Who by Fire (30 page)

“There must have been a permit.”

“Well, of course. It was left at the gate and it isn’t there anymore.” Gid came in. He ripped off his mask and took huge gulps of air. He looked on the verge of cardiac arrest. Bill caught his arm, pulled him aside.

“Do you know who the insulation team is? Is it Johnny Bertram?”

“Bertram and his nephew were scheduled. I don’t mean they’re in there. I mean they were the ones who got the call.”

“So nobody saw them before the explosion?”

“Nobody I talked to has been near the hydrotreater in three hours. The insulation guys could be there or not. There was a screw-up at the—”

“I heard. I also saw somebody mowed down the outside gate.”

“Right. If Bertram was in and left with that crowd, we wouldn’t know either. I tried his cell. It doesn’t ring.”

Bill and Gid were near the control room window. There were two hoses now, and they could see them arcing water. Gid tried to pull away; Bill held on.

“What’s the wind direction?”

“Hardly any,” Gid said.

“But what?”

“Southwest, zero to three.”

“That’s straight for the village. Has anyone checked it?”

Gid flared. “What do you think, Bill? Friggin’ thing blew a half-hour ago.”

“If the wind speed is three or less, and the lake’s two kilometres, and a half-hour’s gone, you could still get there before the gas.”

“What gas?”

“Fuck off. The eighty per cent
H
₂
S
that must have blown out of the hydrotreater.”

“I’m not sending anybody until things are sorted here.”

“Then I’ll go.”

Gid’s shoulders dropped. “I don’t think you have to.”

“Who’s the contact there? For evacuation?”

“I don’t remember. Woman. Her name’s in my office.”

“Marie Calfoux?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“I want you to phone her and tell her to get the village ready to go.”

“I don’t have her number.”

Bill took out his cell phone, found Marie’s number, wrote it on Gid’s parka sleeve. Next, he went to Kruger and asked what his plans were. Kruger stared out the window and said nothing.

“Theo told me to back you up. That’s why I’m asking.”

Kruger rattled off some standard procedure. The only gap was the village. Bill told him he was going there now to evacuate it.

“The fuck you are! Theo didn’t order that.”

“
I’m
ordering it.”

“That’ll make this a bigger fuck-up. Public fuck-up.”

“You can’t assume
H
₂
S
isn’t moving that way. Wind direction says it is.”

“You think you know something, I guess.”

“My assessment is that there’s a reasonable doubt about safety over there.”

“Fuck!” Kruger turned away again. His phone rang and he grabbed it.

While Kruger was talking on the phone, Bill got out. Back in the smoke and steam, he ran for the parking area. His mask was off and that was stupid. When he got where he could see, there was a crew bus among the trucks and cars along the fence. There was nobody inside. The door was unlocked; keys in the ignition. It was still warm when Bill climbed in. The engine started easily. At the gate, the woman he had talked to earlier held up her arm. He cranked open the door and told her he needed the bus to evacuate Waddens Village.

The bus was huge on the ploughed main street. All the house lights were on. The community centre was lit up inside. Bill parked there and left it running.

The main hall was white-lit from a bank of hanging fluorescents. Marie came from the back, arms full of air masks. She had on a purple parka.

“Thought it might be you,” she said.

She told him she’d ordered the town’s younger people to wake the old ones.

“We’re going to be short of cars.”

“I brought a crew bus.”

He tried to take some of the masks but she shrugged him off.

“There’s a bin back there. Bring the tanks.”

The lid of the bin was open. Marie had tossed things out to get at what she needed. In the swath of stuff on the floor, he spotted sniffer boxes, and stuffed some in his pockets.

Back outside, Bill armed one of the sniffers and carried it down an outhouse path. Standing in a drift, he broke the tip and aimed the tube at the plant. After the tube took its breath, he held his pen flashlight over it, and felt relief and disappointment in equal measure. The tube was reading clean. No evidence that what he was doing was necessary.

By the time he got back, Marie was guiding the last elder up the bus steps. All the masks were distributed. The trucks and vans had already left. Someone had turned on the interior lights, and Bill counted eight heads, all old folks.

“That everybody?” he asked Marie.

She was looking at a list. “All accounted for.”

“Where are we going?” He sat in the driver’s seat.

Marie was standing on the steps. “The evacuation plan that Dion gave me says McKay but everyone here has relatives closer,” she said.

“Where, then?”

“Six of these people want to go to St. Bernadette. Two have relatives in the bush near there.” She came the rest of the way in and sat. “I’ll help you find it.”

An old lady the size of a child was worrying about her cat. Marie ran to her house and got it: a hissing, scratching evil until the old woman hushed it like a baby.

“Turn the light out,” said the only man. Marie snapped a toggle above Bill’s head.

The village of St. Bernadette was not far. Marie had phoned ahead to the families of the six who wanted to be dropped there. The rendezvous was a wooden church, and the hand-off went smoothly. The last two were on a bush road just outside. The old man was first. He got out and followed a curved path to a door with a light over it. The last was the woman with the cat. A lady wearing a ski jacket over her nightie stood in the doorway as Bill helped the woman up the shovelled path. At the door, the cat leapt and raked Bill’s hand, skittered through the door. The old lady shrugged. “Can’t do anything with her. She doesn’t like white people.”

Then it was Marie and Bill in the hollow bus.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked her.

“You tested at the village before we left? What did it say?”

“Clean. It might not be now.”

“Let’s go see.”

They did not talk on the trip back. Marie sat on the first bench seat, leaned toward the windshield, probably worried that he’d hit a moose.

Bill had lots of sniffer tubes, so he tested the last two kilometres into Waddens. He tested again near Marie’s house. That tube showed sulphur dioxide. No hydrogen sulphide. They continued on to Marie’s path.

“You haven’t told me what happened,” she said.

“Didn’t Gid tell you when he phoned?”

“Whoever phoned said there was a possibility of poisonous gas and someone was coming to help us evacuate—as a precaution.”

“There was an explosion, in the unit called the hydrotreater. Hydrogen gas is reactive. If it gets loose, it often explodes.”

“And it’s poisonous?”

“Not hydrogen. It was hydrogen sulphide that I was worried about. A couple of lines in the unit would have been full of
H
₂
S
. The fire was still burning when I left.”

“Why do you think the gas didn’t get here?”

“The fire was hot. With not much wind, maybe the
H
₂
S
converted to sulphur dioxide in the fire. Or maybe it went somewhere else.”

“Will you know for sure when you get back?”

“It’s not possible to know that.”

They continued to sit in the bus, the engine drumming. Bill pulled out his cell and pressed the power button.

Marie laughed. “It was off?”

“Wouldn’t have made much difference. Looks like the battery’s dead.”

She held out her own cell. He poked the number for the control room. Kruger answered, and Bill asked for Houle.

“He’s gone. Back to Mac.”

“Does that mean the fire’s out?”

“Contained.”

“What about the insulation crew?”

“John Bertram phoned at three to say his truck broke down.”

“Whew. That’s a relief. So who signed in at the gate?”

“Some prick fessed up he’d done it as a joke. He saw the gate guard sleeping, so he took the work permit off his desk and scribbled something unreadable in the book.”

“Good news all around, then.”

“Not really. Did you get your village moved to safety?” Kruger changed voice for the last part. Singsong. Fruity.

“We did.”

“You planning on returning the crew bus? Some men would like to go home.”

“Shortly.”

“Something else. Houle wants you to phone him first thing. Phone him at home at seven, is what he said. He’s pissed.”

Bill looked at his watch. It was nearly six a.m. “What’s his problem?”

“What do you think?”

“Any further instructions?”

“Just the crew bus. No, wait. Mr. Houle said you’re not to talk to reporters.”

Bill looked for the off button. Marie reached and took the phone.

“It sounds like it’s safe for you to stay here,” Bill told her. “Fire’s under control. Nobody died.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Return the bus, then phone my annoyed boss at seven. Guess I’ll go to the camp and try to sleep for an hour.”

“You can come back here. I’ll make breakfast.”

“That would be great.”

They didn’t eat. They went to bed. She was beautiful and smooth, and moved with grace. She rolled on top of him and rode him to the end of both of them. They were lying together under the warm duvet when Bill bounced up and cursed.

“What’s wrong?”

“I forgot to phone Houle.”

She felt for her phone on the bedside table and gave it to him. When he got through, Houle was mad about the lateness of the call—and everything else. He didn’t specifically mention the evacuation of the village. He said he was coming back to the plant and wanted Bill in his office at two sharp.

“What was that about?”

“Not sure. Boss wants me in his office at ten.”

“That’s hours from now,” she said and drew him down to her.

Bill was still feeling dazzled when he entered the anteroom of Houle’s office.

“Someone looks happy,” said Paula, and he adjusted his face before going in.

A half-hour later, when he returned to the icy, smoke-smelling morning, he was dazzled in a different way. He was unemployed.

In the control room, he told Henry that he was in charge until further notice. He went to his office to collect some things. He had to come out and ask for a box. When Henry gave him one, he happened to look up and see Clayton’s thyroid eyes boring at him.

The picture of his sisters. The picture of his kids. They could keep his consolation golf trophy and the mail in his inbox. He zipped the computer and its cords into the travel bag. What was left on his desk was the corrosion maintenance plan. Fuck it. He put his keys and ID on top of it. There was a knock on his door. The SS-looking security man was waiting.

“Do you need your keys, Mr. Ryder?”

“They’re on my desk.”

“I’m thinking I should take your computer.”

“You’re a little ahead of yourself, Hansen.”

In his car, he phoned Marie.

“Leave with pay until further notice,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“I think it means they’re on their way to firing me. I’ll tell you more later.”

“Why not come now? Sounds like you have the time.”

“I’d be poor company.”

“I can live with a bit of that.”

Marie was making the breakfast they hadn’t had earlier. She was dressed formally, which he did not understand.

“Thought they couldn’t do without you,” she said from the stove. “Apparently, they think they can.”

“Who’s taking your place?”

“Guy named Henry Shields. My junior engineer.”

“Caesar is dead; long live Caesar?”

“Henry’s a good guy.”

“Really?”

“They’re not all assholes.”

“What reason did they give for putting you on leave?” she asked.

“Evacuating the village.”

Marie looked surprised. He hadn’t told her before that he was the one who called it.

He told her the rest of the story, starting with Houle on the phone telling him he was to guide Kruger. But when Bill had sat down with Houle, they’d immediately argued about what “guiding Kruger” meant.

“I did not give you carte blanche. You know that.”

“Since when do we need permission to keep communities from getting gassed?”

“That assessment of risk is your opinion. Shared by no one.”

“There was lots of
H
₂
S
in those lines. You don’t know what left that area when it exploded.”

“Neither do you.”

Back and forth. There was no wind. There was a bit of wind. It was blowing in the direction of the village. It probably missed the village. Somewhere in the middle it got nasty. Houle said Bill was taking sides against the company,
as usual
. Bill called him gutless.

“I’m not going to argue with someone who’s lost his temper—and his objectivity,” Houle said after that.