Chasing Fire

by Nora Roberts

  He’d never known people so stubbornly resilient or so willing to put body, mind and life on the line, day after day.

  And more, to love it.

  “L.B. hasn’t started.” Matt maneuvered in beside him. “I thought I’d be late.”

  “Not yet. I didn’t expect to see you for a couple more days.”

  “I’m just in for this. L.B. wanted all of us, unless we caught a fire. What’s the word?”

  “As far as I know they’re still inspecting. They found a few more pieces of equipment tampered with.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “Did your parents get in all right?” Rowan asked him.

  “Yeah. They’re over visiting with Shiloh. We’re going to take her out for a couple hours later, so she gets used to being with us. She’s already taken to my ma.”

  “How’s Mrs. Brakeman doing?”

  He lifted his shoulders, stared toward the Ops desk. “She’s being real decent about it. It shows how much she loves the baby.” He let out a little sigh. “She and my ma had a good cry together. L.B.’s getting ready to start.”

  “All right, settle down,” L.B. called out. “I’ve got some things to say, so pay attention. Everybody knows about the equipment failures on the jumps in Alaska and Wyoming. I want to tell you all that we’re continuing a full inspection, any equipment or gear not yet inspected and passed doesn’t go out. I called in a couple extra master riggers to help reinspect, clear, repack every chute on this base. I don’t want anybody worrying about the safety of their gear.”

  He paused a moment.

  “We’ve got a good system of checks on this base, and nobody cuts corners. Everyone here knows it’s not just important, it’s fucking essential that every jumper have confidence the gear and equipment needed to jump and attack will be safe, meet the highest standards and be in good working order. That didn’t happen on these jumps, and I take responsibility.”

  He hard-eyed the protests until they died off.

  “I’ve been in touch with the Management Council so they’re aware of what we’re dealing with. The local police and the USFS are also aware and conducting their own investigations.”

  “They know damn well Leo Brakeman did this,” somebody shouted out and started everybody else up again.

  “He shouldn’t have been able to.” L.B. roared it over the rise of chatter, smashing it like a boot heel on an anthill. “He shouldn’t have been able to get to us the way he did. The fact he’s locked up is all fine and good, but we’re going to be a lot more security-conscious around here. We’re going to do spot checks, regular patrols. If I could suspend the tours, I would, but since that’s not an option, two staff members will go with each group.

  “Until the investigations and reviews are complete, and we know who and how, we’re not taking any chances.”

  He stopped again, took a breath. “And I’m recommending everybody toss a roll of duct tape into their PG bags.”

  That got a laugh, succeeding in lowering the tension.

  “I want you to know I’ve got your backs, on base, in the air and on a fire. I’ve posted a new jump list and a rotation of assignments. If you don’t like it, come see me in my office so I can kick your ass. Anybody’s got any questions, suggestions, public bitching, now’s the time.”

  “Can we get the feds to pay for the duct tape?” Dobie asked, and earned hoots and applause.

  Gull sent his friend an appreciative look. The right attitude, he thought. Keep it cocky, keep it steady, maintain unity.

  Whether the sabotage had been an inside or outside job, unity equaled strength.

  He had questions, but not the sort he wanted to ask here.

  “I’ve got something I need to work on,” he told Rowan over the cross talk. “Catch up with you later.”

  He noted her disapproving frown, but slipped out and walked straight to his quarters. There, he booted up his laptop and got to work.

  He shut down, passcoding his work when the siren sounded. He wasn’t on the first or second loads, but he ran to the ready room to assist those who were. He loaded gear on speed racks, hefted already packed and strapped paracargo onto the electric cart.

  He listened, and he observed.

  With Rowan and Dobie, he watched the plane rise into the wide blue cup of the sky.

  “It’s good L.B. got that briefing in before the call.” Rowan shaded her eyes from the sun with the flat of her hand. “The sky looks a little dicey to the east.”

  “Might be jumping ourselves before long.”

  Hearing the eagerness in his voice, Rowan angled her body toward Dobie. “You’ve got jump fever. The best thing for you is to go sleep it off.”

  “I got me an assignment. I’m on PC,” he said, using the shorthand for paracargo. “Packing and strapping in the loadmaster’s room. You, too, pal,” he told Gull. “Swede pulled the loft.”

  “Yeah, I saw that, and that anybody on the Alaska jump could take a two-hour break first. But what the hell.” He leaned over, kissed Rowan. “We’ll get back to our agenda later.”

  “Count on it.”

  “I don’t see how it’s right and fair you got a woman right on base,” Dobie said as they walked toward the loadmaster’s room together. “The rest of us have to hunt one up, if we’re lucky and get a turn at a bar.”

  “Life’s just full of not right and not fair. Otherwise I’d be stretched out on a white sand beach with that woman, drinking postcoital mai tais.”

  “Postcoital.” Dobie snickered like a twelve-year-old. “You beat all, Gull. Beat all and back again.”

  SINCE HE DIDN’T FIND her in her quarters, Gull assumed he’d finished up his duties before her, and went back to his room to continue on his project.

  He sat on the bed, left the door open in a casual, nothing-to-see-here mode.

  People walked by now and then, but for the most part his section stayed quiet.

  Since he’d left his window open as well, he caught snippets of conversation as people wandered outside. A small group not on the jump list made plans to go into town. Somebody muttered to himself about women as the shimmering afternoon light dimmed.

  He took a moment to shift to look out, and saw Rowan had been right about the eastern sky. Clouds gathered now, sailing in like warships.

  A storm waiting to happen, he thought, toying with getting his run in before it did, then decided to wait for Rowan.

  She and the first grumble of thunder arrived at the same time.

  “Lightning strikes all over hell and back,” she told him, and flopped on the bed. “I ran up to check the radar. Tornadoes whipping things up in South Dakota.”

  She circled her neck, rubbing hard at the back of her left shoulder as she spoke.

  “We’ll probably have to run on the damn treadmill. I hate that.”

  He pressed his fingers where she rubbed. “Jesus, Rowan, you got concrete in here.”

  “Don’t I know it. I haven’t had a chance to work it out today. I need that run, some yoga . . . or that.” She sighed when he shifted and dug his fingers and thumbs into the knotted muscles.

  “We’ll do our run after the storm’s over,” he said. “Use the track.”

  Lightning struck, a flash and burn, and the wind rattled the blinds at his window. But no rain followed.

  “When things slow down, we’ll hit L.B. up for a night off and get a fancy hotel suite. One with a jet tub in the bathroom. We’ll soak in it half the night.”

  “Mmm.” She sighed her way into the image he painted. “Room service with fat, juicy steaks, and a great big bed to play on. Sleeping with somebody who has money and doesn’t mind spending it has advantages.”

  “If you’ve got money and mind spending it, you can’t be having much fun.”

  “I like that attitude. Are you e-mailing back home?”

  “No, something else. You’re not going to like it.”

  “If you’re e-mailing your pregnant wife to ask about your two adorable childr
en and frisky puppy, I’m not going to like it.” She angled around. “That’s the kind of tone you used. Like you were going to tell me something that meant I had to punch you in the face.”

  “My wife’s not pregnant, and we have a cat.” He gave her shoulders a last squeeze, then got up to close the door.

  “You didn’t do that because we’re going to continue our planned agenda from this morning.”

  “No. It’s the tampering, Rowan. Brakeman thinking of it, then pulling it off—all while eluding the cops. That’s just not working for me.”

  “He knows this area better than most. He’s a mechanic, and he has a grudge against us. It works for me.”

  On the surface, he thought, but you only had to scratch off a layer.

  “Why tamper with some of the equipment?” Gull began working off his mental list. “He doesn’t know how we roll here, or in a fire. Not all the ins and outs.”

  “His daughter worked here three seasons,” Rowan pointed out. “She had a working knowledge of how we roll, and he’s spent time on base.”

  “If he wanted to hurt us, there are more direct ways. He had weapons; he could’ve used them. Sure, he could’ve known or found out where the equipment is,” Gull conceded, “and he could’ve gotten to it. This stretch of the season, most of us would sleep through a bomb blast. We’d hear the siren, the same way a mother hears her baby crying in the night even when she’s exhausted. We’re tuned, but otherwise, we’re out for the count.

  “This was subtle, and sneaky, and it was the kind of thing, it seems to me, you’d know to do if you knew just how broken equipment could impact a crew on a fire. Because you’ve been there.”

  He was right, Rowan thought. She didn’t like it. “You’re actually saying one of us did this?”

  “I’m saying one of us could have done it, because we know how to access the equipment, how to screw it up and how it could impact an attack.”

  “How stupid would that be since you could be the one impacted?”

  “There’s that. Let’s take that first. Who didn’t jump either fire?”

  He toggled his screen back to the document he’d worked on.

  “You’re right; I don’t like it one damn bit. And first, Yangtree jumped with us.”

  “He spent nearly the entire jump coordinating, doing flyovers.”

  “That’s crap. And L.B.? Seriously?”

  “He didn’t jump. Cards worked as spotter, so he didn’t jump. Neither did any of these. That’s over twenty, with six of them off the list altogether for personal reasons or injuries.”

  “Yangtree’s been jumping thirty years. What, suddenly he decides to find out what’ll happen if he screws up equipment? Cards has ten years in, and L.B. more than a dozen. And—”

  “Look, I know how you feel about them. They’re friends—they’re family. I feel the same.”

  “In my world people don’t make up a suspect list of friends and family.”

  “How often in your world has your equipment been sabotaged?” He laid a hand on her knee to soften the words. “Look, it’s more with you because you’ve been with them a long time. But I trained with a lot of the names on this list, and you know going through that makes a tight bond.”

  “I don’t even know why you’re doing this.”

  “Because, damn it, Rowan, if it wasn’t Brakeman, then we can do our patrols, our rechecks and spot checks, but . . . If you wanted to get in the ready room, the loadmaster’s room, any damn place on base tonight and mess something up, could you?”

  She didn’t speak for a moment. “Yeah. I could. Why would I? Why would any of us?”

  “That’s another deal entirely. Before that, there’s the possibility, if it’s one of us, it is somebody who jumped, who knew they were high on the list. Who wanted to be there, be part of it. We’re in a stressful line of work. People snap, or go too far. The firefighter who starts fires, then risks himself and his crew to put it out. It happens.”

  “I know it happens.”

  He hit another key, took her to another page.

  “I divided the crews, the way we were that day.”

  “You’re missing some names.”

  “I think we can eliminate ourselves.”

  “Dobie’s not here.”

  “He had the duct tape.”

  “Yeah, that was real handy.”

  “He always carries . . . Okay, you’re right.” It burned his belly and his conscience, but he added Dobie’s name. “I should add us because you wished for the damn tape, and I remembered he’d have it.”

  “What’s our motive?”

  “Maybe I want to scare you off the job so you’ll stay home and cook me a hot dinner every night.”

  “As if. But I mean the question. What’s any motive?”

  “Okay, let’s roll with that. Yangtree.” He toggled back again. “He’s talking about giving it up. His knees are shot. Thirty years, like you said. He’s given this more than half his life, and now he knows he can’t keep it up. The younger and stronger are moving in. That’s a pisser.”

  “He’s not like that.” She snapped it out—knee-jerk—then subsided when Gull only looked at her. “All right. This is bogus, but all right.”

  “Cards? He’s had a bad-luck season. Injuries, illness. It wears. The woman he wanted to marry dumped him. Last summer, when he was spotter, Jim Brayner died.”

  “That wasn’t—”

  “His fault. I agree. It wasn’t yours, either, Rowan, but you have nightmares.”

  “Okay. Okay. I get it. We could walk down your lists and find a plausible motive for everyone. That doesn’t make it true. And if it’s such a good theory, the cops would’ve thought of it.”

  “What makes you think they haven’t?”

  That stopped her. “That’s a really ugly thought. The idea they’re looking at us, investigating us, scraping away to hunt for weaknesses, secrets. That they’re doing what we’re doing here, only more.”

  “It is ugly, but I’d rather take a hard look than ignore what might be right here with us.”

  “I want it to be Brakeman.”

  “Me too.”

  “But if it’s not,” she said before he could, “we have to think of the safety of the unit. It’s not L.B.”

  He started to argue, then backed off. “What’s your reasoning?”

  “He worked hard for his position, and he takes a lot of pride in it. He loves the unit and he also loves its rep. Anything that damages or threatens that reflects on him. He could’ve closed ranks and kept this internal, but he opened it up. He’s the one shining the light on it when he knows he may pay consequences.”

  Good points, Gull decided. Every one a good point. “I’ll agree with that.”

  “And it’s not Dobie. He’s too damn good-natured under it all. And he loves what he’s doing. He loves it all. Mostly he loves you. He’d never do anything that put you at risk.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I didn’t say that for you.”

  “I know.” But it soothed both his belly and his conscience. “Thanks anyway.”

  She looked out the window where lightning flashed, and thunder echoed over the gloom-shrouded peaks. “The wind’s pushing the rain south. We just can’t catch a break.”

  “We don’t have to do this now. We can let it alone, hit the gym.”

  “I’m not a weak sister. Let’s work it through. I’ll tell you why it’s not Janis.”

  “All right.” He took her hand, disconcerting her by bringing it