I, Michael Bennett

GINTHER LEAPED ABOARD the rig and got on the radio to update the rest of the teams about the weapons cache. Then he hit the siren again and put the fire truck into gear. We could hear the buzz of helicopter blades as the truck stopped on the circular driveway next to the house.

“Evacuation! This is an evacuation!” Ginther bellowed over the fire truck’s loudspeaker. “A forest fire is in the area! I repeat. A forest fire is on its way!”

As we exited the fire truck, I was greeted by the glorious sight of the HRT Black Hawk hovering over the house, commandos fast-roping onto the deck. I was congratulating myself at getting this far in without resistance when the sound of gunfire erupted inside the house. Ginther told his men to watch the perimeter as we both shucked off our fire coats and raced over the driveway toward the house.

The closest entrance we found was a sliding glass door under the enormous deck. The finished basement was extremely elaborate—a pool table, a wide-screen TV, a bar with wine bottles stacked within two huge glass coolers. In a split second, the door was shattered with Ginther’s rifle butt and we were inside.

I turned to look back through the sliders when I heard a crackle. I paused, blinking. About thirty feet away, the woods below the house were completely on fire. There was so much smoke you could hardly see the sky. It was amazing how fast the forest fire had moved.

I felt like ru

Not only that, but there was someone in it. A pale form under the water.

The water bulged, and Marietta herself appeared with a splash at the end of the pool closest to us. She wasn’t wearing a stitch, and for a moment, Ginther and I stood arrested in place, staring at the water sluicing off her curves, at the long, black, wet wave of hair that clung to her shoulders.

Instead of being shocked, she was smiling, as though she’d been waiting there for us.

Then we heard the sound of engines. There were lights in the trees beyond the window. Then three or four ATVs blew past, roaring up behind the house, up the mountain.

“Freeze!” Ginther said.

I looked away from the window to see Marietta moving along the pool’s edge.

“No. My robe. I need to cover myself. I just want my robe,” Marietta said, reaching toward a white robe on a chaise longue beside the pool.

Waiting for her, my eyes pi

“Where’s Perrine?” Ginther roared into his tactical microphone. “We heard ATVs going north. What the hell is going on? Tear this place apart!”

“We can’t, Cap. We’re done. The deck just caught,” came back one of his men. “You need to get the hell out of there. We need to exfil now. Everyone needs to head to the LZ behind the house.”

That’s what happened. We retraced our steps and went back outside. The heat was incredible; it felt like we were standing at the door of the world’s biggest convection oven.

The Black Hawk was filled by the time we got there, so we had to leave on one of the puny Little Birds, which reminded me of those toys you see at the mall. Ginther strapped me in and we lifted up. When we swung around the front of the house, I saw that it was completely engulfed. The living room curtains, the rugs, the furniture. Everything was burning.

The Devil’s Path, I thought, staring down as we sailed over the burning mountain through the smoke-dark sky.

CHAPTER 102

THE HRT RALLY point was the parking lot and field behind a rural post office in nearby Lexington, New York. When we landed between the tents, it was already chaos. About a hundred or so state troopers, local cops, and FBI agents were ru

And this was the calm before the shitstorm, I thought as Ginther unclipped me from the chopper. We’d lit the world on fire to get Perrine, and it was looking like he’d still gotten away.

Ginther took me aside in one of the tents and handed me a baby wipe and a bottle of water. When I collapsed onto the bumper of their SWAT truck and wiped my face, it came back black. I poured the water over my head and watched it drip onto the beaten dirt between my boots.

I’d definitely had better days at the office. I was tired, filthy, and smelled like a smoked chicken. And I’d just killed a beautiful naked woman. A completely insane, homicidal maniac of a beautiful woman, but still. Actually, I didn’t feel bad about it, considering that the witch had killed my good pal Hughie. It was pretty much the highlight of the raid, since Perrine was still on the run.

“Mike, whatever happens, this was my plan,” Ginther said. “They want to transfer me to Alaska, I don’t give a shit. Because you were right about the night vision, about the weapons they had up there. We would have been sliced to ribbons if it wasn’t for you. We didn’t get this animal, but all my guys came back safe. That’s all I care about.”

“Thanks, brother,” I said, looking up. “But I have a fu

“For me, it’s looking like tomorrow’s going to be another day in the land of a thousand suns. We torched an entire mountain and got jack shit to show for it,” Ginther said. “I mean, I never even heard of that.”

I started laughing a little then. He was right. I’d been involved in disasters before, but this took the cake.

“But our heart was in the right place, Kyle,” I said. “Isn’t that what really counts?”

My phone started vibrating then. I had a fu

“Be

There was a pause, then a strange voice.

“You killed her, Be

CHAPTER 103

I COULDN’T BELIEVE it. It was Perrine. I could tell by the stupid Pepé Le Pew accent. I jumped up and frantically waved at Ginther and pointed at my phone.

“Hey, buddy. You’re the one who left her there,” I said. “I would have said ‘high and dry,’ but you actually cut out and left her doing the backstroke in the pool.”

Ginther ran and grabbed an FBI phone tech, who whispered that she needed my cell number. I grabbed her offered pen and wrote it on the back of her hand.