difficult. Coughing and tearing, they piled into the car.
Slade slid behind the wheel. “Here we go.” He shoved the key into the ignition and turned it.
Nothing happened.
“What’s wrong?” Maureen asked. A note of panic crept into her voice.
“I don’t know.” Slade turned the ignition again-with the same result.
“Come on!” Ben said. “We’ve got to go!”
“Talking won’t get us anywhere.” Slade pushed a button to pop the hood, then jumped out of the car. Ben followed him.
Slade stared down into the engine. In seconds he ascertained what had happened. He ran his finger through a white, granular smear, then touched it to his lips.
“Sugar,” he said bitterly.
“Sugar?” Ben said. “What do you mean?”
Slade glared at Maureen. “It’s a technique these bright young Green Ragers have for disabling automobiles. Put sugar in the crankcase. Or the gas tank. Or both. Stops the car dead.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying this car isn’t going anywhere.” He glanced at Maureen. “Good work.”
She held up her hands. “I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“One of your associates, then. A very thorough one.” He slammed the hood down. “And now we’re all going to pay the price. All because of
“Wait a minute,” Maureen said. “This would never have happened if one of your men hadn’t killed Doc.”
“That would never have happened if you and your gang of trespassers hadn’t illegally blocked the road.”
“We wouldn’t’ve had to, if your corporate masters weren’t so determined to sacrifice our forests to make a buck!”
“We don’t have time for this!” Ben shouted. “Like it or not, we’re all in this together now.”
“He’s right,” Slade said. His lips were pursed together; Ben knew he was thinking. He scanned the ring of flame encircling them, growing closer. “Let’s spread out. See if we can find an opening anywhere in the flames.”
They did as Slade bid. Ben ran the farthest, toward the opposite side of the cabin. No matter how far away he ran, though, he couldn’t get away from the oppressive heat, the intense burning sensation. His face was flushed; sweat poured down his body. It was getting hotter; he was certain of it. Because the flames were coming closer.
He followed the fire around the back of the cabin. It was an almost perfect circle, with the cabin at the heart. He ran into Maureen, coming from the other direction. “I didn’t find an opening. Did you?”
Maureen shook her head grimly. “No.”
“I don’t understand it.”
“I’m afraid I do. Even in this crazed mental state, Al is very smart, very thorough. He probably saturated the ground with gasoline, forming the circle.”
Ben gazed at the intense wall of flame. It made his eyes hurt; it was like peering into the sun-or more accurately, like peering into the pits of hell. “I can’t tell how thick the wall is. Maybe if we made a run for it-”
“You’d be burned alive.” Slade was coming toward them. “You’d be burning head to toe before you got through that wall.”
“Then there’s no way through,” Maureen said breathlessly. “No way out.”
“Now you understand the situation,” Slade said. He stared into the inferno. “There’s no escape. We can’t get out, and if we stay here much longer-” The flickering flames reflected in his eyes. “We’ll all be dead.”
Chapter 68
Maureen pressed up against Ben. He cradled her in his arms. “I don’t want to die,” she said, her voice choking. “Especially not by-” Her voice broke off before she completed the sentence.
“We can’t give up,” Ben said. “We have to keep trying.”
“Trying what?” Slade shook his head. “It’s over, Kincaid. Might as well walk into the flames and get it over with.”
“I won’t accept that.” He felt Maureen pressing into the crook of his neck, felt the tears spilling from her eyes. “We have to think about this logically.”
“Logic!” Maureen laughed bitterly.
He pushed her away, holding her by the arms. “Look, what are our options?”
“We don’t have any.”
“Yes we do. If we can’t go through the flames, then we either go under them or over them.”
Slade stared at him incredulously. “Under them? Forget it, Kincaid. Even if we all worked together and had the proper tools-which we don’t-we couldn’t dig a tunnel under those flames in time. We’d be dead before we got anywhere.”
“Agreed,” Ben said. His brain was racing, barely one beat ahead of his mouth. “So we have to go over.”
“Over?” Maureen said incredulously. “Unless you’ve got a red cape under that suit, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
“I can’t fly, but a helicopter can. A copter could get in here and fly us out before the flames close in.”
“You’re dreaming, Kincaid,” Slade said. “There probably aren’t any copters within a hundred miles of this backwater.”
“There are,” Ben said firmly. “Two, in fact. Sheriff Allen told me. He flies one himself. They use them for mountain rescues.”
Maureen looked up at Ben for the first time since he’d started talking. Despite the crushing heat all around them, Ben saw the tiniest glimmer of hope in her eyes. “But how do we call the helicopters here?”
“That’s what I don’t know,” Ben said. “I’m sure eventually someone will report the fire. But by then it will be too late.”
“A radio!” Slade slapped his hands together. “A radio!”
Ben rushed toward him. “Do you have one?”
“Yes. I mean, I think so. I’ve seen it in the closet. It isn’t mine. One of the other men-”
“Never mind that,” Ben said curtly. “Show us.”
Slade led the way back into the cabin, running as fast as he could go. The circle of flame was growing detectably closer on all sides. Already Ben was beginning to feel singed, burned. Maureen’s face was a bright red. And the smoke was so much thicker he could hardly breathe.
They would be dead even before the flames got to them, Ben realized. They’d be dead even sooner than they thought.
Slade led the way to a back room. He rooted around in the closet for several seconds, pushing aside dirty clothes and trash. Eventually he emerged with a large rectangular metal box.
“I think this is a radio,” he said. “Isn’t it?”
Maureen took it from him and set it on a nearby table. “It sure as hell is.”
“But I don’t know how to work it.”
“Don’t worry. I do.” She glanced up at Ben. “Communications is my field, remember? This is a pretty simple shortwave setup. The owner is probably a ham radio hobbyist. We’ll use the emergency channels; someone should be monitoring. The signal should be strong enough-”
She turned a knob on the front of the set and waited.
Nothing happened.
She clicked it back, then tried again. Nothing happened.
“Damn!” Muttering under her breath, she reached toward the back of the set till she found the catches that released the metal casing. She lifted the lid off and stared at the contents.
“What’s wrong?” Slade asked. Ben could feel the edge in his voice. For an instant, it had seemed as if they actually had some chance of survival. And now-
