Good reason, "Yes, sir," Darius said. "It is. " Okapor nodded and excused himself. And Darius sat at the folding table and listened to the rain, which was beginning barely, just at the edges to ease. Victoria finished with her detective at 2:34 a.m. She came to sit across from Darius at the phone table and a uniformed officer brought them both coffee and paper cups without being asked, which Darius thought was one of the kindest things anyone had done all night.
He wrapped his hands around the cup. The knuckles of his right hand were bruised from the elevator panel. He had almost forgotten about that. The skin had split and dried and he had not thought about it once since it happened. Victoria noticed.
She looked at his hand without saying anything. Then she looked at him. Tell me about the emergency services work, she said. Not the leaving, the work. He thought about that.
We went into buildings after disasters. He said earthquakes, collapses, industrial accidents. We went in looking for people who were still alive inside structures that were actively failing. He turned the coffee cup between his palms. The job was reading a building, knowing what it was telling you about, where it was stable and where it wasn't.
Knowing when you had 30 seconds and when you had three, knowing when to move fast and when moving fast would kill you. And you were good at it. Yes. Why did you stop? The real reason?
He looked at her across the table. Her eyes were direct and patient and she was the kind of person who could tell the difference between an answer and the real answer and she was not going to accept the first one. My partner on the team, he said name was Calvin Briggs. We worked together for 6 years. I was better at reading the structures knowing what was going to hold and what wasn't.
Calvin was better at he was better at believing it would work out. He stopped, exhaled slowly. We went into a parking structure in Riverside after a partial collapse. I called the structure at 15 minutes. I told Calvin we had 15 minutes of stability and then the southeast corner was coming down.
He looked at the coffee cup. Calvin found a survivor at 11 minutes. A woman with a broken leg. We started getting her out. At 13 minutes, I told Calvin we needed to move.
He said, "One more minute. " He stopped. Victoria waited. 14 minutes and 20 seconds," Darius said. The southeast corner came down. Calvin pushed the woman clear.