Page 72 of Hot Zone

I walked up to where they were busy hauling out all the debris from the fire and stopped next to her to watch what they were doing. “Morning, Syd. How’s it going?”

She shook her head. “It’s a mess, Samuel. We’re going to spend today on clean-up, and then, starting tomorrow, we’ll be doing classes in the old building until the insurance cuts us a check so we can make repairs.”

“I’m so sorry about this, Syd.”

“It’s not your fault, Samuel. You didn’t start the fire.”

“I know, but still, I’m sorry you have to deal with this mess.” I motioned towards the pile of debris the students had dragged out so far.

“What should I do with these, Cap?” one of the students asked Sydney.

We both turned to find a young man standing there holding a stack of pictures.

“Hey, James, are those the photos from the Honor Wall?” she asked.

“They are. I don’t know if you have copies of them or not. The glass is cracked in all of them but one, so they’re probably ruined.”

He held up one of the pictures, and sure enough, the glass was cracked, but it didn’t look like that was from the fire. It looked more like the photo had been smashed. I glanced over at Syd, and I could tell she was thinking the same thing.

“Are they all like that?” she asked.

“Yeah, all but the bottom one. They were all on the ground, but that one was still hanging on the wall.”

“Can you show me the one that was still hanging on the wall?” I pulled out my phone, and while he shifted the pictures around, I called Fox, and he answered right away.

“Hey, Samuel, what’s up?”

“Have you watched all of the security footage from the school yet?”

“I haven’t. I’ve been over at the lab all morning trying to get them to rush everything through for me.”

“I need you to find anything you can from the front hallway.”

“What’re we looking for?”

“I want to see if he damaged the photos that hang in that hallway.”

“The Honor Wall?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll watch it and call you back.”

I put my phone back in my pocket and turned back to Syd and James. “I have Fox checking the security footage. But odds are, we’re going to need to take those photos with us. Now let’s see the one that wasn’t broken.”

James handed me the photograph. It was a panoramic shot that I recognized right away. It was from the second year I was an instructor. The fire academy received a grant from the state that paid for the construction of the new building. They’d gotten it completed just in time for the new fall class, and we’d had a ribbon cutting on their first day of class.

Syd stood by the mayor, who was holding a massive pair of scissors and posed like he was about to cut the red ribbon that was stretched across the walkway leading up to the new building.

A group of city council members and a few other local men of importance were standing off to the left, and I was standing to the right with the young men and women who would be the first group to use the new building.

“So this is the only one that was still hanging on the wall?”

“Yes, sir.”

I was looking at the picture, trying to remember anything I could about that particular cohort when my phone rang.

“Sheridon.”

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