Santa Ana Wind

The Eppes brothers face the Moran brothers in a life and death struggle.

A/N and disclaimers: I started writing this story back in October. It was inspired by the real-life wildfires that occurred in California in October and November. I had twenty-six chapters written and most of the rest of the story plotted out when the episode BreakingPoint aired. I mention that because this story has many similar themes, including a scene where Charlie is on television, and gets chastised for it. I couldn't address these topics without acknowledging what happened in Breaking Point, so I went back through and added several references to the episode. If you haven't seen that episode yet for some reason, I'm warning you in advance- there are a lot of spoilers in this fic. There are also some references to Sniper Zero.

My deepest thanks to my fantastic betas – Alice 1 and FraidyCat. I published my first story about one year ago. During the year, I've written eight stories, 138 chapters, and 404,921 words – and Alice 1 has beta'd nearly every one of them. She is selfless, a fantastic person, and personally devoted to the development of writers of any ability. Aspiring writers, be sure to check out the forum she has started, Calling All Authors. FraidyCat is a master of grammar; and this story has benefited greatly from the skilful touch of her paws. With these two beta-ing the story, you can bet any errors are my own.

And now for the disclaimers. I do not own Numb3rs or the characters, but I do claim rights to original storylines and OC's. This disclaimer applies to every chapter in this story.

Several points concerning the description of the fires and their effects were taken from real life. The location of them is the roughly the same, although I took some liberties with the exact sites of the blazes. The places are all real, but the descriptions have also been modified a bit to fit the story.

Chapter One

A gust of wind buffeted the blue Prius, and Charlie tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Dust kicked across the highway, and a plastic grocery bag writhed through the air like a thing possessed. The radio channel was fading, and he flicked through stations a bit abstractedly, his eyes on the highway in front of him, until he found another news station. This one was out of Santa Barbara. He was definitely getting closer. The horizon had turned from blue to hazy, sickly tan; no doubt from the wildfires near Santa Clarita.

He glanced in his rearview mirror a bit nervously. The vehicle behind him was following a little too closely, and it made Charlie uncomfortable. Just a few weeks before, he'd been the target of some thugs bent on scaring him off a case. They'd run his Prius off the road, and had taken a shot at him before he managed to scramble out the passenger side door, taking refuge in the bushes. His car alarm and the appearance of another motorist had managed to scare them off, but it was far too close a call, and had rattled him more than he cared to admit.

He'd spent the better part of the week in San Francisco at a math symposium, sponsored by a collection of leading colleges and universities. He had gone to represent CalSci as one of the keynote speakers, and in addition, presented a paper entitled 'Constructing Descriptive Algorithms for Subsurface Hydrology.' The level of the symposium was decidedly well above undergrad; it had been stimulating and well organized, and Charlie was disappointed when the organizers had decided to cancel Friday's presentations. Many of the presenters on Friday were relatively local, quite a few from California, and as the wildfires had progressed, the organizers of the symposium had decided, in the interest of safety, that they would cut the conference short, so people could get back home safely. Some of the participants had already gone; students, teachers, and administrators who lived in the areas most threatened by the fires.

Instead of leaving, Charlie had decided to stay overnight Thursday, and go to dinner with some faculty members from Princeton and MIT who were attending the conference, much to his father's dismay. He had called Alan to tell him he would be home earlier than expected on Friday, and instead of being relieved; his father had given him a sales pitch for leaving immediately Thursday night. Charlie hadn't outright refused; instead, he made a case for not driving in the dark, and Alan had reluctantly conceded.

The dinner segued into drinks, and Charlie had gotten to bed late, but even so, was up at four a.m. wide-awake, and had decided to hit the road. He hated to admit it, but all of the publicity over the fires, not to mention his worried father, had him a little uneasy, especially now that three of the blazes lay between him and Los Angeles. The news reports were speculating they might connect in one massive fire, and the thought was a bit unnerving. Most of the area that lay between the Santa Clarita fire and his home in Pasadena was a swath of national forest, perfect for feeding an unchecked monster fire. Even if the firefighters did manage to keep the three blazes separated, Charlie knew they were already closing roads. If he didn't get through in time, he would have to add hours to his trip.

By the time he'd packed, showered, and checked out, it was 5:00 a.m. It took five hours to drive from San Francisco to L.A., and he was now well down Highway 5, over three-and-half hours into the trip. He could see traffic ahead of him slowing, and groaned aloud as he stepped on his brake, coming to a stop at the end of a line of traffic that stretched as far as the eye could see. He punched up the volume on the radio, and the announcer's voice filled the car.

"…right, and the situation is only getting worse. There are now reports that over 300,000 people have been evacuated due to these fires, including the huge blaze raging in San Diego. Strong Santa Ana winds are feeding the blazes; and the weather reports predict no relief for the next several days. In our local area, we now have reports that Highway 5 is closed at state route 99, and traffic south is being diverted through Bakersfield west…"

Charlie moaned and closed his eyes, and let his head drop against the headrest. He was too late – Highway 5 had already been shut down. The resulting detour would take him all the way over toward San Bernardino, unless he could come up with a back route. That meant adding at least three hours to his trip, not including the time he would spend in traffic. Over 300,000 people were being evacuated, and he swore most of them were sitting in the line in front of him. He rubbed his face wearily; the lack of sleep from the night before was starting to make itself felt. The announcer had switched over to one of the radio station's field reporters.

"Kyle, can you give us an update?"

Kyle came on. The wind-deadening microphone was blocking out most of the noise of the wind, but Kyle's voice was elevated to a half-shout, which indicated to Charlie that he could barely hear himself. "Yes, I'm on site at the Santa Clarita fire with Fire Marshall Jeff Patterson. Jeff, how's it going out here?"

"It's been tough going," the man responded. "Ordinarily, we would expect to have a fire such as this at least fifty percent contained at this point. We are currently at ten percent, and holding. These wind gusts are ferocious and constantly changing direction, and we're having a real tough time predicting where the flare ups will be…"

The rest of the words were lost on Charlie, his face went blank, and he stared, eyes wide and unseeing, at the vehicle in front of him, as fluid dynamic equations materialized in his head. Velocity changes due to wind shear, predictive models based on wind direction and speed…'I can help them,' he thought suddenly, with conviction. He sat up straight in his seat and peered down the road. The pull-off lane to the right looked open, and he eased the Prius into it and began passing the stalled motorists, ignoring their suspicious, angry looks.

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Don ran a hand through his hair, and looked at his team in the conference room. "Okay, who do we have to put on this?" They stared back at him uncertainly, and Megan raised an eyebrow. Don repeated the question, a bit of irritation creeping into his voice. "Who do we have to put on this – Wilkerson?"

Colby shook his head. "He running checks on pawn shops for the 5th street killings."

"How about Johnson?"

David and Megan exchanged a glance. "She's running down prescriptions written by Dr. Barani, looking for fakes," said Megan. "Let me save you the trouble. Everyone's booked right now – it's gonna have to wait, Don."

Don shook his head with a look of disgust, and rubbed his forehead. The fires were killing them. The blazes had drawn every ounce of manpower that could be spared. When the small outlying towns exhausted their volunteer firefighters, the police in those areas stepped in to help. As a result, LAPD had reassigned men, trying to cover the suburbs as well as the city, and had offloaded some of their bigger cases to the FBI – cases that they might ordinarily have fought over with the feds for jurisdiction were suddenly hot potatoes, as the manpower crunch worsened. To make it worse, the FBI was in charge of investigating the fires themselves, for signs of arson. Don's people had been working double shifts all week, and they were still running short of resources.

In addition to gang killings on 5th street, a death by overdose which led back to illegal pain prescriptions written by a Dr. Barani, and the most recent case, two convenience store killings that appeared to be related, Don's team was following what was potentially their biggest case – information, so far unsubstantiated, on a huge ring of meth labs in the area.

He looked at David. "We've got to get a presence down at the convenience store and take statements. I'm gonna have to pull you off the meth case, at least for that much."

David nodded. "No problem," he said, as he rose, "I'm on it."

"Don't forget – we're supposed to be out at Lake Arrowhead this afternoon, to meet with the arson team," Don called after him, and David gave him a quick nod, as he walked away. Don watched him for a moment. David had seemed to have a short fuse during the weeks that Colby had been in custody, but lately the two of them had seemed to find some equilibrium, a hint of the camaraderie they'd once had.

Don couldn't say he had been any more congenial; the long hours, little sleep, and the demise of his relationship with Liz had left him in a permanent foul mood. And then there had been the incident with Charlie a few weeks ago, which still provoked an uncomfortable feeling in Don every time he thought about it. Of course, the current situation was enough to try everyone's patience. "All right," said Don, rising wearily himself, and the rest of them stirred and gathered their files. "Let's get on it."

He paused for a minute in front of the television that had been set up in the bullpen, watching the CNN broadcast. The fires had seemed to create a siege mentality; the whole state of California was following the reports. Real life had been put on hold for hundreds of thousands of people, and the rest of them were being swept up in it too, even if their homes or businesses weren't being threatened. Don watched the raging inferno that was outside of Santa Clarita, and shook his head. It seemed the situation was getting worse, instead of better.

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Dillon Moran leaned forward in his desk, and eyed his brother, Sean, furiously. "You what?"

Sean grinned, revealing the rotting gums and loose teeth of a meth addict. "I got it all set up. We're springin' Tommy today." He licked his lips a little nervously, and spoke defensively. "It's Tommy, man, he's our brother. And we've got a chance we'd never get otherwise. We couldn't let him rot in there for eight years."

Dillon's eyes snapped with anger, and he leaned back in his chair, trying to control his rage. "We talked about this; he'd have been out in three with good behavior."

Privately Dillon felt that three years without access to the drugs his brother was addicted to would do him a world of good, but he would never voice that aloud, at least in front of Sean. Much to Dillon's disappointment, both of his brothers were liabilities, drug addicts – neither of them much of an asset to the businesses he ran, legal or otherwise. He loved them though, regardless of their flaws, and he had to admit that Sean, in spite of his addiction, was cunning. They were family; close-knit, Irish family, with a tie forged in the rough streets of Philadelphia. As the oldest Moran, when his mother died, Dillon had vowed to her he would watch out for them. He looked at Sean. "What are you going to do with him when you get him?"

"We'll hide him for a while, get him a new identity, and then maybe he can go back to Philly and work stuff for us out there. Little stuff, legal stuff, you know, the car stuff, the restaurants. The cops'll look hard for a while, then they'll quit. It's not like he's no murderer or nuthin.'"

Dillon sat back, sighing, and shook his head. "Seanie-boy, you should have come to me first. You're putting more than yourself at risk here. Whatever you do, you can't let it come back to you, to me."

Sean nodded vigorously, nervously. "I set it up with an outside guy, to contact the prison guards, I used my own money, honest. There's no way anyone could trace it back to the business – they'd have a hard time tracin' it back to me." He grinned, revealing a gap in his teeth. "You'll see. It's gonna work great." He cast a sideways look at Dillon, full of guile. "Although maybe, down the road, when he's safe and things die down, you could maybe chip in a little? I mean, it's Tommy."

Dillon's eyes narrowed; and he looked at Sean over tented fingers. "We'll see. I'd better not catch even a whiff of this near the business, Sean."

Sean swallowed, as he took in the imposing figure across from him. "Not to worry, Dillon. I've got it under control."

Dillon nodded, and his heart softened a bit. They were talking about their baby brother, after all. "Okay, Sean." He stood, and Sean read the unspoken invitation and moved to embrace him. Dillon's eyes misted with affection, as he wrapped his arms around his younger brother and gave him a hearty thump on the back. As maddening as his brothers were, he loved them both, with the deep fierce, proud love of the Irish. "Good for you, to watch out for your brother," he murmured. "Good for you."

He watched silently as Sean left the room; then reached for the phone. "Lenny," he spoke quietly into the receiver. "I've got a job for you."

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End Chapter One