Paradise Burning

by Blair Bancroft

  The crash came hard and fast. A towering slash pine toppled to earth directly in front of them. The white van, with no room to stop, rammed into the tree, did a tailspin, and ended nose down in the drainage ditch at the side of the narrow road. The Buick skidded to a halt. In front of them the first moments of shocked silence were suddenly broken by screams and sobs from the tilted van. Karim barked an order and Grisha plunged into the ditch, attempting to free Misha and the driver from the crazily canted front seats. Karim and Peter heaved on the sliding side door. When it finally shuddered back a few feet, Peter boosted the Iranian inside. Karim began to hand the women out. Peter grabbed the first girl, the quietly sobbing Kai from Thailand. Mandy helped one of the Mexican girls, who appeared to be in shock, a fine trickle of blood running down her forehead. Nadya had to wrestle with Anya, who was hysterical, until Peter hustled the sobbing girl away to a spot of safety behind the Buick.

  The smell of gasoline was strong. Hot embers flitted through the air around them like a swarm of fireflies. Peter and Karim exchanged a look, redoubled their efforts. In a matter of minutes the van was empty, the entire group huddled together on the hard-packed sand behind the Buick. Except for three girls who simply stood and cried, everyone stared at the van, at the pine tree blocking the road . . . and at the glow of several separate fires behind it which seemed to be closing on each other, forming a giant fire front, which was moving slowly but inexorably in their direction.

  “It’s blowing up in your face, Shirazi,” Peter pointed out, not without a certain amount of satisfaction. “Literally,” he added, grinding his point home. “Face it, it’s over, done, kaput, fini. Sauve qui peut. Anyone ever teach you that one, major? That’s French for get the hell out any way you can.”

  “I understand the phrase, Mr. Pennington. My education was of the finest.”

  “Then why are we fiddling while Rome burns? If you’ll pardon the cliché.”

  “Because he knows I will not agree to swim the river straight into the arms of the police.” Misha had had time to catch his breath and re-arm himself. In the glow of the fires the squat Mac-10 seemed larger, uglier, even more menacing. It was pointing directly at them.

  “The van is useless,” Karim said in a remarkably mild tone. “Even if we could move the tree, it would take a tow truck to get it out of the ditch. The Buick will not carry us all. So it has to be the river.”

  In spite of the Iranian’s irrefutable logic, Misha nodded his head toward the road to the southeast. “We go that way.” Behind him loomed Yuri, his Mac-10 also at the ready. Mandy did a surreptitious sweep of the group, looking for Grisha. Whose side would he be on? Undoubtedly, Misha paid his salary, but . . . somehow the young Russian seemed more open to reason.

  “How?” Karim challenged, brows raised as they all looked at the pine tree stretched out across the road. A myriad smaller branches rose into the air above the trunk while the lower branches splayed across the road.

  “We move it,” Misha declared.

  Karim, Peter, and Mandy snorted, almost in unison.

  The Mach-10s waved. Out of the corner of her eye Mandy saw Grisha appear out of the smoky gloom. His face was troubled, his Mac-10 held down at his side. Karim scanned the sky to the southeast which was not quite as brightly red as the fire behind them. He shrugged, nodded. “Very well, we will try,” he agreed.

  “You’re nuts,” Peter growled.

  “You will be needed too, Mr. Pennington,” Karim snapped. “Come!”

  “We can’t all fit in the Buick,” Peter protested. “Let him go, the rest of us need to make a run for the river now.”

  “Move.” Once again, Grisha demonstrated his English, his Mac-10 rising to poke Peter in the back.

  They were never going to move that tree, Mandy was sure of it. This might be one of those times when men needed to demonstrate their testosterone by playing hero, but it was going to take a superhuman rush of adrenalin for this particular miracle.

  The tree trunk shouldn’t have moved, but it did. Inch by agonizing inch until suddenly Karim gave a shout. Straining backs dropped their burden, straightened. Smoke swirled around their shadowy figures, wind whistled through the tinder dry forest around them. In the distance, the scream of the fire grew louder.

  Suddenly, as the men caught their breath, the argument was on again. Out of a swirl of smoke Misha suddenly appeared like a creature out of hell, his face red, eyes bulging in fury, an MP-5 clutched firmly in front of him. The guard Yuri followed on his heels. For a moment Misha studied the seven young women who had been rescued from the van. Still clutching the pillowcases with all their worldly possessions, they were huddled together in the middle of the road, some wide-eyed, some sobbing. Anya, lost in the quaking aftermath of hysteria, was being comforted by one of the Russian girls whose name Mandy didn’t know.

  “You, you, you, and you,” Misha snapped to Mila, the Ukrainian, Felicidad from Mexico who was only sixteen, dainty Kai from Thailand, and Elena the Serbian who was his own particular favorite. “Into the car.”

  “No.” “No way.” Karim and Peter, again in unison.

  “It is too dangerous,” Karim asserted. “The women go with us to the river.”

  “For God’s sake, we’re running out of time,” Peter urged. “Let them go.”

  “The women stay. All of them.” Karim glared at his boss.

  Mandy surveyed the standoff. Grisha seemed to have made his choice. He was standing to Karim’s right, his Mac-10 now pointed directly at Yuri. Peter, on Karim’s left, had somehow swung around until he was almost touching Misha’s shoulder. Mandy dug into her jacket pocket, slipped out the tiny S&W AirLite. She stepped forward, gave Peter a surreptitious nudge, sneaking the .22 into his hand from behind.

  It took a moment for Peter to assimilate the feel of the hard metal that Mandy had given him. A remarkable woman, his wife. No time to think or analyze. He flicked off the safety, raised the gun straight up to Misha’s ear.

  “Get in the car and go,” Peter ordered. “The rest of us choose the river.”

  Misha jerked once, went very still. He might have doubted Karim or Grisha would shoot him. A gun in Peter Pennington’s hand was a much more serious threat. From behind, Mandy could only see Karim’s profile. The Iranian appeared bemused, torn between exulting in the change of power and wondering how the hell Peter had produced a gun.

  “You wish to go to jail? Good!” Misha spat at Karim. “Women are everywhere and pimps like you, Shirazi, as well. You are no longer needed.” He gestured to Yuri. The two men backed away, climbing into the Buick. Mandy heard several of the girls wail, but Karim’s discipline held. The girls did not move. Wheels spun. The big car with only two passengers plunged forward into the smoke.

  Mandy saw Karim’s gaze flick toward the Buick’s trunk, toward his suitcase, the boxes with his papers, the pillowcases stuffed with colorful bedding and fancy pillows. An infinitesimal shrug. Another piece of his life, lost forever.

  At the moment, survival was all. Here they were, Mandy thought, twelve people on foot in the midst of an almost solid ring of fire . . . with smoke searing their lungs, stinging their eyes, obscuring their vision. Hot embers and blackened cinders growing thicker, raining down, the roar of the fire beast growing louder by the minute . . .

  Okay, Amanda Armitage had a resilient spirit—she’d proved that, hadn’t she? If she could survive what life had already dealt her, she wasn’t about to be bested by Mother Nature’s aberrant behavior.

  Mandy turned her eyes south. To the wonderfully, blessedly, beautifully pitch black south.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Peter shoved the AirLite into the side pocket of his khakis. “Come on,” he urged, “the river’s our only chance.”

  Karim’s eyes lingered on Peter’s pants pocket, then raised them to a leisurely examination of Mandy. “I wish you joy of your wife, Mr. Pennington,” he pronounced. “She is a most unusual woman.”

  But not someone you’d ever want
to meet again, Mandy thought, irony flaring to anger as she intercepted another one of those man-to-man looks as Karim handed Peter a flashlight.

  “You okay, Mandy?” Peter asked. “I’m afraid some of the girls are going to need help.”

  “Sure,” she asserted, chin jutting forward.

  “Come!” Karim ordered. After an assessing glance at Nadya, he grabbed the still-sobbing Anya by the arm and started back down the road toward the house. Peter and Grisha did the same for Belita and Mila who seemed to be frozen to the road. Mandy, Nadya and the four remaining girls fell into a fast-paced walk behind Karim and Peter. Grisha, hanging onto Mila with one hand and the Mac-10 with the other, fell back in traditional military style to cover the rear. Mandy couldn’t help but wonder if the young Russian thought he could annihilate the fire monster at their backs with a spray of bullets. At the opposite end of the straggling line, Karim propelled Anya forward with a combination of physical force aided by the fact she seemed to be more frightened of him than she was of the fire. Once again, she was hysterical, her cries soaring above the eerie sucking sound of the fire.

  The smoke grew worse. Glowing embers floated menacingly among the cinders and ash that drifted down, almost as thick as a Boston mist. Mandy coughed, eyes gritty, streaming with tears. In front of her she could see the other girls rubbing at their foreheads, cheeks and eyes, slapping at embers that touched their clothes. Mandy wiped away a rivulet of sweat that dripped into her right eye. Was the fire as close as the intense heat made it feel? Or was what they were feeling nothing more than sheer terror? Even with a person as soulless as Misha there might have been a chance for reason . . . the possibility she and Peter could plead for their lives. But with the incandescent monster raging behind them there was no bargaining. No reasoning.

  Their only hope was escape.

  A terrifying roar split the night over their heads. Karim and Peter hit the ground; several of the women screamed and fell to their knees. Mandy and Grisha, who had no combat experience, merely turned up their faces in surprise.

  “It’s the fire chopper,” Mandy shouted over the receding noise. “The Bambi bucket was so close it nearly hit that pine over there.”

  “Bambi bucket?” Karim echoed, scowling ferociously as he dusted himself up off. Anya was sitting on the ground, heels kicking into the sand, decibels rising.

  “A huge bucket suspended on a line below the chopper,” Mandy explained. “Full of water. They’re probably trying to save the homes north of here. That bucket looked big enough to drown a whole house on one pass.”

  “Do you think . . ., ” Peter began, then stopped, eagerness fading. “We can’t wait,” he said. “Even if they had a chopper without a bucket attached all ready and waiting, we can’t wait while they try to find us in all the smoke. The river’s not more than a couple hundred yards away. We don’t have a choice. We’ve got to go for it.”

  “Agreed.” Karim, His patience at an end, dragged Anya to her feet, striding down the road at a pace that tolerated no weakness. Several groans were heard as the weary refugees tagged after him.

  The old house sat dark and silent—even Anya was momentarily quiet. But as they approached, one of the many embers sparking the night air failed to flicker and die. A cluster of dry pine needles littering the roof glowed briefly, then burst into life, flames licking at the shingles, swiftly spreading down into the resinous needles filling the rain gutters. Screams and sobs from several others joined Anya’s piercing howl. Karim paused just long enough to deliver a blow that snapped off the Russian girl’s scream in mid-wail. The night fell abruptly silent. The only sounds to be heard were the hiss and crackle of the fire taking hold on the old house, and in the distance the dull roar of the fires to the east and north, moving inexorably toward them. Doggedly, the three men and nine women moved along the side of the burning house and into the backyard.

  By the time Karim found the head of the footpath through the dense smoke, the growing flames eating at the roof almost made the flashlights unnecessary. Ahead of them all was dark with no sign of fire. As they entered the narrow trail, Peter dropped back to anchor the middle of the single-file line. He motioned Mandy to a place in front of him while keeping a tight hold on Belita whom he dragged behind him. The Mexican girl suddenly shrieked and jumped up and down, her cries echoing against Anya’s renewed hysterical screams. A rustling shook the underbrush around them. Gasps, yelps of fear wavered up and down the line, which ground to a shuddering halt as they became aware the night was alive around them. Creatures—large and small, four-footed or slithering—were, like themselves, plunging toward the safety of the river.

  “Hang on. Keep moving!” Peter ordered. Mandy gave the girl in front of her a push, propelling her forward. Nadya, Elena, Tama, Felicidad and Kai also came to life. Grisha and Mila were still bringing up the rear. There wasn’t anyone, men included, who didn’t gasp, swear, or cry out as some creature brushed by their legs or, worse yet, something unidentifiable was ground under foot.

  A hundred feet to the river.

  A hundred feet of raccoons, rabbits and rattlesnakes. Scurrying lizards, waddling armadillos, squirrels, possums, the snarl of a bobcat, the barreling crash of a wild boar. When they reached the small clearing along the river, the only light besides the two flashlights was from the stars overhead, yet the grassy ground seemed to move beneath their feet. Ignoring the parade of creatures heading full tilt toward the promising Ark of the river, the twelve refugees broke into a run. A few of the girls collapsed onto Nadya’s palm trunk, but most teetered on the river’s edge staring in hope and fascination at the blessed darkness directly across the river. And to the south toward Calusa Campground.

  But northwest, toward Amber Run . . . Peter’s heart soared. Also darkness. Suddenly, a long narrow stream of flame erupted on the far bank. A startled exclamation broke through Karim Shirazi’s customary cool.

  “Flamethrower,” Peter told him. “Firefighters here use them to create firebreaks.”

  “It looks like the fire’s out at Amber Run,” Mandy commented hopefully.

  Peter nodded, unwilling to voice what he was thinking. If a house the size of his had burned, it would still be blazing, the flames easily visible from where they were standing. But somehow it seemed too much to hope, let alone say out loud.

  “So . . .,” Karim pronounced. “Any suggestions, Pennington?”

  Before them the dark waters of the Calusa teemed with residents of the woods and pastureland to the east. It took very little imagination to picture the alligators staging a feeding frenzy with these unexpected additions to their menu. Not to mention the danger from all the short-tempered snakes slithering out of the woods, down the banks, and into the cooling waters of the river.

  Mandy slapped at something hitting her jacket, realizing too late it was a particularly large ember, a red hot spore eager for fresh fuel. Almost as one, the dozen refugees turned and looked back toward the house. It was fully ablaze, the woods around it beginning to flame up. To the east, the flames were much closer, a fiery whirlwind moving fast. Not far away, the reverberating roar of an explosion momentarily obliterated the ominous crackle and hiss of the fire.

  A fresh outbreak of screams and sobs. Peter’s eyes met Karim’s. The Buick or the van?

  “Van,” Karim intoned. “The Buick should be farther away by now.”

  “If there were no more trees down.”

  A curt nod. “Suggestions?” Karim repeated.

  Mandy took another look downriver. The only light was from the trailers and RVs dotting the woods at Calusa Campground. Obviously, no one would sleep tonight. But there was no fire. To the south both sides of the river were clear. Mandy jumped, sucking in her breath as an indigo snake whispered past her toe, plunged into the water. There was no way . . . absolutely no way she was going to swim the river.

  She picked her way across the uneven ground until she was standing where Karim could clearly see her take her cell phone out of her jacket p
ocket. Didn’t search me, ha! Though I was useless, ha! For a moment Mandy glared into his dark eyes before selecting the number she needed. “Glenda, this is Mandy. I need help. Fast.”

  “The police will be waiting?” Grisha’s round face, hovering above Mandy’s shoulder, was solemn.

  “I doubt it,” Mandy assured him. “Glenda—the woman I called—knows nothing about the situation. Only that we need help.” Immediate help. The FBI could wait. She could have called the FBI, she realized, but retribution could wait. Right now the important thing was staying alive. And that was something Glenda could organize faster than the FBI, of that Mandy had no doubt.

  Grisha nodded and turned away, his still-troubled face betraying his skepticism. Mandy didn’t blame him. The young guard was facing reality better than she. If Glenda called 911 . . .

  If the FBI failed to be their usual secretive selves and told the police what was going on . . .

  Worst case. Worst case? Had the fire fried her brain? Why should she care what happened to Karim and Grisha? They were the enemy. Bad guys. Talk about Nadya! Now she was the one suffering Stockholm Syndrome with a vengeance.

  But Grisha was a young man who might learn from this night of terror. Might consider another line of work . . . And Karim? Karim wanted out. Of that Mandy no longer had any doubts. So the phone call to Doug Chalmers would be later rather than sooner, the fire ample excuse for her forgetfulness.

  Karim and Grisha had moved slightly apart from the group, two dark silhouettes behind an amorphous curtain of smoke. No doubt discussing the what next when they moved from momentary heros back to wanted men.

  Suddenly, they broke apart, running to stamp out a flame that flared at the edge of the clearing. The fire was closer, the flames from the old cracker shack spreading to the woods surrounding the footpath, forcing the three men to keep constant watch, rushing to eradicate glowing embers before the flames could spread into the clearing.

  The helicopter was back, thrumming loudly, the huge bucket dangling on a long line, as it once again rushed to the defense of the small cluster of homes east of the river.