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“What’s wrong?” Ben held her by the shoulders. “What’s the matter?”

The woman shook her head back and forth, crying and moaning. Tears streamed from her eyes.

“Ben!”

Ben looked back over his shoulder. It was Belinda. She was running past the burning house, searching for him.

Ben ran to her. The instant she saw him, she opened her arms and hugged him.

“My God,” she said. “Someone told me you ran into the fire.”

“I did. But I’m all right.”

“Thank God.” She clutched him so tightly Ben wondered if she would ever let go. He hoped she didn’t.

He gazed over her shoulder at the Truong home. The fire was finally dying out. Only a few flames on the north side remained, and they would soon be gone. Belinda’s brigade had saved the day. The woman he now held in his arms had taken charge of a desperate crisis situation and saved both homes and lives.

He squeezed her all the tighter. She was incredible. With the lingering wisps of smoke swirling around them, their lips pressed tightly together.

“Why did you go into the fire?” Belinda asked, after they parted.

“There was a woman trapped in the smoke, trying to get out.”

The woman in the brigade line who had first alerted Ben to the situation interrupted. “You’re wrong. She wasn’t trying to get out. She was trying to get in.”

Ben stared at her. “What?”

“I saw it. She came out of nowhere, took one look at the burning house, screamed, and ran into the flames. I thought she was crazy.”

“Where is this woman?” Belinda asked. “I want to talk to her.”

“She’s right—” Ben turned toward the area where he had left her. “She was right here.”

He ran back to the now empty place, then looked in all directions, but found nothing.

“She’s gone!”

PART TWO

THE SILENT SENTINELS

31.

IN THE ORANGE GLOW cast by the sun rising over the Ouachitas, Ben and Mike surveyed the damage to Coi Than Tien. The Truong home was gone; nothing remained but charred wood and rubble. Substantial portions of the homes on both sides were also burned. The entire settlement reeked of smoke.

After Sheriff Collier finally arrived, he took Colonel Nguyen and Maria Truong, the woman Nguyen had pulled from the burning home, to a clinic in town, along with several others suffering from smoke inhalation. They never found the woman Ben had rescued. She had disappeared without a trace; no one seemed to know who she was or where she had gone.

As Ben and Mike approached the charred ruins Sheriff Collier was standing outside, scribbling in a notepad.

“ ’Morning, Kincaid,” Collier said, without looking up. “Glad to see you again when you’re not behind bars.”

Not as glad as I am, Ben thought. “Find anything interesting?”

“Lot of wasted firewood,” Collier muttered. “Few personal possessions. Not much else.”

“Have you determined what started the fire?”

“What am I, a fortune-teller?” the sheriff said irritably.

Ben glanced at Mike, then decided he’d better take the lead in this conversation. If Mike started lecturing the sheriff about arson, Collier would probably go off the deep end.

“Did you find any evidence of an incendiary device? Perhaps some fire-resistant casing? Maybe something as simple as a book of matches for a fuse.”

Sheriff Collier eyed him suspiciously. “What makes you so sure a book of matches started the fire?”

“I’m not. I’m hypothesizing.”

“Look, mister, these shacks are firetraps. No two ways about it. Probably one of these folks was smoking one of those funny pipes in bed, or trying to light a Chinese lantern, and the place caught fire.”

“No way,” Ben said firmly. “I was here when it happened. This was no gradual fire. We heard a loud noise, and then, a second later, the house erupted into flames. I saw a black pickup speeding away. Someone intentionally torched the house. We need to determine how they did it.”

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to root around in that trash heap,” Collier said. “What’s your interest in this, anyway? What’s the connection between this fire and your boy’s case?”

“I don’t know,” Ben answered. “But I can’t help but think there is one.”

Sheriff Collier closed his notepad and started toward his silver pickup. “If you’re looking for some convoluted story to get your client off the hook, you might as well forget it. We’re simple folk here in Silver Springs. We don’t get ourselves caught up in a lot of nonsense.”

“If it’s all nonsense,” Ben said, “you won’t mind if we look through the ruins ourselves?”

Collier frowned. It was obvious he did mind, but didn’t think he was in a position to offer any objection. “Suit yourself, but if you find any evidence, I expect to hear about it.”

“Believe me, you will.” The sheriff drove away.

“Good work, kemo sabe,” Mike said. “You played him like a violin.”

“Yeah, right.” He entered the ruins of the Truong home. “Aren’t you an arson expert?”

“Well, I worked arson cases for two years, if that’s what you mean.”

“Good enough. You’re in charge. How shall we proceed?”

Mike pointed toward the north end of the house. “You take that end; I’ll take this end.”

Ben started on the outside perimeter and slowly moved inward. He was glad he bought some gloves; these charred embers were still hot. He pulled out some tattered clothes and a few bits of plastic that might have once been records or tools or someone’s favorite toy. How awful to have your home consumed by fire, he thought. To have everything you hold most dear go up in smoke.

“I don’t really know what I’m looking for,” Ben admitted. “You’re the expert, Mike. Clue me in.”

“Well, the first item on an arson investigator’s wish list is evidence of a criminal design. Proof that the fire was not an accident.”

“Are we looking for liquids … solids … ?”

“Both. Or neither. A liquid inflammatory agent is probably most likely here. They’re cheap and easy to come by. Alcohol. Kerosene. Ether. Gasoline.”

“What would a solid inflammatory agent be?”

“Well, there are dozens, but one I’ve seen in good supply around this town is coal dust. Mix it with air and ignite it and that’ll start a fire in nothing flat. Some grains will do the job, too.”

“What about chemicals?”

“Harder to come by, but not impossible, even in Silver Springs.”

“ASP probably keeps a stockpile in their ammunition dump.”

“Probably so. Sodium and potassium are both common chemicals, and both ignite upon contact with water. ASP could claim they keep them for, oh, excavation purposes, and then use them to make a heck of a good bomb.”

“Any news on that blood sample you sent in for testing?”

“I Fed Ex’d it to Tulsa and asked the lab to give it Priority One treatment. Even so, it’ll be several days before we get the results.”

“Okay.” Ben paused. “You’re a real friend in need, Mike. I appreciate your help.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“This is way beyond the call of friendship—”

“When I said, don’t mention it, I meant, don’t mention it!”

“Okay, okay.” Ben resumed his search. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to suggest you might have a sensitive side.”

“I don’t. By the way, did I tell you I saw your sister last week?”

“No, you didn’t.”