Free Vertical Burn by Earl Emerson Page B

feathers back. No point in trying.”
    “Rumors are the least of my worries.”
    “I’m glad you’re taking it so calmly.”
    But he wasn’t taking it calmly. Balitnikoff. Besides having worked at Station 10 for the past three years, Marion Balitnikoff had been in and out of Finney’s life since he’d known Bill Cordifis. Finney had long ago been conscripted into the weekly Cordifis clan get-togethers, and frequently this meant spending time with Bill’s department pals, Marion Balitnikoff among them. Finney and Balitnikoff had crossed swords more than once. Uneasy about the way he ogled Heather, Cordifis’s youngest daughter, Finney had mentioned it to her father, who, either unwilling or incapable of thinking ill of his friends, dismissed Finney’s concerns out of hand. Balitnikoff was a family friend, and that was that. To make matters worse, Cordifis, for some reason, told Balitnikoff what Finney had said. Balitnikoff had never forgiven him.
    Tony picked a piece of lint off his younger brother’s collar. “God, I was worried for you that night. We pulled in just as the roof on the west side caved in and fired up the sky. I thought you were going to die. They must have been working on you, oh, fifteen minutes, had all your clothes except your jockeys stripped off and were putting ringers into you, when one of the medics decided to get a core temperature. A hundred and six. The doctors told me hallucinations start at a hundred and five. Can you imagine how hot you must have been twenty minutes earlier when you were inside?”
    To Finney’s way of thinking, the modern fire service had gone overboard in mandating protective equipment. During his first years on the job full bunkers had been optional. He’d worn a heavy bunking coat, a helmet, gloves, cotton—and later Nomex—pants, along with steel-toed work boots. Only at night or at the more hazardous fires would he climb into knee-high rubber bunking boots and the heavy bunking pants that came with them. In the old days their ears, necks, and skin around their facepieces were exposed. People who’d worked with that system liked it because, despite occasional steam burns, it gave them a valuable temperature gauge.
    Now, mummified in a variety of heavy, fire-resistant garments, they often went so far into fire buildings they couldn’t get out safely. There was no way to tell how hot it was until it was too late.
    And though the manufacturers touted the latest materials in heat transference properties, the fact was that even the best-conditioned firefighters sweated heavily while working in the multilayered bunking coats and trousers. The body produced sweat in order to cool, yet in bunkers there was no cooling effect. To Finney, compared to the old days, it seemed as if fires were being fought in slow motion. Teams were sent to rehab to drink and rest after depleting a single half-hour air bottle.
    Fire departments across the country were fighting forty percent fewer fires but losing more people than ever. Firefighters were dropping from heart attacks and heatstroke and from getting trapped deep inside burning buildings, while the industry adjusted its blinders and tried to figure out why. Finney and plenty of others knew why. They were going into these buildings carrying the earth and sky on their backs like Atlas.
    “John. I’m really sorry about what happened today.”
    “Thanks, Tony.”
    “Jesus! How are you going to tell Dad? This’ll kill him.”
    “I’ll figure out something.”
    Finney let Tony out the rear door of the apparatus bay, his brother’s final comment ringing in his ears. Despite their recent closeness, it was just like Tony to point out that this was going to hurt their father—kill him, in fact. It was also like him to make sure it was the last thing he said, a dig that appeared accidental yet probably wasn’t, the sort of double-edged comment Tony had honed to perfection over the years.

15. NOBODY GETS OUT ALIVE
    Suffocating,