The two staff chiefs began to radio fire officers in the nave. News spread across the crowd. People crossed themselves and prayed as the air system shut down and the amber chandeliers winked out. Quiet cries of relief reverberated through the cathedral, now lit only by filtered light through stained glass windows and votive candles at the altars.
Georgia scanned the nervous faces below her, hoping to see Richie’s. But he wasn’t there. He must have gotten out, she told herself. He must have.
Suddenly, Brennan let out a string of expletives. She turned, noticing for the first time that the light in the choir loft was too bright to be pouring in from the twenty-six-foot stained-glass rose window behind her. And then she saw it—the bulb in the construction lamp dangling from a rafter above the men. It was still burning.
“What the—?” the bald staff chief exclaimed. He grabbed the thick black insulated electrical cord running from the base of the bulb and began snaking it through the loft. But it, too, disappeared into a space in the wall. Firefighters and civilians in the nave saw the bulb now. A murmur of panic rose through the crowd. The light attracted attention outside as well. Greco came back on the radio.
“Greco to Brennan: Where’s that light coming from? K.”
Georgia’s eyes scanned Finney’s uninsulated copper wiring and the arc welding equipment near it. Her dad once borrowed some arc welding equipment to fix the wrought-iron railing along their front stoop. A friend in his firehouse loaned him a portable generator to supply the 250 amps needed to melt the iron. In arc welding, standard current is never enough.
“Chief?” Georgia ventured. “Finney may have hooked up his device to a backup generator the welders were using. It’s probably in the basement somewhere, running off a diesel engine.”
Brennan nodded at the logic. He got on the radio and immediately dispatched two fire companies to the basement of the cathedral to find the generator and shut it off. Then Brennan and the staff chiefs hustled down the stairs to supervise.
Georgia went to follow, but her attention was diverted by the sound of shattering glass. A group of panicked parishioners, sensing the bad news, had snagged a maintenance ladder and broken one of the stained-glass panels. A new surge of people raced toward it, clinging to the ladder and throwing themselves through the sharp glass, slicing up their arms and legs. Georgia scanned the mob of people with hungry eyes. Still no sign of her little boy.
Brennan’s voice crackled over the department radio. He was speaking to Chief Greco. A midtown ladder company had found the backup generator, but it was locked against theft in a tamperproof steel cage. Like an airline pilot, Brennan spoke in a tone that betrayed none of the panic he had to be feeling. Firefighters were trying to break the lock, Brennan reported to the chief. Georgia shook her head at the irony. The contractor was probably on the street somewhere with the key. But even if he explained who he was, the young, overzealous cops on duty already had strict orders not to let anybody inside. It would take too long to get clearance.
It was now ten-fifty-six, and many firefighters—memorial service attendees and guys on duty—were still inside, knowing full well what price they might pay for staying to help the hundreds of civilians remaining.
And how will we die? Georgia wondered as she stared up at the muted prisms of blue light filtering through the stained-glass windows of the clerestory. Will there be a burst of white-hot flame and an end of consciousness? Will the fire rise up slowly, choking off our air as we struggle over one another for the door? She hadn’t been in a church since she was a kid. And now she was going to die in one.
Her brooding thoughts were broken by a set of heavy footsteps lumbering up the choir loft stairs. Georgia turned and took in the bushy silver eyebrows and grizzled, solemn expression. Jimmy Gallagher moved toward her, a meaty hand extended, then stopped, sensing some boundary between them. The hand hung in the air an instant, then flopped back at his side.
“I’ve looked for Richie everywhere, love. Lord knows, he’s probably out. Let’s at least take cover.”
Georgia recoiled. “Get away from me! I know what you did.” She rubbed a grimy hand across her face and fought back tears. All the misery of the last twenty-four hours came back to her in waves and she inhaled deeply, trying to suck it all back into some corner inside herself to keep from breaking down.
Gallagher froze and stared at her, pain bunching up the deeply etched wrinkles around his watery blue eyes. He went to say something, then simply shook his head.
“Not now, love,” he said softly, reaching again for her hand. “C’mon. Now’s not the time.”
He tried to lead her to the stairs, but Georgia pushed him away. “I found Quinn’s mask in your locker. And that computer disk—”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he mumbled as if he hadn’t heard her.
“Jimmy, are you listening?” she shouted angrily. “I know you killed Terry Quinn. I trusted you. Every man I trust just…” Her voice trailed off.
He winced as if struck by a blow, then shoved his hands in his pockets, swallowing hard to regain his composure. He didn’t look at her. Instead, he leaned over the choir rail.
“Father in heaven,” he said softly. “I wanted to tell you everything…so many times…but then what? How would that help you? Or Quinn? Or his family?” He turned to face her. “I had to make a choice, love. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” she said coldly. “I understand your choice: freedom or prison.”
“No.” He frowned. “Not that kind of choice. I could tell the world that a brother had screwed up and killed all those people—or I could let him die a hero.”
The words tore through her like a bullet.
“Are you saying that Terry Quinn set the Spring Street fire?” Not Quinn. Not a dead hero with a wife and two little girls.
“I never looked at what was on that disk Terry gave me. I wouldn’t know a floppy from a hard drive. But I did know Terry was in trouble. I just never put it together until the fire…”
Gallagher paced the choir loft now, the stark light of the construction bulb refracting off his silver hair. “Terry tried every legal means to stop that halfway house for sex offenders from being opened in his neighborhood. Nothing worked.” Gallagher ran a calloused hand, hardened from a lifetime of firefighting, through his hair. He took a deep breath and continued.
“Kathleen Quinn used to work for Michaels. Terry figured a rich man like that could put pressure on the right people. Instead, Michaels had the house burned, then fixed it so that if Terry ever said anything, it would look like he did it.”
“Why?”
“Because, love…when Sloane Michaels does a favor, he expects one in return. A year later, he ordered Terry to burn down Spring Street in repayment.”
Georgia felt her head spin. She stepped to the railing and looked out over the vastness of the cathedral, at the high altar with its gleaming bronze canopy and the overturned vases of lilies lining the red-carpeted aisles.
“Jimmy, you knew this?” she asked.
“I knew Michaels was pressuring Terry to burn a building. I didn’t know which one until the fire.” Gallagher closed his eyes and shook his head. “You gotta understand, love. Terry didn’t know about that party. He figured the building was empty and the fire would burn so fast, it’d be over before anyone got hurt. He was a good man in a bad situation, he was.”
Georgia wiped a hand across her forehead. She tried to shake off the incessant thrumming, like a swarm of bees, that vibrated through her—a mix of fear, exhaustion, and confusion. At every exit, there were still civilians pushing to get out and people lying beneath them, crushed and in need of medical attention.
“But you killed Terry,” Georgia said, her voice cracking with the realization of it all. “You took his mask…you stuck that cheater in his pocket.”
“I was angry at what he’d done—the stupidity, the waste. I knocked him out, I did…I could’ve pulled him out of there, unconscious…and I…chose not to.” Gallagher paused, smearing the back of his hand across his red-rimmed eyes. “I let him go. For his sake—and the department’s. He couldn’t have lived with those deaths on his head.”
Gallagher braced his trembling hands against the railing beside her. “What would you have done, love?” he asked softly. “Would you have wanted to see the department dragged through that? Or his widow and kids?”
He pinched his eyelids together. Tears spilled down his leathery cheeks and he looked away, embarrassed. He’d spent twenty-eight years crawling through the ashes. Twenty-eight years walking through walls of fire and bringing brothers back from the dead. And it had all come down to this. She sensed his deep lament and it touched her.
“Please, Georgia,” he said to her. “Please let me try to get you out of here. I don’t want another life on my conscience.”
She looked at her watch. It was ten-fifty-eight. She turned away from the railing. Suddenly, an anguished voice called up to her.
“Mama!”
He hadn’t called her “Mama” since he was two. He stood, arms outstretched, his navy blue jacket torn on the sleeve, his shirttails untucked, his black wavy hair matted on one side. Tears streamed down his swollen, bruised face. “Mama,” he sobbed again. He must have been knocked unconscious and trampled in the stampede.
“I’m coming down, baby.”
Georgia raced to the top of the staircase. When she turned around, Gallagher was still on the balcony, staring at the gleaming copper wire, sinewy and alive with its poisonous energy. The light from the construction lamp reflected in the pool of water beneath the strands.
“This thing works on electricity, right?” he called over to her.
“Yes, but those wires carry two hundred and fifty amps of current. And you can’t disconnect the power.”
“I wasn’t planning to.” There were tears in his eyes.
“Take care of yourself, love. Tell your mother I love her, always have…”
“Jimmy, you can’t.” Georgia took a step toward him, but he crossed himself and ordered her to stay back.
“Tell ’em, love, if they ask, that this is still the greatest job in the world.”
Then he stuck his left shoe in the puddle of water and clamped his right fist hard around the stripped copper wire. His body jerked violently, and he shrieked. Waves of convulsions racked him, and a halo of sparks buzzed overhead. Georgia stood back, waiting for the flash of the HTA firebomb. But it didn’t ignite.
Her knees gave out and she sank to the floor, shaking. Richie raced up the stairs now, and Georgia ordered him to stay back from the electrically charged site. Two firefighters came rushing over. One took the sobbing child; the other smelled the sickly-sweet odor of burned flesh, saw Gallagher, and made the sign of the cross.
Georgia reached for her handie-talkie and attempted to depress the button three times before she could get her fingers to work.
“Mayday! Mayday!” she croaked out across the airwaves. “Firefighter down in the balcony.” Greco came on the line.
“Can you evacuate him? It’s eleven-oh-two. The device was set to blow two minutes ago.”
“But Chief, it’s Gallagher who’s down,” she stammered. “He shorted out the device. He spared the cathedral.”
“How bad is he hurt?”
She looked across the balcony at his lifeless body. “Chief,” she said, trying to stave off the rising emotion in her voice. “Firefighter Gallagher made the supreme sacrifice.”