Wild Fire Read online

  “Looks like Janet found the best spot for us.”

  “That’s my gal, just doin’ her dance.”

  And that was all the excuse Brad needed to break into a quick rendition of “The Time Warp” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It didn’t work as well without Janet aboard and he gave up after only a verse or two. When he trailed off, Ripley felt bad about being too preoccupied to join him. She’d been watching Gordon come up alongside her in Vern’s Oh-three.

  It was painted, like all of MHA’s aircraft, in glossy black with red-and-orange flames streaming back from the nose. A big “03” in flaming letters was emblazoned on the side of the tail. Diana Prince would look darned silly in such a paint job. Good thing they were just a seasonal hire.

  “Hey, did you see a fire anywhere around here?” Gordon called her on the air-to-air frequency as he caught up to her.

  She glanced across the few hundred feet and could see him clearly.

  “Sure. I think there’s a small one up ahead somewhere.”

  “Okay. I think we’ll go hit it.” He waved. “Been real nice chatting, Wonder Woman. Gotta go. You’re welcome to follow…when you can.”

  She took her hand off the collective for a moment to give him the finger, pressed up against the acrylic windshield so that he couldn’t miss it.

  And he stuck his tongue out at her as Vern pulled away. She could tank faster than him with her sea snorkel, but he could fly faster. She looked ahead to the fire. They needed retardant in the big trees, but all they had was water.

  “Hit the leading edge,” Mark called. “All flights, overlapping drops. Try to smack down the crown fire.”

  Fat chance. The crown fire covered several acres, all driving against the leading edge of the several-thousand-foot-wide head. Another few hundred feet through the trees and the fire would be threatening the base itself. Oh-three’s drop was dead on, the white water showering down along several hundred feet of the fire.

  Ripley lined up her load to begin at the end of his drop zone.

  Brad had already dialed in a Six—heavy coverage that would dump the water fast instead of long.

  “Now,” she called out as she hit the emergency release button.

  The load hit the edge of the fire and it spilled long and clean.

  “Damn but that machine holds a lot of water,” Jeannie called in an awed voice from where Firehawk Oh-two flew next in line.

  With her hands occupied on the collective and cyclic, Ripley couldn’t pat the helicopter on the dashboard. “Good girl,” she whispered instead. “You show them who knows how to kick ass.”

  As she circled away and headed for the two-minute flight back to the lake, she watched the other fliers. Two more Firehawks, a pair of Twin 212s, and Vanessa’s MD 530—just as neat and cute as the woman was.

  Ripley really had to cut that out. She’d seen Vanessa on the fire yesterday and she was a damned fine pilot, darting her tiny helo right up to spot fires but never breaking stride to douse them.

  The flight swept across in a tight formation: clean, low, and moving fast. It was as precise a drop pattern as she’d ever seen. However rude their awakening had been and the stress of the fire about to overrun their base, any doubts she’d had about their purported skills being the stuff of rumor and exaggeration were dropped squarely on the fire, just as they had been on yesterday’s. Mount Hood Aviation deserved their sterling reputation.

  The Firehawks had almost twice her speed, so they were back at the lake before she was. These guys even tankered up in nice neat formations. Which worked for her because that left her a clear lane down the length of the lake again. Ripley ran the snorkel out as they cruised past the hovering Firehawks without slowing.

  “Now that is cool as shit.” It was Robin this time, from the command seat of Firehawk Oh-one.

  Ripley liked impressing MHA’s lead pilot. She would not think of the other impression that Gordon had made on her last night. And how she could still feel…

  The end of the lake arrived very abruptly and she had to claw aloft to clear the trees.

  “Where can I get me one of those?” Gordon asked aloud over Oh-three’s intercom.

  “Are you talking about the snorkel or the pilot?” Vern replied back over the intercom.

  “The pilot, of course!” Then he flinched and looked behind him, but they were alone in the big helicopter. No woman present to criticize his descent into a “guy” moment.

  Vern laughed along as Gordon had hoped. “Or are you planning to jump type to the Aircrane before I even have you fully trained in the fine art and wonders of my Firehawk?”

  “No,” Gordon reeled in the pump hose as Vern headed aloft. “I like the feel of the Firehawk better. It’s got way more balls than my little MD, that’s for sure. But the Aircrane is a beast of a machine, unlike her pilot. I don’t have to fly her to be impressed.”

  Vern glanced over, but didn’t say a word.

  Well, that sure as hell had come out all wrong.

  He should have said fly Diana Prince or the Aircrane, not “fly her.” Though he’d meant the helicopter, any attempt to fix that was going to be a dismal failure. Mouth shut, Gordon.

  They were regaining speed and fighting for altitude to clear the ridge between Badger Lake and the camp with an extra four-plus tons of water. The power of the Aircrane simply took it aloft, climbing far faster than the Firehawk.

  “She’s making it look easy, even with over ten tons of water aboard,” Gordon sought a subject change.

  Vern went one better, “So you and Vanessa? Just good friends? How can you be just friends with a woman who looks like that?”

  “Careful or I’ll tell your wife.” That should have worked. Vern’s six-month pregnant wife was also their head mechanic. Denise might be just five-five with blond hair down to her butt, but she was about as dangerous as Emily Beale.

  “But Vanessa?” Vern just wasn’t going to let it go and there was no point arguing. Every one of them had lusted after her at one point or another, but she’d never really hooked up with anyone.

  So Gordon told the truth, “I don’t know, man. I just don’t know. But it’s true.” Gordon shrugged his confusion. “What with Mickey hooking up with Robin this spring, I guess Vanessa’s natural shyness combined with my natural awkwardness just worked.” …out of bed.

  Vern didn’t argue the point on Gordon’s awkwardness around women, which Gordon kind of wished he had.

  Then all other thoughts died as the fire crested back into view. Their first attack had done almost nothing to slow the monster. Now it loomed close above their base.

  “One shot?” Vern’s voice cracked.

  That was all they were going to get. It would be laughable if not for the hole in his chest. When a fire had turned into a wildfire, dumping water on it was no better than throwing money at it. They needed an attack plan, dozer lines, retardant, and firebreaks. None of that could happen in under an hour—they had a hundred feet and maybe three minutes. Their home was a goner and it hurt to watch.

  The base itself had gone from organized hurry to utter mayhem. Fuel, service, and retardant trucks were racing out through the parking lot that was full of POVs—personally owned vehicles. The forklift was rushing pallets of parachutes, tools, and food supplies onto a big flatbed truck, but there wouldn’t even be time to tie them down. The base was emptying fast.

  And he couldn’t blame them. The timber was so dry that it was little more than two-hundred-foot-tall kindling to the monster flames that now climbed the hill.

  The airfield itself should have been a natural firebreak.

  The fire had other ideas. It had started its own weather system, sucking fresh, cool air in at the base in a desperate need for more oxygen. The inrushing air then fanned the flames, heating as it rose, and gathering clouds of burning debris. The light westerly winds weren’t a match for the growing fire system, and it was spewing the debris out onto MHA’s base.

  One of the service trucks w
as still close by the forest line. That truck had a container on its flatbed—Denise’s shop. It had almost everything needed to keep their fleet aloft, from hydraulic oil to air filters to replacement rotor blades strapped on the roof of the service pod.

  “Denise,” Mark called. “Get the hell out of there.”

  Gordon could feel Vern freeze through the controls. Gordon tried shaking them, and Vern didn’t respond. Hard to blame the guy, he was looking at a two-hundred-foot wall of flame leaning over his pregnant wife.

  Gordon shook the controls again, harder, a clear signal for the other pilot to let go.

  Vern did.

  Perfect! Now Gordon had command of an aircraft he’d never flown before.

  “Stalled,” Denise called up, “now it’s dead. Might be a loose battery terminal or starter wire, I was in the middle of servicing this vehicle. Give me a second.” And even as Gordon prepared himself to make the run down the fire line, he saw Denise clamber awkwardly down and circle around to pop the hood.

  “God damn it!” Mark sounded seriously pissed.

  It was enough to make Vern whimper, his hands clenched white in his lap.

  “It goes south,” Gordon told him, “I’m going to dive us in there and you grab her. Clear?”

  “Clear,” Vern choked out.

  Of course the chances of them surviving the maneuver with Gordon at the controls was not good, but he wasn’t going to worry about that at the moment. The stick took a lot more motion to control than his little MD. And where the MD’s rudder pedals were as light as a bicycle going downhill, the Firehawk’s were more like kick pedals on a rock and roll bass drum set. He could feel the aggressive power of the repurposed Sikorsky Black Hawk.

  “Diana Prince,” Mark called out. “I need a salvo opposite that truck.”

  Gordon eased back on the cyclic to hover in the chaotic winds near the fire’s leading edge. There might be need for his load as well, depending on how well Ripley hit the mark.

  She flew the Aircrane forward and down until she was barely above the flames. At the last second she twisted fully sideways and unleashed her drop all at once. Her tank had a narrow fore-to-aft opening, but it was almost twenty feet long. By turning and flying sideways she turned her narrow drop into a sweeping wall of water.

  Unleashed in a salvo, dropped all at once, it wasn’t a waterfall—it was a twelve-ton hammer blow.

  The water turned white as it hit and mixed with the air, but over a cement truck’s worth of solid water slammed into the burning trees close beside the service truck. It was such an impact that it snapped off several of the tree tops. The water streamed down in a heavy flood, temporarily putting out the fire nearest to Denise.

  “Now that’s not something you see every day,” Gordon whispered to himself in awe. It was an amazing display of power.

  “Well done,” Emily called out on the radio from Mickey’s Twin 212. Another piece of high praise for Ripley.

  Something had shifted since he’d crashed the helicopter. It was an uncomfortable feeling to know that Emily had been flying in his present seat only yesterday. Gordon supposed that it was a compliment that he was here instead of out on his ass as he’d expected. He still felt like an imposter, especially with the unfamiliar feel of the Firehawk’s controls still in his hands.

  Down on the field, Denise reached into the truck and it fired off. She slammed the hood and climbed back in. Gordon wondered if Vern’s heart had stopped completely while he watched. But all that mattered was that Denise got the service truck moving.

  As was the fire.

  The width of the runway had forced it back down to ground level, igniting the grass strip gone late summer-brown. It began creeping across the field—actually more racing than creeping.

  “Firehawks,” Mark called. “Soak the grass, in a line.”

  Gordon was still in the lead so he dove down, below the heights of the burning trees, and flew as close as he dared to the camp side of the airfield. Vern’s attention was still all on his wife.

  Denise raced by in front of him, the last big vehicle off the field, through the parking lot, and onto the road down the mountain.

  Gordon planned to drench the grass far enough over that a falling tree couldn’t cross the line.

  He was halfway down the runway when the fire made his efforts pointless.

  Firehawk Oh-three was flying down a tunnel of clear, calm air. But the wall of smoke, ash, and ember had tipped over in a great arc above him to touch down upon the buildings. A cloud of embers swirled down in a rain of reds and golds. Despite his racing speed, the view seemed to pass him by in a slow motion panorama.

  Betsy’s dining hall, from which he’d eaten a thousand meals, caught on the roof.

  The small helos doused one side of the roof, the other side caught.

  The plywood wall of the ancient bunkhouse went up next.

  The parachute loft had its big barn doors left open. A whorl of embers slid through the open door, catching even as they hit.

  Gordon pulled up, twisted, arced so that the last of his thousand-gallon load would be slung sideways through the doors, but it wasn’t enough.

  As he circled up, climbing north and west for safety, the rest of the helos followed. Loads of water dumped on old structures only served to cave in the roofs. Walls disappeared in vibrant sheets of flame. The new fire created a counter-draft that sucked the grass fire across the wet line.

  The last to catch was the wooden control tower. How many hundreds of sunrises had he watched from that perch? For just a moment before it disappeared into a sheet of flame, he spotted two white objects side by side on the railing—his and Ripley’s unfinished coffee was probably boiled to steam even as the mugs were shattered by the intense heat—then gone in a swirl of flame and smoke.

  Once well clear, he slid to a hover to watch.

  The wall of fire crossed the runway, racing the steady shower of embers to see which could ignite disaster first. Soon their cars in the parking lot were involved.

  Gordon circled higher, helpless to do more than watch. There wasn’t even time to get another load of water.

  The first car the fire reached was Denise’s prized 1973 Fiat Spyder. It was engulfed in moments.

  “Ooo. That’s gonna piss her off,” Gordon tried to make it a tease.

  “I’ll buy her a new one,” Vern whispered. He wasn’t watching the parking lot. “There. She’s clear. Past the first turn in the road. I’m going to kill her next time I see her.”

  “No, you’re gonna hug the crap out of her for being alive. You want control?”

  Vern looked down at his hands still clenched bloodless white in his lap and just shook his head. “That was a good passage, Gordon. Don’t know if I could have done much better.”

  “Maybe just a little better?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Vern managed a breath, if not a laugh, and a weak smile. “Thanks, buddy.”

  They both turned to watch the unfolding spectacle. The gasoline tank in the Fiat finally melted through and exploded like a bomb. Henderson’s immaculate quad-cab Ford, parked next to the Fiat, blew moments later—eliciting an uncomfortable laugh from both of them. Mark loved that truck and it was funny that fire had taken it out from under their boss…but it was also horrible. Gordon’s own beater Toyota Tundra pickup went next. That, at least, was no major loss.

  Then he saw what lay just beyond them—

  “Get clear!” Gordon yelled into the mic. “I repeat, all aircraft get clear. Betsy’s propane tank. Behind the dining hall!” It was engulfed in flames.

  Helicopters scattered in every direction.

  Mickey almost rammed him—would have if Gordon hadn’t somehow felt him coming and yanked up on the collective. Hard to blame Mickey, he’d been hovering directly over the tank.

  The tank’s pressure relief valve opened and released a gout of flame a couple hundred feet high right through the airspace Mickey had occupied moments earlier. The fire was superheating the ta
nk, which would eventually rupture. But that process never had a chance to finish.

  Mickey’s big Goldwing motorcycle, which everyone always gave him shit about for being so “old fart” cushy, got caught in the detonation of Vern’s gorgeous Corvette. The shock wave must have caught the motorcycle’s big wind-guard cowling like a sail. The explosion lofted the nine-hundred-pound motorcycle twenty feet into the air and then dropped it onto the propane tank.

  The explosion of the ruptured tank sent a fireball up several hundred feet. The parts of the dining hall that didn’t simply disappear were blown back onto the burning runway. The closer vehicles were tumbled aside. Everything in the lot had its windows blown out by the shock wave and many more were instantly on fire from the shower of liquid propane.

  Then the shock wave slammed into them. In an instant he went from hovering to pouring on power but still flying backward. Then the shock wave was past, but his speed against the wind wasn’t. He and the other helos were suddenly diving toward each other through the much stiller air, straight into the center of the towering flames. Evasive maneuvers were chaotic, but no one collided. He watched Vanessa be tumbled through a sideways roll, but she managed to regain control before she was tossed down into the flames.

  Car metal and roof shingles pinged off the side of the Firehawk. Gordon cringed and waited for the red lights of engine failure to light once more, but nothing came on. The gods had been with him this time.

  He eased up even higher, only at the last moment remembering to check for proper clearance himself.

  Ripley hovered high to the south. She’d been well clear after dumping her load to protect the mechanic. A momentary hover to make sure the mechanic made it out clean had turned into a front row spectator seat as the camp was obliterated.

  “Holy shit!” Was Brad’s judgment. Ripley could practically hear Janet saying those same words even though she’d been driving one of the first trucks off the mountain. Their synchro-speaking was either charming or nauseating, depending on Ripley’s mood. At the moment she could only agree.

  “Well,” she tried to think of something to say as she looked down at the airbase that had just been erased off the map. She checked the dashboard clock. “Lucky number—exactly thirteen minutes since we were sent aloft. Our contract didn’t technically start until today, so I think we’re good for getting in the Guinness Book for the shortest firefighting contract in the history of heli-aviation.”