Fire Flight

by John J. Nance

  GRAND CAYMAN ISLAND—FEBRUARY 2004

  Misty Ryan paused in front of the bank building and breathed in the fresh salt air, noting the presence of another cruise ship approaching the harbor. She turned left and began strolling south along the main avenue.

  It had been easier to get through Jeff’s funeral knowing he was a crook, and even easier, given her knowledge of computers, to make a certain listing disappear from her hard drive and from the individual files he’d left. That was a reference no one should ever see.

  She reminded herself that she needed to call the law firm representing her claim on Jeff’s estate. There was a real chance, she’d been advised, that she would win most or all of the funds, especially since Jerry Stein was having a hard time proving that his planes had been abused outside the scope of the lease contract.

  Misty walked to the commercial dock at the south end of town where a rented forty-two-foot yacht was waiting for her. She stepped aboard and smiled at the captain, a young man resplendent in spotless white nautical shirt and pants. As he guided the boat gently out of the harbor, Misty climbed to the fly bridge and stood at the rail, breathing deeply of the sea air and feeling incredibly free.

  For a pretty good reason, she thought.

  When they were a mile off the west end of the island and rocking gently in a calm sea, Misty descended the stairs and moved to the aft deck. She reached in the tote bag slung over her shoulder and extracted a Ziploc bag of ground-up computer disk, the small floppy that was the last remaining record. She placed it on a small table by the rail and reached back in to get a pewter canister, which she also placed on the table. She unzipped the bag, emptied the contents over the side, then wadded up the plastic and stuffed it back in her purse.

  An envelope was visible at the top of her purse, and she couldn’t resist pulling it out and looking at the single sheet of paper it contained once again. The figures were amazing, but there it was: $4 million in U.S. dollars, already transferred and safely recorded in the numbered account she’d opened a week before in Geneva. Jeff’s fourth offshore account had undergone an untraceable name change six months before, thanks to a “service” fee she’d quietly paid the right banker. Now it had been closed and expunged, as if it had never existed.

  Misty opened the canister and slowly emptied the gray ashes over the side. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she watched the stream of gray ride the gentle waves. When they had almost floated out of sight she put her fingers to her lips and blew a kiss toward them. For several seconds she remained in that position, her open palm reaching out toward the sea.

  Good-bye, my love!

  Acknowledgments

  One measure of professionalism and dedication in any human endeavor is how passionate practitioners are when asked to explain what they do, and why they do it. In that sense, the men and women who helped me understand the nuances of aerial wildland fire fighting and airtankering passed the highest test: All of them are understated ambassadors for a world we seldom see, yet one that is of vital importance to all Americans.

  Before naming a few names in appreciation (and realizing that you aren’t interested in plowing through an endless list), I need to tell you in the strongest voice of alarm that the United States has some critical decisions to make immediately if we’re to have the ability to subdue wildland fires from the air in the future. Each of us needs to be engaged in demanding that our congressmen and senators face and solve the problems created by aging airtankers and insufficient professionalism and capacity in the airtanker industry. The choices? Well, visit my website at www.johnjnance.com and click on “The National Crisis Behind Fire Flight” for more details. But in a nutshell, we need either to completely federalize and standardize airtankering by putting the Air Force or the Air National Guard in charge of dedicated units of highly trained pilots and crews with modern aircraft stressed for the job; or, we need a split system in which at least forty thoroughly modern, tested, and certified airtankers are provided under contract from private companies, and at least forty Air Force/Air National Guard aircraft (possibly dedicated C-130H or later models) are converted specifically for aerial retardant drops. And the Forest Service must be able to call in the Air Force/Air National Guard fleet at any time, not just when the private airtanker force has been exhausted. Finally, nothing is going to change until the wildland aerial firefighting job has been assigned to a separate agency with a separate congressional line-item budget. Only Congress can enact the necessary changes, and year after year the forests are getting hotter and drier. This is, without a doubt, a national emergency.

  First and foremost, I want to thank the members of my great new publishing team at Simon & Schuster, starting with Executive Vice President and Publisher David Rosenthal; President Carolyn Reidy; my amazingly sharp and delightful Simon & Schuster senior editor, Marysue Rucci; and Marysue’s Radar O’Reilly assistant, Tara Parsons; and my longtime force-of-nature friend and mentor Adene Corns who—along with Carolyn Reidy—helped bring me home to S&S.

  Thanks, as well, to my agent emeritus, Olga Wieser, to whom this book is dedicated. Olga is stepping away from the front lines this year after decades of noble service, and the flag is passing to my new team at The Writer’s House, Amy Berkower and Simon Lipskar.

  As always, this work had benefited greatly from the professional efforts of my in-house editor and business partner, Patricia Davenport, and my thanks go as well to my University Place staff, Gloria Gallegos, Lori Carr, Todd Stringham, and Lori Ann Evans. Thanks as well to my wife, Bunny, for her ideas and review of the manuscript.

  And my heartfelt thanks to fellow Air Force veteran and airline pilot and author John Halliday, whose close encounters with the worst of airtankering many years ago helped set the contrasts with today’s force in perspective. Thanks, also, to Juan Browne, an experienced lead plane pilot who spent many hours in person and on the plane helping me understand that part of the mission.

  In Washington, a longtime friend and colleague (and published author) from the Air Force days who now heads the Forest Service’s Aviation Division, Lt. Col. Anthony Kern, USAF Retired, helped bring me up to speed on the many aspects of the fight to bring order to and reliability from what has too often been chaos in the federal government’s stewardship of aerial attack of forest fires. In 2002 Tony received one of Aviation Week ’s coveted Laurel Awards for having the courage to ground 25 percent of the airtanker fleet when it became apparent that the C-130As and PB4Ys could never be deemed as safe as necessary.

  Perhaps my most profound appreciation goes to Mr. Jim Barnett, a veteran of the Forest Service and a colleague of Tony Kerns, who has spent uncounted hours assisting me in an unrelenting quest for accuracy in the portrayal of every aspect of wildland firefighting, and especially the aerial component. To whatever degree this novel—set as it is against the background of today’s reality—helps to highlight the nobility of those who struggle with wildfires as well as delineate the tasks ahead, Jim shares a lot of the credit for the accuracy of that background. We’re incredibly fortunate to have such men as Tony and Jim in government service.

  Out in Missoula, Tom Eldridge, the spokesman for (and a veteran of) the famed Missoula Smokejumpers, provided a wealth of information and assistance as well as a review of the manuscript. I was especially pleased by Tim’s “thumbs-up” reaction to Karen Jones, who really is the prototypical female smokejumper today—strong, confident, capable, and always feminine. The fictional Karen and her real sisters share much with Kat Bronsky, my FBI agent from The Last Hostage and Blackout (and you’ll be seeing Kat again in future works).

  Thanks also to the folks at the West Yellowstone National Forest Service facility.

  And ultimately, thanks to you for being a loyal fan and reader. The website’s for you, www.johnjnance.com, and my email address is: talktojohnnance@johnjnance.com. I love to hear from you.

  About the Author

  A decorated Air Force pilot veteran of Vietnam and Operations Desert Stor
m/Desert Shield, John J. Nance is also a lieutenant colonel in the USAF Reserve. He is the author of thirteen major books, four of them nonfiction. Two of his previous works, Pandora’s Clock and Medusa’s Child, aired as major, successful two-part television miniseries.