The Glass Inferno Read online

  The Glass Inferno

  Thomas N. Scortia

  Frank M. Robinson

  The Glass Inferno, co-written by Thomas Scortia and Frank Robinson, is one of the two novels (along with The Tower) that became the classic disaster movie "The Towering Inferno".

  Set in an an unnamed Anycity, USA, the book chronicles the traumatic, destructive events of a single wintry evening. The centerpiece of the story is the Glass House - a beautiful-and-controversial new skyscraper.

  The story concerns the events during the grand opening celebration of a brand new high-rise building (66-stories-tall) in an unnamed American city. The building was called the National Curtainwall Building, nicknamed the Glass House, the headquarters of the fictitious National Curtainwall corporation. A combination of a skyscraper built to the absolute minimum compliance with safety rules, combined with cutting corners to save money on construction, leads to a disaster waiting to happen.

  THE GLASS INFERNO

  by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson

  For Martha, Emilie and Richard -in Appreciation

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  No project of the size and scope of THE GLASS INFERNO can be the sole product of the authors. From May 1972, when the project was first conceived, to the present, a great many people have contributed their time and technical information to the book.

  Errors, nevertheless, do creep in and for these we.assume full responsibility. In some instances we have taken auctorial license, particularly in minimizing the smoke hazards of high-rise fires.

  THE GLASS INFERNO is not intended as an indictment of architects or contractors-there are no such villains in the book-but rather as a comment , on the nature of human error and the economic pressures inherent in modern building technology. The city is nowhere identified since all modern cities and towns, to a greater or lesser degree, face the same problems in fighting high-rise fires. The Glass House itself, as the reader might expect, is a composite of many such buildings.

  And, of course, the characters of THE GLASS INFERNO exist only in our imaginations, and any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is not intentional.

  We would like to thank Inspector James I. King of the San Francisco Fire Department, Architect Rob Hult and Researcher Gene Klinger for valuable technical information and for reading and commenting on the final manuscript. We are also indebted for specialized technical information and help to retired Fire Administrator Warren Pietro, Anchorman Bob Marshall of K.G.O, helicopter pilot and Chief Warrant Officer Gerald W. Fisch, Attorney David Hodgehead, and Marion Cole of the National Fire Protection Association. Special thanks for thoroughness go to our research assistants, Kathy Fast and Tom Passavant. Finally, a bow of appreciation to two very patient ladies: Jan McMillan, who often worked into the night hours on manuscript drafts, and our editor Diane Cleaver who, with others at Doubleday, was more than kind and helpful to us. -Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson

  Early Evening

  CHAPTER 1

  Every beast has a time and place of birth. For the fire, it was late afternoon in a small room deep within one of the newer high rises that dotted the city.

  The room had purpose and importance-though it was never pointed out during the frequent tours of the building and an indefinable odor, characteristic of rooms of its type. It was also a little more cluttered than the usual.

  It was shortly after five o’clock when the door to the room opened, thereafter the overhead fluorescents-flickered on. There was a long pause, the slight shuffling sounds of something being moved, then the snap of a switch as the lights extinguished. Eyes blinked in the glow from the open doorway, casually inspecting the room for a few seconds.

  Then shoulders briefly obscured the light from the corridor, the door closed, and the room lost itself in darkness.

  But not total darkness. A small spark glowed in one corner of the room, nursed by a frayed cotton strand-the umbilical cord for the beast.

  The temperature of the room was a little less than 70 degrees and starting to fall, mirroring the chill autumn air outside the building.

  By four-thirty Wednesday afternoon, the long-expected Canadian cold front was passing north of the city. On Lee Avenue, the young saplings in front of the National Curtainwall Building, stripped of their autumn foliage, whipped violently against the surrounding wrought-iron grills.

  Low banks of clouds scudded across the sky and the fine rain turned into a biting sleet. Workmen, decorating the street lamps with plastic Santa Clauses, clutched desperately at their ladders as ice began to coat the rungs.

  Clerks and secretaries, dismissed early for the Thanksgiving holidays, deserted the middle of the sidewalk for the narrow safety offered by building fronts, or else scurried for the security of subway entrances, repeatedly losing their footing on the slick of water and melting ice.

  Six blocks away, Craig Barton leaned impatiently against the steering wheel of his rented car and nervously chewed the end of an unlit cigarillo. The traffic had slowed to a halt and an occasional wisp of cold air seeped into the car’s interior, cutting through the feeble warmth from the defective heater. The perfect ending for a lousy day, Barton thought. Stacked up over the -airport for an hour, then a lemon for a drive-away, and finally the traffic jam as a capper.

  He couldn’t get to the office now before everybody had left; there’d be no chance to double check on why Leroux had sent for him in the first place.

  He’d be walking in cold and Wyndom Leroux was no man to have a conference with if you were unprepared.

  It wasn’t going to be a pleasant evening in other ways either.

  Jenny had paged him at the airport to relay Leroux’s sudden invitation to dinner and it was obvious that it hadn’t set well with her-not that anything did set well with her these days. And if the dinner lasted long ‘enough and the weather worsened, they’d probably wind up spending the night in a hotel instead of with Jenny’s parents in nearby Southport. That was sure to bring tears and recriminations from Jenny.

  It would never occur to her that he might have his own resentments about being called back to headquarters in the middle of delicate negotiations.

  The light turned green and the crowds at the corner surged across the street, spreading out to thread their way through the close-packed automobiles. Darting in and out of the noisy tangle of traffic, like water beetles skimming across a crowded pond, messenger boys sped by on single-speed Schwinns, their baskets loaded with records, stacks of print-out sheets, and rolls of blueprints.

  For a second, Barton’s nostrils flared at the memory of the faint ammonia odor of the prints, a smell that always excited him with its associated visions of buildings yet to be built.

  He leaned forward, suddenly curious, and glanced out the window at the city’s skyline. Even in six months, there had been changes. The Traveler’s Building had been topped out and the Curtainwall was two thirds of the way up: pseudo-Mies van der Robe inspiration that unfortunately didn’t have the clarity of detailing that was The hallmark of a van der Robe project. A hundred yards north, the new Fireman’s Insurance Headquarters loomed in the sleet. It was a more sensitive structure, though the site itself was bad-so small that the building seemed crammed onto it and the plaza in front looked the size of a child’s’sandbox. The Kohnke Insurance Building next to it didn’t help; it resembled a downtown motel more than an office building.

  The lights changed again. Barton toed the accelerator and lurched forward another thirty yards across the intersection before he came to a stop. Now he could see the Glass House-the nickname for the National Curtainwall Building-a few blocks away, its tower etched against the, dark clouds. He caught his breath. God, it’s beau
tiful!

  He felt the same sudden sweep of pride that he had felt when he flew in for the dedication three months before -sans Jenny, much to her annoyance.

  He clamped harder on the cigarillo and stared intently at the building. Damnit, he had a right to be proud-and so did Leroux.

  Sixty-six stories of gold-tinted glass panels and gold-anodized aluminum. The location on the north side of the financial district had been selected so there would be no buildings for several blocks around that could challenge it. There had been no compromise on the size of the site itself-the plazas on each side of the building were spacious and inviting; you didn’t feel crowded as you strolled across them to the building’s entrance. Sixty-six stories-thirty commercial and office floors and thirty-six of apartment floors-straight up with no setbacks. On the southern exposure, a shear wall marked the utility core and served as a golden backdrop for the scenic elevator to the Promenade Room at the top. Barton squinted; he could just make out the tiny spot of light crawling slowly up to the rooftop restaurant. They hadn’t done too badly, he thought; the most popular postcards in the local drugstores were those of the Glass House at night. It had become a symbol of ‘the city.

  The traffic was easing now and a few minutes later Barton was driving down the ramp that cut through one of the plazas into the basement garage. He caught a glimpse of the,plaza just before the building overhang blocked his view-a broad expanse of buffed terrazzo and native fieldstone on which white ceramic planters holding young conifers were scattered. White fieldstone and terrazzo steps ascended to the lower lobby, curving around a gleaming, free-form sculpture of gold-anodized aluminum and Plexiglass rods. At night, the rods were the light pumps of multiple-colored bulbs bidden in the base so that the delicate webwork of rods and wires was bathed in a slowly changing pool of light.

  He wheeled the car to the parking attendant’s booth and stepped out into the welcome warmth of the building.

  “How long you going to be, sir?” The car hiker slid into the seat he had just vacated.

  “Not sure-probably until about eleven. Fill up the tank while you’re at it, will you?”

  “They sure don’t do much for you at the airports these days, do they?”

  “Hell, they don’t even empty the ashtrays any more.”

  Barton walked past the gas pumps and caught the elevator up to the lower lobby. Just before the doors closed behind him, he heard the roar of a jack rabbit start and then the screech of tires. He smiled to himself; at least some things in the world never changed.

  . The lower concourse looked more finished than when he had last seen it. The shop windows glistened with displays of jade and Christmas cards, imported cameras, and stereo components. One display, intended for holiday vacationers, featured men’s sport shirts and short in a riot of Hawaiian colors. Barton paused for a moment to look at them.

  Two years of working for National Curtainwall and he hadn’t yet found time for the traditional two weeks in August. His resentment started to build; then he shrugged. Next year for sure, he promised himself, and stepped on the escalator to the main concourse.

  Barton felt another-wave of pride as he walked into the first-floor lobby; for a brief moment he felt like taking off his hat, as if he were ‘ in a cathedral. It didn’t have the overwhelming vastness of the lobbies in the newer hotels, but it was still a superb utilization of space. The proportions of the floor area were almost classical in their relationship and the exterior tinted glass walls extending two stories up gave a feeling of openness. At the far end of the concourse stood the tall, bronze doors of Surely National whee, at the opposite end, jutting into the lobby, itself, loomed the tiled mural walls of the square utility core that held the elevator banks and the numerous electric, steam, and gas lines that served the building.

  The scenic elevator pierced one side of the cord near the entrance, soaring up the shear wall, the external face of the utility core, to the Promenade Room.

  Barton recalled that Jenny had never ridden in it. He made a mental note to use it after dinner; the ride might take the edge off the evening for her. The elevator cage was darkened during its ascent or descent-the lights visible from the street were in the base-and the illusion of hanging suspended in space over the city below was breathtaking.

  The lobby was filled with employees leaving for the evening and for a moment Barton felt like a salmon swimming upstream. The office population of the building was close to three thousand and they all seemed to be trying to leave at once. The lights flicked off in Surely National, dimming that end of the lobby.

  He shoved his way through to the information desk opposite the bank of elevators that served the business floors. The dark-haired girl behind it, dressed in a chic gold-and-red uniform and wearing a little pill-box hat, looked vaguely reminiscent of “Johnny” in the old Philip Morris ads. She flashed him a stewardess-type smile.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but the Promenade Room is booked solid for the evening.”

  Six months away and already he looked like a tourist, Barton thought.

  “On a night like tonight?”

  The smile became tentative; she was afraid he was going to be difficult. “It’s the start of the holidays, sir, and we seem to be the ‘in’ spot in town.” She tried to soften the blow. “Another night, perhaps?”

  “I’m with Wyndom Leroux’s party,” Barton said shortly. “Did he leave any messages?”

  She looked impressed and shuffled through the papers on the desk.

  “His reservation’s not until eight o’clock but I don’t see any messages. Is there anything … ?”

  He turned away. “Thanks anyway.” The best idea would be to drop his bag in the offices, freshen up, and head for the Promenade Room bar.

  He was almost to the elevator bank when he spotted Dan Garfunkel, the head of security, talking to a young guard. Garfunkel was a thick, heavy-set man in his fifties. He had spent twenty years with the police force and another ten with the Burns Detective Agency. He was dressed in a plain, dark suit, his only badge of office being the two-way radio attached to his belt on the left hip; there was no mistaking his position, however. Everything about him spelled out “cop,” Barton thought. He was balding, with a thin fringe around the sides like a monk’s tonsure, and had a beard so heavy that Barton guessed he shaved twice a day when he -was on the job. He had a quiet, intense way of talking and was one of the few men whom Barton had ever met who could chew somebody out in a whisper. He was doing just that as Barton approached.

  “I know it’s not your shift but I’m short two men and you’re the last one on the roster, so that makes it your baby. You don’t like it, I’ll find a cop who wants to moonlight. Remember that the building officially closes at six and you start to check ID’s then. Any reservations for the Promenade,Room, send them over to Sue. Any difficulties, call me on your two-way. Don’t get smart with the people, you’re as much public relations as you are security. And I don’t want to hear any more complaints about kids in the lobby.”

  The guard nodded, stony-faced, and walked away. Garfunkel stared coldly at Barton for a second and then a mind that never forgot a face found an identification to go along with it. He shook his head, relaxing. “He’s a good man-four years in the MP’s-but I swear to God nobody wants to work any more, Mr. Barton; they all want a free ride.

  A little sleet and suddenly everybody’s sick or their car won’t start or their great-grandmother dropped in unexpectedly from Dubuque.”

  Barton looked sympathetic. “How shorthanded are you?”

  “A third of the shift didn’t show-it was Sammy’s great-grandmother from Dubuque, believe it or not. Which means I’ll have to spend the evening in the monitoring room, watching the idiot tubes with Yates.

  Helluva way to handle security, especially with all the shoplifting, burglary, and petty vandalism we’ve been having-Christ, we even had a rape last month. I’ve been after the super to install infrared sensors in the stairwells so we’ll know if
we’ve got trespassers, but nobody wants to spend the money.”

  “How’s the leasing going?”

  Garfunkel shook his head. “Almost all of the commercial and office floors are leased,” he said, ticking them off on his stubby fingers.

  “Fifty through sixty-four are still nearly empty, though some of the suites aren’t finished yet-you should try and make the rounds through that mess. And then there’s this guy Quantrell and his broadcasts. He’s really got it in for the boss and a lot of people watch him and get skittish. Me, I think Mr. Leroux ought to sue the bastard.”

  Barton had heard a little about Quantrell and his telecasts out in San Francisco. But mention of the apartment floors brought another thought to mind.

  “How’s Jernigan coming along?” Harry Jernigan had come from Burns along with Garfunkel. A handsome, athletic black in his early thirties, Jernigan was deputy head of security and responsible for the residential floors.

  Barton had met him once and the man’s natural sense of dignity had impressed him.

  Garfunkel smiled. “Harry’s doing great, just great.

  Some of the older tenants called him ‘boy’ at first; then they found out he had a master’s degree in fine arts and that ended that. A lot of the women give him the eye but he doesn’t let it get to him. If they could see what he’s got at home they’d all Turn green. I feel sorry for Harry, though; he’s got more relatives sponging off him than Standard has oil wells. He’s a good man, Mr. Barton. If I ever left here He shrugged. “Yeah, and someday the meek will inherit the earth.”

  “Times are changing, Dan; he’ll do okay.”

  “Maybe you think so and I think so but a lot of people out there, they don’t think so. Otherwise, he would have been able to use that master’s.” The lobby was emptying rapidly now. A few people milled before the information desk, checking on reservations. A group of cleaning women, most of them Puerto Rican, waited by the elevators, chattering away in soft Spanish. Garfunkel left to start his security rounds; Barton picked up his bag and walked over to the elevator bank.