Dawn Patrol

by Jeff Ross

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  Copyright © 2012 Jeff Ross

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Ross, Jeff, 1973-

  Dawn patrol [electronic resource] / Jeff Ross.

  (Orca sports)

  Electronic monograph.

  Issued also in print format.

  ISBN 978-1-4598-0063-2 (PDF).--ISBN 978-1-4598-0064-9 (EPUB)

  I. Title. II. Series: Orca sports (Online)

  PS8635.O6928D39 2012 JC813’.6 C2011-907772-8

  First published in the United States, 2012

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011943730

  Summary: When their surfer friend Kevin disappears in Panama,

  Luca and Esme risk more than just big waves to find him.

  Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council ®.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover photography by Getty Images

  Author photo by Simon Bell

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO Box 5626, Stn. B

  Victoria, BC Canada

  V8R 6S4 ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO Box 468

  Custer, WA USA

  98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  15 14 13 12 • 4 3 2 1

  For CB, we’ll always have Panama.

  And to the rest of the December 2010 crew—

  thanks, it was a blast.

  Contents

  chapter one

  chapter two

  chapter three

  chapter four

  chapter five

  chapter six

  chapter seven

  chapter eight

  chapter nine

  chapter ten

  chapter eleven

  chapter twelve

  chapter thirteen

  chapter fourteen

  chapter fifteen

  chapter sixteen

  chapter seventeen

  chapter eighteen

  chapter nineteen

  chapter twenty

  chapter twenty-one

  Acknowledgments

  chapter one

  The waves were coming in perfect sets of three. It had taken Esme and me four hours on a sixteen-foot water taxi to get here. The boat bobbed on the edge of the swell. We watched a dozen surfers paddling to get in position. Now that we had made it to Bocas del Mar, an island off the coast of Panama, the bumpy boat ride was worth it.

  “Do you see him?” Esme asked.

  We scanned the lineup of surfers for our friend Kevin Taylor. He had left Los Angeles in March. It was now June, and other than the email he sent before he split, we had heard nothing from him. The email wasn’t much help:

  Guys,

  I need to get out of here. Nothing is making sense at the moment. I don’t know if I’ll come back, but if I don’t, know that I love you both. Esme with all my heart, and Luca in a totally best-bud, non-romantic way.

  Kevin

  Esme and I knew how nothing made sense to Kevin. In January his parents had died in a plane crash near Bocas del Mar. Kevin’s father was an experienced small-plane pilot. The morning of the crash, a dense fog patch caused him to fly into the side of a mountain. It took two days for anyone to reach the crash site. No bodies were found. But, given the state of the plane’s destruction, that wasn’t surprising.

  Kevin had spent many Christmas vacations in Panama with his family. He had traveled all over the world following waves with his father, a fanatical surfer. Kevin was an amazing surfer too. He was always searching for larger and larger waves. He liked what people called unrideable breaks, the kind of waves an average surfer wouldn’t even attempt.

  Which is why we had come to Bocas. According to surfline.com, the center for all wave-related surfing information, a giant swell was coming toward Bocas. Most big waves form out in the Pacific Ocean, breaking in Tahiti or along Hawaii’s north shore. But this monster was coming toward Panama. It was still two days out, so for now, the waves were in the five-to-seven-foot range. By all accounts, forty- or fifty-foot waves were approaching. If Kevin was nearby, he would be here to ride them.

  Esme was somewhat familiar with Panama. While she had never been to Bocas del Mar, she had been to several of the surrounding smaller islands with Kevin’s family two years before. Esme and Kevin had been dating for three years, and I had known him since we were kids. With his parents gone, we were the closest thing he had to family. Esme’s father, a high-flying banker, often had business meetings in Panama City. Esme’s dad knew how much Kevin meant to us and that we were worried about him. When Esme asked if we could go to Panama to see if Kevin was there, her dad was happy to fly us down with him after our final exams. He said it would be a business trip for him and a grad present for us. We spent a few days in Panama City together before he put us on the water taxi.

  “These surfers all look alike,” I said to Esme.

  She screwed her face up and punched my shoulder. “They do not. You, for instance, are a surfer but look more like, I don’t know, a scientist or a violinist.”

  “A violinist?” I said. “What does a violinist even look like?”

  “Like you,” she said, laughing.

  I was almost six feet tall and had shaggy brown hair. My skin had gone a darker shade than it likely should have from all the time I spent in the sun. I didn’t know what violinists looked like, but I had a feeling they didn’t spend 80 percent of their waking hours in surf shorts and a reef shirt.

  “These are beautiful waves,” Esme said.

  When Esme was a kid, she was a tomboy. She was the kind of girl who could kick your ass at any sport. Then she grew up and became a gorgeous girl who could still kick my ass at any sport, including surfing. Unfortunately, she bailed heavily last summer, so now she’s cautious when it comes to any wave over eight or nine feet.

  The boat captain shouted, “You stay here?”

  “Sí,” I called back, using my entire Spanish vocabulary.

  “On island?”

  “Sí.”

  “I take bags in,” he said. He pointed at a large hut on stilts above the water. “Leave them with Delgado, sí?”

  “Delgado?”

  “Sí. It is only place to stay. For tourists.”

  Before I could answer, the captain revved the boat’s engine and gunned across the shallow reef. He threw our backpacks onto the dock and took us back out to the break.

  Esme tossed her board into the water and dove in. I followed.

  The captain leaned over the side of the boat. “I will come back?”

  “Three days?” I asked.

  “Three days.” He pointed at the dock. “Delgado’s.” And with that, he tore off.

  “Think we’ll ever see him again?” Esme said as she climbed onto her board.

  I watched the boat become a dot on the horizon. “I hope so.” I lay on my board and paddled toward the small gathering of surfers along the edge of the break. “But for now, let’s catch some of these waves.”

  I looked over the edge of my board, and there was nothing but sand.

  A girl
sitting on a long board outside the break waited her turn.

  “Hey, do you speak English?” I asked.

  She smiled at me. “Um, yeah. How about you?” Her blond hair glistened in the bright sunlight.

  “A little,” I said. “Is this a sand bottom the whole way in?” Esme paddled up beside me, and the girl stopped smiling.

  “No. Farther in it’s reef. Be careful. If you get over near those rocks, it’s really shallow.” She pointed toward a cluster of rocks that jutted out of the ocean.

  “Cool, thanks,” I said. “By the way, my name’s Luca and this is Esme.”

  “Alana,” the girl said before she lay down and paddled into a wave. She rode the crest for a moment, then dropped down onto the other side.

  “Not bad,” I said.

  Esme looked at me. “What do you mean, Alana or her surfing skills?”

  I must have blushed, because Esme said, “Yeah, I thought so.”

  “Am I not allowed to...?”

  She punched me on the shoulder again. “You’re not allowed to sit here talking about girls when there is a perfect wave coming in and you’re next in line.” The wave was a roller, gaining height and speed as it approached. “Go, go, go,” she said.

  I paddled hard and lined myself up for the first ride of the day.

  chapter two

  You have to catch a wave at just the right time. If you try to stand up too early, you sink. Stand up too late, and you get bowled over by the wave and dumped down the front side. When to stand up is not really something you can be taught. You have to feel it.

  I paddled as hard as I could. Still, by the time it was upon me, I only had a moment to push down on the board and stand. I managed to get up and glided along the top of the wave. I pushed forward, dropped down the front of the wave, kicked out and shot sideways. Even though the wave wasn’t tall enough to have a full-sized barrel, I got a nice ride out of it. Better surfers, like Kevin, would have slid along the crest. Maybe even spun or launched off the top. For me, it was enough to feel the awesomeness of all that water moving beneath me, to be a part of something that had crept in from the middle of the ocean.

  I kicked out again, rolled over the backside of the wave and slid down onto the board. I could see a dark line of coral four feet beneath me. I paddled outside the breaking waves and joined the lineup again. The wave I had caught was the last in a set. Everyone bobbed around on their boards looking at the horizon, waiting for the next one.

  I paddled over to Esme and sat up on my board.

  “That was nice,” she said.

  “Thanks. There’s a reef up there. So the waves get bigger and bigger as you go in.” I pointed to the other surfers. “You ask anyone about Kevin yet?”

  “No. But I seem to have their attention.” Esme was in a bikini. A very small bikini. She had a reef shirt on, but it was white and did little to discourage glances from the lineup.

  “Hey, guys,” I said. Most of the guys looked at me as though they only just realized I was there. “We’re looking for a friend of ours. Tall, with curly blond hair, rides a red Piranha board?” The three guys closest to us all tilted their heads slightly before unleashing a flurry of Spanish.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I only speak English.”

  “We be here today,” one guy said. He pointed at his friends. “No one. Just us.”

  “Okay, thanks,” I said.

  The guy shifted a little closer to me. “Girlfriend?” he said, nodding at Esme. He flicked his eyebrows at her.

  “What?” Esme said.

  “He wants to know if you’re my girlfriend,” I said.

  The guy winked at her. “Very beautiful. Like flower.”

  Now it was Esme’s turn to blush. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s cut over.” There was another handful of surfers bobbing around on the other side of the swell.

  “You don’t want to stay here and chat with these nice gentlemen?”

  I could feel another punch coming, so I lay down and started paddling. As we neared the other side of the break, the next set came roaring in. The waves seemed bigger, rising as they pushed inland.

  “Faster. Move it!” Esme yelled from behind me.

  It is no fun to be swept over by a big wave. I paddled as hard as I could, turned into the wave and duck-dived through it. A duck dive is a simple move to get from the front of a wave to the back without shooting to the crest and being flung backward. You simply push down on the front of your board and dive into the face of the wave.

  I came out the other side, and Esme popped up a moment later. One surfer had grabbed the wave. Alana and another surfer watched as he cut back and forth, bellowing as he went.

  “Hello again,” I said to Alana as we paddled up to them.

  “Long time no see,” she said.

  I noticed she had an American accent. The other surfer looked like a local. He squinted at us, propping a hand over his eyes to block out the sun.

  “A friend of ours might be here. We’re not sure.” I described Kevin to Alana.

  “Can’t say I’ve seen anyone like that,” she said. “But maybe give it a day, right? With those monster waves coming in, every surfer worth his salt will be here soon.”

  “Sure,” I said. “What about him? Does he speak English?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked at the other surfer and spoke to him in Spanish. The local shook his head, never taking his eyes off Esme and me. He was in his mid-twenties and had dark-brown eyes. His hair was cut short on the sides, giving him a strange faux-hawk. He was sinewy, yet, like a lot of surfers, muscular.

  “He says no,” Alana said.

  “No to English, or no to seeing our friend?”

  “Both,” Alana said.

  “Our friend’s name is Kevin. Kevin Taylor.”

  “Kevin Taylor?” Alana said to the local.

  He shook his head again and paddled into a small wave. He got up on his board but had to pump hard to move across the wave.

  “Looks like you guys freaked him out,” Alana said. “Are you staying at Loco Delgado’s?”

  “Loco?” I said. “I hadn’t heard the Loco part before.”

  Alana laughed. “Yeah, well, that was his name back in the day. I don’t think he’s really crazy. Anyway, unless you want to sleep on the beach or grab a water taxi back to the mainland, Loco Delgado’s is your only choice.”

  “Back in what day?” I asked.

  “Word is, Delgado used to wander the world looking for giant waves. I don’t know how much of it is true. People seem to make up fascinating stories about themselves around here.”

  “Well, our packs are there,” I said.

  “Cool. If anyone knows about your friend, it will be old Loco. He’s completely dialed into everything that happens here.” Another set was roaring in, and Alana quickly paddled toward where the wave would crest. “See you in there. Catch the right wave and you can ride all the way to the beach.” The wave boiled under her. She worked her arms around like pinwheels. Then she shot down the face of what must have been a nine-foot wave. It was the biggest I had seen yet.

  “Nice,” Esme said.

  “Alana or her riding?” I said, leaning away from her.

  “Shut up and grab the next one,” Esme said. “Let’s get in to shore and have a chat with old Loco Delgado.”

  chapter three

  Delgado’s hotel was a cluster of huts. Some of the huts were on the beach or in the jungle. The rest were on stilts above the ocean, at the end of warped piers. Esme and I managed to ride almost all the way to shore. I cut to the right on the wave I took, and Esme cut to the left, which sent her toward the large black rocks. I watched her bail, well before she came in too close, and swim out of the maul of the next breaking wave.

  “It’s like the waves want to wreck you on those rocks,” she said as we dragged our boards onto the beach.

  “Or they just want you to cut to the right,” I said. We walked along the beach until we came to a pier leading
to the hotel’s office. The office was a thatch-roof hut, only slightly larger than the surrounding huts. The only way we could tell it was the office was on account of a large OFFICE sign pegged near the entrance.

  Reggae was playing inside. The music had a soft, light beat, and for the first time since we had arrived in Panama, it wasn’t Bob Marley. We lay our boards beside our backpacks and went inside.

  A big white guy was lying on a couch with a MacBook on his stomach. He swiveled his head toward the doorway.

  “Hola,” he said.

  “Hey,” I said. “Are you, um, Delgado?”

  “Loco Delgado,” he said. He set the laptop on the ground and rolled off the couch. His T-shirt clung to him. Other than a small fan, which seemed to be doing little more than pulling the heat in from outside, there was no air circulation. It smelled musty, as if the room itself was sweating. Delgado was our parents’ age, although his skin was wrinkled and leathery from too much time in the sun. I tried to imagine him touring the world searching out the best waves. But his rotund form didn’t seem to fit the mold. “Are you the two Armadio brought over earlier?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We need a place to stay for a couple of days. Do you have any vacancies?”

  Delgado nodded his head seriously and walked over to the counter. He ran a finger down a blank page, then looked up at us. “I think you can be accommodated,” he said, laughing.

  “There’s no one else here?” Esme asked.

  “Sure, sure. I think there are about twenty people here right now. They’ll let me know when they decide to check out. And pay as well.”

  “That’s very trusting of you,” I said.

  Delgado rolled his head from shoulder to shoulder, and a succession of cracks and pops sounded. “Surfing is a culture. You know how it is, man? What you give is what you get. Nice waves come in, and people feel good. The last thing they want to do is rip someone off and start feeling bad.” He leaned back to look out the window. “There’s an empty hut right here. Has a double in it. I imagine one bed will suffice?”

  “Actually, two would be better,” I said.

  Delgado nodded. “That’s all right. The double is actually just two singles jammed together with a big mattress on top. We can pull them apart.” Delgado came around the counter. “Come on, I’ll show you your new digs.”