Still he didn’t move. The noise, the shock, the darkness must have sent him into panic and for most toddlers the reaction to blind panic was to freeze.
‘It’s okay,’ she whispered, but it wasn’t.
Breathing seemed almost impossible. Her mouth was full of grit. The dust wasn’t settling.
Toby was safe under her T-shirt, but what was the rule? In a crisis, first ensure your own safety. You’re no use to anyone if you’re dead.
Okay, Toby had come first but now she needed to focus on herself.
The leg... She needed to...
Breathe. That was top of the list.
She was cradling Toby with one arm. With the other she groped and found the canvas carryall she’d brought from crèche. The clothes she’d just taken off were in a plastic bag on the top. Maybe they were contaminated with meningitis virus but now wasn’t the time to quibble.
Oh, her leg...
Somewhere close by, someone started to scream.
There was nothing she could do about it.
First save yourself.
She’d been wearing a blouse when she’d treated Felix and it was at the top of the bag. She tugged it free and a flurry of concrete rubble fell into the bag as she pulled it out.
Was there anything around her likely to fall? How could she tell?
The darkness was total. Her phone had a torch but her phone was at the bottom of her purse and where was her purse? Not within reach.
No matter. She was used to the dark.
Toby wasn’t, though. He was whimpering, his little body shaking.
There was nothing she could do until she had herself safe.
She had the shirt free. She shook the worst of the dust out, knowing more was settling every second. Then she had to let Toby go while she wrapped and tied the shirt around her face.
The whimpering grew frantic.
‘It’s okay.’ And blessedly it was. The shirt made breathing not easy but at least possible.
She took a moment to cradle Toby again, hugging him close, blocking out the messages her leg was sending her.
‘Stay still, Toby, love,’ she whispered. ‘I need to see if I can get this...this mess away from us so we can go home.’
Fat chance. She wasn’t going anywhere soon.
Oh, her leg...
Was she bleeding? She couldn’t tell and she had to know.
Carefully she manoeuvred Toby around to her side, though he clutched her so hard she had to tug. Thankfully the neck of her T-shirt was tight so he was safe enough in there. He wasn’t crying loudly—just tiny terrified whimpers that did something to her heart.
But her leg had priority. With Toby shifted to the side she could lean down and feel.
There was a block of concrete lying straight across her lower leg. Massive. She couldn’t feel either end of it.
She was bent almost double, fighting to get her fingers underneath, fighting to see if there was wriggle room.
Her fingers could just fit under.
No blood or very little. She wasn’t bleeding out, which was kind of a relief.
The pain was...was...there were no words.
She went back to clutching Toby. If she just held on...
She was awash with nausea and faintness. The darkness, the pain, the fear were almost overwhelming and the temptation was to give in. She could just let go and sink into the darkness.
But that’d mean letting go of Toby. He was being so still. Why? She didn’t have room in her head to answer. He was breathing, his warm little body her one sure thing in this nightmare.
The sound from the car alarms was appalling. The screaming from far away reached a crescendo and then suddenly stopped, cut off.
There was nothing she could do. Her world was confined to dark and dust and pain—and Toby.
There was nothing else.
* * *
Even without the emergency code, Luc would have known there was trouble the moment he walked into the Specialist Disaster Response office. Mabel, the admin secretary, was staring at the screen and her fingers were flying over the keyboard. This was what she was trained for.
Mabel sensed rather than saw him arrive, and she didn’t take her eyes from the screen as she spoke.
‘Plane crash into shopping centre,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Cargo plane. Pilot on board but hopefully no passengers. It’s smashed into the side of the Namborra Shopping Plaza. You know Namborra? Five hours’ drive inland, due west. It’s the commercial centre for a huge rural district. Hot day, air-conditioned shopping centre, Tuesday afternoon. There’s no word yet but guess is multiple casualties. It seems the undercover car park and a small section of the plaza itself have collapsed.’
‘What resources are on the ground?’ Luc asked.
‘There’s a small local hospital but anything serious gets airlifted here, so there are few resources. I’m bringing the team back, field hospital, the works, but it’ll take time to get them there. Luc, I’m trying to sequester med staff from the rest of the hospital but they’re not geared up like you are. The fire team’s already notified and the first responders will go with you. The chopper’s on the roof. Gina’s refuelling and ready to go. Resources will follow at need but I want you in the air ten minutes ago. Go!’
And ten seconds later he was gone.
‘MESS’ DIDN’T BEGIN to describe what was beneath them.
From the air Namborra looked what it was, a small, almost-city situated in the middle of endless miles of wheat fields. There was a railway line and station, and a massive cluster of wheat silos. A group of commercial buildings formed the town centre, with a mammoth swimming pool and sports complex to the side. But Luc’s focus was on the largest building of all—a vast, sprawling undercover shopping plaza.
The scene of disaster.
The plane seemed to have skimmed across the rooftop, bringing part of the roof down and then smashing into the sports oval next door. That was some consolation, he thought, but not much. He couldn’t see the plane—what he saw was a smouldering mess.
And the plaza... There was a local fire engine on site, with men and women doing their best to quench a small fire smouldering a third of the way across the smashed roof. There were two police cars.
There were locals, visibly distressed even from where Luc gazed from the chopper, some venturing out onto the collapsed roof, others clustering around people on the ground. Some were simply clutching each other.
They circled first. Gina, the team’s pilot, knew the drill. Even though seconds counted, there was always the need to take an aerial assessment. Calculate risks.
‘Hard hats. Full gear. You know the drill,’ Kev, the burly chief of the SDR fire crew, barked. ‘Anyone going in under that mess, watch yourself.’ He was including Luc in his orders. SDR medics were supposed to stay on the sidelines and treat whoever was brought to them but it often didn’t work that way. In truth firefighters often ended up doing emergency first aid and the medics often ended up digging or abseiling or whatever. No one asked questions—in a crisis everyone did what they had to do.
‘Obey orders and keep your radios close,’ Kev ordered