Chapter Text
It was those words.
Fire. Flames. Smoke. Heat. My life's passion before my Wi-Fi and I connected.
"Is that… fire?"
Donnie wasn't wrong. It was fire. Fi-re.
"Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit!"
My fucking heart stopped, literally. I no longer felt blood running through my body. I had been on the 20th floor only a few days back to see Tessa. I immediately counted the floors.
"18. The fire starts on the 18th floor."
It was bad. When a fire starts on 1 or 2 floors below you, the probability of being able to be reached by the fire department becomes nearly impossible. Usually every point of entrance is blocked by smoke if not flames themselves. The only way out is to reach from above.
Soon enough, we saw a wave of people running desperate outside. I knew it must have been a disaster in there, many people would've tripped on the stairway, others would have fainted. Judging their condition and mental state, none of them had followed any type of recommendation usually explained on drill exercises. They probably didn't even have regulations in place.
"Carina is trapped. I need to get to her," I said and made my best attempt to run into the building, but I was lifted into the air by a 6'3" Italian.
"You can't. You are not a firefighter here."
"I know that Donnie, put me down! She is my wife! Let me go!"
We heard the sirens close. The engines parked in front. I must say that was quick. 2 minutes at best. Well within standards. But I was not impressed by how long they took to assess the situation right after.
"Chi è che comanda qui?" I asked a guy in uniform.
"Come?"
"Qual è il piano? Estrazione esterna dalle finestre? Che cosa?"
"Chi siete? E perché siete in questa zona? Portatela sul retro! Liberate l'intera area!"
"Sono il capitano dei vigili del fuoco Maya Bishop."
"Maya, stop!" Donnie grabbed my hand and started to pull me away.
"Qual è il piano!"
"Bishop? Maya Bishop?" the lieutenant asked. I could tell his rank by the tag on his arm. "You are American. A firefighter. A Captain… in Seattle?" He connected all the dots. "You are leading the program that is coming here next year."
"Yes. But enough with that. It's not time for small talk. What is the plan?" I guess he didn't like my snarky response at all.
"The plan is that all civilians stay outside the zone. We are evacuating the building."
"And what is your plan of attack? There are people trapped 2 floors above."
"Just 1. The building is under construction on floors 18 and 19," he said, as if the people on the 20th weren't important at all.
"Yes! Some people are there, among them my wife." We turned to see me. Stare was more like it. He didn't comment on our marital status, but he thought about it, maybe wondering why I hadn't gone in there already. And I would have if it hadn't been for Donnie!
"Our priority now is to take out all the people trapped in lower floors so we can have a way in to try and put out the fire."
"What about rescuing the people on the 20th floor?"
"We can't reach them, yet Captain. We need to prioritize."
"What you need is to call reinforcements and to access the floor from another point."
"Captain Bishop. I appreciate your expertise, but you are a civilian here. We know how to work. We have trained for years, just like you—"
"You are lecturing me while my wife is up there probably feeling like a Kentucky fried chicken!" I had it. The man was correct. I was a civilian, but he was not making the right choices and I was not going to collect a bucket of popcorn chicken at the end of the day because he was not willing to act on a different alternative. "Now, where is the person in charge?"
"Captain Romano is right there," he pointed to a big man looking at some plans. "He won't listen to you. He was against the exchange program from the beginning."
Exactly what I needed. To meet with more resistance.
"Capitano Romano. Sono il capitano Maya Bishop, stazione 19, Seattle. Devo sapere cosa intendete fare per salvare le persone intrappolate al 20° piano."
He looked at me from head to toe–twice–before he looked at his blueprints again, completely ignoring me.
"Avete chiamato un elicottero di emergenza?"
He didn't respond.
"Sei sordo? Ti ho fatto una domanda."
"You are a piece of work," he said without looking back. "We don't need you. We never have, and never will. You Americans always feel so important."
"I'm trying to help, which is something you obviously need if you haven't even picked up your radio to monitor your team."
"They know the plan of action. We don't need to communicate our every move."
"Maybe because they are not moving! They are all standing there, checking every person that comes out as if they were spectators of a marathon!"
"Faites-la sortir de la zone. È una donna normale. Elle n'a rien à faire ici."
"Hey! Hey!"
One of his guys grabbed my arm and pulled me aside. Donnie asked him to let me go, but he did not give a shit. He slightly shoved me behind the yellow tape.
I grabbed my phone. Something I must have done immediately, but I was on firefighter mode, on captain mode.
"Carina?"
"Maya, help us! The flames are just around the corner!"
"Carina, listen to me. Look around. Can you reach the stairs, is there a way you guys can go to the terrace."
"No. we are trapped in Tessa's office. It's 5 of us. The hall is blocked."
"Okay, okay. Please don't panic. Alright? Try to stay calm." I went around not knowing which of all the windows was she in. and then I saw some people looking out a window. "Is that you? Come to the window and wave." It wasn't them. I couldn't see her at all. She was on the other side.
I ran around the yellow tape. Until I finally saw her and I finally caught a breath.
"Don't let people jump." Was the first thing that came to my mind. People in fires go so desperate that they experience a superman complex and believe they can survive by jumping. It's scary, but it happens all the time.
"I won't."
"Don't you jump. We will figure it out."
I saw another captain around, he had the same badge as the asshole I had just spoken with. There were at least two companies on site.
"Mi scusi, capitano. Sono Maya Bishop, capitano della stazione 19 di Seattle, Stati Uniti. So che avete un sistema, ma mia moglie è intrappolata al 20° piano, devo sapere qual è il piano per salvarla."
He looked back at me as if he was surprised that my Italian was so fluent. Yes, I was also surprised the other day when I understood everything my wife talked about with my father-in-law, but… that was not the urgent point.
"Captain Maya Bishop in person, wow. We had a meeting about your team this morning and now you are here," he was quick to let me know he was aware of who I was and my record. "We are concerned. The explosion happened around the elevator area, which means that the access is gone. Our only way would be…"
"The terrace."
"Yes. But that also means we would have to somehow climb there. That would take hours. To involve other teams. To assess how to get the people out from the windows, harnesses. You know the process."
"Quickest way would be a helicopter. Bring up an expert climbing team and pull out the trapped people one by one. Bring them down in groups of 3 or 5 depending on the size of the helicopter."
"The problem is we have no emergency helicopter at the moment. Not for the city. Our team is ready though. They are expert climbers, and we have the tools."
"What about news helicopters, military?"
"The chief is trying, but the last we heard it would take a while. Any helicopter would take at least 30 more minutes to be granted fly permission over this area of the city and only then they could depart from the airport. It will not be less than an hour. And you know as well as me, we don't have that time."
He was right. In all assessments.
"Do you know how many people are in there?"
"About 8. It's the offices of the directors, lawyers. Many of them are out on business trips. It's just about 4 secretaries and 2 assistants there."
"One of the lawyers is there and my wife."
"Then about 8 people."
I thought of every alternative, but none was viable. The ladders wouldn't reach that high. Other buildings were too far away to create a temporary access from one of them. The only way was the terrace… or…
I saw we were in the parking lot area at the back. That's where I came out the other day. I wanted to take a break, I did not go to the elevator, I came down a different set of stairs. Not emergency ones, I remembered thinking they had no proper signaling.
"Can I see the blueprints?"
"Of course."
The elevator in the plans was on the other side of the building and there was no clear marking on a big rectangle zone around Tessa's office if I calculated correctly which one it was.
"Why isn't anyone trying to get from the other access?"
"What other access? There is none."
"I was there the other day. I came out from around… here," I pointed. "Look, here." I started walking to the parking lot and showed him a big column. The stairway was not in clear sight, but that's where I had come out from. I was sure. "Is there, I promise. It goes up to the 20th floor."
"Matteo, Santiago, confermate l'ingresso."
"Sì, sì, qui ci sono delle gradinate."
"These are not the final blueprints!" he was mad. He took them and crushed them into a ball before throwing them to the floor. He picked up his radio and coordinated with a group to go in. But what was weird for me, was that no one was coming out from that entrance. Why? Wouldn't people just come out from the closest exit?
"Captain, take into account, the doors might be locked, and they are big doors."
He thought it fast and hurried to the people that had been evacuated asking some of them how that access was handled.
"It's exclusive to administration and sometimes cleaning personnel," one of them said. "The doors open with a code. That only a few people have."
I called Carina back. "My love, ask Tessa for the entrance code. For the secondary stairs."
"Maya, she is in shock, she is not responding to me."
"Ask her, anyway, try to get that code!"
I waited, but for the screams I heard, it was more likely that Tessa jumped out the window than remembered the damn number.
"Ask the other people with you."
"They don't know it. Tessa, another couple of lawyers and—"
"Your dad. Send me his number."
"Maya—"
"Send me his number, Carina, now!"
I hung up and immediately called.
"Pronto."
"Vincenzo, it's Maya. I need your help."
"Maya Bishop. Who could've guessed? Not me, that's for sure—"
"Stop! I don't have time for your bullshit. I need the code for the secondary entrance to your office building, now!"
He laughed. "Why would you need that for, and why the hell would you need it."
"To save your personal, and among them your daughter! Give me the ducking code."
"Stop playing, Maya. Save them from what?"
"Turn on your TV! Your building is on fire! There are people trapped on the 20th floor. Carina, Tessa, your people!"
He went silent, but I could hear the voices of the newscast.
"Oh, santo cielo. No, no. Carina. No, no, no."
"Vincenzo, I don't have time for this! Give me the code!"
"I don't know. I have a card! An electronic key!"
"Then fucking grab it and come here!"
"I can't! I'm in Sicily!"
That was a shock. It was a bucket of cold salty water.
My wife was trapped. There was a way in, possible a way out, and it all depended on an inaccessible card key?
Fuckity fuck.
