Fire in the Stars

by Barbara Fradkin

  “The Croque road is the only road access to the part of the peninsula near this sighting,” Noseworthy said. “We’ll need an extra unit at the entrance.”

  “There isn’t one,” Vu snapped. Noseworthy pursed her lips.

  “I can do that,” Chris said. “Ma’am.”

  Noseworthy didn’t even favour him with a glance. “No you can’t, Tymko. You’re off the case.”

  “But —”

  “Don’t waste my time.”

  Chris held his tongue, recognizing from Noseworthy’s steely tone that his next interruption might get him kicked out of the command post and ordered back to Deer Lake.

  The whole staff was on tenterhooks waiting for the Zodiac to report in. As the afternoon wore on, the rain and wind eased up, but a thick fog rolled in, blanketing the hills and grounding the helicopter completely. Chris tried to fade into the woodwork, but with more pressing concerns on her mind, Noseworthy seemed to have decided to ignore his existence altogether, which suited him fine. She paced, fretting aloud about the visibility along the shore.

  It was mid-afternoon before the Zodiac report came in. A hush fell over the trailer as everyone strained to decipher the broken garble emanating from the radio.

  “Deserted village … subjects not here, but evidence recent visitors … ashes in stove, cooking pan, mattress on floor …”

  Chris nearly shouted aloud, clapping his hand over his mouth at the last moment. He fought a lump in his throat. They were alive! Not only alive, but finding food and shelter. Brilliant, brilliant woman!

  Vu traced his finger over the map. “Any indication where they went?”

  “Negative, sir. But we can search the surrounding terrain on foot to see if we can spot a trail.”

  “Hold off on that. I don’t want their scent disturbed. Do a shore search from the boat. It’s a large bay, and they could have walked in either direction. I’ll send K9 in.”

  “Copy that, sir.”

  The K9 team did not respond to its call sign, however, despite Vu’s increasingly loud and frustrated efforts. “Keep trying,” he ordered Helen as he headed outside. “I’ll have their asses for this.”

  Noseworthy was frowning at Corporal Vu through the window. The ERT leader was like a spring wound too tight, quick to action but also quick to anger. How much experience did he have with killers and victims on the loose? Chris wondered. Did Noseworthy have concerns?

  Chris was no longer able to keep quiet. “Ma’am, I’ve been in there. Radio reception in the interior is spotty. The woods are dense and the terrain is mountainous.”

  Noseworthy bristled at the interruption, but seemed to consider. “There are only four hours of daylight left and the weather is worsening. Heavy fog is forecast for tonight. Worst-case scenario for Vu’s team. But we’re not getting this close only to have our subjects vanish into the fog. I am going to round up another K9 team for him. I’ll airlift them in from Moncton if I have to.”

  She swung around and was about to get on the phone when the radio came to life again. “Ma’am, we found another message down on the wharf. Not sure what it means, but it’s fresh paint.”

  “What’s the message?”

  “‘What did one frog say to the other?’”

  Astonished silence descended on the room. A couple of titters rippled through, but Noseworthy just blinked at the radio. “What the fuck?”

  “Croque,” Chris said.

  Frank laughter burst out. Noseworthy spun around, and stared first at Chris and then at the map.

  “They’ve gone to Croque,” he said.

  “But … why the riddle? Why not just say that?”

  A niggle of worry wormed in Chris’s gut. Why indeed? Was Amanda becoming unhinged? Delirious? After all she’d been through — discovering Phil’s body, slogging lost and disoriented through the bush, perhaps starving and dehydrated — was she losing touch?

  All these possibilities raced through his mind, but he voiced none of them. Merely shrugged. “The important thing is she’s looking for Croque.”

  Noseworthy was already at the map, tracing her finger down the long, narrowing inlet, at the end of which was tucked the village of Croque. She called in Vu and handed the Zodiac team over to him.

  Vu looked calmer now as he studied the map. “The village of Croque is about five kilometres farther inland. Do a search along the shore inland from your location. Meanwhile I’ll send a ground unit into Croque from this end.”

  After signing off, he examined the assignment roster. “Fuck, I need another unit.”

  Noseworthy’s usually dour face was pink with excitement and her blue eyes glittered. “I’ll call Moncton.”

  “Too long. I’ll have to go myself.”

  “You can’t,” Noseworthy said. Her tone brooked no discussion. “Helen, get me Moncton HQ.”

  “Let me do it, ma’am,” Chris said, unable to restrain himself. “ERT’s stretched thin, you said so yourself, and there’s no point me just sitting here like a bump on a log. I know that road, I know that village. I even talked to some of the local residents last week.”

  Vu was shaking his head vigorously, but Noseworthy stood very still, sizing up the map and the assignment roster. Chris held his breath, debating how to press his case.

  “I know I’ve been a pain —”

  Noseworthy silenced him with a slice of her hand. “You’ve been more than a pain, Tymko. You’ve shown a reckless disregard for orders and jeopardized the integrity of the search.”

  “Let me make it up. I can do this, ma’am. I had plenty of search-and-rescue experience up north. Including against active shooters.”

  “And just who the hell would you take as your partner? The journalist?”

  “Jason Maloney?”

  “Corporal Maloney is on the roadblock, doing what he’s supposed to.”

  Chris sensed her weakening. “Corporal Willington, then. He and I have worked together before, and he’s local. He knows the area better than anybody.”

  Vu finally erupted. “I can’t have a bunch of untrained regulars running all through the zone!”

  “Which would you prefer, Corporal?” Noseworthy said. “A pristine search, or two live subjects?”

  “More likely two dead subjects!”

  Ignoring him, Noseworthy walked over to the small window that overlooked the bay. Fog obscured the mountains and most of the village below. She shook her head slowly back and forth, as if she didn’t believe what she was about to say.

  “Go on,” she said to Chris. “Corporal Vu will send in a team to replace you as soon as it arrives, but you and Willington can do the advance recon. Tymko?” she snapped as he moved to go. “Advance recon of the village only. Stay out of sight.”

  Chris stopped in Roddickton only long enough to pick up Willington and some supplies before the two of them rocketed down the highway to the Croque road. When they turned in, they passed Jason’s roadblock. Parked next his truck was a rusty white Cavalier. Chris blasted his horn twice as they passed, while Willington craned his neck to see inside the truck.

  “Can’t wait to see them fit a moose on the roof of that Cavalier,” Chris quipped.

  “Looked like a woman in his truck,” Willington said.

  Chris grunted. How like Jason Maloney. Leave no woman behind. He pressed the accelerator closer to the floor and they continued on down toward Croque. Passing the logging road where the Acadia Seafood truck had been hidden, Chris tightened with worry. That truck was a loose thread, potentially a danger to the whole operation. But there was no time to check out whether it was still there.

  Soon the familiar roadside gardens and stacks of firewood began to break the monotony of the forest, announcing the proximity of the village. Each time they rounded a curve, Chris kept hoping to see Amanda and Tyler walking up the road. Each time, there was no
one.

  Having been evacuated, the village itself was eerily quiet. Most of the vehicles were gone and the yards were empty. No washing hung on the lines and no smoke drifted from the chimneys. Nonetheless, Chris scanned the houses scattered through the rolling hills for any sign of Amanda.

  Nothing. He parked the cruiser above the small harbour, and he and Willington climbed out to survey the area.

  “Amanda!” he shouted. A faint echo drifted back from down the bay, but no other response. He cupped his hands. “Amanda!”

  Willington gave two short blasts on the emergency whistle. Still nothing. “Keep doing that,” Chris said, “in case they’re nearby.”

  They descended the slope to the ramshackle wharf and peered down the bay. Mist shimmered on the water and blurred the trees, but he could detect no shadows moving along the shore. No sign of the police Zodiac either. What the hell, he thought. The search boat should have been here by now, even in this weather.

  Unless they’d found something.

  His gaze fell on the little fishing dory moored to the wharf. The motor was still on the back and its life jackets and gas tank were still in the bilge, as if the pilot had left it in a hurry. He nodded at it. “Should we borrow that and go meet the boat, in case they need help?”

  Willington’s brow wrinkled. “We’re just supposed to recon the area.”

  “That is reconning the area.”

  “You know what I mean. She said the village.”

  In vain Chris listened for the whine of the Zodiac. “They can’t be far.”

  “Noseworthy will have our balls.”

  “She’s not here, is she? And look, there’s no radio signal.”

  Willington took out his radio. With a quick hand, Chris batted it aside before he could check. “There’s no signal.” He climbed into the boat and checked the motor and fuel. The little 9-horsepower engine fired to life on the second pull. “You’re right. You should stay here to meet the backup team.”

  “Chris …”

  “Be back in a jiffy.” Chris reversed the boat and pointed it down the narrow fjord, lifting his hand for a jaunty wave as he opened up the throttle.

  The drone of the motor and the slap of waves against the hull drowned out all other sound as he chugged up the twisting, widening bay. Half-blinded by mist, he hugged the southern shore so that he could search the rocks and woodlands for the Zodiac. Or Amanda. At each curve, he hesitated, wondering whether the boat had followed the opposite shore or wandered into an inlet he could barely see through the fog.

  After awhile, he began to worry in earnest. The fog had chilled and soaked him to the core. By his rough estimate he had travelled about three kilometres and was more than halfway to the abandoned outport where the HELP sign had been found. Where was everyone?

  Up ahead, the murky silhouette of a point jutted into the wide bay. At first he could see nothing but the grey rock and the blurred greens and browns of the bordering woods. But then, tucked into the lee of the point, he thought he saw a smudge of black and some shadows of movement. He squinted through the mist. As he drew closer, the black took on the shape of a boat and the moving shadows became two people upon the shore.

  Nearer still, he was able to make out a second, smaller boat half sunk in the shallow water. The two searchers turned in surprise to watch his approach. At the last second, he remembered to pull the propeller shaft up before running the dory up on the gravel beach. He jumped out, wiping the rainwater from his eyes.

  “What have you guys found?”

  The two people were covered head to toe in foul-weather tactical gear, but their eyes stared out at him in bristling unison. “Corporal Tymko,” he added hastily. “I came out from Croque. No sign of our missing persons?”

  One of them pulled off her hood, revealing a tousled head of blond hair, and extended her hand. “June Halliday. Did Vu send you?”

  Chris made a vague gesture. “Until backup arrives.”

  A brief frown flickered across her face before she pointed to the sunken rowboat. “We found this. They may have been trying to come up the bay by boat, but this baby only got them half way. She’s some old, this little gal.”

  Aren’t they all, Chris thought irrelevantly. He glanced around at the forbidding forest. “Any trace of them?”

  Halliday shook her head. “We radioed it in, they told us to sit tight. They’re bringing K9 up to take it from here.” She paused. “The poor buggers may not even have made it to shore anyway, in that thing.”

  With an effort, Chris fought off the ominous implication. If they had swamped out in the bay, hypothermia would have claimed them within minutes. He turned instead to study the shoreline. The tide was almost at the high-water mark, so that the steep bank made walking along the shore very difficult, but the lower tide of earlier in the day would have provided a swath of shoreline along which to walk. Why wouldn’t Amanda and Tyler have followed the shore, which at least provided them with a direction. Slogging through the dense, hilly woods, they could get lost again in an instant.

  Yet he had seen no trace of them along the shore.

  “How do you know it’s theirs?” he asked, clinging to faint hope.

  “They left another message.” She leaned over to point at a word raggedly scratched onto the side of the boat. “Frogmarched.”

  He stared at her. More riddles! He walked over for a closer look. The rain had covered the boat with mist, but he thought he detected some red smears on the gunwales and oars. A chill of dread crept up his spine. He squatted down, and through the water he saw two holes in the bottom of the boat. He sucked in his breath.

  “Help me move it!” he cried, shoving at the boat. Water sloshed as it slid sideways on the gravel, revealing, as Chris feared, two bullets partially buried in the sand beneath.

  “Fuck,” he whispered as the remnants of hope drained from him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Amanda had lost all sense of time and direction. She was so used to being hungry that she could no longer use it as a guide. One foot in front of another, she thought as she trudged through the woods with her head bowed and her shoulders leaning in. She hoped they were still heading west in the general direction of Croque, but in reality she had no idea. Wisps of fog had collected in the hollows and she hadn’t caught a glimpse of sun in what felt like hours.

  Mahmoud was carrying Tyler on his back. At first the boy had refused to go near the man or accept any help, but eventually the pain wore him down. He slept now with his head resting on Mahmoud’s shoulder. The group plodded along in a straggling line that detoured, backtracked, and bunched to a stop as they clambered over fallen trees and around boulders. Amanda led the way and all she could hear was ragged breathing and twigs snapping in her wake.

  At the top of a rise, she paused to check behind her and saw that Fazil and his cousin were no longer there. The two had been taking up the rear, so that they could follow at Ghader’s hobbling pace. She called for a halt. Relieved, Mahmoud eased Tyler to the ground while Amanda headed back down the trail. She found Ghader collapsed in his tracks, deathly pale and unconscious. Fazil stood at his side, his head bowed. As Amanda checked the fallen man’s pulse, which was thready and faint, she detected the rancid stink of infection emanating from his body. The smell filled her with dread, bringing back memories of weak and injured refugees who had collapsed during their long treks to safety.

  Mahmoud came to kneel beside her. “We must leave him.”

  The pain of memory knifed her. “We can’t.”

  “He is dying.”

  Shaking her head, she laid her hand on Ghader’s cold, papery forehead. “Let’s give him time to rest.”

  “He is dying.” Mahmoud turned to speak to Fazil in a quiet murmur, and the other man shook his head. Mahmoud turned back to Amanda, his tone flat and resigned, his green eyes bleak with sorrow. “Fazil say his c
ousin is not continue. Very sick for his home.”

  “Homesick?”

  Mahmoud nodded. “He have a wife and daughter in Kobani. He want better life in America and bring them.”

  “Kobani? That’s in Northern Syria, isn’t it? I’ve read about the terrible fighting there.”

  “Ghader is afraid his family gone. DAESH … take women. He has no news from them.”

  Every ounce of her wanted to fight against the man’s death, but she sensed the futility of it. She eased him into a more comfortable position and took off her jacket to keep him warm. She could think of nothing more than to stroke his brow, feeling helpless and bereft as the life ebbed from him.

  Tyler came limping back down the path to join the mournful circle around the fallen man. Amanda looked into Tyler’s eyes, stricken and huge with tears, and realized that for him it was like watching his father die all over again.

  “We will leave you two to stay with him until …” she murmured as she rose to draw Tyler away, grateful for the chance to escape the death vigil and the pain of her own memories. She sat on a nearby log and held Tyler’s trembling body close.

  “I’m sorry, Tyler,” she murmured, pressing her lips to his tousled head. “I’m sorry you have to go through this.”

  “Why don’t we just leave them?”

  “Because they are lost and scared too.”

  “They are killers!”

  She tightened her grip and rocked him. Kaylee lay at their feet quietly, as if she too sensed the sadness of the moment.

  Time stretched. Fingers of fog slipped through the woods, obscuring the men huddled down the trail and muffling their soft murmurs. Amanda could hear the chanting of prayer, and her heart began to race. She felt trapped, unable to see her way out. No one is going to find us, she thought as she felt the hot wetness of tears upon her cheeks. I will sit here, holding this child as Phil held Alaji all those months ago, and feel the pulse of his life slip through my fingers.