Firestorm-pigeon 4 Read Online Free PDF Page A

suppers and bringing down the two women in charge of Time Keeping. With an hour to kill till her ride left, she scored a Pepsi from one of the ubiquitous coolers of soda, candy and fruit that littered every fire camp she'd ever been in, and wandered down the dusty road from the Command area tents.

Constant traffic had pulverized the soil to a fine gray powder that flowed over the toes of her boots like fog. Pines, their lower branches made ghostly by dust, leaned close, breathing out a faint scent of resin. The helicopters had momentarily abandoned their constant water brigade to and from area lakes to dip their buckets.

In that odd pocket of silence, it occurred to Anna the forest would heave a great sigh of relief to be rid of this shantytown with its garbage and buzz of engines and saws. Wildfires were business as usual. They'd burned since the first tree had been struck by the first bolt of lightning. Forests had survived, evolved, grown stronger. But man, hacking firelines with Mcleod and dozer, shovel and pulaski, took some assimilating. Sometimes the fighting left more lasting scars than the fire.

Where the dirt road turned clear of the trees and into the main body of the camp, under the shade of a ponderosa, two security guards in Forest Service green sat at a folding table looking bored. One, ankles crossed on the back of an empty metal chair, read a dog-eared copy of Praetorian. The other appeared to be amusing himself by interrupting. Both were relieved when Anna meandered up.

Looking out of place, a phone sat on the corner of the table, its wires vanishing into a shallow covered trench leading beneath the roadway.

"You can use it," the nonreader offered. "Anybody can. Five minutes free anywhere in the country."

"No kidding?"

"Swear to God." He crossed his heart and looked so solemn Anna laughed. Like a majority of firefighters he couldn't have been more than twenty-one. His boyish good looks probably got him carded in every bar he walked into.

"Anywhere? Free?"

"Yup. You should see the line at night when the crews come down. Sixty to a hundred guys waiting to make their call. It's empty now," he said invitingly.

The plain black plastic did look seductive, with its promise of access to another world, one presumably where people were just dying to hear from you.

Anna wished she had someone to call.

"Come on, when was the last time Uncle Sam gave you a freebie?" the young man cajoled.

Anna thought of calling her sister Molly but a glance at her watch told her it was three-ten New York time. Molly would be with a client.

"Go on. Reach out and touch somebody."

"Do you sell used cars in the off season?" Anna teased.

"Car stereos."

"What the hell." She picked up the receiver. Cradling it to her ear, she dug her wallet out of her hip pocket. Crunched between her Visa and her library card was a gold-embossed business card. On one side, scrawled in letters as gangling as their creator, were the words: "Call me if you need anything." Anna flipped it over. "Frederick Stanton, Special Agent, FBI" was printed in black, along with the number.

An onslaught of butterflies the size of pterodactyls flapped through Anna's innards as she dialed the number. "Frederick Stanton, please."

She made it by the secretary. The young security guard nodded encouragingly.

"This is Agent Stanton."

Anna's mind froze. Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth—at least that's what it felt like. Quietly she hung up. "Busy," she said.

"Try again."

Anna shook her head. "Got to get back to spike."

So much for her sojourn in the fast lane.

Chapter Three

BY NOON THE next day spike camp was all but gone. The medical tent and the supply tent were in the final stages of disassembly. Wearing shorts and a tee shirt, Paula stood by watching as Anna and Stephen loaded the canvas into the back of her truck. Neil Page, a chaw of tobacco distending his lower lip, rested his belly on the truck's radiator, staring glumly at the engine. An