The smell of gasoline thick in the car, Andre pulled over and made a final check of the address. Yup, this was it.
He switched off the engine and cracked the front windows, partly to clear the smell and also because a running engine or fogged up windows got you noticed. Not that anyone was around. It was two in the morning and the street was empty.
Andre sat there for a moment. He looked at the address again. He looked at the gas canister sitting on the passenger seat.
Part of him wanted to drive home, go to bed and give Hanger some kind of excuse, like he was about to do it, but the cops drove by. The problem was that Hanger would never believe him. He’d know he was lying and that he’d punked out.
If Hanger put the word out, then Andre’s life wouldn’t be worth living. There was nothing worse on the streets than a snitch. Okay, he may not have spoken to the cops, but it was a distinction without a difference.
A car drove past, its headlights sweeping across his windshield. He sunk down into his seat until it passed and looked across the street.
This was bad. Different level. Once it was set in motion, it would be out of his control. All Hanger had told him was that the place was full of hoes and that the lady that ran it was behind all the bad news that had been coming their way.
He’d tried to persuade Hanger to go with something less drastic, but his mentor’s mind had been set.
“Burn it to the fucking ground,” he said.
Easy to say, thought Andre, but harder to do.
His phone chimed. He answered it.
“Yeah.”
“What you waiting for?”
The question spooked him. Was Hanger watching him? Was he here?
He looked up and down the street. He couldn’t see Hanger’s BMW. Nor could he see anyone else sitting in their car. That didn’t mean too much. Hanger could be like a ghost, appearing and then evaporating seemingly at will.
“Someone just drove by,” said Andre.
“Yeah, that was me,” said Hanger. “Now go take care of business. If I come back and you’re still sitting there, it’s not going to end well for you.”
Andre popped his door. “I’m doing it, don’t worry.”
“You’d better be.”
Andre pulled his hood up over his face and speed walked across the street holding a jerrican full of gasoline. When he got to the building, he skirted around the front and walked down to the side. He climbed the padlocked gate, careful not to spill anything from the can.
Jumping down, he jacked up his ankle. He cursed as a security light snapped on, bathing him in light.
Angry that he’d hurt himself, he swore and kept moving, keeping his head down so that even if he was caught on camera, his face wouldn’t be clear. It wasn’t like this was an insurance job where someone wanted to hide the fact that they’d set a fire.
At the rear of the building, he found what he was looking for. A big stack of cardboard boxes next to the recycling. He set the can down and hauled the cardboard over to the back door.
He arranged the cut up empty boxes at the back door, and poured the gasoline over them, careful again not so get any on his clothes.
When the cardboard was good and soaked, he set the can down in the middle and looked around for anything that might burn.
His luck was in. Over by a dumpster, someone had dumped an old chair. He humped it over and set it down near enough to his little makeshift bonfire.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the taper, lit it, walked back and threw it into the pile. For a second nothing happened, and he thought it had gone out mid-throw.
He stayed where he was, giving it time. There was a sudden flash as the gas ignited.
He didn’t hang around to see what would happen or how it would spread. If anything, he hoped it would go out. His part of the mission complete, he ran back to the side, climbed the fence again, and this time lowered himself gently down.
Limped on his ankle, he half ran, and half hopped back across the street, got in his car and took off without a backward glance.
The scream of the smoke detector had Angie wide awake and bolt upright in bed. She grabbed a robe and stumbled out into the hallway. A couple of the other girls were out there already.
She smelled the acrid odor of the smoke before she saw it. It was pooling at the bottom of the stairs. Quickly, she ran over to one of the three recently installed panic buttons and pressed it.
When Lock had been here, as well as updating the cameras and alarms, he’d made everyone, Angie included work through what he’d called Actions on Attack. He’d explained that all it meant was having already decided what steps you’d take in any given situation where danger presented before it happened.
Fire had been one of them.
The route to the fire escape was at the end of the hallway. Angie shouted for any of the women in the hallway to wake the others. She ran back into her room, grabbed her phone and called 911, calming herself down as best she could and giving their details.
Back out in the corridor, she shooed her flock down the hallway, and through the door that led to the fire escape. As they shuffled past her, out onto the fire escape and down the metal steps, she counted heads.
They were one short. Missy. Where was Missy?
She was a recent arrival to the refuge, only nineteen but a girl who had spent the last six years on the streets. She also had a fairly major drug problem that she was working on, which might have explained her absence.
Worse, her room was down at the other end of the hallway.
Angie turned back, a couple of the other girls calling to her to follow them down the fire escape
“Go on,” she told them. “I’ll be real quick.”
Out in the hallway, smoke was in the air. She could still see fine, but it caught at the back of her throat and she started to cough. Lifting the edge of her robe, she placed it across her nose and mouth and hustled down the hallway.
Pushing open Missy’s bedroom door, Angie rushed inside. She closed the door behind her. Missy was in bed, lying on her side. She must have taken something. There was no way even the deepest sleeper would have slept through this otherwise. Even the alarm by itself was loud enough to wake the dead.
Angie knelt down and shook her awake. Slowly, Missy started to come round.
“Come on, we have to get you out of here?”
Missy’s eyes began to open. She had a glazed look.
Drugs weren’t allowed in the refuge, but that was a talk for another time. Not right now.
Angie hauled Missy out of bed by grabbing her arm.
“What is it?” said Missy.
“There’s a fire, we have to get out.”
The smell of smoke came again, intense and insistent.
Angie shepherded Missy to the door. She opened it. The hallway was filled with smoke now.
Pushing Missy back inside the room, Angie closed the door again. She grabbed some bedding and jammed it at the bottom. Then she ran to the window and yanked it up and open.
She leaned out and started shouting.