Chapter 39

The blaze, now shooting out of the roof in several places, was more intense than Theresa and Jeanie imagined.

"Jeanie! My God. Your house."

Jeanie stopped. Frankly, she was immobilized. Not by the loss of her property, but by the fact that she didn't have any way of knowing if John had gotten out.

As Agent Barnes was taken away, Jeanie's contact had also left. The last she knew, John was still inside. The perilous plight she was looking at, had not been adequately conveyed. In the back of the lot, surrounded by cars, she had no idea that her house was nearly totally engulfed in flames.

"Honey, we have to move." Jeanie heard her husband say.

A person, one couldn't always tell gender in full fireman's clothing, walked over and waved for them to follow.

They walked in a wide arc around the burning structure. Tim pointed as two firemen were soaking once section of the back of the house with water.

"What are they doing?" he asked, but his words were drowned out with the other shouts and spray of water.

As they came around front, Theresa saw her daughter and broke into a run.

"Where's John?" was the first thing Jessica said as soon as Theresa let go to look at her daughter.

"Isn't he with you?" Theresa answered.

Jeanie, her husband, and Tim arrived as Jessica rattled off, "I was pulled out first, and they took me here. Mom, they were shining the light in my eyes and everything, just like you do. I think I saw Fiona and they took her over there," Jessica said, pointing, "but I haven't seen John."

"I'll find him," Jeanie said.

"I'm going with you," her husband added and the two of them went towards where Jessica pointed where she thought she saw Fiona taken.

Fiona thought she should introduce Jeanie and her husband to her father. That was just before she saw that they knew each other already.

"This is a surprise," Antonio said.

"It has been a long time," Jeanie said.

"I'm sorry for this," Antonio said, waving his hands in gesture to the house. "I should have protected her better."

Jeanie and her husband looked at each other, wondering just what he meant by that, as it could be taken several different ways.

"We were looking for John," Jeanie said covering the awkward pause.

"They didn't get him out?" Fiona said in alarm. "He told me to go and not to worry about him. Oh, God! Oh, GOD! Daddy!"

"Il mio angelo piccolo, I will find out what has happened to this John person."

"Daddy, he was trapped. He has a cast on. He made me go."

Just then the front porch of the house fell in.

Antonio looked around and said "Where is my brother when I need him?"

"You called?"

"Stay with Fiona. Don't let her out of your sight."

Special Agent Downs was on the outskirts of the action. For one thing, he had an overview of what was going on. Secondly, fires screwed with communications.

The fire chief had told him that they would get the trapped boy out of the house. Looking at the burning structure, he wondered if there was any hope.

The main office was relaying information to him. Agent Barnes was the first on his agenda. She was in surgery and nothing would be known for a while.

He then got a rundown on what had happened and why they had lost communication with Agents Woods and Ling.

If the problem before him hadn't been so consuming, he would have gone over and strangled Agent Woods.

When the agent that Downs sent over with the two Bartenelli wives showed up, he had found some startling things.

Agent Ling was in the living room, resting, with an ice pack on her head. The two girls were sitting on each side of her.

Agent Woods was out in the garage with the two boys. The agent had listened at the door before opening it. From the sound of things, the two boys were laughing and Woods was cursing at them.

It had startled the three when the door had been opened. The agent saw Woods look up, petrified, a soldering gun in his hand. He also noticed the two boys change their looks to match that of Agent Woods. He couldn't understand that, until he heard a voice from behind him. Their mother rattled off some Italian to them.