Don Winslow - Dawn Patrol

Luce lies in Tammy's lap.

Tammy strokes the little girl's hair and sobs. Her hands are hot and sticky with the girl's blood, which runs from the little hole in her neck.

“Stop it,” Tammy says. “Stop it now.”

Tammy presses her hand on Luce's neck, but the blood bubbles around it. She feels stupid, and weak, and dizzy and there's pain somewhere in her body, but she can't figure out where, and Luce's eyes are wide and she can't hear her breath and the bleeding just won't stop. She hears a man's voice saying, “I've got her.”

She looks up and Daniels is there, trying to take Luce from her. Tammy holds her tighter.

“I've got her,” Boone says.

“She's dead.”

“No, she's not.”

Not yet, Boone thinks. The girl is in really bad shape-she's bleeding out, going into shock-but she's still alive.

It's like a dream in the waking moments, part real, part illusion. Everything is still at a distance, as if from the wrong end of a telescope, and he feels as if he's wrapped in cotton, but he knows he has to keep moving if the girl is going to live.

The old Japanese man is already taking his jacket off.

Boone takes it and wraps it around Luce. Then he kneels beside her, runs his hand up her neck, finds the little entrance wound, and presses his thumb into it. He picks her up with the other arm, cradles her against his chest, and starts to move back through the reeds, toward the road, where an ambulance can reach them.

“Stay with us, Luce,” he says. “Stay with us.”

But the girl's eyes are glassy.

Her eyelids flutter.

Sunny wipes the spray from her eyes and looks again.

She saw what she saw.

About fifty yards out but coming fast.

Waves generally come in sets of three, and they've done the three. But every once in a while, a set has a fourth. This bonus wave is a freak- bigger, stronger, meaner.

Amutant.

Known among waterman as the “Oh My God Wave.”

Which is what Sunny says as she sees it.

“Oh… my… God.”

The wave of a lifetime.

Mylifetime, Sunny thinks. My shot at the life I want, barreling right at me. I'm in the perfect spot at the perfect time. She rises up on her hips to look around and see what the Jet Ski crews are doing. They're lying out on the shoulder, waiting for the next set.

Well, the next set is here, boys, she thinks as she sees Mackie's Jet Ski start forward, easily fast enough to steal this wave from her. But then she sees High Tide paddle out between Mackie's ski and her. Golden boy Tim is going to have to go through him, and he isn't going to go through him. Not High Tide.

Normally, that would bother her, but she made her point on the beach and she's over it. It's only The Dawn Patrol looking out for one another and she accepts that.

This wave is mine, she thinks as she lies down on her board, turns it in, and points it toward shore. She starts paddling hard, looking once over her shoulder to see the big wave kick up behind her. She lowers her head as she feels the wave pick up the board, then lift it like a splinter, and then She's on top of the world.

She can see it all-the ocean, the beach, the city behind it, the green hills behind the city. She can see the crowd on the beach, see them watching her, see the photogs aiming the big cameras on their tripods. She can see a little boat moving in, photographers on board, getting close enough for shots but staying out of her line. Overhead, a helicopter zooms in and she knows the video guys are up there, ready to get her ride.

If I ride it, she thinks as she gets to her knees, ready to push up into her stance.

Ifhell.

No if about it.

Then she stops thinking.

The time for thought is over; now it has to be all instinct and action.

The nose of the board drops suddenly and she pushes up to her feet, planting them solidly, her calf muscles tensed. Time seems to stop as she's suspended for a second on the top of the wave. She thinks, I'm too late. I missed it. Then The board plunges down.

She leans right, just enough to catch the line, not enough to tip her into the wave and a horrible wipeout. She throws her arms out for balance, bends her knees for speed, and then she's off, down the face of this giant wave, her hair flying behind her like a personal pennant as she turns her feet right a little and cuts up higher into the wave, then plunges back down with incredible speed.

Too much speed.

The board bucks and bounces off the water and she's in the air for a second, the board a good foot beneath her. She lands on it, losing her balance, going sideways, headfirst toward the face of the wave.

The crowd on the beach groans.

It's going to be a bad one.

Sunny feels herself going, her shot getting away from her, and she cranks to the left, squats low, and rights herself as the wave crests over, and then She's in the green room, totally inside the wave. There is nothing else, just her and the wave, her in the wave, her wave, her life.

The watchers on the beach lose sight of her. They're holding their collective breath because all they can see is wave, the incredibly brave chick is in there somewhere, and it's an open question whether she'll come out.

Then a blast of white water shoots sideways out of the tube and the woman shoots out, still on her feet, her left hand touching the back of the wave, and the crowd breaks into a cheer. They're screaming for her, yelling for her as she cuts back up on the top of the wave again.

She's flying now and she uses the momentum to crest the top of the wave.

She's in the air, high over the wave, and as she jumps off the board, she does a full somersault before she hits the water on the far side of the wave. When she pops up, Dave is there on a Jet Ski. She grabs onto the sled, pulls herself on, pulls her board on, and lets him take her in.

The crowd on the beach is waiting for her.

She's mobbed by photographers, writers, surf company execs.

It was the ride of the day, they tell her.

No, she thinks.

It was the ride of a lifetime.

It's surreal.

What Johnny sees in the reeds.

Boone Daniels staggers toward him, a girl in his arms, his chest soaked with blood, more blood running down the side of his head.

“Boone!” Johnny yells.

Boone looks at Johnny with glassy-eyed, faint recognition and stumbles toward him, holding the girl out like a drowning man lifting a child up toward a lifeboat. Now Johnny can see Boone's thumb pressed deep into a wound on the child's neck.

Johnny takes the little girl from him, replacing his own thumb for Boone's. Boone looks at him, says, “Thanks, Johnny,” and then crashes heavily, face-first, to the ground.

Waves.

Alpha waves, energy-transport phenomena, gentle vibrations run through Boone's jacked-up brain as Rain Sweeny paddles out through a gentle beach break, ducks under an incoming wave, and pops out the other side.

She shakes the water from her blond hair and smiles.

It's a beautiful day, the sky a cloudless blue, the water green as a spring meadow. Crystal Pier sparkles in the shimmering sunlight.

Rain looks up at the pier and waves.

Boone stands at the window of his cottage, smiles, and waves back, and then he's in the water, swimming toward her in smooth, easy strokes, the cool water sliding along his skin, a caress that eases the pain, which is swiftly becoming mere memory, a dream of a past life that seemed real but was only a dream.

Rain reaches out her hand and pulls him to her and then he's sitting on his own board next to her, rising and falling in the gentle swell. The Dawn Patrol sits off behind them, farther out on the shoulder. Sunny and Dave, Hang and Tide and Johnny. Even Cheerful is out this morning, and Pete, and Boone can hear them talking and laughing, and then a wave comes in.