Chapter 16
Deanna
Deanna rode with Colton to Bowman Airfield, the truck cab smelling of gas station coffee and the faint sweetness of last night’s Cherry Garcia. Neither spoke much. The morning’s errand hung between them like smoke in a closed room.
Early morning fog erased the Pintler Mountains while Colton’s tanker sat behind yellow caution tape strung between the landing gear struts. The cowling gaped open, exposing the engine compartment.
Harvey met them at the maintenance shop with a thermos and two extra cups. “I called the NTSB investigator last evening, and she drove down from Helena this morning. She’ll be here soon.”
“Thanks, Harv.” Colton took a cup and handed one to Deanna.
She touched his arm. “You want me to stay or give you space when the NTSB shows up?”
“No, stick around.” He sipped his coffee. “Marsh will want to talk to me alone, but you don’t have to go.”
A white government sedan drove through the gate, gravel popping under the tires.
The woman who stepped out wasn’t how Deanna had pictured her.
Instead of a bureaucrat, Susan Marsh wore field boots and a Forest Service windbreaker.
She’d pulled her dark hair back tight, a black case in one hand and a tablet in the other.
Her gaze swept the airfield in one pass.
“Mr. Boone. Show me the filter.” No greeting. No handshake. Colton didn’t seem to mind. Deanna sensed he’d rather cut to the chase.
Harvey led them to the workbench, where the counterfeit part sat on a shop rag beside a genuine factory filter for comparison. Marsh snapped on nitrile gloves and picked up the fake, turning it over and inspecting it in the hangar light. Her face gave away nothing.
Deanna hovered outside the shop door. Out of sight, yet close enough to hear what was said.
Marsh’s rapid-fire questions were to the point: maintenance logs, security protocols, access records, who signed off on inspections, and whether the parts inventory cache had been locked or left open.
Each answer Colton gave produced more questions.
The interrogation tightened around him like a net.
Deanna’s breathing shallowed. She closed her eyes and crossed her fingers.
“In my experience, Mr. Davis, when the same operator has two fuel incidents in one season, the common denominator is usually the operator.”
The interview had turned on a dime. Marsh hadn’t come to confirm sabotage. She was here to find out whether Precision Aviation had failed to protect its own aircraft from carelessness or worse.
Deanna peeked around the door, careful to stay out of sight.
Colton didn’t appear to flinch or react. He picked up the counterfeit filter. “This isn’t negligence. It’s attempted murder.”
“Help me prove it.” Marsh’s tone dropped to half a register. “Because at the moment, the evidence points two directions, and only one of them ends with your fleet in the air.”
Deanna’s mind raced. Colton could be grounded, and Ace’s insurance claim for his destroyed tanker could be frozen.
Pilots and mechanics on Precision’s payroll could also be cut loose.
She couldn’t speak to his company’s finances, but she recognized when a person’s career teetered on the edge of someone else’s verdict.
Marsh dismissed Colton to interview Harvey alone. As he stepped outside, Colton rolled his eyes and put his phone to his ear. Deanna stepped back a few feet to give him space.
His words carried in the still morning air.
“We’re talking about a fleet stand-down if we can’t prove the sabotage was external.
” A pause. “I know, Ace. I know what it means for your claim.” A longer pause.
“We need to find whoever did this. Or Precision Aviation will go up in flames and us with it.”
Colton ended the call. Fires didn’t pause for federal investigations.
Deanna stepped up beside him. She didn’t offer platitudes. Some moments needed a listening ear, not commentary. “What can I do to help?”
Colton’s jaw flexed, and for half a second, his composure appeared to slip. He heaved out a sigh. Fifteen years of his career rode on the outcome.
“The maintenance logs. Security badge records. A list of every person who had access to this aircraft in the last thirty days. Marsh wants it by the end of the day.”
“Then let’s compile all that,” she said. “I’ll help you.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You have your own crew to manage.”
“Colton.” She waited until he met her stare full on. “Your company getting grounded means fewer tankers protecting the crews on this fire, including our jump squad. I have a stake in this.” She bumped his shoulder with hers. “Now, where’s your laptop?”
They spent the next two hours in Colton’s truck, retrieving digital records, cross-referencing Harvey’s paper logs, building the timeline Marsh needed. The sun burned off the fog, and the Pintlers stood bright in the late summer light, indifferent to the trouble below.
Marsh emerged from the hangar, her bag over her shoulder. “Thanks for this info. I’ll be in touch,” she said before her white sedan rolled through the gate and disappeared.
Colton stared after it. “My entire flight career is sittin’ with her right now.”
Deanna took his hand. His fingers wound around hers. This incredible pilot who flew through fire without blinking faced grounding for who knows how long. Life sure had a way of messing things up. She resolved to stick by him through this.
She squeezed his hand and didn’t let go.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, the next jump went well, courtesy of light winds, a clear drop zone, and a two-acre start that promised routine if there was such a thing in wildland fire.
Deanna had been assigned as the JIC, or jumper-in-charge for their four-person crew, and they’d landed in a meadow above Georgetown Lake, the fire creeping through the dry grass below them. The morning sun blazed hot despite the early hour, promising another scorcher to test everyone’s mettle.
“McPhee, take Thompson and cut line on the left flank,” Deanna ordered, shouldering her pack. “Duffy, you’re with me on the right. We’ll contain the flames before they reach the dry timber.”
They’d been fighting the fire for an hour when a helicopter appeared overhead, its bucket swinging beneath as it headed toward a large pond a quarter-mile from the jumpers’ position.
Deanna welcomed the extra help and tracked the helicopter as it set up to draft from the pond.
A water source that close was worth scouting if the fire pushed them, since the pond made a natural safety zone.
“Scouting the pond! Back in ten!” she called out to her crew and hiked to the water’s edge in an open clearing. The heat bore down, oppressive, sweat soaking through her yellow shirt.
She knelt to splash her face while she was there, reached to cup a handful, and a pungent smell hit her nostrils. She dipped two fingers and pulled them back, slick.
Fuel. Where is it coming from?
She jerked back, noticing a sizable rainbow sheen spreading across the surface of the pond.
The helicopter hovered low, rotor wash flattening the water and shoving her back a step, driving the sheen wide across the surface.
Her stomach flipped as the bucket surfaced full of contaminated water and the helicopter swung toward the head of the fire.
“Holy shit! No!” She fumbled for her radio, switching to the air ops frequency. “Helicopter November-Seven-Four Alpha Bravo, abort your drop! The water source is contaminated with accelerant!”
Static. Then the pilot’s confused voice: “Say again? Currently en route to the target.”
“ABORT YOUR DROP! The water has gasoline in it! Don’t drop it on the fire!”
Deanna bolted as the helicopter hovered over the flames.
The bucket doors opened, and the falling load flashed midair, gasoline mist igniting into a sheet of flame.
The head of the fire answered with a violent flare-up, a column of super-heated smoke and gas punching skyward and swallowing the helicopter whole.
Starved of clean air, the engine surged, coughing black smoke.
The helo yawed and spun, once, twice, the pilot fighting for control.
The air was too hot and thin to hold her.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday!” The female pilot’s voice broke up. Too much static. “November-Seven-Four Alpha Bravo going down!”
The helicopter disappeared into the timber, followed by the sickening sound of impact as it crashed through trees. Deanna sprinted through the forest, past her jump crew. “We have to do a rescue. Move it!” she shouted as she ran.
She stayed on the air ops frequency, her voice breaking with desperation. “Tanker One-Eight-Two, are you airborne? A helicopter went down near our jump crew position. The drafting pond contains heavy accelerant!”
Relief flooded her when Colton responded, “Affirmative, I’m airborne. Relay your coordinates.”
She rattled off the coordinates from her GPS. “The crash site is in the heart of the fire.” She tore through the brush, branches snagging her clothes. “Can you make a drop to clear a path between our position and the crash so we can reach the crew?”
“Copy. On my way. Stay clear until the slurry lays down the flames.”
As she broke through the brush, the helicopter lay crumpled in a draw, flames advancing from three sides. No movement inside the wreckage. Not a good sign.
She squinted at the tail number. “Air Attack, how many souls on board Helicopter November-Seven-Four Alpha Bravo?”
“Only the pilot,” came the reply. “We’re sending a medevac helo. Should be there soon.”
“Copy that,” replied Deanna. “Tanker One-Eight-Two, I need drops on the north and east sides of the helo crash,” she barked into her radio as she slid down the steep slope of the draw. “Can you create a buffer zone so my jump crew can extract the pilot?”
“I heard you on the radio about a downed helo,” radioed Colton. “To verify, you’re sure it’s November-Seven-Four Alpha Bravo?”
“Affirmative,” she replied.
It took a moment for Colton to respond. “Two minutes. Be ready.”