Flames were spread across the canyon, some of them in pockets, others in long, seemingly solid sheets. The timber on both sides of the canyon was ablaze, the flames leaping high into the sky. The floor of the canyon was also burning in dozens of places.
In the light of the blaze, Annabel saw the figures of the firefighters down below as they worked with bulldozers, chain saws, and Pulaskis to clear a firebreak. More and more in recent years, specialists in the art of fighting forest fires had come to the conclusion that it was better for the ecology and less risky to human life to contain fires, letting them burn themselves out, than to try to extinguish them. Containment was what the dedicated men and women at the head of the canyon were attempting to achieve tonight.
Annabel lifted her head and turned it to the right and then the left, searching for a touch of breeze. She didn't feel anything. The wind had dropped off to nothing. That sudden stillness was a precursor to the wind shift Captain Skinner had warned her about. She lifted the radio to her mouth and keyed it.
"Tango One-Niner, come in please! Captain McPhee, are you out there?" She broke radio protocol by imploring, "Captain, please answer!"
Static was all that came back from the radio.
Annabel hit the transmit button again. "Captain Skinner? I can't raise Captain McPhee. Captain Skinner?"
No response, just the annoying hiss and crackle.
"Blast it!" Annabel said. She tried the radio again. "Earl? Are you there? Can anybody hear me? Anyone at all?"
Something was very wrong. Either her radio had failed or something was jamming the transmission.
A sudden gust of wind blew over the observation deck from behind her, whipping up a small cloud of dust and grit and sending some discarded pieces of paper swirling into the air. The front was passing, Annabel thought, and she had not succeeded in warning her fellow firefighters about the wind shift.
A fire road ran through the canyon, she recalled. Though the floor of the canyon was burning in quite a few places, the fire wasn't solid down there; the worst of it was still up on the slopes. She might be able to take the Jeep and follow the road, might even make it to the other end of the canyon before the wind strengthened enough to pose a real threat.
"Blast it!" she said again as she turned and ran from the observation deck, around the building, and into the parking lot. She tossed the radio into the Jeep and followed it in. A moment later, she sent the vehicle screeching out of the lot and onto a narrow dirt road that curved around the shoulder of the mountain.
What she was doing went against everything she had been taught. She was taking a chance that Earl, Captain McPhee, and all the other firefighters on the team would have called foolhardy.
But those men and women were her friends, and they were heading into more trouble than they knew. Annabel had to do anything possible to warn them.
The fire road straightened, and Annabel pressed down hard on the gas pedal. She saw state firefighters on both sides of her. Some of them waved frantically, trying to stop her. Annabel didn't even slow down.
If the road proved to be blocked by fire, she would turn around and come back, she told herself. Of course, there was always the chance that the flames would move across the road behind her after she had passed, cutting off her escape.
In that case, she would just have to hope that she could keep going forward.
It was hard to breathe. The flames were sucking oxygen out of the air. Thick clouds of smoke blew across the road, so thick that the Jeep's headlights couldn't penetrate them. Annabel had to slow down until the smoke cleared enough for her to see. She pulled her goggles and mask on to protect her eyes from the smoke and to keep any more of it from reaching her lungs. She had already inhaled enough of the stuff to make her cough.
Hunched forward over the steering wheel, Annabel kept driving. She came to an area that was temporarily clear of smoke and sped up again, holding tightly to the steering wheel as the vehicle slewed around the road's twists and turns. Off to the right, flames were racing across a meadow toward the road.
Annabel shot past the fire just before it reached the road and entered a grove of juniper trees that were burning. She gasped for air.
Suddenly, from the corner of her eye she saw one of the tall junipers toppling toward the road. Punching the gas, she sent the Jeep leaping ahead. The blazing tree crashed across the road right behind the speeding vehicle.
Annabel's heartbeat raced even faster at the narrowness of her escape.