An hour later, the firefighters headed back down a dirt road towards a small airstrip formerly used by drug traffickers. Captain Garcia was leading the column with his head sticking out of the M577 command vehicle. Three APCs followed the M577 and the fire trucks followed them. The Timberwolves brought up the rear on foot. Suddenly, all three APCs exploded in flames. Captain Garcia leaped out of his command vehicle and ran back to see what had happened just in time to see another rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) slam into the M577. The command vehicle swerved off the road and flames launched skyward from the open hatch. At that moment, guerillas came boiling out of the jungle on either side of the convoy.
     “Pick him up, Fred”, Kent shouted at his driver. The lead Zephyr raced up so that the captain could get aboard.
     “What’s going on?”, Kent yelled as they opened the right-side door to let Captain Garcia inside.
     “Ambush!”, Captain Garcia replied in shock, he shot a glance back at his smoking command vehicle. “The druglords have done this from time to time, but never with this much force! We must get down the road before they cut us off!”
     The guerillas surged across the road behind the fire trucks, threatening to separate the fire trucks from the firejumpers.
     Kent jumped out of the door on the left side of the truck, powered up the pumps as he ran past the control panel, and quickly mounted the roof. He fired up the water cannon and began spraying the guerillas blocking the road ahead of the truck, dispersing many of them. A few who he had missed began firing at him, forcing him to keep his head down as he continued to spray the road ahead. A number of rounds hit the truck.
     “Get moving, Fred!”, he shouted at the driver. He motioned for the trucks behind him to do the same.
     Engine #1 roared through the opening, closely followed by three of the other trucks. Engine #5 was hit by a burst of gunfire which quickly flattened all the tires on the left side. Kent looked back helplessly as Dave and the crew bailed out and raced to catch up with the retreating firejumper company who were running down the road in the direction they had just come.
     “We’ve got to go back!”, Kent yelled at Captain Garcia. “The Timberwolves are cut off back there! We can’t leave them behind!”
     “We cannot rescue them!”, Captain Garcia shouted back. “We have no guns and there are too few of us. If we go back, we will all be captured or killed! We must continue on this road. There is a military outpost only ten kilometers ahead. We can get help there and come back to get your friends”.
     Kent didn’t like running out on his friends, but he couldn’t deny the wisdom in the captain’s plan. The column sped quickly down the road.

     “What’s going on?”, Kyle shouted. Dave and the crew from Engine #5 had just caught up with the firejumpers.
     “I don’t know!”, Dave shouted back over the sounds of battle. “Somebody just started shooting at us. We were lucky to get out of the truck alive!”
     “We’ve got to get out of here!”, Don yelled over the din from shouting firefighters, explosions from the road up ahead, and the sound of gunfire. “Let’s get off the road and head through these trees. The road is too open and way too dangerous”.
     “Agreed”, shouted Kyle. “I looked at the map before we were ambushed. There’s another road about five kilometers in that direction. Let’s see if we can reach it before our friends with the guns”.
     Dave and the firefighters moved quickly off the right side of the road and into the trees.
     “Anybody hurt?”, Don asked Kyle as they ran.
     “Not that I can tell”, Kyle replied. “They only seemed to be trying to kill the soldiers, not us”.
      “As long as they don’t already have someone there waiting for us where we’re heading”, replied Don. They continued through the trees for another kilometer, then broke out into the open. “Let’s form up and take a head count!”, shouted Don.
     The company was quickly put in order and squad leaders confirmed that no one was missing and that there appeared to be no injuries either. They had just completed the process when they heard guerillas shouting in the jungle they had left some minutes before.
     “They’re still trailing us!”, Kyle shouted. “We’ve got to keep moving!”
     “We’ll never outrun them hauling all this gear!”, Don yelled back. “We’ve got to ditch the chainsaws, shelters, and Swingfires if we want any chance to outrun these guys!”
     “Wait a second!”, Kyle said. “Swingfires.... swingfires!” He turned to the squad carrying the Swingfires and called them over to him. “I need you to spread out and flame this grass behind us. Torch it all and let the wind carry it back into the trees behind us. That should slow them down some!”
      Dave asked, “Do we have any radios along?”
     “Only the short-range type”, replied Kyle. “We can still talk to the Trailblazers for a little while, but without a Hawkeye to relay the messages, our range is less than 25 miles”.
     “Great!”, Dave groused. “John was right about those short-range radios”.
     “Timberwolves to Trailblazers”, Don called into his radio. “Kent, can you hear me?”
     “We’re too far away from them by now”, Dave said glumly. “They’ll never hear you. So much for the economy model of communications gear. Three cheers for saving a few bucks on radios. I’m such a dope!”
     They tried for five minutes to raise the Trailblazers, but were unsuccessful. Finally, Don turned to Kyle and said, “Tell everybody to ditch their gear, everything except rations. We need to move fast and I don’t want firefighting gear slowing us down”.
     The Swingfire squad had quickly spread out and begun igniting the brush and grass behind the retreating company, jets of flame arcing eerily through the gathering gloom. Soon, half the clearing was ablaze and the fire was spreading out behind them, cutting off pursuit, a gentle breeze carrying it back into the trees they had left just a short time before. They continued igniting the grass and brush until their Swingfires ran out of fuel, then they discarded them and ran to rejoin the company. The firefighters had nearly completed discarding their equipment when the Swingfire team arrived.
     Don turned around to view the blaze. He nodded approvingly and commented to Kyle, “Kinda’ gives a new meaning to the term ‘laying down covering fire’, don’t it?”
     “It does that. Let’s hope it gives us enough of a head start, anyway”.
     “Now what?”, asked Dave, finally finished with chewing himself out.
     “Thataway”, Don motioned. “We’ll see what we can find in that direction. We’ve got enough rations for three days running. I’ll bet we find something before then”.
     “I wish I had paid more attention to the terrain on the flight in”, said Kyle ruefully. “Might have helped to see it in the daylight”.
     “I seem to remember seeing a microwave relay station on the map”, said Don. “I’m pretty sure it was in that general direction”, he said as he pointed off slightly to the northwest. “Agreed?”
     “Go for it”, said Kyle.
     “Whatever”, said Dave. “Let’s just get out of here before our buddies with the guns find us, huh?”
     “My very thought”, Don said agreeably. “Let’s get moving”.
     Soon the clearing was empty of firefighters, only a collection of chainsaws, emergency shelters, and other discarded firefighting gear littered the ground behind the retreating company as they melted into the jungle.

     The Trailblazers raced down the dirt road towards the outpost, Captain Garcia calling ahead on his hand-held radio, but getting no reply.
     “I cannot raise the post!”, he said in exasperation, throwing his radio on the floor. “Why do they not answer me?”
     As the post came in sight, his question was answered. Bodies were strewn about in the road and the building was ablaze. Captain Garcia was out of the truck before it had fully stopped. He ran into the building.
     “Looks like we won’t be getting any help from these guys”, Fred muttered.
     Captain Garcia came running back to the truck. “Everyone is dead!”, he shouted. “The armory is empty and the radio has been destroyed as well, so we cannot call for help from San Pasqual”.
     “Our transports are due here in about an hour”, Kent said. “We can’t call them with a busted radio”.
     “We must warn your transports not to land!”, said Captain Garcia anxiously. “There may be snipers in the area!”
     “We need to get to someplace where there is either a phone or a radio to call them on”, Kent yelled. “What about this town? Would they have a radio, do you think?”
     “No, senor, they do not. This town is too poor to afford such a luxury. They depended on the outpost for a radio. We will have to try Placerita. It is another hundred kilometers north of here, on the way to San Pasqual”.
     “And what about the Timberwolves?”, Josh asked. “We can’t just leave them back there with guerillas crawling all over the countryside!”
     “We have no choice, senor”, said Captain Garcia dejectedly, the enormity of this situation finally beginning to settle in. “We would only succeed in getting captured ourselves if we went back. They told us where they are going. We will have to hope they will be safe enough there for a little while. The only way open to us now is to try to get out of this area as quickly as possible to avoid being captured as well. We must get word back to the capital to send help and to warn off your planes. Only the army can get through to your friends now”.
     “Trailblazers to Timberwolves, do you read me, Don?”, Kent called over the radio. “Trailblazers to Timberwolves, do you read me?”
     “We are probably too far away for them to receive us”, Captain Garcia said. “There is a small hill between the path they would have to follow and our position. Your radio may not be able to reach them, now”.
     “A fat lot of good we can do them now”, Kent shouted as he slammed the microphone down into its cradle. He turned to the driver and said, “Floor it, Fred. We need to get to Placerita as fast as possible”. The quartet of trucks quickly sped down the dirt road as night began to fall.