Up and walking and talking and joking around. Then she was just . . . gone.
Talk and Die Syndrome
, she'd heard it called. Or something like that.

Goddamn WebMD.

She chuckled despite herself. While most parents were blocking porn sites, her dad had tried to block WebMD. Just now, she wished he'd succeeded.

Definitely
not
going into pre-med
, she thought.

“Ray?”

“Yeah?”

“Please, talk to me?”

She heard him laugh out loud, the sound echoing throughout the rubble.

“What is so funny?” she said.

“Nothing, really. I was just about to ask you the same thing. Ask you to tell me a story or . . . Or something.”

She smiled. “Let's agree to keep each other company, then. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He coughed loud and long and Lauren realized she might have been spared the worst of the dust that had no doubt risen out of the rubble. She remembered watching over and over again on television the clouds of dust and debris that raced down the streets of lower Manhattan after the towers collapsed. When she first saw her father that evening, he'd been covered in the beige fog, from head to toe. As difficult as it must have been for him, her dad didn't even let her hug him until he'd had a long shower. Even then, he'd been hacking for weeks afterward.

“What do you want to talk about?” Ray said, his voice lilting.

“I don't know. Why don't we learn a little about each other? Let's ask each other questions. You first.”

“All right,” Ray said. “We'll pick up where we left off before everything went to hell. Who's your favorite author?”

Lauren sighed.
Goddamnit. He had to remember
that?

“Given our current predicament,” she said, “let's avoid the subject of books, shall we?”

“All right,” he said with a chuckle that quickly morphed into another coughing jag. “What's your favorite movie?”

“
The Shining
,” she said without hesitation. “What's yours?

“
Braveheart
, I think.”

She frowned in the darkness. “You think?”

“Well . . . Mel Gibson, you know?”

Lauren smiled. “I get it. What's your favorite TV show?”

“Oh, wait until next year, Lauren. Your TV-watching days are over if you come to Columbia. But what's yours?”

“Can it be a past show?”

“Of course.”

“Then it's
The Wire.
My dad got me hooked. He says it's the best show ever made for television.”

“Is he a cop?”

“He's a prosecutor.”

“Really? An assistant DA?”

“An assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District.”

“A
federal
prosecutor.” Ray whistled, but it sounded weak and dry. “Impressive. Is he working on the Feroz Saeed Alivi case at all?”

“My dad's the lead attorney. He gave his opening statement this morning.” She paused. “At least I hope he did.”

Ray's voice turned somber again. “I'm sure he's fine all the way downtown, Lauren.”

Lauren wanted to quickly change the subject, so she asked the first question to pop into her head. “How about your dad? What does he do?”

“He's a dentist,” he said solemnly. “He has a practice in Clifton, New Jersey. At least he did the last time I saw him.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Three and half years. My parents split when I was in middle school.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. My father was a bastard. He'd get plastered every night and then come home and raise hell. He hit my mom more than once. If I never see him again it'll be too soon.”

Lauren nodded in the darkness, thinking of how lucky she was to have her father.

“Lauren?” Ray said.

Natasha
, she thought.
Natasha Richardson.
That was that beautiful actress's name. The one who was married to Liam Neeson. The one whose life ended far too soon, all because of some dumb skiing accident.
Natasha Richardson.

“Lauren?” Ray said again.

Lauren gathered her thoughts and replied, “Yes?”

“Thought I lost you there for a few seconds.”

“I'm all right,” Lauren said. “What is it?”

“Nothing, really. I was just going to ask you about your mom.”

 

 

Lauren had been five years old the day the towers came tumbling down. It had been a bright and shiny Tuesday morning, a day that she'd argued was too nice to spend in school.

“Summer was too hot,” she'd complained to her mom that morning before her mom left for work. “Vacation stunk because it was too hot and sticky. Too
yoom . . .
What's that word, Mommy?”

“Humid.”

“Right, too
humid
. We should have off all of September instead.”

“Well, you don't, sweetheart. Now finish your cereal.”

“Let's take the day off, Mommy. You, me, and Daddy. Let's all take the day off and, I don't know . . . maybe go shopping?”

“Shopping?” Her dad stepped into the room with his usual wide morning smile. “We just did all your back-to-school shopping, dear. What else could you possibly need?”

“I could want only one scooter.”

Dad ruffled the hair on her head. “There are so many things wrong with that sentence—not the least of which is that I said ‘no scooters until you're six'—that I'll pretend I never heard it.”

After breakfast, her mom got her dressed. Lauren remembered her being so rushed.

“I've got to get downtown early this morning. The client hasn't even been prepped for her deposition yet.”

“Maybe your client will see what a nice day it is and decide not to show up either,” Lauren said helpfully.

“Doubtful, sweetheart. My client stands to make a lot of money from this lawsuit. I think she'll be there with bells on.”

“With
bells
on?”

“It's an idiom.”

“What's an
idiom?
”

“An expression.”

Lauren still wasn't sure, but she picked up on the stress in her mom's voice and decided to leave it at that. She turned to her father.

“How about you, Daddy? Want to take the day off with me?”

“
Me?
Play hooky? As Paulie Walnuts says on
The Sopranos
, ‘Fughedabowdit.'”

Lauren scrunched up her features. “
Play hooky?
”

“It's an idiom, dear.”

“An
express-shun
.”

“That's right.” He leaned over and kissed her on her head. “You're so smart. You get that from your mommy.”

“What do I get from you, Daddy?”

“So far,” her mom chimed in, “the way you throw a football.”

Her dad snarled, showing his teeth. “Low blow, Sara. A very low blow.”

Lauren's mom hurried up the stairs for “finishing touches.”

While she was gone, Lauren said, “
Finishing touches
?”

Her dad was propped against the wall, reading the
New York Times
. “It's an idiom.”

“An
express-shun
.”

“Right, dear.”

“But
what does it mean?
These idioms have to
mean
something, don't they?”

Her dad looked at her over his paper. “
Finishing touches
are last-minute adjustments. Maybe your mom's upstairs adding blush to her cheeks or running a brush through her hair. I don't know. Men don't usually add finishing touches unless they're painting a house or building a model airplane, I guess.”

“Because men don't care what they look like?”

“I don't think that's true, exactly. But maybe women care a little more.”

“That's sexist,” her mom said as she came hustling down the stairs.

Lauren didn't notice any finishing touches. Except when her mom passed her, Lauren smelled the expensive perfume she and Daddy had bought her for her birthday.

“What's
sexist?
”

“What your father said.”

“No, I mean, what's
sexist
mean?”

Her parents exchanged glances, then simultaneously looked back at Lauren and said, “It's an idiom.”

An express-shun
, Lauren thought. But she didn't think Mom and Dad were telling her the truth about this one.

Her mom turned to her dad. “You sure you're all right dropping Lauren off at school this morning?”

“I'm more than all right with it.”

“Thanks, honey.” She kissed him on his cheek, leaving behind a red lip print. Her father licked his right thumb and rubbed it off as soon as her mom turned away.

Then her mom stepped over to Lauren and got down on her haunches. “Have a wonderful day at school, sweetheart.” She kissed Lauren on her forehead. “Remember how much I love you. Don't take crap from any of the boys. And don't take any wooden nickels.”