“Hi Jeannie.”
“Hey Laura,” the chopper pilot looked genuinely pleased to see her which she’d take as a good sign. “Akbar’s still sacked out. That last fire was a long, hard slog for those guys.”
“I figured.” It was only Laura’s second trip to the MHA airfield. Johnny had toured her around once, on a quiet day when almost no one was about. It was a lot livelier today even if the smokies were asleep. On the far side of the field, five helicopters stood in a line. There were two small ones, one of which was Jeannie’s MD500, two mid-sized ones looking gawky with a long two-blade rotor, and the one big Firehawk. Service crews had the covers off the second one in the line.
“Something wrong?”
Jeannie followed her gaze, “No, Denise is doing periodic maintenance. She seems to think that us pilo
