Free Touched by Fire by Greg Dinallo Page A

by a deafening pop and blinding flash that erupted behind her when the combustion inside the box had amassed enough pressure to blow it apart at the seams. The Ziploc bag had already melted, exposing the incendiary mixture to the oxygen-rich air that rushed into the carton. Lilah whirled just as it ignited in a fireball. The intense heat vaporized the corrugated board like flash paper. Sheets of flame raced up the wall to the ceiling. Waves of fiery sludge rolled across the table and onto the floor like molten lava.
    “Kauffman! Kauffmannnn!” Lilah screamed, her voice trailing off in a terrified wail.
    “Lilah? Doc? Doc Graham?” Kauffman. shouted into the phone. “Doc, what’s going on? You okay?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    The wail of sirens and throaty bark of Klaxons echoed off Westwood’s glass-walled towers as a caravan of fire trucks thundered down Wilshire Boulevard.
    Moments earlier, Mac-Med’s detection system had automatically set off internal fire alarms, broadcast an evacuation announcement over the intercom, and transmitted a signal to the tire station on Veteran Avenue a quarter mile away. Within thirty seconds every piece of equipment in its arsenal was rolling.
    Kauffman had dashed from the restaurant and was sprinting north on Westwood Boulevard toward UCLA’s main gate when the fire trucks rumbled past him. From there it was a straight two-block run to Mac-Med. The chunky six-story building, wrapped in bands of harsh red brick and waffle-iron window grids, sat atop a forbidding concrete bunker. A sweeping staircase cut into one side led to an entrance plaza above. The entire area was being cordoned off with barricades by campus security when Kauffman arrived.
    Emergency flashers swept through the darkness. Radios hissed and crackled with the detached voices of dispatchers. Firemen in their clunky boots, protective coats, and helmets ran in every direction. Some were connectingpumpers to hydrants and pulling hoses into the lobby; others were extending an aerial ladder and its platform-mounted water cannon to a window in Lilah’s office that had shattered from the heat. Flames shot from the opening and licked at the facade, which was blackening from billowing smoke.
    The chaotic scene confirmed Kauffman’s fears that Lilah was in extreme danger. Drenched with sweat, gasping for breath, he fought through the crowd of onlookers, eluded a security guard, and vaulted the barricade. The guard pursued him to a group of firefighters who were reviewing blueprints that were spread across the hood of a campus security cruiser.
    Captain Singer was in charge. A soft-spoken man with decisive eyes, he was noting the location of biohazard and radioactive symbols when Kauffman arrived. He held off the guard long enough for the kid to tell his story; then he assembled a rescue team and led the way into the building in search of Lilah. They trudged up four flights with their equipment and clumsy air tanks, then down a hazy corridor into the genetics lab. Thick smoke and torrential rains from the sprinkler system cut visibility to almost zero.
    “Dr. Graham!” Singer called out. “Hello? Dr. Graham! Doc! Doc, you in here?”
    There was no reply; no sound other than the rush of water and sharp crackle of fire. The sprinklers had contained it but hadn’t come close to extinguishing the inferno that was still raging in Lilah’s office. Several walls had already crumbled, and rhythmic waves of blue-orange flames were washing over the debris, threatening to engulf the entire lab.
    The firefighters moved between the workstations, knocking down flames and flare-ups as they searched forLilah. Several made their way to the administrative area and found her at a wall of file cabinets. She was soaked to the skin and choking on the heavy smoke despite the scarf tied over her nose and mouth; and in defiance of the screaming alarm, raging flames, and intense heat, she was frantically trying to save the precious OX-A data from being