There, on the bow of the riverboat, Tack was strung up like its figurehead. He hung limply, a dark clump of bloodied hair hinting that he couldn’t be alive.
“No, no, no,” Deb cried out and then collapsed.
I fell to a knee and wrapped my arms around her. Clutch, his brow furrowed, looked from Deb to Tack.
“Aw, shit. No,” Jase said. The sound of his heart breaking couldn’t be missed in those few short words.
“We’ve got incoming!” someone yelled.
I looked up to see flares being fired from the riverboat. Sorenson and his crew had dozens of flare guns, and they were shooting constantly into the air and directly at the towboat. All but one from the first round of flares missed the Aurora. The flare that didn’t miss landed on the deck and lit up a tarp covering a raft. Kurt lunged for a fire extinguisher hanging near the stairs.
“To your posts!” Tyler yelled, waving his arm. “They’re trying to burn us down! Teams Alpha and Bravo, prepare to launch a counterattack from the boats. Charlie, get those barge bay doors closed now! All other teams, get the civvies to barge Two now!”
Over a dozen scouts, including Griz and Tyler, ran toward the ladder to head to the boats. Jase and I were on Clutch’s Charlie team, which meant we stayed behind to protect the towboat and its barges.
“You heard the captain,” Clutch yelled as he grabbed his crutches. “We need to get the big generators running and those doors closed now.”
A young man came up and stood there, looking in shock. He’d arrived with Manny and had just joined Delta team a day ago. His eyes were wide and looked like they were about to burst with tears. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Grab as many fire extinguishers as you can handle and distribute them,” Clutch ordered. A commotion of cattle bellowing and pigs squealing came from barge Four. He turned to Jase. “Jase, take lead of Delta and Echo teams. Cash and I will get the bays closed. Save the barges.”
Jase didn’t say anything. Stress was instantly replaced by a smooth, hardened sense of purpose on his face. “Come with me!” He took off at a sprint, and the other scout followed.
Ever since Tyler had divided scouts into teams, we’d practiced, but we’d never needed more than three teams on a mission before. Delta and Echo teams were made up of only corporals and civvies. “You sure Jase can handle teams right now?”
“He’s a natural,” Clutch said. “Besides, he needs this. Let’s go.” He grabbed his crutches again, and we headed into the galley.
Starting the generators was an easy task…except that black smoke was bleeding through the doorframe leading below decks and exactly where the engines were.
Chapter XVI
Even with crutches, Clutch kept a good pace. After touching the steel door for heat, I opened it. Smoke dirtied the air and I coughed. Propping the door open with my foot, I tugged off the red bandana I kept tied around my wrist.
“Hold up,” Clutch said and grabbed my bandana. He dumped water on it and handed the soaked fabric back to me. “Here. This will help.”
“Thanks.” I tied the wet bandana around my face while he did the same with a tactical scarf he’d retrieved from a backpack he always carried.
As soon as he had his face covered and his water bottle stashed in his pack again, I entered the short deck. The air wasn’t pleasant, but there was no fire here. I looked up to see the heaviest of the smoke hovering around the vents. “The smoke must be coming in through the ventilation system,” I said.
“We need to hurry,” he said as he hustled around me. Each step of his was staggered as the rest of his body had to overcompensate for legs that didn’t play along. He stopped at the door leading to the equipment room that would in turn bring us to the engine room. He touched the door. “It’s cool. That’s a good sign.” He sifted through his backpack and pulled out a flashlight and a flat roll of duct tape. He clicked on the flashlight and taped it onto a crutch. He turned to me. He ran a hand through my hair, and his look softened. “Stay here. I don’t know how bad it’s going to be in there.”
I guffawed and then smacked his hand away. “I should go, and you should stay. I can move faster.”
He frowned. “You don’t know how to work the generators.”
I pulled out my handgun and pressed the flashlight. “Then we go together. If one of us falls, the other will get us out of there.”
He turned back to the door. “I knew you were going to say that,” he muttered as he opened the door. I shoved my bag against the door to prop it open. Before us was a filthy gray haze, hiding anything and anyone in the large room. Clutch took the lead, moving as quickly as he could, clearly pushing his body beyond what it was ready for.
My eyes burned. Every breath was bitter air. Clutch coughed. I tried to smother my coughs, but it was impossible. I supposed all these doors help protect the well-sealed towboat in case it flooded, but they were a pain in the ass because they retained bad air inside.
For all I knew, the barges were already on fire, in which case we’d be screwed. Even if it was too late to close the bay doors, we still needed water pressure to put out any small fires. We had to get the engines running.
When we reached the next door, I could barely see Clutch in front of me. My flashlight couldn’t cut more than a foot through the haze. His coughs were about the only way I could stay with him. I grabbed onto his backpack so that we weren’t separated. We didn’t talk. When I tried, I only coughed more. Tears streamed down my cheeks. A coughing fit nearly had me bent over. Clutch wasn’t doing any better, but his crutches seem to bolster our stability.
When he stopped, I bumped into him. Metal clanked, and I found myself yanked forward.
Clutch slammed the door shut behind us. The air was much better—though still not great. The beam from my flashlight cut through the haze to fall on the large engines and the short red generators covering much of the floor.
“Thank God,” I said, which brought on a coughing fit.
Clutch headed straight for the engines. He tripped over a cable and fell down, so he pulled himself over to the control box. With my help, he got back to his feet. Using my weight to support him, he flipped a switch. Nothing happened. He frowned and then struggled to the next motor. Again, nothing happened. He stood there while I watched, feeling incredibly helpless. He was right. I knew nothing about engines and generators and mechanical things. After a long moment, he spoke. “Wes must’ve turned off the fuel line.”
“I looked around the room. Where is it?”
“It’s got to be in here somewhere. It should have a gas marking or warning on it.”
I propped Clutch against an engine while I retrieved his crutches. Then I began my search. With only a flashlight, it was a tedious search. I tripped a couple times over the cables Wes has strewn across the floors.
“I see it,” Clutch said.
I hurried over.
Clutch pointed. “It’s too tight with my crutches.”
I looked down the narrow walkway between two engines and saw a triangular “Warning: Extremely Flammable” sticker. “I’ll get it.” I had to walk sideways. It must’ve been a tight fit for Wes, but it was pretty easy for me. I knelt at the sticker. Below it was a round metal crank that looked like it rotated rather than a switch that flipped on and off. I tried to twist it counterclockwise, but it didn’t budge. “Jesus, Wes,” I muttered, and put all my strength into it.
Slowly, the crank moved an inch before it picked up speed and twisted a full rotation. I leaned back. “Try it now.”
I heard an engine start up. “We’re good!” Clutch yelled out.
Clutch had the engines running by the time I reached him, and had moved to a box of switches that Wes had built to run all the generators. While each of the generators had its own gas tank, Wes has talked about how he had everything set up to run directly off the towboat’s gas tank to save someone having to constantly refill the generators.