LITMIR.BIZ

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any effort to find out. The fact that the child existed at all had been a disappointment. It had been enough to prevent what could have been a very pleasant interlude. The perfect kind of relationship—an association with an attractive woman and an easy way out after the few weeks of the course, when Jessica would have gone back to her home town.

      ‘He’s not normal, is he?’

      ‘I think he’s handicapped in some way,’ Joe confirmed.

      ‘Physically?’

      Joe shrugged. ‘I got the impression it’s more an intellectual disability. Or maybe a behavioural problem.’

      ‘So the kid’s a loose cannon in there.’ Tony sighed. ‘If he is alive and mobile he could be a danger to himself…and others.’

      ‘More than Jessica would be, that’s for sure.’

      ‘Do you think you can handle it?’ Tony wanted a decision made.

      Joe grinned. ‘Jessica—or the kid?’

      ‘Both, if necessary.’

      Joe’s smile faded as he remembered the desperate plea in Jessica’s dark eyes. The kind of plea that would make any man feel duty bound to render whatever assistance was humanly possible. His face was quite serious as he nodded at his squad leader.

      ‘I can deal with this, Tony. I want to deal with it.’

      Tony’s nod was brisk. ‘Let’s get on with it, then. We’ll get this team back inside and see what we can do.’

      Jessica walked a pace behind Joe as she followed her team.

      ‘We’ve been reassigned,’ Tony had informed them. ‘They’ve cleared a lot of rubble from part of Sector 5 and there’s now access to a previously inaccessible section that the engineers have just cleared as safe to search. Follow me.’

      Jessica followed, trying to focus clearly enough to remember the site map they had seen during their initial incident briefing. Which part of this sprawling, suburban shopping precinct had been designated Sector 5?

      ‘Can you remember the map, June?’ Jessica turned to an older woman walking alongside her. ‘Where’s Sector 5, exactly?’

      ‘I think it’s on the Sutherland Street side of the mall,’ June responded. ‘Or maybe Desmond Street.’

      Jessica nodded, a little grimly. Whichever street held the entrance, it was still well away from the area where her mother had been found. At least it was within the disaster scene, however, which was infinitely preferable to being kept out. The thought of having to simply sit and wait, with nothing to do but agonise over what might or might not be happening, had been unbearable. Besides, none of them knew what parts of the mall might still be relatively intact. Or how far a small and determined child might be able to travel…if he was uninjured.

      ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

      Jessica simply nodded. She had never been more sure of anything in her life.

      ‘I’d feel just the same way.’ June reached out to pat Jessica’s shoulder in sympathy as she returned the nod with an encouraging smile. Well into her fifties, June had been the oldest member of Jessica’s USAR training class. She was as tough as they came, and had been involved with the Red Cross for more than thirty years. She had also raised four children of her own and was now counting grandchildren. She understood.

      The team walked briskly around the outskirts of a car park that had been cleared of private vehicles to create the operations base for every emergency service it had been possible to mobilise. It was an unprecedented scene for a New Zealand city and despite the fact that the alien light generated by powerful equipment had now been replaced by real daylight again, it still seemed as unreal as a movie set.

      How long had they been here? Jessica had lost all track of time. The massive explosion that had apparently been centred in the mall’s supermarket had occurred just after 3.30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon—just as Jessica and the other members of the USAR class had been finishing their three-week course and learning the results of the final exams on their new and specialised search and rescue skills. They had all assumed that the callout had been a hoax, a novel way to end a period of training that had brought together a diverse group of people and seen some close friendships develop.

      A Friday afternoon. At just the right time to catch the rush of after-school and end-of-week shoppers flocking to the popular shopping centre. Hundreds of people had been inside when the explosion, assumed to have been caused by a fault in the mains gas supply, had occurred. It was a disaster that was major on an international scale and the evidence was everywhere Jessica glanced as Tony led his team through the car park, their progress now being filmed by a television crew.

      There was ample material to keep all the film crews happy. The area was teeming and it seemed likely that there were now more rescuers on scene than there had been people caught in the mall. It was easy to spot the workers who had recently been inside the incident scene. They all had the same covering of dust, the same grimy goggles and dust masks pushed just clear of faces that wore the same expressions of dogged determination to carry on despite exhaustion. Tempers were fraying more frequently now and Jessica was not surprised at the sounds of an argument coming from behind one of the army’s personnel trucks they were passing.

      ‘I’m not going to move this truck. Where the hell do you think I’m going to find a place to put it?’

      ‘It has to be moved. This tent is going up here.’

      ‘Put your bloody tent somewhere else, mate. This truck’s not moving.’

      What was the new tent for? Jessica wondered. Another temporary morgue, perhaps? Or maybe it was something to do with another set of new arrivals—the dog team she could see ahead of them now. The handlers were unloading their highly trained search dogs and checking their gear. Leads and harnesses were being attached and bowls of water distributed. The barking of the dogs melded into the myriad sounds around them and Jessica knew it was a sign that the rescue operation was moving into an advanced phase.

      Surface casualties had been dealt with by the time the USAR teams had been deployed. The more easily accessible sectors had been covered and many victims found and extricated by the specialist teams. The likelihood of finding more survivors was dropping rapidly but it wasn’t impossible. Jessica held onto that thought grimly as her team halted and regrouped near a side entrance to the mall. The bubble of hysteria that made her want to run ahead, screaming the name of her son and flinging any obstacle she could touch aside, had to be as rigidly controlled as the bubble that contained the grief for her mother.

      She could do it. It might take every ounce of strength she possessed and then some, and it might only be possible for a short period of time, but Jessica knew it was possible and that was a revelation in itself. How could she, Jessica McPhail, possess such an inner reserve and have been so completely unaware of its existence for the thirty years of her life so far? She had always lacked confidence and self-esteem. Had always been quick to put herself down before others had had the chance to do it for her. She had never done anything on her own without encouragement from someone she trusted. And she had never been assertive enough to insist on doing something in the face of active opposition.

      Except she wasn’t doing this on her own, was she? Jessica glanced around her as she followed instructions to put her dust mask and goggles back into position, to check her radio and switch on the headlamp attached to her protective helmet. She had a team around her that included an expert squad leader in Tony. Firemen Bryan and Gerry had been classmates, as had June, and they made up half the six-person rescuer section of USAR 3. Jessica was one of the medics and then, of course, there was the pick of the bunch as far as she was concerned. The team’s other medic—Joe Barrington.

      ‘All set?’ Tony nodded, having surveyed his team. ‘Let’s go, then.’

      Security barriers were lifted to allow them entry to what looked like a relatively unscathed area of the mall. Apart from shattered shop frontages and the disarray of goods within

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