Page 14 of On Fire

I watch over the top of my shitty Styrofoam cup as he starts to cross the room. Part of me needs to bolt . . . but some other part can't help but appreciate the grace he carries. Lean muscles stretch the material across his chest and arms, and when he turns for a second to talk to someone, I get a quick glance at his ass. It's round and muscled, like a bicyclist. Totally—no.Turn that off.

But I can't. There's a thick feeling in my lower abdomen that leaves me gulping coffee, burning my own mouth in the process.

Winston’s voice cuts through the white noise in my head. “You,” Winston says. "You’ve worked together before. Silvano and Keller, pair up."

Fuck. I'm in so much trouble.

΅

The TTX opened with three testimonials about why we do the work we do. The first was from an ATF agent—a young squirt named Craig Fredricks who sounded like he was from Houston. The second was a woman, a paramedic, who’d been on the scene last night. The third was a retired chief I knew, a guy named Jimmy Graham—he told the story he always tells of when he was thirteen and found his younger brother dead of asphyxiation in a chicken coop fire.

Then came the purpose of the meeting. There wasn’t a lot we didn’t already know but it was helpful to hear it summarized in one narrative. Three timed bombings. The human price. Descriptions of the bombs—not sophisticated, but each slightly different, like the bomber is learning as he goes. There is little surveillance video and it offers nothing. The debrief Q&A was the most interesting. It often is. Everyone had questions and there were few answers.

I am always impressed by how these law enforcement types just look at the facts—they just follow the facts. Me? I got a hundred theories.

Right now, Carlson is talking about the local gay pride parade schedule in Rockland next weekend and the requirements and protocols around added security, who’s paying for it, and all those details. My modest four vehicle Saxtons Bay fire department will be on standby for Rockland.

The table-top training is to play out scenarios, chain of command, evacuation plans, and resource management issues.

Everyone is trying to act like there’s something we can do if it happens. But this attack was orchestrated, planned, and executed with a kind of dark precision that if I think about it too long, I won’t be able to sleep.

Everybody also acts as though this is normal procedure. I guess the idea that we have everything under control is what we need, because we don't. But acting like we have control gives us a sense of confidence that we will be able to handle the job. All we learned from the debrief is that they have no idea who did it. They have no idea if they're going to strike again. But they do know why.

The Gay Pride parade in Rockland is what is on everyone’s mind. Then we’re all held back another hour so the FBI and ATF teams can talk to us.

I shift and keep my mind busy thinking about who on my squad I would want there in Rockland for the parade. But this thinking doesn’t pan out well either. I can only imagine the jokes between my men. I take another swig of now tepid coffee and steal a glance at Nic. He’s sitting right next to me in the same type of folding chair—ones too small for either of us.

That’s when I see he’s not so polished. That easy grace has left a false impression.

The skin on his face looks drawn and there’s bags under his eyes. His stomach, aways flat, is nearly concave—I can see the gap in the belt around his waist. When he stands, he cinches his pants up. He’s rubbing his eyes. He’s probably been up all night.

Been there. I think and smugly down the rest of my coffee. I survive those nights and I’m a decade older than you.

Then he glances at me again and I look away.

When it’s time to transition to platform training, Nic finally gets a chance to speak. His voice resonates, though he speaks quietly. The power in it leaves the training room silent, except for him. I can’t concentrate on his words, though. All that smugness keeping me afloat dries up, and I’m left holding an empty cup, looking like an idiot.

“Ready to go?” He starts to fold his chair and moves it to one of the stations where we’ll be rehearsing. Jerking his head toward the back exit he adds, “I think we’re in the corner with Alec Turrow, some other guy, and Carlson.”

I obediently shift my glance and there is Chief Alec Albright Turrow, already moving little figures around on the desktop, jockeying for position. “Jockey” is a great word for him because I’m nearly a foot taller than he is.

But I respect the guy. He’s good. He just won’t retire and that’s bad. The other guy is Graham. He still volunteers in Searsport and Belfast.

Turrow’s ball of kinetic energy can’t get me to move though. The guy is maybe five foot six at the most, and weighs about one-sixty dripping wet. Wherever he is, all hyper and leathery, he agitates the air, in a good way. I heard he lifted a two-hundred-pound guy out of a burning building last year.

He’s got chops.

Graham’s another story. For one thing he’s a big guy, almost as big as me. I think he dyes his hair—there’s very little gray in it and I know he’s over sixty. But he’s all muscle, too, and freckly.

I see him eyeing Nic, and then shakes his hand warmly. He actually does the two-handed handshake, taking Nic’s outstretched hand and then putting his other fat hand over the clasp. Feeling oddly territorial, I’m finally motivated to rise and make a move. I can’t seem to cross the room fast enough.

Nic breaks away and nods as I unfold my chair and sit down again. The young paramedic from Portland who spoke earlier also pulls up a chair. Introducing herself as Bridget, she proves to be bright, eager, and looks a little overwhelmed by the decades of years of experience surrounding her. Turrow shoots her a glance from under thick white eyebrows, but she holds her own.

Graham takes a backseat to Turrow who’s off and running. The guy is wired. I get it, though. A bomb went off in his city. People were killed, others injured. The first half is just us talking, running through different scenarios. The second half runs the entire afternoon and is an operations-based exercise based on five different scenarios Winston gives us.

There’s no lunch break. Nic gets up once to use the john and returns. It looks like he splashed water on his face.

The TTX ends with forty-five minutes of photos from the three scenes. I watch Nic as he stares at them, as if looking long enough is going to reveal something.

Idealist. He’s too young to know he isn’t going to find shit looking at those photos. I close my own eyes but have to listen to the descriptions of blast range, two different ignitors, building damage, the names of the people killed, the kinds of injuries. There’s only one reason someone would do this.

The officials of the city of Rockland are bracing for the worst and most people won’t even know the effort going into making sure they’re safe. That’s how it should be.

What the people in this room know all too well is that you can’t guarantee safety.