Читать книгу: «The Nurse's Rescue»

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU cannot be serious!’

‘You can’t stop me. I won’t let you stop me.’ Jessica McPhail drew herself up to her full height of five feet six inches. The extra couple of inches provided by the heels on the heavy steel-capped boots she wore and the curve that the safety helmet added meant that she wasn’t unduly disadvantaged by her stature. She put all her energy into the assertive glare she was directing at the man confronting her. She had to.

She was fighting for her life here.

‘Just watch me, lady.’ The man wasn’t about to have his authority undermined. The glance he flicked towards Jessica’s right arm was confident. ‘You’re hardly in a position to argue the toss.’

Jessica could feel the band of fingers trapping her upper arm. The physical contact from the man, a member of the police special operations team, was as unacceptable as the uncompromising directive he had issued. She jerked her arm, only to find the pressure of his fingers increasing to the point of pain.

‘You’ll go now,’ the man ordered, ‘or I’ll have you arrested…as quick as that.’ The snap of his fingers was silent, thanks to the heavy gloves he wore, but the effect was still dismissive.

‘You won’t do that.’

The deep voice coming unexpectedly from behind Jessica’s left shoulder created a wash of emotion. Gratitude. Relief. Even hope. Joe Barrington was here and if he was on her side she had a much greater chance of winning this battle.

‘If you arrest Jessica you’ll have to arrest me as well. Then you’ll have an Urban Search and Rescue team with no medics.’

The man Jessica was facing snorted impatiently. ‘We’re wasting time here. Where’s your squad leader?’

‘Right here.’ USAR specialist Tony Calder had already been striding towards the obvious confrontation. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Your medic here is not going back to the scene. I want her off site.’

Tony cast a surprised glance at Jessica and then at the tall paramedic standing beside her. Joe gave a tiny head shake that indicated he wasn’t up to speed yet either. His gaze snapped back to the man who had issued the angry directive. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘Turns out her kid is in there. Somewhere.’

There was a short silence. Just long enough for everyone to acknowledge the implications. They were more than twelve hours into dealing with the aftermath of the biggest urban disaster ever to occur in New Zealand. The explosion and collapse of a significant portion of the suburban shopping mall had already claimed at least twenty-six fatalities, including eight children, dozens more injured with four listed as critical and possibly up to thirty victims still missing. Including a five-year-old child.

‘Is that true, Jessica?’

Her nod was tight. ‘I can do this, Tony. I have to do this.’

Tony shook his head. ‘No way. I understand how you feel, Jessica, and I’m terribly sorry you’re going through this but there’s no way you can go back to the front line. This job is dangerous enough without that kind of personal involvement.’

‘But I’ve already been doing it. Just because you’ve found out, it doesn’t make any difference.’

‘What?’ Tony’s jaw sagged. ‘Have you known about this all along?’

‘Apparently her mother was the last fatality we pulled out on our first shift.’ Joe’s calm voice filled the gap created by Jessica’s lack of response.

‘You knew about this?’ Tony snapped. ‘You’re a paramedic, Joe. You know as well as I do how something like this could affect someone’s rational behaviour. It could endanger a whole team. You’re the leading medic for our squad. It was your responsibility to pull Jessica off the team.’

‘I didn’t know then. She didn’t tell me. And I certainly didn’t know that her mother had the kid with her.’ Joe’s tone suggested something darker than disappointment. Their relationship might have been simply that of classmates previously, but he and Jessica had been working as a tight unit for the last twelve hours under conditions that demanded the closest cooperation—and trust. Joe Barrington did not take kindly to finding his trust misplaced.

‘I didn’t tell anybody.’ Jessica tried to put aside the memory of seeing her mother’s lifeless body pulled from beneath the rubble. The shock had been enough to provide a protective numbing of her senses and she had grasped and clung to that effect. She couldn’t afford to acknowledge any grief yet, and the shock was a cushion to allow postponement of the inevitable reaction. Jessica had focused on her son. On finding him. Alive. ‘I knew what you’d say,’ she added defensively. ‘And I wasn’t going to let anybody stop me going back in there.’

‘We only just found out the connection.’ The overalls worn by the man still facing Jessica advertised his connection to Civil Defence. His white helmet indicated a senior level of responsibility. ‘The call to trace next of kin for the victim led the police team to the USAR training course. We located Jessica, thinking that she didn’t know, and then we find that she did know. And she’s been back in there working again.’ The tone was one of complete disbelief and the stare he gave Jessica suggested that she was some kind of unfeeling monster. ‘You helped pull your own mother out and you still went back in.’

‘My son is in there. He’s five years old…and he might still be alive.’

The silence was longer this time. Jessica could feel the long odds of that being the case being calculated by the men surrounding her. She wanted to close her eyes and focus on her belief that Ricky was still alive. Instead, she turned her head to meet Joe’s gaze.

Would he think less of her for keeping the devastating information private? Would he guess that she’d used the stand-down period from their first tour of duty to sit by herself in the empty USAR bus gathering strength to control her grief and fear? Putting aside the clear decision Joe had made not to act on the glimmers of attraction that had passed between them ever since they had met three weeks ago, would the fact that they had been there at all help sway Joe in favour of supporting her now? His expression suggested that he was certainly seeing her in a new light. Jessica held his gaze for a second longer to let him see the strength she possessed—strength coupled with a fiery determination and a larger dose of courage than she had ever summoned.

Joe couldn’t look away. It wasn’t due to any resurgence of the physical attraction he had felt on more than one occasion for Jessica. She was encased in shapeless, dirty overalls right now. The abundant auburn curls were hidden under the bright orange helmet. A dust mask dangled beneath a face streaked with grime and the safety goggles had left a red, indented rim around her eyes. What was kicking Joe in the gut was nothing remotely physical. Those dark eyes were revealing something that packed an emotional punch that hit Joe at a much deeper level. His attraction to her had been easy to dismiss once he’d discovered her single-mother status, but nobody could remain unmoved by the sight of that desperate appeal for support underlying a fierce determination to find and protect her child. Jessica was not going to be defeated if there was any way she could fight back.

Perhaps his trust had not been misplaced after all. If Joe ever needed someone fighting on his side, he would want them to have exactly that kind of attitude to obstacles. And she could do it, too. Joe could see a strength he wouldn’t have dreamed the shy, quiet nurse could possess. He tore his gaze away to face the Civil Defence official. At well over six feet in height he could look down on the man and he knew that a calm tone would aid the impression that he was in the best position to assess and control the situation.

‘Jess has already proved that she’s capable of continuing her job. We’ve just dealt with a multi-trauma victim extricated from our sector. The woman had an internal haemorrhage and a punctured lung with a pneumothorax that required medical intervention well above any first-aid levels. I can vouch for the fact that her clinical ability had not been affected. In fact, I couldn’t have done my job without Jessica’s assistance.’

Jessica lowered her gaze for a split second. The praise was unexpected and enough to distract her momentarily from her fierce concentration on achieving her current goal. Had Joe really found her assistance that vital? He hadn’t said anything more than ‘Thanks—good job, Jess’ at the time, but even that had been enough to reward the effort it had taken.

‘We’re short of medics in there,’ Joe added. ‘I think she should be allowed to come back in.’

‘No way.’ The white helmet gave a decisive shake.

Tony Calder was also looking dubious. ‘It’s too risky, Joe.’

‘I’ll take responsibility for the risk,’ Joe said. ‘As you pointed out, Tony, I’m the leading medic on this team. Jess can do this. She should be allowed to do this. If there’s any question of anyone being endangered then I’ll pull the plug. At least let her do it until the end of this shift. That’ll give us time to find a replacement. Jess can stand down at that point. We’ll all need a rest by then.’

The silence was tense now. Time was being wasted. Precious time.

‘Please!’ Jessica’s quiet plea echoed around the group. ‘Please, let me do this…Tony?’

‘We can’t ignore the other emergency services involved here. Geoff?’ Tony turned to the man in the white helmet. ‘We’ve worked together more than once on training exercises. Can we sort this out between us or do we need to interrupt the scene command unit?’

‘I don’t want to do that. They’ve got more than enough to deal with.’ Geoff shook his head wearily. ‘And so have I. I’ll leave the ball in your court, Tony. I guess I know you well enough to be able to trust your judgement.’

Tony caught Joe’s gaze. The subtle jerk of his head led both men to step aside out of earshot of the small group of figures. They didn’t have to move far: the noise level around their position was as high as it had been ever since they had arrived on scene. Jessica’s gaze didn’t falter as she watched their movements. The background cacophony was now familiar and there was no hope of hearing what was being said. A huge container near the entrance to the shopping mall was being filled with rubble delivered by a bobcat. Concrete cutters and air hammers could be heard, sounding like rapid gunfire on their own and then melding into a dull roar as they competed with other heavy equipment. A chainsaw was being tested or repaired in the near vicinity. Tony had to raise his voice to be heard over the insistent revving. ‘Joe? Are you sure you want to take this extra responsibility? Do you really think she can cope?’

The chainsaw’s motor cut out. Joe didn’t have to shout. ‘She’s more than competent, Tony. She’s a damned good medic and I’d work with her in any paramedic situation.’

‘I’m not questioning her clinical skills. I’ve been impressed with the way she performs right from the start of the course and that’s been reinforced considerably since we were deployed to this incident. What I don’t know is how she’ll cope with searching for her own child.’ Tony’s rapid speech advertised the time pressure the men were under.

‘That’s what she’s effectively been doing since we started this shift. It hasn’t stopped her being able to treat a victim other than her son.’

‘But what if she finds him? Dead?’

‘Then she’ll probably go to pieces,’ Joe admitted. ‘We’ll get her out and I’ll carry on alone. And if he isn’t dead then maybe having Jess there will help. She’s the best person to know how to handle him.’

‘How much do you know about the boy?’

Joe shook his head. ‘I don’t think Jess talks about him much.’ And Joe certainly hadn’t made any effort to find out. The fact that the child existed at all had been a disappointment. It had been enough to prevent what could have been a very pleasant interlude. The perfect kind of relationship—an association with an attractive woman and an easy way out after the few weeks of the course, when Jessica would have gone back to her home town.

‘He’s not normal, is he?’

‘I think he’s handicapped in some way,’ Joe confirmed.

‘Physically?’

Joe shrugged. ‘I got the impression it’s more an intellectual disability. Or maybe a behavioural problem.’

‘So the kid’s a loose cannon in there.’ Tony sighed. ‘If he is alive and mobile he could be a danger to himself…and others.’

‘More than Jessica would be, that’s for sure.’

‘Do you think you can handle it?’ Tony wanted a decision made.

Joe grinned. ‘Jessica—or the kid?’

‘Both, if necessary.’

Joe’s smile faded as he remembered the desperate plea in Jessica’s dark eyes. The kind of plea that would make any man feel duty bound to render whatever assistance was humanly possible. His face was quite serious as he nodded at his squad leader.

‘I can deal with this, Tony. I want to deal with it.’

Tony’s nod was brisk. ‘Let’s get on with it, then. We’ll get this team back inside and see what we can do.’

Jessica walked a pace behind Joe as she followed her team.

‘We’ve been reassigned,’ Tony had informed them. ‘They’ve cleared a lot of rubble from part of Sector 5 and there’s now access to a previously inaccessible section that the engineers have just cleared as safe to search. Follow me.’

Jessica followed, trying to focus clearly enough to remember the site map they had seen during their initial incident briefing. Which part of this sprawling, suburban shopping precinct had been designated Sector 5?

‘Can you remember the map, June?’ Jessica turned to an older woman walking alongside her. ‘Where’s Sector 5, exactly?’

‘I think it’s on the Sutherland Street side of the mall,’ June responded. ‘Or maybe Desmond Street.’

Jessica nodded, a little grimly. Whichever street held the entrance, it was still well away from the area where her mother had been found. At least it was within the disaster scene, however, which was infinitely preferable to being kept out. The thought of having to simply sit and wait, with nothing to do but agonise over what might or might not be happening, had been unbearable. Besides, none of them knew what parts of the mall might still be relatively intact. Or how far a small and determined child might be able to travel…if he was uninjured.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

Jessica simply nodded. She had never been more sure of anything in her life.

‘I’d feel just the same way.’ June reached out to pat Jessica’s shoulder in sympathy as she returned the nod with an encouraging smile. Well into her fifties, June had been the oldest member of Jessica’s USAR training class. She was as tough as they came, and had been involved with the Red Cross for more than thirty years. She had also raised four children of her own and was now counting grandchildren. She understood.

The team walked briskly around the outskirts of a car park that had been cleared of private vehicles to create the operations base for every emergency service it had been possible to mobilise. It was an unprecedented scene for a New Zealand city and despite the fact that the alien light generated by powerful equipment had now been replaced by real daylight again, it still seemed as unreal as a movie set.

How long had they been here? Jessica had lost all track of time. The massive explosion that had apparently been centred in the mall’s supermarket had occurred just after 3.30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon—just as Jessica and the other members of the USAR class had been finishing their three-week course and learning the results of the final exams on their new and specialised search and rescue skills. They had all assumed that the callout had been a hoax, a novel way to end a period of training that had brought together a diverse group of people and seen some close friendships develop.

A Friday afternoon. At just the right time to catch the rush of after-school and end-of-week shoppers flocking to the popular shopping centre. Hundreds of people had been inside when the explosion, assumed to have been caused by a fault in the mains gas supply, had occurred. It was a disaster that was major on an international scale and the evidence was everywhere Jessica glanced as Tony led his team through the car park, their progress now being filmed by a television crew.

There was ample material to keep all the film crews happy. The area was teeming and it seemed likely that there were now more rescuers on scene than there had been people caught in the mall. It was easy to spot the workers who had recently been inside the incident scene. They all had the same covering of dust, the same grimy goggles and dust masks pushed just clear of faces that wore the same expressions of dogged determination to carry on despite exhaustion. Tempers were fraying more frequently now and Jessica was not surprised at the sounds of an argument coming from behind one of the army’s personnel trucks they were passing.

‘I’m not going to move this truck. Where the hell do you think I’m going to find a place to put it?’

‘It has to be moved. This tent is going up here.’

‘Put your bloody tent somewhere else, mate. This truck’s not moving.’

What was the new tent for? Jessica wondered. Another temporary morgue, perhaps? Or maybe it was something to do with another set of new arrivals—the dog team she could see ahead of them now. The handlers were unloading their highly trained search dogs and checking their gear. Leads and harnesses were being attached and bowls of water distributed. The barking of the dogs melded into the myriad sounds around them and Jessica knew it was a sign that the rescue operation was moving into an advanced phase.

Surface casualties had been dealt with by the time the USAR teams had been deployed. The more easily accessible sectors had been covered and many victims found and extricated by the specialist teams. The likelihood of finding more survivors was dropping rapidly but it wasn’t impossible. Jessica held onto that thought grimly as her team halted and regrouped near a side entrance to the mall. The bubble of hysteria that made her want to run ahead, screaming the name of her son and flinging any obstacle she could touch aside, had to be as rigidly controlled as the bubble that contained the grief for her mother.

She could do it. It might take every ounce of strength she possessed and then some, and it might only be possible for a short period of time, but Jessica knew it was possible and that was a revelation in itself. How could she, Jessica McPhail, possess such an inner reserve and have been so completely unaware of its existence for the thirty years of her life so far? She had always lacked confidence and self-esteem. Had always been quick to put herself down before others had had the chance to do it for her. She had never done anything on her own without encouragement from someone she trusted. And she had never been assertive enough to insist on doing something in the face of active opposition.

Except she wasn’t doing this on her own, was she? Jessica glanced around her as she followed instructions to put her dust mask and goggles back into position, to check her radio and switch on the headlamp attached to her protective helmet. She had a team around her that included an expert squad leader in Tony. Firemen Bryan and Gerry had been classmates, as had June, and they made up half the six-person rescuer section of USAR 3. Jessica was one of the medics and then, of course, there was the pick of the bunch as far as she was concerned. The team’s other medic—Joe Barrington.

‘All set?’ Tony nodded, having surveyed his team. ‘Let’s go, then.’

Security barriers were lifted to allow them entry to what looked like a relatively unscathed area of the mall. Apart from shattered shop frontages and the disarray of goods within them, the general structure appeared normal. Jessica turned her head, as did the other team members, using the beam from her headlamp to survey and assess their surroundings, checking for hazards and trying to absorb all the information and stay orientated.

Having crunched over broken glass as they’d passed several small shops, the team entered a food court. The smell of partially cooked and abandoned meals made a welcome change from the stench of dust, but the eerily empty space, overturned chairs and half-eaten meals on the tables turned the scene into a potential set for a horror movie.

Jessica noted a partially demolished hamburger, barely recognisable through the thick layer of dust. A holder on a nearby countertop held empty ice-cream cones, the contents long since melted and mixed into the surrounding layer of dust. Had children been waiting for an adult to pass the treats within reach? Jessica swallowed a painful lump in her throat at the thought. How often had she taken an ice cream from just such a holder in order to pass it into Ricky’s eager hands? The food court was left well behind by the time she managed to rein in her thoughts.

Why had they come to the mall so early? Jessica had arranged to meet her mother and Ricky here but not until 5 p.m. when she could be sure her last day on the course was over. Had Ricky been so excited by the promise of the visit to the toy shop he had driven her mother to distraction with the wait? Jessica had had no premonition of personal disaster as they had travelled to this scene. She had been more concerned that she was included in an emergency rescue team whose skills might be required for a lengthy incident, much longer than she would feel happy leaving her mother to cope with Ricky for.

Even when her phone call to the motel unit had been unanswered, Jessica hadn’t worried unduly. Her empathy during the initial briefing when she’d heard of parents panicking about their missing children had been no more than automatic, and there had been no time for personal worries once her team had entered the scene for their first active duty. The experience had been so far out of Jessica’s normal realm it should have been overwhelming, but she had astonished herself by coping with everything. Picking her way through the rubble of partially destroyed shops. Dealing with the extrication and treatment of the two survivors they had found. Even coping with the bodies being removed from near the tunnel that led to the basement car park. Coping until she had recognised one of the victims, that was.

Her own mother.

The woman who had raised her entirely unaided. Who had provided for and protected her as the only focus of her life. And who had been there for her when history had repeated itself and Jessica had found herself pregnant and abandoned.

The shock of recognition had been overwhelming. Jessica had never fainted in her life but she’d come within a whisker of losing consciousness at that instant. The incentive to overcome the shock had been all that had kept her upright as others had taken her mother away, but it had been enough to keep her on the front line until the area had been officially deemed clear. No more victims had been trapped when that section had collapsed.

So where was her son?

Had they been going towards or away from the car park? And why? Jessica knew the answer to that. Ricky was never happier than when he could indulge his passion for cars by looking at the real thing. Why hadn’t they chosen the outside car park to wander in? And what had happened during the collapse or the seconds leading up to it? Had Ricky been small and fast enough to run clear as the roof caved in? Had he found a space in a nearby shop to hide or was he beyond or beneath the tunnel, which was still totally inaccessible—a solid barrier to the car park that would need a bulldozer or crane to clear. A barrier that was now well away from where Jessica was. She wanted to turn and run. To try and find a path that would lead her closer to where she thought Ricky could be.

‘Jess? Are you OK?’

‘Sure.’ Grateful for the block to the threatened emotional tidal wave, Jessica gave Joe a grimly determined smile.

‘Watch yourself while we’re climbing. Keep three points of contact with the rubble at all times.’

Jessica nodded. She had been too close to losing her grip just then. So close she hadn’t noticed her team was about to start searching a mound of rubble that blocked the end of the mall leading away from the food court.

‘Position yourselves one metre apart,’ Tony directed. ‘We’re hoping to get past this quickly but we’ll do a line and hail search as we cross.’

Heavy machinery within the vicinity had been shut down. Jessica tested a length of timber protruding from the pile in front of her and then used it as an anchor so that she could lean as close to the debris as possible. She waited her turn, listening as others in the line made their calls.

‘Rescue team above. Can you hear me?’

The silence was punctuated by the sound of someone firing up an air hammer and the shouts of someone else curtailing the noisy activity. Bryan had to repeat his call and then wait for a new period of quiet to listen for a possible response.

‘Nothing heard,’ he reported.

June was the next in line. ‘Rescue team above. Can you hear me?’

There was another short silence. ‘Nothing heard.’

Jessica’s turn came and went with the same result and then they moved forward and up. Joe’s foot slipped as he pushed himself higher. Glass shattered and something metallic dislodged itself with a clang.

‘You OK?’

‘Yeah.’ Joe steadied himself and Jessica could see the edges of a smile around the mask. ‘You?’

Jessica simply nodded. The chain of calls had started again.

‘Rescue team above. Can you hear me?’

When Jessica moved again, her gloved hand caught what appeared to be a piece of fabric.

‘Oh, God,’ she muttered. Was this clothing from a buried victim? Joe’s head turned sharply.

‘Pull on it,’ he advised.

Jessica pulled and the empty sleeve of a garment appeared amidst a shower of dust.

‘There’s part of a clothing store in here,’ Joe nodded. ‘Bits of fabric are sticking out all over the place. I think there have been a few false alarms.’

The next move took the team over the top of the relatively small mound of debris. As they completed the unsuccessful line and hail search a radio message from Tony prompted a new wave of noise as machinery started up again. New teams of rescue workers went into action. A wire bucket brigade would remove the small pieces of rubble from the mound until they could be absolutely certain any victims had been located. Then a bobcat would probably move in to clear another area of floor space.

They had to stop and wait now as Tony checked with the engineers and safety officers who had been scouting the area beyond the mound, looking for any signs of secondary collapse and testing the atmosphere for pockets of gas which would make the area too dangerous for the USAR team to enter. There seemed to be some question of how safe it was to continue, judging by the length of time the briefing was taking.

Jessica looked around, using her headlamp as a torch and trying to make her own assessment of the collapse patterns she saw nearby. Internal walls had fallen in one shop but the ceiling was still there. She could see the cracks in the slab of concrete that presumably had had the weight of a second-storey shop on it and was now without much of its support from below. The internal walls had fallen towards each other, giving a cantilevered collapse pattern. The possibility of voids large enough to contain survivors was high but the danger from that ceiling was also high. Was that what Tony and the others were trying to weigh up?