Dawn Patrol - Don Winslow [125]
Going back out there to take the biggest wave.
146
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.
147
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.
148
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.
A mutant.
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.
My lifetime, 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.
If hell.
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.