Flash of Fire

by M. L. Buchman

  They weren’t attacked with any surprise tree-sap explosions on this run. They’d managed a clean drop with no problems. A whole lot of things were going right with his world.

  They circled back for another load of water.

  * * *

  Mark was waiting for her on the ground the next time Robin rotated back to the airfield for fuel and inspection.

  Denise was already checking the systems before Robin could finish shutting down.

  Robin crawled out of the cockpit beneath the glowering sky. The wind felt good. She knew it would be causing them more trouble on the fire as it struck northward, but the air was fresh and had a decent humidity level, which would also help slow the spread of the fire.

  Already thinking like a firefighter.

  That’s when Robin felt the first real pang. She’d barely started her first season as a heli-aviation firefighter and she was already dismayed that her contract with MHA was only for a single season. Which also meant her time with Mickey was only a single season, because it was far clearer than the muddy water they’d been sucking out of the North Korean rivers that these guys stayed busy. A relationship would only work if they were busy together.

  That explained all of the MHA couples.

  Though it didn’t begin to explain why she was thinking about it.

  Mark placed a bottle of Pocari Sweat in one of her hands and a roast beef sandwich in her other. She stuffed as much of the sandwich as she could manage into her mouth and closed her eyes to relish the taste. The mustard was odd and sharp, but the meat was great.

  “You are a god, Henderson,” she mumbled around another bite.

  “I always thought so,” Mark said complacently.

  Lola, who had come up and been handed her own meal, laughed outright.

  Denise scoffed as she passed by and then climbed up the kick-in steps built into the side of the helo to inspect something up on the rotors.

  Robin was even getting used to the strange grapefruit-and-electrolyte taste of the soft drink. “This totally rocks!” And then her brain finally began working again. “And, Mark, you’re here at the field instead of sitting beside Carly and Steve on the radio. Why am I guessing that totally doesn’t rock?”

  “Because you’re a smart woman, Robin Harrow.”

  “He’s complimenting me,” she said to Lola as an aside. “It means we’re fucked.”

  Lola nodded her agreement.

  Robin tore off another ravenous hunk of the roast beef so that she could have one more moment to appreciate the taste, then spoke around the mouthful. “Give it to me.”

  “In exactly one hour, I need you to crash at the following coordinates.” Mark held up a slip of paper long enough for her and Lola to read it twice. Then he dropped it into her half-empty bottle of Pocari Sweat. The paper dissolved.

  Robin glanced up at him as she continued chewing.

  “Rice paper.”

  “Duh! I already knew that.” She swallowed down most of the last bite she’d taken and handed him the unfinished bottle of Sweat. “I was wondering about the crash part.”

  “There, with such assets as you deem necessary to mask your actions, you will wait on the ground for fifteen minutes. There may be further instructions at that time. Be sure not to attract the aid of the North Korean escort.”

  “Instructions from who?” Lola asked.

  At that, Mark shrugged uncomfortably, which told Robin plenty. As far as she could see, nothing made Mark uncomfortable. Mickey going toe to toe with him on safety issues hadn’t bothered Henderson for a moment. The North Korean official hadn’t even been a radar blip on his plans, his half smile was such a giveaway.

  This was something he didn’t like.

  Robin thought about the coordinates again. “That’s well under the smoke cloud at the leading edge of the fire.”

  Mark nodded.

  “And if the fire gets there first?”

  “You need to make sure it doesn’t.”

  “So you want me to control the speed of a fire so that I can crash in front of it…”

  Mark opened his mouth.

  “…out of clear view under the edge of the smoke.”

  Mark closed his mouth and did that smile thing again.

  “Then I need to wait for fifteen minutes while calling for help—”

  “But making sure that the North Koreans aren’t the ones to respond,” Lola mumbled, then swilled down some electrolyte and repeated herself so that Robin could identify the actual words.

  “Right. And on top of that, you don’t have any idea why.”

  “Roger that,” Mark confirmed.

  “Anything else while I’m at it?”

  “Nope, that about covers everything.” He was back to being his normal business-as-usual, pleased-with-everything self.

  For Emily’s sake, she didn’t break that pretty nose of his.

  Then Robin heard a slight sound, like someone knocking for her attention and hers alone. She glanced upward at Denise still perched atop five tons of Firehawk.

  The mechanic was looking right at her.

  And in her look, Robin could see the fear, no, the terror that Denise had survived when she drew the wild card on whatever last winter’s mission had been. But she could also see that Denise was proud of the outcome and her part in it.

  And she wanted Robin to know that.

  It was a curious mixture of emotions to witness. It was mortifying to think what might be waiting for her when she “crashed” in North Korea.

  She and Denise, by some mutual, unsignaled agreement, looked away at the same time. It had only lasted an instant, but Robin knew they had just become closer than perhaps any other woman had in Robin’s life.

  She made comfortable acquaintances easily, but it always stopped there. In this moment, it was something more. More than it had been on the flight here. When she left MHA, she was going to miss the women desperately, and Denise the gentle-hearted mechanic most of all.

  Robin also knew what Denise must be feeling about Vern being on the front lines and her being trapped here doing maintenance. She’d certainly felt that enough each time she’d watched Mickey dive on a particularly bad portion of the fire.

  “I’m changing up the rotation,” Robin said loudly enough for Mark and Denise to both hear. “Vern’s rotation for service will be due right on the hour. I want him back early, checked over, and fully refueled before I, you know.”

  “Crash,” Lola provided.

  “Right.”

  “In a wildfire,” Lola continued.

  “Uh-huh.” Robin did her best to shut the woman down with her tone.

  “On purpose.”

  Somewhere above their heads, Denise giggled.

  Robin threatened to dump her drink on Lola’s head to squelch her.

  Mark shrugged as if it made no difference to him. “You might want to pull Mickey and Tim back under your wing.” He made it sound completely casual, but she hadn’t missed the slight emphasis.

  Right! Whatever might be happening, it was the reason they had two Night Stalker pilots aboard.

  “Good idea. Actually, I’m going to pull the whole flight, all four helos, together before I land so that we’re never more than a minute or so apart. And when Vern is refueled, I want Denise back up in his copilot’s seat. If I’m going to ‘crash,’ I want to have her close by just in case I screw up and really do.”

  “Fine,” Mark agreed. “All assets forward. Good idea.”

  She glanced up at Denise, who mouthed a quick Thank you. She, at least, understood the real reason for calling Vern back.

  Chapter 20

  Mickey kept trying to make sense of Robin’s attack plan, but he couldn’t. It was as if she no longer fought the fire but now toyed with it instead.

  When Vern had been order
ed back to the airfield long before his current rotation should have arisen, Robin had once again shuffled the teams so that she and Mickey were flying together again, which was fine with him. Between the North Koreans, the approaching storm, and a wildfire, he preferred keeping her in his sights.

  When Vern flashed by after his return from base, Mickey could see that Denise was aboard, which meant that when it was his turn to rotate back in about two hours, his mechanic would be off flying in North Korea. Vern and Jeannie were working the northeast flank.

  And suddenly he and Robin were fighting the center of the main head. You didn’t tackle the beast head on—that never worked. You harried it from the sides until you had it pinched off. He couldn’t even see anything valuable that they were protecting; they were fighting the fire on an open valley between two ridges so low that they stood no chance of cutting it off.

  He tried to explain the problem to Tim. He understood what Mickey was saying about the changed tactics, could see it once it was explained, but didn’t have the background in fire to offer any insights as to what the hell Robin might be up to.

  “Robin.”

  “Here, Mickey, go ahead.”

  Then he looked at the North Koreans circling close behind him as he dipped his snorkel into a pond and realized that he couldn’t ask his question on an open frequency.

  “Go ahead,” Robin repeated when he didn’t speak.

  “Just thinking about our progress on the northeast flank.”

  “Roger that. I’m good with Vern and Jeannie’s ability to hold that line.”

  “What does that mean?” Tim asked.

  “It means”—Mickey shut down the pump and pulled back aloft—“that our four helos that could shut down the entire northeast head of the fire in the next two hours are going to remain split two and two.”

  “Sound pretty pissed about it, Mickey.”

  “It doesn’t make any goddamn sense! What is up with that woman?”

  “Are we still talking about the fire? It doesn’t sound to me like we are.” Tim took the controls and led them back up to the fire—the venter of the northwest head of it that wasn’t particularly threatening anything at the moment.

  Mickey scrubbed at his face and growled into his hands.

  Robin was clearly in communication with Carly. Robin also had Lola Maloney—who had replaced Emily Beale in the Night Stalkers, which meant she was probably now the best pilot there was in the military—flying beside her. He should really trust what Robin was doing, even if he couldn’t make sense of it. But it was proving harder and harder to do.

  She was keeping him at arm’s length with her goddamn “no promises” policy, yet welcoming him all the way with her body in a way no woman ever had. And she’d given back—sex with Robin Harrow was very much a two-way street. She’d been tender…and loving. He’d swear that she had been, but—

  “Shit!” He dropped his hands back onto the controls. He let Tim remain pilot-in-command but floated his hands along. They now flew so much alike that Mickey didn’t feel any corrections he’d make for Tim, nor that Tim made to his flights.

  “Welcome to my world,” Tim practically chortled with glee. “Woman practically humps me to death at every chance and wouldn’t let me anywhere near her, not where it counted.” Tim thumped his collective hand on his chest before returning it to the control.

  “Yeah” was all Mickey could think to say as they ducked down under the screen of the billowing smoke clouds overhanging the northwestern head of the fire. The North Koreans fell back and continued to parallel them from farther out. “How did you solve it?”

  “Stopped her from killing her father with that DAP Hawk of hers.”

  “Robin doesn’t know who her father is. Her mom runs a truck stop.”

  “Oh.” Tim shifted smoothly to trace Robin’s inexplicable attack line. “Yeah, not quite the same I guess. Sorry, bro. Best I got.”

  Crap! Different people’s problems.

  The line of attack Robin had turned to made even less sense than her prior headings. If she dropped water anywhere down this path, it wouldn’t achieve—

  “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Firehawk One. I have a flameout on both engines. I’m headed down. I have a spot in sight.”

  “You are forbidden to land on North Korean soil!” a new and thickly Korean-accented voice cut in.

  “I’m declaring a goddamn emergency.” Her voice was cool, steady, and nasty enough that Mickey sure wouldn’t argue with it. “Deal with it!”

  Mickey could only watch in horror as Robin headed down. They were inside a screen of heavy smoke. At least the North Koreans couldn’t see her to shoot her.

  But he was helpless to do anything other than watch as she descended toward the dense forest below. There was a small clearing ahead, but—

  “It’s out of reach,” Tim confirmed Mickey’s fear. “They can’t make it there without any engines. An autorotate glide slope just won’t…”

  “Won’t what?” Mickey had done plenty of autorotates in practice. Because he flew with MHA, the gear simply didn’t fail short of a tree strike.

  “Their angle is wrong. I know how a Hawk goes down. They should be falling faster.”

  They did seem to float for a moment before heading down into the clearing.

  Mickey finally remembered how to breathe again as she landed with a good, solid thump, but she was down.

  “You okay, Robin?”

  “Better than when I was sitting in your goddamn eddy current, Mickey!” Her voice had a light laugh to it. Strained but with no edge of hysteria that he could detect.

  “Roger that. Think fast, Robin.” Mickey eyed the head of the fire, which raged behind a wall of black smoke only a few hundred yards from where she’d gone down. They needed to solve this fast or he’d need to extract her and lose the helo. “I estimate twenty minutes max until the fire overruns your position.”

  “This is Firehawk Two.” Denise’s voice sliced in right behind his. “Mechanic for Mount Hood Aviation. What is the problem, Ms. Harrow?”

  “What the hell?” Mickey asked Tim over the Twin 212’s intercom.

  Tim just shrugged. The women of MHA were tight, seriously tight. What was with the “we’re strangers” double-talk?

  “Double-talk,” he whispered.

  Tim laughed. “Of course! Women. Man, I’m telling you. They’re a very tricky gender.”

  Something was up and Denise knew about it. She’d found a way to tell him that everything was okay and not alarm the North Koreans that there was a reason for the odd communications.

  That’s why Vern had been sent racing back to the airfield, to make sure Denise was here to cover for the failure.

  The phony failure!

  Mickey heaved out a sigh of relief. Robin was okay. Okay except for the fast-approaching fire and being on the ground in North Korea in violation of their orders.

  Robin was speaking. “Air intakes clogged maybe. I haven’t had a chance to look yet.”

  “I have some spares aboard,” Denise answered. “We’ll come down and deliver them.”

  “You do not have permission to land,” the Korean radio voice shrieked.

  Tim jerked back on the controls at the same moment Mickey identified a fast-moving object on the screen.

  Seconds later, a missile shot past not five rotors off his nose and plunged into the fire. It exploded with a great roar of fire so bright that Mickey could see it blooming upward despite the heavy smoke.

  “This has been a warning.” It wasn’t the North Korean helicopter pilots. It was a command voice they hadn’t heard before. “No one else is to land. We will send in a helicopter to retrieve the firefighters.”

  “No need,” Robin sent back. “I can probably clean the filters myself.”

  “I can fly over and drop these down to you w
ithout landing,” Denise offered.

  Mickey held his position and waited for the North Korean response. It was a long time coming. Long enough that Mickey could see the fire in motion.

  “This is authorized,” the commander finally announced.

  Moments later, Firehawk Two moved in above Robin’s position. A package was dropped, then Vern and Denise were gone once more through the smoke.

  “Damn, but your woman has a load of cool in her,” Tim observed.

  “Okay, Robin, honey.” Mickey didn’t key the radio but wished she could answer. “What’s your next move?”

  * * *

  “What the hell are we doing here?” Robin demanded.

  The clearing barely bigger than her rotor blades a dozen miles into North Korea. She’d half expected the ground to explode beneath her with a thousand land mines when she landed, even though the DMZ was far behind them.

  “And what the hell was that thing they shot?” She looked toward the fire in horror. Whatever it was had exploded and blown the fire in her direction. Her carefully chosen and pampered clearing among the tall trees wasn’t going to last for twenty minutes.

  “I’m thinking it was an Vympel R-77 air-to-air missile.” Lola spoke matter-of-factly. “At least that’s what the MiG-21 was flaunting up and down the line. It also didn’t have the feel of a 9M117 Phalanga. They tend to have a little less accuracy and a little less oomph. Someone is going to be ticked off; those are expensive missiles. North Korea doesn’t fire Vympels very often, even in their bigger exercises.”

  Robin was suddenly very glad of her career choice. She was fine going through life not being able to distinguish Vympels from Phalangas from…her freaked-out brain had run out of the ability to metaphor…from flying zucchini bread!

  Then she eyed the smoke wall and was less than sure of her present career choice. The missile really had driven an outward blast of fresh heat into the flames. Her twenty minutes had just become closer to five.

  She twisted to look back and see if Mickey was still hovering up and behind her. He had a load of water still and might buy them another couple of minu—