Just the way they'd done in the Twin Towers.

If only someone had been given a window before 9/11. Someone could've been looking for the al Qaeda terrorists at airports across the country, or even been aware of which airports they were planning to take off from that Tuesday morning. The terrorists could've been caught, and the Twin Towers would still be standing.

His father would still be alive.

Alex blinked back the dampness in his eyes. But there had been no window, no way Alex or anyone else could've helped his dad and the hundreds of others from the FDNY. That's what made the situation with the REA so intensely urgent. This window was real, and it belonged entirely to Alex. He felt himself tense up, holding tighter to the steering wheel. He would make sure these terrorists didn't cause the death of a single firefighter. He would watch them and be ready for them, and he'd keep Clay and the others updated. He would do what he hadn't been able to do for his father, protect innocent civilians and firefighters. He would stop the REA, whatever it took.

Or he would die trying.

EIGHTEEN.

Clay had a strange feeling when he woke up, an uneasiness that Alex was right - that something big was on the brink, some drug bust or hostage situation. Or maybe the fire Alex was worried about. In his years of working in law enforcement, a number of times G.o.d had impressed upon him an urgency or higher degree of alertness when he was entering a day that would require his very best. As he ate breakfast with Jamie and CJ and Sierra and as he dressed in his olive green uniform, he had that feeling today.

Or maybe it was just the wind.

They were a little more than a week into October, and sometime before dawn the Santa Ana winds kicked up with a vengeance. All morning he could hear them rushing through the trees out front, the haunting whistle signaling the sort of wind that could rip tree branches and down power lines. Once he hit the road for work, the force of the wind became easy to see. Strong and relentless, the steady gusts powered their way through the trees, bending them to one side and pushing against his car. Already some debris lined the gutters and sidewalks.

Unless the wind let up, there would be fires today. Anyone who had lived in LA more than a few years knew that much. Some might come from careless cigarettes tossed from pa.s.sing cars or from a campfire left untended. Others would be set by kids messing around. But without a doubt, this was a day that could easily attract the REA.

The feeling of something big was still with Clay when he reached work, so he did something he often did after he parked just outside headquarters. He took the small Bible from the console between the front two seats and opened it to the last place he'd been reading. Proverbs. So much about life in that book. Clay was constantly amazed at the simple lessons provided in every chapter. He read a few paragraphs from chapter eighteen, then he turned back to the fourteenth chapter, to the place where he'd found the verse that had shouted to him about Alex Brady.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads only to death. He still hadn't shared the verse with Alex, but if the REA chose today to act on some of their threats, this was one day they could all use wisdom from G.o.d. Especially Alex. Clay looked at the verse once more. The kid was crazy, infiltrating into a volatile gang like the REA. The members weren't known for their violence against people, but if they figured out Alex was a sheriff's deputy, who knew what they might do? Whether he was armed or not, they could've overtaken him, found his recorder and his guns, and used them on him.

Today was Alex's first day back at work. Clay exhaled slowly and closed his Bible. Alex meant well. The guy was already a legend in the department, a hero by any definition of the word. He had a pa.s.sion for solving crime, catching crooks, and eliminating a problem before it came to pa.s.s. All admirable qualities for a deputy. But Alex had to be careful not to take his pa.s.sion to an obsessive level. If Clay could find a minute alone with him today, he'd tell him about the verse, about the fact that he'd been praying for him to find the kind of peace that couldn't come from any amount of fighting crime.

Clay went inside and found Joe in the break room adding sugar to his coffee. Alex wouldn't be in for another few hours - since K9 guys mostly worked the later shifts. Clay lifted a cup from the stack and was filling it when he heard the radio in the corner crackle and an urgent voice come through the speaker.

The call was an APB to all departments. A fire had been set at a new housing development. Two homes were on fire, igniting a blazing section of brush. Ten acres already. There were reports of people being evacuated in neighborhoods near the fire, and of at least three residents trapped by the flames. All fire stations in the area were responding. Witnesses described a light green Honda hybrid leaving the scene and heading south on the Ventura Freeway.

Clay and Joe moved closer to the radio. "All deputies be on the lookout," the voice ordered. "Suspect driving the Honda appears to be a Caucasian male, medium build with ..."

The description went on, but Clay could hardly focus. He felt his heart skip a beat and then slam into double-time. Had the REA finally acted on its threats and attacked the Oak Canyon Estates? Clay stood motionless, waiting for more information while his mind raced.

"Alex warned us." Joe leaned his shoulder into the wall and stared at Clay. "You followed up on it, right?"

"Of course." Clay sat on the edge of the closest table and tried to think if he'd missed anything. He'd checked for reports from the developer and found several - each one claiming a threat of arson. Clay had personally a.s.sured the guy that the department was aware of the danger, and that they'd have deputies drive by often to keep an eye on the place. He rested his forearm on his thigh, frustrated. "I talked to Lost Hills and asked them to patrol the area. Not much else we could've done."

Before Joe could add anything, the radio came to life again with the address of the development, a new neighborhood in the hills west of Pasadena. The woman rattled off a few other details and finished with the one that told the most: A flag had been left at the scene with the letters REA.

Clay took a deep breath and stood again. He silently prayed that one of the deputies would catch the guy, but he couldn't keep himself from feeling somewhat relieved. To have a fire set in broad daylight at a location where they'd already been warned would be frustrating and embarra.s.sing, both. "So much for Alex's tip."

"Not a surprise, really. They might've noticed the extra patrol at Oak Canyon Estates. Maybe changed their target because of that."

"True. Or maybe they never trusted Alex from the beginning. Told him the wrong location on purpose."

The SWAT guys had talked about the fire threat - not just from the REA but from all sources. There was no way to patrol every remote area or every hillside cl.u.s.ter of homes - not with crime still breaking out on the valley floors.

Clay walked to the window and stared toward the west. Already the tell-tale smoke darkened a section of the distant sky. If the wind here was similar to the conditions up on the mountain, it would be a long day for firefighters. Joe came alongside him. "Kind of eerie, the wind today."

"The fire's gonna be a big one, hard to contain." He tried to imagine the sick strategy of a group like the REA. "There could be more targets today."

"Got that right." Joe breathed in sharp and slipped his hands in his pockets. "Make a call to Lost Hills. Be sure they send a deputy up to patrol the Oak Canyon Estates." Concern showed in his eyes. "With half our firefighters up in Pasadena, what better time to hit it?"

The wind howled outside, and in the distance the cloud of smoke grew. Fire danger hadn't been this high in two decades, and across the city firefighters and law enforcement had prepared for what could be devastating fires. With a group like the REA out there, there was a citywide awareness that the devastation could be worse than anything they'd seen before. Clay had a feeling that wherever Alex was, he knew about the fire by now, and he was probably already on his way in.

Looking for a light green hybrid Honda as if his life depended on it.

When Alex woke up and heard the wind, he immediately called his sergeant and asked for an okay on overtime. He'd already shared with him his taped conversation with Owl and the other two REA guys. His sergeant wasn't as concerned as Clay had been. After all, Alex was part of the task force a.s.signed to the REA, and he'd done the research on his own time, not as a representative of the sheriff's department - so he hadn't needed permission. There wasn't enough information for an arrest, but if a case was ever built around the ecoterrorists, the tape could help.

The sergeant sounded grateful for his call. "It's already busy around here, Brady. Get in when you can."

Wind made people do crazy things. Not just setting fires, but committing bank robberies and a.s.saults. As if the whipping of the trees and the driving gusts didn't only set people on edge, but pushed them over. In addition to the threat of fires, there would be more of the common troubles today, for sure.

Alex parked his truck, changed into his uniform, and he and Bo climbed into the squad car just after nine in the morning. As soon as he turned on his radio, he heard the news. A fire had been set at a housing development - but not Oak Canyon Estates. Some place outside of Pasadena. The part that mattered, though, was that witnesses had seen a suspect leave the site of the arson.

He was halfway to the estates when he got a call for backup. An elderly woman in Calabasas had been calling 9-1-1 all morning needing help with about a hundred soldiers who were milling about her backyard and wouldn't leave. He and another deputy were closest to the woman's house, so the call was theirs.

Alex huffed his frustration. The woman had called in the same complaint before. Everyone at the Lost Hills station knew about her and the delusional concerns that drove her to call for emergency help. Cats covering her roof ... aliens landing in her kitchen ... plants overtaking the house ... and now this. He'd never responded to a call at her house, but from what he heard in the Lost Hills break room, the deputies never accomplished anything, never solved the problem.

He flipped on his lights and sped down the 101 Freeway a few exits. A call like this was a waste of time when the arson risk was so high. He drove as fast as he could, and in ten minutes he reached the small, neighborhood home where the old woman lived. One of the Lost Hills deputies was already there, waiting in his car. Alex left the air conditioning on for Bo, cracked the window, and went to meet the other deputy, one of the newest in the department, a guy named Scheidel.

"You know the old girl. She's loony," Scheidel shrugged. "Not sure what we can do but check it out."

Alex felt his stress level double. He wanted to be back on the road, looking for the suspect, driving up to the Oak Canyon Estates before the REA struck again. He steadied himself and nodded for the deputy to join him. "Let's do it."

They didn't quite reach the door when it flew open. Standing there was a frail, white-haired woman, her face stricken with fear. She clung to her oversized house jacket, and her arms and legs shook. "They're everywhere! Everywhere, I tell you!" She stepped onto the porch and grabbed hold of Alex's arm. "Help me, young man! Please help me!"

Alex stiffened and started to take a step back. n.o.body touched him on a call, not for any reason. But then he stopped himself. The woman wasn't going to hurt him, and something about the terror in her face touched him. The feeling was strangely unfamiliar, and he couldn't help but wonder how his father would've handled the situation. "Ma'am, calm down." Alex put his hand on her shoulder. "What seems to be the problem?"

"Soldiers! They're everywhere!" She was panting now, on the verge of hyperventilating. "Get them out!"

His partner stepped up. "Show us where they are, okay?"

"This way." She remained at Alex's side, clutching him, her whole body trembling. They walked through a cluttered living room to a patio door off the kitchen. The woman waved her hand at her backyard, a patch of overgrown gra.s.s and weeds surrounded on all sides by a rotting wooden fence. "See?" She tried to hide behind Alex. "Soldiers everywhere!"

"Ma'am, come here right now." Scheidel's tone grew stern, his patience pressed. When she peered out from behind Alex, he motioned for her to come closer. "Now, ma'am." He jabbed his finger at a spot on the floor beside him. "Right here."

The woman seemed stricken at the idea of leaving Alex's side, but she took three shaky steps toward Scheidel and cast frantic eyes at him. Her voice was a pathetic whine. "Make them go." She clutched at Scheidel now and squeezed her eyes shut. "Please, make them go!"

Scheidel shook his arm free. He pointed to the backyard. "Ma'am, open your eyes and look out there."

It took her a few seconds, but finally she opened her eyes the slightest crack. As if she were really seeing something, her eyes darted from one side of the yard to the other. "They won't leave!"

"Ma'am," Scheidel lowered his voice to the methodical, patronizing tone typically reserved for young children and dogs. "There are no soldiers in your backyard. Not one single soldier."

She was shaking harder now, her gaze glued to the things her mind was seeing in the backyard. "Yes ... a hundred of them." Her frantic eyes found Scheidel again. "I counted."

Something about the scene tugged at Alex, the way most calls never did. She looked harried and helpless, like the victims walking the outer edges of a disaster. The way people looked after 9/11. Suddenly, he had an idea. He touched the woman's shoulder again. "I'll get rid of them, but I need your help."

The first sign of hope softened her features. She was still out of breath, panicked by whatever she was seeing.

"Follow me out here onto the patio."

She started to shake her head. "But they - "

"Ma'am, if you want them to leave, you need to help me."

The woman seemed to summon all the courage of a lifetime. Alex walked outside first, and slowly she followed. When she was on the patio with a clear view of the yard, Alex stopped her. "Stay right here."

"Brady ..." Scheidel held up his hands as if to tell him not to feed into the woman's craziness.

But Alex signaled the deputy that he had the situation under control. Then he took a few determined strides onto the gra.s.s and put his hands on hips. "All right, men, listen up! I want all of you in a straight line right now." He barked the orders loud enough that his voice carried across the yard. Again, he could almost feel his father's approval as he shouted, "First soldier over here!" He pointed to the left, where a wobbly gate provided the only exit. "The rest of you fall in behind him. Everyone!"

From the corner of his eye he saw the woman put her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.

"Okay," Alex walked to the gate, carefully opened it so it wouldn't fall off its hinges, then returned to his spot near the woman. "When I give the command, you march out that gate and don't come back. I'll count you off. Ready ..." He pointed to a spot near the open gate. "One ... two ... three. Keep it moving, men. Four ... five ..."

The woman turned her head with each number, watching the imaginary soldiers slowly leave her yard. Alex kept counting, through the twenties and thirties and on into the seventies and eighties. As he reached the end, he forced his tone to sound even more stern. "Ninety-eight ... No stragglers! Ninety-nine ... one hundred." He went back to the gate and yelled, "Don't come back, or I'll arrest every one of you."

He walked to the woman and found her gripping Scheidel, who had stepped out onto the patio beside her. She was weeping openly, the fear and trembling gone. As Alex came to her, she reached out and touched him, her wet eyes shining with admiration. "Thank you, sir. You saved me! Thank you!"

They spent another couple minutes rea.s.suring her, then went back to their cars out front. The whole thing hadn't taken more than ten minutes, and Scheidel chuckled as they walked. "That was brilliant, man. Absolutely brilliant."

"Figured maybe it would help if someone took her seriously." He shrugged one shoulder. "You'll make the report, right?"

"Should be a keeper. A hundred soldiers cleared out. Mission accomplished."

Before he left, Alex saw the woman waving at them from her front porch. Again, his heart went out to her. He waved back and took off toward the freeway. A few minutes later, he heard the report. Another fire was burning at a housing development - this one in Malibu. The hills adjacent to the area were already burning, and firefighters as far as three hours north in Santa Maria were being called in to help. Arson was suspected again, and this time there were no witnesses. The fires were far apart, which would stretch the fire departments in the area, and with the winds, the dangers that day were only just being realized.

He drove as fast as he could without sirens and lights to the winding road that led up to the Oak Canyon Estates. Without hesitating, he drove up and onto the main street, the one where all the houses in this phase sat. He turned right and cruised slowly to the end. A few work vans were parked outside one house, and a pair of well-dressed men with hard hats were talking to a construction worker. Alex nodded at them as he drove by, and at the end of the street he turned around and drove to the other side. The model house in the middle had just one car parked out front, and past that were more work trucks.

Alex fought back his frustration as he headed back down the steep road. The place should have a guard, at least. Someone to screen visitors. He'd checked with Clay, and the suggestion had been talked about with the developers. Apparently, they were in the process of hiring a security company. Alex scanned the horizon and saw the two gray-black areas that marked the separate brush fires. The wind kicked up a dust cloud in front of him, and he squinted to see through it.

Sometimes he felt like the old woman from the earlier call, shouting for someone to believe him that the fires this year could kill people. They could kill firefighters. But after today, he was bound to feel the same relief the woman felt. Because based on the way the day was going so far, no one could argue about whether the REA was setting fires in new housing developments. They could argue just one thing: When was it going to happen at Oak Canyon Estates?

NINETEEN.

Jamie could hardly sleep, and when she woke Thursday morning only one thought filled her mind - this was the day she was going to meet Holly Brooks. She'd found the girl at the work number Alex's mother had pa.s.sed along. Their initial conversation was brief since Jamie wanted the heart of their discussion to happen in person. She'd told the young woman only that the two of them shared a New York connection, and she'd like a chance to meet with her this week if possible.

The meeting was set for nine o'clock that morning when Holly had no other appointments. Jamie had been praying about it almost constantly.

As she drove the kids to school, she turned the radio to a news station for an update on the brush fires still burning along two separate mountain ranges. The Santa Ana winds had died down in the past twenty-four hours, and the smoky skies had cleared some, but the last Jamie heard, the fires were still burning.

The announcer was talking about baseball, with breaking news coming up on the hour. Jamie wasn't concerned with who was ahead in the World Series, so she turned the volume down and glanced at Sierra, sitting in the pa.s.senger seat of their Trail-blazer. "Ready for your math test?"

"Ugh!" Sierra made a face. She was in sixth grade, and much like when she was younger, she had an opinion about everything. "I wanted to talk to you about that." She angled herself so she could see Jamie better. "I love writing and reading and art and music and PE and -."

"And soccer!" CJ leaned his head as far forward as his car seat would allow. "You love soccer, Sissy."

"Right." Sierra flashed him a grin. "I love a lot of things, but I don't love math. So I was thinking, it doesn't seem right - once a person knows the basics ... adding, subtracting, division, multiplication - that she should have to take math in school unless she loves it." She grabbed a quick breath and kept on with her rapid-fire pace. "I mean, I don't want to be a math teacher, Mom. So math's a waste of time for me, and by the way, I had this talk with Josh, and he feels the same. We're thinking of starting a pet.i.tion, pa.s.sing it around my school and then through his high school cla.s.ses, and since we're not part of the public school system, maybe we can get rid of math except for those kids who love it." She blinked. "Isn't that a good idea?"

Jamie raised one eyebrow, a smile tugging at her lips. "Nice try." She reached over and patted Sierra's knee. "But I'm pretty sure no amount of signatures will convince the board at King Christian School to eliminate required math."

Sierra looked out the window, no doubt working up a retort.

"I have school today, right, Mommy?" CJ asked the question in a happy voice. With Sierra around, he'd learned to talk early and often, and his vocabulary was beyond that of most three-year-olds.

"Yes, honey. You have preschool two days a week, and today's one of those days."

"Goody!" He shouted his enthusiasm. "'Cause I love school, Mommy!"

"I love school too," Sierra jumped in. "Just not math."

"I like math 'cause we count with jelly beans." CJ bounced up and down. "Jelly bean math is yummy!"

"Yeah, I'd like that math too, buddy." Sierra grinned back at her brother. "Wait till you get to sixth grade." She held up empty hands. "No more jelly bean math."

"No more?" CJ sounded alarmed.

The commercial on the radio ended, and the news report came on. Jamie turned up the volume, and the kids quieted to listen. "Fires in the hills surrounding Los Angeles are seventy percent contained, a spokesperson for the fire department said this morning."

Jamie was grateful about the containment. She listened for the rest of the report.

"Officials have confirmed that the two separate blazes, which both began at the construction sites of custom hillside housing developments, were apparently intentionally set by the environmental terrorist group REA," the reporter's voice grew somber. "No arrests have been made, and a statement released by the sheriff's department today warned that with more winds in the forecast later this week, the danger for additional fires is high."

A shiver of concern ran down Jamie's arms. Clay and Joe both expected more fires in the weeks to come, and with the tinder-dry hills, the department feared the situation could grow much worse.

"We've gotten off easy so far," Clay told her last night. "Five unoccupied new homes and a few thousand acres of brush. The chance for a huge disaster still exists."

The news was over, so Jamie pushed the b.u.t.ton, turning off the radio.

"I don't understand people setting fires on purpose." Sierra pulled down the sun visor and looked at herself in the mirror. She pulled lip gloss from her backpack and applied it. "I mean," she smacked her lips a few times, "how can it be good for the environment to have all that smoke clogging up the sky?"

"It doesn't make sense." Jamie kept her eyes on the road. "They're a bunch of bad guys who like the attention. They can talk about the environment, but you're right, honey. Destroying hillsides and homes ... that's not the sign of people who care."

"Someone should tell them about Jesus." Sierra marked the statement with a tone of finality. "Then they could see how wrong they are."