Chapter 11

ELEVEN

Focus.

She didn’t have time to listen to her stupid bleeding heart. Sheesh, Jade should be thankful she’d gotten out ahead of this thing before she really got burned.

Inside the Snowhaven Fire Department locker room, she shucked off her jumpsuit, heavy with the stupid slurry, and dropped it on the floor, along with her pack. She should rinse it off, but with the state of the fire rolling over the hills, she wanted to get to the command center and listen to Miles’s plan of attack.

Anything to get her brain off Crispin, and really, her brain should be on the fire. Not on Crispin.

Or the tight expression of pain as he’d gotten out of the truck and tracked her down. Maybe he’d been about to apologize, but…but frankly, the man had done them both a favor. She wasn’t great at not jumping in to save the day, and clearly, as much as he’d held her hand and tried to act like she might be his partner, he’d always be, like he said, a solo act.

Kill this fire, then pack her bags and go home.

She walked out of the locker room into the empty garage of the fire station. Weird that Logan and Vince weren’t here. “Hang tight, guys,” she said to the rest of her team. “My guess is that we’re going out onto the line.”

The incident team had practically lifted incident command from Ember to Snowhaven, complete with computers and the drone, still operated by CJ, who was staring at his computer screen. Another dry-erase map hung on the wall, this one probably under the ownership of SFD, but this time, all the pushpins lined up along the road on the opposite side of the river.

Miles was on the phone, yelling at someone about needing more planes, his legs braced, staring out the picture window.

Nova, too, manned a radio, talking with one of the crew chiefs. “No. Block off the 518. No one goes into the Kootenai.” She lifted a hand to Jade.

“So, it’s going well then,” Jade said to Conner, who held his phone, texting. “What can I do?”

“We have everyone out on the line. We need more personnel, but everyone is deployed. I’m trying to get another dozer up here.”

Her gaze had gone out the window to the rim of fire shooting above the treetops, the cloud that ballooned over the horizon. Then she walked to the fire map. “It hasn’t jumped County Road 518.”

“No,” said Miles, coming over. “But it did jump the Shelly Mountain Road, all the way to the river. We caught it on drone.” He picked up a marker and blackened in the burnt area, ran a line across the current location.

“The road opposite the Kootenai River is wider than the Shelly Mountain Road, and if you look, the entire conflagration is bordered by the 518. If we can pinch it off here, we have a smaller area to fight.”

Miles pointed to the narrowest part of the river. “It could cross here. And then we’ll lose the town. We’re trying to widen the road across the river.”

She stared at the map. “We ran a scenario in our labs like this. A running crown fire where the surface and crown are linked. The surface intensity ignites the crowns and keeps feeding them. But if we can dampen the surface fuels, we can slow the crown run. At least in the sim.”

She put her hand on the unburnt area. “This needs to burn.”

“I think it will.”

She turned to him. “No. I mean we need to burn it. We need a controlled burn, starting along the entire line. We can keep it moving forward, burn out the fuels at the surface, and then when the headwall hits?—”

“It’s going too fast.”

“Not if we slow it down at the source.” She pointed to the headwall. “We bombard this with slurry and water, get everything we have into the sky. It’ll slow it down, maybe weaken it, and then when it hits the black, it’ll have nothing to feed it. We kill it before it hits the line, but even if it doesn’t die, it’ll be weak enough for us to hit it with the hoses.”

Miles nodded, listening, probably calculating planes and personnel.

“It’s a good idea,” said a voice behind her. “I think it will work.”

She turned and stilled.

Her brother Jed, tall and handsome and weary around the eyes, came in, sooty in his yellow jacket, a hat, his name written on the breast. J. Ransom.

Just like hers.

“Jed.”

“Hey, Jade.” He took off his helmet, came over to her. And then he pulled her into a hug. “I’m glad you said yes.”

She pulled away, frowned at him. “What?”

“When Nova went down, Conner called me and asked me what I thought about bringing you in. I told him he needed the best crew chief I knew—besides me.” He winked. “But this plan…” He walked over to the map. “I think it could work.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Apparently that masters in fire behavioral sciences isn’t just words on a page.” He winked. Looked at Miles. “My guys are in the bus, waiting to deploy.”

Miles pointed to the 518. “I have the teams from Ember here and the Juneau team next to them. There’s a couple Boise teams working the other side of the bridge.” He looked at Jade. “Your plan takes out the old Snowhaven Community Church, just so you know.”

“The church isn’t a building. They’ll rebuild. But we can’t rebuild an entire city.”

He looked over at a woman, standing with her arms folded. Mid-fifties, she wore the strain of the fire on her face.

“Do it,” she said.

Miles turned back to Jade. “You take your jumpers and drip cans and follow the dozer that Conner just ordered all the way to the east end of the line. Grab a couple ’shots from the Ember team if you need help.”

“Yes, sir,” Jade said.

Jed nodded, then walked with her out to the garage. His Missoula team had disembarked to talk with her jumpers.

“You doing okay, sis?”

“You really recommended me for the job?”

“Had to figure out some way to get you back to Montana. We miss you.”

She swallowed, the words landing on raw soil, almost bringing tears. “Yeah. How is Kate?”

“Great. She trained our jump team but is mostly home with JR.” His voice lowered. “How are you doing after…you know?”

She stared at him. You know? And weirdly, her only thought was of Crispin and the terrible shearing of her heart, and…wait—“You’re talking about the fire in Alaska? The flashover?”

“Yeah. Scary. I heard you guys had to get into shake and bakes.”

“It was under control.”

He looked at her. Then shook his head.

“What?”

“Why do you always have to be the toughest one in the room?”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“Just…” He glanced at his team, then cut his voice low. “I know you can handle yourself out there, I really do. But you don’t have to prove anything, okay?”

She had nothing.

“I’m proud of you, sis. Please don’t do anything stupid. I’ll see you after.”

Then he pulled her into another hug.

Huh.

He let her go and rounded up his team. They hopped into a school bus, the words Missoula Firefighters painted on the side.

She counted her team. “Where’s Logan and Vince?”

“They went with that guy—what’s his name, Crispin? Took off about a half hour ago.” This from JoJo, who was pulling on her pack.

Wait. “They went…” Oh no. Of course he went after the nuke. And he’d needed guys to help carry it.

But the nuke was located…her breath caught, remembering the burn map.

“Jade, are you okay?” Finn came over.

She pressed her hands against her stomach, willing herself not to retch. Oh no, no…

No one died today. “See if you can get Logan on the radio.” She took a breath. “Let’s find a vehicle and get on the line. We have work to do.” Lots of work. Focused, desperate work.

Finn had grabbed a radio, was reaching out to Logan.

She picked up a couple of saws, walked over to a nearby truck—Conner’s. She recognized it from that day he’d rescued her from Crispin’s place.

Oh, Crispin. She closed her eyes. Please be alive.

Because shoot, oh shoot?—

“Chief. You don’t look so hot.” Finn had loaded in a couple shovels.

“Did you get ahold of Logan?”

“No dice. But I’ll keep trying.”

She nodded. “Do that.”

Conner came out of the headquarters, kitted up in a pair of pants, boots, a jacket, helmet. “Where’s the rest of your team?”

She stared at him. “I don’t know. I…they might be in the fire.”

He just blinked at her. “What?”

“Long story?—”

“Okay, c’mon. I’ll drop you on the line. We need to get the backfire started.”

Yes. She’d start the fire, get it moving, then hand it over to her team.

Then she’d pray they were back, and if they weren’t, she’d find them.

No one died today.

Please God.

Conner climbed into the cab.

She jumped into the back with JoJo, Finn, and Rico. Banged the back of the cab.

Conner took off, kicking up dirt out of the lot, down the street and over the bridge. She passed the parking lot of the doomed church and saw a number of people digging a line around the building.

That was hope, right there.

A flatbed sat on the side of the road, offloading another dozer. Conner pulled up to it, stuck his head out the window, gesturing. “Give me a thick link of dirt—all the way to the soil. No grass!”

Then he drove down the line and dropped off JoJo, and farther down, Rico, and finally Finn.

He stopped maybe fifty feet from the end. “I’ll keep you posted. But you start that fire as soon as the dozer cuts the line.”

“Yes, sir.”

She hopped out, grabbed her Pulaski and drip torch. Here, the road veered away from the river, and a community park lay between the river and the highway. From the highway arched grassland until it hit the tree line, some fifty feet from the road.

She spotted a truck in the community parking lot and, while she waited for the dozer, ran across the road and into the lot. A rest area with bathrooms, swing sets, a play yard, a covered area with grills—she hoped the fire stopped before it took out this place.

Jogging up to the truck, something about it felt…wait.

Red dye splashed it, the cab, the bed, and…

She stopped. This truck belonged to The Brothers.

“Well, look who’s here. If it isn’t the trespasser.”

She whirled around, her eyes wide.

Long hair, a beard, and he’d wiped his face free of the slurry but still wore it on his body, turning his skin blood red. Floyd, the man who’d been holding a gun on Crispin.

She got her Pulaski up, but not before he advanced on her and slapped her. Pain exploded through her face, her entire body, and she staggered. Her helmet fell off, and she hit a knee. He grabbed the axe and ripped it out of her hand. Threw it away.

“This is going to be fun.”

Then he slammed his grip around her neck and backpedaled her to the truck.

She fought him, kicking, writhing, screaming, but Finn was working too far away to hear her.

Floyd opened up his back door and punched her again, and she whirled, her nose feeling lifted from her face, her jaw nearly dislocating. Blood spurted into the back area, and he shoved her in. Closed the door.

Then he rounded and got into the front.

Wait— what?

But as he roared away, as she curled into a ball, all she heard was her mother. Survive today.

* * *

He’d beaten the fire back to Snowhaven, but just barely. As they’d turned onto the road along the river, the black tumult of smoke billowed out of the forest to the north, the flames leaping from the haze of trees. A distant roar suggested it moved toward the town with ferocity.

“Bring us to the firehouse,” Booth shouted from the back, where he sat with Vince and Logan, still securing Fanny. “We’ll connect with our team from there.”

Crispin couldn’t help but search for Jade along the line of firefighters. They stood up to the fire, walking the edge with drip torches, lighting fires against a line of dirt plowed up by dozers peeling back the earth. The firefighters kept the fire away from the edge of the earth with shovelfuls of dirt, sometimes their own boots.

Above the chaos, planes offloaded water and the red stuff onto the blaze, but the aerial attack seemed fruitless.

Unless it was part of a master plan. Meanwhile, they fought the good fight with all they had, with the terrible hope that it would work.

He headed for the firehouse and found it nearly empty, all the firefighters deployed.

Booth and the guys jumped out of the back. He followed them inside the office.

Miles glanced up at them, on the phone. He hung up. “What are you guys doing here? You should be out on the line with your team.”

He glanced at Crispin, then back at the men. “What happened?”

Oh, clearly he referred to their soaking-wet status.

“The fire caught us,” Logan said. “We had to shelter in the lake.”

A moment. Then, “You good to go back out?”

“Point us in the right direction,” Logan said.

“Your team deployed along the far end of the road. They’re lighting a backfire. Connect with Jade—she’ll give you instructions.” He picked up his phone again and turned back to watch the drone screen.

Crispin headed outside. “Let’s offload Fanny.” Probably the fire station was the right place to store her, for now.

Booth and Logan jumped up on the bed, Vince and Crispin took the protruding end, and they maneuvered the missile off the back, then carried it by the straps into the garage. Put a tarp over it and shoved it against the wall. It seemed the height of irresponsibility to leave it here, in the garage, but it was better than the woods. Still, as soon as he tracked down Jade, he’d call Sheriff Hutchinson, get a deputy up here while he waited for Thorne’s man.

The firefighters went into the locker room to grab their gear, and Crispin pulled out his burner phone.

Dead, of course. Shoot. He needed to get ahold of Thorne, update him.

What he really wanted, however, was another go-round with Jade, this time with him getting his words in before she walked away. Like, I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.

And maybe… I don’t want to be alone. Not anymore .

Booth came out carrying a drip torch and a shovel, followed by Logan and Vince. They threw the gear into the back of the truck. “Let’s move.”

Crispin got into the cab and pulled out, heading back up the line.

The backfires had scorched the grass, started to build into the forest, the surface fuel expended. The smoke on the horizon billowed steam, gray smoke, the evidence the drops might be working.

Still, the closer the fire got, the more the entire earth seemed ablaze.

Booth banged on the cab, and he slowed as they reached one of the firefighters. A female, one of Jade’s team. Logan leaned out, shouting. “Where’s Jade?”

The woman pointed east. “End of the line.”

Crispin nodded and kept driving, past another firefighter, then another. He spotted the end of the dozered trail, where the road met up with the mountain road he’d turned off from only fifteen minutes ago.

No Jade. He pulled over and Booth jumped out of the back, along with Logan and Vince.

“Where’s Jade?” Logan said, standing in the road.

Crispin put the truck into Park and got out.

Vince and Booth ran across the road, holding drip torches. This area hadn’t yet been burned, and they started it ablaze as Crispin searched for Jade.

Logan had crossed the road, had run up the small rise and now back, shaking his head.

Huh.

Crispin turned, looking at the parking lot, the river and?—

There, in the lot, a yellow helmet. He sprinted over to it and picked it up. A fist hit his chest. J. Ransom , written in marker on the inside.

He turned, holding it, and another punch hit him when he spotted her axe.

Then, red slurry, dropped onto the pavement, a bloody stain.

No, oh no …

Maybe he was simply panicking. He ran out to the line, caught up with Booth. “I think Floyd has her.”

Booth rounded. “What?”

“Yeah. This was in the lot.” He held up her helmet. “And there’s slurry on the pavement. His truck got doused.”

Crispin’s F-150 still dripped red.

Booth’s look of horror probably mirrored his own. A beat, then, “Where would he take her?”

“I don’t know.”

“The 518 is blocked off—he couldn’t get there. And all the back roads are burnt.”

“The drone. Maybe we can find her with that.”

Logan had come up, heard the conversation. Turned to Booth. “Go with him.”

Oh. Crispin looked at Logan, the fire, back to Booth. Opened his mouth to protest, but…

But Booth was his partner. Perhaps it was time to remember that. “C’mon.”

He headed to the truck, Booth on his tail.

Miles looked up at them as they barreled into his office. “What’s going on?”

Okay, so maybe he looked like a man on fire. “Have you heard from Jade?”

Miles frowned. “No. I tried to raise her on the radio but got no answer. I figured she was working—why?”

“She’s missing,” Booth said.

“What?”

“I need the drone,” Crispin said, walking over to the driver. “I need you to search the area for a white Silverado covered in red slurry.”

“No,” Miles said. “I need the drone coverage for the fire?—”

“She’s missing!” Crispin snapped. “She might even have been kidnapped by a terrorist!”

Miles eyes widened. “What?—”

“Yes,” Booth said, a lot more calmly. “Crispin—and I—have been hunting down a rogue terrorist group for the past couple months.”

“What—”

“It’s too long to explain,” Crispin said. “But I need to find her.” He turned back to the drone operator.

“What about her phone? Does she have it with her?” This from Miles.

“I don’t know—maybe. Why?”

“You could track her GPS. I have her number.” He thumbed open his contact list and then dialed. Listened, then put it on speakerphone.

“Hey. This is Jade. You know what to do?—”

Miles hung up, his expression stark.

Nova came out of the locker room, into the office. “Hey, I found this in Jade’s jumpsuit. I think she forgot it. It was ringing.”

She held Jade’s phone.

Crispin reached out for it, and she gave it to him.

He stared at the wallpaper on her phone. A poster of Avengers: Infinity War , of course, all the faces around a center A, ringed with light. She was such a pop-culture girl. X-Men. Avengers. We match. Batman and Robin.

He closed his eyes. Where are you, Jade?

No, better, Lord, please, please help me find her.

He listened, as if God might show up with an audible voice. Instead, there she was, Jade in his head, saying, There’s no fire that is worth the life of a teammate.

And right behind that, a visual of her playing with that little black ring on her finger—oh my?—

“What about her tracking system?”

“What tracking system?” Miles asked.

“She has a prototype of a system she’s trying to develop to track lost firefighters. It connects to an app on her phone.” He tried to open the phone, but a lock grid came up.

“Anyone know her code?”

Grimaces all around.

It was okay, he had a hack. He opened the emergency call feature and typed in random letters and numbers, then copy and pasted the text, over and over and over?—

“What are you doing?” Booth said.

“That trick they taught us?—”

“The crazy password trick?”

“What trick?” Nova asked.

“You get a ridiculously long password, like a hundred thousand characters, then paste it into the phone’s password request. It crashes it.” Booth said. “After a couple minutes, the phone reboots and opens an unlocked home screen.”

“And we’re in,” Crispin said. He navigated to her app and opened it.

Wanted to weep. “It’s working. The GPS has her—there’s a big red dot.” Widening the screen, he tried to place it?—

Froze. “He’s taken her back to my place,” he said quietly.

“Why?”

He looked at Booth. “Because it’s designed for a standoff. Provisions and weapons, cameras, and the outbuilding is a fortress. Maybe the people who sieged my place got a good look at it and reported in.”

“Wow.”

“Had to do something in my free time. But what he doesn’t know is that I also know the vulnerabilities.” He headed for the door. “After all, it is my bunker.”

“I’m coming with you,” Booth said, following him outside.

He turned, opened his mouth to argue, and then closed it. His throat thickened. After everything…“Thanks, Booth.”

His old partner probably saw the emotion in his eyes. “We’ll get her back, bro.”

He hung on to Booth’s words.

Because all he had was hope.