16 Souls

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Seven Months before — January 21^st

Aircraft Rescue and Firefighters’ Station #1, Denver International Airport

Clad in his yellow protective coveralls and already wearing his boots, Josh Simmons lowered his cell phone and turned back to Scott Bogosian.

“You’ve got a decent reputation with us, Scotty. The chief says he remembers that great article you did on us years back, so, you may ride along, Glad to have you.”

“Thanks.”

“Get in that gear I laid out on the chair there, and we’ll roll in about five minutes.”

Scott struggled to don the oversized overalls and boots and clambered up the side of the behemoth fire fighting machine built especially for airports, plopping himself in the back seat of the cab. He’d never been inside a so-called Crash Tender before, but the specialized machines had been described as a fire truck on steroids — capable of speeding over rugged terrain with a huge load of water and fire suppressant, the floor of the cab some four feet off the ground. Within minutes, the other members of the crew were aboard and the diesel engine roared to life as the firehouse door lifted on what could have been Prudhoe Bay in the dead of a winter storm.

Scott turned to the firefighter seated beside him.

“You know the details of what’s apparently happened here?”

“Yes, sir. A midair collision and somehow the little airplane is on their wing, or something. We’re calling this a red alert. Most of our precautionary landings are called amber alerts — not to be confused with saving kidnapped kids — but we call them as red when there’s a real possibility of death or injury. We’re stationing ourselves and three other trucks along Runway Seven.”

“Is all the plowing complete? At least whatever they’re going to do?”

“I think they’re bringing the plows in now. They gave up on all but Runway Seven almost an hour ago.”

Scott watched as the huge fire truck crunched resolutely through the fresh powder, negotiating several turns onto now-abandoned taxiways on the way to the southernmost east-west runway. For some unfathomable reason, Scott’s eyes fixated on a pair of fresh tire tracks leading off to the north as they passed the end of Runway 34R. The tracks immediately disappeared into the whiteness, heading off in the rough direction of where the approach end of the closed runway should be.

Scott turned to the young firefighter. “Do they send airport cars and trucks around checking on all parts of the airfield on a night like this?”

He shook his head. “No, sir. When they abandon an area to a major snowfall, they turn off the runway lights and kind of keep it what I would call sterile. What you’re seeing now is an all-but-shuttered airport.”

The taxiway along the only remaining runway at Denver International was ahead of them now, but the visibility through the blowing curtains of snow was less than a few hundred feet.

“All units, the flight is ten minutes out for Runway Seven. Engine Three, you’re on the eastern end, but stay back on the north edge of the parallel taxiway, and be prepared to go into the ravine at the east end if necessary.”

“Ravine?” Scott asked.

Josh handed back a map, his finger on the dropoff from the eastern end.

“Too bad they didn’t keep the sixteen thousand foot runway open. You roll off the end of that, all you’re going to tear up are prairie dog towns and a few fences.”