Kat raced to the end of the gravel, trying to see. Overgrown. More like a pair of unused footpaths than a road. It was a chance. Maybe their only chance.
She rushed back to the car and called to Lily and Nirav as she passed the open car door.
“Stay here. There’s a way out. I’m going to get things from the house.” Kat recognized the lie as she spoke it—a way out was far too optimistic a description.
She threw open the cottage door with a bang that rattled the windows and scanned for anything useful.
Camera. No. Laptop. No. Bird book. No. Clothing. No.
She ran into the kitchen, turned on the tap full force, and filled an empty wine bottle with water. She glanced in the cupboards, but the poorly equipped kitchen had no pitchers or large pots she could use. She grabbed the half-full Mason jar of iced tea from the fridge and searched the near-empty shelves—eggs, butter, lettuce, no help—but she seized a block of cheese. She tucked a bag of granola under her elbow, grabbed the bowl of apples from the table.
She skidded to a halt in the living room. The scrapbooks. Four huge boxes crammed with her history. Sara’s history. Her legacy to her daughter.
It would take four slow trips to lug them to the car, and even then, they wouldn’t fit in the trunk—she’d crammed them into the back seat on her way here.
The children. The dogs.
Compared to the importance of saving the children, these lifeless boxes of paper were meaningless.
She locked her mind tight and turned her back on the past. She left the cottage door standing open behind her and tried not to picture the house and its dreary furnishings going up in flames.
Kat jerked open the back door of the car, ready to thrust her handful of supplies inside, but she stopped. The children’s faces were pale and shocked. Tears scoured Lily’s cheeks, her eyes swollen and her nose running. Nirav sat tight beside her, trembling, his body drawn inward to occupy the least space possible. He patted Tye over and over again as if the motion could stave off terror. Juni had scrambled into the front seat. Kat had to protect them all, the weight of that truth overwhelming.
“I want my dad.” Lily snuffled between each word.
“Dad. Yes, I am wanting Papa.” Nirav’s voice shook.
Kat squatted so she could look directly into the children’s frightened eyes. “Your fathers are out there working to find us.”
She thrust aside the horrifying possibility that they, too, had been cut off from safety. Or burned alive in their cottages. They had to be out there. Somewhere. Fighting for their children. They were the only ones who would realize she and the children were trapped.
“We can’t stay here. The fire is moving this way. I’m going to try and force the car down that old road.” She gestured ahead of them. The futility of what she proposed washed over her, threatening her resolve.
Lily leaned forward to see, and she grunted an inarticulate sound of denial. “That’s not a road. We need to stay here. Dad can’t find us if we leave.” It was a very Sara-like protest, and Kat closed her eyes for a split second, grateful Sara was safe but missing her terribly.
Lily’s body vibrated with tension. Nirav looked back and forth between Kat and Lily, uncertain, and Tye watched his every move. Juni rested her head on the back of the front passenger seat, her eyes anxious.
The overwhelming need to move move move made Kat want to scream, but she couldn’t let herself freak out.
“Lily. Stop. We need to help each other.”
The words had no impact. Kat’s jaw creaked as she ground her teeth together. There was no way she could tackle this without at least minimal cooperation. She tried again.
“Lily, I need you to help Nirav.”
That got through. Lily looked at the boy beside her and nodded.
“Make sure your seat belts are tight.” Kat waited for Lily to check them both, then handed the wine bottle of water to Lily and the bowl of apples to Nirav.
“Okay. We’re going now.”
“We go. Yes. No fire.” Nirav clutched his bowl with both hands.
Nirav had a knack for summing up the essentials.
Kat hurried to the driver’s seat, stuffed the jar of tea and the other food into her shoulder bag, strapped herself in, and backed the car twenty yards down the road to give herself room to accelerate. From here, the bank of honeysuckle looked like a solid wall, and the gap in the trees where the old road lay was invisible. Kat’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, and she closed her eyes.
If there were rescuers out there, they would search here at the cottage, not farther along the mountain. Ahead, she and the children faced only wilderness and heaven-knew-what.
This wasn’t going to work. She didn’t want to die by fire, but death chased her regardless. It might be best to simply wait here. Wait here and accept. The temptation was overwhelming. Kat reached for her pendant, and her panic escalated when she couldn’t find it resting against her chest. In her haste that morning, she hadn’t slipped the necklace over her head. Too late to get it now. Like her boxes of mementos, she had to leave it to fate.
Focus. On. Priorities.
Juni whined and nosed her arm.
Children. Dogs. No choice.
“Juni, down.” Kat pointed to the floorboard in front of the passenger seat. Juni gave her a look that seemed to question Kat’s sanity, but she wedged herself into the foot space.
Boldness be my friend. “Hang on,” she called to the children.
She didn’t look back at them, afraid their fear would undermine her resolve. In a single swift motion, she pushed the pedal to the floor, the engine screamed, and the car surged forward, accelerating faster and faster as it raced across the short stretch of remaining gravel.
They hit the end of the road at forty miles an hour with a jolt that threw them against their seat belts. A horrific crunching sound echoed as the front bumper collided with something solid hidden in the honeysuckle, and both children cried out. A mass of green vegetation obscured the windshield, and metal shrieked as tangled vines scraped along the sides of the car. Kat kept her right leg locked. In only seconds, they were through.
They were on the old roadbed. The instant Kat recognized that fact, their left front wheel caught on a massive rock, and her head slammed into the driver’s side window as the car rocked violently to the right. The children screamed. Kat braked to a halt, dazed by the blow.
She shook her head, trying to clear it. Twisted around. “You two all right?”
Nirav nodded. His good hand clutched his precious bowl, the apples scattered across the floorboards. Tye, wedged now between Nirav’s hip and Lily’s, panted hard.
“Okay,” Nirav said.
A little color returned to Lily’s face, an improvement over the white of complete terror. She brushed at her shirt, which looked darkly wet. The wine bottle she held was now half empty, much of their water lost.
“I’m okay.” She leaned forward to peer at Kat. “You’re bleeding.”
Kat explored the rapidly swelling bump on her head, and her fingers came back bloody. The sight threw her off-balance as it always did, and she fought to stay rational. A small cut on a wicked bruise. In the total scheme of things, nothing to panic about. It just needed an ice pack.
She stifled an out-of-place laugh. She dabbed at the wound with a tissue from her shoulder bag, then tossed it aside. Juni climbed off the floor and back onto the passenger seat.
No turning back now. She’d signed up for a fight. They’d tackled the first step and made it, so perhaps that was a good sign.
“Hold on to something solid. This is going to be bumpy.” Assuming the car could still even move forward.
She took a quick look back. The children grabbed on to armrests and the front edges of their seat. Behind the car, thin tendrils of dark smoke slithered stealthily toward them with the patience of a serpent seeking its prey.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THURSDAY, 7:40 AM
At the main road
, Malcolm told Scott to turn left, toward the lake and toward the field where he planned to rendezvous with the helicopter. Three fire engines were clustered along the road near the lake, one of them an enormous tanker truck. Small figures in heavy yellow coats lumbered along the roadside, lugging fire hoses and wielding shovels. The forest burned with intensity here, and flaming trees towered high over the firefighters, dwarfing their efforts. Trying to quell this fire with water from individual hoses was as effective as spitting into an inferno.
“This is all they have?” Scott kept looking around as if other equipment was hidden somewhere. “Where’s all the high-tech?”
“It takes time to mobilize,” Malcolm said. “This looks like a local force, and the Forest Service will call in reserves. It looks like they’re trying to keep the fire from moving south, and the lake is a natural firebreak to the east. The wind is pushing the flames west and north, up the mountainside, up toward the ridge and the Appalachian Trail.”
“Up toward Lily and Kat and your boy.” Raw words when spoken out loud.
Malcolm tensed. Nirav. How could he have let Nirav out of his sight? Maybe Scott was right. He wasn’t a real parent. A real father would never have let this happen. Nothing he’d done in his years in the field, nothing he’d done in his current role of security consultant, had prepared him for parenthood, but it had given him the skills and discipline he needed to function in an emergency. That’s what he needed to access now.
He pulled himself back under strict control. “We’d better check in with Jake’s boss. Too soon for the helicopter.”
Scott pulled the car as far off the road as he could, and the two men started along the last fifty yards on foot. The road rose to a small hill here, and the full scope of the danger became apparent. Low on the mountain, flames and smoke extended to the north and south as far as Malcolm could see. Higher up, the fire moved forward in narrow bands, following the easiest pathways first, like the gully that had blocked their efforts to reach the children. Malcolm searched the hazy horizon, but he couldn’t identify the stretch of mountain where Kat’s cottage was located.
The wind hit their backs as they walked, pushing the smoke out of their way, but the closer they got to the fire, the more intense the heat became. Malcolm’s face blazed, and sweat dripped off his chin.
Scott wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “No wonder those firefighters wear all that stuff.”
A dozen people were working here to dig a broad trench to block the fire, using two enormous hoses to wet the exposed earth and douse stray sparks that jumped the firebreak. Textbook strategies, consistent with everything he’d learned in Special Forces training, but it didn’t look like it was going to be enough.
Malcolm’s cell phone chimed, and he answered. “Yes.”
“This is Wolfpack two-seven-foxtrot, in the air and heading south. Need landing location. Advise. Over.”
The voice crackled over a spotty connection, but it was definitely female. Good. They needed careful and meticulous support on this flight, and that’s what Malcolm had learned to expect from the women pilots he’d flown with. “Roger that. Landing site is a level pasture near Quarter Moon Road.” He gave specifics. “Over.”
“Ten minutes. Out,” the voice replied.
Malcolm disconnected. “Ten minutes,” he told Scott. He glanced at his watch. 0750. Not bad. The chopper should easily beat the 0810 estimate.
He walked faster, leading the way toward the person who was obviously in charge—a tall, lean, middle-aged man who alternated between terse commands to his crew and static-filled conversations on a walkie-talkie. Every aspect of his posture radiated authority.
The chief gave Scott and Malcolm a two-second glance. “Clear out. Civilians aren’t permitted here.”
Scott made a choking sound and seemed ready to argue, but Malcolm responded in a neutral tone. “Jake called about us.”
The chief gave them a longer look, then nodded curtly. “The guy with the chopper? Jake said you had some sort of corporate connection. Must be nice.” He gestured toward the mountaintop, using his walkie-talkie antenna as a pointer. “We’ve got a problem along the AT. Four hikers. Saw the smoke and flames, cut off the trail to get away. One of them fell, broke a leg. They have a SPOT satellite messenger, so we know their position, but your chopper will likely beat ours here. You can go pick them up.”
Scott again started to protest, but this time a glance from Malcolm silenced him.
Chase off after strangers? They’d do no such thing, not when they needed to get to Kat’s cottage fast to beat the fire. Time to pull rank. Malcolm drew himself to his full height, broadened his shoulders, and turned his head so his vivid scar faced toward the chief. “Happy to help. Right after we get our children out.”
The fire chief tensed. “There’s already a Temporary Flight Restriction in place, and a fire’s updrafts are nothing for an amateur pilot to mess with. I can block you from flying, and I can commandeer your chopper anytime I want.”
“I’m well aware of that.” In an emergency like this, individual rights flew out the window. Malcolm gave the fire chief a scathing look, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Scott flinch, obviously glad it wasn’t directed at him. “I’m equally sure you want to prioritize your rescue operations to target those at highest risk first.”
The chief glared right back, neither of them backing down.
An edgy fifteen seconds of immobility ticked away, and then the fire chief slowly nodded acceptance. “Agreed. You go get your children. We’ll stay in touch with the hikers. But let me make myself clear.” He pointed the walkie-talkie antenna at Malcolm, its tip almost touching the other man’s chest. Malcolm forced himself not to move. “If I call and tell you those hikers can’t wait for our helicopter, you break off immediately. We know precisely where those hikers are, and they’re staying put. But if your kids aren’t waiting where you think they are, you could end up searching the whole mountainside.”
Malcolm closed his eyes and took a deep breath, hating the implication that Nirav could be anywhere but safe at Kat’s cottage, waiting for help. This helicopter was his, and he was going to use it to rescue his son. Period. But he had to have a pilot, and the pilot had to obey regulations. If he didn’t play his cards right, he’d lose the chopper completely.
The chief had his priorities straight—Malcolm would be saying the same thing if he were in charge and didn’t have a vested interest. His hands unclenched and his shoulders relaxed. He opened his eyes. “Okay. I’ll play it your way.”
Scott gave a derisive snort but kept quiet. The chief stepped over to a nearby pickup truck and rummaged through an orange box of equipment. He pulled out a chunky phone with a short thick antenna and tossed it to Malcolm.
“Sat phone. Press one and you get me. Keep me posted.”
“Any drones in your equipment?”
The fire chief had already turned back toward his team. “Coming on our chopper.” He tossed the sentence over his shoulder. “Their thermal imaging is good for tracking the fire, but not too good for finding people unless they’re far enough away from the heat of the flames. Yet another reason we don’t want your chopper out there cluttering up the airspace.”
He started shouting orders, once again immersed in the immediate crisis.
Malcolm gave the chief a final nod and crossed the road, hurrying back toward the landing field. He scanned the sky, but nothing yet.
Scott scowled. “What the hell do you mean, ‘I’ll play it your way’? Some jackass hiker breaks his leg, and it’s suddenly our problem?”
Malcolm whirled, all patience lost. He let his tight anger show on his face, and it had the impact of a blow. Scott stepped back. “Shut the fuck up. If I hadn’t agreed to help, we’d have nothing. That fire chief had every right to keep me off my helicopter.”
“Keep us off our helicopter. I’m coming with you.”
Malcolm snorted. “You’d just be in the way.” Scott was a worri
ed father; he got that. But trap himself in the helicopter with someone this clueless? No upside. Not an option.
Scott flushed brilliant red, but he straightened and faced Malcolm head on. “It’s my daughter out there. I’m coming.”
Malcolm took another one of his deep breaths and swallowed his frustration at working with amateurs. He had to set aside his fears for Nirav and stay practical. Another pair of eyes wouldn’t hurt, and once they had Kat and the children on board, Scott could take care of Lily. That might help. Twelve-year-old daughters were probably even harder to understand than nine-year-old sons. “Fair enough. You can come. Hopefully it will be a quick trip.”
Kat and the children should either be at the cottage or on the road below. If they tried to come down and found the road blocked, they would probably return to the cottage. That open patch of gravel out front was big enough to land. They just needed to get there before the fire did.
Scott looked at his phone. “I thought you said ten minutes.”
Malcolm tipped his head to one side. “Listen.”
The sound came closer. The roar of an approaching engine. The chopper skimmed toward them, barely above the treetops, flying in fast from the north. It hovered over the field, pivoted slowly through a full circle, then settled to the ground.
Malcolm ran forward. The chopper looked like one of the old Bell 427s, with pilot and copilot in front and cabin space behind that could hold either passenger seats or cargo. Exactly what they needed. As he got closer, dents and scratches became obvious, but it had made it this far, so he had no grounds for complaint.
The backwash from the rotors kicked up huge clouds of dust and grit. Malcolm ducked under the still-spinning rotor, and Scott panted at his heels. A young guy in cutoff jeans, a USC Wrestlers T-shirt, and a three-day beard waved them closer. Not exactly the sort of uniform Malcolm expected, but the crew of this chopper could dress in tie-dye and beads for all he cared, as long as they knew what they were doing.
The two scrambled on board. There were no seats other than the pilots’ chairs. A large piece of canvas-covered equipment hulked in the center of the cargo space—the winch he’d asked for—leaving only narrow aisles around the edges for passengers.
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