Flash of Fire

by M. L. Buchman

  Robin imagined taking that pretty Firehawk helicopter—painted with the Mount Hood Aviation trademark gloss black and brilliant red-and-orange flames like a hi-fuel dragster running out at the strip in Tucson on a hot summer night—and lifting it smoothly into the Oregon sky. The controls had been silky in Robin’s hands during the interview and subsequent training flights. Though it ticked her off a little that the MHA firefighters had better-equipped Black Hawks than the ones she’d flown for the Arizona Army National Guard.

  The AANG birds were always three steps behind. The Night Stalkers of Special Operations got the best, of course, then the Army and Navy got the good gear. The National Guard didn’t always get the castoffs, but it felt like they did. The Army and Navy made sure you knew you were a second-class citizen—they were dumb enough to think they were both first when actually neither was. But as a Guarder, she’d never met a Spec Ops dude anyway, so they didn’t affect her reality.

  Now she was discovering that she’d been four steps behind. This measly little civilian outfit fielded three Firehawks with fully electronic glass-screen cockpits. A lot of the Army and Navy birds were still mechanical dial and gauge, like all of the AANG craft. The high tech had taken some getting used to during her training flights, though all in a good way. Of course she’d now been totally spoiled.

  Mount Hood Aviation also had two little MD500s and a pair of midsized Bell 212 Hueys—called Twin 212s for their dual engines—all of which were immaculate and also sported the latest gear. All the aircraft looked unusually sleek and powerful in that black-and-flame paint job.

  Robin stumbled to a halt halfway around the back of the parachute loft—she’d clearly chosen the long way around. A service truck sat there with a seriously massive lock, and attached to the hitch was a trailer. The trailer was an odd one and so out of context that it took her a moment to recognize. It belonged to a ScanEagle drone. She’d seen them in Afghanistan. A small, five-foot-long surveillance bird with a ten-foot wingspan…that no civilian outfit should have.

  Who the hell were these people and what had she gotten herself into?

  It’s not that she didn’t appreciate the high-end gear. Didn’t matter. Whatever the past, she had the best at her command now. Even if her new contract was only for a single fire season. So she’d stop complaining…soon.

  Mount Hood Aviation had a one-season slot because their lead pilot was in her final trimester—for her second kid, like she was doing it on purpose—and would be grounded for the fire season itself. She probably shouldn’t have even been flying the interview flights, but Robin guessed no one had dared to stop her. Emily Beale had been a total bitch in stretch-waist camos and a belly-hugging black T-shirt for Robin’s interview flight, even if she was the size of an RV.

  Robin dragged herself away from considering the launch trailer and continued around the service garage. Maybe she should have braved the barracks corridors. She hurried up her pace.

  It wasn’t that Emily Beale had been nasty, but rather that she’d been so damn good and corrected every tiny thing Robin did that wasn’t up to her standards. Worse, she’d delivered every little tidbit as a simple correction. That left it to Robin to feel shitty for failing to meet the standards of a woman who could barely fit between the pilot’s seat and the cyclic control joystick.

  “You’re starting your drop three seconds too early.” They soared over a mind-boggling wilderness of trees so thick that the terrain was invisible beneath it.

  Robin hated personal failure; she was a specialist in self-recrimination. Had thought about putting it on her résumé.

  “If you hover two feet lower, you’ll pick up another six percent efficiency on the belly tank loading pumps mounted on the snorkel.” Over a mountain lake that must be twenty miles from the nearest road and just begged for her to go swimming in it.

  She should have known that about the snorkel; it made perfect sense after Beale had dropped the fact quietly over the intercom. A quiet, sure voice in the roaring cockpit of the converted Black Hawk helicopter. Unlike her AANG birds with a big, orange bucket dangling unpredictably on a hundred feet of long-line, the MHA Black Hawks had been converted to Firehawks with big belly tanks that were bolted right onto the bottom of the helicopter’s frame. It let her carry a thousand gallons of water, instead of the eight hundred that the bucket held, which was sweet.

  The belly tank also meant she could get more up close and personal with the fire. Aiming a bucket on a long-line was like spreading your feet and trying to pee straight down into a shot glass—a good party trick in the girls’ barracks during those really boring and occasionally drunken AANG weekends. The belly tank let her decide, “dump starts here, ends there,” and hit it every time.

  Even without the black T-shirt and camo pants, Ms. Queen Beale had that feel of ex-military that some air jocks never got over when they hit the civilian world. You’re out, lady. Deal with it. Robin had taken enough officer shit on the inside and didn’t need it out here.

  Beale wasn’t the only one who was all ex-military in this outfit. The lay of the MHA land was odd.

  Mark, the boss man, was also ex-officer material. Handsome as hell but married to the pregnant queen bitch. Not Robin’s type anyway; she liked her men still a little rough around the edges. The boss was totally AJ Squared Away. He also was always toting around their two-year-old daughter. Which was pretty damn cute—if you lived in a women’s magazine world. Besides, he spent his workday circling at high elevations in his command plane as if that was really flying.

  A guy who wasn’t rotorcraft? Robin was definitely not interested.

  Robin hadn’t sorted out the helicopter pilots yet, but she would. There had to be some extracurricular recreation to this job or she’d go stir-crazy for sure just chasing after the occasional fire.

  Finally, she cleared the last corner of the last building and stopped in surprise at the size of the crowd gathered around the base of the control tower. She’d seriously underestimated the size of this outfit. Forty people were gathered together, with Mark and Queen Bitch Beale perched up on the platform as if ready to deliver some military lecture.

  Her two Afghan tours had been in her rookie and her third year of service in the Guard…then three more years of sitting on her butt before she bailed on them. The stand-down of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan had turned the National Guard into a whole lot of training weekends with the tuition turkeys—in it for the free school and just praying they never deployed—and the occasional call up for a fire, flood, or some other natural mess. And she wasn’t really a regular Army sort of gal.

  If she spent the next six to nine months sitting around on her butt, alone, between infrequent fire calls, she was going to die of boredom.

  There was hope though. She’d take this morning’s alert—a fire on her very first day—as a good sign.

  She’d been lying there in the crappy base accommodations—no complaints from her; they were free, but they were still crappy—bored to shit in the dark. And then that sweet alarm that could have awakened Jesus it was so damn strident had rung through the base.

  And the crowd was almost entirely male, which boded very well for summer entertainment.

  She tried to ease up to the back of the crowd. She was last to arrive, which she hated.

  She didn’t get away with it.

  Emily and Mark were both looking right at her.

  All forty people were.

  Some still half-dressed, others were lacing their boots, but they were all there and she was delaying the entire outfit on the first day. Whatever she’d thought of the Guard, she was always first to the flight line and first in the air; anything less than her best was a personal failure.

  “Now that we’re all here.” Boss Man Mark Henderson spoke in a normal voice. He didn’t have to do that; she already felt embarrassed.

  Not being the best was the worst feeling
on the planet in Robin’s book and it sure as shit wasn’t going to happen again.

  * * *

  Mickey had watched for the new pilot as they mustered but missed her arrival—on the far side of the crowd, all he could see was craned necks and a hint of sun-bright hair. She didn’t come from the direction of the barracks, and he’d been too busy trying to pry some details out of the guys with no luck. All they’d added to “seriously hot” was “serious dose of attitude.” Real helpful, guys.

  TJ came down the stairs from the window-wrapped comm shack at the top of the tower with some fresh printouts for Mark. His heavy footsteps echoed over the sudden silence—he still had a limp from his last day of thirty years of smokejumping. As he handed off fresh data sheets to the others, the crowd of firefighters returned to chatting softly.

  Barely past sunrise and the late spring day was already warm enough that people were shedding jackets. But the smokejumpers still kept the full suits on and zipped; the most gung-ho of the breed came to MHA. To pass the time and dissipate the tension, they were hazing each other about who was going to be eating a tree on their first live jump of the season.

  Mickey had always loved his helicopters, but there were times, like now, listening to them before a big jump, that he thought about switching over. The idea never lasted long…battered by trees, torn knees, broken ribs; smokejumping was a rough life. And that was all before they started eating smoke and facing the fire up close and personal. Besides, all he’d ever dreamed of was flying. But it was fun to imagine every now and then.

  “Five bucks Akbar eats the first tree,” Krista, the number-two smokie, called out. Akbar, the lead smokie, was still paying for his first-ever MHA jump five years ago when he’d hung up in the very top of two hundred feet of Douglas fir. It had taken him an hour to lower himself down on a rope as he was constantly hanging up in the lower branches. Then he’d had to climb back up to top the tree so that he could recover his chute.

  “Five bucks says you do,” Akbar countered, but his voice was overwhelmed by another smokie collecting the bets for and against Akbar. Mickey kicked in a fiver for Akbar snagging a tree, knowing it was lost money. Akbar was a great jumper, but Mickey wanted him to feel the pain of the helo-jocks betting against him.

  But just like Mickey, Akbar was keeping a weather eye on the four up on the platform as they conferred over the pages of new information and their faces shifted to grim. A big fire on the first day; it didn’t bode well for the season. This early, it was probably California or Alaska—still too soon for Oregon or Washington to burn. At least he hoped so.

  He glanced around at Jeannie and Vern. The pilots of Firehawk Two and Three had caught it as well. He’d lost track of the new pilot again. The newer pilots—Vanessa, Bruce, and Gordon—had missed the look of worry.

  Mickey nudged Gordon in the ribs.

  “What?” Gordon whispered.

  He nodded up toward the four on the landing.

  “Oh.” Gordon was getting a clue. After three years, he was fine against a fire and one of Mickey’s best buddies, but he wasn’t the sharpest on reading situations on the ground. Gordon began double-checking his gear.

  Mickey had already done that twice, so he resisted the urge to do so again. Instead, he looked around and finally spotted the new pilot again—back between a couple of smokejumpers, he could just see her face. She was watching the group on the landing intently. Sharp, she hadn’t missed a thing.

  As more and more noticed the leader’s looks, everyone began pulling out energy bars they’d rat-holed away in their personal gear bags. Chances of having one of Betsy’s generous sit-down breakfasts at the picnic tables this morning were fast approaching zero.

  The newbie caught onto that quick enough. She too began stoking up for a flight.

  When Mickey had left for a short vacation, the record stood at thirty-nine applicants, twelve test flights, and no hires. Mickey had been gone for four days and returned late last night to hear there was a new hire and she was already certified to be on the line. Bang! Just like that.

  Even more strange, the new pilot was rumored to be the new flight lead. Everyone had expected Jeannie in Firehawk Two to pick up that role for the summer. At least Mickey sure had. He knew that he was a contender for the slot also, but Jeannie had a master’s degree in fire management and Mickey just had an associate’s degree in heli-aviation even if he had eight years of flying for MHA to Jeannie’s four.

  But there was no way to replace Emily. First, she was the best pilot. Second, also the best flight commander. Third, even though she was untouchable, she was an immense pleasure to look at. Even six months gone, she was a knockout. No question that Mark was one unreasonably lucky man because, damn, who knew pregnant could ever look good to a guy.

  Mickey had never thought about getting serious with a girl, not really, until he’d first seen Mark and Emily together when they took over the outfit three seasons back. Joke was Emily Beale was still showing her mama bear spine of steel; Mark was the one who was so mushy around her it made you wonder if he was the one dosed with massive waves of pregnancy hormones rather than his wife.

  Of course, thinking about getting serious with a girl versus actually doing it…well, that was something he’d do as soon as he found the right girl. Maybe.

  He’d only been at his sister’s wedding for four days but totally missed the new pilot’s eval and training process. It had happened so fast. That had to be some amazing pilot to take the lead slot. He was sorry he’d missed the action; watching the candidates roll through camp had been amusing. Some of the candidates, especially the high-hour pilots, invariably male, would get really torqued when a beautiful, pregnant woman showed them the road home.

  Of course Emily had never told them she was an Army Captain with the Night Stalkers Special Operations helicopter regiment. Or had she been Major? Emily and Mark rarely talked about their military backgrounds. It didn’t matter. They were the two best pilots Mickey had ever flown with.

  For more serious possibilities, Mickey had his eye on the lovely yet shy Vanessa, who flew one of MHA’s little MD500s. But it never hurt a guy to look around.

  A shift in the jostling smokies and Mickey got his first good look at the newcomer.

  Her short plume of white-blond hair that shagged its way to her collar shone in the low-angle morning sunlight. She stood bone straight, which either meant ballerina or maybe workout instructor. She didn’t look like any ballerina he’d ever seen on one of those TV shows Sis loved—Nutcracker every damn Christmas like religion. She might be long and lean, but she was no waiflike frail flower either. The pilot had shining, blue eyes and high cheekbones on an elegant face that went well with the choppy haircut.

  She looked right at Mark, not shying off despite his reprimand for being late, which meant balls of steel. Metaphorically. Even though she had her flight jacket shrugged on and he couldn’t see much of the figure beneath, there was no question of a hundred-percent babe.

  “Told you she was hot shit!” Gordon leaned over to whisper in his ear.

  “No ring or tan line on the finger.” Mickey played along as she raised her energy bar to bite off another chunk.

  “She doesn’t walk like a married person.”

  Mickey Hamilton had missed her walk. He’d make sure to watch until she moved again.

  He was tempted to ask Gordon how a married woman walked just to see what his friend came up with.

  To pass the time, Akbar and the other smokies renewed their hot debate over which would eat a tree first. Their shifting positions exposed Vanessa standing beyond them, just a step away from the newbie.

  A soft-spoken and dazzling brunette right out of an Italian travel magazine to one side.

  To the other, a slender, blond Anne Heche look-alike from that movie on the island with Harrison Ford and a power stance straight from Angelina Jolie.

 
Side-by-side comparison of the two women during a summer sunrise, with a fire on the way. His day was off to an exceptional start.

  “What’s her name?”

  Gordon cursed. “Thought you were after Vanessa. I was gonna have a clear shot at…”

  “Buddy, she’d eat your lunch.” And by the look of her, she would.

  Gordon was too decent a guy at heart for someone who looked as tough as the newcomer did.

  “Besides, I am thinking about Vanessa. She just doesn’t appear to be thinking about me so much.” Hurt to admit, but it was true. His attempts at charm had produced exactly no results. Yet. He could be patient when a woman looked as good as she did, and his ego wasn’t ready to admit defeat. Yet. At least not in front of his buddy.

  “In other words, she ate your lunch. I thought everybody fell for the Mr. Northwest outdoors guide.”

  “Dad is the adventure guide. And it doesn’t mean that. It means—” Mickey stopped.

  The leaders of MHA were done with their conference.

  Besides, it meant exactly that, but he still didn’t want to admit it. Not to Gordon. Not to himself. Vanessa had a real spine under that quiet exterior, which only made her all the more attractive for what good it did him. It wasn’t that the vibe was off or whatever it was that women said. It just hadn’t…clicked for him. Or he hadn’t clicked for her?

  But watching her side by side with the new recruit, he was suddenly glad that nothing had clicked. The blond was spectacular. Suddenly all of his some girl, someday talk didn’t seem quite so remote.

  “It seems,” Mark called out over the assembled pilots and the twenty smokejumpers of MHA, “that there has been a new ‘export’ problem and they’ve asked us to stop it from happening.”

  Mickey looked at Gordon, who only shrugged. Even Akbar, the lead smokie, was looking a bit lost and he always had the inside scoop.

  “I thought export problems was what the Customs Service was for,” some wag shouted from back in the crowd.