Chasing Fire: An I-Team/Colorado High Country Crossover Novel

by Pamela Clare

  “Right. See you tonight.”

  She watched from the door as he climbed into his truck.

  Before backing out of the driveway, he sent a text message to Hunter.

  On my way up to Scarlet Springs to cover the fire. Are you up there?

  He waved to Mia and headed down the road.

  Marc and the others had removed the conversion kits from their firearms after lunch and were now carrying live anti-personnel rounds. The reason for this was apparent in the garbage strewn around the abandoned campsite Deputy Marcs had found last week.

  Food wrappers and plastic soda bottles lay everywhere. Next to the blackened fire ring sat a face mask. Twenty yards away, flies buzzed around a pit of human excrement mixed with wads of used toilet paper. Spent shotgun shells littered the forest floor.

  Marc kept his distance. “They were cooking meth.”

  “Shake-and-bake.” Darcangelo surveyed the piles of plastic bottles and propane tanks. “They didn’t just leave a mess. They left a toxic mess.”

  McBride walked up to them. “Come on, guys. We’ve got to go. That fire is burning out of control. Pella has ordered us to evacuate.”

  They climbed into the van and headed back down the dirt access road.

  “I should have gone with Pella this morning.” Deputy Marcs was clearly upset. “I could be evacuating people now rather than evacuating myself.”

  Marc didn’t want her blaming herself. “Hey, you couldn’t have known.”

  “How many people live in the evac zone?” Darcangelo asked.

  “A few hundred.” Deputy Marcs took a drink from her water bottle. “We’ve got a reverse 911 system, but some of them live off the grid and don’t have phones. I don’t know if we can get to all of them in the next half hour.”

  Marc didn’t need to think about it. “I’ll help.”

  Darcangelo nodded. “Count me in.”

  “I’d be happy to help, too,” McBride said.

  The offers of help didn’t ease the look of worry on Deputy Marcs’ face. “Some of the people who live up there are ‘sovereign citizens,’ which means they don’t recognize any authority beyond the county sheriff. They’re likely to meet you at the door with a shotgun—and they won’t be bluffing.”

  Marc had the solution for that. “Pella can deputize us, turn us into his posse.”

  Darcangelo grinned. “Trying to build up your resume, Hunter?”

  Deputy Marcs was smiling now. “I’m sure Sheriff Pella would be grateful for your help. I don’t know the legal requirements for deputizing people, but he will.”

  She reached for her hand mic, waited for radio traffic to clear, and then spoke with Pella, who was, indeed, grateful for the extra help. All he had to do to deputize them was to put it down in writing.

  “Meet me at the parking lot of Ski Scarlet,” Pella said. “I’ll have someone get the documentation ready and email it to the mobile command center.”

  They returned to the Caribou site and got into their vehicles. Ten minutes later, Marc pulled into the parking lot and got his first unobstructed look at the cloud of gray smoke. It dominated the horizon now, reaching high into the sky. “Look at that.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Then Darcangelo pointed. “There’s Pella.”

  They parked, climbed out, and made their way over to the sheriff, who was poring over a map with Eric Hawke and the county fire chief.

  Pella looked up. “Great. Here you are. Consider yourselves deputized. Sorry, I don’t have a box of spare badges in my car. We’ve got roadblocks on all the roads leading into the evac areas. Deputy Marcs, you put them to work clearing houses.”

  “You got it.”

  Marc listened with the others while Deputy Marcs went over the map and briefed them. His cell phone buzzed—a message from Ramirez.

  On my way up to Scarlet Springs to cover the fire. Are you up there?

  Marc replied, telling Ramirez that he, Darcangelo, and McBride would be helping with evacuations.

  “You paying attention, Hunter?” Darcangelo asked.

  “Ramirez is on his way up.”

  “Does he want to ride along with us?”

  “If I were him, I’d focus on the action here. Besides, we don’t have time to wait.”

  They set out, Marc and Julian in Marc’s SUV and Zach in his own, a Channel 12 news helicopter passing overhead as they headed down the mountain.

  They had discussed the situation from a tactical point of view and had decided to work opposite sides of the road, Marc and Julian on one side and Zach on the other. That way, they would have immediate backup in case they met armed resistance—which was a completely fucked-up thing to worry about in the middle of a wildfire evacuation.

  Then again, this was Scarlet Springs.

  They passed through the roadblock and made their way toward the most distant street in the evac zone, Darcangelo holding the map and giving directions.

  “There should be a right turn just ahead.”

  “Are you sure you’re holding the map right side up?”

  “I know how to read a map.”

  Marc turned onto the road, Zach right behind them. The road was narrower than Marc had expected and heavily forested on both sides—lots of fuel for the fire. Long, narrow driveways marked with reflectors led to cabins that were built at a distance from the road. Most had NO TRESPASSING signs nailed to trees and fence posts.

  Darcangelo looked around them. “Remind me not to bring the kids trick-or-treating in this neighborhood.”

  “Yeah. No kidding.”

  Marc turned up the first driveway—nothing more than a rutted single-lane dirt road. Signs warning trespassers were nailed to trees and tied to barbed wire. One threatened the use of lethal force. The cabin itself was built into the side of a hill—a sod house with a cabin front. A yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag flew from a log flag pole not far from the front door.

  “I take it these people won’t be happy to see us.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  Julian stayed to the side, firearm ready, while Marc walked up to the door and knocked.

  “Sheriff’s deputy!” It felt strange to say that. “A big fire is headed this way. We’re here to help you evacuate.”

  An older woman’s voice came from the other side of the door. “You ain’t no sheriff’s deputy. You’re marshals. I seen it on your vehicle. I got no time for you federal buzzards.”

  What could Marc say? “That wasn’t my vehicle, ma’am. I’m Marc Hunter from DPD SWAT. I was deputized by Sheriff Pella to help bring people to safety.”

  “Where’s your badge?”

  “I don’t have a badge because he didn’t have time to give me one.”

  “You listen here, mister! I can’t leave. This cabin is all I got in the world since my man passed on.” The door opened just a crack, one brown eye peeking through. “Oh!”

  Then the door opened all the way to reveal a heavyset woman wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, large breasts sagging almost to her waist, her short gray hair in curlers. In her hands was a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun.

  The woman stepped outside, spotted Darcangelo, and smiled. “Aren’t you two handsome? Can you help me get out to my pickup? My knees ain’t what they used to be. I got to get my social security card, a bra, and my pet rat first.”

  Yeah. This was going to be an interesting afternoon.

  Chapter 8

  Eric willed himself not to raise his voice, did his best to spell it out for Robertson. “Even if we create a backburn and stop the blaze there, upcanyon winds are going to funnel the flames around the mountain, up the river valleys, and into town.”

  Robertson wasn’t being decisive at a time when minutes counted, and he couldn’t seem to grasp the big picture.

  Robertson glared at him. “Let’s hear your big plan, then.”

  “Move the line farther from Scarlet.” Eric pointed to an access road on the map. “Start the backburn here on Piñon Road far away from
Scarlet. Burn out the west side of the road. The distance between the two rivers that come into town is shortest here. The forest was thinned and cleared of slash last year, and the valleys are at their narrowest. We turn as much of that as we can into good black, stand ready to put out spot fires across the road—and then we pray.”

  Even if they burned out a hundred yards, it might not be enough, not when the wind was carrying embers distances of a quarter mile. The fire could spot beyond the black and ignite fuels across the road. It could finger off in other directions, pushed by those damned upcanyon winds. Or they could lose control of the backburn and start a second fire.

  “You’ll be putting our crews uphill from this beast.”

  “We’ll be making good black as we move, and we’ll have the road as our escape route. Without air assets, what other choice do we have?”

  “You mean besides stepping back and letting the town burn?” Sheriff Pella asked.

  “None that I can see.” Jacob Malheur, superintendent of the US Forest Service crew, hadn’t said much before now. “Hawke’s plan also protects homes we would otherwise sacrifice, and if it fails, you’ve still got time to fall back, regroup, and try again.”

  Robertson looked at the map, sweat beading on his forehead. “All right, damn it. Move! We don’t have much time. Hawke, this is your idea, so I’m making you Incident Commander.”

  Relief washed through Eric.

  It’s about fucking time.

  He shouted out his orders. “From this moment, I’ll be going as Scarlet Command. We’ll leave some volunteers and the Forest Service crew here with the pumper tanker to protect the ski lodge, the lifts, and the outbuildings. Everyone else goes with me. On the double, people! Robertson, call the county public information officer. We’ve got media here, and none of us has time right now to answer questions.”

  He turned to Sheriff Pella. “You’re sure that the reverse 911 evacuation order reached everyone—residents, businesses, Camp Mato Sapa?”

  Sheriff Pella nodded. “We sent it out twice. I can ask one of my officers to check the campgrounds if you like.”

  “Thanks. I’d appreciate that.” But there was one other thing.

  He glanced around, found Moretti. “Hey, Moretti, where do you store the explosives?”

  Moretti jogged over, pointed to a small building a couple hundred yards from the lodge. “If that thing blows, it will take out this parking lot and all of your pretty trucks, too.”

  Eric pointed to the building, shouting for the Forest Service superintendent. “See that building? It’s full of explosives. If it even looks like the fire is going to reach it, you’ll need to evacuate down the road beyond the first switchback. It’s not likely to burn surrounded by bare slopes and this parking lot, but watch it all the same.”

  Malheur nodded. “Got it.”

  Eric called for all volunteer and rural fire companies to meet his crew at the top of Piñon Road with every chainsaw, drip torch, and fusee they had. Then he called his mother and asked her to take Caden to her old house in Boulder for the day.

  “Are we in the evacuation zone, too?” she asked.

  “No, but I’d feel safer knowing the two of you are out of town. If this thing gets away from us again, it could get ugly.”

  “Okay, then. This little man and I will pack up and head out. What about Vicki?”

  “I called, but she didn’t answer. She’s probably busy. I left her a message.” He doubted she’d leave the restaurant unless all of Scarlet was evacuated.

  “She told me the good news this morning. I’m thrilled for you—and for me. Another grandbaby. I can’t wait! You must be so happy.”

  He was. “Vicki surprised me at breakfast. I got toned out for the fire not long after, so I don’t think it’s had time to sink in yet.”

  “I bet. You be careful, son.”

  “I promise. Give Caden a kiss from his daddy. I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Eric ended the call and shouted for his crew to mount up. “Let’s roll!”

  “You really think we can pull this off, chief?”

  “We don’t have a choice.”

  Libby dashed around her house, grabbing things she wanted to save and shoving them in plastic garbage bags, unable to stop her tears. Nothing was going right today. First, she’d hurt Brandon’s feelings, made him think she didn’t care about him. Then some idiots had started a fire that wanted to burn down her house and her whole town.

  What next—freaking bubonic plague?

  She’d ducked out of work the moment she’d gotten the reverse 911 call and had driven up to her house, just making it through before the sheriff’s department put up the roadblock. She’d worked hard for the few things she had. She couldn’t let some damned forest fire take everything from her.

  So far, she’d gotten all of her vinyl and her important papers—Brandon had made her put them all together in one folder—out to the car. She put the collection of beer bottles representing every brew she’d ever made at Knockers into a big garbage bag and set it next to the door. She couldn’t let fire destroy that. Then she grabbed her camera bag, her favorite clothes, all her crazy colors of fingernail polish, her TV, her sex toys, and her laptop.

  She picked up the heavy bag of beer bottles and carried it out to her Jeep, settling it in the back on the floor and hurrying back inside for the next bag. The wind was sharp with the scent of smoke now, a wall of gray rising to the west.

  Brandon was out there somewhere.

  She’d tried to reach him, but her call had gone to voicemail. He was probably too busy to talk. Or maybe he didn’t want to talk to her. She couldn’t blame him.

  Way to fuck up the best relationship you’ve ever had.

  She grabbed her camera bag next, turned toward the door, and stopped.

  Her music box.

  She set the camera bag down, picked up the music box, opened it. A tiny plastic ballerina in a pink tutu pirouetted to a song Libby didn’t know. The music box had been a birthday gift from her father before unemployment and alcohol had made him mean. He’d turned his fists on her and her mother, and her mother had thrown him out of the house. The music box was a piece of junk, but it was the last thing he’d given her before he’d disappeared from her life.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat—and nearly jumped out of her skin when a knock came at the door.

  “US Marshals! I’m here to help you evacuate.”

  A tall man in mirrored shades stood on her front steps, a duty badge on his hip, his dark hair ruffled by the wind.

  She shouldered her camera bag and, still holding the music box, stepped outside. “I’m getting stuff together as fast as I can.”

  “I’m Chief Deputy US Marshal Zach McBride. We need to move quickly. There’s not much time. What can I carry?”

  She pointed to the bags inside the door. “That’s most of it. I’m Libby, by the way.”

  “Sorry to meet you under these circumstances, Libby.” He grabbed four bags at once— of course, he did—and followed her toward her Jeep.

  Okay, yes, she’d noticed his biceps. Any straight chick or gay guy would. But she also noticed the wedding band. It didn’t matter anyway. She had Brandon.

  Do you? Or did you chase him away?

  She was walking down the flagstone path to her Jeep when she heard a bunch of somethings hit the concrete. She turned to find her sex toys scattered on her front steps.

  “I apologize, Libby. The bag tore open.”

  For one agonizing moment, she stood there in mortified silence, heat rushing into her face, her cheeks burning hotter than any fire. “Uh … God, I’m sorry. I’ll pick it up.”

  Holy freaking shit! Could anything go right today?

  She ran into the house, dragged her suitcase out of her closet, threw more clothes in it for good measure, then hurried outside and picked up her sex toys—her purple veiny dick vibrator, her rabbit vibrator, her silicone G-spot vibrator, a coupl
e of vibrating cock rings, the pink vibrator, her fuzzy handcuffs, the silk cords she’d used to tie Brandon to her bed this morning, and two bottles of flavored lube.

  Face still burning, she packed them all into her suitcase and closed it—just as two other men walked up.

  “The other side of the road is cleared,” said one, a big man with short, dark hair.

  “Need help there, McBride?” asked the other, also tall but with a dark ponytail.

  “We’ve got it.” McBride took the suitcase from her. “I put your TV and laptop in the back seat. I think that’s the last of it. Do you want to take one last walk-through?”

  She nodded. “Thank you.”

  He glanced at his watch. “No more than two minutes.”

  She walked back inside, grabbed her phone and computer chargers, and glanced around at everything she couldn’t take. Would it still be here tonight?

  Tears running down her cheeks, she stepped onto her deck. A gray wall of smoke filled most of the horizon, rising high in the sky, an orange glow emanating from beneath it.

  Flames. Fire.

  Chills skittered down her spine.

  The deputy US marshal’s voice came from the doorway. “Time to go!”

  Be careful, Brandon!

  She turned and walked away from her home, from most of the things she owned, not bothering to lock the front door.

  Joaquin wrangled with the county’s PIO—public information officer—until she finally agreed to let him follow the firefighting crews to wherever they were going.

  Leah looked like she was about to panic at the thought of being left on her own. “What am I supposed to do? Shouldn’t I go with you?”

  A woman with a notepad—obviously another journalist—walked up to them and offered Joaquin her hand. “I’m Wendy Hall with the Scarlet Springs Gazette.”

  “I’m—”

  “You’re Joaquin Ramirez—I know. I’ve admired your work for years. The photo series that won you the Pulitzer was incredible.”