Periphery, page 11
Andrew struggled to absorb what Hamilton was saying. Something about possible joint training operations with DOF and county firefighters. Something about urban firebreaks. Didn’t have to worry about those yet, but special ops were in preliminary planning stages. Something about the vintumalu ab’ha fintos. About the har’uu cosh rhysillus Yog-Sothoth. Iä! Shub-Niggurath!
Andrew’s head jerked, sending a silver sliver of pain down his neck and into his shoulders. But even as he realized the voices had returned, he understood the last utterance had been howled through a rapidly closing aperture. This time the connection had lasted only a few seconds, but the throats that had uttered those burbling exclamations, throats like sewer pipes lined with downward-pointing spikes, had been closer.
So much closer.
He pressed his lips together to keep from groaning and reached up to massage the tendons at the base of his skull. Although it had been less than a dozen words, this communication was different from the previous one, more concise, more focused. No, that wasn’t quite right. It was more directed, as if the things his father and Little Billy called the vetro offalate were not bellowing to anyone who could hear, but rather speaking to a specific individual. Even worse, Andrew was almost certain the word, “Iä,” meant “quickly.” How the hell did he know that?
“Yes, Andy?”
Andrew glanced up. The room had fallen silent once again.
“Captain?”
“You have a question?”
Andrew realized Hamilton had misinterpreted the movement of his hand to the base of his neck as an arm raised in question. If he begged off now, he would appear distracted, indifferent. He could already hear Sid’s snort, his unspoken confirmation that yes, Andrew Tate had staggered to work hung over and barely functioning.
Yet again.
In desperation, he flung out the first question he could think of: “Evacuation timetables?”
Hamilton shook his head. “Still too soon to think about that.”
Andrew pressed on, sensing more was required if he wanted to avoid appearing caught off guard.
“My in-laws had a little summer cottage just north of Sedona. Five years ago, they lost it in the Slide Fire.” Grace’s parents lived in Virginia and had never, so far as he knew, set foot in Arizona. But a hot exhilaration swelled as the lie began to coalesce before him, and the more the ruse thickened and set, the more his confidence grew.
“Twelve hours before the fire swept down the valley they asked the authorities if they should evacuate and were told they still had days before the front reached them. If it reached them.” He carefully removed his sunglasses before addressing not just Hamilton, but the entire room. “They barely made it out. If the dog hadn’t gone ballistic...” Andrew raised his hands.
The captain gave him a small nod. “Which is why we’ll be getting regular updates. Can things change in a heartbeat? Of course. But for now, we carry on as usual. Alright?” He clapped once, bringing the meeting to a close. “Good, now back to work.”
As the other firefighters dispersed, Andrew shuffled slowly toward the locker room, reviewing his morning conversation with Little Billy. His father had been planning to blow up one of the stone pillars, one of the xalantracoils, before his arrest, or at the very least damage it enough so that it couldn’t turn on. “Fatally wound,” was how Little Billy had phrased it.
“When John called last week, he said he was nearly ready to try. All he had to do was rent some excavation equipment and move the explosives. He sounded strange, though.”
Andrew had been shaving as Little Billy spoke. Now their eyes met in the medicine cabinet mirror. “Strange how?”
Little Billy tsked. “Jittery. A little paranoid. Didn’t want to say exactly what he was planning out loud. I had to guess most of it.”
“Worried his phone might be bugged?” Andrew asked as he resumed shaving. “Considering he was arrested a few days later, he may have been right.”
“Or maybe he was worried something worse than Homeland Security was listening in.”
Andrew slipped down the hall past Station Three’s tiny gym (a rack of free weights, a Nautilus machine, two treadmills) and ducked into the empty locker room. It took several attempts to open the combination lock. From a nearly empty bottle, he shook three aspirin into his palm and dry-swallowed them, saying a silent prayer no bells would sound for the next twenty minutes.
Little Billy said he didn’t know how long they had before the shit hit the fan. Days probably. A week at most. If they were going to do something, it would have to be soon.
“John thought maybe since you’re a firefighter, you’d know where they stashed the black powder they impounded from him.”
“No clue. That would be the Feds, not Tampa Fire Rescue.”
“In that case, I don’t suppose you know where we can get our hands on some high explosives?”
He’d shaken his head, told Little Billy he would have to chew on that one for a while, but he had immediately thought of the department warehouse at the Port of Tampa. He’d been there often on supply runs. The building held nearly everything used by the department other than special op’s heavy equipment and the Schedule II narcotics, which were kept under lock and key at each station. On one of those runs, he’d noticed a number of crates under plastic sheeting sequestered to a far, dim corner. While Max loaded the pushcart with bandages and alcohol wipes, Andrew strolled over and lifted the plastic, revealing the pale blue writing stamped across the top of each box: Trenchrite.
“Got a stump you want to blow into your neighbor’s yard?” Max asked.
“Strong stuff?”
“Stronger than an M-80. Not as strong as C4. Oil companies use it mostly. For seismic exploration. Didn’t you pay attention during training?”
“That was many moons ago, my friend.”
The warehouse was locked up tight and monitored by security cameras, but there was no on-site security, something that had mildly surprised Andrew the day he’d discovered the explosives. Of course, what firefighter in his or her right mind would steal Trenchrite from the department warehouse? Such an act would be an unconscionable breach of trust and a criminal theft that would not only end a career but also send the culprit to prison for years.
Still, if he stayed out of the floodlights, went in through a window, wore a mask. If he got in and out quickly, how long before anyone even notice a box was missing?
“I just have to know; do you even give a shit anymore?”
Sid Langston stood in the locker room doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, back pressed against one side of the threshold and legs stretched across to the other. A human barricade. Andrew wondered how long he’d been there.
“Cat got your tongue?”
Andrew continued to unpack his duffel bag, stowing his bunk gear with a deliberateness he hoped would pass for indifference. In the months since his transfer to Station Three, he’d exchanged perhaps four words with engine eleven’s lieutenant. Their introduction had been brief and one-sided, Gary presenting Andrew with the mildly contrived cheerfulness a grade-school teacher would assume introducing a new student to class.
“I know who he is,” Sid had responded, staring him down until Andrew lowered the hand he had raised between them. Since then, their conversations had amounted to a few muttered “excuse me”s in the break room. Even on runs together he refused to speak directly to Andrew, instead directing his remarks to Gary, a tactic that would have been laughable had it not hampered their ability to work effectively as a team. There was no place for personality conflicts when people’s lives were at stake. Sid’s tirade the other day was the longest commentary he had offered on the topic of Andrew Tate. At least the longest in Andrew’s presence.
“I bet you think that little performance with the wacko earned you a few brownie points in the department, that somehow you’re a model fire medic now. Mr. Hero. Mr. Take-Charge.”
“I don’t think that, Sid.” He shut the locker and moved to the sink, where he washed his hands for no other reason than to delay squeezing through the exit.
“I don’t think that, Sid,” the other mocked in a warbling falsetto. “You fucking crack me up. You really do. I’ve watched you since you weaseled your way in here. Always gulping aspirin, always at the sink gargling with mouthwash. Trying to mask the smell of hooch on your breath. You think I have it out for you because you took a swing at your old partner? I don’t give a rat’s ass about that. Hell, if I thought someone was sleeping with my wife, I’d probably do the same.
"What pisses me off is that you can’t be trusted.
"What pisses me off is that your I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude puts the rest of us at risk. Us and the people we’re trying to help. Does somebody have to die before you realize you need to find another line of work?”
With Sid stretched across the threshold, they were nearly the same height. Andrew approached and leaned in until their noses were inches apart. “Here’s the reality of our situation,” he said in a soft, even cajoling tone. “You don’t like me? Fine. Don’t like me. But you know what? The captain trusts me. My partner trusts me. And I don’t really give a shit if you don’t. I’m here and I’m here to stay. From now on, when we’re out on a run I expect you to treat me with the same professional courtesy you’d treat anyone else.”
“Or what?” Sid lifted his chin. “You’ll take a swing at me?”
Andrew smiled. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? The last straw. The final screw-up. But it’s not going to happen. You’re not worth it.”
Sid’s expression did not change, but a minute shift of his head indicated the confrontation had ended for now. Andrew took a step back, satisfied with this minor victory in the same fleeting way he would have been had he made it through an intersection on the yellow light.
“Now get the hell out of my way.”
At the crash site, Andrew realized THAT what he’d been smelling since the previous afternoon—a vaguely musty aroma like a hot closet filled with old clothes—wasn’t a lingering memory of the vetro’s alien atmosphere after all.
“Smell that?” Gary asked as they rolled the stretcher toward the nearest vehicle, a late model Corolla wrapped around a utility pool, steam hissing from the crumpled hood and radiator fluid pooling beneath.
“I thought I was imagining it.”
“I’ve heard you can smell a wildfire from a hundred miles or more if the wind’s right.”
Off to the right, an overturned minivan blocked the road’s northbound lane. Next to it, a pickup with its rear axle lying thirty yards from its demolished bed sat with its nose angled toward the sky.
“Who’s our first priority?” Gary asked an approaching officer.
“Guy in the car’s banged up. He’s still conscious. Complaining of leg and neck pain. Got a bump on the head, too. Other drivers are standing over there in the shade. They say they’re fine, but you might want to give them a once over.”
The officer was about to motion them forward when a second cop approached, whispered something in his ear and nodded toward the sidewalk where the two drivers and a small gathering of onlookers lingered.
“Both of them?” the first officer asked.
“And two of the bystanders.”
The cop pulled what looked like a dishrag from his belt and mopped the sweat from his face. “This is going to turn into a paperwork clusterfuck, I can see that already.”
“Anything we need to know?” Andrew asked. Behind them, Sid and Clare were already dragging some of the larger pieces of debris off to the side.
“Other than people in this city losing their minds?”
“I’m blaming the heat and drought,” the second officer offered. “Good an excuse as any.”
“I’m beginning to seriously wonder if we’re not under some sort of terrorist attack. Don’t roll your eyes, Evelyn, even you have to admit the level of crazy has been off the charts for days now. That smell might not be the wildfire. They could be releasing some sort of hallucinogenic into the air from the back of vans or something.”
“Gerald, you need to lay off the conspiracy websites. Next thing you’ll be lining your hat with aluminum foil to keep the CIA from beaming messages into your brain.”
“What’s going on?” Gary angled the stretcher toward the steaming Corolla but waited for a response.
“Lot of people seeing things,” Evelyn said in a low voice. “That guy,” she pointed to the driver still in his car, “says he swerved into a pole because, and I’m quoting here, ‘giant grasshopper creatures were jumping across the road.’ We assumed drugs or alcohol, but then the woman in the van said she hit the pickup because children in monster costumes ran into the street and now the pickup driver and a couple of pedestrians are claiming a pack of deformed dogs came tearing out of that wooded lot, caused all this, then disappeared behind the strip mall.”
“Well, goddamn.” Gary turned to Andrew with a smile. “Maybe we should be wearing gas masks.”
“Don’t think I haven’t considered it,” Gerald said. “I’ve been seeing weird shit out of the corner of my eye for the last two days.”
As Andrew and Gary wheeled the stretcher forward, a second fire engine and ambulance pulled up, followed immediately by a flatbed tow truck. The injured driver was still behind the wheel, staring out the cracked windshield with pain-glazed eyes, the deflated airbag drooping from the center of the steering wheel like a collapsed parachute. Mercifully, the air-conditioning was still laboring away, exhaling a steady current of cold air out the open driver’s side door.
“Do we know his name?” Andrew asked.
Gerald pulled out a notebook, flipped it open. “Tanner. Joseph Tanner.”
“Mr. Tanner,” he said, taking a knee next to the door—the road’s asphalt almost unbearably hot even through the cloth of his pants—and opening the cervical collar Gary handed him. “We’re going to assess you real quick and get you out of there. You holding up okay?”
Tanner reached out and grasped the steering wheel, but did not turn toward Andrew. “I’m not drunk. I might be losing my mind, but I’m not drunk. You give me a breathalyzer, you’ll see.”
“We’re just here to help, Mr. Tanner. You told the officer you’re experiencing pain in your neck? How about your back?”
“They just appeared out of nowhere. One minute nothing. Then they were right in front of me. It was like they were decloaking or something. You know what I mean? Like those ships in Star Trek?”
“I’m going to put this collar around your neck, Mr. Tanner. Just keep still.”
Tanner’s gaze roved across Andrew’s face as he worked. A wound above his left eye had dripped blood down his temple and cheek, but appeared to have coagulated to a gummy red fissure. When he was finished with the collar, Andrew performed an abdominal check before asking for an antiseptic bandage.
“What’d they look like?” Gary asked, crouching next to Andrew and passing him the dressing. Andrew shot him a look, but his partner ignored him.
“Like I told the cop: nightmare grasshoppers. Big legs in back, smaller ones up front. But with heads like wedges and eyes on stalks. Big as pit bulls.”
“Scary.”
“You have no idea.”
Throughout the extraction, Andrew had to fight the urge to glance toward the wooded lot across the street or the strip mall behind them. By focusing on the task at hand, he managed to keep his eyes on his work, although he noticed both officers turning again and again toward something Andrew hoped wasn’t there. As they wheeled Mr. Tanner to the ambulance, his thoughts circled back to the warehouse and the case of Trenchrite.
The first outlines of a plan were beginning to coalesce. It would be risky, of course, but waiting until his shift ended the next morning was no longer the best option. Things were moving too quickly. And too many things could go wrong attempting to break into the facility after dark. Better to enter on legitimate business and find a way to secret the Trenchrite out the front door. And that would mean…
“Andy.”
He had been about to jump into the back of the ambulance after the stretcher. Gary was already behind the wheel. For an instant, he was tempted to simply leap inside and slam the doors, pretend he hadn’t heard Max’s voice. He’d been so preoccupied with Mr. Tanner, he hadn’t noticed which station the second ambulance had been dispatched from. A confrontation with his former partner was one more complication he didn’t need.
“Make it fast,” he said.
“I wanted to give you a head’s up. Something’s brewing at your station. I don’t know what, but there are a lot of rumors flying around that the hammer is about to fall there. On someone.”
“On me?”
“I didn’t say that. But whatever it is, it’s serious. The union reps have already been called in. And legal. I’m not going to lie. There are people who expect it has something to do with you. Who want it to have something to do with you. Watch your back.”
Andrew stepped up into the ambulance.
“And Andy.”
He paused with his hand on the door.
“I thought you did good the other day, with the hostage thing I mean. You’ve got ice water in your veins, man.”
Gary gave the air horn a blast and Andrew swung one door closed. “Max.”
The other man turned back.
“Whatever’s up at my station, it has nothing to do with me. But thanks for the warning.”
“No problem.”
“Maybe we can grab a beer sometime.”
Although his eyes were unreadable behind sunglasses, the lift of Max’s brows conveyed enough. “Absolutely.”
Andrew swung the second door closed and slid down the bench as ambulance twenty-three lurched forward. Through the rear windows, he saw Max pivot suddenly toward the overgrown lot, his hand rising to shield his eyes from the glare. Then the ambulance turned left onto Hillsborough Avenue and Max, the accident scene and whatever else lurked there was lost behind a brown wall of desiccated scrub pines.
