Scout obviously understood there was no toy involved, but crawled into the void on his belly. Down on one knee, Cal continued to aim the flashlight into the space and listened intently. He heard scrambling as Scout must have reached the cavity on the other side. A series of staccato barks indicated to Cal that Scout had located his target. He heard more scrambling, then Scout was backing out through the opening. From the way he was laboring, Cal knew he had the little girl. If only the child was still alive.
As soon as Scout’s back end cleared the opening, Cal gave him the command “out” to release. The dog been dragging the girl by the hood of her sweater, which luckily had been buttoned up in the air-conditioned cool of the building.
Cal handed the flashlight to the firefighter and wriggled in as far as he could to get hold of the little girl under her armpits, gently pulling her out. Once she was clear of the opening, the firefighter checked her for vital signs. Nodding to Cal, letting him know she was still alive, he started rescue breathing.
Cal felt an immediate sense of relief. His next priority was to locate Kayla’s mother—or anyone else who might’ve been trapped with them. He signaled to Scout again, and said silent thanks when he heard the little girl cough behind him. He knew the firefighter would take care of Kayla and have her lifted out. His focus was now on the mother.
Cal illuminated the cavity with his flashlight. From his vantage point, he couldn’t see anyone, or anything of significance. But he assumed from what Kayla had told him that her mother was in there somewhere, unconscious. He tried again to get his shoulders to fit through the opening. It was a no-go.
“Palmer,” the firefighter called to him.
He backed out of the opening. “Yeah. What?” he snapped in frustration.
“We need you here.”
Cal’s irritated gaze met the other man’s.
The firefighter gestured to Kayla. “She needs you.”
Cal glanced at the girl with her long black hair and huge dark brown eyes, and everything in him softened. The kid couldn’t have been more than four or five. It was obvious that she was making a heroic effort not to cry.
Cal squatted down in front of her.
“Mommy...?” she croaked, tears shimmering in her eyes and spilling over to trail through the grime on her cheeks.
“Kayla, your mother was with you?” He pointed toward the opening. “In there?” She’d already said so, but Cal hadn’t been able to see anything, nor had he heard any further noise from inside.
The child swiped the back of her hand under her nose. “Uh-huh,” she said before she started to cough once more.
The firefighter offered her some water from his flask. She took a sip, gagged, then coughed again as Cal patted her back. “You’re okay,” he reassured her. “I’m going to look for your mother. We need to get you out of here.”
“No!” The word exploded from her and she grasped his wrist with her small hand. “I want my mommy.”
“We’re going to get her next, but you have to go out of the building.”
“No. I don’t want to. I want Mommy.” She thrust out her lower lip.
“You have to. Your mother would want you to be safe. This man will take you out and I’ll look for your mother.”
“Can’t the other man get Mommy?” Her chest was heaving and she clutched Cal’s arm harder. She was obviously near her breaking point.
Cal glanced up at the firefighter, who shrugged.
“That’s why I called you. She wouldn’t leave. She wanted you.”
Cal gripped Kayla’s shoulders and stared into her tear-drenched eyes. “I’m going to look for your mother now.”
She started to sob and threw herself in Cal’s arms. “I’m afraid. I don’t want to go without Mommy. Or you.”
Cal held tight, clasping one hand over the back of the child’s head, smoothing down the tangled, matted mass of dark hair. He assessed the circumstances quickly and decided the extra couple of minutes it would take him to lift the girl out would likely make no difference to her mother. Air was getting in. If the woman was unconscious, she wouldn’t run out of oxygen. And if it was worse...well, he didn’t want to think about it.
A loud grinding noise reverberated around them—metal abrading against metal—as if the building was settling. Cal and the firefighter froze, waiting for the noise and the vibrations to cease.
“I’ll take you out, but after that you’ll stay with this man, so I can come back for your mother.”
She sniffled a bit, then nodded, her head resting against his shoulder. “Okay.”
Cal rose, with Kayla in his arms. They made their way over to the hoist and the firefighter radioed to let them know up top what was happening. They decided the firefighter should go first. He would take Kayla to the triage area once Cal got her out. Cal ordered Scout to wait. The firefighter was lifted out, then the harness was lowered again. Cal strapped himself in. Holding Kayla firmly against his chest, he wrapped the final harness strap around both of them. He signaled for the crew to start the extraction.
As they began to move, the little girl held on tight, her arms wound around his neck, her face still buried in the crook of his neck. They ascended slowly and cleared the building. He blinked rapidly to adjust his eyes to the late-evening sunshine, blinding after the darkness inside.
He wondered fleetingly how the sun could shine so intensely with all the destruction below, but he didn’t have long to dwell on it. They were swung away from the opening and Cal unfastened them, handing Kayla to the firefighter.
Just as Cal was strapping himself back in, he felt a strong breeze and spread his legs to brace himself. Even so, when the building beneath him shook, he was nearly knocked off his feet.
“An aftershock,” he heard someone yell, and the building shifted, then tilted perilously.
This time Cal did lose his balance. Landing on his backside, he was catapulted down the inclined rooftop headfirst. The harness he hadn’t fully secured snapped free. He tried to twist around as the edge of the rooftop rushed toward him. He managed to turn enough so that he wasn’t leading with his head when he hit the parapet wall. He lay still for a few moments to catch his breath. His left shoulder screamed but he didn’t think it was broken. He hoped it wasn’t dislocated, either. Nothing else seemed to hurt enough to worry about.
People on the rooftop and at street level were shouting and rushing about. Cal unfolded himself and, bracing against the parapet wall, he rose to stand on the steeply sloping rooftop. He took one quick glance over the edge and knew that if the parapet wall hadn’t been there or hadn’t held, it would have been game over for him.
He pushed that thought aside and turned to search the area for the firefighter and Kayla. They were huddled together against the railing by the rooftop stairwell and looked unharmed. His next thought was of Kayla’s mother and Scout. He had to get back into the building. Massaging his shoulder, he walked at an angle along the steeply sloping roof toward the elevator shaft opening and the hoisting mechanism.
“Let’s get this done,” he said to the firefighter operating the hoist as he strapped himself back into the harness.
“You aren’t going down there.”
“Darn right I am.” He gestured toward Kayla. “Her mother is down there, and so is my dog.”
“I don’t have permission to let anyone back in.”
“Then get it,” Cal snarled, forestalling any further argument.
The firefighter