The plane bucked and trembled in the turbulence while jumpers lined the windows to study the burning ground. And bucking, they circled to wait for the mud drop on the head that shot up flames she estimated at a good thirty feet.
She waddled over to L.B., who’d come on as spotter.
“See that clearing?” he shouted. “That’s our jump spot. A little closer to the right flank than I’d like, but it’s the best in this terrain.”
“Saves us a hike.”
“The wind’s whipping her up. You want to keep clear of that slash just east of the spot.”
“You bet I do.”
Together they watched the tanker thunder its load onto the head. The reddened clouds of it made her think of the blood soiling her room.
No time for brooding, she reminded herself.
“That’ll knock her down a little.” When the tanker veered off, L.B. nodded at her. “Are you good?”
“I’m good.”
He gave her arm a squeeze, a tacit acknowledgment. “Guard your reserves,” he called out, and went to the door.
From his seat, Gull watched Rowan as the wind and noise rushed in. About an hour earlier she’d been spitting mad with blood on her face and blind vengeance in her fists. Now, as she consulted with their spotter over the flight of the first streamers, the cool was back in those gorgeous, icy eyes. She’d be the first out, taking that ice into fire.
He didn’t see how the fire had a chance.
He looked out the window to study the enemy below. In his hotshot days, he’d have gone in, one of twenty handcrew, transported in The Box—the crew truck that became their home away from home every season.
Now he’d get there by jumping out of a plane.
Different methods, same goal. Suppress and control.
Once he was down, he knew his job and he knew how to take orders. He shifted his gaze back to Rowan. No question she knew how to give them.
But right at the moment, it was all about the getting there. He watched the next set of streamers, tried to judge for himself the draft. With the plane bucking and rocking beneath them, he understood the wind wasn’t going to be a pal.
The plane bumped its way up to jump altitude at L.B.’s order, and as Rowan fixed on her helmet and face mask, as Cards—her jump partner—got into position behind her, Gull felt his breathing elevate. It climbed just as the plane climbed.
But he kept his face impassive as he worked to control it, as he visualized himself shoving out the door, into the slipstream and past it, hurtling down to do his job.
Rowan glanced over briefly so he caught that flash of blue behind her mask. Then she dropped down into position. Seconds later, she was gone. Gull shifted back to the window, watched her fly, and Cards after her. As the plane circled around, he changed angles, saw her chute open.
She slid into the smoke.
When the next jumpers took positions, he strapped on his helmet and mask, calmed and cleared his mind. He had everything he needed, equipment, training, skill. And a few thousand feet below was what he wanted. The woman and the blaze.
He made his way forward, felt the slap of the wind.
“Do you see the jump spot?”
“Yeah, I see it.”
“Wind’s going to kick, all the way down, and it’s going to want to shove you east. Try to stay out of that slash. See that lightning?”
Gull watched it rip through the sky, strike like an electric bullet.
“Hard not to.”
“Don’t get in its way.”
“Got it.”
“Are you ready?”
“We’re ready.”
“Get in the door.”
Gaze on the horizon, Gull dropped down, pushed his legs out into the power of the slipstream. Heat from the fire radiated against his face; the smell of smoke tanged the air he drew into his lungs.
Once again L.B. stuck his head out the door, scanning, studying the hills, the rise of trees, the roiling walls of flame.
“Get ready!”
When the slap came down on his shoulder, Gull propelled himself out. The world tipped and turned, earth, sky, fire, smoke, as he took a ninety-mile-an-hour dive. Greens, blues, red, black tumbled around him in a filmy blur while he counted in his head. The sounds—a roaring growl—amazed. The wind knocked him sideways, clawed him into a spin while he used strength, will, training to revolve until he was head up, feet down, stabilized by the drogue.
Heart knocking—adrenaline, awe, delight, fear—he found Trigger, his jump partner, in the sky.
Wait, he ordered himself. Wait.
Lightning flared, a blue-edged lance, and added a sting of ozone to the air.
Then the tip and tug. He dropped his head back, watched his chute fly up, open in the ripping air like a flower. He let out a shout of triumph, couldn’t help it, and heard Trigger answer it with a laugh as Gull gripped his steering toggles.
It was a fight to turn to face the wind, but he reveled in it. Even choking on the smoke that wind blew smugly in his face, hearing the bombburst of thunder that followed another crack of lightning, he grinned. And with his chute rocking, his eyes tracking the ugly slash, the line of trees, the angry walls of flames—close enough now to slap heat over his face—he aimed for the jump site.
For a moment he thought the wind would beat him after all, and imagined the discomfort, embarrassment and goddamn inconvenience of hitting those jack-sawed trees. And on his first jump.
He yanked down hard on his toggle, shouted, “No fucking way.”
He heard Trigger’s wild laugh, and seconds before he hit, Gull pulled west. His feet slapped ground, just on the east end of the jump spot. Momentum nearly tumbled him into the slash, but he flipped himself back in a sloppy somersault into the clearing.
He took a moment—maybe half a moment—to catch his breath, to congratulate himself on getting down in one piece, then rolled up to gather his chute.
“Not bad, rook.” Cards gave him a waggling thumbs-up. “Ride’s over, and the fun begins. The Swede’s setting up a team to dig fire line along the flank there.” He pointed toward the wicked, bellowing wall. “And you’re elected. Another team’s going to set up toward the head, hit it with the hoses. Mud knocked her back some, but the wind’s got her feeling sexy, and we’re getting lightning strikes out the ass. You’re with Trigger, Elf, Gibbons, Southern and me on the line. And shit, there goes one in the slash and the other in the trees. Let’s haul them in and get to work.”
Gull trooped over to assist Southern, but stopped when his fellow rookie got to his feet among the jagged, jack-sawed trees.
“You hurt?” Gull shouted.
“Nah. Damn it. A little banged, and my chute’s ripped up.”
“Could’ve been worse. Could’ve been me. We’re on the fire line.”
He maneuvered through the slash to help Southern gather his tattered chute. After stowing his jumpsuit, Gull headed over to where Cards was ragging on Gibbons.
“Now that Tarzan here has finished swinging in the trees, let’s do what we get paid for.”
With his team, Gull hiked half a mile in full pack to the line Rowan had delegated Cards to dig.
They spread out, and with the fire licking closer the sounds of pick striking earth, saw and blade slicing tree filled the smoky air. Gull thought of the fire line as an invisible wall or, if they were lucky, a kind of force field that
