All of the energy in his body went into opening his eyes. Mac blinked. He felt like he was made out of spaghetti. He slowly looked around with his eyes. He felt more than heard a continuous roar and felt the...couch? He was on hum under his cheek. Plane. He took in the opulent reds and fake golds. He licked his mouth but it did little to add any moisture to his lips. He managed to move. Mac discovered he wasn't bound in any way and that his side, the one facing up ached like hell. Unfortunately, it was an ache he knew all too well. He managed to move his head and looked down wincing at the amount of blood soaking his shirt and the towel taped to his side.

"So you are alive, I was hoping you'd bleeded out by now." Mac looked up into the disappointed face of Derek Travers. Mac blinked confused wondering why he was alive. It's not like Derick was really subtle about his desire to kill Mac. Mac's eyes widened he looked around the cabin desperately. He let out a weak sigh, no Riley. He relaxed at least she was safe. Derick bent over him sloshing his glass of ice and what Mac thought was vodka. Derek shook his head and leaned back taking a huge gulp disgust on his face. "You have no idea how much I want to throw you out the door and watch you bounce." Mac raised an eyebrow. Bounce? From an airplane?

Derick's face contorted into rage when he saw Mac's expression. He took a step forward, only to be intercepted by the larger of his two bodyguards. Mac frowned. Curious, he thought, Derek wasn't in charge at all, someone held his leash. Mac tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. He coughed weakly. The guard turned to him and with surprising gentleness hauled him to sitting. He spoke to someone behind Mac. Mac's world was too busy blending around him for him to follow what was said.

A hand slapped his face, he blinked his eyes open. The man tipped a bottle of cold water to Mac's lips. Mac sucked it in feeling like a sponge being put in a bucket. He took a deep breath.

"Thanks." He whispered. The man gave no indication he heard, or cared just layed Mac down again. Mac looked over to see Derick sipping his drink. Mac's mouth quirked up at the corners. He wouldn't be surprised to see Derick chewing on that glass. "Where are we going?" Mac asked, his voice barely audible. Derick crossed his legs and looked out one of the plane's windows either ignoring him, or pretending he didn't hear him. Mac thought about sitting up, but decided there really would be no purpose to expending the energy. His eyes slowly sank closed.

Loud voices woke him up later. He frowned taking a minute to reorient himself. A thin Man in a white captain's uniform was waving his hands almost yelling at Derick.

"Are you crazy? We have to go back. That's a fucking forest fire out there, it's miles huge-you hear me miles!" Derick, now clearly glassy eyed smiled at the man.

"You have no choice, we are going to Haven." He said simply.

"We can't." The man put his hands across his chest. Derek sighed and pulled out a pistol, before either of the two body guards or Mac could shout a warning, Derick fired with predictable results. There was a thunk as the bullet passed through the captain, a pop as it passed through the side of the plane then a screaming hiss as the plane was immediately depressurized. Mac screamed and put hands over his ears to keep his eardrums intact. The plane began to list toward the side with the bullet hall. Mac looked around him and saw a silver tray. He gasped feeling like he was in the squeezing, painful end of a vice as he forced himself to roll forward stretching to get it. He just got it in his hands when the plane suddenly lost altitude. Mac found himself slammed against the roof of the cabin.

A second later he dropped barely conscious to the carpet. He reached out for the tray with a shaking bloody hand but was unable to reach it. He looked around the tilting cabin and saw one of the bodyguards kneeling a few feet in front of him. It was the man who had given him water. Mac yelled. The man was dazed and blood was pouring from his ears. Mac moaned in pain and forced his arms to wave. The man slowly looked at him. Mac pointed at the tray and the hole in the wall. He kept repeating the motion until the man nodded and crawled over to the tray.

Mac gasped desperately trying to suck in air. Between the pressure dragging him toward the hole in the wall and the fire of agony ripping through his entire torso, he counted every breath a triathlon victory. He saw the man push himself up to the bullet hole then smack the silver tray over it. The pressure suctioned it to the wall and everything seemed to fall to the floor at once. Mac managed to roll over. The air was painfully thin in the plane, but at least there was air. He gasped and looked over. Derick was sprawled in his chair his head back. Mac was only mildly ashamed of himself for hoping the man's neck had snapped.

Audibly wheezing the body guard came over to Mac and lifted him, dragging him forward toward the cockpit. Mac felt his eyes rolling back in his head, almost ready to pass out.

"I...ca...can..t fly…" He babbled weakly. Either the man didn't hear or didn't care, he plopped Mac down in the copilot's seat. Mac fought to push himself upright. He closed his eyes and looked over. The other body guard was in the pilot's seat, he was barely holding the plane steady. He looked over at Mac with eyes wide with terror. Mac shook his head and slumped forward trying to read the gauges and labels of knobs in front of them. He felt like he was trying to count snowflakes in a blizzard. His eyes did find one good thing, the autopilot was still on. Mac dragged him up into his seat and slowly tightened the seats harness around him snuggly. It would help keep him upright in the seat at least. He glanced over and saw the copilot's emergency air mask. He blinked at it then slowly grabbed it and turned it on. He breathed in deeply.

His brain seemed at least a little clearer. He glanced over and saw the body guard pilot was doing the same thing. The man looked over at Mac and nodded with gratitude. Mac shook cold sweat off his brow.

"Don't thank me yet." He murmured to himself. Jack had insisted on him learning the bare essentials of flying, and he certainly knew the physics behind it, how hard could it be? He looked forward, his eyes even wider. Before him was a wall of flame and black smoke. He reached out and grabbed the stick pulling back on it. He hadn't realized they had dropped that low, or was the fire that high? Mac didn't really care he just didn't want to cook like a marshmallow. HIs arms shook and he howled in pain, he could see out of the corner of his eye the pilot trying to do the same thing. The nose edged up, but caused a lot of drag. Mac felt the plane list again and figured the makeshift plug in the cabin had fallen off. He closed his eyes as they were suddenly in the black plume of the fire. Sweat ran freely down Mac's body, accompanied no doubt by blood. Then they were directly over the fire. Mac looked down and closed his eyes to keep from screaming in terror.

The fire seemed to extend in every direction, a blistering, twisting savage living thing tearing down and destroying everything it touched. Mac opened his eyes all sorts of dials and lights were on. He paused thinking. He reached over and turned off the autopilot. He could feel the other two men watching him as if he were insane. Forgetting about the air mask, he tried to give him a reassuring smile. He put out the flaps on the plane angling them for more lift. He set the tail fin straight ahead and aimed into the fire just below the smoke. Instantly the plane was caught in the wavy thermal of the hottest part of the fire. Mac dropped the fuel tank, covered his head and braced for a huge explosion.

Mac wasn't disappointed. Luckily he had timed it almost perfectly. The dump was fast enough to hit the fire without leaving much of a vapor trail to the plane. It was enough to start the starboard motor on fire and Mac could smell burning plastics and smoke coming from the cabin. The increase in heat caught under the flaps and shot the airplane straight up. The harness slammed Mac back to the seat. Everything went black for a second, or a year. Mac wasn't real sure. He looked out to see that they were out of the range of the inferno below. He shook his head and wiped at sweat or blood, he then angled the flaps and tail fin to put them in a steep, but hopefully survivable angle heading to the ground. Mac sank back. He glanced over. The pilot was unconscious in his harness. The other body guard had strapped himself in the navigator's chair, his head lolled side to side. Mac looked out relieved to see a fuzzy blanket of pine trees in front of them rather than fire. Mac's eyes closed and he slumped hanging unconscious from the harness.

Riley moaned slowly opening her eyes. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. The chemicals of the toilets had splashed all over her. They stank and almost made her puke. Especially since somehow she was sitting on the ceiling and the toilet hung above her. She had been dozing off when suddenly she was thrown into the ceiling then smashed against the toilet. Dazed she had then been slammed against the door causing it to bow outward. Then Riley thought she had been hit by the toilet again...regardless everything had painfully faded to black.

Riley moaned as she tried to figure out which way was up. The door was almost bent completely off its frame. She braced her back against the wall above, or as it was now, below the toilet and kicked out. Riley howled in pain as all sorts of bruises, pulls and other agonies protested. The door bowed out more. She painfully thrust out three more times before the flap door was loose enough on the corner for her to push out. She staggered falling on her knees. Riley wiped her forehead and frowned when she saw it was dark with blood. She winced and crept along the curved roof of the plane. She blinked. In the main cabin was the attendant laying staring up her neck almost completely ripped off. Riley coughed as she got a whiff of smoke. She glanced out the window and saw a long path behind the plane, behind this part of the plane, filled with broken trees, and fire. She opened her backpack, which somehow she had managed to hold onto and pulled out her phone. She swore, of course no barrs. She looked at her computer and almost cried. It was broken into pieces she doubted Mac could fix.

She crawled her way forward and winced. The wings and most of the tail was gone, the cabin appeared to be intact. She fought the door and managed to open it enough to peep in. No one was there but there was a lot of blood splattered everywhere. The windows had been shot then broken out. Glancing over she realized the plane had landed almost on top of the gangplank, out the windshield was the only way to get out.

Riley crawled back the way she came. She dumped out the bits of her computer, tossed in her phone. She found a drink fridge that had several bottles of water and a couple of vodka. She smiled, loading up on water. Crumpled in a pile in one of the broken cabinets she found a pound of sandwich meats and Twinkies, lots of Twinkies. She shook her head and scooped up both. She then crawled toward the cockpit. Riley grunted in pain as she slowly moved a pile of debris away until she could use one of the fake gold rails as a lever to pry the door open enough for her to duck through. She sat and breathed hard a minute. Then she scooted the bag through, then herself. The plane front windows were small, she could barely slide her bag through. She wormed herself through and yelped as she tumbled off the rounded nose onto the ground below.

Riley laid there gasping. The sky above her was dark with smoke. She could smell woodsmoke mixed in with burnt plastic and metal. She sat up and winced. She'd landed in a pool of blood. She stood up and wiped off as much as she could. Looking at the volume of blood, Riley felt her heart thud. Was it Mac's? She hadn't seen him inside, did he land the plane then fall out and…? Riley scanned the area around her. She didn't see any bodies. She closed her eyes grateful for that at least. She did see a drag trail lined with stripes of blood heading away from the plane. Riley set herself. She put the bag on over her shoulders and glanced around her once. The sky was getting darker. She didn't know if it was regular nightfall or thickening smoke from the oncoming forest fire. Riley grimaced and painfully began to follow the trail. She refused to concentrate on what might happen. Mac had drilled that into her head when she'd gone through wilderness training. Stop and think, work with what you have, worrying about what you don't or what you want only wastes time and energy.

Riley pulled out a water bottle sipping it as she set herself a fast, but reasonable rate. When she finished the bottle she dropped it and started on the next. She felt guilty for littering but she figured it was always nice to leave breadcrumbs when you're lost in the woods.

Bozer was almost dried off as they approached the small log cabin the Foundation used as the base of its wilderness training projects. He was smiling, it was a beautiful day out and he had been promised a nice shower. Jack strolled beside him. He'd made the pace a little easier. Jack had to admit he did feel guilty about the whole family puma thing. He had scouted ahead of Bozer but had somehow missed the panther tribe. Jack sighed. The guy was safe and would have a good story to tell, he supposed. Jack hoped that Mac would see it in that light.

Jack knew something was wrong as soon as he entered the cabin. The huge panel of flashing lights over the bank of emergency radios was a big giveaway.

"Dammit." Jack muttered. He felt a familiar pit in his stomach, he knew it was about Mac. It always made him nervous not being with Mac every time they leave on a trip, but he was going to a kid's science fair!

Jack picked up the largest sat phone and dialed Matty's direct line. She answered on the first ring and before Jack could get out a syllable she was rattling off all she knew about what was going on in Seattle and now in the air somewhere over Canada.

"Have we tracked the plane?" Jack asked, barely contained anger and worry in his voice.

"We can't the satellite is blocked from the smoke of the forest fire. We have an approximate area from the info Riley sent us but we haven't heard anything since…."Matty trailed off. Jack straightened his heart catching.

"Matty?" There was a long silence then Matty said.

"Mac's been shot." Jack suddenly felt like the air whooshed out of the room.

"He's been shot before." Bozer said sharing a panicked look with Jack. They could almost hear Matty taking a steadying breath.

"We sent you the video files Riley sent us, they should be up online there." Jack nodded. He didn't move to see them.

"Alright, we need exfil."

"I already have a blackhawk headed your way. When you get to Seattle…"

"Negative, Matty, negative. I'm going to Canada!" Jack growled.

"Me too." Bozer added at his elbow. Jack looked down his eyebrow raised in a question. Bozer nodded. Jack could see the man's fear, but also a steely determination. Jack patted him on the shoulder. "We need to get as close as we can to this Haven."

"Jack the fire…"

"Is irrelevant. We are going Matty and that's all there is too it." Matty was silent a minute.

"Alright tell me what you need."