Buch lesen: «The Rebel King»

PROLOGUE

Sydney, Australia

BY THE time the crew truck screeched up the footpath, the bottom storey of the house was engulfed in flame. Roof tiles at one end had already buckled and were smouldering. The wailing siren of the fire truck seemed obscenely loud over the terrified confusion of people racing around. The night sky was alight, the tinsel of the Christmas decorations in the windows had turned to blazing flame, warming the faces of the onlookers—and seeing the avid interest on so many faces didn’t make things better.

That’s the job. Charlie Costa faced it as he’d done for years. He’d store the jumbled mass of emotions for later.

‘We have a five-to-ten-minute window. Winder, Costa, gear up and go in,’ Leopard, the captain, yelled for Charlie and his partner, Toby. ‘Do a sweep for any signs of life. The rest of you, douse the house and grounds, and watch those trees. We have to keep the monster from leapfrogging to the surrounding homes.’

‘The monster’ was the name ‘firies’ gave the enemy. Charlie remembered the cold shiver that had raced through him the first time he’d heard it. Now it was a battle cry against the hungry destroyer that was the fireman’s daily enemy.

‘Dissect your internal conundrums later, Rip,’ a deep, growling voice came from beside him. ‘For now, we fight the Great Destroyer.’

‘I’ll ask how I can do all those things you said later on, O Grizz, Lord of the Dictionary.’ Charlie grinned at Toby Winder, his closest friend. The joking camaraderie they shared in life-and-death situations—such as calling Charlie ‘Rip’, a nickname due to his legendary temper, and Toby ‘Grizz’, due to his six-foot-five, muscular frame— helped to defuse the tension.

‘Let’s rock and roll.’ Charlie threw on the mask and strapped on survival gear. Covered by the guys shooting a storm of water and fire-retardant chemicals, he and Toby charged in. They didn’t use the axe to break down the door, but shut what was left of it behind them. The other guys would find and close any open windows, and board up those that had already exploded. The less oxygen in here, the better chances for any survivors of this inferno, and reports had come in that there was a young family still trapped inside.

‘It’s a kitchen fire,’ Toby reported into the two-way radio as he bolted through the smoke-filled living room. ‘It looks like the gas oven wasn’t turned off. It shot straight up through the ceiling to the second floor before it took hold down here.’ He wasn’t spouting his favourite polysyllables now; he was too worried. ‘I’ll go upstairs, Rip can take downstairs.’

‘No,’ Charlie yelled, following Toby to the stairs. ‘If anyone was downstairs they’d be outside already. We go up together, and find the kids first, parents after.’

What he didn’t say was that pairs had a greater chance of survival. With the risk of the floor buckling under Toby’s bigger frame, no way in hell was Charlie letting Toby go up alone. For some reason he’d never understand, his being there to balance the weight usually kept the floor from going a little longer.

They found the first survivor sprawled in the curve of the landing. A young woman, presumably the mother, her arms outstretched to the top storey. Toby did a quick ABC of her condition. ‘Get the paramedics in. She’s not breathing, pulse weak and thready. She’s going down fast.’

Charlie doused the stairs and carpet leading to the door with flame retardant, and moved all furniture that could burn. Toby dragged in a clean breath, turned off the airflow to his mask and began artificial respiration. They couldn’t chance any flow of oxygen or even tanked air on her until they were all safely out of here. She wouldn’t thank them if they saved her but killed her kids in the inevitable explosion.

A sharp crack, followed by a tearing sound, came as the woman was stretchered out. ‘The roof’s going!’

As one, the two men bolted up the stairs. ‘Send in two more guys to buy us some time!’ Charlie yelled into the radio.

Leopard yelled, ‘Get out, both of you, and that’s an order. It’s gonna go!’

Neither paid attention. Charlie took the far end of the hall without discussing it with his friend. Toby knew. He was the bigger and stronger of the two, but Charlie was leaner and faster, with a better chance of getting through any runners of flame.

Without glancing at Charlie, Toby ran into the first room to the left and Charlie immediately heard him shout a directive. ‘Ladders to the top bedroom windows!’

Resigned to the inevitable, the captain gave the order. They all knew these two never left a building until the last survivors were found. The way they worked was almost uncanny, which was why the Fire Brigade had kept them together after training. Knowing each other so well could be a handicap in life-and-death situations, but with Toby and Charlie their honesty and camaraderie, their brotherly love, and the way they read each other’s minds, made them the best team possible.

Crouching, Charlie ran along the sagging carpeted floor of the hall. It was ready to fall. He jumped from side to side against the walls where the floor remnants would be strongest because of the support beams. Keeping safe meant he’d make it into the room at the back of the house.

He opened the door, slipped in and shut the door behind him to cut off oxygen.

Through the haze the room took shape slowly, but moving would change the landscape, and he’d have to start focusing anew. Thirty seconds later and the picture came to his stinging eyes: a white room, pink bed-spread, a Barbie doll’s house. He yelled, a weird, muffled sound through the oxygen mask, ‘Is anyone in here?’

Even through the roar of the approaching monster, his trained ears heard a tiny cough.

He shut down and ripped off the mask. Talking through it scared kids, and the suit was scary enough. ‘Hey, sweetie, my name’s Charlie. I’m a fireman.’ He choked on the smoke that filled his lungs and throat in seconds, and breathed in clean oxygen before turning off the mask. He couldn’t risk feeding any starters in the room. ‘Want to see your mummy?’

Another cough, weak and unformed, came from under the bed. Diving under the quilt, he saw a tiny ball of curled-up humanity. She was dark-haired and sweet-faced, about three. ‘It’s okay, sweetie, I’ve got you.’ He croaked into the two-way, ‘Ladder to the back room, far left! I’ve got a kid!’

‘Forty-five seconds!’ Leopard yelled.

Replacing his mask to breathe, he did a quick check on her. The child was alarmingly limp. He wrapped a rope around her fast, ready for the transfer when the guys got to the window, but she’d stop breathing any moment. He lifted her into his arms with excruciating slowness.

It was the cardinal rule: never take off your mask to give to a victim, because you can’t save someone if you’re dead or unconscious. Doing this would risk not only his life but the lives of his team who’d have to come in to save him, as well as the child if he passed out. But she was little more than a baby. He’d had his life—hers had barely begun.

Hoping there were no sparks in the room to feed on the oxygen, he ripped the mask off, turned the setting to ‘air’—too much oxygen right now could do her more harm than good if she had smoke inhalation— and put it over her face. Then, holding his breath, he turned to get out of the door—but the paint was blistering down the edges, and peeling off the entire centre of it.

Smoke was curling off the door handle, and seeping through. An explosion came right beneath him. The house was going. The floor sagged under his left foot.

‘I need a ladder to the extreme right of top floor! I’ve got an unconscious child. He isn’t breathing!’ Charlie heard Toby yell again, his voice harsh too. Obviously he didn’t have his air mask on either. Time was running out fast.

The floor started buckling beneath Charlie’s feet.

Slowly, inch by inch, he spread his feet further apart, feeling it give way each time he moved. His feet began to burn through his boots. ‘We’re gonna make it out, sweetie.’ Hearing a voice, even his own, gave him comfort when everything was going down. ‘Our guys are the best.’ He coughed. Crouch low for air, idiot! But he couldn’t shift down; it would cave the whole place in.

He was about to choke. He couldn’t risk the floor going with the motion. He must breathe now, or risk both their lives when he fell. He watched the baby breathe in, took the mask, breathed in and shoved it back on her face before she inhaled again.

No talking now. His world consisted of watching her breaths: in, take the mask and breathe, back to her, and count the seconds. Glass smashed in the room next door. The fire was in the back walls, and the window had burst. The monster was about to hit.

A whoosh of clean air filled the room. The door burst into glowing sparks as the fire leaped in to meet the oxygen. A voice screamed, ‘Give her to me!’

Thank you, God! Charlie leaped for the bed where the window was. ‘Take her!’

The bed sagged sideways as the floor collapsed under his weight. He passed the child over as the heat at his back seared him. The hairs on his neck withered and his skin was melting—he could actually smell his flesh cooking.

‘Jump, mate!’

He could barely move; the heat, pain and lack of air had left him in a stupor. One hand gripped the window sash; the other made it. Good. I can do this. One knee up…

The bed lurched back into the maw where the floor had been moments before. His body jerked back, but his desperate fingers held on. ‘Help,’ he whispered as his hands lost strength and smoke filled his lungs, his nose and throat, his eyes…

Hands came out of the cloudy darkness, lifting him through the window into a safety harness to lower him to the ground. ‘We’ve got you.’ It was Leopard. ‘You saved her, Charlie. The little girl’s going to make it, and so are you.’

Charlie coughed and coughed; the fresh air hurt, because the hairs lining his airways were gone or damaged. ‘Toby?’

‘He’s okay, he saved the boy. We’ve done all we can. Let’s go!’

He knew by what the captain hadn’t said that someone was dead.

Oh, dear God…those poor kids had lost their mother.

As he was winched to safety, he felt the flashes and glare of media cameras turned on him. He heard the words ‘hero’ and ‘saving the lives of a family’, but he couldn’t answer questions or accept praise for doing his duty. He fell to his knees, coughed until he choked, then threw up: the body’s instinctive way of clearing foreign objects.

The paramedics had him on a stretcher within two minutes, and he was on his way to hospital. He slipped into unconsciousness, knowing the ‘what ifs would haunt him until he died. Maybe he’d done all he could, but a woman had died today; two kids had lost their mummy before they’d been able to have memories of her—and, in his book, that meant that all he’d done hadn’t been enough.