The Fourth Angel Read online

  The Fourth Angel

  Suzanne Chazin

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 2001 by Suzanne Chazin

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition April 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-730-2

  Also by Suzanne Chazin

  Flashover

  Fireplay

  To my parents, Sol Chazin and Lillian Moraghan Chazin, for giving me the courage to dare.

  Acknowledgments

  I am deeply indebted to the following people, without whom this book never could have been written:

  First, to my quartet of “heroes”: Reader’s Digest Assistant Managing Editor Gary Sledge, who encouraged me through the long years before publication. Few are as privileged to have such a talented and nurturing mentor.

  To my agent, Matt Bialer, a man of infinite patience, kindness, and support who has, more than once, saved me from my own “improvements.”

  To my editor at Putnam, David Highfill, whose instincts are so good, his delivery so tactful, I wish I could bottle it. I’d make a fortune and never have to rework a first draft.

  And most of all, to my husband, FDNY Deputy Chief Thomas Dunne, without whom none of this would have been possible, personally or professionally. Through him, I’ve come to understand what being a firefighter, a leader, and a partner is all about.

  My deepest gratitude goes to the men and women of the New York City Fire Department who have been unfailingly gracious in helping me with this book. I have tremendous respect for all of you. In particular, I’d like to thank Supervising Fire Marshal Randy Wilson for his tireless good humor in shepherding me all over the city; retired Assistant Chief of Fire Marshals Denis Guardiano and retired Fire Marshal Gene West for their enthusiastic sense of story and character, and retired Fire Marshal Tom “Jacko” Jakubowski for always knowing the right person to speak to. A special thank-you to Fire Lieutenant Marianne Monahan, Firefighter Cathy Riordan, and retired Fire Marshal JoAnn Jacobs for their early valuable insights and inspiration.

  Thanks to the Seattle Fire Department for providing me with the tape of the Puyallup test fire, and to retired Seattle Fire Department Investigator Richard Gehlhausen for his forthright and thorough explanations of HTA fires and investigation techniques.

  I am indebted to ATF Special Agent and Certified Fire Investigator Jessica Gotthold for her eye for critical detail; to Ellen Borakove at the New York City Medical Examiner’s office; to Dr. Ned Keltner of Ktech Corporation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who clued me in to the science behind HTA fires; to Harvey Eisner of Firehouse Magazine; and to Ed Perratore, who saved my computer more than once.

  And finally, thanks to Janis Pomerantz, Warren Boroson, Sharon Djaha, and the “book club” for being there when no one else was.

  And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.

  —REVELATION 16:8

  Author’s Note

  Shortly after midnight on January 17, 1984, firefighters in Seattle, Washington, responded to an all-hands call for a fire in an unoccupied warehouse. The twenty-five-thousand-square-foot Carpet Exchange had concrete walls and flooring and a steel truss roof. Yet it collapsed in nineteen minutes in a conflagration so extreme that it melted the building’s steel supports and severely damaged the concrete floors. Worse, attempts to extinguish the flames only served to increase their intensity.

  A postfire examination revealed that an arsonist had used some sort of flammable mixture (an accelerant) to start the blaze, yet no identifying residue could be found. Tests later confirmed that given the fire’s superheated temperatures—in excess of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit—even state-of-the-art safety gear would have offered emergency workers less than three minutes of protection, dooming anyone trapped inside. Neither the accelerant nor the arsonist was ever identified.

  Since 1984, as many as twenty such fires have been reported in the United States and Canada. They can’t be readily extinguished. All rescue attempts are futile. All traces of arson evidence are destroyed. The deadly infernos have claimed the lives of two firefighters and completely destroyed every building. Fire investigators call them HTA (high-temperature accelerant) fires. All remain unsolved, and the accelerant a mystery.

  Prologue

  Every fire starts with a spark—a small, innocuous burst of heat and light. It craves seclusion, lying low at first, quietly sucking up oxygen, exhaling carbon monoxide. Its lethal breath slips unnoticed through the cracks of doors and vents, slowly choking off air and light.

  Minutes or hours later, the first plume of bright orange flame erupts. It climbs on quivering tentacles, following predictable paths—up walls, across ceilings, through open doors, and out windows. Upward, ever upward, it climbs, consuming everything it touches. Then, when it has grown so large that no one person can destroy it, the fire turns bold, roaring like a brawny drunk, smashing windows and setting whole rooms alight in an instant of fury. Anyone unfortunate enough to look upon it at that moment would believe he was staring into the gates of hell.

  1

  It was the eerie insistence of the sound that first caught the young woman’s attention. A shrill bleat, remote yet unremitting, began when she turned on the ladies’ room faucet. It reverberated through the drain and up the white-tiled walls, a haunting counterpoint to the party chatter and samba rhythms wafting in from the magazine’s sixth-floor lobby. Air in the water pipes, the woman told herself. Old New York buildings have a lot of strange noises.

  She bent over the sink and splashed cold water along the caramel contours of her face, trying to stave off another bout of morning sickness—a misnomer, she decided, given that it was already eleven on a Monday night. An amulet jingled from a silver-plated chain around her neck, three rose-colored quartz crystals in a filigree cage. A gift from her father when she was a little girl, and the only part of him that stuck around. Men leave, her mother had always told her. The young woman stared down at her champagne-colored chemise, stretched tightly across the small, telltale bulge of her belly, and shook her head. She was learning that herself now.

  She turned off the spoke-wheel faucet, but the sound continued, breaking into two distinct noises: one whistling like steam, the other buzzing like an alarm clock. She stiffened, finally allowing herself to hear the naked urgency in the tones. The flat, ceaseless warning.

  Fire.

  A smoke detector outside the bathroom joined in the jarring squeal. In the magazine’s lobby, the music stopped. Footsteps scrambled in all directions, punctuated by gasps and garbled words. But what scared the woman most as she headed for the bathroom door was the peculiarity of the voices. They were high-pitched and monosyllabic—even the men’s.

  The lights flickered once, then went out, turning the windowless bathroom into a tomb. She pounded the walls until she felt a slide bolt. Less than five minutes ago, it had slid across with ease. Now the bolt refused to budge.

  “Come on, girl,” she cried, panic lacing her soft southern drawl. Strange odors, like copper pots left too long on a stove and burned bacon, assaulted her. A pepperiness crawled into her windpipe. She knew the old caveat about
escaping a smoke-filled room—get down low and crawl. But the bolt could only be reached from a standing position, so she alternately stood and yanked, then sat and coughed until her larynx ached. Finally, on her fifth try, the bolt gave way and she flung herself out of the bathroom.

  A wave of heat and dense smoke rolled over her, sucking the air from her lungs, making her arms and back feel as if they’d been stung by a swarm of bees. Quick shallow breaths were all she could manage, but each one felt as if she were inhaling through a cocktail straw. Her hand brushed against the sandpapery stubble of a beard and she recoiled, falling back against the hem of a dress, the sharp edge of a pair of glasses, a cascade of braided hair. The dead and dying were everywhere.

  Far-off, anguished voices cried out. But they were increasingly drowned out by a rumble like an elevated train. A slimy casing now covered the woman’s toffee-colored legs. Suddenly, the realization hit her: that casing was all that was left of her skin. She was burning alive.

  The pain bit deep into her. She scrambled over shards of glass without feeling them. Through the veil of black smoke, she made out the dim shape of one of the loft’s fourteen-foot windows. She was sixty feet in the air—a jump meant almost certain death—but she didn’t care anymore. She’d die quickly. That’s all she wanted now.

  With seared fingers, she crawled nearer the ledge. The roar was getting closer. Small, bright orange flames rolled across the high, pressed-tin ceilings like waves upon the ocean, each one bigger than the one before. The monster on her back was ripping huge chunks of flesh off her now. From somewhere far away, she thought she heard a siren. She turned.

  A flash of light exploded out of the elevator vestibule. As loud as a blast of napalm, it ignited for only a second. But when it was over, for the young woman, there would be no more pain and suffering.

  There wouldn’t even be a recognizable corpse.

  2

  No one tells you the basics about being a woman in the New York City Fire Department. Sure, it’s the usual stuff. Proving you’ve got guts. Not getting bent out of shape over some Penthouse pinup in the locker room or the water-filled condom tucked into the pocket of your turnout coat. But it takes a woman to truly understand the most fundamental problem with being female in the FDNY.

  There’s no place to pee.

  Not in the firehouses with their communal bathrooms. Not at a fire scene where you can stand for hours, kidneys burning, while the guys sneak around the corner and do it against a wall. And God knows, not when you are a fire marshal speeding to an eight-alarm blaze right after downing two large mugs of coffee.

  It wasn’t like Georgia Skeehan had a choice in the matter. The big guns would be at a fire this size—Frank Greco, the chief of department; William Lynch, the commissioner. Her partner, Randy Carter, wasn’t about to hang around the Dunkin’ Donuts while she lined up for the bathroom. (Is there ever not a line in a ladies’ room?)

  Carter drove, leaning on the horn of their dark blue, department-issued Chevy Caprice as it barreled south down Ninth Avenue, sirens wailing. Through the windshield, Georgia made out the cloud of dense gray smoke rising above Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. A static of dialogue crackled across the department radio. Dispatch confirmed a 10-45, code one. Then another. And another. There were bodies in this fire, and it sounded as if no one knew how many.

  “Did you see the progression on this thing?” Georgia asked Carter, studying a rough chronology she’d scribbled from dispatch reports. “The fire went from a second alarm to an eight in under ten minutes.”

  Carter nodded, tugging at the sleeve of his gray pinstriped suit. He was the only marshal Georgia knew who wore anything better than a Sears sports jacket to work.

  “Body count’s up to eighteen already.” He frowned, deep lines etched into dark skin.

  Georgia could deal with the carnage. It was the smells she never got used to. Rancid human smells. The sickly-sweet stench of charred flesh. The bitter, coppery odor of burned hair and coagulated blood. She popped a peppermint Tic Tac in her mouth and offered one to Carter. He waved it away.

  “Artificial flavors and sweeteners,” he explained in a voice still tinged with the rural North Carolina of his boyhood.

  “You’re going to be getting a mouthful of carbon monoxide and God knows what else in a moment, anyway. What’s the difference?”

  “You choose the way you want to die. I’ll choose mine.” Carter floored the accelerator through a red light, narrowly missing a yellow cab. Georgia braced herself against the broken glove compartment.

  “I don’t have a choice about the way I die,” she reminded him. “You’re driving.”

  He allowed the faintest grin to cross his lean, craggy features, which pleased her. They had been partners for nearly a year now. Georgia never asked, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that somewhere in this ex-Marine drill sergeant’s seemingly spotless thirty-year career with the FDNY, he must have ticked off some well-connected chief. Anybody that senior who got stuck with a female rookie partner had to be on someone’s shit list. Of course, it also didn’t help that he was black.

  “At least I don’t ride some Hells Angels motorcycle,” he ribbed her. “Next thing I know, you’ll be getting a tattoo—”

  “If I do, it’ll be in a place you’ll never see.”

  One-thirty-one Spring Street was cordoned off for two blocks in every direction. Trucks, engines, and rescue rigs jammed the pavements, their ruby flashers throbbing with almost physical force against the low, darkened buildings. An early-April drizzle pearled across the Caprice’s windshield, refracting the red lights like splatters of blood. Georgia shivered. Easter was less than two weeks away, but it didn’t feel warm enough yet to be spring.

  “Better put your gear on,” Carter cautioned. “This one’s gonna be a doozy.”

  “Doozy, right.” Georgia watched Ladder Nine’s tower ladder rain high-pressure water on the smoldering ruins. Her bladder felt like Niagara Falls behind a dam of Popsicle sticks.

  “Randy,” she ventured hesitantly. “I gotta go.”

  “Go where?” His gaze narrowed as it sank in. “Man, Skeehan. I’m gonna start calling you The Faucet. Seems every time we get a run, so do you.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Start wearing Depends.”

  “Not helpful.”

  Georgia stared at the men in fire helmets and bulky black turnout coats swarming the pavement. Each thickly padded coat boasted three stripes of gray reflective tape across the torso, sandwiched between fluorescent yellow bands, plus two more on each sleeve. The tape gleamed in the spotlights of hovering camera crews. So much for privacy. Georgia relieved herself behind a foul-smelling Dumpster as a television chopper whirred overhead. Her son would probably pick her out on tomorrow’s news.

  Carter was fumbling around in the Caprice’s trunk for the PET—physical examination tools—kit when Georgia returned. The kit contained tape measures, hammers, claw tools, and screwdrivers, everything needed to pull apart the wreckage to determine how and where the fire started. Determining a fire’s cause and origin, or C&O, is the first step in any investigation.

  “While you were, uh, you know—” Carter stammered. “Relieving yourself…”

  “What?”

  He shrugged on his turnout coat without meeting her gaze. His deep-set eyes had the sorry look of a basset hound’s. “Word’s gone around. One of our guys didn’t make it.”

  She would always be twelve when she heard that phrase. “Who?” she asked softly.

  Carter slipped his gold marshal’s shield on a chain around his neck. “A brother named Terry Quinn. From Fifty-seven Truck. Twelve years on the job. You didn’t know him, did you?”

  “No, but that’s Jimmy’s company. You know, Jimmy Gallagher? My mother’s…” Georgia hesitated. She always felt funny saying “boyfriend.” “My mother’s companion.”

  Carter nodded. “Humdinger, this is. Some kind of fancy party was going o
n on the top floor. A lot of important people were inside, including this Chinese dude—Wong or Wing or something—”

  “Wang? Rubi Wang? Holy…The founder of Nuance?” Only a man over fifty, like Carter, wouldn’t instantly recognize the fashion designer’s name or his magazine.

  “Yeah.” They finished suiting up. At the police barricade, they flashed their badges and picked their way across the spongy ash, past firefighters packing up hose lines. Shattered glass crunched underfoot like soda crackers. On a charred side wall were small mounds of what appeared to be human body parts—some of them black with burns, some greasy and grayish-white.

  In order to uncover the fire’s point of origin, Georgia and Carter knew they would have to trace the blaze’s V-pattern—its widest path of destruction back down to its narrowest and lowest—in this case, the basement.

  The basement, or what was left of it, was as filthy as a coal mine. Charred and melted debris. Ankle-deep puddles of black water. Air gauzy with smoke and oily with the residue of burning plastics. Carter squatted before a cast-iron radiator, grimacing at a newly acquired stain on his pants.

  “We’re doing the grunt work so those Arson and Explosion guys over at the NYPD can waltz in here tomorrow and grab all the headlines,” he complained. Only marshals are allowed to examine physical evidence at a fire. If an arson includes a homicide, however, jurisdiction can often turn into a political slugfest between cops and firefighters. “If A and E takes this, they’re buying me a new pair of pants.”

  “Hey, they have extras,” Georgia noted dryly. “You can’t go on TV as much as they do in the same suit.”

  Carter grinned as he pulled on a pair of latex gloves and brushed a hand across the radiator. His smile abruptly vanished. One of the coils was encrusted with white ash, as fine and brittle as chalk. Two others were partially fused together.