Burning Up

by Anne Marsh

  “The team jumps here,” he repeated. “That’s Eddie’s fire eating up that ridge. He’s burned three acres, maybe four. He’s sitting there in that cabin, waiting for us to come and stop him. He wants that challenge,” he said confidently. “Because, for him, this is a game. After you jump, Spotted Dick will swing back around, and I’ll go in for Lily.”

  Evan cursed. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “We’ll already be a man short, and I need every pair of hands we’ve got digging line. I’m doing this one alone.”

  A deadly game. He didn’t like dropping his team into the heart of what was probably a lethal trap. Eddie Haverley didn’t need to sit there with a sniper’s scope to pick Jack’s team off. First responders were always at risk, and the jumps killed more men than the fires ever did. That was what happened when a man went out the door of a plane fifteen hundred feet up, with only a nylon chute and some padded Kevlar between him and the ground below.

  The ten minutes it took to drop the team over the jump site felt like an eternity. Looking out of the plane as his boys jumped away, chutes snapping open, he could only pray he’d be on the ground in time.

  The plane banked hard, turning away from the jump site, and then the hunting cabin and the black pickup were front and center, and his ass was braced in the open doorway.

  Showtime.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Jack had done his buddy check with Rio before his brother had jumped at the last site, so he was ready. He held still in the open doorway, the wind tearing at his face as the flames down below ate up the forest, and it was all he could do to wait. Leaning out, he dropped the streamers, watching the red ribbons plummet and then snap open, marking the wind’s direction.

  The only clear jump site was the open road leading up to the cabin, and he’d deliberately dropped the streamers there. A little red-herring action for Eddie Haverley. Updraft and drift wouldn’t be too different over the trees carpeting the sides of the road, and those tops would give him some cover as he came down. He had no intention of landing his ass on the road, dragging an open chute, while Eddie unloaded any gun he was packing.

  Trick was coming down and deliberately hanging up in those branches without impaling himself. He’d sure as hell done it by accident on more than one jump, so he knew the theory of it. At the controls, the pilot bawled out the altitude and banked the plane back around.

  “You got this, Jack?” The spotter’s face was intent on the road unfolding beneath them, watching those red streamers settle. “She’s not too bad. Road’s clear.”

  “I’m not aiming for the road.” The plane dropped again, roaring in as low as the pilot could take her and still give Jack enough altitude to open the chute and ride it down to the ground.

  “Shit, Jack.” The floor vibrated beneath their feet, and a new plume of dark smoke shot up on the other side of the ridge. Had to be an accelerant over there. “Good luck.”

  Spotted Dick brought the plane over the road leading up to the cabin. A straight shot up the gravel road, the cabin’s shake roof was mossy and half caved in, but there was no mistaking Eddie standing there on the porch, watching the wall of flames advance. Jack didn’t know what the stupid bastard thought the plan was, but Eddie Haverley was about to star front-and-center in a barbecue. There was a motorbike by the side of porch, so perhaps Eddie planned to outrun the fire.

  Good luck with that one.

  Jack braced himself. The engine roared, and the spotter’s hand slapped his shoulder hard. Go. He launched himself out the door, arms tucked in, legs straight. Cleared the plane and looked down.

  He saw a flash of color behind Eddie. Lily. The barrel of Haverley’s gun rose and fell, and Jack wanted to howl. The drag chute snapped out behind him, jerking him upward briefly before gravity reasserted her control and he started the downward haul toward the ground. He picked his spot, a nice, dense crown of pine, and steered toward it.

  Jump thousand.

  Look thousand.

  Reach thousand. He got his hand on the rip cord and got ready to pull, because Lily’s life depended on his getting this right.

  Wait thousand. Five hundred feet. Four.

  Pull thousand. Right on cue, the chute exploded open as he yanked the cord. The trees spun wildly beneath him, and he dragged hard on the toggles, steering for the patch of pine he’d picked out.

  Check your canopy.

  Sky was clear above him, the plane disappearing back over the ridge to make another pass and assess what the boys could do to catch the fire. When he looked down, the forest was rushing up to meet him. Deliberately, he steered for the canopy. The bristling tops of the ponderosas rushed up to meet him, and the chute tore loudly as the fabric caught and he crashed through the top layer of branches, feet out. He’d hang up, and then he’d need to cut himself free.

  He was gambling on that. This close to the ridge, the smoke boiled up around him. Given the speed of the fire gobbling up the forest, Eddie must have used an accelerant, but he’d also picked his spot wisely. If, that was, his goal was really to set the entire goddamned ridge on fire. The forest here was heavy with old fuel, carpeted with endless summers’ worth of dry debris. Nothing had been logged in decades, if ever.

  He could hear the buzz of choppers in the distance, but that water wasn’t getting here quick enough. He’d seen enough fires to know this particular mountainside was going to burn hotter than the flames of hell.

  Branches tore past his face as he punched through the outer layer of the canopy. For a moment, he sank, ass-deep in branches, and then the chute caught. Held.

  If he’d come down on that road, he might as well have handed over the gun he’d holstered on his thigh. If the gun wasn’t enough, he had the knives in his boots. Two hands. More than enough to kill a man, he knew—if Eddie Haverley didn’t use Lily as a shield. The only way to counter that threat was to get the drop on him. He’d have heard the plane coming in, but he’d be expecting Jack to drop into the clearing itself or along the road. The road would have been nice, but it was also a clear shot from the front porch of that little cabin.

  So here he was, hanging like an ornament from a Christmas tree, while time ran out too quickly.

  Pulling his hunting knife from its sheath on his arm, he cut himself free, the blade slicing through the nylon cords like butter. Two seconds to cover his head with his arms and let gravity do its thing, pulling his body down through the canopy to the forest floor. Five seconds later he was taking a hard landing on his steel-toed boots. Everywhere he looked, there was smoke and embers, small flames chewing at the groundcover. He hoped like hell his boys were digging line like madmen on the other side, because this fire was damned hungry.

  He was crouched outside the bushes by the cabin in under two minutes.

  The curtains were closed, but the front door was cracked open.

  Bastard was watching for him.

  He weighed his options as the wind sent embers skittering across the little clearing where the long-gone hunter had planted the cabin. Wind was picking up, and that was bad news. The cabin roof was already stressed, with small, hazy patches of smoke rising from the shingles. He could vent his way in, but then he’d lose any element of surprise. Window was too damned small. Which meant either he went in the front door—or he waited for Eddie to come on out.

  He eyeballed the sky again. Fuck. The cabin was square in the path of the fire now. He could see the orange glow spreading down from the ridge a quarter mile up from where he stood. There was more than enough fuel between the cabin and that line, too. No way that fire was stopping, and the road wasn’t wide enough to do much good as a fire break. No, the fire would hit the canopy and jump clear across.

  He needed to get Lily the hell out. Now.

  Her avenging angel—although Jack was, she admitted, more devil than angel—exploded through the cabin’s only door. The precise report of the Beretta he’d palmed as his booted foot rearranged the cabin’s door ha
d her crying out in shock.

  “Drop the gun,” Jack barked. Eddie Haverley, she realized, was only getting one chance while he contemplated the Beretta trained on his forehead and the hole in his shoulder. The man would never use that arm again. Seven rounds left, and Jack’s face warned he’d empty the rest of the clip if that’s what it took.

  “Bastard.” Eddie had a gaze like black ice on a New England highway. Those cold eyes boring into Jack signaled he’d hit a death patch and was now spinning out of control. “You should have stayed out of this.”

  The smile curving Jack’s mouth was cold and hard. All straight-up soldier. “Make me.”

  She knew Jack needed her to get the hell out of his way. She edged toward the door, but Eddie lunged.

  She was still dizzy and slow. And that let Eddie get too close. Jack squeezed off new rounds as her own survival instincts kicked in.

  Sure enough, even as Eddie’s body jerked from the bullets’ impact, his hand grabbed at Lily’s ponytail, his bloody fingers threading through her hair. That hand pulled her head back, and he wrapped an arm around her throat, squeezing the air right out of her. Inhaling became a thing of the past.

  “You can’t have her.” The raspy voice had her trying to cry out in terror and fury. She wasn’t letting him do this. Not again. Not without a fight.

  “I’m not yours,” she wheezed when he eased up on the throat pressure long enough for her to get the words out. Pressure came right back, though, so clearly her answer wasn’t satisfactory.

  Jack brought the gun barrel up and slammed it into the side of Eddie’s jaw, the stainless-steel barrel meeting skin with satisfying impact.

  Eddie cursed, swinging her around effortlessly, her body like so much putty in the face of his anger-enhanced strength. And she could feel the heat from the fire building outside. As he grabbed a hunting knife from his boot, she estimated she had only a handful of seconds left.

  Kicking, she cursed. Her heel connected nicely, first with Eddie’s shin and then his groin. The howl of pain said she’d hurt him where it counted.

  But it still wasn’t enough to stop the blade, so she brought up her forearm, blocking. Just as she thought the blade would surely slice her, Jack’s next shot cut off Eddie’s stream of obscenities, and then Eddie was falling away from her, toward Jack. This was the warrior she suspected only his fellow Marines had ever seen. Moving smoothly, he was pure, lethal predator. Striking the side of Eddie’s head with his right arm, Jack hooked a leg around the other man’s leg, immobilizing him. Eddie screamed, but Jack slammed his other hand up against his chin, forcing Eddie’s head and body back. Not hard enough to kill, but enough to immobilize.

  Eddie went down and stayed down.

  “Move,” he ordered Lily, wrapping the T-shirt he wore under his jacket around her face. The water from his canteen sloshed over her face, wetting the fabric and her hair. “Stay low. Go fast.”

  He hit the floor, pushing her in front of him, on hands and knees. Smoke was filling up the cabin. Too hot, too soon. The heat pressed them down onto the floorboards, leaving them no way to stand up. Fire was going to flash over. Jack didn’t need his years of experience to tell him that. He needed to get her out of the burning cabin. Now.

  Hunched over to keep as low to the ground as possible, he kicked open the front door with a booted foot and spotted the geraniums in their coffee cans. Little wisps of steam curled up from the battered cans. Hell. “We need to leave, Lily.”

  The clearing outside wasn’t much better. Orange flames flickered all around, momentarily stymied by the strip of gravel parking. He’d bet money that, as soon as that gravel ended, the flames would circle around. There wasn’t going to be any way out, even if he could get the truck running.

  “Jack,” she said hoarsely, tugging on his sleeve. When he followed her gaze, he spotted flames flickering along the ceiling, mixing with the smoke in on-and-off bursts of orange fire. If they were still inside that cabin when those flames finished what they were working up to, they weren’t getting out.

  “Go,” he ordered. “Outside.” Never mind that it was hotter than the furnaces of hell out there. Staying inside wasn’t going to buy them any more time.

  “Okay,” she gasped. “Just point the way.”

  Behind them, Eddie cursed, rolling over. He pushed himself to his knees.

  Fuck. Jack palmed his gun, ignoring the uncomfortable heat of the fire-heated metal. Hot enough to burn, but not too hot to fire. Not yet. He wasn’t going to feed the bastard to the flames, but his first priority here was Lily. He had to get her out of here. Anything else was pure bonus.

  One minute, Eddie was just there, swaying on his knees and cursing up a storm. Next minute, the fire blew outward. Fifteen hundred degrees of pure, agonizing hell came calling for Eddie, and that damned fire sucked the oxygen right out of his lungs and cut the scream short before it could even begin.

  Jack was already rolling out the door.

  He hit the porch hard, taking Lily with him. He tried to twist to take the brunt of their fall, but there wasn’t time to worry whether she was under or over him. Getting the breath knocked out of her was going to be the least of her worries.

  No, the problem was that a flashover like the one that had just incinerated Eddie Haverley wasn’t the end point for a fire. All that sudden explosion of flames meant was that the fire had hit maximum intensity. Right now that blaze was lighting up the little cabin, twisting through its foundation and devouring its walls. Those bright orange flames just tore through the wooden shingles, and Jack knew that the burning building was about to turn the whole clearing into a bonfire.

  Outside, it was raining small orange embers. Could have been a real pretty sight, like tiny shooting stars, except he was in the middle of a fucking hot zone, and he didn’t have an evac route. He flicked on the radio but got only static.

  “Where’s the jump team, Jack?” Panic filled her voice. Yeah, she didn’t need his kind of experience to know that things were getting real bad down here on the ground. “Can we take the truck?”

  “I don’t have the keys, Lily, and that road isn’t clear.” Slapping embers off her, he shoved her into his Nomex jacket while he scanned the clearing. The cabin. And the canyon. There. If they got inside that shallow depression, maybe they could wait this one out. “The boys jumped on the other side of the ridge. That’s where they’re holding line.”

  “We’re on the wrong side of the fire line. God, Jack.” She turned toward him, fighting panic and exhaustion. He wanted to pull her into his arms, wrap her in whatever reassurance he could give her, but the sound of the approaching fire beat at them in waves, the deafening crackle of flames devouring summer-dry brush. Every few seconds there was a sudden burst of sound when the flames found a particularly dense or dry spot. Plenty to feed the fire here.

  The number of embers raining down from the smoky plume overhead was increasing. Too close, he thought. They were too damned close. Thousands of feet of black smoke punched defiantly into the sky overhead, dwarfing them, and now he could see the flames a good hundred feet above the forest crown. Jumping the road. Even if he could start the truck, they wouldn’t be able to outrun this fire.

  “We have to take cover.” Making the decision, he dropped his pack, going for the paperback-sized canvas bag that held the shelter.

  Lily stared at him. Ash streaked her incredulous face. “Are you crazy? You’d need a bomb shelter out here. We have to run.”

  Men had died running, and he knew a bad situation when he saw it. They’d make a hundred yards, and then the fire would jump the trees, and they’d be front and center in an inferno.

  “Get the tent out,” he snapped, dropping to his knees beside the depression he’d spotted and digging at the dirt with his Pulaski. The more space he bought her, the more air she’d have when the fire flashed over. “Now, Lily,” he growled when she hesitated. “We’ve got maybe ten minutes, and then we’re starring in a burnover. Get the fucking tent op
en. Otherwise, when that fire flashes over, we’re going to burn from the inside out. Lungs go first, Lily, because God didn’t intend for the human body to suck down that kind of superheated air.”

  The crackle of plastic told him she was doing her part. Good, because a quick glance over his shoulder warned him they were almost out of time.

  “Then what?” She asked her question quietly, dropping to her knees beside him. He’d hoped she wouldn’t ask, but Lily had always wanted the truth, hadn’t she? Silently, he pulled off his T-shirt, wetting down the fabric again with what was left of his canteen. He wished he had more to give her. Wrapping the damp cotton around her head and face, he pushed her down into the little hollow. She went, no arguments, which told him she’d seen the shit-storm bearing down on them.

  “Then the body goes, Lilybell, and that’s a mercy at that point.”

  For a long moment all he heard was the whoosh of a tree going up too close, followed by the ominous crackle as the fire consumed its new fuel. Already that fire sounded like a tidal wave pushing toward them. Overwhelming noise.

  “Tell me,” she said, “this contraption can’t fail, Jack.”

  “Fiberglass and aluminum,” he said. “Best the government has to offer. Shake-’n’-bakes—that’s what we call them.” He wouldn’t lie to her, and he didn’t blame her for the little quaver in her voice. The shelters weren’t infallible, but it was the best he had to give right now.

  Planting his boots on the back wall of the shelter, he pulled the fabric over his head as he dropped down on top of her and planted the other side on the ground, praying like hell the entire time.

  “God, Jack.” She swallowed. “Next time, lie to me.”