Fire Born (Firehouse 343) Read Free Page A

her worst injury might be inhalation. Cap saved her life .”
    “Get out of there , guys,” Chris told them.
    “ Already hoofing it toward apartment A and Airborne’s magic ladder .”
    Chris grunted in response , the tension mounting in his neck and shoulders until he caught sight of Terry in the window in front of Logan . Logan had shut off the nozzle and reached to take the child from Terry’s arms, lifting her over his shoulder and holding tightly to her legs as he began a backward trek down the ladder’s length. When Terry had maneuvered himself through the window, he turned to accept his captain’ s limp body from Football. The weight of a 200-lb. man plus 70 pounds of firefighting gear on top of what he carried on his own body would make his going much slower than Logan’s, but Chris had no doubt that Terry was up to the task. The crews of each platoon trained in full gear regularly, a nd carrying heavy weights while so dressed was a regular part of their regimen— preparation for just such an incident as this.
    “Football, when you come through that window, I need you to take over the nozzle,” Chris ordered.
    “ And the captain ?”
    Signaling to the remaining medical teams, Chris replied as they ran over to the side of Ladder 12 with spine boards , gurneys, and trauma kits, preparing to receive both Jessica and Calvin.
    “The medics will have him in a minute. All we can do until we get this under control is wait .”
    It wouldn’t be ea sy. Though he commanded B - Shift out of the c ity firehouse, Calvin Maynard was someone that every man and woman who worked for the Gracechurch Division of Fire respected and admired. He was an example to all of them for his lifetime of dedicated service as a firefighter, and although his first marriage hadn’t worked out, he and Irene were still friends and together they had raised a fine daughter—who had taken a page out of her father’s book and become an emergency medical technician.
    Staying on a call to see it through to its end had never before been a question for any of them, because that’s what a firefighter did. But when it was one of their own being carried off to receive medical attention, each one found concentrating on the task at hand that much more difficult. Or maybe, Chris mused as he observed Calvin’s still form being loaded into an ambulance, it would make them that much more determined to put this bitch down.
    He said another sile nt prayer of thanks that Kara and Sam had left the scene with the elderly gentleman from second floor even before her father’s injury had become known . The two EMTs had been far too immersed in their treatment of the old man to pay any attention to the fact that Calvin wasn’t anywhere to be found, let alone that he had been hurt. Kara would find out soon enough, and he hoped like hell that Sam or someone else she knew would stay with her whil e they waited for news of hi s condition.
    And he dreaded having to make the call to tell Tonja. Calvin’s fiancée Tonja Webber was a firefighter herself, and soon to be transferring from Glasgow to Gracechurch where she would work and live with Calvin once they were married. She knew the risks of the job as well as any of them, but that didn’ t mean hearing her soon-to-be hu sband had been hurt would be any less devastating.
    “Come on, boys. Time to show the fire who’s boss.”
     
    ***
     
    Six hours. That was how long it had taken 23 men from three different stations to put one three-story fire out. And of course, the job hadn’t ended there. Although the boys from Alton and Summerford had been dismissed after the fire had been declared extinguished, City’s own from A, B, and C platoons had stayed on-site to do a walk-through of each apartment, che cking for pocket fires the water might have missed. Just walking inside, Chris had known the building was a total loss, and if the rumo r mill was to be believed, the owner of the management company had a lot to