Sprinklers in the ceiling have begun spraying water like rain. Fans must be churning somewhere, but I feel like I’m choking on soot. The heat and smoke will soon overwhelm me. Laying the muzzle of Regan’s pistol against my leg chain, I fire. The first bullet fractures one link; the second severs the chain.

Getting to my feet in the smoke, I make my way to Caitlin’s pole. Freeing her proves more difficult, but a third and fourth bullet snap the ropes, and she stumbles away from the pole.

“We’ve got to get out!” I shout. “Now!”

“Make sure Johnston’s dead!” she cries, lifting the fire extinguisher and stumbling downrange to where the bank boxes still burn.

I turn and find my way to Sleepy’s body, then drop to the floor and press two fingers into his neck, searching for a carotid pulse. I feel nothing at first, but as I dig for any pressure, he says, “I can’t move, man. I think my back’s broke.”

“He’s alive!” I shout, scarcely able to believe it.

I whip my head back and forth, trying to find Caitlin again. Then the smoke parts, and I see her charging toward me with a charred box in her arms. Beyond her, orange flame still rages in the smoke. At the center of a burning sphere, two black figures appear locked in eternal combat, like soot-shadows seared onto a Hiroshima wall.

“Is Mr. Royal dead?” Sleepy Johnston rasps from beneath me.

“Yes,” I assure him, squeezing his hand.

The black man settles into a deeper stillness.

The charred banker’s box drops heavily to the ground beside me, then Caitlin falls to her knees. “We’ve got to get him out,” she says.

“We can’t move him. His spine’s hit.”

“He’ll burn alive!”

She’s right, of course. I must be in shock. We’re all about to burn.

“I’ll take his arms!” she says, scrambling to her feet and the suffocating smoke. “You get his legs. I’ll do what I can.”

“What about Henry’s files?”

She looks down at the charred box, then shakes her head. “Screw it. This man saved our lives.”

“Get back,” I tell her, recalling a moment much like this one seven years ago, when I carried my maid from our burning house. “Take your box and go.”

“Penn, you can’t—”

“Go, goddamn it! Don’t wait for me!”

Stunned by my anger, Caitlin bends and shoves her hands beneath the heavy box, then heaves it up to her waist. With an inchoate fury impossible to contain, I set my knees against the floor, shove my right arm under Sleepy’s back, then strain to heave him bodily over my shoulder. Fear and adrenaline surge through me, and my muscles bulge with blood.

“You’re going to fall!” Caitlin yells.

“Get out!”