Don Winslow - Dawn Patrol

Sunny's in the Washing Machine, and it rolls her, tumbles her, somersaults her until she doesn't know up from down. Which is another one of the dangers of the impact zone: You lose track of which way is up and which way is down. So when the wave finally lets you up, you budget that last bit of air for the plunge to the sweet surface, only to hit rock or sand instead. Then, unless you're a really experienced waterman, you just give up and breathe in the water. Or there's already another wave on top of you.

Either way, you're pretty much screwed.

Keep your head, Sunny tells herself as she plummets. Keep your head and you live. You've trained for this moment all your life. You're a waterman.

All those mornings, those early evenings, training with Boone and Dave and High Tide and Johnny. Walking underwater, clutching big rocks. Diving down to lobster pots and holding on to the line until you felt your lungs were going to burst, then holding on a little longer. While those assholes grinned at you-waiting for the girlie to give up.

Except you didn't give up.

She feels a jerk upward and realizes that her board has popped to the surface.

“Headstoned,” in surf jargon.

Dave will be out there already, watching for the board to pop up. He's on his way now. She forces herself to do a crunch, not to release the leash but so that if she does hit bottom, she'll take the blow on her shoulders and not on her head, snapping her neck.

She hits all right, hard, but on her shoulders. The wave somersaults her three or four times-she loses count-but then it lets go of her and she pushes up, punches to the surface, and takes a deep breath of beautiful air.

Boone gets his arms around Dan's arms and pins them to his side. Dan still has his gun in his hand, but he can't raise it to shoot.

Dan slams three hard knee strikes into Boone's ribs, driving the breath from Boone's body. Boone gasps but doesn't let go. To let go is to die, and he's not ready for that yet. He can feel his own blood, hot and sticky, running down his face.

He pivots on one hip, turning Dan around toward the river. Then he starts walking, holding tightly to Dan, pushing him toward the water. Dan tries to dig and fight, but Boone has the momentum. Dan rears his neck back, then slams it forward, head-butting Boone on the bridge of the nose.

Boone's nose breaks and blood gushes out.

But he holds on and pushes Dan toward the bank of the river. He plants his feet, pivots again, and crashes into the muddy water on top of Dan. Boone releases his grip, finds Dan's chest, and pushes him down. He can feel Dan's back hit the muddy bottom. Then Boone holds on and pushes. It's a matter now of who can hold his breath the longest, and he figures that's a contest he can win.

But he's losing blood fast, and with the blood, his strength.

He feels Dan wrap a leg around him and he tries to fight it, but Dan doesn't panic under the water and gets his leg locked around Boone's. Then Dan turns his own hips and spins. Boone's too weak to counter it, and Dan flips him under. Then Dan sits up, on top of Boone, grabs him around the throat, and pushes down hard.

Boone arches his back and tries to buck Dan off him, but he can't do it. He feels weak, and tired, and then very sleepy. His lungs scream at him to open his mouth and gasp. Take a nice deep breath of anything, even if it's water.

His brain tells him to give up. Go to sleep, end the pain.

In his mind, he's in the ocean.

A giant wave, a mountain, curls over his head.

Suspends in time for a second.

Hangs there, as if deciding.

Then it breaks on him.

Ka-boom.

Johnny Banzai charges into the clearing.

His badge is clipped to his jacket, his service revolver in his hand.

Harrington and the county people are right behind him, but Johnny has demanded he go in first.

Family fucking honor.

He goes in hard and fast, unconcerned with safety. He heard a gunshot in the distance and doesn't know what the hell is going on, but he hits the clearing ready for whatever it is.

Some of the men are already running. Others stand there looking startled and confused. Johnny doesn't care about the mojados — he sees three younger guys, better dressed, running away toward a line of trees, and young girls, looking around, milling in confusion.

Then he hears another gunshot.

It sounds like it's coming from the other side of the reeds, down along the river.

Johnny calls for an ambulance and sprints toward the sound.

Boone feels Dan's grip loosen, then let go; then Dan's body slides off him into the water. A slough of blood pillows around Boone's face. He pushes to the surface and sees, like a weird dream, an old Japanese man standing at the edge of the river.

A shotgun in his trembling hands.

In the distance, Boone hears yelling, sirens… but maybe it's his head playing games with him.

He crawls to the riverbank and pulls himself up.

Then he hears something else.

A woman crying.

A howl of ineffable pain.

Sunny looks up and sees that she's going to have to take another wave or two on her head, but it's okay, because she's in a good spot, close to the base of the waves, away from the point of maximum impact. But now she does release her leash, because the board is going to go in with the wave and she doesn't want to go with it.

She takes the two waves, then the set ends and Dave pulls her onto the Jet Ski.

“That kook,” Dave says, “jumped in on you.”

“I saw.”

He takes her onto the shore.

People are running up the beach, including some lifeguards with medical equipment. She waves them off. “I'm okay. I'm good.”

But Dave is already striding over to where Tim Mackie is running his pie hole to his entourage and some surf press.

“Yo, kook,” Dave says. “Yeah, you. I'm talking to you.”

“You got a problem, brah?” Mackie asks. He looks surprised. Like, People do not have problems with Tim Mackie.

“No, you have a problem,” Dave says. “You could have killed her.”

“Didn't see her, bro.”

High Tide steps into it. “You should get your eyesight checked, then, bruddah. ”

“You don't do that shit on my beach,” Dave says.

“This is your beach?”

“That's right,” Dave says. He moves in, ready to separate Mackie's head from his body. But Tide steps in front of him. Sunny steps in front of both of them and pushes the boys aside.

“I can take care of myself. Thanks, but I don't need you to big-brother me.”

“I'd do the same,” Dave says, “if it was Boone or-”

“I can take care of myself.”

Great, she thinks as the crowd stares at her. I wanted the wave of the day; instead, I got the wipeout of the day and a hassle with golden boy Tim Mackie.

“That wasn't cool,” she says.

“Sorry,” Mackie says. “My bad.”

But he has this smirk on his face.

“A-hole,” she says.

He laughs at her.

There's only one response to that. She picks up her board and starts back down the beach, to the point where she can paddle out again. She can hear the crowd murmuring words to that effect. “She's going out again. Do you believe it? After that? The chick's going back out there.”

Damn right, she thinks, the chick is going back out there.

Going back out there to take the biggest wave.

Johnny Banzai runs.

It's tough going through the heavy reeds, which cut his face and slice at his arms as he tries to beat them back in front of him.

Then he hears, as if from a far distance, a woman's keening.