Part Four

By Jane Woods

Orlan Whitfield glared at the TV angrily. He was watching the 11 o’clock news. He couldn’t believe that those firefighters had been found. He had expected them to die under the CalTex plant. The news got even more gruesome for him when they played the tape of the call he had made about the trapped child. It was startling but it didn’t sound all that much like him. Good thing he had been smart enough to disguise his voice. He had put on an exaggerated southern accent. He and his family had moved here from Alabama when he was a kid but his parents maintained their southern drawl even though they had lived in LA for over twenty years. It had annoyed and embarrassed him his whole life. The police were asking for the public’s help in identifying the caller.

“Good luck,” he laughed evilly. “You’ll never find me.”

Suddenly pulsating blue light cut through the window of his shabby second floor apartment. He got up and looked outside. Two police cars were parked directly across the street. Cops with flashlights were examining the phone booth on the corner. He drew back instinctively. What were they looking for? That was the phone he used to make the call about the trapped child. Did the Fire Department trace calls like the cops did on TV?

For a moment he felt panicky but he forced himself to calm down. Okay, he’d just change his plans a little. It was too risky for him to make any more calls. The CalTex thing had been his best chance for a real trap, anyway. He wondered if he should just go back to his original modus operandi of just seizing whatever chance he had to make a strike. That had been a lot of work and involved listening to the scanner and taking the chance that he might be discovered either at the stations or tampering with things at the scene of a fire. He could still do that but he had really enjoyed being a step ahead of them rather than trying to catch up. There must be some way he could figure out where they were going to be and lay a trap without having to make a possibly incriminating phone call.

His attention re-focused on the TV. An annoyingly cheerful weather man was giving the five day forecast. It was for intermittent to heavy rain every day. The weather man apologized for the rain knowing how Southern Californians loved their sun.

He didn’t need to apologize to Orlan. Five days of rain were perfect for him. Rain meant slippery roads and car-happy Angelinos clogged every freeway and surface street in the LA Basin no matter what the weather. Rain meant car wrecks. Lots and lots of car wrecks. Where there was a car wreck, there was a response from the Fire Department. Lots of nice targets running around paying attention to the wreck not to who else might be around. He knew the spots where wrecks always occurred. All he’d have to do was secret himself near one of the major freeways and wait for bad drivers to deliver his victims right to him.

He sat back down in his chair and opened a drawer in the end table next to him. He pulled out a box with a plain brown wrapper that had been delivered today. He lovingly opened the box up and took out ornate hunting knife with a twelve inch blade. He made a test swing and the blade sliced through the air with a distinctive whoosh. It was sharp too, as he cut through a piece of the heavy cardboard wrapping material like it was butter.

He’d always liked knives. They weren’t traceable like guns were. And they were silent. All he had to do was catch one of them alone and come up behind him in a sneak attack. As silent as a big cat. And just as lethal.

“I’m telling you guys, I’m not saying that I’m not mad as hell about what happened to them, but I’m really just as glad I ended up filling in here for Kelly rather than over at 18's. When I agreed to come in to cover for someone, I had no idea that they would send me there,” Steve Loomis was saying as the A-shift of Station 51 sat around the table drinking coffee and waiting for the shift change.

“What’s the matter, Steve?” Marco asked with a smirk, sitting back down after refilling his cup. “Johnny worked over there once. You weren’t afraid of Captain Tacy, were you?”

“Hell no!” Steve swore vehemently. “It was my wife I was afraid of. If she ever heard about that.....”He made a cutting motion across his throat with his hand. “Especially now that she’s pregnant. It’s like she is jealous of everyone woman in LA and she’s sure I’m about to run off with one or all of them. And talk about mood swings, man! I tell myself that I signed up for OT because we need the extra dough but sometimes I wonder. Is this the way it’s supposed to be, Roy?”

“Well, Steve, the paramedic in me says that this is perfectly normal behavior for a woman in her last trimester and that you should do everything in your power to be supportive. But the husband in me, whose been through this twice, says that the best plan is to lay low and cover your head till it’s over,” Roy advised.

“You’re a big help,” Steve muttered as Johnny entered the room.

“I just got off the phone with Chet,” he announced happily as he went over and picked up the coffee pot and grabbed a cup. Unfortunately the pot turned out to be empty. He made a face but decided to opt for a glass of milk instead.

“How’s his sister?” Marco asked with concern.

“Looks like the surgery went fine. She woke up in the Recovery Room and all the symptoms of shock are clearing up. They are going to move her into general ward room this morning.”

“Well that’s good to hear,” Captain Stanley said, with a relieved smile.

“Chet was in such a hurry to leave last night that he left his street clothes and stuff here. He asked me to drop them off to him at Rampart,” Johnny reported after he’d drained his glass of milk.

Just then the two paramedics from B-shift came into the kitchen. Carlson headed for the coffee pot, finding it empty, he set about making some more.

Dwyer just limped over to the table. There was a large abrasion on his chin and both of his arms and hands were also badly scraped. He moved like he was in agony.

“What the heck happened to you?!” Marco asked him.

“I’m being punished for a good deed,” he groaned. “I was helping my sister replace the weather stripping around her windows yesterday. A car went by the house and backfired. Naturally, because of what’s been goin’ on here, I was sure it was a gun shot so I hit the deck. I forgot I was on top of an eight foot step ladder that was standing on a concrete driveway with an incline, which I proceeded to body surf the entire length of.”

“Ouch,” Captain Stanley said sympathetically. “You sure you should even be here today, Pal?”

“I’m sure that there are no paramedics available to cover for me,” he said glumly. “How come the one time I want to call in sick, they won’t let me?”

There was a knock at the door before anyone could answer him. Mike Stoker got up and answered it. A half a dozen determined people pushed their way past him and into the station. That might have been a cause for alarm but they were pretty sure that four middle aged women and two elderly men did not present too much of a threat to them.

“Who’s in command here?” demanded a short, stocky woman with badly died black hair.

“That would be me, ma’am,” the cap stood up and walked toward them. “I’m Captain Stanley. How can I help you?”

“We’re here to help you, Sonny,” said one of the old men. His dentures emitted an annoying whistle when he talked. He was wearing a dress army uniform, complete with a chest full of ribbons and a VFW cap.

Hank noticed that the other man was identically dressed. In fact, he was identical in every way. “I don’t understand.”

“We are the official representatives of Operation Station Guard, an ad hoc committee of the Neighborhood Watch Association. We have been mobilized all over the county.”

Hank was sure he had missed something but a glance at his crew showed that they were just as confused as he was.

“Let us explain,” a grandmotherly type, with tight grey curls and rouged cheeks, said kindly. “Ethel and I and some of the girls were watching the news last night. It was Bridge night, don’t ya know, when the report came on about the way you boys are being attacked in your very fire houses by some deranged, ax wielding lunatic, undoubtably with a long history of violence ---”

She was just getting wound up when the first woman, Ethel, interrupted her. “Now, Myrtle, these fellas know all about the horrendous things that have been happening but it was the first that I had heard of it!” Ethel seemed to consider it a personal affront that she had been left out of the loop. She huffed once and then continued. “Well, needless to say I got right on the phone to the Chief of Police and demanded that you boys be protected both in the stations and out snuffing out fires and such.”

“Well, that’s very kind of you ma’am, but I’m afraid it just isn’t feasible to provide complete police protection to the fire department ---”

“Oh balderdash! That is exactly what that fool policeman said, as did the sheriff. Not enough man power they said but I am telling you that, we, the citizens of this county, will not stand for such tomfoolery. Those men had better remember that they are elected officials. Being unresponsive to the wills of the voters will cost them dearly, come election day.”

Captain Stanley made no attempt to point out the difference between elected and appointed officials. Not that he could have gotten a word in edgewise, anyway.

Ethel was getting her second wind. “Just because they are ill prepared for the job does not mean it will not be done, no indeed. For more years than I can remember in this county when a body needed help all she had to do was pick up the phone and call the Fire Department. Our call was always answered. Always. And now that it is you people that need the help I say it’s high time that the citizens return the favor. High time!” she concluded with a flourish.

“Ma’am, we appreciate --”

“Nonsense. I have worked it all out with the Police Department. From this minute forward, until this reprobate is captured. No Fire Station in this county will be left unattended for a single moment!” she went on dramatically.

“That’s not possible, ma’am. We’ve got calls to answer --”

“Indeed you do. And answer them, you shall. Your stations will be under the watchful eye of Operation Station Guard. No one. I repeat, no one will sneak into a station and do anything that could endanger you firemen. We shall keep vigil while you are off in the valiant performance of your duties!”

A sense of dread filled the Captain. He had been thinking that they were going to try and sell them some raffle tickets. This was much worse. While Ethel droned on, he quietly left the room and headed for his office for official guidance. He couldn’t have a bunch of elderly civilians underfoot at the station no matter how noble their intentions. To his complete amazement, Operation Station Guard had the blessings of headquarters. The Community Relations Department had embraced the idea wholeheartedly. The citizens had specific instructions on not interfering with station operations and each unit had been issued a special police radio so that they could call for help the minute they saw something amiss. The Neighborhood Watch had been working with the police dept for several years now and both sides had built up a respect for the other. Never having a station empty would eliminate the stalker’s favorite method of operation and it would free up more police units to help cover actual calls.

Somewhat stunned he returned to the day room. The old men, Arnie and Ernie Holcomb, were regaling the members of both shifts with tales of how they had whopped Kaiser Wilhelm in the Great War. It was unnerving to hear the men talk in almost perfect unison (save the denture whistles). They were twins, they proudly announced to everyone they met. Identical twins. It was explained that the men (Arnie and Ernie) would be on patrol at the station all night long, securing the perimeter, while the women (Ethel, Myrtle, Sylvia and Louise) would keep guard during the day. The ladies even hinted that they could be prevailed upon to cook for the firefighters but Hank assured them that that was strictly against Fire Department policy. He remembered the Merkels all too well.

One by one the members of A-shift managed to sneak away from the table so they could go off duty. Soon most of B-shift got up to go to work leaving Dwyer at the mercy of Myrtle and Louise and their overly maternal attention to his “poor boo-boos”.

It was raining when Johnny pulled into the parking lot at Rampart. During the time it took to run its entire length, the heavens opened leaving him and Chet’s street clothes soaking wet. He stopped at the doorway of Cassie’s room and shook some or the rain off of himself but he was still dripping wet when he entered the room. The lights were not on and the rainy day prevented much light from getting in through the window.

Johnny had to squint to find Chet. He sat in a chair by the window staring out at the rain. “Shhh,” he said without looking Johnny’s way. “She’s asleep.”

“How’s she doing?” Johnny whispered, walking over to join him.

“She was so pleasant and agreeable when she woke up from surgery that I had to check the chart and make sure it was really her. Whatever medication they had her on, I want them to give her a prescription for,” Chet vowed.

Though he tried to disguise it, Johnny could tell by his voice that he was worried. He was trying to think of what to say when Chet suddenly seemed to erupt. “Hey! Quit drippin’ on me. You’re soaked and so are my clothes!”

Because of the sudden load noise, Cassie stirred but did not fully awaken.

“Good move, Chet,” Johnny whispered. “Of course, I’m wet. It’s pourin’ rain. You’re looking out the window, didn’t you notice the rain?”

Chet looked out the window but seemed to see the rain for the first time.

“Look, there’s no harm done. We’ll just hang them over the shower curtain rod in the bathroom and they’ll be dry in no time.” Johnny went in to throw Chet’s clothes over the rod. He didn’t know how anyone could have not noticed the rain but he assumed that Chet was both tired and worried.

When he came back out Chet pointed to the other chair. “You might as well sit down. No point tryin’ to leave till it lets up a little.”

So Johnny told Chet about the latest developments including Dwyer’s run in with his sister’s driveway and the squad of geriatric civilians who were going to protect the station.

Chet just shook his head in disbelief. Then he signed deeply and looked back out at the dark, rainy sky. It seemed to match his mood. The silence between them was awkward but Johnny wasn’t sure what to say.

Finally Chet looked back at him intensely. “Okay, I’m in,” he said with a voice that was hard as stone. He nodded his head toward Cassie. “This makes it personal.”

Johnny’s head was spinning. It took him a minute to even realize what Chet was talking about. Luckily Chet wasn’t waiting for him to answer.

“Not that I think you have a Chinamen’s chance in hell of finding him, either,” Chet put in darkly.

“I stand as good a chance as anybody, since the police are going about this all wrong.”

“Oh, you know better than the cops how to find this guy,” Chet scoffed.

“Well, I know that they are looking in the wrong place. They’re convinced that they’re looking for a fireman or a former fireman. They say that it’s some kind of profile thing. If someone goes after the department like that it’s somebody that has a grudge against us. They think maybe it was someone who was fired or washed out of training or something like that. And while the police are barking up the wrong tree, this guy's still out there!”

“So which tree were you planning on barking up?” Chet asked.

“Well, I have gathered all the info we have about each attack, when and where it happened. What method he used and so forth but I haven’t been able to establish any kind of pattern yet,” he had to admit.

“So you’re no farther along than the cops are,” Chet declared in a hostile tone.

“Well, I know who I’m not looking for.” Johnny defended his position.

“Ye-uh, the cops are investigating every fireman in the county and you’re just investigating everyone who isn’t a fireman. Good luck, Gage.”

“At least he’s doing something,” Cassie put in a softly. She had actually been awake since Chet’s outburst but she had been trying to get her head together. She still felt pretty weak and groggy but she was bound and determined to overcome that. From what she heard it sounded like Chet and Johnny might be on the verge of doing something that could land them in some kind of trouble. Going after a lunatic was not the safest thing to do. But it was better than sitting around waiting for him to make all the moves. She wanted to do something too.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

“Little hard to do in the middle of Union Station, don’t ya think?”

“You look a lot better than you did last time I saw ya,” Johnny said with a grin.

“You were there? I don’t remember seeing you.”

“What do you remember?” Johnny asked out of medical curiosity.

“We were looking for a lost kid. All of a sudden I felt movement under my feet. I thought it was a quake there for a minute but then the floor was just gone and we were falling. So we were stuck in this cave kinda place with nothing to do but wait around for somebody to find us. It got pretty boring.”

“You’re leaving out a few details,” Chet commented. The other members of Station 18 had filled him in on exactly what had happened.

“Details, shmetails.” She waved her good hand with disinterest. “Whacha got there, Johnny?” Cassie asked.

Johnny had forgotten about the parcel he still carried. He had been delighted to discover that Cassie had also been assigned to the sixth floor. When he got off the elevator he took a look around. He was hopping to run into the cute blond nurse who had scared the daylights out of him yesterday. He wasn’t sure that Roy wasn’t pulling his leg about the girl hitting on him. In case he wasn’t, it seemed like a good idea to give her another chance. He didn't see her but he was miffed to discover the fruit basket he had sent Chili among the unclaimed articles at the nurses’ station. He'd paid good money for that and the bum had just tossed it out. It hadn’t even been opened. Maybe he’s just take the get well card off of it and keep it for himself. So that’s what he had done but now that he was here, he decided that he had a better idea. Cassie might just have weird enough eating habits to actually like this weird assortment of fruit. So he passed it to her and, to his delight, she was thrilled with it. Better still, it bugged Chet that to think that he had brought her a gift.

Johnny sat the bed up a little and they made small talk while Cassie nibbled on the fruit. They discussed almost everything except the guy stalking the department.

Finally Cassie brought it up. “So, besides dumping us in a big hole, what’s you know who been up to lately?”

“Sabotaging the hose tower over at 10's so it would collapse. I’m afraid Bill Yates broke his leg in that one,” Johnny reported sadly.

“I didn’t hear about that,” Chet said. “I tell ya, give me five minutes alone with that jerk and I’ll make him see the error in his ways.”

“Well, in order to do that, somebody’s got to catch him first,” Johnny said.

“So let’s catch him then,” Cassie said casually, reaching for a date.

“Wait a minute here. What’s this us stuff? Me and Johnny are going to catch him. We’re gonna be like Holmes and Watson and we sure don’t need Nancy Drew taggin’ along with us.”

“Nancy Drew!!”

Before farther argument could ensue, Barb Yates walked in the door. She was dressed in surgical scrubs. “You’re performing surgery now?!” Cassie acted astounded.

“No,” Barb laughed. “Dixie just loaned me these and showed me where I could take a shower. I guess I was filthy when I got here last night.”

“After what you’d been through, anybody would understand--” Johnny started to say.

“Not everybody,” Barb said, a look of anger passing over her face. “After falling into that pit and being trapped there for hours, when I finally got to my loving husband’s room, he looks up from his newspaper and says “Jeez, Babe, you’re a real mess!”

“The pig! What did you do?” Cassie was incensed for her.

“I don’t know exactly how it happened,” Barb admitted sheepishly, “but for some reason, I picked up the ice water pitcher and emptied it over his head.”

Cassie found this hysterically funny but out of loyalty to Bill, Chet and Johnny tried not to laugh.

“I guess it’s the stress. I’d never do a thing like that normally.” Barb shook her head as if trying to shake off the memory.

“Hey, I got a better one than that,” Johnny suddenly remembered. “Last night Brice came around complaining about where our squad was parked and Roy slugged him.”

“ROY?!” the other three said in complete unison.

“If this doesn’t end soon, they’re going to be able to throw us all in a rubber room,” Barb commented. “Maybe they’ll get some leads now that they played the tape of the call on TV. Maybe someone will recognize his voice and come forward.”

“You mean they really do tape all the calls?” Chet asked.

“Yes, they tape every transmission that comes into the center,” Barb told them.

“Even ones from the field from us?” Cassie asked. She knew that they did but apparently Chet had not believed her when she had told him that.

“Yes everything.”

“What do they do with all the tapes?” Johnny asked.

“Well, the tapes go down to the tape vault for six months. After that they go over to records where most of them are transcribed and then the tapes are erased and we use then over again.”

“Why aren’t they all transcribed?” Johnny wondered.

“Oh they all are, but sometimes the original tape is kept on file also.”

“Why?”

“As proof of what was actually transpired on the call. In case of a law suit.”

“A law suit? Can people sue the Fire Department and why would they?” Chet asked.

“Well if there was a loss of property and it is not covered by insurance, some people try and sue us to recover it. They try to claim negligence on our part. The usual complaint is overly long response time but you’d be amazed at how many times people give us wrong information. With the tape we can prove it was the caller’s error.”

“What kind of error?” Cassie asked.

“Wrong address, wrong directions something like that. Sometimes we can straighten it out with a call back but if they don’t answer, we have to call the phone company for a cross reference on the location of the number that called. Then we can at least get the responders to the caller. Hopefully that will also be the address of the emergency. But as you can imagine, a lot of valuable time is lost.”

“We got a call like that once. Turns out the people had just moved and in their panic they gave us the old address,” Johnny remembered.

“People do tend panic in an emergency. That’s why dispatchers are trained to be so calm, cool and collected.”

“I thought they were just bored,” Chet admitted.

Barbara glared at him.

“If I hadn’t drank it all, I’d offer you my water pitcher,” Cassie vowed.

“It’s amazing how little the people in the field know about what we -- what the dispatchers do,” Barb sighed. “Well, I’d better get back to Bill now. Some grumpy old nurse threw me out so she could give him a bed bath.”

Johnny had a pretty good idea who that was and he decided that he would not bother going up and visiting Bill later. “Say hi to Bill for us,” Johnny called out.

“I will, I just stopped by to see how Cassie was doing.”

“Cassie was pretty lucky that the rest of you knew what to do and took such good care of her,” Johnny said.

“Took good care of me?! They taped a dirty magazine to my arm and then started practicing to audition for the circus!!” Cassie teased.

“I think I’ll just let you explain that one,” Barb laughed then waved good-bye and left.

Chet started to ask Cassie for an explanation but the quizzical look on Johnny’s face made him ask him instead.

“I’m not sure. It’s like I have an idea in the back of my mind but I can’t quite reach it,” Johnny admitted.

“Well, I have an idea I can reach,” Cassie said. “As soon as I get out of here, Johnny has to gather up everything he’s worked out so far and bring it over to Chet’s. We’ll all go over it together. Maybe a couple of pairs of new eyes can catch something that you missed.”

“Time out. Why my place?” Chet complained.

“Because we’ll both be there and...”

“Both. I don’t recall inviting you over --”

“Well, it so happens that Ember has extended me a standing invitation.”

“That cat does not run the house,” Chet insisted.

“Chet, all cats run the house. It’s part of their job description. We have a cat for a mascot at 18's remember? The sooner we get the investigation started, the sooner we’re gonna catch this guy.”

“You’re as delusional as he is,” Chet complained sourly. He had already been planning on insisting that she come home to his place when she was released, otherwise she’d probably be messing around with her stupid martial arts with a broken arm. She might be able to con them into releasing her from Rampart. But she was not going to be unsupervised, if he had anything to say about it. She didn’t have any more sense now than she did when she was ten.

The next A-shift at Station 51 was almost uneventful. The Station Guard crew had agreed to have a card table on the lot as their command post to avoid any possible interference with the normal operation of the station but as intermittent rain had been falling all day, soft hearted Captain Stanley had invited the ladies to move inside. He supposed he could put up with the chit chat and the constantly whistling teakettle if Henry could cope with the fact that they seemed to have decided to knit him some booties. Their theory being, that the dog stayed on the couch because he didn’t like the feel of the floor on his bare paws.

The Captain did have to admit that since Operation Station Guard had gone into effect, not one single station had been compromised. He looked at Henry who was allowing his paws to be measured by Myrtle. Of course, if Henry had been any kind of a watch dog, they might not have had to call in the over-the-hill gang to begin with.

Hank grabbed a cup of coffee and took it back to his office so he could catch up on his endless supply of paperwork while Marco attempted to fix dinner in the midst of a hen party. The calls had been light today. Two minor fender benders and a kid with his foot stuck in a drain pipe. Pretty normal stuff. There had been no sign of trouble during any of the calls but he had been on constant alert for it. He wondered if the news story had scared the guy off. He wondered if the Station Guard grannies had scared the guy off. He wondered if he was losing his mind with all this useless speculation.

His speculation was interrupted by the sound of rain on the roof. Heavy rain. He knew it meant trouble. Rain was alien to LA. No one knew how to deal with it. It was as if they thought the sky was falling. And, in a panic prone mindset, everyone jumped into their cars and headed for the freeway to escape. The freeway. He looked at the clock on the wall of his office. 5:07. Rush hour. He was not at all surprised when the tones sounded six minutes later.

“Station 51, Station 14 Multiple vehicle accident 405 Freeway at the Atkins Blvd exit. Atkins Blvd exit of the 405. CHP advises to approach the off ramp from the surface street for faster access. Time out: 17:14"

Hank acknowledged the call, handed Roy the address and climbed into the rig. The rain was already letting up. It had stopped completely by the time they arrived on the scene. Traffic was already backing up. Roy had to pull the squad up onto the shoulder to even get close to the accident. Hank held his breath when Mike followed with the engine. It was a tight squeeze but they made it. Hank wasn’t sure he would have tried that when he was an engineer.

When they pulled as close as they could, he got out of the Engine. Station 14 was already on scene. Captain Frank Carroll approached him. “Happens every time, eh Hank ? We could make book on it,” he said, shaking his head with disgust. “The only bright spot is that it looks like they were all going slow enough that we are looking at only minor injuries.”

There were several clusters of cars that had been involved in either the initial crash or one of the chain reactions that had followed it. Some were on the off-ramp, some were on the freeway itself and some were on Atkins Blvd that the freeway fed onto.

The two captains dispersed their men. Some of them assisted with extrication while others hosed down the road so that the gas that had spilled out of ruptured tanks would not be a fire hazard should a spark fly from one of the power tools. The four paramedics had set up a triage area to treat the wounded but, Captain Carroll had been correct and the injuries were all fairly minor.

Hank was still nervous, as he had been on every run they had been on today. He was constantly looking around. There was a lot of activity going on here and he tried to supervise it all. Then he saw something that made him want to erupt in fury. All day long he had been harping at his men about wearing their helmets. All day long they had all complied but there was John Gage helping a few of the people with injuries too minor to require paramedic assistance into an ambulance so they could go to Rampart for stitches and tenus shots. Hank smoldered as he watched Johnny close the door and pound on it. Hank would have loved to pound on him. He was not wearing his helmet.

Hank walked over to him under full steam. “Gage, where’s your helmet?”

Johnny put his hand to his head. “Oops, I took it off when I crawled into that Pontiac to get that kid out. Guess I must have left it on the roof.” Johnny flashed his captain a grin. It did nothing to remove the angry scowl the captain wore. “Why don’t I run back and get it?” Johnny suggested feebly.

“Why don’t you?” Hank’s words were clipped. His anger was still apparent.

Johnny took off at a run. Tow trucks were now also on scene adding to the crush and the confusion. Johnny decided that the fastest way to get back to the car he’d worked on earlier was to hop over the guardrail on Atkins and to run along the grassy shoulder between the road and the spillway. A system of canals called spillways were in place throughout LA. Most of the time they were empty concrete canyons but when it rained they became rivers of swiftly moving water designed to control floods by channeling the water away from residential and commercial property and taking it safely out to sea.

Johnny never saw a second firefighter also climb over the guardrail, out of the line of vision of everyone else in the area.

Once Johnny was on the other side of the guardrail, he was on grass. The grass was still wet from the rain and was somewhat slippery. Johnny slowed to a fast walk. All he needed was to slip and fall into the spillway. He wasn’t entirely sure that the cap would be in any mood to fish him out.

It was easy for the second firefighter to come up behind him. He couldn’t hear a thing over the rushing water in the spillway.

Time stopped for an instant for Johnny when he was suddenly grabbed from behind. A strong arm was around his throat. At first he could not understand what was happening. His body was flooding his brain with impulses faster than he could process them. His throat told him it was being crushed. His lungs demanded oxygen. His nose smelled something oddly familiar which it could not quite place. His voice tried to cry out but couldn’t get any sound past the thing crushing his throat. His feet told them they were about to lose contact with the ground. But it was the image that his eyes saw that was able to get through to his brain and elicit some response. It was a large knife and it was being thrust toward his chest.

His arms had been trying to pull the thing away from his throat but now they turned their attention to the knife and grabbed onto the arm that was propelling it. The arm was clad in a heavy material. He could barely get a grip on it. He stopped the struggle the rest of his body had been putting up and threw all his energy into pushing that arm away. He locked his arms to keep the knife away but he was tiring. He fought with all his might but he could see that the knife was still slowly inching its way toward his heart.

Chili was hosing the gas off of Atkins Blvd. He was spraying the road in such a way that the gas was being sent over the curb and down to the spillway. Let it go on out to sea, he thought. He was sure that Reece would launch into some kind of lecture about the environment if she saw him do it but this was the easiest way to clean up the area and get back to the station to eat. Why did people always need them the most at mealtime?

He noticed two firemen struggling about ten feet ahead of him. He stared for a minute to see what they were struggling with. Suddenly he realized that they were struggling with each other. The flashing emergency lights of a tow truck up on the freeway glinted off of something. He strained to see what it was in the poor light provided by the overcast day. It was a knife! He instinctively ran toward them but even at top speed he couldn’t reach them in time to intervene. He used the only weapon he had at hand. He turned the hose on them.

As the water hit them they went down in a tangle of arms and legs but the powerful stream of water had separated them by the time he reached them. The guy in the turnout gear got up but the other guy was sliding down the small grassy slope toward the concrete retaining wall that was the uppermost part of the spillway. And that guy was Johnny!

Chili got down on his stomach and stretched as far as he could. Johnny was not wearing his turnout coat. Chili grabbed his arm but he started to slide out of his grip. He was thrashing around and struggling.

“Stay still. I can’t get ahold of ya!” Chilli yelled.

“Let go! Let go!” Johnny screamed angrily. “It’s him. Get him. Get him, Chili!”

Chili was sure he wasn’t hearing correctly. He continued to grapple with Johnny till he had a better hold on him. Then he started pulling him back up to the edge of the road and out of harm's way. Many people drowned in spillways every time it rained and Chili was bound and determined that Johnny wasn’t going to be one of them.

Chili was pretty tired by the time he finally got Johnny back to a place of safety. It had taken a lot of strength to fight against both gravity and Johnny himself. His physical reserves had not build back up to normal yet.

Johnny was not tired. Johnny was mad as a wet hen. “Are you nuts?!” he screamed on top of his lungs. “You could have had him and you just let him get away.”

Johnny was right. There was no sign of the other man by this time.

“Am I nuts?” Chili was now beginning to get angry himself.”If I hadn’t grabbed you, you would have slid all the way down into the spillway!”

“To hell with me. You could have nabbed him and this would have been all over.”

“It would have been all over for you if you hit that water, Pal,” Chili snarled. “You’re not making a lick of sense, Johnny. I had a choice. Chase after some nut with a knife or save my best friend’s life. It was a pretty easy decision! You would have made the same one! ”

“Don’t bank on it, Pal. You picked saving one life when you could’ve gotten this guy and saved the whole Department. You really blew it,” Johnny added with disgust.

“You know what your problem is, Gage? You’re obsessed with finding this guy. It’s clouding your judgement, if you ask me.”

“Oh yeah? Well, if you ask me, the next guy he gets is on your conscience.” Johnny was so angry he didn’t know what he was saying.

Chili was so angry he didn’t know what he was doing. Johnny had just turned his back and was about to walk away. He grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. He landed a hard right on Johnny’s chin and Johnny went flying backwards. He put up no fight as he slid back down the grassy slope and onto the concrete retaining wall. The concrete slowed his descent but he was still inching his way toward the water.

Chili realized what he had done a half a second too late. He had tried to grab Johnny as he fell but he had missed. He didn’t hesitate for an instant as he dove after the best friend he had just K Oed in a moment of senseless rage.

Orlan Whitfield was badly stunned when the blast of water hit him. He went down and the knife flew out of his hand. The water shot through his bandages and assaulted his tender new skin. Had most of his body not been protected by the heavy turn-out gear he had stolen from the various fire stations he had broken into, it is likely the pain would have made him pass out. As it was, his bandages were knocked askew exposing some of his skin grafts to the air. He had to get out of there and make repairs. He got up and ran back to the spot where he had secreted his old Plymouth Fury. Fury could not begin to describe what he felt.

From now on, it was out and out open warfare. He would withdraw the last of his meager savings account from the bank tomorrow and drive up to Bakersfield. His brother-in-law was the night watchmen for a construction company there. The company also did a little demolition work. That meant they would have explosives. Maybe enough to blow the damn Fire Department off the face of the planet. Planning this one might take a week or so but it would be worth it. He’d seen the numbers on the trucks that had shown up today. 51 and 14. Now he knew where to concentrate his efforts. He knew all about making bombs, thanks to the Masked Avenger.

As soon as his feet hit the water, Johnny startled awake. He grabbed at the concrete wall as he continued to slide. He was now in the water up to his knees and he could feel it tug at him. The current was trying pull him away from the side and out into the flow.

His fingers couldn’t find purchase on the smooth concrete. He was in up to his waist. His chest. His chin. He was beneath the surface with only his arms free when at last he found a very small ledge in the concrete that ran parallel to the spillway down its entire length. It was just wide enough for a daring kid to walk on or for him to get a temporary hold of. He latched onto it with all his might but water had splashed up onto it. It was slippery. He was starting to lose his grip. His head shot out of the water. He grabbed a breath of air and continued his battle to hold onto the edge of the concrete wall. He was losing the battle with the force of the water. It was about to yank him away when suddenly something tugged on his shirt. Water was in his face. In his eyes.

“I got ya. I got ya!” Chili hollered. “Hang on. I’ll pull you out.”

So it was, that Chili and the swift water began a fierce tug of war. Each side seemed to be gaining then losing its grip on Johnny. More and more water was running into the spillway from parts off the county where it was still raining. The river of swift water was getting deeper and stronger. The water was moving faster and faster.

Chili was getting tired. His struggle was weakening him. Johnny was slipping into the raging water but he was not slipping away from him. It seemed the battle raged on for hours but Chili refused to let go. When the river eventually pulled Johnny in, Chili came along too.

Now that he had lost contact with solid ground, Chili lost all of his leverage. The current pulled them both out into the middle of the spillway where the water was moving the fastest. The increased velocity also increased its strength and Johnny and Chili were finally separated.

Chili had been wearing his turnout coat. Although it was somewhat water repellent it became saturated with water after a few minutes. It got even heavier and soon it began to weigh him down. He struggled to wriggle out of it as it was forcing him to sink beneath water.

He was spinning and turning out of control as he desperately tried to maneuver his way out of the coat. He could not do so and keep his head above water. He tried to hold his breath but his lungs were screaming for oxygen. Against his will he opened his mouth. Water forced its way into it and soon he was coughing and choking. His arms were tangled in the coat. He could not stay afloat. He was out of control and going under.

Suddenly something yanked him back up to the surface and held him above the water. He grabbed some fresh air and was finally able to pull his right arm from the sleeve of the coat. Once that arm was free he was able to pull the coat off his left arm. The river ripped the coat away from him and it shot off in the current ahead of him.

“You okay?” Johnny yelled.

He was still coughing up water but he was now able to tell that Johnny had a hold of him and they were both being swept down the spillway. They tried to cling to each other for support and the water fought to yank them apart.

“This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into,” Chili yelled above the roar of the water.

“I got us into?”

“If you had been properly grateful when I first I saved you --”

“You saved me? I just saved you?” Johnny argued.

Although they were both joking and being cavalier about the whole thing, they could feel that the water was moving even faster now. They both knew that they were completely at its mercy. The concrete walls of the spillway were smooth and sheer with absolutely no hand or foot holds. Even if they could manage to break the water’s grip on them, there was no way to climb out of the spillway. The water was now two feet deeper than it was when Johnny first fell in. The small ledge Johnny had tried to use to save himself was now completely underwater.

To make matters worse, no one even knew they were in the water. No one was going to be making any attempt to rescue them. They were at the mercy of the spillway. Spillways notoriously had very little mercy.

“Looks like we’re gonna take a little sea cruise,” Chili quipped.

“Not very good weather for it,” Johnny hollered back. “Looks like it might rain.”

“Gee, I’d hate to get wet,” Chili yelled looking back at Johnny, who was behind him. Suddenly Johnny got an even more terrified look on his face.

“Oh shit,” he said.

Chili bobbed around in the water to see what Johnny saw up ahead. They were heading into a large culvert as the spillway passed under a bridge. The water was moving even faster as the channel narrowed to pass through the culvert. They both knew that they would very likely be smashed up against the inside of the concrete culvert. If not that, they could snag on some of the debris that collected there, be pulled under and drown. Neither prospect was very good.

“Sorry, Johnny,” Chili coughed. The water had suddenly pulled him under for a minute.

“Me too, Chili,” Johnny agreed sincerely.

They both knew this was probably the end. Chili thought of his family. How many times had Mama tried to pound it into his head to not play in spillways when he was a kid?

Suddenly Johnny tightened his grip on him. “Look!” Johnny pointed to a tree that was in the water with them. All kinds of things ended up in spillways as flash floods tore their way through the higher ground far away from the more urban areas. The tree had been mostly submerged so they could not see it until they were almost upon it. It was jammed into a much smaller culvert that paralleled the main one. The water was driving other debris to this area and it was collecting around the tree. They too were being pulled in that direction. If they could grab the tree, they could prevent themselves from entering the larger culvert.

The roar was so loud here that spoken communication was impossible. It was also unnecessary. They had taken so many wilderness hikes and gone sky diving together so many times that they were able to work together without speaking. They both knew what had to be done. At the opportune time, they both lunged toward the tree. Chili made it onto the nearly sunken trunk of the tree securely. Johnny did not. He slid back into the water which tried to drag him back to the main culvert. Chili grabbed him and together they got Johnny up onto the tree.

Both were nearly breathless from the struggle with the water. Every part of their bodies was registering complaints about the treatment it had received. They just realized how cold it was now that they were out of the water in their wet clothes. It was dark. It was starting to rain again. They were completely on their own with no hope of rescue and no way out of the spillway. But they were both so damned happy to be alive, it never occurred to either of them to complain. They just tried to catch their breath as they held on for dear life.

The river was making too much noise for them to even bother calling for help. Not that anyone was close enough to hear them anyway. They were both shivering uncontrollably. Johnny knew that if hypothermia set in they could lose consciousness and lose their grip on the tree. They would be sucked back into the water and drown. Or they could just freeze to death right here where they sat.

Suddenly a bright light burst into existence from the top of the bridge. It blinded them.

“What the heck are you two guys doing down there?” Vince Howard called to them.

“Seemed l-like a n-nice night for a s-swim,” Johnny called back through chattering teeth.

“They just put an APB out on you guys. You’re damn lucky the night watchman over at the Pepsi plant came over here to check out the water level in the spillway or you might not have been spotted. Hang on, they are pulling up now to get you out,” Vince told them.

“I’ll n-never drink C-Coke again,” Chili said with a cough.

“I’ll never d-drink anything again. I s-swallowed a whole r-river’s w-worth of w-water.”

Soon Truck 24 had them out of the river. Vince brought them back to the police station in his car so that they could dry off and warm up a little. Soon they sat in Sam Chilibeck’s office wrapped in large blankets and swilling down bad coffee. They had given their account of the incident where the guy tried to stab Johnny. They said that Chili had turned the hose on them since he had no other weapon and Johnny had slipped into the spillway. Chili had fallen in trying to pull him out. Neither mentioned that anything else had happened. They both thought it was best forgotten. They had both been too hot under the collar when they had had that fight. A cold dip in the spillway had brought them to their senses. Saying and doing stupid things seems unimportant in the scheme of things when you are looking death in the face.

The cops had found the knife and it was in a large plastic bag on Sam’s desk. Johnny didn’t want to look at it but he found his eyes being drawn to it.

Sam followed Johnny’s line of vision. “There’s no prints on it. He must have worn gloves. Do you remember any gloves?”

“Not really. I kind of had my eyes too focused on the knife to see much of anything else. There was something odd I noticed at the time but I can’t remember what it was. I’ve been trying but it’s gone. Sorry.”

“Well, don’t try too hard. It may come back to you. If it does, give me a call and I’ll have your statement amended. If you just read them over and sign them, you guys can get back to your stations and into some dry clothes.” He handed them each a pen so they could sign the copies of their statements that the police stenographer had just typed up.

“Well, we do now know one thing for sure,” Sam said with a sigh as he sat back in his large desk chair.

“What’s that?” Johnny asked.

“We are definitely looking for a fireman.”

“How do we know that?!” Johnny tried to yell it but his voice was still too weak.

“I saw him, remember, Johnny?” Chili said, looking up from his statement.

“You saw someone dressed as a fireman,” Johnny corrected him.

“Oh for crying out loud, Johnny,” Chili was disgusted. “He was in full turn out gear. Regulation turn out gear -- not some Hollywood costume shop version of it. Real gear. Real fireman. But even if that wasn’t enough to convince you that he was real there’s still that matter of what happened at Engine 8. Any Tom, Dick or Harry could put on turn out gear but that doesn’t mean that they know how to operate an engine. Only someone trained to do it would know how to turn off the water or even know that by turning it off, he was liable to kill the guys fighting the fire. Face it. You’re wrong this time.” Chili got up and left. He wanted to get back to his station and get out of his wet clothes. He also wanted to get out of there before he could have another fight. Johnny Gage was, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the most bull headed, obstinate guy on the planet.

Johnny knew that he was not wrong and he was going to prove it!

Roy picked Johnny up at the police station. There had been a panic at the scene of the accident when it was realized that first Johnny, then Chili, were missing. They called the police right away. The police took over the search and they had to go back to the task of helping the victims of the crash. Roy was glad that no one was very seriously injured because he was having a hard time concentrating on them.

The desk sergeant had told Roy what had happened while he was waiting for Johnny to come out of the chief’s office. Johnny was abnormally quiet. Roy didn’t want to push him to talk. He, however, was too nervous not to talk. “You really had us scared to death.”

“Sorry ‘bout that.”

“The cap,” Roy laughed nervously, “almost had kittens. Here he sends you to get your helmet so that if this guy sneaks up behind you, you’re not as vulnerable as Joe Lacey was ---”

“Is that why he’s been going on and on about helmets?”

“Yeah, but by trying to protect you, he sent you into danger. I’m telling you, he was so upset that I thought I was going to have to sedate him.”

“Well, it wasn’t the cap’s fault. There is only one person to blame for this guy’s actions and it’s the guy himself. Now he’s going around impersonating a fireman. He was in full turnouts but that man is no fireman, Roy. You can take that to the bank. I don’t give a damn what the cops think,” Johnny spat angrily.

Roy decided he’d better drop it and hope that Johnny’s dark mood would go away. By the time they got back to the station, Marco had a hot meal waiting for them. Once he was warm and dry and fed, Johnny was a little more sociable but Roy was puzzled by the fact that he seemed to be socializing only with Chet. “This too will pass,” Roy said quietly to himself. At least, he hoped it would.

The rest of the evening was uneventful. They turned in a little early in hopes of getting some well deserved sleep. Sleep was a little hard in coming, thanks to the night crew of Operation Station Guard. Arnie and Ernie came on duty in full dress uniforms. They carried wooden rifles that were painted to look like the real thing. They each marched in opposite directions around the station house. They always managed to meet each other right outside the dorm. Although they were identical twins, one of the nearly deaf men would yell out on top of his lungs demanding that the other identify himself with the password. Ernie could never remember the password and had to search his pockets for the slip of paper that he had written it down on. Meanwhile, Arnie with his dentures whistling loudly, would be threatening to shoot him as a Hun infiltrator.

Hank Stanley pulled his pillow over his head. While he appreciated that Arnie and Ernie were there to save them from the stalker, he wondered who was going to save them from Arnie and Ernie.