“What was he doing out there?” Petteri asked with impatience.
“She didn’t know,” Howard deadpanned.
“Did you explain the situation?” He put emphasis on “situation,” as part of the unspoken language between them. Petteri wasn’t above a certain level of threats to get the answers he needed.
“I told the woman who I was, and who I report to, and it didn’t change her answer. She did mention how much she wanted me to get your autograph, though.” Howard laughed a little, as if unsure how his boss would take it.
Most of the time, they shared the same sick sense of humor, but this day was special. Petteri was already walking barefoot on eggshells, so he wasn’t in the mood for dragging out the capture of the missing technicians a second longer than necessary. “And?”
The security officer cleared his throat. “Sir, I called Yellowstone park headquarters a few minutes ago and pretended I was his brother and desperately needed to speak with him. The nice ranger on the other end was able to tell me Mr. Creighton signed a trail logbook in the northern part of the park, but hadn’t come back. When I pressed him some more, he admitted a mystery hiker tripped an emergency dialer in something they call an alpine hut. The ranger didn’t know more than that, because they have some kind of park emergency going on. However, before he hung up, he told me someone had been dispatched to find and retrieve the person calling for help.”
Petteri rocked gently back and forth; a small squeak in his chair suggested it was time for a new one. “And you think it’s him?”
“It was in the right area. I have a man speeding to the trailhead parking lot and another going to the park headquarters. One way or another, we’ll have eyes on the subject soon, probably before sunrise.”
“You understand we can’t let him talk to anyone. Anyone at all. Right?”
Howard nodded. “You want me to bag the ranger who picked him up, assuming it was him who tripped the alarm and assuming they talked when they got together?”
Petteri shrugged. “I want Mr. Creighton stuffed into a dark room until this difficult period is behind us, and I don’t care what you do with his friends. We can make up a story later.” As long as no one offered the press a scoop before phase two was over, and the rock was safely in Earth’s orbit, the overall plan to harvest the asteroid would remain safe. Despite the last dangling piece, Petteri couldn’t help being pleased at the progress reported on the ground.
That brightened his mood, and he let out a chuckle. “Go ahead and get that secretary my autograph.” It stroked his ego to do her that favor, but it was all part of his endless efforts to keep his reputation above reproach. What better way to polish the apple than to show attention to the tiniest and least important members of his operation? Charm offensive also helped minimize the risk of a disgruntled employee making a mess of this carefully orchestrated public relations dance.
When Howard left, Petteri thought of calling the deep space operations room; a parallel team worked furiously on a separate problem for him. They were Stephen Hawking-level experts who made the brainiacs in the stinky conference room look like glue-sniffing kindergarteners. While the first team was dealing with PR blitzes and meteor shower timetables for phase one, the second team was doing the real heavy lifting for phase two. He’d secretly lured them in with pallets of cash to answer the far more important question: how could they get the Petteri-2 spaceship, and the planet-killer rock attached to it, into a stable orbit around the Earth?
For all the unicorn-rare talent he’d rushed in, it troubled him that two days after the explosion above the moon, they still didn’t have an answer.
Chapter 5
Yellowstone
Grace looked over her shoulder while reversing the truck to get out of the small lot. As the vehicle started moving, the man bolted upright and faced the back window. His messy black hair was silhouetted by the firestorm brewing along the road, though it also blocked part of her view.
“Keep down!” she shouted. “I’m turning around.”
“I’m alive?” he asked with surprise, looking at the big watch on his wrist.
“Yes,” she barked. “You were talking a second ago. Please get down!” She wiped sweat off her forehead, then gulped air through her sleeve to filter it. Smoke crept into the interior when she opened the side and rear doors. She glanced back, hoping he’d comply, but he didn’t acknowledge her. Instead, he stayed glued to the rear window like she was about to take him from his parents.
“This is all my fault,” the guy finally said with an air of defeat.
Grace was too professional to agree out loud, yet he spoke the truth, at least with regard to her situation. If he hadn’t sounded the alarm in the hut, she wouldn’t be in such a dire position. Earlier today, she was worried about putting on a memorable performance for a bunch of kids. At that moment, facing a wall of flames and a too-literal baptism of fire, she realized being a ranger meant facing real danger. Blaming people wouldn’t change a thing.
“We’re getting out of here,” she said with determination as she faced forward. In the harsh glare of the firelight, she noticed black soot already blanketed the trucks’ giant hood. Beyond that, the wall of fire along the road seemed to shore itself up, as if to make sure her escape would be a tough one. Floating embers swirled everywhere, like a billion stars had come out of the skies to taunt her. A stiff breeze appeared to push the sparks to new and more distant trees; soon the entire lower valley would be in peril.
“They did this,” the grief-stricken man added, before coughing multiple times.
She gasped in shallow breaths to keep from inhaling too much smoke while she considered what he’d said. Many forest fires were caused by human carelessness, so it wasn’t impossible a person caused this one, but after seeing dozens of fireballs plummet out of the heavens, the smart money was on them as the origin. Grace half-turned to the rescued hiker. “They started the fire?”
He nodded his head vigorously at first, then squinted as if to see her better. “Hey, kid, where are your parents?”
The crazy-haired guy wasn’t any older than she, but he’d been out cold when she’d dragged him from the woods. The large seats probably made her appear small, so she wrote it off as an honest mistake. She held up her hat, which she’d placed on the seat next to her, and spoke matter-of-factly. “I’m a park ranger, sir. We’ll talk about the cause of this later. Right now, I recommend you hang on to something.”
“You’re just a kid,” he whined.
Grace tossed the hat aside, then stomped on the gas pedal. The tires broke loose on the gravel, spinning rocks into the wheel wells. The man shrieked, since he sat over the rear axle. She tried not to take pleasure in scaring him, but she was about to pull up her big-girl pants and drive into a fire, so it was no time to go soft.
“You can’t go that way!” the guy howled.
The forest fire had come up to each side of the road, burning through the pine needles and undergrowth, and it stood there as if watching a parade. Tongues of flame jumped into the roadway, ever searching for new things to burn, and hot embers shot sideways from the maelstrom like flaming confetti. “There’s no other way,” she replied through gritted teeth.
Grace raced the truck into the narrow path between the worst of the flames. The world outside her windows became bright orange and yellow, exactly as she imagined it would be like to drive inside a volcano. She immediately lost her bearings in the confusing colors and heat, but she held the wheel steady and didn’t dare slow down. She punched out of the flames a few seconds later, aimed for a big tree at the edge of the road, so she jerked the wheel to get back into the middle.
The man spoke as if calling to the heavens. “Oh, God! Please let us make it out of here.”
“Amen,” she answered while doing her best to stay on a clear route between the walls of death. Blood coursed through her ears with the frantic pace of her heartbeat, and her vision narrowed only to what she saw in the middle of the road. Debr
is fell on the truck like hot rain; burning branches and pines littered the roadway. She couldn’t let off the gas, fearing the tires might melt. Ahead, a brighter section of forest flared up, as if an evil barbeque cook squirted a fifty-five-gallon drum of lighter fluid in there. If God was going to answer the guy’s prayer, he would do it through her. “No pressure, girl,” she said to shore up her confidence.
As she drove them into the next wave, the front window turned into a solid sheet of burning hatred, and she once again had to hold the wheel and hope the road didn’t have a sharp turn ahead. She started counting the seconds with Mississippis. After the first few, the inside of the truck became warm; even the air from the vents blew hot. How long could a modern vehicle survive inside an oven? She’d seen pictures of burned-out husks of cars during an NPS training video about forest fires, and once she reached ten Mississippi’s, she thought they were going to join them.
A few seconds after she figured they were toast, the Suburban popped out on the other side of the hot spot. “We’re through!” she cheered, sounding surprised, even to her own ears. She immediately wiped the perspiration pooled on her forehead.
Thirty seconds later, after careening along the gravel goat path at what felt like highway speeds, she let off the gas a little. The bulk of the blaze burned like the sun in the rearview mirror, and there were no obvious fires along the road ahead, but she wasn’t taking anything for granted.
“You did it,” her passenger remarked. He fell over with a long exhale.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” she said, noting how the old saying fit the situation. “I’ll get you down the mountain, then you can say I did it.”
Grace pushed the button to squirt wiper fluid on the windshield, hoping to push away the blackened embers, watching it form into an oily sludge. She had to slow the truck to a crawl, which put her nerves on edge worrying the fire was going to catch her. Thankfully, she kept her head until she had it clear enough to see again, then she spun the tires in the rocks as she got back up to breakneck speed.
A minute or two later, the truck roared down the stretch of road where she’d seen the bison. The animals seemed to have made it out of the area; they had better sense than humans when it came to getting clear of fire. As she studied the dark forest, she noted that embers had started a few smaller fires on each side, almost as if dozens of lost hikers sat around cozy campfires.
The man remained quiet, and was possibly asleep, despite the bumpy ride down the valley. That was good for Grace, since she wanted to stay completely focused on driving. If they blew a tire, or she ran them off the path, they could end up back in the volcano. As it was, she drove faster than was probably safe, and a few times she high-centered the truck over larger rocks, making her wonder if they’d drop the transmission.
A half hour later, she reached the intersection with the blacktop road. She half-expected firefighters to be gathering, but there were no other vehicles. She stopped at the end of the gravel then hopped out, so she could open the back swing-away door and learn more about the person she’d saved. “Wake up!”
As she suspected, the man had been asleep. She had to jostle him awake, but once he was up, he scooted from the cargo area and got on his feet. He instantly paced back and forth, all the while alternating looking at the forest and the thick watch on his wrist. “Where’s the fire? Are we out? Are we safe?” Grace was about to reply, when the man seemingly noticed her NPS truck for the first time. “Holy cow! Look at this thing.”
Grace hadn’t had a chance to review it in detail, so it came as a shock to her, too. The rear bumper once had a plastic strip running from one end to the other. It had since melted away and the liquified remains had run down the metal like dried wax. On the driver’s side, the rubber around the windows had melted; goo had dripped down the glass and white paint below. The plastic caps on the tire valves were deformed splatters on the metal rims. Thankfully, the tires hadn’t burned. Finally, as she took a step back, she reflected on how the white paint of the whole truck had been blackened and scratched. Even the NPS logo on the driver’s door had peeled up and burned at the edges.
“Lady, you really did some stunt driving,” the man said from the far side of the truck. He whistled like he was amazed, before adding, “This side is even worse.”
She trotted in front of the truck, observing how the plastic front grille had warped from the heat. It truly was impressive, and she was thankful the truck was built to survive such temperatures. Then, when she made it around to the other side, her mouth dropped open at the rest of the damage. “They’re going to kill me when I bring this back to base.”
The front quarter panel and the two doors were mangled with huge dents from her run-in with the bison. The door handles were burned and melted, leading her to suspect the doors wouldn’t even open. At least she would have no problem explaining what had happened. In one spot, it was obvious the metal had been crushed by the double impression of horns.
He wiped his hand on his jeans, then held it out to her. “Sorry about calling you a kid. I was way off on that one. Of all the people who could have found me, I’m glad it was you. My name is Asher Creighton. Boy am I glad to meet you.”
All her doubts bled away. She smiled like she’d achieved the highest honor in the park system: a legitimate life-saving rescue. “Don’t worry about it. I’m Grace Anderson. Nice to meet you, too.”
He held her hand a moment longer, then became serious. “I have to tell you who caused the fire.”
Kentucky
Ezra succeeded in swimming out to Susan, wheezing noisily as he tried to catch his breath in the smoky haze. He hadn’t gone such a long distance since his mile-long swim test back in Boy Scouts. Now, in his mid-forties, he’d gone that far, and added a little more. His suffering paid off, though—she was definitely alive. She’d gone limp and floated on her back like she was taking a relaxing break, which was completely at odds with her flailing and screaming earlier. When he saw her eyes, he knew what it was. “You had an attack, didn’t you?”
She stared into the black sky as they bobbed in the water. He knew from past episodes she needed to come back down from her moment of terror. While he waited in the choppy waves, he glanced back to the house. It was easy to see nothing was going to survive inside. Even the boxes he’d tossed onto the back lawn could be in danger.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” she finally said. “I guess I don’t have it like I used to. I made it all the way across the lake, but I thought someone grabbed my leg. That made me scream like a little girl, and the panic overtook me until I froze here.” She righted herself to look in his eyes while she pointed down. “An underwater tree branch caught my pant leg.”
He didn’t bring up the underlying reason for her panic attacks. She’d been in therapy and counseling for years; it was just something she lived with. Their joke was that it always struck at the worst possible times, as if there were an ideal time for one. “Let’s get you to shore.”
“I won’t stop you,” she snickered.
They shared a smile while holding each other. Finally, after catching his breath a bit more, he kicked off and assisted her across the final stretch of water. As they went in, he took the time to observe the other houses of the subdivision still in view.
Most of them were intact, but a few had caught fire, including his. His next-door neighbor on the left was fine, whereas the one on the right was aflame. Fires also burned hot in the wooded back yards behind several houses down the road to the left. The smoke made it difficult to see the other homes in that direction. There were no fires on the shorter end of the street to his right, but it wasn’t possible to see the houses on the street going up the hill. Those neighbors didn’t have lakefront properties, so he’d have to walk over there to confirm their status.
When he touched land, he dragged Susan to her feet. They walked together out of the shallow water and onto the shore. “Here you go, my dear. Take a load off.” He helped her sit down on the gr
assy shoreline of their backyard. She’d barely unclipped her life vest before someone came tumbling out of the wind-stripped bushes on the other side of the yard.
“Help!” the woman cried out.
“Ethel?” The elderly woman was a good friend, despite the difference in years. They shared a kinship in both having E-names from a bygone era. Hers was natural, since she was from that generation. Ezra had been named after his grandfather, who was also from that generation.
Ethel struggled to speak as she walked across the yard. “It was a miracle I saw you swim in. Where were you? No, it doesn’t matter. It’s Roger. You have to come help!”
His first reaction was to refuse, full stop. He didn’t want to leave Susan, because she was still coming out of her paralysis and it helped them both to be together during that cooldown. But the other woman seemed desperate for help, and she was in her late eighties. She barely looked like she could cross the yard, much less go back and help her husband. Besides, the one thing he saved from the house was his medical box, so he had a responsibility to put it to good use.
When he glanced over to his wife, her knowing look suggested she already knew what he was going to do. “I’ll be right back, Suze. Don’t go anywhere.” That got her to chuckle, which gave him confidence she’d be fine, like all the other times.
Ezra got up and jogged to Ethel just as she reached the stone path. She stumbled into his arms, winded and flushed. “He’s dying,” she cried. “Roger is dying. Please help him.”
He grabbed her by the side and guided her to the same patch of grass where Susan rested. When she got there, Susan offered a hand to help Ethel to the ground next to her, since there was nowhere else to sit. “I’ll take care of her,” Susan said softly to him. “You go help Roger.”
Impact Series Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 6