I kicked and jerked myself out of the truck, ripping at my jacket. Tearing at the material, trying to get it off. The fabric seemed to come away in my hands, and then I was shirtless in the cold, cold desert, rolling on the ground, trying to put the flames out.
The world went black. Someone threw something over me, and then hands were beating at my body, slapping and trying to roll me. A strangled gasp worked its way out of my mouth, but that’s all I could manage. The flames were out. The thick, heavy material that had been thrown over me was pulled back, and Crowe stood over me, face covered in soot and grease, eyes the size of dollar coins. I could barely see him properly. Barely hear the words coming out of his mouth.
Colonel Whitlock appeared next to him, and then the sky was filled with the beating thump of helicopter blades. They spoke for a second, and the thundering drum of the helo overhead dipped long enough for me to make out what Crowe said to Whitlock.
“He didn’t stop, sir. He didn’t stop until they were all out.”
Whitlock scowled. “I can see that, Specialist. He disobeyed a direct order in doing so, too.”
“He’ll be reprimanded?” Crowe asked. He was speaking as if I was no longer present; both of them were.
“No,” Whitlock said sternly. “Ironically, I think Captain Fletcher’s more likely to be honored than punished in this particular instance. Now get him on the chopper before I change my mind. The crazy bastard’s bleeding everywhere.”
CHAPTER TWO
The Law of Odds
I had been waiting for disaster to strike all my life.
It had seemed, for want of a more intelligent, rational explanation, inevitable. Ever since I was old enough to read the paper or tune into the evening news, I had been bombarded with people losing their loved ones in terrorist attacks, cars crashing and burning, trains derailing, bank robberies turned horribly wrong. Every day, some natural disaster or terrifying violence splintered the world in two. Everywhere you looked someone’s life was lying in ruins, irreparably damaged and unrecognizable.
I’d spent the last five years, since I moved out of my parents’ house in Manhattan Beach, California, wondering when it would be my time. When would the bomb go off on my bus? When would I get held up at knifepoint for my fourth generation iPhone? When would I not look where I was going and step out in front of a Mac truck?
It was a matter of playing an odds game, after all, and no matter how hard I tried to avoid thinking that way, it seemed unreasonable to assume that tragedy wouldn’t visit my doorstep at some point in my life. Until that time I was simply holding my breath, waiting. Perhaps it would happen tomorrow. More likely, it would happen today, as the plane I’d boarded to travel from one side of the country to another, all the way from L.A. to New York, crashed into the Hudson. It had already happened once in recent years. No reason why it wouldn’t happen again.
My stomach tumbled over itself as the plane pitched to one side, swinging dramatically to the left, circling wide over New York. Out of the window next to me, the city sprawled in every direction for as far as the eye could see, only coming to an abrupt halt in the distance where steel colored water ate up the horizon.
I was being stupid. I knew the plane wasn’t going to crash, but I couldn’t seem to convince myself that I was perfectly safe when we were hurtling through the air toward so much concrete and glass and metal.