Firewolf. Jenna Kernan

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       Chapter Four

      Dylan tried to put the pieces together. He didn’t know if he was injured. During the worst of the burn-over he’d felt as if the skin on his back had burned. He knew from his training that it was not uncommon for a deployed hotshot to suffer burns. But the shelters worked. And theirs had worked. They were alive and the worst had passed. The worst of the firestorm. But now he wondered if by sending a distress call he had alerted whoever had sent them that they had survived. Radio channels were easy to monitor. If his hunch was right, they needed to get out of here before help arrived because the worst of the firestorm might still be out there.

      The vehicles would be useless. He’d heard the tires blow and both gas tanks explode. His poor truck. He didn’t even own it yet. Meadow would likely have a new Audi by morning.

      If they lived that long.

      Help was coming, but so too were the ones who had set that explosive. Dylan was sure.

      “Tell me what’s happening,” she demanded.

      Was she one of them? A WOLF or a BEAR? WOLF, Wilderness of Land Forever, was the less radicalized arm of the eco-extremists, who destroyed property but only if it did not jeopardize human life. BEAR made no such allowances. The FBI thought her father was a member of BEAR, perhaps the head of the eco-extremist group. Jack had told him that. But they hadn’t proved it—not yet.

      Had she been sent here as a sacrificial lamb, to die for the cause as a martyr?

      He remembered that look when she’d asked him if he was digging their grave. She’d been ready.

      “Did you come here to die?”

      “What?” she said. She made a scoffing sound and then gave a halfhearted laugh.

      Dylan felt his upper arm tingle. Not because of the heat outside the shelter but because of the tattoo he had gotten after joining Tribal Thunder, the warrior sect of his medicine society. His shaman had suggested each new member have a spirit animal to help guide them. It was Ray Strong’s idea to have them branded on their skin. Dylan’s spirit animal was bobcat, and his tattoo was the track of the bobcat on a medicine shield, beneath which hung five eagle feathers. He loved having a cat as his guide but did not appreciate the reason. His shaman said Dylan was too overt and needed to be aware that not all things operated on the surface. Bobcat would help him see what was hidden and give him a quality he lacked—stealth.

      Dylan had a reputation for being where he was supposed to be and doing what was expected, more than was expected. He wasn’t reckless like Ray Strong or suspicious like Jack Bear Den or a natural leader like Jack’s twin brother, Carter. He was predictable and he followed the rules. He was the conscience of the group. Was that so bad?

      This woman beneath him was not what she seemed. A shadow figure. Appearing one thing while being another or existing on two planes at the same time. A woman with two faces. He felt it and Bobcat warned him to be cautious.

      “Have you heard of an organization called WOLF, or one called BEAR?” he asked, and then kicked himself for the overt question. But how would he know the answer if he could not ask?

      BEAR was much worse. Bringing Earth Apocalyptic Restoration. That group was eco-terrorists. They’d orchestrated the mass shooting at the Lilac Copper Mine to cover the long-term theft of mining supplies and then paid a member of his tribe to kill the gunman of the mass murder, breaking the link between the gunman and those who sent him.

      “WOLF? Yes. They burned that Jeep outfit in Sedona. Right? Some kind of activist opposed to overdevelopment of the land. Can hardly blame them. Damn red Hummers rolling all over the fragile ecosystem.” Her mouth dropped open. She must have inhaled some of the sand on her face because she coughed and spit. Then she turned, trying to glance back at him. They were so close he could feel every muscle in her back tense. So close he could press his lips to her temple.

      “You think they did this?” she asked.

      He did not reply, but he could almost hear her mind working.

      “But the fire. They must have known that would cause a fire. And they don’t destroy the land. They protect it. And the explosion. That was like something from a movie.”

      “Or a mine,” Dylan said.

      “Lilac.”

      There had been no mention of the loss of mining supplies from the Lilac mine in the media. Yet she had made the connection with the speed of a lightning strike. Mines had explosives, blasting cord and everything you needed to do exactly what they had just both witnessed.

      He swallowed as he accepted the confirmation. Why did he think she could not be one of them? Because she was pretty or pampered or seemingly suffering from a terminal case of affluenza? Bobcat would see through all that. Bobcat would proceed slowly without moving a single blade of grass.

      Her father, Theron Wrangler, was the one person the FBI had successfully linked to BEAR because Amber Kitcheyan, an employee at Lilac and the only survivor, had heard that name spoken the day before the shooting. Dylan’s friend Carter Bear Den had rescued her and the FBI now had both of them in protective custody.

      This woman was Theron’s daughter and she’d captured the explosion on film, then streamed it live. He thought of the suicide bombers in the Middle East. Had she planted those explosives?

      “We have to get out of here,” Dylan said.

      “I’m all for that.”

      He glanced up at the holes in his fire shelter—the required equipment he had purchased a year ago and never expected to need. His crew was too careful, too experienced and too smart to be trapped by the living, breathing monster of a wildfire.

      He dragged the camel pack from beneath his knees and drank, then offered Meadow a drink. Some deployed men suffered from dehydration, and, unable to leave the shelter as their bodies had lost too much vital fluids, they died. He was lucky to have had the seconds he needed to grab the water pouch.

      Dylan thought about his truck and the sturdy utility box made of a polymer and likely now a melted lump of plastic. All his equipment and the water—gone.

      He resisted the urge to lift the shelter as he estimated the temperature inside had reached over two hundred degrees and was now falling. Every rock and stone beneath them radiated heat like the bricks in a pizza oven.

      “Couldn’t it have been a gas explosion?” she asked.

      “No gas lines.”

      “Welding tanks, for construction?”

      “Maybe.” Let her think that. He’d seen gas tanks explode on training videos. They were impressive but could not melt steel and bring down a 4500-square-foot home.

      Dylan debated what to do. If he stayed, it gave whoever СКАЧАТЬ