The Scorching

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  HESTIA CORPORATION

  Norris knuckled the door, and after a pause a young, dark-haired, dark-eyed man answered. Norris detected a shoulder-holster bulge under the youngster’s charcoal gray suitcoat. “Can I help you?” the man said. He had a mid-Atlantic accent, the effete, half-American, half-British, speaking style of the East Coast elite that Norris thought had died with George Plimpton and William F. Buckley.

  “Name’s Norris,” he said. “I’m here to see Nasim Azar.”

  “Ah yes, he’s expecting you. My name is Salman Assad.”

  The young man let him inside with a slight bow and diffident smile. Then Mike Norris shocked him. With the speed of a striking rattler, Norris turned on the man. His right hand shot out, grabbed Assad by the throat, and slammed him hard against the doorjamb. At the same time Norris’s left hand dived into the man’s coat, and he retrieved a Smith & Wesson .38 special J-frame from the shoulder holster. He rammed the muzzle of the gun into the man’s surprised mouth and said, “Suck on that like it’s your mama’s teat, boy.”

  The kid was scared, his dark eyes wide. The crazy man was a finger looking for a trigger.

  “What’s going on here, Mr. Norris?”

  Without turning his head, Norris said, “Is that you, Azar?”

  “Yes, of course it’s me.”

  “This is the second time today I’ve run into a man with a gun,” Norris said. “It’s starting to irritate me.”

  “I’m a rich man, and like all rich men, I have enemies,” Azar said. His voice was level, calm, unhurried. “The young man is my bodyguard, and he means you no harm.”

  Norris let Assad go and turned to Azar. “You invited me here and I was greeted by a man with a gun,” he said. “I don’t call that friendly.”

  “If I’d known exactly when you were arriving, I assure you Salman would have set his weapon aside,” Azar said.

  “We agreed on two p.m.,” Norris said.

  Norris did something tricky with the J-frame. He spun the revolver around his forefinger before it slammed into his palm and he presented it butt-first to Assad. “If I was you, I’d find another line of work, mister,” he said. “The bodyguarding business fits you like pantyhose on a pig.”

  The young man grabbed the Smith, his eyes full of black anger.

  Azar recognized potential danger and said, “Salman, return to your post.”

  Norris had been slick with the .38, but he was not by inclination or practice a gunman. He therefore missed what Assad did next, a move he should’ve taken as warning. The young Palestinian’s eyes never left Norris’s face as without looking he slid his revolver into its holster as expertly as a samurai sheathing a sword. Assad had been caught off guard, but a more gun-savvy man than Norris would have recognized him as a trained warrior . . . or assassin. At another time and place, the young man would be a force to be reckoned with.

  “I have the maps,” Norris said.

  “Excellent,” Azar said.

  “They’re Forest Service maps, the best there is.”

  “I would not expect a man like you to have any other kind,” Azar said, smiling.

  “Damn right,” Norris said.

  Azar led Norris to a large room that smelled of carpets and mothballs. Without a word, the big man stalked to a long table at its center and swept a clutter of papers onto the floor. He slammed down his briefcase and spread out his maps.

  “We aren’t thinking big enough, Azar,” he said. “We need to wake up these fools at the National Wildfire Service, and I propose we strike at multiple locations at the same time.” He turned to Azar, expecting an objection, but instead, he saw a look of satisfaction on the little man’s face.

  “Splendid, Mr. Norris, just splendid,” Azar said. “That’s the way to force them to sit up and take notice. But, before we go any further, did you arrange my meeting with Cory Cantwell?”

  “No,” Norris said. “He’s no longer in Portland.”

  Azar hid his disappointment. “Ah, is that the case? Well, some other time, perhaps. Now, on as happier note, I’ve arranged an amusing little demonstration for you.” He hesitated. “I trust you don’t think me too bold.”

  “What kind of demonstration?” Norris said, sudden suspicion in his tone.

  “A demonstration of our long reach, Mr. Norris,” Azar said. “I’ll prove to you that even using borrowed untrained . . . ah . . . operatives, nothing is impossible.”

  It was enough to give Norris pause. But it did not.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Who the hell are you borrowing?”

  Azar said, “Tomorrow morning associates of mine will set a fire in the Hollywood Hills.” The man read the question on Norris’s face. I’m borrowing brother jihadists, you ignorant drunk . . . “Around the famous Hollywood sign to be exact.”

  It took Norris a few moments to let that last sink in, and when it did, he became angry. “That’s damned stupid. No matter what, nobody’s going to build a lookout tower in L.A. to spot brush fires.”

  “I know that,” Azar said. “But it will warn the authorities that if we can set a brush fire in downtown Los Angeles, we can set other fires elsewhere. I can only see it helping our cause, Mr. Norris.”

  “Cause? I know what my cause is, Azar,” Norris said. “What the hell is yours?”

  “As loyal Americans we share the same cause,” Azar said. “We don’t want to see our great forests burned by terrorists and . . . and by criminal negligence.”

  He told that lie without blinking, and Mike Norris swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.

  “Now, let us study the maps and begin to make our plans,” Azar said. He took in Norris’s hungover appearance and said, “A drink while we work?”

  Norris didn’t hesitate. “Bourbon . . . neat.”

  “Coming up,” Azar said. He stepped to a heavy oak cabinet bar and opened the doors. “I don’t drink alcohol, but many of my friends and carpet-buyer clients do, especially Jews. Jews like to drink.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” Norris said. “All I know is that I like to drink.”

  Azar returned and passed the glass to Norris. “Later, for your amusement, I have a woman for you.”

  “A woman? Here?”

  “No, not here. Her name is Corky Jackson, a black girl, and she’ll come to your home. I’ve booked her for the whole weekend, but you can throw her out before then if you tire of her.” Azar smiled. “But you’ll like Corky. She’s a very inventive whore, and she doesn’t mind some rough stuff.”

  Norris was taken aback, stunned into silence.

  “Call her a business perk,” Azar said. “My little gift to you as my new associate.”

  Before Indian Wells, Mike Norris would have been scandalized . . . offended enough to punch Azar on the mouth or at least to tell him to go to hell and take his whore with him. But that was then, this was now. It was a measure of his moral and physical decline that he nodded and said, “Yeah, send her over. I look forward to it. Inventive, you say?”

  “Very. You won’t be bored.”

  “Sounds like my kind of gal,” Norris said, the bourbon already talking for him.

  Azar smiled. He watched Dr. Jekyll slowly transform into Mr. Hyde, and such a man could be used . . . and then, like Corky Jackson, so easily discarded.

  CHAPTER 12

  It was a small fire, and Merinda Barker’s crew contained it relatively quickly, though they’d arrived just in the nick of time. The Santa Ana winds were picking up, and the fire could have whipped up to a dangerous size quickly. The firebreak was nearly complete, and Merinda straightened up and looked down the line. Every one of her people had their backs bent over their shovels, and she nodded her approval.

  On the barren hillside, mostly grass and underbrush, the only real damage was to the big letter “D,” which was now blackened and listing to one side.

  The woman smiled. So this is Hollywood . . . says it right there. Look at me, Ma, I made it.

  She turned and saw John
Aaronson working under the D, and sudden alarm spiked at her. “Get the hell out of there,” she called out to the young man. He looked over at her and she waved toward the sign. “It’s about to fall over!”

  The firefighter’s eyes grew big, and he quickly scampered to one side. At that moment, the D gave a screech, toppled over, and then the huge letter tumbled down the hillside, end over end, landing just short of a house at the bottom.

  Merinda closed her eyes and said a prayer of thanks to Saint Florian, the patron saint of firefighters, for his tender mercies.

  Now the sign read, HOLLYWOO.

  When Merinda Barker was a child on a Navajo reservation, she’d been told about her maternal grandfather, who died before she was born. He’d been a stuntman for the same Poverty Row studios where John Wayne had gotten his start. She’d seen Grandpa on screen in a score of shoot-’em-up two-reelers, a short stocky man with the Roman nose her family was afflicted with. Sometimes the nose worked, like with her mother, who was something of a beauty. But a few times it didn’t do near so well, as with Merinda.

  Well, Ma, big snoot or not, I finally made it to Tinseltown just like grandpa Joe Locklear.

  Then . . . suddenly . . .

  “Everybody!” A yelp of fear and shock from John Aaronson. Then, “Oh, my God! Oh, my dear God!”

  Merinda scrambled through brush to reach to the young man, who stared at what looked like a bundle of clothing at his feet. Aaronson then turned away and violently threw up.

  The body had been revealed when the D letter fell and dragged a pile of chaparral with it . . . a man in uniform . . . the dark blue uniform of the Los Angeles Police Department.

  Aaronson turned to Merinda, his face ashen, strings of saliva hanging from his open mouth. “Look at his head!” he said. Then again, “Oh, my God!”

  The back of the police officer’s skull had been caved in by a blow from a heavy blunt instrument. It looked to Merinda Barker that the cop was very young and that his death had been both violent and quick. Suddenly, she and her eleven firefighters found themselves in the middle of a crime scene.

  * * *

  The Hollywood blaze was the second fire Merinda Barker’s wildland crew had contained in the hills above Los Angeles since they’d flown in from Arizona earlier in the day. She and the others had descended into the smoky skies of Los Angeles thinking they were going to get a chance to rest up for a while. But they’d barely debarked from the plane before a National Wildfire Service van pulled up, and grizzled old John Cassidy got out and waved Merinda over.

  He shoved out his hand. “Remember me?”

  “Of course I do. From the fire in Oregon that time,” Merinda said. “It was a bad one.”

  “A year ago,” Cassidy said. “Seems like yesterday.”

  “And you don’t look a day older.”

  “Maybe not, but the day I’m having is making me feel older.”

  “I understand we’re a backup crew,” Merinda said.

  Cassidy shook his head. “No, you’re not. Hate to do this to you, but you’re my troubleshooters, and I need you right away. Everyone else is working on bigger fires, and we’ve got a little blaze up in the hills that I’d like to put out before the afternoon Santa Ana winds kick in.”

  Unlike her tired crew, Merinda restrained her groan. “We’re ready. If we can change into our fire gear somewhere?”

  “Do it right here, no one will notice,” Cassidy said.

  Merinda looked around. They were in the middle of the tarmac, with the vast windows of the airport lounge a sea of interested faces. She shrugged. This wasn’t a time for false modesty. She and her seven men and three women quickly stripped and changed.

  “Our equipment hasn’t been unloaded yet, Mr. Cassidy,” Merinda said.

  “No problem, I got the basic stuff you need in the van,” the man said. “Like I said, it isn’t a big fire. I’ll make sure your luggage and gear gets to your dormitory.”

  They drove through the middle of L.A. with flashing lights and sirens blaring. A fine black dust gathered in the corners of the windshield swirled up from their passage, and it took a few moments for Merinda to realize that it was ash. The air smelled of smoke and had turned as gray as a morning mist. Most cars had headlights on and streetlights flickered on and off, triggered by the gloom.

  As it happened, the blaze was small and confined to a few acres of brush, the kind that local fire departments usually took care of with ease. But even a minor fire can be exhausting. For one thing, California was much warmer than it had been in the Arizona mountains, and Merinda Barker’s team members were not yet acclimated to the heat. They sweated profusely under the heavy gear, and the one thing Cassidy hadn’t thought to bring was enough drinking water.

  Once the fire was out, they piled into the van. They stopped at the first fast-food joint they saw, and all of them ordered the biggest cups of soda or water they could get.

  “I’m paying!” Merinda called out, and only then checked to see if her credit card was still in her pocket. Most of her crew then ordered hamburgers and fries while they were at it. They’d barely sat down before Cassidy urged them to hurry.

  “We’ve got another fire,” he said. “Around the Hollywood sign, for God’s sake. What the hell is happening in this town? I can’t remember so many fires in one day.”

  Merinda frowned and then voiced aloud what everyone else thought. “Arson?’ she said.

  “I hope to God it’s not,” Cassidy said. “I’m hearing strange stuff about terrorists and smoke jumpers trained as assassins to kill them.” He shook his head. “The world is growing madder with every passing day.”

  “That stuff can’t be true,” John Aaronson said, letting his plastic soda straw slip out of his mouth. “I mean, the bit about smoke jumper assassins.”

  “Why can’t it?” Cassidy said. “Where have you been, boy? I’m from Texas, and I’ve met smoke jumpers there who were mean enough to piss on a widow woman’s kindlin’. If one of them boys finds a terrorist with a match in his hand and a fire at his feet, they’ll gun him quicker’n scat.”

  “It’s the American way,” Merinda said.

  Her sarcasm was lost on Cassidy. “Damn right it is,” he said. “And if it isn’t, it should be.”

  “It’s not for me,” one of the female firefighters said, a pretty youngster with her blond hair in a ponytail. “I don’t hold with guns.”

  “The trouble is that terrorists are mighty fond of them,” Cassidy said. He smiled. “You know what the gun-toting smoke jumpers are called? Punishers. Heard that with my own two ears. Now, we’d better get going.”

  “Where are these Punishers based?” Merinda said as she got to her feet.

  Cassidy shook his head. “Nobody knows. Maybe they don’t even exist, and it’s all a big windy.”

  Cassidy was too old for the front lines, but his job as a supervisor kept him close to the firefighters. “We’re putting up you and your crew in the depot annex with some cots,” he said as he drove through the rush-hour traffic. “Sorry about that, but we’re packed to the rafters.”

  “How bad has this year been in California?” Merinda asked, as she drank the last of her soda. She leaned back in her seat and sighed. She felt as though she could close her eyes and go right to sleep.

  “I think we’ll make it just fine through the season if no more big fires start up,” Cassidy said. “I don’t know about next year. Even if we hire more people now, they won’t be trained in time. Sure enough, got all kinds of fancy gear, though.”

  Merinda shook her head. Cassidy knew as well as she did that it wasn’t just the lack of training that caused problems, it was finding the right chemistry in the crews. There were always washouts, and you never knew who they would be. Some burly, strong-looking guy would turn out to be lazy, and some wispy young woman would turn out to be a dynamo. Even in her own crew, John Aaronson was having a difficult time fitting in, but he had ambitions to get on a hotshot crew and was trying hard, and Me
rinda thought he’d eventually make it.

  “I guess the bigwigs upstairs will figure it out,” she said.

  Cassidy shook his head. “I hope so, Merinda. I sure hope so.”

  Ahead of them, the chaparral around the world-famous Hollywood sign was burning . . .

  CHAPTER 13

  “Good morning, and have you seen the news on TV?” Sarah Milano said.

  Cory Cantwell stood framed in his hotel room doorway, wearing only his pants. “I haven’t seen anything,” he said. “You woke me up.” Then, scowling, “What time is it?”

  “Seven. Jacob Sensor called. He wants us in Los Angeles. Today.”

  He took the coffee in a plastic cup Sarah handed to him. “Cream and sugar, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s how I like my coffee, and bring me another gallon.”

  “What you see is what you get,” Sarah said.

  “Right now, I prophesy that this is not going to be a good day,” Cantwell said.

  “Well, here’s your starter . . . an arson fire around the Hollywood sign and a police officer murdered. Sensor says it was a pyroterrorist attack.”

  “He would know, I guess.”

  “He seemed pretty certain.”

  “What can you and I do in Los Angeles that the police can’t?”

  “I have no idea,” Sarah said.

  Cantwell groaned. “Oh, my head. I knew that second bottle of wine was a bad, bad idea.”

  “I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so,” Sarah said. “Now, jump in a cold shower while I go rent a car.”

  Cantwell stared at the woman. Despite her limited wardrobe, Sarah looked beautiful in a pink T-shirt, faded blue jeans, and high heels. Her hair was pulled back, and her flawless peaches-and-cream skin was stretched tightly over finely sculpted cheekbones.

  Cantwell said, “How come you look so fresh and so pretty . . . and as cool as a glass of ice water?”