The Bomb Maker

24

The shock wave blew off the break-room door and punched out the wall behind it where the counter and cabinets were. It turned the air in the hallway into a hard, expanding force that reached the waiting room in an instant, even though it had to bat down the walls of four other rooms to get there, bringing along a growing load of beds, visitors’ chairs, monitoring equipment, and other things no longer identifiable or even separable. The sixth wall, the side of the waiting room, was only partially dislodged, but it was possible to see steel items protruding through it in places.

The air in the wing was now a suspension of powdery dust from demolished drywall, acoustic tiles, and masonry.

Stahl found himself on the floor eight feet from where he had stood. He moved a hand tentatively, then a foot, brought himself up on one knee, and finally came to his feet. He could see in the milky haze that there were other human shapes in the room, and most were beginning to move.

He could see three crawling on hands and knees to stay below the clouds of dust, and there were also several on their feet, moving toward the doorway.

Stahl breathed in through his shirt and called out, “Is anybody in this room hurt? Anybody hurt?” Two other voices called the same question from other parts of the room, but no answer reached his ears.

“This is Stahl. Start looking for casualties.”

He made his way to the door and felt a cool breeze. The lights had gone out in the middle of the floor in the vicinity of the nurses’ station. In the hallway a grid of metal frames that held ceiling tiles had come loose and was now leaning, still partially suspended by wires. Above it, Stahl could see the complicated pattern of I beams, pipes, and conduits for electrical cables. This usually unseen layer above him was all sprayed with a surface coat of grayish fireproofing material.

His eyes adjusted, and after a second he realized the reason was the same reason he could breathe more easily now. The explosion had blown out a part of the outer wall, so there was a big gash open to the night sky. There was a steady breeze of cool air flowing down the hallway, clearing the floating dust away. Stahl shook his head hard and ran both hands down his face to get rid of the dust in his hair and eyebrows, and as he began to trot, he brushed dust off his shoulders.

He tried to run up the hallway to Diane’s room, but he felt off balance and clumsy. He wanted to get there but he couldn’t seem to find it. He sloshed into icy water, and realized that the water was flowing down the hall from a broken sprinkler system somewhere ahead. He could hear what sounded like electrical sparking, so he knew he had better try to find a switch quickly, but he couldn’t see a panel. He looked at the number of the room nearest to the gaping hole in the wall. The number was 568. Diane’s room had been 572, but it seemed to be gone. He stopped, his mouth gaping, took a few steps forward, then a few back, but he couldn’t make out where one ruined room ended and the next began.

There were other people running now, lifting debris to see if there was anyone beneath it. Some of them were members of his Bomb Squad, but there were others emerging from the stairwell at the end of the hall. They ran to gurneys and wheelchairs as they arrived, grabbed them, and pushed them forward, hurrying to patients’ rooms in an otherworldly race, a scramble to get a patient and run.

Stahl began to move again. He hit his phone button for the headquarters and began to talk. “This is Captain Stahl. There’s been a large explosion on the fifth floor of Cedars-Sinai hospital. There are numerous injuries and at least two deaths. The outer wall on the north side of the building facing Melrose has a breach about ten feet wide. Request fire and rescue teams, Code Three. Dispatch Team Four of the Bomb Squad, and tell them to bring three bomb trucks.”

Stahl came to a place where ceiling tiles, boards, and other debris had fallen and partially blocked the hallway. He could see one wheel of a wheelchair, and a bit of the blue leather seat beneath it. This was an opportunity to get one more patient off the devastated fifth floor and down to safety. He lifted a sheet of wallboard and threw off some tiles and what seemed to have been a wooden cabinet. The chair was upside down so its armrests and seat back were down and the wheels up. As he pulled the chair from the wreckage he saw her.

She was lying facedown, her head toward the waiting room door as though the force of the explosion had thrown her forward.

He touched her carotid artery and felt a strong, normal pulse. Without thinking he shouted, “Medic!” It was a yell that came from ten years ago and ten thousand miles away. He heard it and shouted, “Doctor! I need help over here.”