Dark Justice

by William Bernhardt

  “Fire!”

  Chapter 67

  ALL FOUR MEN RUSHED out the front door.

  “Don’t leave us!” Ben shouted, but no one stopped.

  “I can feel the fire from here,” Maureen said, twisting her neck around, trying to see.

  Ben didn’t waste any time. As soon as they left, he started trying to get free. He pushed up with his feet, launching himself into the air. The chair clattered back down to the floor. He could feel the bonds loosening, but not enough to give him any slack. The chair didn’t break.

  He did it again, this time pushing even higher. He heard the chair creak a bit on impact, thought he felt a split—but that was all. He was still tied tightly to the chair.

  Before Ben could make another attempt, a familiar, if dreadful figure appeared in the rear doorway.

  “Slade!” Ben said, teeth clenched. “I know you were behind this. What’s going on?”

  “There’s a ring of fire,” Slade answered. He reached down and began untying their bonds. “All around us.”

  “You’re letting us go?”

  “I know you don’t have a very high opinion of me,” Slade said. “Maybe you shouldn’t. But I’m not going to let you two burn alive.” A few moments later, Ben and Maureen were free.

  “Come on!” Slade shouted, pointing toward the door. The group raced outside. Almost instantly, Ben felt assaulted by the tremendous heat. Even though the fire was still a good fifty feet away, it felt as if he had stepped into the middle of it.

  “But it hasn’t been hot enough for a brush fire,” Maureen said.

  “This fire didn’t just happen,” Slade growled. “It was set.” He waved a bread box-size metal can under her nose. Ben recognized the distinctive smell before he even saw it.

  It was a gasoline can. And it was empty.

  Maureen stared at the can. “Al,” she murmured.

  “What?” Slade said. “What are you talking about?”

  Maureen wouldn’t answer him, but Ben knew exactly what she was thinking. Al was over the brink, out of control, crazy with rage. Al had been staying out late at night in the forest. He had said he’d discovered something—something secret.

  And he’d sworn to pay them back for what they did to Doc.

  It was clear now what he’d uncovered. He’d found this secret hideaway. He’d probably waited from a distance till he saw people come back to it. And then he crept out of hiding and set the fire. Not realizing that his own colleague, Maureen, was inside. Not to mention Ben.

  “If he wanted to kill us, why wouldn’t he set the cabin on fire?” Slade asked.

  “He doesn’t just want to kill you. He wants you to suffer, like Doc did. He wants you to see it coming.”

  Slade ran a few feet around the shack, searching. “Looks like my associates got through the fire,” Slade said. “But it’s too late now. If we jump into the middle of that we’ll be burned alive.” He turned, scanning the horizon. “We might be able to get through in the car.”

  All together, the three of them started running toward the vehicle. Thick smoke clouds made breathing difficult. Coughing and tearing, they piled into the car.

  Slade slid behind the wheel. “Here we go.” He shoved the key into the ignition and turned it.

  Nothing happened.

  “What’s wrong?” Maureen asked. A note of panic crept into her voice.

  “I don’t know.” Slade turned the ignition again—with the same result.

  “Come on!” Ben said. “We’ve got to go!”

  “Talking won’t get us anywhere.” Slade pushed a button to pop the hood, then jumped out of the car. Ben followed him.

  Slade stared down into the engine. In seconds he ascertained what had happened. He ran his finger through a white, granular smear, then touched it to his lips.

  “Sugar,” he said bitterly.

  “Sugar?” Ben said. “What do you mean?”

  Slade glared at Maureen. “It’s a technique these bright young Green Ragers have for disabling automobiles. Put sugar in the crankcase. Or the gas tank. Or both. Stops the car dead.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying this car isn’t going anywhere.” He glanced at Maureen. “Good work.”

  She held up her hands. “I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “One of your associates, then. A very thorough one.” He slammed the hood down. “And now we’re all going to pay the price. All because of you!”

  “Wait a minute,” Maureen said. “This would never have happened if one of your men hadn’t killed Doc.”

  “That would never have happened if you and your gang of trespassers hadn’t illegally blocked the road.”

  “We wouldn’t’ve had to, if your corporate masters weren’t so determined to sacrifice our forests to make a buck!”

  “We don’t have time for this!” Ben shouted. “Like it or not, we’re all in this together now.”

  “He’s right,” Slade said. His lips were pursed together; Ben knew he was thinking. He scanned the ring of flame encircling them, growing closer. “Let’s spread out. See if we can find an opening anywhere in the flames.”

  They did as Slade bid. Ben ran the farthest, toward the opposite side of the cabin. No matter how far away he ran, though, he couldn’t get away from the oppressive heat, the intense burning sensation. His face was flushed; sweat poured down his body. It was getting hotter; he was certain of it. Because the flames were coming closer.

  He followed the fire around the back of the cabin. It was an almost perfect circle, with the cabin at the heart. He ran into Maureen, coming from the other direction. “I didn’t find an opening. Did you?”

  Maureen shook her head grimly. “No.”

  “I don’t understand it.”

  “I’m afraid I do. Even in this crazed mental state, Al is very smart, very thorough. He probably saturated the ground with gasoline, forming the circle.”

  Ben gazed at the intense wall of flame. It made his eyes hurt; it was like peering into the sun—or more accurately, like peering into the pits of hell. “I can’t tell how thick the wall is. Maybe if we made a run for it—”

  “You’d be burned alive.” Slade was coming toward them. “You’d be burning head to toe before you got through that wall.”

  “Then there’s no way through,” Maureen said breathlessly. “No way out.”

  “Now you understand the situation,” Slade said. He stared into the inferno. “There’s no escape. We can’t get out, and if we stay here much longer—” The flickering flames reflected in his eyes. “We’ll all be dead.”

  Chapter 68

  MAUREEN PRESSED UP AGAINST Ben. He cradled her in his arms. “I don’t want to die,” she said, her voice choking. “Especially not by—” Her voice broke off before she completed the sentence.

  “We can’t give up,” Ben said. “We have to keep trying.”

  “Trying what?” Slade shook his head. “It’s over, Kincaid. Might as well walk into the flames and get it over with.”

  “I won’t accept that.” He felt Maureen pressing into the crook of his neck, felt the tears spilling from her eyes. “We have to think about this logically.”

  “Logic!” Maureen laughed bitterly.

  He pushed her away, holding her by the arms. “Look, what are our options?”

  “We don’t have any.”

  “Yes we do. If we can’t go through the flames, then we either go under them or over them.”

  Slade stared at him incredulously. “Under them? Forget it, Kincaid. Even if we all worked together and had the proper tools—which we don’t—we couldn’t dig a tunnel under those flames in time. We’d be dead before we got anywhere.”

  “Agreed,” Ben said. His brain was racing, barely one beat ahead of his mouth. “So we have to go over.”

  “Over?” Maureen said incredulously. “Unless you’ve got a red cape under that suit, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

  “I can�
��t fly, but a helicopter can. A copter could get in here and fly us out before the flames close in.”

  “You’re dreaming, Kincaid,” Slade said. “There probably aren’t any copters within a hundred miles of this backwater.”

  “There are,” Ben said firmly. “Two, in fact. Sheriff Allen told me. He flies one himself. They use them for mountain rescues.”

  Maureen looked up at Ben for the first time since he’d started talking. Despite the crushing heat all around them, Ben saw the tiniest glimmer of hope in her eyes. “But how do we call the helicopters here?”

  “That’s what I don’t know,” Ben said. “I’m sure eventually someone will report the fire. But by then it will be too late.”

  “A radio!” Slade slapped his hands together. “A radio!”

  Ben rushed toward him. “Do you have one?”

  “Yes. I mean, I think so. I’ve seen it in the closet. It isn’t mine. One of the other men—”

  “Never mind that,” Ben said curtly. “Show us.”

  Slade led the way back into the cabin, running as fast as he could go. The circle of flame was growing detectably closer on all sides. Already Ben was beginning to feel singed, burned. Maureen’s face was a bright red. And the smoke was so much thicker he could hardly breathe.

  They would be dead even before the flames got to them, Ben realized. They’d be dead even sooner than they thought.

  Slade led the way to a back room. He rooted around in the closet for several seconds, pushing aside dirty clothes and trash. Eventually he emerged with a large rectangular metal box.

  “I think this is a radio,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

  Maureen took it from him and set it on a nearby table. “It sure as hell is.”

  “But I don’t know how to work it.”

  “Don’t worry. I do.” She glanced up at Ben. “Communications is my field, remember? This is a pretty simple shortwave setup. The owner is probably a ham radio hobbyist. We’ll use the emergency channels; someone should be monitoring. The signal should be strong enough—”

  She turned a knob on the front of the set and waited.

  Nothing happened.

  She clicked it back, then tried again. Nothing happened.

  “Damn!” Muttering under her breath, she reached toward the back of the set till she found the catches that released the metal casing. She lifted the lid off and stared at the contents.

  “What’s wrong?” Slade asked. Ben could feel the edge in his voice. For an instant, it had seemed as if they actually had some chance of survival. And now—

  “No power.”

  Slade stared at Maureen. “No power? But—”

  Maureen pointed. “The battery’s dead.” She turned toward Ben, then took his hand and squeezed. “And so are we.”

  Chapter 69

  “NO POWER,” SLADE SAID, to no one in particular. His eyes seemed dark and vacant. “No power.”

  “I’m afraid that’s the size of it,” Maureen said, batting back tears. “I like to think of myself as a miracle worker. But even I can’t make a radio work without power.”

  “No power,” Slade mumbled. He staggered, leaning against the wall. “No power.”

  Ben couldn’t believe it. This horrible man who had once stood so tall and defiant—now he was babbling like an escaped mental patient. All of his toughness, all of his swagger and menace—it was all gone now. There was nothing left but a pathetic wretch who realized he was facing death.

  “Isn’t there some way to recharge the batteries?” Ben asked.

  “They’re not rechargeable,” Maureen answered.

  “Maybe there are some other batteries.”

  Maureen rummaged through the closet. “Sorry. Nothing.”

  “Damn.” Ben bit down on a knuckle. There had to be something. Something he was missing, something he hadn’t thought of. But what?

  “It’s over,” Slade said. His face seemed to disintegrate; those strong chiseled features were melting away. “It’s over.”

  “Get a grip,” Ben said, disgusted.

  Slade didn’t hear him. He began to laugh, a bitter, eerie laugh. “After all I’ve done, all my plans …” He laughed even louder. “And now it comes down to this. Burning alive in some godforsaken shack in a goddamn forest!”

  “Stop it, Slade,” Ben said. “Stop it now.”

  Slade continued his maniacal laughter, even louder and creepier than before. “You just don’t get it, do you? We’re doomed. We’re going to die in flames, in our own personal hell. Do you know what it is to burn to death? Do you have any idea how painful it is?”

  “Stop it!” Ben shouted. Sweat flew off his face. He was feeling it, too—the heat, the sense of desperation. It would be much easier to be like Slade, to just relent. To give up. But if he did that, they were all finished.

  “There must be some other way,” Ben said. “There must be some other means of generating power.”

  “Power,” Slade murmured, wiping his eyes.

  “Right. Some other way to power the radio.”

  Slade’s hand pressed against his chest. Ben could see he was having trouble breathing. The smoke was everywhere. “There’s a—a—”

  Ben squatted beside him. “What?”

  “A—” He took a deep breath. “An emergency generator. In the other room. But that powers the lights, the fuses …”

  “The radio has an AC plug!” Maureen shouted. “It could work. If you’ve got an extension cord and you could get some juice in the fuse … it just might work!”

  Slade seemed stunned, dazed, as if he couldn’t process the information quickly enough. “It can’t …” he mumbled, barely rational. “Can’t—”

  Ben jerked him to his feet. “Come on, Slade. Show me where the generator is. Now!”

  Ten minutes later, they had the generator going. Maureen found an extension cord, plugged the radio in, and began broadcasting. It wasn’t easy. She had to try several frequencies, and broadcast conditions weren’t ideal. For one thing, they were atop a mountain, deep in a forest. For another, they were surrounded by flames. Fortunately Maureen knew what she was doing.

  During the tense minutes Maureen spent broadcasting her signal, Ben managed to bite every fingernail he had down to the nub. “Damn!” Her voice was cracking with desperation. “I’m not getting anything.”

  “But are they getting you?” Ben asked. “That’s the important thing.”

  “I don’t know. I can’t tell. I’m not hearing anything.”

  “We’re going to be cooked,” Slade pronounced.

  “I won’t accept that,” Ben said. “Even if the interference prevents us from hearing them, they might hear us. They could be on the way.”

  “Wouldn’t matter if they were.” Slade glanced toward the window, forcing Ben to follow his gaze.

  The heat radiating through the closed window was so intense Ben had to take several steps back. His vision blurred; wavy lines of heat made the image before him seem to shimmer and float. But that didn’t prevent him from seeing what was happening outside.

  The fire had come closer—much, much closer. The perimeter of the flames was barely twenty feet from the shack. Maybe closer.

  “We don’t have time for a rescue,” Slade said, his voice in his throat. “We don’t have ten minutes.”

  Chapter 70

  “THAT’S IT, THEN,” MAUREEN SAID. Her head fell into her arms, knocking aside the radio microphone. “It’s really going to happen. We’re going to burn to death.”

  “Trapped like flies,” Slade said. “Pigs penned for the slaughter.”

  “Don’t talk like that!” Ben shouted.

  “Don’t be a baby, Kincaid.” Slade crumpled into a heap on the floor. “It’s over. There’s no way out.”

  “There’s always a way. You can’t just give up.”

  “Then you tell me, Kincaid. What should we do?”

  Ben shielded his eyes and stared out into the raging inferno. There had to be a way—that�
��s what Christina would say, if she were here. But Christina was always able to think of the solution, the way out. He wasn’t coming up with anything.

  “We can’t go over the flames,” Ben said, thinking aloud, “and we can’t go under them.”

  “Then we’re cooked,” Slade said.

  “No,” Ben answered. “We have to go through them.”

  “Through them?” Slade said. “Are you kidding? I told you already, we’ll be burned alive!”

  “We’ll be burned alive if we just sit here, that’s for damn sure.” Ben grabbed Slade’s collar and yanked him up onto his feet. “I saw a well outside. Does it work?”

  “I—suppose—”

  “Good. We’ll wet ourselves down before we go. Have you got a garden hose?”

  “I—think so. In the back. But—”

  “Good. Where does the well water come in?”

  “There’s a pump on the north side of the shack. Connects to the plumbing in the bathroom.”

  “Can you disconnect the pipe?”

  “I suppose, but—”

  “Good, do it. Then connect the hose to the water line.”

  Slade stared at him incredulously. “Surely you don’t think you’re going to put that fire out with a garden hose!”

  “We don’t have to put the whole fire out. We just have to make a path.”

  “That won’t—”

  “Just do it!”

  For once, Slade took orders. Being shouted at and ordered about seemed to have rallied his brain cells, at least for the moment. He rummaged through a toolbox for a wrench, then headed toward the bathroom. While he was working, Ben gathered together some of the old clothes that had tumbled out of the closet.

  “We’ll wet these down and wear them when we go through,” Ben explained.

  Maureen seemed dazed and confused. “But we already have clothes—”

  “We’ll want to have something to wrap around our heads and arms. Socks over our hands. Plus, stop me if I’m wrong, but isn’t your blouse some kind of nylon or polyester?”

  Maureen glanced downward. “Yeah, I guess. Why?”

  “Something I heard the coroner explain during the trial. Artificial fibers like nylon and polyester melt and burn more quickly. Cotton is more flame-retardant, especially when it’s wet. Even if it eventually burns, it won’t melt.”