Page 9

Nine

About a half mile away from the fire, the bus pulled off to the side of the road, and Cadee piled out with Jade, Logan, Skye, JoJo, and Hammer. The rest pulled up in the bus behind them.

They weren’t near Rough Campground exactly, but they were going to keep the fire away from it. Camp kids and church groups and high-school sports teams all loved the place. Ava had had her first week of camp there earlier this summer. She’d learned how to shoot a bow and arrow and even got to go mushroom hunting.

From the underbody of the bus, Vince and Cadee grabbed their Pulaskis. Hammer took his McLeod, hooked it to his belt, and pulled out a shovel. Jade grabbed an axe—she loved to swing the thing. Single file, they headed from the highway and into the trees.

Toward the fire.

The smoke changed to a thick, dark gray, and Jade upped the speed to double time.

Who knew what they were walking into?

Logan in front of her and Hammer behind her, Vince bringing up the tail. Yeah, they were ready. Vince with them…she smiled. It felt right to work side by side. The things between them could just, what? Percolate? Yep. That was it. Percolate.

About ten minutes later, they reached the edge of the fire. The fire wasn’t big, but it was popping, flinging embers into the air. The embers were fading as they fell on the wildflowers and moss, but it would only take a small increase in the fire’s strength to explode its size.

Not today .

Cadee held her Pulaski at the ready.

Jade stood behind them and pulled a Kestrel out of her pocket, holding it up to judge the humidity, wind speed, and other fire weather. “Nothing new. We’ve got to focus on getting to the cabin or house or whatever building the report says is the source of this thick gray smoke.” She pointed to where they needed to scrape their fire line. “Let’s dig in. Three feet deep, a quarter mile wide. Logan, stand back and keep your eyes open for any flames that think they want to pop over.”

The rest of them spread out and scraped away the debris on the forest floor to starve the fire.

Vince cranked his chain saw and went to work against the trunk of a fallen tree that lay across the mapped-out fire line. Logan carted the pieces off into the woods across from the fire while the sound of the rasping and slashing of Pulaskis and McLeods from the rest of the team was like a percussion ensemble underneath his chain saw. Cadee loved being a part of it.

The fire wasn’t happy about its fuel being taken away. It sizzled and puffed, but it got smaller and smaller.

A breeze stirred up and blew a small eddy of embers to flame up across the fire line at the periphery of Cadee’s vision.

“Got this,” Logan called, and the digging of his shovel and throwing of dirt over the flame joined the thrum of the ensemble. “It’s out, but come take a look, Jade. There’s the cabin on fire, right over here.”

Cadee kept her Pulaski moving but took a look in the direction Logan pointed. There it was—a rustic log cabin nearly hidden from sight by the debris and naturally fallen trees that were on fire around it. But it was clearly the source. The rest of the fire was almost down to a sizzle already, now that they had scraped away its fuel and buried the embers. But the cabin was still burning.

Someone leave a fire burning in the fireplace?

Jade slung her Pulaski over her shoulder, and she and Logan jogged up the hill to take a look down at the cabin. “I think there’s someone in there,” she called, shading her eyes against the sun.

The window glass began to pop as the fire took down the building. There was definitely a shadow in there. Had to be a person.

“Vince, bring your chain saw. Cadee, shovel,” Jade called.

They sprinted over, leaving Hammer and Logan at work at the fire line.

Vince’s chain saw quickly released a burning piece of the wooden door, and Cadee focused on the job at hand, using her shovel to pull the pieces a little away from the cabin and piling dirt on them to put it out.

Behind them, there was a crash. Logan screamed, and then a thump.

Cadee snuck a glance behind her to see Logan rolling like a man on fire. The thump had come from a burning tree limb that had broken off and fallen on him. Hammer’s Pulaski dropped to the ground, and he and Jade ran over to Logan.

But Logan stood, holding a Pulaski. “I didn’t catch on fire. Not hurt. I’m ready to go. Let’s keep that fire out of the woods.” But he paled, swayed just a little.

Jade stepped up to him. “Logan. Sit. Down.”

“I’m here to help, Chief.”

“Logan, that limb struck you on the head . You could be injured in a way we can’t see. Just sit here. For a minute. Maybe two. Cadee and Vince have the cabin, Hammer and I have the fire line. Now sit down.”

Cadee was glad to see Hammer help him sit against a spruce tree.

Hammer and Jade moved to the cabin with their fire line work to make sure the fire couldn’t leave the building.

Sweat dribbled down her back, even in the sixty-degree Alaskan weather, as Vince cut off burning piece after burning piece of the door. Until the hole was big enough. The chain saw noise faded, and she dumped one last shovelful of dirt on the last piece of door.

“Going in, Jade,” he said.

“With him,” Cadee added.

“Careful, you two. It’s still on fire.”

Cadee pulled her fire hat over her head, followed Vince in. They sank to the floor beside a man, who was tied up in rope.

Cadee patted his pants that were beginning to catch on fire—there were going to be some burns. Turned him over.

“It’s Tristan,” she gasped. “Jamie’s brother.” She put her hand on his back. “He’s breathing.” Barely, but he’d been lying in the smoke of the fire that was still taking down the cabin. If they hadn’t made it in, he’d have had no hope of surviving.

“This tiny building is going to be gone in a short time. We gotta get him out of here,” Vince said. “And ourselves.”

He draped the man over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and beelined out, Cadee following. Once they were away from the cabin, Vince gently laid the man down on a thick bed of moss under the birch trees that hadn’t caught fire. He untied him. “What is he even doing here?”

Jade knelt beside him and rubbed his chest to try to stir him into consciousness. It worked. Tristan sucked in several breaths.

“Easy, Tristan,” Cadee urged, then helped him pull himself to sitting, his back against a tree trunk.

Behind him, Vince caught her eye and silently tipped his chin at the black-and-red headband Tristan was wearing.

Which looked like the headband he’d taken a picture of by the salmon die-off river where they’d met Landon.

The cabin collapsed in the whoosh of an implosion. Ash swirled around. The team moved in, chopping the wood into pieces and dumping dirt on the rubble so the embers would die.

“Logan, get Tristan some water and call in a helo for him,” Jade ordered while they worked.

“Got it, Chief.” He pulled out his phone, grabbed a water out of his fire pack.

Covered in ash, Tristan took it, but he was clearly weak and didn’t have enough lung power for speaking yet. His hands shook, the water dribbling down his chin.

“Are you okay, man? What were you doing in that house?” Logan crouched in front of him as Cadee walked back over to them.

Vince paused his chain saw, taking a drink of water from his water bottle. He jerked his head toward the injured man. “Hey, Cadee,” he said softly. “We did see Tristan in Ingriq, didn’t we? Talking to my DEA partner, right?”

Cadee grabbed a deep drink of water. “We did. Unless he’s got a random twin brother or something.”

“Yeah, right.” He jerked his chain saw to life. “Tell Jade.”

Meanwhile, Logan had moved away, his voice rising. “Midnight Sun smokejump team one,” he said, his lips twisted. “Need a helo. Two injuries. One severe, civilian.” He paced under the birch, one that had not turned black because of the cabin’s fire, talking about where the helo could land.

Cadee moved to work the portion of the cabin where Jade was working. “Tristan…pretty sure Vince and I saw him during the Ingriq evacuation.”

Jade’s eyebrows rose, and she nodded. “I’ll pass that along.”

Logan walked up. “We’re set to meet the helicopter about a half mile away.” He pointed in the general direction north.

“Okay.” Jade called out, “Hammer, you and I will take turns pulling this gentleman to the helo, and Logan is going to come with us. Let’s get him packed up on the Sked. Cadee and Vince, stay here and make sure there are no more popups. We’ll all head back to the west where the bus dropped us.”

“Yes, Chief,” she said.

Vince handed over the Sked, and they unrolled it next to Tristan. “You okay, man?” he asked, and Tristan nodded, his breath still rough.

Hammer stood at Tristan’s head, reached down under his shoulders, and pulled him onto the Sked. Then he and Jade clicked the buckles around him and adjusted the straps.

Hammer pulled the Sked behind him as they headed to the clearing to meet the helicopter.

Cadee and Vince walked around the former cabin with shovels, occasionally tossing another shovelful of dirt where it seemed to want to heat up but didn’t.

“Finally looks like this fire is broken down.”

Vince wiped the sweat from his forehead, grabbed another bottle of water. “Actually, it still seems hot on the inside of the leftover cabin.” He stepped into the leftovers, stirring them around with his shovel so they couldn’t randomly heat up without their notice. He squatted down.

Cadee squatted next to him. “What do you see?”

“That Tristan guy doesn’t smoke, right?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

He reached down and pulled a cigarette butt out of the ashes, held it up to show her.

“Huh.”

They both used their gloved fingers to search through the area for the next ten or fifteen minutes. They found melted earphones where Tristan had been lying. And a piece of melted rubber—had to be the vestiges of a rubber band.

“Three or four boxes of matches rubber-banded, cigarette stuck in the middle. Presto. Fire starter.”

“Yeah. Arson. Maybe the militia?” she suggested. “That means they’re trying to kill him as well, and they tried to cover it up by making us believe the wildfire took down that cabin, when they actually burned it on purpose.”

Vince said, “We’ll just hand this stuff over to Tucker and see what he says.”

Jade and Hammer walked up.

“Logan and Tristan are on the helo,” Hammer said.

“Hand over what to Tucker?” Jade asked. Vince handed it over, and her eyebrows rose. “Arson.”

“Think so,” Vince said.

Jade tucked the cigarette butt and the melted earphone into her fire pack. “Okay, let’s give this former fire a walk-around. All of us, single file, spaced out. Strong eyes, make sure it’s out. Because then we’re headed west to meet the bus.”

Her head on swivel, Cadee did catch Vince searching intently a few feet away. But he looked pensive. He probably wished he hadn’t become a firefighter at this point—wished he was still a DEA fighter for justice so things like this didn’t happen.

Maybe next time he would be the innocent left to die.

Cadee wasn’t sure she could handle it if that happened.

Sore and tired from the Pulaski work at the fire, Vince had nothing else to think about as they arrived at jump base.

His shoulders weren’t actually sore from the hand tool use at the fire. They were sore from the stress, the memories of his DEA work. Those memories were like the embers that had stirred up from the cabin fire and caught the woods around it on fire today.

It was time for him to extinguish the whole DEA thing like they’d extinguished the arson fire.

But Cadee was like fresh air, wind, stirring up love he’d thought had been extinguished.

He needed some space to figure out if he’d even made the right choice sticking with his team rather than going out and proving his innocence.

Thankfully, Logan said he’d take Vince’s fire gear to the men’s cabin. Waving at the team, Vince headed out to the west plane hangar.

Also thankfully, it was empty. The plane mechanics had pulled the retardant plane onto the concrete slab in front of it and were working on it, cleaning it, doing regular maintenance, whatever.

With another quick wave he walked into the hanger, turned right. They’d hung Dad’s memorial plaque right inside the open hangar door. Somehow, the distant sounds of mechanics, the smells of fresh Alaska air mixing with the smell of jet fuel, the shadowy light, all brought a sense of peace.

Or was it Dad’s plaque?

He wished he had Dad to talk to in person. But this solid oak plaque showed what kind of man he’d been. The numbers hurt. Not Dad’s birth year. His death year.

It was the rest that mattered, though. “Leader. Inspirer. Motivational force. Teacher. Risk taker. Giver—even of his life. Man of godly character. Man of faith. Cap.”

He reached his hand up, ran it over the letters of those words under the engraved portrait of his dad. Skye had drawn the picture that somehow truly caught all those things that described Dad. To the core.

But it was just a picture. He couldn’t talk to Dad.

He couldn’t talk to God.

He’d think about that, because he needed to straighten it out if he was going to have a relationship with Cadee. And that, he knew he wanted.

First things first though. He could hardly make promises to her when he had no idea what was going to happen.

Vince headed out of the hangar and across the runway to the men’s cabin.

Oh. That’s what was going to happen.

Two men he didn’t know. DEA agents, both of them. Clearly. He would always recognize a DEA agent when he saw a scruffy face absorbing every minute detail around them.

Jade, face red with anger, stood glaring at them. Next to her was Cadee, her fists clenching, unclenching.

She turned, spotted him, came running over. “Vince, where have you been? Everyone is looking for you. They have an arrest warrant.”

He nodded. Of course they did.

Hammer jogged up behind Jade and leaned against the porch. Skye sprinted up, tucked into the group. Thankfully the hotshots hadn’t come back yet, or this would be chaos.

Vince took a deep breath, strode up. They slid to the side, making a path for him.

The curly-haired agent said, “Hello, Mr. Ramos. I’m Special Agent Davis. DEA.” He held out his hand as though it were a friendly welcome.

Vince wasn’t going to shake their hands. He could just guess what the DEA was seeing about him—that didn’t really exist.

Davis dropped his hand, reached for a piece of paper on the cot and held it out to him. “We do, indeed, have a search warrant. And an arrest warrant. Money laundering. For starters. We’ll be adding to it,” Davis announced like a judge in court.

Hammer banged the porch rail with his fist.

Skye huffed. “I’m calling Rio,” she said. “Hammer, go get Tucker.” She raced to the women’s cabin, already punching numbers on her phone. Hammer headed to the admin office.

Vince didn’t take the paper. And didn’t drop eye contact with Davis. The creep had said that on purpose—loudly—so his teammates would hear this manure pile of charges the DEA had come up with.

Davis cleared his throat, dropped the warrant on the top step. “Smith.” Pulling a hard-shell black roller bag behind him, he led the bald guy—Smith apparently—up the stairs into the men’s cabin. Steering to Vince’s room. Of course.

Except Davis stopped at the door, turned around, narrowed his eyes at Vince, who was at the bottom of the stairs with the group. “You do a lot of wire transfers, Mr. Ramos?”

Cadee scoffed. “Are you kidding?—”

Vince caught her eyes, gave her a small smile, a subtle shake of his head. She gave him a nod just as subtle, her lips tightened into a straight line. Jade moved next to Cadee, put her arms around her. “Orion and Tori are still missing. Neil is being treated in the hospital. Now this,” she rasped under her breath.

The agents went on into the cabin. Tucker came running up, winked at Vince, and followed the men in while Hammer rejoined the group.

“Commander doesn’t want them going through your stuff without an eye on them,” Hammer said.

Vince chuckled.

Cadee walked over and stood beside him, her head leaning on his shoulder.

These were federal agents. How could she not believe federal agents?

He looked around at the team. How could anyone not?

Except for those who’d been part of the law enforcement system and so knew that not all of them were perfect.

“Anyway, what’s up?” Hammer asked. “What are they looking for?”

“I have an idea, but I don’t know for sure. You all heard that they’re starting with money laundering.”

Jade wrinkled her nose. “You don’t even launder your clothes, do you? How could you launder money?”

Everyone chuckled.

Him too. Jade was trying to lighten the mood. It worked. A bit.

Skye walked up, found herself another spot in the group. “Rio, um, can’t come tonight,” she said. “Sorry about that, Vince.”

“No trouble at all.” He looked around the group. “You don’t have to be here for me. I’ll keep you in the circle.”

Jade wrinkled her nose. “This is your team. We have your back.”

He gulped down the doubt that wanted to rise. “Thanks, Chief.”

The DEA agents were led out, or more like marched out, by Tucker down the porch stairs.

Vince felt like his eyes bugged. Davis was pulling that roller bag behind him. It looked heavy. But it had been obviously light when they went up the stairs.

And Smith had a stack of books and papers in his arms. Books he did not recognize.

He wanted to ask what they had found, and he would, but he knew they wouldn’t answer, at least not right now.

And he didn’t want those answers yet. Not in front of the team. Especially Cadee. He squeezed her in a one-arm hug.

Davis stopped in front of him, stood the roller bag next to himself. “The warrant gives us permission for your phone.” He held out his hand.

Vince couldn’t stop the warrant. He pulled the phone from his pocket and slapped it into Davis’s hand.

But not a word.

“Thank you.” His phone went into Davis’s pocket. “Turn around.”

He wouldn’t allow them to force him to the ground.

So he turned.

Smith began to read him his rights. Pulled one arm behind Vince’s back. Then the other.

The handcuffs clicked. Tight.

He wanted to punch these DEA jerks.

They could’ve simply asked him to go with them like a real man. He would’ve. He was a man of integrity. Like Dad.

He wanted to say all that.

But he bit back the snarl, the sarcasm for these guys.

Definitely not a word.

Davis pointed at the suitcase, the books and papers. “You’re not gonna get away with this, Ramos.”