Pure Heat (4 page)

Even as he slid downward, the chopper moved. He wasn't rigged for the heat. Jeans and a button-down shirt rather than a Nomex jumpsuit and fireproof underwear. But he wore good boots and had the Pulaski jammed into his harness. Would have to be good enough.

He began to fear that it wasn't, but the pilot got him clear of the flame before he slid too low and started to cook. He went from black smoke to green and almost planted his boots on the man's red-covered face.

It looked like blood. Steve hoped it was retardant. That much blood and the guy wouldn't survive to be rescued.

First he scanned the area, ready to signal for an immediate evac, but the pool of red retardant had knocked out the fire completely for twenty feet around and slowed it for another twenty beyond that.

Steve cleared the line from his rappelling brake and looked down.

The guy pointed frantically toward his foot pinned by a six-inch-thick tree limb connected to a tree trunk at least three feet across. Too big to leverage free. No digging beneath because he was on rock.

Steve shifted a few feet toward the tree and laid in with the Pulaski. He could hear the guy's hiss of pain each time Steve planted the ax. The vibrations up the tree limb must hurt like hell. He ignored the man and kept swinging. Long swings, even strokes, making each slice count, each swing kicking another large shard of wood loose.

Halfway through, he glanced up to make sure the guy was watching the fire. He was, but Steve checked anyway. The outer ring of defense was already cooking again. The flames were building.

He turned back to his chopping, resisting the urge to try and hurry. Hurry never helped in these situations. Steady and even, make every slice count.

At fifteen strokes a minute, it took him three and a half minutes to complete the chop through the limb. He kicked it aside to avoid burning his hands on the smoldering wood. Next time he'd bring gloves.

The man's white teeth looked surreal through his red-masked face, but he was smiling. It turned to a grimace when he worked his foot.

“Sprain. Don't think it's a break. Thanks. I'd sign you up, but you ain't dressed for it.”

“Too late.” He'd never be able to sign on again. Steve held out a hand. “Merks Mercer.”

The other man took it. “Terry Thomas. But that's TJ to you.”

“We need to get you out of here.” Steve hauled the smokie to his feet, but it was clear he wouldn't be walking anywhere.

The flood of retardant had created a calm pool in the midst of a full-surround firestorm, but now the pool's outer ring was gone. The edges of the inner ring were starting to burn and smolder despite the heavy coating.

Steve had forgotten how damn loud fire was, especially when it was pissed at being denied its prey. It roared at them louder than a whole stadium of Giants' fans after a bad ump call. It spat embers that died in the red soil and clawed up every little branch. The flames towered above them to all sides except upslope. With TJ's ankle, that wasn't going to happen.

The heat pounded against him, Steve's cotton shirt and denim jeans offering no protection against the scorching breath of the fire though it still lay twenty feet away. For half an instant he wondered what the ignition temperature was on the two materials and which part of him would burst into flame first.

“Hell, we need to get me out of here, too.” Preferably before he answered the question about the flammability of his clothes.

He and TJ both looked down at the pouch on TJ's hip. Inside lay a foil fire shelter designed for one. They both knew the statistics—one in five wildland firefighters died when the fire overran them. A foil shelter theoretically made a burnover survivable, but probably not with two inside if they even fit.

As Steve looked back up, a movement caught his eye. A line from the sky. No, two of them.

Two ropes from the helicopter. Both with clips on them. Somebody up above was thinking. He double-checked the knots, done right.

The two men exchanged glances. They were both clearly thankful that they wouldn't be spending their last moments breathing each other's air. They snapped in and flagged the chopper upward with a hand signal.

In moments they were drawn upward until they floated above the fire, which now screamed in frustration below them as it closed too late over the small circle they had so recently occupied. They were climbing through the smoke with the chopper a hundred feet above and the fire now twice that below. Dangling like puppets on a shoestring.

Steve had clipped his line to a ceiling D ring, not the winch, so they'd have no way to reel him back up.

TJ floated along as well, eight feet over and about ten feet up. He hung from a slightly shorter line tied off from the other side of the chopper.

Neither had a radio. Steve never had one, and TJ held out his with a look of disgust. The radio was saturated with bright red goo. Steve made sure his sunglasses were well seated and then gave the okay signal to the copilot he could see hanging out the door and looking down at them.

No good place to land them and climb aboard. And if somewhere under that red goo, TJ was bleeding, then time was of the essence.

The three smaller choppers showed up to attack the fire even as the Firehawk pilot turned for base. All Steve and TJ could do was hang from their ropes and enjoy the ride back, dangling from MHA's newest chopper like a pair of live rats no one wanted to touch. Five hundred feet below, the edges of the fire gave way to towering trees as they floated back toward base.

The pilot set them down sweet as could be right by the retardant tanks.

Steve managed not to collapse to the grass when he landed too much on his overworked left knee. By grabbing out to steady TJ, they managed to hang on to each other well enough to remain upright.

He and TJ took a deep breath in unison when they had their balance and their eyes were no longer crossed with the pain. A shared nod with a grimace said more than enough about that.

Then Steve called out, “Whoop! Now that's what I call flying!” Though his body was buzzing from the pounding of his shirt flapping against him in the rushing wind, he felt high as a kite and well on the way to drunk.

Dangling under a helicopter was absolutely the most beautiful way he'd ever found to fly, aside from dangling beneath a parachute. Yet another thing the docs had forbidden. They enjoyed doing that far too much, but the way his knee felt right now from the unaccustomed exercise told him that just because they were doctors didn't necessarily mean they were wrong.

He and TJ shared a single bark of laughter at just how close their escape had been, and then Steve managed to duck under TJ's arm before he fell down.

The helicopter settled not far behind them as they shed the ropes and harnesses and Steve kept TJ stabilized.

“You okay?” An angel had come from the chopper to TJ's other side.

There was no other word to describe her.

Voice soft and sweet. She was tall. A black T-shirt clung to her frame and showed her to be slender in all the right ways. Her bright-blond hair floated past her shoulders and her smile lit her entire face. Blue eyes. The bright blue of the sky.

Bright with worry she was desperately trying to hide behind that dazzling smile.

“Fine, darling. Fine. Dodged it with just a bunged-up ankle, thanks to your friend here.”

“My friend?” She peered over at Steve. A look of complete distrust shadowed her face as abruptly as the sun had shone there a moment before.

Steve knew he was standing like an idiot with every bit of smooth smacked out into left field. All he could manage was a gawk. This clearly lowered her estimation of his mental abilities even as he stood there trying to tag base, any base.

She was wearing his San Francisco Giants baseball cap.

He'd dumped it on the cargo bay floor without a thought. It could have been blown out over the fire.

But she'd retrieved it and put it in the only safe place that was handy, atop her head.

He thought of asking for it back, but it looked damned cute on her. Maybe he'd ask for it later. He found it way too easy to imagine her wearing only…
Clean
it
up, Mercer. You don't fall for any woman that fast.
The hat was black with a flame-orange
SF
. She matched the helicopter behind her. That was all. Pretty as a picture.

“You should be on a calendar somewhere.”

“Never get me to pose, especially not for you.” Her comeback was immediate and near vitriolic.

Okay, it had been a dumb thing to say, even if it was true. But even her voice was amazing. He thought about asking if she sang but then thought better of it. He didn't know if his libido would survive this woman heading up a rock-and-roll band wearing, maybe, tight leather.

The angel turned her attention back to the man's foot, clearly marked by being the only part of him not coated in the sticky red retardant.

Steve noted with some chagrin that his new jeans and shirt were going to need a serious discussion with a washing machine. He'd been coated in red and soot all over.

“Let's get you over to the medic.” She started guiding the trio to the main building.

“Just a sprain.”

“Just an old man being luckier than he deserves.”

Had he just saved the angel's father? That had possibilities. Together, they hobbled TJ toward the main building.

A guy met them as they neared the cluster of weather-beaten picnic tables for eating outside during nice weather.

“Set him down there.” The man pointed at the nearest bench. “Betsy won't want him messing up the dining room until we hose him down some.” His voice slow and easy.

A big guy. The kind who could bench-press the picnic table. His eyes hidden behind mirrored Ray-Bans.

“Where's Rick?” Angel was in full protective mode, interposing herself between her father and the rest of the world.

“And who are you?” Then she turned on Steve. “And you?”

Steve held out a hand, only a little red-smeared. “Steve Mercer, but everyone calls me Merks.”

She ignored the hand. Left it hanging there and turned back to face the other.

“I'm your new ICA,” the big guy informed her.

Steve reeled his hand back in unshaken and decided to sit down on the bench next to TJ. Clearly the man was enjoying the entire scene. He nudged an elbow into Steve's side, leaving a round, red smudge on the only clean spot on Steve's shirt.

“No, Rick is our Incident Commander—Air.” Angel went toe to toe with the big guy.

Steve wasn't sure he'd be arguing with the man in the mirrored shades. He looked like a serious piece of work, lethal through and through.

“No.” The guy looked like he might be enjoying this too behind that serious expression of his. “Rick is now your Incident Commander, period. With me onboard, they're expanding the region and he's overseeing both Hoodie One and Hoodie Two camps. He just took the Beech Baron plane to lead the tanker drops onto your Saddlebag Gap fire. Then he's swinging down to the camp near Crater Lake. Party to celebrate his promotion is tomorrow, if you get that fire killed by then.”

“It'll be dead tonight and mopped by the end of tomorrow, if the tankers are really inbound.” She managed to say it in a way that clearly implied it was none of the new ICA's doing even if he might, possibly, by pure accident, have gotten the facts right.

Damn, she was incredible. She seriously reminded Steve of a mama bear he'd spooked in the Montana wilderness a couple years before. Closest he'd come to dying. Until last summer's fire, anyway.

“Don't even need the Firehawk anymore on this one, though it's nice we had a chance to break her in on a little fire,” the ICA informed her comfortably, his big hands tucked in his jeans pockets. “MHA's air tankers are on site and will punch this one down hard.”

MHA had several big airplane tankers, a converted DC-7 and a couple of BAe-146s. Hell of a hammerblow when there was space for the big jets to get in.

“Great. So now I'm saddled with some knothead ICA who thinks he knows what he's doing because he's read a year of
Fire
Chief
magazine.”

“I've also read the last year of
Wildfire
and get the biweekly
Wildfire
Express
. Does that count? Do you want to check my subscription to the
Wildfire
Today
blog? It's a good one. Glad to give you the link if you don't have it. Or do you want to see the list of sixty-four fires I flew to last year for training?”

“Sixty-four?” Steve couldn't help interjecting. That was a buttload of fires for a single season.

“I think the most interesting one was jumping with the Avialesookhrana.”

“You jumped with the Russians? I hosted a couple of their guys last summer on an exchange program. They couldn't believe the equipment we had. Sacramento had just gotten their first Firehawks. I was supposed to go back this season…” Steve let the words dribble off. He'd been in his third surgery when the deadline for sign-ups had passed him by. He took a breath when Carly inspected him strangely. “…but I'm here instead.”

“What did you do, ride copilot on sixty-four flights?” Carly was undaunted.

Steve had to admire the man's confidence. He remained positively cheerful behind his shades while the most beautiful woman Steve had ever seen spit venom at him. Steve raised an eyebrow at TJ, then nodded down toward the man's ankle.

TJ laughed, stopping whatever the next round might be. Fisticuffs, maybe?

“Don't suppose,” the smokie offered laconically, “anyone wants to get me a beer? After that, maybe someone can tell me what I did to my goddamn ankle.”

The focus shifted neatly. The ICA knelt down and began unlacing the boot.

“Do you know what—” the beautiful angel started in, still in full mama-bear mode. Damn she really was incredible, a mix of beauty and danger. She was definitely hitting deep and solid into the field of Steve's personal preferences in women. Not what he usually ran the bases with, more like the ones he sometimes admired from just a bit too far away. This time he was up close and personal.

“Just go and get me a bag of ice and a pair of crutches,” the unflappable ICA told her. “Ace bandage, too. Then we can see if we need a trip to the hospital.”

“And don't forget my beer,” TJ called after the woman running off to get supplies.

The way she ran was heart stopping. Not some girlie trot; this was an outdoors woman on a mission. Steve's attention was drawn back by TJ's hiss of pain as the ICA slipped the boot free. Then TJ huffed out a breath of relief.

“Don't need no hospital. Just a sprain. My boy Merks here was right quick.” TJ slapped him on the back, no doubt leaving a broad, red palm print.

“That was quick thinking.” The pilot came up beside the ICA. Steve had been right on about her on both points: a serious looker, maybe even in his angel's league. Also clearly a force of nature; it looked as if the woman didn't even bend. And she'd slipped on a gold band with a simple diamond that indicated the tan line on her finger was honestly earned. How close she stood to the ICA told the rest of that story clearly enough.

“Quick is my trademark. Merks Mercer. Mercer, Mercury, Merks,” Steve gave the origin of his nickname. Or he
was
quick, before he'd lost his knee.

“Also,” the pilot looked down at him and continued with no change of tone, “if you ever jump into a fire from my chopper again without full gear, I'll have you dreaming about the day we'll let you put out anything as dangerous as a book of matches. Am I clear?”

Steve wanted to laugh, but looking at his reflection in her mirrored sunglasses, all of the blood ran out of his system. “Uh, yes, ma'am.”

With no change at all in manner, just as calm as could be, she turned to her husband.

“Where's Tessa?”

Somehow, that changeless tone made her reprimand all the more painful.

“Betsy wouldn't give her up.” The ICA grinned up at her, running an idle hand down the back of her leg where she stood by him while Steve tried to recover his breathing.

“She's in her cradle in the kitchen. Probably getting hungry. Betsy found a cute hat for her. She said every baby needs a hat.”

The pilot leaned in to kiss her husband soundly on the mouth, then headed off toward her daughter.

“Is she for real?” Steve whispered the question only after she was out of earshot. Even then, he waited until she was inside the building and was glad a helicopter came roaring in behind them for a refuel, though the chopper made his whisper have to be more of a shout.

The guy just smiled at him. “What do you think?”

Steve decided he'd make certain a spare Nomex suit including a fire shelter was stashed on whatever chopper he ended up in. Maybe he should pack a parachute as well, in case she chucked him out at altitude.

“Well,” the ICA addressed TJ, “you, sir, aren't going to be running anywhere soon.” He was watching TJ's face as he shifted the ankle back and forth. Winces and pained looks, but nothing worse than a hard grimace. “But I'd agree with your diagnosis of a sprain. We'll ice it overnight, then ship you to the doc if it isn't on the mend in the morning.”

“Thanks, young man.” That made the ICA smile.

“Mark Henderson.” They shook hands. Then he glanced at Steve. “And you must be my stray pilot.”

The angel-bright woman had returned with ice, bandages, crutches, and a six-pack of beer, the bottles already sweating with the midday heat.

“Bless you, Carly.” TJ took one of the beers, knocked back a long swallow, and then rested his elbows on the table behind him. His breath hissed a bit as she knelt and wrapped the ice bag around his ankle. Then he relaxed into it and took another slug of beer.

Carly. His angel had a name that somehow was precisely her. She must have noticed his attention.

“That's Ms. Thomas to you.”

Mark pulled the ice bag off for a moment and wrapped the bandage around TJ's ankle with a neatness and efficiency that spoke of much practice. Even Carly didn't fault him.

“Are you sure about—” Carly was cut off by a loud squawk from the radio dangling at Mark's hip. Mark pulled it free.

“Base here.”

“This is Ground Two. We're a hundred percent contained. The tankers stopped all three heads short of the ridge and they burned out on the walls. The 212s wrung its neck and are driving in the nails right now. Hotshot crew and a bunch of red cards just arrived to help with mop-up. We'll be hanging on for the first round of dousing, which will take most of the afternoon. Then we'll let the Type IIs follow it through the night and tomorrow. Should be truly dead this time tomorrow. Tell Betsy we should be home for dinner.”

“Roger that. Well done. TJ's fine, already knocking back a cold one.”

TJ raised the bottle in silent salute.

“Damn it! Make sure he saves some for us. Ground Two out.”

“Roger and out.” Mark clicked it off.

The ICA had the decency not to flaunt his knowledge of the situation, which left Carly still as hot as one of her fires and looking for another target. Steve figured he'd best lie low for a bit until she cooled down.

He pulled a pair of beers from the six-pack that the angel had dropped on the table and held them out to Carly and Mark. They were readily accepted. He snagged himself one and twisted off the cap.