Asimov's SF, August 2005

by Dell Magazine Authors

  So Ozzie would meet with the investigator, establish the facts, and the mop-up crew could finish here. Gathering up his fire gloves and helmet, Ozzie looked around for his man.

  Off to the right, about twenty yards from the road, a figure in fire gear stood placidly gazing up into the treetops, its back toward him. Ozzie checked the integrator for a name: Fuels Specialist Carol Ellison, Forest Service. Huh. Probably some newbie just out of college. He climbed stiffly out of the truck and slammed his door behind him.

  Ellison didn't even glance in his direction. Ozzie scowled. It was a rare ranger who showed much respect for a DWR man, but it still irked him. She could at least acknowledge his presence. What was she studying, up there in the treetops? He stole a glance at them: junipers and pinyons mostly, with a couple of Apache pines and some Emory oaks, all widely spaced here on the arid slope of the Mogollon Rim. That towering wall of rock reared up just a couple of miles to the north, a two thousand foot upthrust marking the edge of the Colorado Plateau.

  A breeze tugged at the fabric of Ozzie's yellow brush coat, and he thought how lucky it was that yesterday's gusty winds were dying out, and that cooler air was moving into the region. Had the weather gods been less kind, this would be a much bigger fire. Most of the country above and below the Rim was heavily forested, in spite of devastating fires in the first decade of the century. New growth was denser than old growth, and spindly like kindling. A stiff wind could push the fire from the surface up into the crowns, where it could grow by hundreds of acres in a single day.

  In fact, right where Ellison was staring, the crowns were partially blackened. The fire had jumped into the canopy right here, at its supposed starting point—highly unusual. It made Ozzie question whether this was actually the point of origin. She probably had that wrong, too.

  Irritated, he called to her. “Ellison?"

  Without turning, she waved him over. Ozzie cursed under his breath, then gritted his teeth and limped slowly toward her, choosing his path carefully. There had been no fire between the road—if you could call two tracks in the dust a road—and where she stood; maybe it really had started here. Certainly the satellite photos had pinpointed this area as the starting point, but the fire had already been half an acre in size before the first image was taken, so that allowed some latitude. Ozzie watched where he stepped, careful not to disturb any evidence as he approached the forester. The smell of smoke was more intense here.

  Ellison was tall for a woman, maybe five-ten, which gave her the impression of being lean, even in her baggy fire gear. “Footprints are over there,” she said as he drew near, waving a hand to her left without taking her eyes off the pinyon she was studying. “I scanned them in, along with the tire tracks. See what you think."

  Her voice was low and a bit scratchy—not the voice of a girl fresh out of college. And her fire gear bore traces of long use: nicks on the helmet, a worn look to the dark green trousers and bright yellow shirt, ground-in dirt on the boots. Okay, not a newbie. Just stupid, then. Ozzie detoured to his left and found the marks she had indicated.

  "Tires are Michelin QX series,” he told her, peering down at the prints and debating the wisdom of squatting for a closer look. The skin on the backs of his legs was still new and not very forgiving. “Popular for off-road vehicles manufactured since 2019. Shoes are more distinctive these days; this is a size ten Fleetfoot Trackhacker."

  At that she turned and pushed back a pair of lightweight multifunction goggles she'd been gazing through. Like his own, they provided magnification, filters, shadow-enhanced monochrome, and infrared vision. It surprised Ozzie that she had a pair; district personnel didn't usually have that kind of equipment. It also surprised him to see the faint lines around her eyes and nose, the beginning of slackness in the skin along her jaw, the graying blond hair protruding in untidy wisps from beneath her hard hat. The woman had to be fifty, at least. “You ran the prints?” she asked.

  Ozzie snorted. “No, I eyeballed them and came up with that. Of course, I ran the prints.” The print-recognition database had produced product IDs almost instantly, and Ozzie had forwarded that information to officers at the hastily established roadblocks before he loaded it into ICCARUS. They would be on the lookout for an ORV and a man with a cut in the left heel of his Fleetfoot Trackhackers.

  Knowing he would regret it, Ozzie squatted down to examine the marks in the dust. Across the backs of his thighs and knees, new nerves shrieked at the unaccustomed strain, but he told himself it was just like physical therapy. In fact, it was a lot less painful than much of his physical therapy. “Just one person, you're right about that,” he decided. “Scuffs his left foot when he walks. A big man, or else carrying a heavy pack.” Or a big woman, with a size ten foot.

  Ellison had come to stand behind him, looking over his shoulder at the tracks. “Flamethrower,” she said.

  Ozzie looked up, startled. “What?"

  Her mouth quirked in amusement at his reaction, and suddenly Ozzie realized what he was dealing with: old-time Forest Service. They were all so damned arrogant, the old-timers, and they resented the hell out of the DWR. Nothing pleased them more than to make “Dee-Dubs,” as they called them, look foolish.

  Not me, lady. I've paid my dues. Been to hell and lived to tell.

  "Carrying a flamethrower,” the woman elaborated. “This guy wasn't the least bit subtle. No wimpy little cigarette lighter, or a match dropped in a thicket of dried sage.” She waved a hand at the canopy of pines. “He went straight for the crowns."

  Fire in the crowns, tearing up the ravine toward them, and no safety zone, nowhere to run—

  Ozzie fought down a shudder and turned his attention back to the charred pinyon pine and the woman with the mocking blue eyes. A flamethrower—It was a terrorist tool. In 2007, they had hit eighteen National Forests and six National Parks in the western United States in a one-week period, using flamethrowers and Molotov cocktails. Over three million acres had burned, including whole towns. Fires in the suburbs of Denver had outstripped the supply of water to douse them, and a hundred thousand homes had burned. “That would be why you called for roadblocks,” he guessed.

  "Yup."

  So maybe she wasn't stupid. Carefully, Ozzie straightened himself up, resisting the urge to shake out his legs to relieve the sensations crackling in his new skin. He was no taller than Ellison, but his shoulders were considerably broader, and he expanded his chest unconsciously to enhance the effect. He was in charge here now, and she had better understand that. “You knew when you called for roadblocks, they'd send in a DWR investigator.” He pronounced it “Doo-Wer,” the favored pronunciation in the Department itself.

  Her smile broadened, surprising him. “Knew? I begged them to send you,” she said cheerfully. “Do you know how hard it is to get roadblocks when your fire is eighteen hours old?"

  Not stupid, then. Not stupid at all. But like most old-time rangers, she hadn't told him everything. ICCARUS was missing a few data, little things like, oh, a flamethrower. But what else? Why put up roadblocks when the perp was likely long gone?

  "This is where the fire started,” she went on, turning back to the pine she'd been studying when he arrived. “You can see how the lower branches are incinerated.” The lowest branches were fifteen feet above the ground; this patch of forest had been well-thinned, whether mechanically or by previous fires, and there were no shrubs or vines in the six-to-twelve-foot range. Fire could not have jumped from the surface to those lowest branches without intervening “ladder” fuels. “But the tree is so green, it didn't light off very well. The top is unburned.

  "Some of the debris fell down here on the ground, though—” She pointed to the burned area around the base of the tree. “—and got a surface fire going. Must have been disappointing as hell for him, not to have these big trees go up like torches."

  Ozzie surveyed the area carefully, with his own vision first, then with his goggles. The way the grass had fallen, the location of scorch marks an
d unburned patches, all supported her thesis. The surface fire had started here beneath the torched pinyon, and the southwesterly breeze had kept it from backing toward the road. He even agreed, reluctantly, with her suspicion that a flamethrower had been used on the pine; it was too green for lightning to have scorched it this way. Flame had been applied.

  And the flame had spread. Driven by yesterday's brisk winds, it had moved into rough terrain and was now burning toward a campground and a dozen rental cabins. If firefighters couldn't stop it there, chances were good it would burn right up the canyon and threaten a four-star resort.

  "If it was a terrorist,” Ozzie said carefully, “why isn't he somewhere else starting more fires? There's been no jump in the number of initial attacks in this zone.” Every response to a wildland fire was called an initial attack, even if the size-up team decided the fire should not be suppressed. “And no sign of coordination between this fire and others."

  "It's not a terrorist,” Ellison said flatly. “And he's not somewhere else because he's still here, somewhere. Maybe sitting up on that ridge.” She waved a hand to the west. “Or on the mesa behind us. Watching his handiwork."

  The hair on the back of Ozzie's neck lifted; she was awfully damn sure of herself. “What makes you say that?” he asked.

  For a moment she chewed on her lip, the only hesitant behavior he had seen her display since he came. “Because I've seen this MO before,” she said finally. “This guy's an arsonist, not a terrorist. He likes fire. He likes to watch."

  The flames were captivating: Nature's pyrotechnic display. Munching MREs—"Meals Ready to Eat"—the newbies watched gape-mouthed as gouts of red-orange flame churned into the air along the ridge. Some pulled digital cameras from their pockets and took snapshots. But then the wind shifted, and instead of spectators in the bleachers, they were suddenly center stage...

  Ozzie rubbed his neck to erase the chill and switched his goggles from infrared to enhanced-shadow monochrome as he went back to study the tracks again, this time following their route. The perp had torched several trees, trying to enlarge the fire. His scuffed footprints were around the trunks, and then he went—where? Back to his vehicle, which he had parked off the road, under a juniper. Hiding from the satellites? He could have saved himself the trouble. By the time the fire registered on Firebird, and it signaled Scooter to move in for a closer look, the perp could have been well down the road, lost among the other vehicles that traversed the forest. A terrorist would have hit and run, hoping to start another fire further up the road to complicate matters, or maybe get to another forest and start one there. But if Ellison was right...

  Ozzie tapped the interface in the sleeve of his brush jacket to activate it, then called up the first satellite photos. Zeroing in on the point of origin, he struggled to make out fine detail on the three-inch by four-inch screen. The image was grainy, but it was possible the gray blur near this juniper was a vehicle. He transferred the image directly to his goggles, hoping for better resolution. It appeared in holographic form, floating eighteen inches in front of his face.

  "Looks like he might have been here still at—” Ozzie called up the date/time stamp, “—1515 hours.” He pushed back his goggles again and checked his sleeve interface for the time of the next photo. Fifteen-thirty. He loaded it, but the gray blur under the juniper was conspicuously absent. “Gone by 1530,” he reported.

  He went back to the first picture, but the object was still just a blur to him. A good technician with high resolution equipment might be able to get a car class on the vehicle, though, if not a make and model. He commed his office. “Doris, give this photo I'm sending you to Grayson, see if he can identify the vehicle in it.” Two clicks, and the image was on its way.

  When he looked up, he found Ellison grinning at him. “That's what I like about you Doo-Wer boys,” she said. “You've got the greatest toys."

  Ellison herself wore a radio pack on her chest, the same kind the Forest Service had been using twenty-one years ago during the terrorist fires. That concerted attack had bankrupted the Forest Service, and while Congress had passed an emergency appropriation to aid the 150,000 homeowners affected by the disaster, it had balked at covering the tab for fighting the blazes. The Federal agencies involved were expected to cover that out of their existing budgets. National Park Service programs had been compromised for years afterwards by the expense, but the Forest Service had been crippled. Forests throughout the west were closed, their trails and lakes and campgrounds placed off-limits. Three-quarters of the personnel were laid off, with only 25 percent being hired back as contract employees at reduced wages. Forest health and forest rehabilitation went by the wayside; only programs that generated revenue were staffed: grazing leases, mineral leases, salvage logging. Fire suppression was impossible, and in 2008 another rash of devastating fires—these just the normal run of lightning- and human-caused fires that could not be suppressed—raised an uproar from the general public to do something. Stop the fires. Fix the Forest Service.

  So Congress, in its infinite wisdom, had created the Department of Wildland Resources, the DWR, by taking land management agencies away from the Department of Interior, and the Forest Service away from the Department of Agriculture. The new agency was to be both more economical and more streamlined by eliminating duplication of functions and improving communication between units. Ozzie had joined them twelve years ago, coming over from the Fish and Wildlife Service, and so far he hadn't seen much of economy or improved communications. The National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and Fish and Wildlife resented the Forest Service for soaking up dollars that should have been theirs; the Forest Service resented the other agencies for being better staffed and better equipped; and they all resented the Department of Wildland Resources for scraping the cream off the budget dollars and decking out their personnel with the latest electronic gadgets while a Recreation Specialist trying to repair a hiking trail had to get no less than seven approvals to purchase a can of chainsaw lubricant.

  And here Ozzie was, leaving a desk loaded with contracts and biodiversity reports to investigate a fire, when the investigator on the scene already had it figured out, and with less sophisticated equipment than Ozzie had. How was that less redundant?

  "How long you been fighting fire?” he asked.

  "Since oh-three,” she replied with the casual aplomb of a veteran. “What's that, twenty-four years? Yeah, twenty-four years."

  She had been in the thick of it, then, cutting her teeth on the devastating fires of 2003 and 2004, trying futilely to stem the terrorist fires in 2007, hanging on through the hard times that followed with no budget and no resources. Ozzie had been in elementary school when Carol Ellison first went to work on the firelines. “How many have you investigated?” he wanted to know.

  Her answer was a shrug and a hollow-voiced, “Too many, I guess."

  Great. And they sent him to check up on her.

  "What is it about this guy makes you think you've seen his work before?” he asked.

  Ellison fished something out of her pocket and handed it to him. “This.” It was a candy wrapper. Ozzie smoothed it out enough to see what kind. “Peppermint patty,” she said, though he could read that himself. “This guy likes to enjoy the cool blast of refreshing mint while he watches the hot blast of the inferno he's created."

  Stopping for lunch, peeling the wrapper off a granola bar, watching the fire on the ridgeline above them. But then suddenly it was behind them, too—oh, God, how had it jumped across the ravine?—and then it was backing down both sides toward them, and tearing up the draw from Kettle Creek, roaring with the voice of hell—

  "That's all you've got, a candy wrapper?” he growled.

  "Yup.” She took it back from him, folded it neatly and tucked it into her pocket again. “I've seen it twice before: he makes himself a little nest, high up on a ridge, settles in with sodas and snacks. First time, we stumbled across it by accident: Coke cans, chip bags—” She patte
d her pocket. “Candy wrappers. And the gas can he'd used to start the fire—I suppose he didn't want to pack that out with him. The second time, I followed his tire tracks. He was sitting in his jeep, watching the excitement; I got within twenty yards of him before he waved and took off. I called for a roadblock, but in those days...” She shook her head. “He left a drip torch behind, along with the cans and candy wrappers. Mailed us a letter afterwards, told us which engine company he'd stolen it from."

  Her voice was calm, glazed with irony, but Ozzie's stomach churned at the thought of a drip torch—a fireman's tool for starting backfires—being used to set a forest ablaze. The sour taste of smoke in his mouth was suddenly oppressive, and he had to fight the urge to spit. If Ellison was right, if the perp was somewhere close by ... He eyed the western ridge and wet his lips. “You call law enforcement about this?"

  She laughed. “Oh, hell, Ozzie, Dispatch isn't going to call in an LEO on my say-so. That's for you Doo-Wer boys, not a lowly Fuels Specialist like me."

  He reached for his sleeve interface.

  "And the last time I tried to convince my supervisor a candy wrapper meant a serial arsonist,” she continued, “I got posted to the back of nowhere for three years, shuffling papers."

  Ozzie hesitated. A glance at Ellison showed that while her tone might be an easy drawl, her eyes glittered with checked anger. Ozzie knew what it was like to suffer a supervisor's displeasure. And if she was wrong about this—hell, if she was right but they couldn't prove it—he would be the one taking the heat, not her. A candy wrapper was awfully thin evidence, especially since he hadn't seen the records on those previous fires. How did he know she was giving it to him straight? Why hadn't ICCARUS picked up on the pattern? If he called in law enforcement, adding to the expense of this fire, and it turned out the candy wrapper was a coincidence...