Chapter 11

Friday 2:20pm

The stairs were slippery with dust and littered with plaster that had fallen from the ceiling and walls. It was an area that seemed to have experienced more damage than the rest of the hospital, and Mark made a mental note to inform the janitors of the potential hazards in the stairwell. However, his preoccupation blocked the realisation that if the elevator had truly been out of order, there would have been signs of greater foot traffic passing through the area. As it was, he was too intent to even feel the effects of the extra exertion on his already weary body.

"Excuse me. Could you tell me where I can find the maternity ward?"

Although he was peripherally aware that someone was coming up the stairs behind him, Mark was startled to be asked a question. He turned round in mid-step, ready to give directions, when the stranger's eyes widened in alarm indicating something in front of him on the stairs. "Watch out!" Mark looked back hastily in confusion, then somehow, he was never really sure how, he tripped up over something and was falling backwards. As his centre of gravity shifted irretrievably, he windmilled his arms in an instinctive attempt to save himself. A flash of deja vu took him back to the morning of the previous day as he had tipped off the chair in the Gilman house. This time, however, his son's strong arm was not there to steady him, and with more of a sense of loss than fear, he toppled down the flight of stairs.

A grab for the railing succeeded in slowing his momentum, but he still landed in an ungainly heap at the bottom of the steps. As he lay, too stunned to move, Mark was aware of the sound of footsteps descending to his side, and was dimly grateful that help was so near. As the stranger bent over him, the door to that level swung open, narrowly missing his head, and twin gasps of horror echoed through the stairwell.

"My God, Dr. Sloan. What happened?"

"He fell, I'll go for help."

"Betty, stay with him. I'll get Dr. Travis."

Mark recognised the new voices as belonging to two of the ICU nurses, but the exchange largely went over his head as he muttered reassurances and concentrated on testing his limbs for broken bones.

As he struggled to sit up, Jesse was suddenly by his side. "Don't move, Mark. You've had a bad tumble down the stairs."

"Actually, I think I bounced quite nicely," Mark retorted. He patted his generous waistline. "This has to be good for something. I'm fine, Jess, just a little bruised."

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that," Jesse responded gently. "OK, pupils equal and reactive, that's good, but you've got a nasty contusion on your forehead."

Mark endured the poking and prodding patiently for a few minutes, but when Jesse announced his intention of ordering some further tests, he rebelled. He grabbed Jesse arm in a plea for his full attention. "Jesse, we don't have time for this. It's been nearly 24 hours since the earthquake, and they say the first 72 hours are critical. There's little hope of finding anyone alive after that. I promise you nothing is broken."

Jesse sat back on his heels, regarding his friend dubiously. His instincts as a doctor were warring with his instincts as a friend. He knew how desperately Mark wanted to be out looking for Steve and seconded that desire. However, such a fall should not be taken lightly - especially for man of Mark's age. He stalled any immediate decision with a question. "What happened?"

"I suppose I tripped over my own feet; I really don't know how it happened," Mark confessed with some embarrassment.

"I can guess," Jesse said with some asperity. "You're exhausted. You haven't slept in two days. Breaking your neck falling down the stairs or collapsing through fatigue is not going to help Steve."

He regretted the words as soon as he'd spoken them and tried to change the subject. "Why did you take the stairs anyway?"

Mark looked puzzled. "The elevator is out of order."

"Since when?" was the immediate reply.

Mark looked around vaguely for his erstwhile good Samaritan but, not seeing him anywhere, dismissed the topic as unimportant. His head hurt too much to waste time on extraneous details. "I guess it was a misunderstanding."

He levered himself up, trying to make it look as effortless as possible, but the skeptical expression on his young friend's face was proof that he was fooling nobody. He gave Jesse his best scapegrace smile. "Well, a couple of pain killers wouldn't go amiss."

He walked into the hospital, ignoring the clamor that renewed movement set up in his newly acquired bruises. Jesse prescribed some extra-strength analgesics and explained the plans made in Mark's absence. "Amanda has already set out in her car. She's heading for Mercy and will check out all the other hospitals they've evacuated people to in that area. They've transported a large number of people to UCLA. Do you want to try there?"

Mark started to shake his head, but quickly changed his mind as the pounding in his head reached a new crescendo. "I want to go the University at Hilton Heights to try to retrace Steve's footsteps," he said decisively. "Hopefully, I'll find someone who's seen him or knows what happened to him. Maybe you could check out UCLA."

Jesse might have raised stronger objections to Mark's precipitous departure from the hospital so soon after his fall, but the suspicion had crossed his mind that recently Community General and its environs hadn't been too healthy for Mark. Although Jesse had found no suspicion of foul play, two near-fatal accidents for his friend in one day were too much of a coincidence for his peace of mind, and he was glad to see him off the premises.

The problem of transportation proved easier to solve than Mark had dared hope, and before long, he was in a medivac chopper heading for Hilton Heights. The city looked remarkably peaceful as they swung out over it, and now he was on his way and ready to do something constructive to find his son, Mark felt some of his tension dissipate. To his surprise, he actually dozed on the flight, the demands of his exhausted body impossible to banish any longer.

The helicopter landed in the nearest open space, a field that looked like it was primarily used for soccer. Mark alighted slowly, his body having stiffened painfully during the journey. The university was in shambles, though the damage was not uniform. The newer buildings remained structurally intact though windows were smashed and facades had collapsed. The older buildings, however, were crumpled masses of brick and stone, and Mark made his way over to the location of the largest rescue effort. A tall black man in a hardhat was directing operations, and, after a quick glance at Newman's list, Mark approached him. "Marcus Sheldon?"

The glance he received in return was distinctly unfriendly. "And you are...?"

"Dr. Mark Sloan." He held out his hand and it was grudgingly shaken.

"Medical or academic?" Mark almost smiled at the taciturnity which this man seemed to have raised to an art form.

"I'm head of Internal Medicine at Community General," he elaborated.

"Then you're welcome to stay." Sheldon unbent enough to throw a nod of acceptance in Mark's direction.

Mark was nearly certain that Steve had left the campus. Newman had reported that his car had not been found in any of the lots, but the slender possibility that his son was buried under that immense heap of rubble kept Mark rooted to the spot. It was a scene of intense activity. People, mostly firefighters dressed in heavy yellow coats and sturdy helmets, picked painstakingly through the rubble. Some formed bucket brigades, passing the debris down the line to the next man. Others searched with dogs, or wielded blowtorches or other equipment. There were two large, yellow cranes which occasionally lifted wreckage but, to Mark's surprise, were largely standing inoperative.

Impatient for results, he queried this inactivity. Sheldon seemed willing to provide explanations, though all the while his eyes roved incessantly over the scene ahead, watching vigilantly for signs of trouble. "If anyone is left alive, they'll be hidden in small pockets and niches. The bulky machines might destabilise the wreckage and jeopardize any survivors awaiting rescue. We have to do this the hard way." He pointed out the sophisticated listening devices that were used to detect signs of life, and the tiny cameras that could search crevices that might shelter a body.

The efficiency of the operation and the competence of the personnel involved gave buoyancy to Mark's floundering hopes. He pulled a picture of Steve out of his pocket but, before he had time to show it to Sheldon, there was a shout - "There's another one coming, Boss!" and Sheldon sprang into action.

Pulling a klaxon out of his pocket he let loose a loud blare. "Everyone off, right now!" People streamed off the rubble like ants fleeing an ant hill, Sheldon assisting those with heavy equipment. For an instant, everyone froze; then the familiar rumbling began and the earth began a gentle rolling motion. It wasn't a violent aftershock, but Mark could see that such a movement would most likely settle the debris and trap potential rescuers. He swallowed painfully at the realisation of how easily it could crush someone already enclosed in the collapsed building.

After a minute, Sheldon sounded the all-clear and operations resumed. "How did you know?" Mark was genuinely curious, wanting to learn everything he could that might be useful in saving his son.

Sheldon shrugged deprecatingly. "Luckily, radio waves travel much faster than seismic waves. A seismograph network is set up near the epicenter, and the instruments detect any aftershocks and broadcast warnings to the work sites. We get about a twenty-second warning here."

Mark held out his photograph of Steve, his hand shaking slightly despite his best efforts to control it. "I'm looking for my son, he's a cop. Have you seen him?"

Sheldon picked up on the implications of the question from the intensity of Mark's delivery and the unspoken plea in his eyes. His eyes flickered back to the ruins in front of him. "Was he here?" he asked, a gruff sympathy in his voice.

As Mark followed his gaze, the anguish of uncertainty with its wrenching counterpoints of fear and hope was clear in his expression. "I think he'd just left, but I don't know for sure," he admitted.

"If he was heading back for LA, he'd probably have gone that route." Sheldon pointed out the road. "But you should know that the center of town is not in much better shape."

It was a considerate warning, but words could not prepare him for the destruction of a community. The main street was ripped apart, the pavement shattered with fissures running haphazardly through the ground. Houses were tumbled around like child's toys, the demolished remains of homes horrifying at that close proximity. He knew that other families had suffered greatly, but his innate empathy was stifled by his own heartache.

He showed everyone he met Steve's picture, but received only head shakes. It was as if Steve had vanished off the face of the earth, worse, as if he'd never existed, and with his disappearance, Mark himself had lost his anchor to reality and was merely a phantom drifting through the evening with no tangible connection to the world.

It was not only that Steve himself was still missing, but there had been no sighting of his car. The light was fading, making discovery less probable and as the minutes slipped into hours, time trickling inexorably through his fingers, the conclusion was becoming more inescapable that the car and it's owner were buried under the Soledad Canyon Bridge.

With determination, Mark pushed his morbid thoughts aside, refusing to surrender the last of his hope. He needed his son back, the alternative was unthinkable. He reached the center of town, which had indeed suffered considerable damage, and was making his way towards a group of people halfheartedly clearing some fallen telephone poles out of the street, when his eye was drawn to a glint of metallic colour. Unaware of his own movements, he was pulled to it as irresistibly as iron filings to a magnet.

Thrusting his hands between the bricks, he pushed them aside without finesse or strategy, uncaring of bruised knuckles, broken nails and bleeding skin. It was Steve's car, he knew it was. The colour and the place were right, even if it had been crushed out of any recognisable shape by the force of the collapsing wall. In a frenzy of horror, he tore through the debris, dreading what he might find inside. The driver's door had been torn off, so it didn't take too long to be sure that no one was within, and a more careful inspection revealed no signs of blood.

Mark sank limply to the ground, sitting on a conveniently upraised piece of sidewalk while his mind raced in circles, trying to sift through the implications of his discovery. One mystery was solved, and the spectre of the bridge could be laid to rest, but it didn't bring him any closer to finding his son or answering the question of his survival.

There was a gentle nudge against his knee, and he opened his eyes to see a water flask offered. He gratefully accepted the anonymous gift and took a deep swallow before looking up into the kind eyes of a Hispanic man of around his own age.

"Are you OK?" The gentle concern nearly undermined his fragile emotional control.

"I'm fine," he answered automatically, although it was patently untrue. His whole body ached unmercifully, though it was nothing compared to the pain in his heart. Wearily he held out the picture of Steve again, wiping off a smudge of blood with his sleeve. "This is my son. Have you seen him?"

"Yes, yes, good man, very good man." His new friend nodded enthusiastically and tapped the photograph for emphasis. "He saved my son's family and many others. Good man."

Mark had got so used to negative responses to his enquiry that it took a moment for his tired mind to register the words. As comprehension dawned, Mark's heart seemed to leap violently into his throat. It hung vertiginously for a split second before slamming back to pound with almost painful intensity against the wall of his suddenly tight chest.

"You've seen him? He's alive? Where is he?" The questions tumbled almost incoherently from his lips in his thirst to hear the answers.

The old man didn't answer at once, his frown of concentration indicating an effort to recall, but the delay, minimal as it was, stretched Mark's patience to the limit. Finally, with an apologetic shrug, the man, who introduced himself as Jorge, admitted defeat. "I'm sorry, I don't know. However, Maria will know. You need to ask Maria Fernandez."

"Where can I find her?" Mark asked eagerly.

More questions revealed that Maria was a nurse who had worked with Steve to assist the injured after the quake, and that she had gone to the City Memorial Hospital with a group of wounded. Mark thanked his new friend sincerely, and made as quick an exit as he could. Like a bloodhound finding a scent at the end of a fruitless hunt, he was quivering with eagerness to follow this promising trail. The knowledge that Steve had survived the initial quake was like a swig of iced water in the middle of the Sahara, but, as invigorating as it was, only the sight of his son alive could truly quench the thirst the burnt within him.