The Glass Inferno

CHAPTER 67

“Come on, you mother!” Tex Burleigh swore violently to himself as he hurriedly pulled down the last of the elevator housing. The cables that wound over the sheaves were now exposed directly to the elements.

“Four of them must have snapped,” Douglas said, holding Burleigh’s flashlight on the.cable drums.

Burleigh glanced over at him, trying to estimate how much muscle there might be beneath the man’s bulk. Big men had a way of fooling you, he thought, but something told him there was a good deal of power under the man’s flab. “What’d you say your name was? Douglas? Well, look, Douglas, can you stick it out here for a little while?

I know you’re freezing your ass but I’m going to need your help.”

He was shouting now, trying to make himself heard over the noise of another U.H-1 setting down on the roof and the roar from the giant Sikorsky overhead.

“You’ve got it!” Douglas yelled. “What do you want me to do?”

Burleigh pointed above them at the Sikorsky and the long cable that dangled from her middle. “We’ve got to splice the cable from the F-106 to one of the elevator cables and then cut them free from the sheaves.”

He pointed at the two rocketlike tubes. “That’s what the torches are for.”

“What if the splice doesn’t hold?”

“Mister, it’s got to!” Burleigh began to pull out various tools from the bag at his feet. Finally he took out three large, slotted steel bars, each with two heavy, hexagonal bolts protruding. “These are our splices and we damned well better make one of them good!”

Burleigh gripped a ten-inch wrench and began to loosen the hexagonal bolts. One end of the splice bar fell open as he withdrew one of the bolts. “You’ll have to hold onto me while I get this around the elevator cable,” he told Douglas.

“Will it fit?” Douglas asked.

“The bolt tightens the jaws of the splice. They’re serrated; they’ll bite into the cable like teeth. After we splice onto the Sikorsky cable, then we’ll have to cut the elevator cables free. But before that, we’ll have to wrap the cables with wire to keep them from splaying. They Could take your head off otherwise. And if the splice doesn’t hold, that’s the end of the ball game.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a walky-talky and extended its antenna. “City Shuttle Two, come in.”

“Loud and clear, Tex-where the hell are you?”

Burleigh nodded at Douglas. “Give them a wave with the flashlight.”

Douglas moved back from the shed and started to wave with the flashlight, then felt himself start to slip and kicked out with his foot. He felt it hit something and then found purchase on part of the shed platform. He flicked the switch on the flashlight several times and waved it back and forth. The Sikorsky spun on its rotor thirty degrees and moved forward, settling lower as it moved, the single cable trailing slightly behind it in the wind.

“Okay, hold it,” Burleigh said into the walky-talky.

then “Give me about ten feet of cable.”

Above them, the ‘copters winch made a distant whining sound and the cable slowly dropped. It whipped across the roof once, then came back.

Burleigh threw Douglas a heavy mechanic’s rag. “Grab it with this; don’t use your hands-it’ll cut them to ribbons.” Douglas took the rag, then caught the end of the cable, feeding it into the shaft opening at his feet. The cable continued to lower.

“Okay, hold it for the splice.” Burleigh slipped the walky-talky back into his pocket, picked up the wrench, and glanced about the roof for one of the splices. “Hey, what the hell-?”

Douglas lowered the flashlight so the beam hit the rooftop. Only two of the slotted metal rods were there.

The big man had slipped on the roof for a moment, Burleigh recalled; he had probably kicked one of them over the side. Douglas thought of it at the same time and for a moment looked like he was going to come apart.

“Christ, I didn’t mean-“

“Forget it,” Burleigh said. “I told you one would hold.” He picked up a splice and said, “Okay, grab my legs.

I’ll be leaning over one of the sheaves. When I give you the word, feed me the copter cable.”

Douglas found a purchase and gripped both of Burleigh’s legs.

Burleigh leaned far out over the shaft opening. The wind whipped about his head, tugged at his fatigue cap, and blew it out into the void.

The elevator cable was cold and coated with a thin slick of ice.

For a second Burleigh felt as if his hands might stick to the metal.

He brought the open latch of the splice around and secured it onto the cable. Then he inserted the bolt and began to tighten it with the wrench. The snowflakes melted on his hands and made the wrench slippery and suddenly it started to slide out of his grasp. He grabbed for it with the other hand and heard the splice riding down the cable.

He wriggled back up and sat on the roof, breathing hard for a minute.

“All right,” he said finally, “that’s one for each of us. Last try, and this time we’ve got to make it good.”

Burleigh leaned into the hole again, Douglas -holding onto his legs.

The man was a helluva lot stronger than he had thought at first; he was probably really suffering from the cold, too-with absolutely no complaining.

Again, Burleigh brought the open latch of the splice around the cable. The going was slow as he tightened the bolt and once more the wrench almost slipped from his grip. Finally the teeth bit tightly into the cable. He then estimated where he was going to cut it and wrapped the cable on each side of the projected cut with steel wire he had brought along, using the wrench to tighten the tourniquet of steel around the bundle of wires that made up the cable.

Then he yelled, “Feed me the ‘copter cable!”

Douglas loosened one hand for an instant and a second later the ‘copter cable snaked down past Burleigh’s face.

This was the difficult part, he thought: The cable had to be threaded through the other end of the splice which didn’t open. The cable was cold and writhed in his hand; he could even feel the vibration of the ‘copters motor through it. They had given him enough slack so the bucking Sikorsky in the heavy gusts of wind didn’t give him too much trouble. He found the end of the cable and after two false starts succeeded in threading it in a “U” through the other end of the splice.

After that, he wrenched down the second bolt until it bit into the ‘copter cable.

He pulled himself back onto the roof, smiled triumphantly at Douglas, and took out his walky-talky again.

“Okay, take it up slowly-very slowly, just enough to take up the slack.” He waited until the cable drew taut. “Okay, that’s it.

Hold-it there. When I cut it loose, we don’t want the damned thing to drop too far.”

He slipped on a pair of safety goggles, picked up one of the solid propellant torches and yelled at Douglas, “This is dangerous-stand back a little.” He pulled the safety pin and then the igniter wire, aiming the nozzle out into the night. The torch took fire with a swoosh and jetted out a burst of flame for a foot. The flame sparkled with burning aluminum power while a heavy white cloud boiled from the jet.

Burleigh moved around the shaft opening so he could get at the one cable that had not been spliced. The flame slowly cut through it in a violent shower of sparks. When the cable parted, the snapping sounded like a firecracker going off. Even with the wire sizing wrapped around them, several strands of the cable popped loose and whipped about like striking snakes.

The cutting of the last cable was easier. The metal strands glowed red, then white, and finally erupted in a shower of sparks. The metal sagged for an instant and then he was through.

Above him, the ‘copter cable sang under the tension.

Burleigh pulled himself back and spoke into the hand radio again.

“It’s snug down here, start winching it up.

When I give you the word that you’re clear, move out and up.

Whatever you do, don’t let the cage bang against the building.”

He motioned Douglas back onto the center of the roof -no point in both of them being in danger. The Sikorsky was winching the cage up now, sliding it along the face of the utility wall. They had some three hundred feet to go and progress was slow. Now he could hear the distant scraping. It sounded closer, then finally very close. He glanced over the edge of the building and could see the top of the cage approaching the floor below. That would ordinarily be the limit of its travel.

He flicked on the walky-talky again. “Okay, swing it out now.”

He walked back to the middle of the roof where Douglas was standing.

The Sikorsky was rising and moving slowly away from the building.

Suddenly the elevator cage was in the clear, swaying back and forth in the wind and finally settling into a gentle oscillation as the cable shortened still more.

“You’re on your own,” Burleigh told the pilot and signaled with the flashlight. The Sikorsky rotated and started the long descent, lowering the elevator cage to the roof near a U.H-1 that had just landed.

Douglas was suddenly laughing and pounding Burleigh on the shoulder.

“Well, what do you know,” Burleigh said, suddenly aware of the sweat oozing from under his arms. “We did it.”

“You didn’t think you would?”

“Mister, that’s something I’ll never tell anyone, not even on my deathbed.” Burleigh said fervently. He started running toward the elevator cage. “Come on, we’ve got to get those people out of there!”