by L. A. Witt
As soon as we crossed from the harbor into the open ocean, the ride went from rough to terrifying. The deck pitched hard under my feet. We crested a swell, and my heart lurched when I realized we’d almost completely cleared the water. We came down hard, the impact driving me onto the deck with a painful crack of kneecap to metal.
My eyes watered. It took a second for me to catch my breath, and by the time I did, we were going up over another wave. The second impact made my teeth snap together. Then we were going up again. A wall of ice-cold saltwater reared up over the side and slapped down hard on top of me, stunning me for a second and soaking me to the skin. Before I’d finished sputtering and regained my footing, the boat slammed downward again. More spray. More water. More violent pitching and listing.
Shit. We were going way too fast, and the waves were even bigger than they’d looked from the harbor. Maybe the Metal Shark in the hands of a competent coxswain could’ve handled these seas. The USS Minnow with Gilligan and his ego at the helm? Not a chance.
I motioned for Anderson to go back.
Through the windshield, he shook his head. The boat stayed the course.
For fuck’s sake.
“MA1,” I shouted. “Go back!”
“We’re fine, MA2! We’re almost there!”
“Go back, you fucking idiot!”
He glared at me with you’re going to hear about this later in his eyes. I didn’t give two shits about insubordination. Not when he was going to get us killed.
A wave tossed me hard enough I nearly lost my footing. At the stern, Rhodes stumbled and hit the railing. She nearly went over, but caught herself.
Our eyes met. The fear in hers echoed what was surging through my veins. This was insanity.
Fuck insubordination. Anderson was out of his mind, and he needed to be out of the coxswain’s seat. Fortunately, I was big enough by comparison that overpowering him wouldn’t be too difficult. I might not even have to cuff him, which I didn’t want to do in case the boat went down or he went overboard.
If it came down to it, though . . .
I took a step toward him, struggling to stay upright as the boat pitched and rolled.
But then the deck wasn’t under my feet anymore.
Nothing was.
I was weightless for a split second.
Speeding away from the boat. Over the railing. Then down.
And as soon as I hit the water, I was the opposite of weightless. I sank. Fast.
I swam hard and managed to break the surface. As I gulped in air, I tried to inflate my vest, but I was getting thrown around too much. I’d get my fingers on the pulls just in time for the violent seas to toss me like a ragdoll, and I’d lose my grip. The rifle was simultaneously dragging me down and narrowly missing my face as the waves threw me around. I couldn’t get the strap over my head. Even when I surfaced, it was only for seconds at a time. Never long enough to breathe. Couldn’t pull the tabs on the vest. Couldn’t gain any purchase, any control, and each time I went under, it was harder to come back to the surface. Too much gear. Too much heavy, constricting gear, and I couldn’t get my hands on any of it long enough to—
“MA2!” Rhodes’s voice cut through the chaos. “Look out!”
I turned my head just in time to see a wall of gunmetal gray coming at me, and coming in hot. I put up my arm, but it caught on the rifle strap.
The hull slammed into me.
And everything went black.
Cold saltwater in my throat made me cough, but there was no air. Just more water. My lungs screamed. Pain exploded along the side of my head. Still no air.
Up? Where is up?
I opened my eyes. Bubbles were going . . .
That way.
I swam as hard as my numb, heavy limbs would swim, and followed the bubbles, but they were faster than me.
Heavy. Too heavy. Sinking.
Something jerked the back of my vest. Then a hard tug at my left side. Another at my right.
The vest’s air bladders inflated, and I was rising with the bubbles. Something was still pulling me, but it was pulling me up, so I didn’t fight it.
I broke the surface and gasped for air, but choked on more seawater. As I tried to find my breath, something loosened around my waist, and I wasn’t being dragged down so hard. A wave crashed into me, but I didn’t stay under as long this time. The rifle’s strap was no longer digging into my shoulder. The dead weight of the gun was gone.
Beside me, someone coughed and sputtered.
“Rhodes?”
“Stay with me, MA2.” Rhodes’s teeth were chattering. “Help is coming.”
“What the . . .” Words. Couldn’t . . . too cold. Too much pain. Where was the boat? It was going to hit us again. Wasn’t it? Still not enough air. Everything was spinning and doubling and blurring, and my mouth tasted like copper and salt as I tried to ask what the fuck was happening.
A wave rolled us again. As I came up this time, I inhaled a mouthful of icy saltwater, and my stomach lurched. I puked so hard it hurt my guts and my violently throbbing head, and before I could take a breath, the freezing ocean pulled us under again.
The waves kept tossing us. The vests kept us more or less afloat, but the ocean was trying like hell to gain the upper hand.
Distantly, there was a rumble I thought were boat engines, but every time I broke the surface, things made less sense . . . came into fuzzier focus . . . doubled . . . tripled . . . cold . . . numb . . .
“MA2, come on! Stay with me!”
And once again . . .
Darkness.
The distress call came in, and before the transmission had even ended, me and MA3 Powers were on our feet and running. Several other MAs joined us, boots thumping as we sprinted down the pier. We vaulted onto the fast boat, and I stumbled on the wind-tossed deck. The water had been rough as hell when we’d gone out, and it was worse now. The wind wasn’t just whistling—it was screaming, battering boats against the pier and rocking this one so violently I could barely find my footing.
My heart was in my throat as we scrambled to pull in lines and get the boat out on the water. Cold as it was, we couldn’t afford to waste a second, especially not with the daylight running out and when we didn’t know how bad the situation really was. In the chaos, I hadn’t heard who was in the water, only that someone had gone overboard. There were only three people on that boat, and as much as I disliked MA1 Anderson, I wasn’t praying for him to be the one in the drink. I just prayed like hell we’d heard the report wrong and everyone was safe, warm, and dry.
But I could see from here that the boat was outside the harbor gate. From the looks of it, even though it was getting tossed by the swells, it was stationary. Which meant it was caught on something.
Fuck. A crippled boat and at least one person in the storm-tossed water. In February. Soon to be in the dark.
MA2 Simmons took the helm of our boat. She was only Level I coxswain qualified, but I didn’t argue. I knew from experience she was competent as fuck. Let her drive—I wanted my hands and focus free to get whoever it was out of the water.
As she drove, I gripped the side of the boat and squinted up ahead. The already shitty visibility was worsening fast, but I could see the crippled boat, plus a red-and-white Zodiac marked Coast Guard that was speeding toward it from the north.
I was sick at the sight of the patrol boat. The larger craft I was on could cope with seas like this, and even it would be tossed around plenty once we hit the open water. Of course, the powers that be wouldn’t let us use this thing for routine patrolling because it cost more to fuel and maintain, but at least we had it handy in the event the patrol boat needed a rescue.
Which it wouldn’t have if Dalton had been driving. I winced. MA1 Anderson had no business driving a boat at all, and no one had any business taking a glorified fucking dinghy out into storm-tossed open seas. There was no way in hell they’d have gone past the harbor gate if Dalton had been at the helm. None. And now people coul
d be in very real danger.
I drummed my fingers and murmured, “C’mon, c’mon,” as we sped through the whitecaps and growing swells toward the floundering boat.
So help me, Anderson, if Dalton or Rhodes are fucked up . . .
I gritted my teeth and tried not to imagine it. Not because I disliked the idea of kicking that jack-wagon’s sorry ass, but because that scenario would mean something had happened to Dalton or Rhodes. That wasn’t something I could think about. Not now.
The closer we got, the clearer the situation was. The boat wasn’t just idling in the water. It was stopped dead. As stopped as anything could be in seas like this—the waves were still tossing it relentlessly, threatening each time to capsize it, but it wasn’t going forward. Every time a wave pushed it, the bow bucked and the boat snapped backward like something was holding it in place. It reminded me of an animal with a foot in a trap—trying like hell to escape, but inescapably restrained.
“Looks like they snagged on a fishnet,” Powers shouted.
I nodded. It had happened before. Civilian fishermen loved setting up nets near the mouth of the harbor, and it was just far enough out of our jurisdiction that we couldn’t stop them. The Coast Guard and Fish & Wildlife tried their damnedest, but the nets were still a very real hazard for us. Somewhere in my mind, I wondered how we were supposed to untangle the net from the props in this weather, but that could wait until after I knew my shipmates—my best friend—were safe.
My heart beat faster the closer we got to the boat. I craned my neck and squinted, trying to make sense of things. From here, all I could see was MA1 Anderson. He was out on the port bow, gesturing frantically at the Coast Guard boat, the water, then boat again.
There was no one else on the deck with him. As far as I could tell, no one on the boat. The coxswain’s seat was empty. Just MA1 Anderson.
Oh no.
No. No, no, no . . .
The Zodiac was already there, shining a spotlight over the scene. As our driver cut the engines, two Coasties in full thermal gear jumped feetfirst into the stormy waters. We came around the side of the floundering patrol boat, and I leaned over the side, trying to focus against the salt spray.
When my eyes finally focused, my heart dropped.
Dalton and MA3 Rhodes were dead ahead in the spotlight’s glow, the orange-clad Coasties fighting the waves to get to them. Rhodes was conscious but visibly shivering. She must’ve known how difficult they were to see in their blue camouflage, because she waved a light for one of the swimmers to see.
Her other arm was securely around Dalton. Under his armpit. Around the front of his chest.
And Dalton . . .
Oh God.
My stomach turned to lead. I’d sometimes teased him about being white enough to be used as a signaling device, but now he was white, and it wasn’t just the eerie blanched light coming from the Zodiac. Even his lips were nearly translucent. His eyes were half-open, head lolling to the side.
Then the churning water turned him and Rhodes, revealing the other side of his face, and . . . blood. So much blood.
Dalton didn’t seem conscious. Maybe not even alive. Oh Christ. Were we too late?
I shook myself and focused. There was no time to assess him now—we had to get him out of the water. If he hadn’t reached severe hypothermia, he was on his way and fast, assuming whatever had cut his head hadn’t done him in already.
I looked around. The Zodiac was getting tossed as badly as we were. Another Coast Guard boat was on its way out, but it wouldn’t be here for a few minutes yet.
Beside us, the patrol boat swung on its lines, nearly colliding with the Zodiac. In an effort to avoid the crippled boat, the Zodiac almost ended up on the rocks, and the driver had to pull it away to regain control. They took the spotlight with them, leaving the swimmers and victims with nothing but the weak glow from the patrol boat. We turned ours on, but they didn’t help much.
The swimmers scanned their surroundings, probably trying to orient themselves to the Zodiac.
I did the same and realized my vessel was closer. It was also bigger and had more room on the deck.
“Hey!” I shouted down to the swimmer. He didn’t respond, so I whistled. When he looked up, squinting against the light coming from over my head, I beckoned and gestured at the deck beneath my feet. He nodded. He shouted something I couldn’t hear at Rhodes, and she too nodded. Then he took Dalton from her and started toward my boat. Later, there might be some bullshit about jurisdiction and the swimmer needing to get Dalton and Rhodes onto the Coast Guard boat instead of ours, but right now, politics and regulations didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting the two MAs out of that cold water.
I barked orders to the people on my boat, sending them scrambling to be ready to pull up Dalton and Rhodes, and as I did, I shed my police belt. “When he gets on board,” I shouted, “he’s going to need skin to skin to regain some body heat.” I quickly started unbuttoning my blouse. “Get a space blanket ready, and tell the medics onshore we’ve got one, possibly two Sailors with severe hypothermia.”
No one protested. This was what we trained for, and everyone threw themselves into their tasks with practiced ease.
As I was kicking off my boots, my crewmen hauled Dalton onto the deck. My heart skipped. His body was limp, and holy shit, he was even paler up close. His lips had started turning blue. The blood running down one side of his head and onto the C-collar someone had put on him made his pallor even more terrifying.
The barely audible groan that escaped his lips almost knocked me to my knees. He was alive. Maybe hanging on by his fingernails, but alive. I scrambled even faster to get out of my clothes so I could warm him up.
MA3 Powers started cutting away Dalton’s soaked uniform. Someone had already taken off his vest and police belt, thank God.
As soon as his blouse and T-shirt had been cut away, I lay beside him on the deck and pressed up against him, gasping at just how icy cold his skin really was. While Powers worked at Dalton’s boots, I covered as much of Dalton’s cold torso as I could.
Powers cut away the rest of Dalton’s clothes, then put the space blanket over us. Hopefully Dalton would be able to pull enough heat from me, and the blanket would help him retain it.
My teeth chattered, but I kept holding his cold, limp body against mine. Someone handed me a wadded-up towel, which I pressed against the bloody wound on his head. He didn’t even flinch.
“C’mon, Dalton,” I murmured. “Stay with me, man. C’mon.”
Another faint groan escaped his nearly white lips.
“Dalton?” I tapped his face gently. “You with me? Can you hear me? C’mon, Dalton.”
His eyelids fluttered. He moaned again, head lolling.
“Is he conscious?” Powers asked, leaning over us.
“Don’t know. Kind of.” I looked up at him. “Is Rhodes out of the water?”
“I’m over here,” she said through violently chattering teeth. She was hunched over against the side of the boat. Her blouse and shirt were in a puddle on the deck, and she was huddled against MA3 Simmons under a gray blanket. Rhodes was almost as pale as Dalton, but she was conscious and coherent. Thank God.
Dalton murmured again, squirming weakly.
I touched his cheek. “Dalton? You with me?”
More fluttering. Then, with what seemed like a ton of effort, his eyes opened about halfway. “Chris?” A sleepy, kind of drunken grin appeared on his pale lips. “Heeey, you.”
I laughed, just relieved to see him coming around, and held his cold body tighter, as much to hug him as to get him warm.
Then his icy hand slid up my chest before it clumsily curved behind my neck, and as he started to draw me in, he slurred something I didn’t understand.
“Hey, hey.” I gently pried his hand off and hugged him a bit closer. “Take it easy, man.”
His eyes rolled a bit, then shut, and he was silent again.
I almost laughed. It figured—the o
ne time he tried to come on to me, and it was while he was hypothermic, concussed, and delirious.
But he was alive. Not out of the woods yet, but a damn sight better than when they’d pulled him from the water. Relieved as I was, I had to fight the urge to press a kiss to his forehead.
I just shut my eyes and held him.
I couldn’t sit still. As much as I was pacing by the fish tank in Coastal General’s ER waiting room, I was probably making the colorful fish nervous.
I’d been here almost an hour, and no one had said a word about Dalton. Was he okay? Was this place even equipped to handle him? Fuck, I probably would’ve been more comfortable if we were at a military hospital, and some of those were sketchy as hell.
Naval Air Station Adams was too small to have its own hospital, though, and Anchor Point wasn’t a big town. Not surprisingly, the emergency room at Coastal General wasn’t teeming with activity, but it wasn’t exactly a Level I trauma center either. What the hell was taking so long?
All the way to the hospital, even half an hour after we’d pulled him from the water, Dalton had stayed semiconscious. Sometimes his eyes had fluttered open and he’d babbled incoherently. Once, he’d asked where his shoes were. Most of the time, though, he’d been quiet and still, and that had scared the shit out of me.
The EMTs had assured me over and over in the ambulance that extreme fatigue was par for the course with his degree of hypothermia, but they also kept checking him for responsiveness. Checking his eyes with a pen light. Asking him questions he couldn’t answer. Frowning over his vitals. He’d been semiconscious. Not awake enough to know who or where he was, but definitely awake enough to swear or cry out when they jabbed his side or his ribs.
When we’d arrived, they’d jogged the stretcher in through the red-striped automatic doors. There’d been no sitting in the waiting room. Which I’d expected. A head injury? Significant hypothermia? All kinds of potential for neck trauma? Yeah, that was an express ticket to the front of the line.
