Firestorm (27 page)

“Yes sir!” they said in unison, hopping up.

“It’s risky!” Logan warned.

“Best kind,” Mike Moser quipped, immediately grabbing his gear and heading toward the command center so they could discuss their game plan. “The Sherpa or the Cessna?” he asked.

“Sherpa. We’ll need her weight against the wind.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Dirk said, stepping between Logan and the pilots. “Just what do you think you’re doin’, Logan? This is crazy, and you know it.”

“Step aside, Dirk. I’m going after her.”

“And do what? Get yourself killed in the process?”

“I’m going after her,” he repeated, pushing past his friend’s shoulder and striding toward his locker and gear.

Matt tried too, once they reached the lockers. “Logan,” he said, reaching out to take the other man’s arm, “you have to consider she … she might not have survived the crash. Or she might’ve gotten out and is hiking home right now. You might skydive in there and find no one but yourself to fight the fire. What’s the sense in that?”

“You of all people should understand why I have to go, Matt.” Logan winced inwardly at his sharp tone. “I have to go try and save the woman I love.”

Matt held his unwavering gaze. “Sometimes there’s no way to save ’em, Logan,” he said softly.

Logan grimaced and looked down at the floor, picturing Beth’s bright smile, her gaunt face. Then he looked back up to face his friends. “I have to try,” he told them. “I just couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try and help her when she was in trouble.”

Dirk and Matt glanced at one another and then back to Logan. Dirk was first to speak. “Then let’s make sure you have the best plan possible,” he said, turning toward the command center.

“We’ve got the east flank here,” said Ken Oakley, indicating a place on the map that was being gradually colored in as the fire moved toward Elk Horn. “Team eight lit their backfire before we could get to ’em,” he added grimly, daring to glance up at Logan.

“And the bad news is that we think Gene and Reyne went down here,” the air-operations manager said, circling an area dead center between Great Bear’s southeast flank and the backfire.

“Winds are at fifteen miles per hour, sometimes gusting up to twenty or thirty,” Joe put in. Logan ignored Dirk’s meaningful glance. He knew it wasn’t smokejumping weather.

“Best we can tell,” Joe went on, “is that you have maybe thirty minutes to get to them and get them to a clearing where we can land. We’ve called in the chopper from the local hospital. They’ll be at your clearing in forty minutes, as scheduled.”

“What if we dump some retardant here,” suggested the tanker pilot, pointing over Ken’s shoulder toward the map. “Give them some sort of backup in case they can’t make it to the clearing.”

“That’s a good idea,” Ken said. “You better take a chain saw and three fire shelters with you, Logan. If you’ve got two injured people in there, you’ll have no choice but to ride it out.”

Logan nodded, pushing away memories of Reyne’s last ride through the dragon’s mouth and what it would do to her to ride it out again.

“As soon as you pinpoint their location, Logan, we’ll start digging chains in your direction,” Dirk said. “We could try and make some sort of path out in a T formation between Great Bear and the two flanks of the backfire we’ve lit.”

“I don’t think that’d work,” Joe said. “Winds are too fast. You’d never stay ahead of ’em, and you all might get caught.”

“So this is it,” Logan said, nodding. “I have to get to Reyne and Gene, clear a landing spot, and get them to it or under shelters before one or both fires converge on us.”

The group all stared back at him, affirming his synopsis. “Well,
people, let’s get to work. My fiancée’s in there, and I intend to get her out.”

They took off eight minutes later. Logan had insisted on going in alone, not wanting to endanger any of his crew on the perilous mission. Mike understood the risks. As the Sherpa lumbered up into the sky, Logan glanced around the empty cabin and shivered involuntarily. It was eerie to be in the big, cold compartment without any of his crew along.

As soon as they leveled off, Logan stood and, holding on to the various rails above him, made his way to the open doorway. His equipment seemed bulkier, more unwieldy than usual, and he clenched his teeth as the plane dropped thirty feet, then rose, already encountering turbulence from the firestorm dead ahead.

Logan studied the huge plume of smoke behind them, to the west, that was the color of creamed coffee and represented the other flank of Great Bear. They were flying through a thin layer of smoke, presumably from the backfire lit only hours before. Logan leaned out to study the line, pleased to see that it was making good headway and was right on target to end Great Bear’s western front.

To the east, however, Great Bear was having his heyday. The rocky slopes were too tough in many places for groundpounders to reach, and when they did get close to the fire, the terrain fought them with every step in their efforts to dig chains. The result was a haphazard, sloppy line that he and Reyne had eventually called off.

Reyne had been right. The backfire was a far better plan—to move closer to Elk Horn, where the terrain smoothed out, dig a fire line there, set the backfire, and get the heck out of Dodge, as Thomas would say.

But now that same fire that Logan had helped her engineer was threatening her life.
If
she was still alive. Logan swallowed hard, pushing away the unthinkable possibility.

She was alive. She had to be.

Reyne willed her eyes to open, feeling as if there were heavy weights on each. She couldn’t imagine where she was or why she had such a pounding headache. “I don’t have time for migraines,” she muttered, cradling her head in her hand and finally managing to pull one lid to half-mast.

When the image before her registered, both eyes flew wide open. She was in a helicopter, and the windshield had shattered into a blue cracked montage that reminded her of a winter frosted window. But it was too hot. Much too hot. Suddenly it all came together, and she eased her head toward Gene, forcing herself to look.

He was slumped over, his helmet askew, his aviator glasses in his lap. Not breathing. Feeling as if she had been drugged, Reyne leaned toward him and pulled her hand toward his neck to seek a pulse. Finding none, she let go, as relieved that that effort was over as she was grieved to find that Gene was gone.
O God
, she thought,
is this it? Am I to die in a helicopter crash?

But then she caught her first glimpse of Great Bear, directly in front of her, tiny flames dancing eerily in the million separate pieces of the helicopter’s windshield.
Oh no. Please God, no. I can’t fight him today. I can’t do it
.

I give strength to the weary. Hope in me, and I will make you soar on wings like eagles, walk and not be faint
.

Her version of the Isaiah verse popped into her head, repeating like a broken record. She moved her hand to the seat belt in uneven,
jerking motions and, after working at it for a while, managed to free herself. Then she opened the tiny, rounded door and leaned out, wincing at the pain in her head but seeking an unfettered view of Great Bear.

He was headed her way, a giant of a fire. Maybe ten, twelve miles away at the most. And coming fast down the mountainside.

“O God,” she mumbled. “I can’t do it again! I can’t!”

I am your fortress. Your refuge in times of trouble
.

She sighed, trying to get hold of herself. Then she leaned forward, opened the cockpit’s emergency kit, and managed to remove the tiny emergency beacon and a bottle of water.

Reyne rested for a moment, gathering her strength, checked once more for a pulse on Gene’s neck, then swung her legs outward. Slowly, ever so slowly, she eased out. She was half standing, half leaning against the helicopter wreckage when she saw it.
The backfire
, she thought, her memory suddenly clearing. She whipped her head in consternation back to Great Bear’s front, and the movement was too much. As fear forced a cry to her throat, a wave of black encompassed her.

I
’ve got ’em,” Mike said over the radio, his voice suddenly crackling into Logan’s ear. “Dead ahead. We’ll do a low cargo flyover and then return for your jump.”

“Roger,” Logan responded. He leaned out of the doorway, anxious to spot the wreck site and plan his dive. Within seconds it came into view; Logan swallowed hard against a wave of nausea and shoved the cargo chute out. He leaned to watch as his chain saw floated toward the ground ahead of him.

They were maybe three hundred feet above the ground when he saw her. “There she is!” he shouted into the helmet microphone, wincing as the plane’s belly again blocked her from his view. “Did you see her? Did you see her?”

“Roger that, Logan.” Mike’s grim tone made Logan stop and think. Seeing her outside the chopper was not necessarily a good thing. If she had been thrown from the vessel upon crashing, her chances were certainly slim. The Sherpa banked sharply, and Logan concentrated on his jump.

He saw the helicopter again just before having to concentrate on nothing but the approaching trees. Or he thought he saw it; he wasn’t sure. Then all of a sudden, a new wind picked up, blowing him to the west. In seconds, he was hanging in a tangle of lines and chute and tree branches. When the ripping and crunching sounds ended and Logan at last felt himself come to a stop thirty feet above the ground, he swore
mildly before he could stop himself. “Sorry, God,” he growled. “But even
you
have to admit things aren’t exactly going my way.”

An upright man gives thought to his ways
.

“Yeah, I hear you,” Logan muttered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Not wasting time, he clipped his descender hardware to the chute fitting, then looked around for a branch that would hold the horizontal stabilizer. That deployed, he released the chute lines and swung underneath the canopy, holding his breath that either the stabilizer rope or his backup line would hold. They did. Slowly, he rappelled downward on the letdown rope.

Once he reached bottom, Logan looked up to see the bright blue of the chute rippling in the wind. The sky beyond it was dark brown. He squinted, wiping away the sweat on his brow, and studied his surroundings, getting his bearings.

Logan could hear him. The Great Bear. He was maybe five, six miles away, judging from the huge, thunderous plume of smoke rising forty thousand feet into the air. Logan turned around. The backfire was closer, maybe three miles away, but moving more slowly than its larger counterpart. With either fire, they had precious little time.

He spotted his chain saw while he shrugged off his bulky Kevlar outfit, leaving only his Nomex shirt and BLM-issued pants. If he had to carry one or two people out of this mess, he couldn’t deal with the suit, too.

Then he shouldered his bulky pack and the saw, glanced down at the compass he wore on his wrist, and without hesitation headed out.

By his figures he had drifted more than a quarter mile off target. He jogged along the rocky path of a small ridge, grunting as the pack and saw bumped against his back. He was carrying a combined weight of more than a hundred pounds.

It took him ten minutes to get to his intended location and another five to spot the downed helicopter. Logan glanced behind him. Great Bear was coming fast. The evacuation chopper would be arriving in twenty minutes, expecting a cleared location. And he didn’t even know yet if Reyne was alive.

The wreck site lay at the base of a tiny valley, directly under a saddle in the ridge that Logan surmised was the cause of their accident.
The cool air came up from here
, he thought as he picked his way down a dry creek bed,
and met the hot air from Great Bear. Venturi effect
. He paused to look around and get his bearings. There she was. Not fifty feet from him. And very, very still.

“Reyne!” he shouted, unable to say more because he was panting so hard for breath. He neared her and paused to drop his pack and chain saw, irritated by the precious seconds it took. Unencumbered, he ran to her side.

“Reyne!” he repeated. “Can you hear me?” He glanced up again toward the approaching fire and grimaced at its pace. It had closed the distance to about three miles already, and it was crowning. That meant it had found ladder fuels—tall brush and lower branches that allowed the sweeping ground fire to climb to the tops of trees. Higher up, the winds blew faster, and therefore the fire came on faster. Too fast.

There. A pulse! He turned back to Reyne, quickly running his hands over her body to check for broken bones. She was unconscious, but he could find no major injuries; she had probably climbed out of the chopper herself before passing out. He willed himself to leave her side and check on Gene, who was still strapped into his seat.

While he jogged around the front of the chopper, bending low
to avoid the huge blades that had hit the ground at an angle and stuck, Logan radioed the command center. “Home base, this is McCabe. Do you read me?” The radio buzzed with interference. Logan pried open the pilot-side door and scanned Gene’s ashen face. Grimly he checked for a pulse. “Home base, this is McCabe. Do you read me?”

Finding no pulse, Logan clenched his teeth and shook his head. “Come on, God, we need your help here,” he said, looking around at the two walls of flame moving in on them from either side.

“Roger, McCabe, we read you loud and clear. Over.”

“Good. Chopper on its way? Over.”

“Winging its way toward you right now. Estimated TOA is 1750 hours. And McCabe, I doubt if you’ll have ten more minutes to get out of there. Over.”

Logan checked his watch. “It’s gonna take a miracle to make it. I’ve got one unconscious and one dead—Gene. You tell that chopper pilot to wait for us until the last second. You got that? Over.” He unstrapped Gene and pulled him out of the cockpit, wondering how he’d ever get his body and Reyne to the helicopter in time. He winced as he made the immediate decision to abandon Gene’s body. He and Reyne were still alive. And their only chance to stay that way was for Logan to make hard, fast, good decisions.