Greed (ePub)

Linda is the first person on the scene of a four story apartment building that is on fire. She sends in crews for firefighting and rescue until one crew is almost killed in the process. She calls for an emergency evacuation of the building only to be told that on the fourth floor there are about 100 or more victims and they all need to be carried down aerial ladders since the stairs are impassable. Linda has no choice but to let the rescue continue until she has to make a choice, the safety of her firefighters or the fate of victims that appear to be dead from the smoke.

Stan Jaworski and Malcolm Greene are called in to investigate the fire, it is arson and most of the victims from the fourth floor died because of that arson. An arrest is quickly made but before it can go to trial the arsonist, who was released on bail, disappears.

A few months later two boys go missing and it is feared they are in an abandoned coal mine. Linda uses her position to go inside with Fred Mandelman to search for the boys. She is still guilty from all the victims that died at the apartment fire when she called for a second emergency evacuation to save her firefighters. The first tunnel they need to search is about 100 feet below them and four miles long. That is in addition to other tunnels and the bottom of the main shaft, 1,200 feet below them. There are bodies in the bottom of the shaft. After the rescue they decide they needed to recover the bodies in the bottom of the mine shaft. One of them is the suspected arsonist, shot dead and dumped in the mine.

We learn who the brains is behind the building arson and why. We also learn who the muscle is. The brains is arrested and will give up the muscle. The muscle has a plan to prevent that. He orders Jaworski's wife to be raped and kidnapped and then tell Jaworski that his wife will be tortured to death unless Jaworski kills the brains behind the plot. However, Stan's wife is on the phone with Linda as the men try to abduct her. Linda knows she must save Kathy Jaworski, her best friend, and stop the muscle, a man that has been terrorizing a whole community as well as a drug dealer and mass murderer. She also knows she is the only person that can do that.