The Heart Beneath

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Chapter Two

January 1: 0700

As the Huey helicopter landed and Wes saw what was left of the Hoyt Hotel, he couldn’t contain his shock. Once a proud, prestigious structure of world renown, the hotel had enjoyed a five-star rating since the twenties. Now all fourteen stories had collapsed in on one another like a house of cards. The asphalt at the intersection where it once stood had been lifted, tossed around and completely destroyed.

Wes opened the door and lifted his hand to tell his team to disembark. Leaping down, he felt the wind blast from the rotors strike him forcefully. He kept one hand on his camouflaged-patterned utility cap and gripped a large case carrying the planning essentials he needed. Head bowed slightly, he turned and saw Lieutenant Callie Evans release her dog from the travel cage that sat in the crowded area behind the pilots. The golden retriever acted as if nothing were wrong as he leaped off the lip and onto the churned asphalt that had once been a street. Callie had him on a leash as she hurried by Wes and out of the way of the turning rotors.

Next came the supplies that they’d need to set up shop for this grid coordinate. Wes’s four enlisted marines climbed out and formed a line to bring box after box out of the bird. The boxes contained tents, food, a first-aid kit, water and latrine supplies. They hurried, for time was of the essence. The door gunner handed out the last of their goods, lifted a hand toward Wes, saluted him and then shut the door. Wes returned the crisp salute and stepped away from the rotor wash.

The engine began to shriek as the pilot powered up the helicopter for takeoff. As the chopper lifted off, Wes held his utility cap on his head until the buffeting stopped. His team—the four enlisted marines, trained in the use of heavy equipment, and Lieutenant Callie Evans and her golden retriever—all looked to him expectantly for orders. Having a woman in the group was soothing to Wes. For whatever reason, he liked having women as part of his team. They seemed to lend a gentler and quieter energy that served to calm him. Right now, however, his stomach was in knots. The destruction was simply beyond anything he could have imagined. Standing with his team, Wes surveyed the area. At six lanes wide, Palm Boulevard had once been one of the busiest streets in southern Los Angeles. Now, the asphalt was so broken up it resembled rocks and pebbles. The once proud palm trees that had lined the route were lying like scattered toothpicks in every direction. Cars had been tossed into one another. Wes saw a policeman and policewoman, on foot, going from car to car in the gray dawn light, their flashlights on as they searched each car for victims.

The city blocks around Palm Boulevard contained upscale one- and two-story suburban houses. This had been a very rich enclave in what was considered the poorer section of L.A. Computer people who had plenty of money had moved in around the Hoyt, and the grid under Wes’s direction, a five-mile-square area, included this wealthy suburb.

Looking at the city blocks from the air as they’d come in to land, Wes had noticed only a few houses still standing. He’d seen a lot of people wandering around the chewed up streets, clearly in shock, or standing in small groups looking at the devastation. Very few buildings of any kind still stood; most had collapsed in a shambles. The palm trees that had once inspired the proud moniker of this pricey neighborhood were uprooted and lay everywhere. Expensive foreign cars that had once sat curbside in front of these million-dollar homes were useless. To Wes, it looked as if all the cars had come from an auto graveyard, they were so damaged by the killer quake. Few appeared to be salvageable or drivable.

Grimly, he surveyed his awaiting team as they huddled with him in the cool dawn light. As he lifted his gaze, he saw that the entire L.A. basin was covered with a thick layer of black, greasy smoke. Thousands of fires were burning, the flicker of red-and-yellow flames standing out against the approaching sunrise. The air was choked with dust, debris and throat-clogging smoke from the thousands of burning buildings. Everything was on fire, including one-third of the houses surrounding the Hoyt.

There was no water available to fight the fires because the pipes had been broken by the quake. Fire departments couldn’t respond because there were no roads on which to travel. No matter where Wes looked, something was flattened. A posh restaurant on the corner of Palm and Miranda Boulevard was so much debris, with part of the once-proud Spanish tile roof visible on the ground next to it. Red tiles had been shattered into marble-size pieces, mixed within gray-and-black asphalt that had been churned up by the undulating shocks.

Wes forced himself to concentrate on what they had to do. Luckily for the team, there was a construction company less than a quarter mile away, down a small side street. Turning to blond-haired Sergeant Barry Cove, who was in his late twenties, Wes said, “Sergeant, you and Lance Corporal Stevens go down to that construction company and see what you can find. Find the owner, if he’s around. If he’s not, break into the office and locate keys for whatever equipment he’s got inside that cyclone-fence area. Get the following, if you can find it—a cherry picker, because we’re going to need a crane and hook to start lifting off the top debris on the Hoyt to try and find survivors. A front-end loader with a bucket would also be useful to us. I want a list of everything he has. If you do locate him, send him to me. Right now, martial law is imposed, and we’re the law. What we need, we get. Be diplomatic with him, if he’s there. If not, take what we need and leave a note. Bring that equipment up here to the Hoyt.” Wes pointed to the wrecked hotel, the ruins of which stood on the corner opposite them.

Sergeant Cove nodded. “Yes, sir!” And the two men started off at a trot down the pulverized street.

Wes glanced at Callie. Though he was feeling shocked by all of this, one quick look at her calm features soothed him somewhat. She was gazing toward the collapsed hotel, her full lips parted, the pain very real in her huge blue eyes. His gaze settled on his other two men, Corporal Felipe Orlando and Private Hugh Bertram.

“Corporal, take Private Bertram with you and canvass the hotel with this map.” Wes handed the corporal one of the tightly rolled blueprints from beneath his arm. Orlando had worked with him for nearly a year helping to build roads and bridges at Camp Reed, which was why he and Wes had been specially assigned to the base. Orlando was in his late twenties, married, and the father of three beautiful little girls. At Wes’s words, his round coppery face lit up and he nodded briskly and took the map.

“Yes, sir. Where are we putting the H.Q.?”

Wes grinned slightly and nodded to Orlando. They needed a central location to erect tents and store food before they could get busy with the rescue effort. Looking around, Wes saw a car that had been knocked around and smashed by several falling palm trees right in front of the collapsed Hoyt. With a little cleaning, the broad hood of the car could be used as a table.

“Near that blue SUV, Corporal. Once you finish canvassing the hotel, you two can get the tents up, store our supplies and get us operational. That will be our ops center until we can get reinforcement in here.” There was a convoy starting out of Camp Reed, heavy trucks and Humvees bringing more tents, MREs—Meals Ready to Eat—and anything else they might need for their stay. This was a field operation, and everyone knew it was going to be a long, arduous one. Supplies that were coming to each grid area would help the local people survive.

“Yes, sir, that looks like a real good area.” Orlando turned to Hugh Bertram, a soft-spoken, red-haired Southerner from Georgia. “Come on, Bertram. We got work to do.”

The private nodded and saluted and, turning on his heel, followed the corporal, who was trotting toward the hotel.

“That leaves me,” Callie said as Wes’s warm green gaze settled on her. She offered him a slight smile, feeling as if the sun were shining around her. Throughout the trip in the Huey, she’d sat beside Wes. And she had been privileged to wear a set of headphones hooked up to the intercom. For the entire trip, she was able to converse easily with Wes without having to shout over the roar of the helo.

He hadn’t known much about quake rescue dogs or what she did for a living. Callie had filled him in as quickly as possible. Every time he settled his full attention on her, her heart beat harder in her chest. She couldn’t explain her reaction. Never had a man’s look affected her as much as his did. When his mouth crooked slightly upward at the corners, she felt a little breathless because he was smiling at her. The look that lingered in his sharply assessing eyes made her feel giddy and unsettled at the same time.

Callie decided crazy things happened during disasters and her feelings could only be attributed to her skewed, unreliable emotional state. During times of trauma, most people were in shock and nothing made sense to them. Even though she was a trained rescuer, that didn’t mean she could just shut off her emotions and do her job; far from it. Callie had lost count of how many times she’d cried while out on a grid search for victims. Whenever she thought about what the families of the victims went through, she was ripped apart inside. No matter how difficult it made her job, Callie didn’t ever want to lose her capacity for sympathy and empathy with others; she would rather suffer the consequences. She knew herself well enough to know that her reaction to Wes was not normal, and probably a symptom of what she called “earthquake mode” emotions.

Maybe Wes was in the same mode; she wasn’t sure. As he stood there, tall and straight, his broad shoulders thrown back as he assessed the Hoyt, he seemed rock solid emotionally. Callie was grateful for his quiet, unobtrusive style of command. Right now, with panic rampant, a calm voice and clear thinking were hard to find. She was glad he was in charge of this operation.

“Let’s get over to the hood of our H.Q.,” he told her wryly. “You need to commence a grid search in that mess, right?” he asked, hooking a thumb toward the pulverized Hoyt Hotel.

Callie nodded and fell into step with Wes. Dusty got to his feet and walked obediently at her side, his body swinging comfortingly against her leg. “Yes, the search grid has to be overlaid on your blueprint of the hotel, and then I’ll search each square foot with Dusty. Hopefully, he’ll locate someone who’s still alive. He’ll also pick up the scent of those who have died. He’s been trained to whine if the person is dead and to bark if he finds someone alive. If they’re dead, I’ll put a bright-red plastic square in that place so everyone knows there’s a body under the rubble. If we find someone alive—” she gave him a hopeful look “—I’ll be radioing down to you and asking you to bring the construction equipment to try and help us unearth the person ASAP.”

Wes nodded, absorbing the information. “I hope you find a lot of live people. Our number-one priority here is to recover survivors. Secondly, we’re charged with getting tents, food and water to the people of this area, as we get supplies delivered here.”

“You’ve got a tough job ahead of you,” Callie admitted. Their arms brushed together as they walked. She moved away slightly to ensure that didn’t happen again. Though she liked touching him, Callie knew it wasn’t appropriate. Still, her heart had pounded a little harder in her breast when she’d made contact with Wes. And he didn’t seem to mind the accidental touch. In fact, he’d slanted a glance down at her, a slight hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

He snorted softly now. “I’m a construction guy, not a rescue trained military officer. I hope I can do justice to this mess, but I’m not sure.” He held her gaze. “And I’m looking to you for help, Callie. You’re the real disaster expert here. I hope you don’t mind if I call you often on the radio and ask for help and guidance when I need it?”

What a delightful surprise, Callie thought, happy that Wes didn’t have trouble relying on her. Usually that was the case when she was paired up with a man. “Sure, I’ll try to be of help to you in any way possible, Wes. No one is ever trained well enough for something like this….” She looked around, sadness entering her voice. “No one could ever imagine the scope of this disaster. I mean…I’ve been in some pretty awful places, especially Turkey, but this is even worse because it has affected such a large region—not just one city, a few square miles. No, this is a horse of a different color, Wes, and frankly, I don’t think General Wilson at the base realizes how bad it is—yet. He will.” Lifting her arm, she gestured toward the suburbs surrounding the Hoyt. “This is a nightmare come true. And we’re in it as it’s unfolding. All we can do is help each other, hold one another, do a lot of crying when people aren’t looking, and pray we make the right decisions.”

Wes slowed as they approached the vehicle. “I know,” he told her worriedly. “Being a civil engineer, I’ve worked in a lot of rough environments, and the one thing that strikes me more than any other with this quake is that the people of this basin are not going to have enough water to sustain them.”

“Right,” Callie murmured unhappily. “Within the week, water is going to be the number one factor in who lives and who dies here. If we can’t get enough water in, people are going to start dropping like flies. It will be babies and the elderly first.”

“You’ve seen situations like this before, haven’t you?” Wes found himself fascinated with Callie. She seemed easygoing, soft-spoken and very responsible. That told him of the steely emotional strength she must have within her heart. And it drew him. She was a woman of incredible compassion and substance, and he’d never met anyone quite like her in his life.

“Yes,” Callie admitted haltingly. “In Turkey, in the major cities we’ve been in to help locate survivors, the pipes carrying water from the reservoirs were all broken up. At first, we saw people working together to collect water and food. But later they began to steal from one another. The fabric of society comes undone real fast in a life-and-death situation like that, Wes, and we’re going to have the same thing happen here. I hope you’re prepared for it. People will turn on one another. They’ll steal, lie and cheat to get water. And if that doesn’t do the trick, then they’ll resort to any means to take what they want.” Her mouth quirked as they stopped at the vehicle. “Later, they’ll start killing for it. That’s when the situation turns ugly and dangerous.”

“You carry food and water on you when you search. Were you a target then, too?” Wes turned and studied her saddened face. For a moment, her eyes glimmered with what he was sure were tears. But she forced them back.

“Oh, yes…we had to have Turkish troops, armed to the teeth, accompany us over the search areas to make sure we didn’t get robbed of the canteen we carried…or the food we had in the pockets of our cammies. We didn’t have much, but when parents see their children dying of dehydration or lack of food, they’ll do anything they have to do to save them.” She saw his eyes flicker with surprise. “Earthquakes bring out the best and worst of humanity, Wes. Sometimes you find that, if you scratch the surface of most human beings caught in such a situation, they’re savages underneath.”

Tilting her head, she added, “And then, when you think humans really are mere savages who have no regard for law, order or society, you’ll run into a man or woman who is positively saintly. I’ve seen miracles happen…and it restores my belief in humanity. I’m sure we’ll see it here, too.”

“Well, whatever happens, this rescue is not something I’m looking forward to.” With a grimace, he added, “I usually work with concrete and steel and it’s pretty unemotional.”

“Yeah…” Callie answered, seeing the pain in his eyes. “Now you’ll be dealing with flesh and blood. A whole ’nother ball game.”

Wes wanted to talk more, but their mission was desperately urgent. Every person buried in the Hoyt Hotel rubble must have a mother, father, brother or sister—some relative frantic with worry. His conscience ate at him. What if someone he loved was buried in that heap of debris behind them? How would he be feeling? Pretty awful, especially if he couldn’t determine if that person was dead or alive. All lines of communication were down, with the exception of battery-operated radios and cell phones. And cell phones were only as good as their batteries. There was no electricity to recharge any batteries once they died.

Wes scanned the area, noting a number of people sitting on the edge of the chewed-up boulevard near the Hoyt. They had to be survivors from the hotel. One man was up on the heap of rubble, calling a name repeatedly and looking for someone. “This is bad. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. I just hope I can do a good job of leading this detachment. Do the right thing at the right time, with all the limitations we face.”

Hearing the edge in his deep voice, Callie gave him a compassionate look. His eyes were alive with feelings as he surveyed the Hoyt. “Yes, it’s terrible. But I know in my heart you can do this, Wes. I think you’re perfect for it. You’re calm, cool and collected.”

Chuckling dryly, he said, “Bane of the engineer breed, you know? We’re numbers and figures people, not very glamorous, exciting or dazzling on a scale of one to ten.”

“You’re all those things in my eyes,” Callie declared, then stopped abruptly, shocked at what she’d just said. Where had that come from? Feeling heat crawl into her face, she stammered, “I—I believe in you. You’re a Marine Corps officer and we get the best training in the world, especially for difficult and changing situational operations.” She saw his eyes glimmer at her praise, and it made her feel good.

They continued toward the hotel, and silence fell between them as they surveyed the devastation. Dozens of palm trees lay scattered all around them. The once beautiful Spanish-tile entrance to the Hoyt was gone; there was nothing more than concrete, shattered glass and twisted steel visible now. Though neither of them said it, Callie knew many lives had been lost here. Because the Hoyt was a landmark building, once a gathering place for Hollywood stars, it was always filled to capacity, especially on New Year’s Eve. The Hoyt threw one of the grandest, most publicized New Year’s parties in California. Anyone who was famous was here for it. Callie stopped herself from thinking any further than that.

When Wes reached the blue, dusty SUV, he used the arm of his coat to wipe off the hood. Dust and rubble flew in all directions. He laid the maps down and unrolled them. Dawn was upon them and the growing light made it easier to read the blueprints.

Looking around him, Wes picked up small pieces of asphalt and placed them on the corners of his maps to keep them flat on the hood of the vehicle. Only then did he notice that Callie was too short to read them.

“Hop up on the bumper here,” he said to her, half in jest, “so you can draw your grid. This is the blueprint of the hotel. It doesn’t look like it used to, but you can still work out the parameters so you can begin your search.” He handed her a black felt-tip pen.

“Okay, hold on. Let me get my safety gear on.” She gave Dusty a hand gesture and the dog sat down. Then she placed a bright-red vest that said RESCUE in bold yellow letters on the front and back. It was actually a flak jacket. If she fell on sharpened objects in the rubble, the jacket would protect her from being pierced and possibly killed. The familiar chafing and weight actually felt good to her as she used the Velcro tabs to close it snugly around her torso.

The bright-orange helmet that hung from a hook on her olive-green web belt was next. She settled it over her camouflage-colored utility cover, which was shaped like a baseball cap, and strapped it into place beneath her chin. Last came the hard leather knee protectors in case she fell in the rubble or had to get down and crawl into tight places. Her knees would take a beating, and the leather absorbed the shock that would be guaranteed if she started poking around between slabs of concrete.

She’d already placed a bright-red cotton garment over Dusty. It held four large pockets, two on each side, holding small bottles of water, as well as human and dog food. Dusty carried roughly ten pounds in the specially made Marine Corps vest. His uniform was edged in bright yellow, with RESCUE DOG printed in large letters on each side. A leather harness was then fitted over it. Callie had also placed thick, soft leather “booties” on his feet held on by Velcro. Dusty was just as susceptible to cuts, gouges and scratches on the sensitive pads of his feet as she was.

Taking off her thick leather gloves, Callie took the pen Wes held out to her. When their fingers met, she felt a brief flash of warmth. Wes was amazingly calm and matter-of-fact, despite all the carnage around them.

Looking up, she saw a group of civilians, some with children in their arms, straggling toward the hotel rubble where Corporal Orlando and Private Bertram were waiting. Wes saw them, too. He knew they would be asking for help. The other part to his mission was to bring order to this chaos. He had a lot of responsibilities to carry out. Engaging the help of the survivors, all of whom were dazed looking, their faces drawn with shock and strain, would be his next order of business. By using the construction equipment, Wes could help locate other victims. But there were many things he couldn’t supply the survivors with yet, such as medical help, water and food. All he could do at this point was murmur empty platitudes.

His stomach tightened at that realization. He was an engineer, used to ordering people and equipment around to get things done. But in this situation, everything was difficult. He had neither the people nor the supplies to help survivors as he wanted to. Would they understand that? The expressions on some of their faces were heartbreaking. Some people were bloody, others simply disheveled and dirty. Two children had dust-covered faces, and even from this distance, Wes could see the tracks of their tears through the filth.

Right now, everyone in this neighborhood would be drawn to Wes’s camp, for he and his teams were the only authority around. Feeling helplessly overwhelmed with the magnitude of his mission, he looked down at Callie. Wes needed her serenity, gazed almost desperately at those guileless blue eyes that held the hope of the world in them. She was so strong right now; he felt it and sensed it in how she held herself.

As Callie hoisted herself up on the bumper so she could study the map and draw a quick sketch of the Hoyt’s rubble, Wes stood back, studying the group approaching. He counted at least ten people, very dirty and dusty, heading slowly toward Orlando and Bertram. The silver-haired man leading them, picked up his pace as Corporal Orlando waved him closer. Wes saw the man’s face light up with hope. Standing there, Wes didn’t feel the least bit hopeful. The pressure of people’s expectations weighed heavily upon him.

He lowered his eyes and watched Callie, hungrily absorbing her profile as she worked over the blueprint. She was like a breath of fresh air compared to the hell surrounding them. A wisp of her sandy hair had slipped free and was lying across her rosy cheek. Although she was no raving beauty, Wes found her face intriguing, especially her wide, soft mouth and those very deep, dark-blue eyes that he didn’t think missed a thing.

He found his heart opening, and that shocked him. Every time Callie was near him, or he thought of her or pictured her face, the same feeling overcame him. That scared Wes. The only other time he’d felt like this was when Allison, his fiancée, had been with him. Sadness overwhelmed him momentarily at the thought. She had been a firefighter. She’d died in a ten-story building fire, and his love for her had gone up in those flames, in that black smoke.

Wes had sworn he’d never again be drawn to a woman who did dangerous work for a living…yet here he was once more, with the same kind of tantalizing joy creeping through his heart. It told him he was powerfully drawn to Callie. But she had a dangerous job, dammit, and he simply couldn’t love her as he’d loved Allison. No, his heart couldn’t stand such a risk again.

Wes found himself wrestling with the past. Looking at Callie, he wanted to forget the stern promise he’d made to find a woman in a safe job. Callie was so beautiful in his eyes. That outgoing warmth she’d automatically established with him seemed to ease all his burdens, made him want to reach out, pull her into his arms and hold her tight until the air rushed from her lungs. That was the effect she had on him.

Trying to shake off the desire and need he felt for her, Wes tried to focus on what she was doing. She’d quickly drawn her grid with expert strokes and was now numbering each area.

“Okay, Lieutenant…” She laughed apologetically. “I mean, Wes…”

“I’d like to use first names when we’re alone,” he told her in a gritty, intimate voice, stepping close to her. “We’re both the same rank. I don’t have a problem with it—unless you do?” Sexual harassment was something today’s military was working hard to eradicate. The U.S. Navy had a color-coded warning system in place, and since the Marines Corps was technically a part of this service, they employed the same criteria.

“Green” meant that the person receiving the comment felt it was appropriate. “Yellow” meant that the comment or choice of words made the recipient uneasy and unsure of the sender’s intentions. “Red” meant that the sender had crossed over the line and the receiver considered the comment or gesture sexual harassment. Ever since the Tailhook 2 scandal in the early nineties, the navy used this three-color system to help everyone understand what was and was not sexual harassment.

Callie glanced over at Wes. She wanted to simply stare at him. His face was strong, and she liked the life that glimmered in his forest-green eyes. “Sure. Callie is fine. It’s a green, Wes.” Pleasantly surprised by his intimacy and friendliness, Callie knew he was questioning whether she felt his demeanor toward her was harassment. It wasn’t; his warmth was welcome under the circumstances. Saying it was a green situation told him that. It also meant she was leaving the door open for a much more potentially intimate relationship with him, but that had yet to be verbalized.

Her heart pounded briefly at her boldness. Could she say it to his face? What a coward she was! Callie felt incredibly drawn to him and unable to stop the energy that seemed to pulse between them when they were together.

She handed Wes the pen and leaped down off the bumper. As she picked up the leather leash, Dusty instantly stood up, his tail wagging. He was ready to go to work.