Chapter 15
REID
The ferry pushed against the wooden pilings of the island slip. The vessel’s massive twin diesel engines rumbled deep within the steel hull as the captain threw the pitch into reverse, finally locking the boat into place at the terminal.
I sat in the driver's seat of my car waiting to disembark.
The ninety-minute crossing had been an agonizing exercise in forced patience.
For an hour and a half, I had been trapped on the slow-moving vessel, entirely powerless to accelerate the timeline.
In the corporate world, I possessed the capital and the authority to move mountains.
I chartered private jets to shave hours off international flights.
I expedited global supply chains with a single phone call.
I commanded speed, efficiency, and instant compliance.
But out here on the choppy waters north of Puget Sound, I was just another passenger at the mercy of maritime transit.
I had been forced to stand by the metal railing on the passenger deck, watching the churning gray smoke obscure the island horizon, completely unable to reach my wife.
The helplessness was suffocating. It was a brutal reminder that my wealth meant absolutely nothing in the face of a natural disaster.
The deck hands finally signaled the release, waving their illuminated wands. I hit the accelerator and drove up the ramp, my tires hitting the concrete dock with a heavy thud.
I didn't linger at the harbor. The transport barge carrying the Mitchell Energy hazard teams and their specialized equipment wouldn't arrive for a few more hours.
They were moving at the speed of heavy logistics, navigating the currents with millions of dollars in industrial hardware. I was here now, and I had a job to do.
I navigated the winding, ash-covered roads away from the terminal.
The evacuation was moving in the opposite direction.
A steady, crawling line of headlights crept east toward the safety of the harbor, carrying displaced residents and panicked tourists.
I kept my foot hovering over the brake, watching the faces of the people passing by in the oncoming lane.
They were pale, strained, and visibly exhausted.
My chest tightened with a sharp, physical ache.
Gwen was somewhere in that terrified exodus.
Or worse, she was still trapped on the coastal bluff.
The urge to turn the car around and scour every evacuation shelter on the island was almost overwhelming.
I wanted to find her. I wanted to pull her into my arms, bury my face in her hair, and assure her that she was safe.
I wanted to use my presence to shield her from the chaos.
But I knew she wouldn't welcome the gesture.
She had looked me directly in the eye in my corner office and demanded a divorce.
Her voice had been terrifyingly calm, devoid of the warmth and passion that had once defined our relationship.
She didn't want my comfort. She didn't want my negotiated apologies.
She wanted the space she had explicitly requested.
I had to respect that boundary. Hunting her down in a crowded high school gymnasium wouldn't be an act of love.
It would be an act of control. I was done managing her.
I drove west, cutting deeper into the deserted residential zones.
The makeshift incident command center was staged in the sprawling gravel parking lot of a local community church.
It was an exercise in desperate, improvised chaos.
Portable floodlights mounted on sputtering generators cast harsh, blinding beams across a collection of plastic folding tables.
Exhausted volunteers jogged between supply trucks and communication tents, their boots kicking up clouds of dust. The sharp crackle of VHF radios cut through the mechanical hum, broadcasting frantic updates from the fire line.
I parked my car in a shallow ditch near the edge of the property, cut the engine, and stepped out into the night.
The heat was immediate. It wasn't the ambient, comfortable warmth of a July evening. It was a dry, aggressive heat that baked the moisture straight out of my lungs and made my eyes water.
I walked toward the main registration table.
A tired woman with soot smeared across her forehead looked up from a clipboard.
She took in my expensive leather boots, my tailored dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up past my elbows, and the dark slacks I hadn't bothered to change out of.
Her expression immediately hardened into a mask of thinly veiled irritation.
She clearly pegged me as a stranded executive or a lost tourist who had arrogantly ignored the road closures.
"Evacuation center is at the high school," she said. Her voice was hoarse, scraped raw by the airborne particulates. "You can't be here. The road west is closed to civilian traffic."
I didn't offer my name. I didn't introduce myself by my corporate title. I reached into my back pocket, pulled out my wallet, and extracted a laminated card I had meticulously maintained for over a decade. I slid it across the folding table.
She picked it up, her brow furrowing as she examined the credentials. It was a wildland fire certification card.
"It's a red card," I told her quietly. "I've kept my certifications active and current. Put me on a line."
She looked from the card to my face, searching my eyes for any sign of hesitation or false bravado. She didn't find any. She handed the card back, pointed a dirt-stained pen toward a supply truck parked near the church entrance, and gave me a crew assignment.
I walked over to the quartermaster. I stripped off my tailored dress shirt, tossing the expensive fabric into the bed of a pickup, and traded it for a stiff, bright yellow Nomex overshirt.
I grabbed a white fiberglass hard hat and a pair of thick, unyielding leather work gloves.
Finally, I walked over to the tool cache and signed out a fire axe.
The familiar, heavy weight of the steel head settled perfectly into my grip, the fiberglass handle cold against my palm.
Within the hour, I was miles inland.
I rode in the back of a flatbed truck with a mixed crew of local volunteers and state forestry technicians.
We bumped along a rutted road, driving deep into the dense, untamed interior of the island.
The headlights illuminated towering stands of Douglas fir and tangled undergrowth.
Nobody spoke. The tension in the truck bed was absolute, a shared, silent acknowledgment of the danger we were driving toward.
The truck lurched to a halt. We bailed out over the tailgate, our boots hitting the dirt in unison.
We were stationed along a steep, rocky ridge.
Our objective was brutal in its simplicity.
We had to cut a handline through the dense underbrush of salal, sword ferns, and dry fir needles to create a barren perimeter.
We had to strip the earth down to nothing, creating a physical, combustible void to halt the advance.
The fire was coming toward us.
It was a steady, low-burning wall of destruction about fifty yards down the slope.
It wasn't crowning in the trees yet. The wind had temporarily shifted, dropping the flames from the high canopy back to the forest floor.
We were in no immediate danger of being overrun, but the radiant heat pushing up the ridge was staggering.
It baked the skin on my face, making my pores prickle.
The air was so thick with gray smoke that every breath coated the back of my throat. It tasted like charcoal.
I stepped up to the designated line, gripped the handle of my fire axe, and swung.
I fell easily into the grueling, methodical rhythm of the work.
The muscle memory awoke within my shoulders, bypassing the years I had spent sitting in ergonomic chairs behind desks.
Before Mitchell Energy, before the billions and the boardrooms, this was how I paid for my engineering degree. I knew how to dig. I knew how to work.
Swing the axe blade. Bite deep into the thick, stubborn root of a madrona tree.
Yank the handle back to tear the wood loose from the baked soil.
Flip the tool over. Use the wide, flat adze blade to scrape the earth.
Push the salal, the dry moss, and the accumulated decay down the slope, tossing the fuel over the berm.
Scrape until the steel grinds against bare mineral soil and rock. Step forward. Repeat.
It was punishing, agonizing physical labor.
Within twenty minutes, my shoulders burned with a fierce accumulation of lactic acid.
Sweat poured down my face, stinging my eyes and soaking the heavy Nomex shirt clinging to my back.
Blisters immediately began to form on my palms. The soft skin of a CEO tore open against the relentless friction of the handle, raw and weeping.
I welcomed the pain. I craved it.
The physical agony provided a blinding, singular focal point. It shut down the chaotic noise in my head. It drowned out the memory of Gwen walking away from me. It silenced the echoes of Victoria Albright’s manipulative, calculating voice.
In the corporate world, the metrics of success were infinitely complex.
I spent my days managing international supply chains, calculating capital leverage, analyzing market trends, and placating nervous investors.
I lived in a gray area of constant negotiation and moral compromise.
I weighed every word. I analyzed every angle.
Here on the ridge, the metrics were entirely binary.
Remove the fuel. Starve the fire.
Starve.
I drove the adze blade into the dirt with a vicious, two-handed swing. The word echoed in my mind, syncing perfectly with the rhythm of the steel hitting the earth.