The Glass Inferno

CHAPTER 52

Lex Hughes had been almost dozing in a chair in the inner office, waiting ‘patiently for the firemen to secure so he could steal down the stairs. The explosions jolted him from his seat and threw him sprawling across the floor. The far wall of the Credit Union, facing the outer corridor, abruptly crumbled into shattered debris. Hughes clutched at the floor desperately as the surface seemed to jump and dance and heavy desks tried to walk across it. From somewhere close by a hissing sound filled the air and a hot mist rolled into the room.

Then the sound rapidly died down and it was quiet, except for the incidental noise of dribbling plaster and the more distant fall of masonry.

He lay on the floor for a moment, dazed, then slowly got to his feet.

The office was a shambles. The area around the vault was still intact, but the wall separating the office from the outside corridor was gone-the thin partition actually blown in and lying in pieces across nearby desks. The far wall in the corridor bordering the utility core was also shattered, the reinforcing rods showing through the broken concrete. The lights were out and what little he could see was illuminated by the small flames that now seemed to flicker almost everywhere.

Most of the corridor outside was hidden by black, curling smoke.

He rubbed his face and was shocked to find blood on his hand when he took it away. He could feel a large, ragged cut Across his - left cheek where flying glass or debris had slashed it. He - dabbed at it with his handkerchief to try and stanch the flow of blood, then gave up.

The initial shock was now wearing off and a feeling of panic setting in. Something more terrible than the fire had happened-and it had happened close at hand. He had to get out, he couldn’t wait any longer. He hesitated before taking the brief case, then decided to risk it. He grabbed the precious case and stumbled down the aisle toward the outer corridor, picking his way around chairs and file cabinets that had been toppled by.the explosions.

The glass was gone from the outside door, shards of it lying on the floor. It was probably a flying piece of glass from the door that had cut his cheek, he thought.

Heavy clouds of smoke now boiled through the corridor, laced with occasional tongues of fire. He started to cough. Christ, the whole place was going up. He pulled at the door from force of habit and jumped back as it fell from its hinges, almost trapping him under it.

In the hallway, the dense, black smoke bit into his lungs, starting another fit of coughing. Every now and then a puff of hot, wet air condensed on his face and he realized the steam lines in the, building must have broken. Far away, he could hear the cries of firemen coming from one of the stairwells to which they had retreated. A beam of light from a flashlight cut momentarily through the murk and he dodged to one side. He would try and get to the other stairwell; chances were all the firemen were at the nearest one. He knew where it was; he could feel his way to it.

He stooped low to avoid most of the smoke and held out his hand in front of him; the light from the small fires in-the corridor was becoming stronger now and he would have to hurry to avoid being seen.

He ran forward, doing his best not to cough, and in the next instant sprawled over an abandoned fire hose, the brief case spinning out of his grasp. Its catch snapped and packages of bills held together by rubber bands bounced across the corridor floor.

He grabbed at them, then realized he was on the edge of hell itself.

A few feet beyond the shattered wall of the utility core, part of.

the floor itself was gone, the rest of it sloping gently down into the gap in the wall. Through the breech he could seethe stark utilitarian outlines of the interior of the utility core itself. For a moment he was paralyzed with fear and hugged the floor, staring at the bundles of bills and the brief case lying just beyond his fingertips.

For a long moment he lay there; then he sensed a slow draft of air in the corridor flowing toward the open utility core. Scattered bills from a broken bundle of fifties stirred slightly with a life all their own, then tumbled like wind-blown leaves into the chasm beyond. Hughes whimpered and crawled forward, grabbing frantically for the bills. A clump of them caught on an exposed section of wire mesh and reinforcing rods where the concrete floor had been shattered. There was fire on the floor beneath, and in the rising heat-some of the bills began to blacken and then burst into flame, setting fire to the other bills on the mesh.

Freedom, the Adriatic coast, a new life were burning up just beyond his reach. It was too much for Hughes.

He got to his knees and clutched for the money, frantically trying to beat out the flames. One packet of bills rolled toward the, mesh, smoldered while he was trying to beat out the flames on individual bills, and started to burn around the edges. Hughes grabbed for it, then suddenly realized his hands were blistering and his face was raw from the heat. The hot air began to sear his lungs.

He tried to roll back, away from the jagged mesh and the chasm beyond. Suddenly the small section of floor that he was on tipped and crumbled. He toppled forward and caught the full strength of the heat from the fire below.

For an instant he was looking straight down the core for the entire eighteen floors.

He tried desperately to pull back, his feet scrabbling on powdered concrete. For a brief moment he was poised on the edge, like a figure in a freeze frame of a motion picture. Then the floor beneath him was gone and he plunged into the smoky darkness’of the utility core.

Time slowed and he could feel himself tumbling in the strong draft?

from the bottom of the shaft. He felt a touch of heat and as he turned looked up to see the final bundle of burning bills falling toward him.

The fiery packet of money looked for all the world like a great flaming eye set in the face of some terrible, avenging God.