Kane (63 page)

All at once Mike saw the taller of the two young women he had noticed earlier streaking toward the shoreline.  The girl paused in knee-deep water to pull on a pair of swim fins, then took another step and dived in.

Jesus, Mike thought as he kept shooting.  She’s going out there.

Heart pounding, I pulled toward the oncoming waves, arms slashing the choppy surface.  Having grown up on the beach, I was strong swimmer and an excellent bodysurfer.  I was nonetheless terrified, never having been out in waves this big.  Upon arriving at the Wedge and noting the size of the waves, I had resolved that under no circumstances would I be surfing that day.  That was before I spotted the girls in trouble.  The lifeguards who’d already responded had their hands full, and the rescue jeep wouldn’t arrive in time.  Someone had to help.

The outflowing riptide carried me swiftly to a smaller inside break.  An eight-foot wall of foam boiled toward me.  Caught in the rip, I knew there was no turning back.  After taking a hurried gulp of air, I scratched for the bottom an instant before the hissing surge reached me.  Moments later I emerged on the far side and continued swimming, knowing the worst was yet to come.  I still had to get past the outside break.

Normally I would have waited for a lull between sets before trying to make it out.  Because of the situation, I didn’t have that luxury.  Momentarily raising my head, I checked the oncoming waves.  My stomach sank as I saw an eighteen-foot-high swell approaching.  I had to reach deeper water.

Increasing my strokes, I kicked for all I was worth, arms and legs driving me toward the onrushing wave.  Being caught inside the break of a wall that large meant disaster.  In a shallow-bottomed area like the Wedge, getting slammed down from a height of eighteen feet could break a shoulder, a neck, or knock an unwary swimmer unconscious—all of which could prove fatal.

The riptide ferried me seaward.  For a moment I thought I might surmount the looming wave before it curled.  Relentlessly, the gigantic swell moved toward me with the fury of a freight train, an angry plume of spray trailing from its crest, soaring ever higher as the ocean bottom threw it skyward, rising … rising …

It’s too close, I thought, trying not to panic.  Dive.

Taking one last breath, I submerged again, pulling for the bottom.  The mass of the wave moved over me, trying to pull me back.  I kicked with every bit of strength I possessed, thanking God I had taken the time to put on my fins.  My fingers scrabbled against sand.  I could go no deeper.

Forward, then.

Blood pounding in my ears, I struggled against the terrible sucking force of the wave, its power weakened by my depth but still strong enough to drag me into its churning maw.  My lungs burned.  My legs ached.  My thighs were beginning to cramp.

I couldn’t stay down much longer.  Making one last effort, I kicked another few yards, chest skimming the bottom, hands pulling to either side, fins raising billows of sand behind me.  And still the wave pulled at me, unwilling to release its grip.

If I get out of this, I thought, I’ll never go out in big surf again.

An eternity passed.

And then it was over.  Aware I had only seconds before the next swell arrived, I shot to the surface, heart in my throat.  I choked down several gasps of air, the crash of the passing wave roaring in my ears.  I peered seaward.  The next wave looked even larger.  There would be no rest if I were to make it over.  And I had to make it over.  Another dive like the last was out of the question.  I didn’t have the strength.

No longer having the outflowing rip current to aid my progress, I started out once more.  Though tempted to check the approaching wave, I kept my head down and swam for all I was worth, knowing even a few feet could make the difference between safely topping the swell and being swept backward over the falls.  Moments later the toe of the wave began to lift me.

Keep swimming, I told myself grimly.  Keep swimming.

Panic roiled in my chest.  I began to claw up the rising face.  For a sickening instant my momentum slackened as I reached the crest.  I was certain I would be pulled over backward.  Then, with an overwhelming flood of relief, I felt myself descending the backside, the power of the wave sliding harmlessly beneath me.

Another minute of hard swimming brought me to a position of relative safety, past the point where all but the largest waves were curling.  Treading water, I searched for the third girl.

Another swell passed, raising me high in the air.  Using my temporary elevation, I scanned the waters around me.  Nothing.

Did I miss her?

Though fearing the girl might have already slipped beneath the surface, I continued my search.  Shivering and exhausted, I was beginning to think it had all been for naught when I spotted a small shape in the water thirty yards toward shore.

The girl’s limp body was lying facedown when I reached it.  Apparently the rip current had carried her through the breaking waves, but not without cost.  I threw an arm over her shoulders and rolled her onto her back.  The youngster’s lips were blue, her skin pale as death.

Now what?

Try to get her breathing.

With an arm across the girl’s chest, I used my free hand to tip back the youngster’s chin and force open her jaw.  Legs scissoring to keep us both above water, I blew awkwardly into the girl’s mouth.  The youngster’s chest inflated slightly.  And again.

Other than the involuntary lift and fall of the girl’s ribs in response to my breath, there was no effect.

This isn’t doing any good.

All at once I sensed danger behind me.  I turned.  Another giant wave was approaching, this one easily the largest of the day.  In moving toward shore to retrieve the girl, I had forfeited precious yards that I’d fought earlier to gain.  And while attempting to revive the youngster, I had drifted even closer to the beach.

I’m inside the break line again!

I tightened my grip on the girl.  Pulling with my free arm and kicking with both legs, I started swimming toward the approaching wave.

I’ll never make it, I thought.  Not dragging the girl.  Drop her.

The wave rocketed skyward, dwarfing me with its size.

She’s probably already dead, a voice inside me insisted.  Let her go.

Despite a paralyzing surge of fear, I held on and kept swimming, my breath now coming in ragged gasps.

Drop her, my voice insisted.

No, I thought grimly.  We’re making it together or not at all.

And then we were climbing the impossibly lofty face.  The wave began to curl as we neared the top.  For a heart-stopping instant I was again certain I was going to be sucked backward over the falls and buried beneath tons of water, along with the girl.

Don’t give up.  Keep going …

Spurred by a nauseous rush of adrenaline, I rallied my last bit of strength.  Kicking furiously, I teetered on the wave’s summit, marveling in a detached portion of my mind at how high the swell had raised us.  I could see more waves marching past the tip of the Newport breakwater, a flash of yellow emerging from the mouth of the rock jetty …

Keep going.  Don’t stop!

Another kick … and another …

And we were past.

Though trembling with exhaustion, I kept swimming, determined not to be caught again inside the break line.  Despite being impeded by the girl’s body, I eventually put a comfortable distance between us and the beach.  It was then that I heard the roar of an engine farther out.

I saw the yellow lifeguard boat as the next wave lifted us, concluding that the approaching vessel must have been the flash of color I had spotted at the mouth of the breakwater.  As the boat neared, I realized it was one of several Newport Beach rescue vessels I’d noticed on previous visits to the Wedge.  At the time I had never imagined I would ever be so grateful to see one.

Its seven-hundred-horsepower engine revved up full, the lifeguard vessel slammed through the sea.  Twenty yards from us it abruptly veered to the left, catapulting a rescue swimmer from its stern.  The guard’s high-speed entry and a series of strong overhand strokes quickly put him at my side.

“She’s not breathing,” I gasped as the guard began securing a rescue tube around the unconscious girl.

The guard finished clipping his flotation tube beneath the girl’s shoulders.  Then, treading water, he turned to me.  “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I answered, my teeth chattering.

The guard shook his head, giving me a look that said he couldn’t believe I was out there.

By now the yellow boat had turned and backed toward us, the operator keeping a wary eye on incoming waves.  A swell forced him to retreat to deeper water.  After recircling, he waited for another break in the waves, then backed toward us once more.  When he reached us, the guard in the water slithered onto a submerged swim-step at the stern, hauling the girl’s body with him.

Another wave approached.  As I attempted to pull myself onto the swim-step, a blast of prop wash from the boat’s twin screws thrust me back.  “Move away!” the guard on the stern yelled, fighting to maintain his grip on the girl.

Though puzzled, I released my hold on the boat and let the prop wash sweep me a dozen feet away.  An instant later the swell rolled beneath the rescue craft, first raising the bow, then the stern.  As the keel seesawed over the crest of the wave, the rudder came completely out of the water, then sliced down like a guillotine.  Shaken, I abruptly realized why the guard had warned me to stay clear.

“Now!” the guard shouted.  “Get on!”

Wasting no time, I kicked toward the boat, squirmed onto the swim-step, and tumbled over the transom.  Once I was aboard, the boat operator levered the throttles open wide.  The guttural sound of the engine roar in my ears, I braced myself as we picked up speed and crashed through the oncoming waves.

For the first time since entering the water, I began to relax.  The wind whipping past the bow felt raw and cutting on my skin; the bone-rattling shock of the waves beneath the keel occasionally blurred my vision; the pitch and roll of the boat was starting to make me feel sick.  Nevertheless, I had never been happier to be anywhere in my life.

A throng of medics, police, and Newport Beach lifeguards were waiting on the Orange County Sheriff Harbor Patrol dock when we arrived.  Passing an eighty-seven-foot Coast Guard cutter and a several smaller harbor-division craft, our rescue boat nosed into its designated berth.  Deeper in the harbor, safe from the waves battering the beach outside the jetty, a thicket of sailboats and yachts swayed in dockside slips, their naked masts a forest of spars and booms and rigging.  At the top of a metal ramp leading up to a parking lot, a fire-department ambulance idled at the curb.

I stepped over the gunwale of the rescue boat, Churchill fins in one hand and a woolen blanket clutched around my shoulders with the other.  As I made my way up the dock, I noticed that in addition to the medics and lifeguard personnel present, a gaggle of onlookers had driven over from the Wedge.  Along with McKenzie, I saw a nearly hysterical woman whom I assumed was probably the mother of the drowning victim.  I also saw the young cameraman who had been staring at me earlier.

A paramedic team quickly offloaded the girl.  Working on her all the way back, the rescue-boat lifeguards had performed cardiac resuscitation, administered positive-pressure oxygen, and treated her for hypothermia and shock.  Though they’d managed to restore her heartbeat and breathing, she still hadn’t regained consciousness.  Praying the youngster would recover, I watched as she was bundled onto a stretcher and carried to the waiting ambulance.

A moment later McKenzie pushed through the crowd.  “Jeez, Ali, I was so worried about you,” she cried, throwing her arms around me.  “You scared me half to death.  Are you all right?”

“Just cold and tired,” I answered, noting that the young cameraman, having finished shooting the medics loading the girl into the ambulance, had shifted his attention to me.  Irritated, I turned away.  “Did you drive over here, Mac?”

“Yes.”

“Good.  Let’s go.”

“Miss?  May I have your name, please?”

I turned back.  The request had come from the cameraman, who had closed the distance between us.  Powerfully built, the man appeared to be in his midtwenties.  He had thick black hair and dark, surprisingly kind eyes, along with a slightly taunting smile that seemed misplaced on an otherwise open, handsome face.  “Can I have your name?” he repeated, training his camera on me.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s already taken.”

“C’mon, miss,” the man chuckled, continuing to shoot.  “Our viewers will want to know who the hero was out there today.”

“The lifeguards were the heroes,” I said, again starting for the parking lot.  Seeming reluctant to leave, McKenzie trailed behind.

Not giving up, the cameraman followed, struggling to keep me in camera frame.  “Don’t be so modest, miss,” he continued.  “If it hadn’t been for you, that girl wouldn’t have had a chance.  Aside from the guards, no one else on the beach made a move to help.  Not even the men.”

I turned.  “Not even the men?” I said.  “Is that what this is about?  You think that because someone is a girl, she can’t—”