Don Winslow - Dawn Patrol

He sits out behind the massive break on a Jet Ski, ready to pull people out if they need it. It's his sacrifice, his penance, not riding the big waves. He hasn't slept-he's exhausted-but somehow he felt that he had to be here, but not surf.

There was just something that felt wrong about it, going out there and having the time of his life when he's seriously questioning what his life has even become. He can't shake the image of the girls huddled in the hold of the boat-who they were, where they were headed, whether or not Johnny managed to intercept them.

And then there's all that. Johnny's going to want some questions answered, and the answers are going to blow up life as they know it.

Which maybe isn't such a bad thing, Dave thinks as he checks his equipment-mask, snorkel, fins-things he might need if he has to get off the ski and dive into the soup.

Maybe this life needs a little blowing up.

Achange.

Even if Johnny doesn't ask the questions, Boone will.

But where the fuck is Boone? He should be out here with me and Tide and Sunny, should at least be here for Sunny, backing her up, helping her deal with the big-name Jet Ski crews that will try to block her out.

Boone should be here for her.

The girls look like ghosts.

Boone spots them coming out of the trees. The last of the morning mist hugs their legs and mutes their footsteps. They don't talk to one another, walk side by side, or chat and laugh like girls going to school. Instead, they walk single file, almost in lockstep, and they look straight ahead or down at the ground.

They look like prisoners.

They are. Now Boone sees two men walking behind them. They're not carrying guns-at least Boone doesn't see any-but they're clearly herding the girls along. It doesn't take much effort, as the girls seem to know where they're going. And the men are behind the girls, not in front of them.

It's a drill, a routine.

The men in the fields look up as the girls come out of the tree line. Some of the workers stop their work and stare; others lower their heads quickly and go back to work, as if they've seen something shameful.

Then Boone spots her.

Thinks he does anyway. It's hard to tell, but it sure looks like Luce. She wears a thin blue vinyl jacket with a hood she hasn't bothered to pull up. Her long black hair glistens in the mist. Her jeans are torn at the knees and she wears old rubber beach sandals. She moves like a zombie, shuffling steadily ahead.

Then she turns.

All the girls do-as if on a conveyor belt, they turn away from the strawberry fields and toward the bed of reeds.

Boone gets out of the car, stays as low as he can, and runs toward the trees.

I know I promised you, Tammy, he thinks. But there are some promises you can't keep, some promises you shouldn't.

He picks up his pace.

Old men don't sleep much.

Sakagawa is already awake and now sits at the small wooden table in his kitchen and impatiently waits for first light. There is much work to be done, and the endless battle against the birds and insects to be fought. It is a daily battle, but if Sakagawa were to be honest with himself, he would admit that he actually enjoys it, that it is one thing that keeps him going.

So he sits, sips his tea, and watches the light flow onto his fields like a slow flood of water. From his vantage point, he can just make out some of the workers, the Mexicans who come just as the Nikkei had come so many years ago, to work the land that the white man didn't think he wanted, coated as it was with salt spray and blasted by the sea winds. But the Nikkei were used to salt and wind from the home islands; they knew how to farm “worthless” land along the sea. And from the salted soil, the old man thinks now, we grew strawberries.. and doctors and lawyers and businessmen. And judges and politicians.

Maybe these workers will do the same.

He bends over slowly to pull on his rubber boots, which keep his old feet dry in the damp early-morning fields. When he straightens up again, his grandson is standing there.

“Grandfather, it's Johnny. John Kodani.”

“Of course. I know you.”

Johnny bows deeply. His grandfather returns the gesture with a short, stiff bow, as much as his ninety-year-old body can muster. Then Johnny pulls out one of the old wooden chairs that have been in this kitchen for as long as he can remember and sits down across from the old man.

“Would you like tea?” Sakagawa asks.

Johnny wouldn't, but to refuse would be brutally rude, and with what he has to tell the old man, he wants to exercise every gentle kindness. “That would be nice.”

The old man nods. “It's a cold morning.”

“It is.”

The old man takes a second cup and pours the strong green tea into it, then slides it to Johnny. “You're a lawyer.”

“A policeman, Grandfather.”

“Yes, I remember.” Perhaps, he thinks, it is good that the Nikkei are now police.

“This is very good tea,” Johnny says.

“It's garbage,” the old man says, even though he has it specially imported from Japan every month. “What brings you? I am always happy to see you, but…”

I haven't been here for months, Johnny thinks. I've been “too busy” to stop by for a drink of tea, or to bring his great-grandchildren for him to see. Now I come by at five in the morning with news that will break his heart.

“Grandfather…” Johnny begins. Then he chokes on his own words.

“Has someone died?” the old man asks. “Your family, are they well?”

“They're fine, Grandfather,” Johnny says. “Grandfather, down by the old creek, where we used to play when we were kids… Have you been down there lately?”

The old man shakes his head.

“It's very far to walk,” he says. “A bunch of old reeds. I tell the men to clean up the garbage people toss from the road.” He shakes his head again. It is hard to understand the disrespect of some people. “Why do you ask?”

“I think people… your men… your foreman are doing something down there.”

“Doing what?”

Johnny tells him. The old man has a hard time even understanding what his grandson is saying, and then he says, “That's impossible. Human beings do not do such things.”

“I'm afraid they do, Grandfather.”

“Here?” the old man says. “On my farm?”

Johnny nods. He looks down at the floor, unable to face his grandfather. When he looks up again, the old man's face is streaked with tears.

They run down the creases in his face like small streams in narrow gullies.

“Did you come to stop them?” the old man asks.

“Yes, Grandfather.”

“I will go with you.” He starts to get up.

“No, Grandfather,” Johnny says. “It's better you stay here.”

“Those are my fields!” the old man yells. “I am responsible!”

“You're not, Grandfather,” Johnny says, fighting back tears himself. “You're not responsible, and…”

“I'm too old?”

“It's my job, Grandfather.”

The old man composes his face and looks Johnny in the eye. “Do your job.”

Johnny gets up and bows.

Then he walks out of the kitchen and down into the fields.

The air smells like strawberries.

The acrid smell rushes through Boone's nose as he breathes heavily, sprinting toward the trees, hoping not to be seen. He makes it into the tree line, then turns west toward the reeds. He can run more upright now, in the cover of the trees, and he makes it quickly to where the tree line ends and the reeds begin.

The reeds are taller than he is. They loom over him, vaguely threatening, the tops blowing in the breeze as if waving him back. He pushes his way in and is soon lost in thick foliage. He can hear voices in front of him, though-men's voices, speaking in Spanish.