Page 39 of Broken SEAL'S Secret Baby
“How are you going to get all of that down the stairs?” I ask.
She grins at me, a savage baring of the teeth more than a smile. “We could always stand at the top and throw it down,” she says. “I need my books and laptop.”
I sigh. “I’ll take the cat and your books,” I say.
“You will not,” Kate replies firmly. “You can take the cat and Cece’s bag. It isn’t heavy because it is packed with a few clothes, stuffed toys, and boxes of cereal. I’ll take my stuff and hang onto Gidget.”
“We might need to move in a hurry,” I point out.
“At that point, we could leave the books,” she retorts. “But you are not carrying them. They are heavy, and if your hip goes out, you are going to be even heavier. I can even do without clothes, but we need the food, and I’m not going anywhere without my laptop.”
I can see the sense of that. Clearly, Kate has her ownsurvival instincts. I have my laptop packed in its hard-shelled traveling case. I will need it to stay in touch with business operations.
I open the door, and we start making our way slowly down the stairs. I don’t like being reminded that my well-honed body is not in peak physical condition, but there is nothing that can be done about that. I want to grab Cece and Kate and bolt, but haste is only likely to make things worse.
We make good progress down the first few upper floors. These were office levels. Only the custodians had been in them when the storm hit. One fellow, who is carrying only a stack of towels and a bag of food from the shelter, takes Kate’s book bag. That is one worry relieved. I can hear him and Kate talking softly behind me. It is meaningless social chatter, so I tune it out.
Mr. Fluffy shifts and fusses in his carrier. Gidget dances and wiggles at the end of her leash, wanting to greet every new person as we go down. I am glad to see that my people are going about their assigned emergency tasks with efficiency and dispatch.
At the fifth level down, we run into trouble. People are running to and fro, looking for family members, trying to haul precious family heirlooms to the stairwell, and generally clogging the corridor and stairs.
The custodians hold the door open for us. The stairs don’t go straight down — it is a fire break precaution, to keep the stairwells from acting like a chimney. I am on the third step up, looking out on the milling crowd.
We have to get through that. Moreover, these people have to get down the stairs, out to the street, and get packed into vehicles. How in the world had Mr. Jeffers ever made it up through all this? Then I spot him, out there among the milling crowd, attempting to sort things out.
I take in a deep breath and bellow: “Everybody, HALT!”
Everything stops; even pets are brought to heel. They all gape at me for a minute. Then there is a soft susurrus of voices. “It’s Mr. Emory. That’s Charles Emory. They made it. The penthouse must still be standing.”
“That’s right,” I say, in tones that still carry through the corridor but are not as loud as my initial shout. “I’m Charles Emory. There is a plan for getting you down out of here safely. This building was put together with an eye toward safety, but a vehicle was blown through a tenth story window and it has clipped a main support. The elevators are out and are likely to stay that way. You won’t be able to rescue the grand piano or grandma’s dining table. If it won’t fit in a backpack or suitcase, you’ll have to leave it behind.”
There is a soft murmur of sound, then, “My wife’s bedridden,” an older gentleman calls. “Is there some way to get her bed down?”
“There’re emergency slings in the first aid closet,” one of the custodians volunteers.
A woman raises her hand. “I’ve got EMT training. I can help her.”
“Anyone else disabled or have someone who is?” I ask.
Several hands raise. It doesn’t take long to organize work groups, including people to carry personal gear for those who can not carry their own.
But it makes downward progress slower. I start having Kate and Cece rest on the landing above each floor while I check to see what is going on below. It helps that we discovered several people who are military reserves and local law enforcement. Firemen, custodians, and policemen go through each floor as we go down, and I lock up behind us.
It might not completely prevent looting, but I can try. My building wasn’t as stormproof as I had hoped, but if these people’s belongings can be returned to them intact, it will help.
Even an orderly retreat takes time. It is long past dark before we reach the ground floor. That is when I realized I’d not planned transportation for Cece and Kate, or myself.
As I stand in the lobby, berating myself for being an absolute idiot, the entrance revolving door spins and James comes walking in.
“There you are!” he says. “I kept looking. Are you planning to go down with the ship, or are you willing to travel with me?”
I can not help but be jealous of the look of relief that flashes across Kate’s face. I rein in that response before it can get away. Of course she is relieved.
“I don’t think we’ll all fit in your economy car,” I say. “Not with all this stuff.
“It’s cool,” James says. “I brought the Safari Special.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. Long ago, when James and I were roommates in college, we had purchased a neck-over camper and a beat-up F-150 truck. The camper was just a shell, and the truck a mechanic’s nightmare, but we’d worked on both on weekends, and even took the rig out a time or two before we graduated and had to turn to “Real Life”.
