Page 60 of Badlands (Nora Kelly #5)

F ROM TIME TO time during his life, Watts had been plagued by a recurring nightmare: of being trapped in a fire, paralyzed and unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to cry out for help, as the flames crept closer…

but this time, as he swam back into consciousness, he realized this was no nightmare: he was in a real fire and couldn’t move.

It came back to him in a rush: the turbulence, the sandstorm, the crash.

And now, behind him, fed like a blast furnace by the wind, was the fire—and he was trapped.

It was uncannily like the dream: no matter how he thrashed, he seemed to be bound up, paralyzed, unable to gain traction.

And then, as both consciousness and reason fully returned, he realized he was suspended in the air, hanging from straps and webbing.

He stopped thrashing uselessly about and fumbled around for a buckle, found one, and unlatched it.

But that wasn’t enough; he was still tangled up in webbing as the unbearable heat of the fire drew closer.

In desperation he felt around for the handle of his fixed-blade knife, pulled it out, and slashed at the webbing.

He freed himself, falling to the padded metal beneath.

He sat up and looked around through the smoke, gaining situational awareness.

There was another person—Sharp—also caught up in the webbing.

Watts crawled over and, with another swipe of his knife, released him from the nylon web.

The man fell to the ground, conscious but dazed.

Choking on the acrid smoke, Watts seized Sharp under the shoulders and dragged him out of the wreckage, upwind, to a safe distance from the brutal heat of the fire.

One of Sharp’s legs was twisted at an odd angle.

He left Sharp and went back into the wrecked chopper, which was lying on its side.

He saw that the fire had started in the engine housing and was propagating fast in the blowtorch wind.

At any moment it would reach the fuel tanks and the damn thing would explode.

The pilot, still in the cockpit, was horribly mangled and clearly dead.

What about the others?

As he cast around, he saw a hulking figure stagger out of the smoke, walk several feet, then fall to his knees, coughing.

Watts turned his attention back to the wreckage.

There were three others in there.

He rushed toward the billowing smoke and climbed in again, holding his breath.

Glimpsing another figure through the swirls of ash, Watts freed her and dragged her outside, only to find that, like the pilot, she was mangled and clearly dead.

He eased her body down, and as he turned to go back for another, there was a massive whump , and a blast of heat and pressure threw him to the ground.

In a second, maybe two, the chopper changed from wreckage into a ball of fire.

He could feel his own hair crisping as he shielded his face from the wave of heat, so hot that for a minute he thought he might catch fire himself.

But the explosion subsided as the wind shredded and whipped the fire downwind and away from him.

Watts rose, then fell back onto his knees, gasping for breath through a seared throat.

He managed to get back to his feet and saw Sharp and the other survivor huddled in the lee of a rock, shielding themselves from the explosion.

He managed to stagger over.

Sharp was on the ground, wincing in pain.

“Think he’s got a broken leg,” said the man who’d managed to stagger out—before passing out.

“It’s fine,” said Sharp through gritted teeth.

It clearly wasn’t fine.

“You okay, Watts?”

“Yes.”

The two of them stared for a long, awful moment at the flaming wreckage.

“Son of a bitch,” said Sharp in a choked voice.

“We just lost four good people.”

Watts had no words.

He simply stared at the flaming wreckage.

What a catastrophe. And Corrie…

she and Nora were trapped in the canyon, probably with Skip and the other guy.

Given the fact her cell phone had been deliberately destroyed, he had no illusions about her situation.

Watts’s mind began, unbidden, to count off the doomsday cults he knew of—Jim Jones, Heaven’s Gate, the Branch Davidians.

When they killed themselves, they inevitably took innocents with them.

He collapsed on his back, groaning, energy gone.

The wind was screaming along the ground, gravel pelting and lacerating him like buckshot.

He was forced to close his eyes and shield his face with his arm.

He cursed out loud the crash, his helplessness, the loss of life, his fear for Corrie.

What the hell would they do now?

“Where are we?” he shouted over the wind.

He heard Sharp reply.

“Help me reach my cell phone.”

Keeping his face from the wind, Watts twisted to one side, reached into Sharp’s singed jacket, found the cell phone, and plucked it out.

“Give it to me.” Wincing afresh with pain, Sharp swiped and fiddled with it.

“Working?” asked Watts.

“Yes,” said Sharp. “I’ve got a sat connection. It shows…” He paused.

“It shows we’re on the western rim of the canyon, about two miles southwest of our planned LZ.”

Watts sat up, momentarily forgetting the wind.

“You’re sure?”

“Think so. Looks like…” He stopped to take a few breaths.

“Looks like the pilot completed his turn and was headed toward the canyon from the west. The ground team will know the chopper crashed and send out a rescue.”

“I can’t wait,” said Watts.

“I’m going to find them.” He lumbered to his feet after briefly checking on the unconscious man.

Sharp looked at him.

“Take my gun. And good luck.”