His phone had no signal at all. Only the walkie-talkie carried intermittent calls.
"...Police Department...can anyone...hear us..."
The voice was muffled and threaded with piercing static, as though submerged underwater. Li Jie pulled the walkie-talkie off his shoulder and raised it overhead toward the gray sky.
"...our...building collapsed...need..."
"...second floor...someone...in..."
The transmission cut out again. He couldn't tell whether it was the signal or the person.
Those who could still move carried the injured out one by one. A dozen or so lay scattered across the parking lot. Some groaned; others remained motionless. Harkness had splinted Anna's left leg with two rulers and a torn shirt. She lay on a car door, her face white as paper, but kept her teeth clenched without making a sound.
Following the first-aid manual, he tried to move everyone into the open, but now he wasn't sure whether that was the right thing to do.
The streets resembled frozen black waves, their shapes utterly unrecognizable. Not a single intact building remained in sight. The former buildings looked like blocks someone had slapped apart, their upper halves stacked crookedly on the lower halves of their neighbors, exposing cross sections of room after room.
"Hard to say which side's more dangerous..."
Thanks to the earlier repairs and renovations, the East End Police Department's building was fairly sturdy. Even in an earthquake of this magnitude, only some of its interior finishes had collapsed. Cracks had appeared in the main structure, but it still stood, swaying precariously.
A large stretch of the parking lot had subsided, looking like a canyon. He badly wanted to call Harleen and check on her, but restrained himself. Using a public radio channel for that wasn't appropriate now. Many trapped officers were still waiting for hope.
Hope...
He turned to glance inside the