The Big Burn

“Ten-four. I’m on my way.”

“Anna, I can’t believe you just did that! The fire’s coming over the ridge. Moving fast. You can’t outrun it.”

“I know, but I couldn’t leave them down here.”

Anna reached into one of the inner pockets of her jumpsuit and took out a small pair of binoculars. She tracked along the ridgeline, acknowledging the treacherous beauty of the snaking line of fire, then she tracked down the hills into the gorge. How a fire feeds depended on where the fuel load was the heaviest, plus how the winds were directed by the lay of the mountains, and where inversion would multiply velocity.

What she was looking for was an area where the fuel load would be the least, the topography the easiest for the fire to quickly burn over.

When she turned and looked up the canyon, she saw the students running toward her. Stumbling, falling, getting up. Panic-stricken.

John Brock watched the rolling fires converge and explode down the gorge in a swirling avalanche of flame.

He had the marine pilot circle for nearly an hour before the wall of flame had moved on and the winds relaxed enough for them to hazard a landing. The firestorm had left behind smoldering brush, burning trees and blackened ground.

“Nobody’s surviving that for long,” the pilot said as they made their descent.

Brock held out no hope, but he had to confirm the deaths.

The pilot found a flat, burned-over area where he set the helicopter down, the rotors blasting up a cloud of blackened soot and dust.

Brock and the marine lieutenant exited the chopper, ducked under the orbiting blades and jogged away from the ash and dust.

He stared at the surroundings. It looked like a giant blowtorch had scorched everything. Embers still hissed and snapped like exploding firecrackers at the tail end of a Fourth of July celebration. Hundreds of smoke tendrils drifted skyward.

Brock tracked back and forth along the canyon and the arroyo as the acrid smoke wreaked havoc with his sinuses and eyes. “The bodies have to be around here somewhere,” he said somberly, then sneezed.

They began the melancholy search. Brock was moving along a dry, shallow creek bed, when he stopped. Dirt under an overhang just ahead of him moved. It occurred to him that he might be looking at the covered den of a mountain lion.

When the dirt and ash moved again he started to ease his hand toward the 9 mm Glock in the shoulder holster under his left arm.

He stared drop-jawed at what he saw next. They came out one at a time, dirt and ash falling off their protective shields. All of them. All five.

The college students appeared to be in total shock. They stared silently, amazed to be alive.

The one in the fire gear barked orders like a drill sergeant at her rescued lambs, telling them to pack the heat shields and whatever else was on the ground that wasn’t burnt up. She had to be Anna Quick.

She was a tall, striking woman, even when covered in ash. She wore her golden-brown hair short and had a confident swagger as she walked toward him. She was prettier than the picture they had on file.

“You are, I believe, Anna Quick?” Brock asked.

“I am. And I appreciate whoever you are for getting here so fast.”

She turned and started to direct the college kids to the chopper.

“We’re not the rescue team,” Brock interrupted, then radioed the chopper pilot who told him a rescue bird was on its way. Brock then relayed that information to Anna.

They ducked away from gust of ash the wind had kicked up.

“If you aren’t here to help, who are you? And what are you doing here in the middle of this mess?”

“My name is John Brock. I came here especially for you.” He showed her a Military Intelligence ID.

She studied it for a moment, then handed it back. “What could Military Intelligence possibly want with me that’s so important they’d come looking for me in the middle of a fire?”

“We need your help. Or, more specifically, your father needs your help.”

So much for the intelligence part. These guys were wrong. “My father’s presumed dead. Has been for the past eight years or hasn’t anyone bothered to pass that information on to you?” It came out harsher than she’d meant it to, but she was exhausted. She turned to walk away.

“Well, actually he’s not dead. At least not yet.”

Chapter 2

Anna tried to absorb what this guy was telling her. There wasn’t any chance that it was some kind of bad joke. He didn’t look like the joke type. Plus, he had a chopper, a marine officer accompanying him and the official ID. No, he was on the level.

Her father was alive? Given what she’d just gone through with the fire, dealing with this news was almost more than she could get herself around. She needed a moment for it to settle in.

“Let me take care of my business here—” Anna gestured to the students “—before I deal with this, if you don’t mind.”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you think you can spare some water?”

“No problem,” Brock said, and asked the marine to see what was on their chopper.

For the next fifteen minutes Anna stood with her group while each of them tried to make cell-phone calls to desperately worried parents and friends. The conversations touched on how great their rescuer was.

Their attitudes, now that they were assured of certain survival, became jovial. They had a great story to tell and they were already getting into it.

Meanwhile, the marine lieutenant, square jawed and rather gaunt-looking, fetched some much-needed water bottles and passed them around. Anna quickly guzzled one and went for a second.

John Brock was off pacing and talking on his cell phone. Occasionally he’d glance over at her as he talked, nod, as if she was the topic of conversation. He was well over six feet, had a beach tan and had gone a day or two without a shave. He sported square sunglasses, a loose-hanging blue shirt and khaki pants with side pockets.

When the rescue chopper appeared and landed on the valley floor, the hikers headed for it like refugees from a dying planet. While the students boarded, Anna finally turned and walked over to Brock. He had that look of someone who’d seen and done things that you would never hear about in the light of day.

She took a deep breath and said, “Okay, you’re telling me my father is alive, which I don’t believe. Was he a prisoner somewhere? Is that why he’s been missing all this time?”

“No. Not exactly. But that’s a story for another time. Right now he’s in trouble and we need to get to him as soon as possible.”

“Where is he?”

“Malaysia.”

“My father’s alive in Malaysia, and he’s in trouble? You came all the way out here to tell me that? I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

She brushed ash from her face and ran her tongue over her now extremely chapped lips as she struggled to get a grasp on what this man was telling her.