Dawn Patrol

by Don Winslow

So they were used to guys coming to the reeds to look for little girls. That's what they thought I was doing there, so that must be a place where pedophiles go. And the guy with the shotgun, the kid with the machete, the old man, they were fed up with it. They saw a chance to do something about it and they did it, except…

  It was okay for Teddy to go to the strawberry fields to find a little girl, but not me. They let him through, but they stopped me, so

  … You're a moron, Daniels, he tells himself. The mojados weren't selling the kid; they were protecting her. But they let Teddy take her to the motel room.

  He pulls onto Crystal Pier, gets out of the car, and goes into his place. Walks into the bedroom, goes to the desk, and opens the drawer.

  Rain Sweeny looks up at him.

  She has a silver chain with a cross around her neck.

  “Talk to me,” Boone says. “Please, honey, talk to me.”

  There's a world out there you know nothing about…

  … If you'd seen what I've seen.

  Boone sets the picture of Rain down and gets the pistol from his night-stand. Sticks it in the waistband of his jeans and heads back out.

  He's going to make this right, but he has one place to stop first.

  Make that right, too.

  113

  Sunny goes over to the wall to inspect her quiver of boards.

  Her quiver is her toolbox, her fortune, her biggest investment. Every spare dollar left after food and rent has gone into boards-short boards, long ones of different shapes and designs for different kinds of surf. Now she selects her big gun, pulls it off the rack, takes it from its bag, and lays it on the floor.

  It's a real rhino chaser-ten feet long, custom-shaped for her, it cost twelve hundred dollars, a lot of tips at The Sundowner. She examines it for nicks or hairline cracks; then, finding none, she checks the fins to make sure they're in solidly. She'll wait until morning to wax it, so she puts it back in its bag and up on the rack. Then she takes down her other big gun, a spare, because waves like this could easily snap a board in half and, if that happens, she wants to have another ready to go so she can get right back out there.

  Then she checks her leash, the five-foot cord that attaches at one end to the board, on the other end to a Velcro strap around her ankle. The invention of the leash made it possible to ride big waves, because the surfer could retrieve the board before it crashed into the rocks.

  But it's a double-edged sword, the leash. On the one hand, it helps potential rescuers find a surfer trapped underwater in the impact zone, because the board will pop to the surface and “headstone,” and divers can follow the leash down to the surfer. On the other hand, though, the cord can get tangled on rocks or coral reefs and trap the surfer under the water.

  Hence the Velcro “easy release” strap, and now Sunny practices her release. She straps the leash to her ankle and lies flat on the floor, then bends all the way forward and rips the Velcro off, removing the leash. She does this ten times from a lying-flat position, then rolls onto her side and does it ten more times each from the right and left side. Then she puts her feet up on the back of her couch, lies on the floor, and pulls herself up to rip the Velcro off. The routine builds the abdominal strength that could one day save her life if she's trapped underwater and has to do one of these “sit-ups” against a strong current of water pushing her back. It's a mental discipline, too, practicing in the calm, dry apartment so that the move will become so automatic that she can do it underwater, with her lungs burning and the ocean exploding over her.

  Satisfied with the maneuver, she gets up, goes into the narrow kitchen, and makes herself a cup of green tea. She takes the tea to the table, turns on her laptop computer, and logs on to www.surfshot.com to check the progress of the big swell.

  It's a swirling red blotch on the electronic map of the Pacific, building now up around Ventura County. The crews up there will be in the water in the morning, getting their big rides, making the mags.

  But the swell is clearly moving south.

  She stays on the site and checks buoy reports, water temperatures, weather reports, wind directions. It takes the perfect combination to produce the really big swell. All the kite strings have to come together at the same moment; a failure of any single element could destroy the whole thing. If the water gets too warm, or too cold, if the wind changes from offshore to onshore, if…

  She leaves the table and sits in front of the little shrine, made of a pine plank over cinder blocks. The plank supports a statue of Kuan Yin, a small bust of the Buddha, a photo of a smiling Dalai Lama, and a small incense burner. She lights the incense and prays.

  Please, Kuan Yin, please, don't let it stall out there, blow itself out in the sweeping curve of the South Bay. Please, compassionate Lord Buddha, let it come rolling to me. Please don't let it lose its anger and its force, its life-changing potential, before it gets to me.

  I've been patient, I've been persistent, I've been disciplined.

  It's my turn.

  Om mani padme hum.

  The jewel is in the lotus.

  Life is going to change, she thinks, whatever happens tomorrow.

  If I get a sponsorship, go out on the pro circuit-no, she corrects herself, not if- whenI get my sponsorship, go out on the pro circuit, I'll be traveling a lot, all over the world. I won't be at The Sundowner, I won't be at The Dawn Patrol.

  And Boone?

  Boone will never leave Pacific Beach.

  He'll say he will, we'll promise that we'll make time for each other, we'll talk about him coming out to where I am, but it won't happen.

  We'll drift, literally, apart.

  And we both know it.

  To be fair to Boone, he's been supportive.

  She remembers the conversation they had two years ago, when she was struggling with the decision of where to go with her life. They were in bed together, the sun just creeping through the blinds. He had slept, as always, like a rock; she had tossed and turned.

  “Am I good enough?” she asked him out of the blue.

  But he knew just what she was talking about. “Totally good enough.”

  “I think so, too,” she said. “I've been thinking I need to get serious. Really get ready to take my shot.”

  “You should,” he said. “Because you could be great.”

  I could, she thinks now.

  I can.

  I will.

  There's a knock on the door.

  She opens it and sees Boone standing there.

  114

  Dave the Love God launches the Zodiac into Batiquitos Lagoon.

  This is freaking crazy, he thinks, and he's absolutely right. Heavy surf warnings are out, the Coast Guard has issued a small craft advisory, and if anything qualifies as a small craft, it's a freaking Zodiac.

  He steers the Zodiac out of the lagoon toward the open ocean. It's near to being closed out; it's going to be tough busting out through the break. But Red Eddie is right: Dave knows these waters; he knows the breaks, the current, the sweet spots. If he can get out on a board, he can get out in a boat.

  He does.

  Takes an angle, drives through the shoulder between two breaks, gets outside, and points the Zodiac south. He decides to hug pretty close to the coast until he gets far enough south to turn seaward, toward the coordinates that Eddie had given him to meet the boat that's coming up from Mexico with the cargo.

  115

  “I was just thinking about you,” Sunny says.

  “Bad stuff?”

  “No.”

  Sunny lets Boone in and he sits down on the couch. She offers him a cup of tea, but he doesn't want anything. Well, he doesn't want anything to drink, but he seems to want to say something and can't seem to get there.

  She helps him out. “What happened to us, Boone?”

  “I don't know.”

  “We used to be great together,” she says.

  “Maybe it's the big swell,” Boone says. “It seems to be bringing something i
n with it.”

  She sits down beside him. “I've been feeling it, too. It's like how a big swell washes in and sweeps things away with it, and it's never the same again. It's not necessarily better or worse; it's just different.”

  “And there's nothing you can do about it,” Boone says.

  Sunny nods. “So this other chick…”

  “Petra.”

  “Okay. Are you and she…”

  “No,” Boone says. “I mean, I don't think so.”

  “You don't think so?”

  “I don't know, Sunny,” Boone says. “I don't know what it is. I don't know what I used to know. All I know is that things are changing, and I don't like it.”

  “The Buddha said that change is the only constant,” Sunny says.

  “Good for him,” Boone says. Old dude with a beer belly and a stoned smile, Boone thinks, sticking his nose between me and Sunny. “Change is the only constant”-New Age, retro-hippie, Birkenstock bullshit. Except it's sort of true. You look at the ocean, for instance; it's always changing. It's always a different ocean, but it's still the ocean. Like me and Sunny- our relationship might change, but we're always going to love each other.

  “You look tired,” Sunny says.

  “I'm trashed.”

  “Can you get a little sleep?” she asks.

  “Not yet,” he says. “How about you? You need your rest-big day coming.”

  “I've been hitting the chat rooms,” she says. “All the big boys are going to be there. A lot of tow-in crews. I'm going to give it a shot anyway, but…”

  “You'll shred it,” he says. “You'll kill them.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I know so.”

  God, she loves him for that. Whatever else Boone is or isn't, he's a friend, and he's always believed in her, and that means the world to her. She gets up and says, “I really should be getting to bed.”

  “Yeah.” He gets up.

  They stand close for a few painful, silent moments; then she says, “You're invited.”

  He wraps his arms around her. After today, after she rides her big wave, everything is going to be different. She's going to be different; they're going to be different.

  “I have something I have to do,” Boone says. “Tonight.”

  “Okay.” She squeezes him tightly for a second, feels the pistol. “Hey, Boone, there's a few dozen bad punch lines here, but…”

  “It's okay.”

  She squeezes him tighter for a second, then let go. Holding on, the Buddha says, is the source of all suffering. “You'd better go, before we both change our minds.”

  “I love you, Sunny.”

  “Love you, too, Boone.”

  And that's a constant that will never change.

  116

  The small boat pitches and rolls in the heavy swell.

  Waves smashing over the bow, the boat slides into the trench and then climbs out again, threatening to tip over backward before it can crest the top of the next wave.

  Out of control.

  The crew has experienced rough seas before, but nothing like this. Juan Carlos and Esteban have seen The Perfect Storm, but they never thought they'd be in the fucking thing. They don't know what the hell to do, and there might be nothing they can do-the ocean just might decide to do them.

  Esteban prays to San Andrйs, the patron saint of fishermen. A fisherman's son who found life in their small village too boring, Esteban went to the city in search of excitement. Now he fervently wishes that he'd listened to his father and stayed in Loreto. If he ever gets off this boat, he's going back, and never take his boat out of the sight of land.

  “Radio in a distress call!” Esteban yells to Juan Carlos.

  “With what we've got down below?” Juan Carlos replies. They have thirty-to-life in the hold. So they keep banging north against the tough southern current, trying to make the rendezvous point, where they can turn over their cargo.

  The cargo is down below.

  Terrified.

  Crying, whimpering, vomiting.

  Up on top, Juan Carlos says to Esteban, “This thing's going under!”

  He might be right, Esteban thinks. The boat is a dog, a bottom-heavy tub built for calm seas and sunny days, not for sledding down the face of mountains. It's bound to capsize. They'd be better off in the lifeboat.

  Which is what Juan Carlos is thinking. Esteban can see it in the older man's eyes. Juan Carlos is in his forties but looks older. His face is lined with more than the sea and the sun; his eyes show that he's seen some things in his life. Esteban is just a teenager-he's seen nothing-but he knows he doesn't want to carry this memory on the inside of his eyelids for the rest of his life.

  “What about them?” Esteban yells, pointing below.

  Juan Carlos shrugs. There isn't room in the life raft for them. It's a shame, but a lot of things in life are a shame.

  “I'm not doing it,” Esteban says, shaking his head. “I'm not just leaving them out here.”

  “You'll do what I tell you!”

  Esteban plays the trump card. “What would Danny say? He'd kill us, man!”

  “Fuck Danny! He's not out here, is he?” Juan Carlos replies. “You'd better worry about not dying out here; then you can worry what Danny's going to do!”

  Esteban looks down at the children below.

  It's wrong.

  “I'm not doing it.”

  “The fuck you're not,” Juan Carlos says. He whips the knife out from beneath his rain slicker and thrusts it toward Esteban's throat. Two will have a much better chance handling the lifeboat in these seas than one.

  “Okay, okay,” Esteban says. He helps Juan Carlos unlash the lifeboat and swing it over the side. It takes a while because they have to wait several times as the boat slides and then crests, almost tipping over. He and Juan Carlos have to grip the rails with all their strength just to hang on and not be pitched into the sea.

  They swing the boat out, but they can't climb into it because the boat rolls in that direction, almost lying flat on the water, the sea just inches from the gunwales. Juan Carlos slides toward the water but catches himself on the rail, his strong hands gripping for his life.

  Esteban kicks at the older man's hands.

  Holding on himself, he kicks again and again as Juan Carlos screams at him. But Esteban keeps kicking him. Juan Carlos never breaks his grip, but Esteban's feet break his fingers and the older man loses his hold and slips into the ocean. He tries to grab Esteban's leg and take the boy with him, but his hands are too smashed to hold on and the ocean takes him.

  Juan Carlos can't swim.

  Esteban watches him struggle for a moment and then go under.

  When the boat rights itself again, Esteban hauls himself up, staggers to the wheel, and turns the boat back into the oncoming wave. With his other hand, he unties his rope belt, then uses it to fasten himself to the column of the wheel.

  And prays.

  San Andrйs, I have fallen so far into evil that I would sell children. But I would not kill them, so I beg you for mercy. Have mercy on us all.

  The sea rises up in front of him.

  117

  Dave can't believe what he's looking at.

  He crests the top of a wave and sees the boat sitting in the trench, sideways to the oncoming wave, dangerously low in the water, sitting like a log to be rolled. The lifeboat dangles to the starboard side on its davits, as if the “Abandon ship” order had been given but not executed.

  Where the hell is the captain? Dave wonders. What's he thinking?

  Dave surfs the Zodiac down the wave, racing the break to the boat. He gets there seconds before, enough time to jump on, tie on, and hold on as the wave smashes into the side and knocks the boat on its side.

  Miraculously, it bobs back up again, and Dave makes his way to the wheelhouse.

  The pilot's unconscious, lying on the deck, next to the wheel, blood running from a cut on his head. Dave recognizes young Esteban from several of these pickups,
but what the fuck is the boy doing tied to the wheel? And where is Juan Carlos?

  Dave turns the boat back into the surf, locks the wheel on that setting, and kneels down beside Esteban. The kid's eyes open, and he smiles.

  “San Andrйs…”

  Saint Andrew, my ass, Dave thinks.

  Then he hears voices.

  It's a night for weird voices. It could be the wind playing tricks, but these voices seem to be coming from below.

  He walks around and opens the hatch.

  Can't fucking believe what he sees:

  Six, maybe seven young girls huddled together.

  118

  Dave gags.

  Even standing on deck in the sea air, the bottom reeks of vomit, urine, and shit, and Dave has to fight not to gag. Dave the Love God is seriously shaken up, maybe for the first time in his entire life. “Stay there,” he yells, shoving his palms out to make his point. “Just stay there!”

  He strides back to the wheelhouse. Esteban is picking himself up off the deck. Dave grabs him by the front of the shirt and shoves him against the wheel.

  “What the fuck?” Dave yells.

  Esteban just shakes his head.

  “I didn't sign up for this!” Dave hollers. “Nobody told me about this!”

  “I'm sorry!”

  “Where's Juan Carlos?”

  Esteban points to the water. “He fell over.”

  Good, Dave thinks. Adi-fucking-os. He'd just as soon toss Esteban over the side, too, but he needs him to help get these kids off the sinking boat and into the Zodiac.

  It isn't easy.

  The girls are sick, dizzy, and scared to death, reluctant to leave what little safety they have on the boat for the pitching sea. It takes all of Dave's lifeguard demeanor to calm them down and get them into his boat. He gets in first and stretches up his arms while Esteban hands them down one by one. He settles them into the Zodiac, carefully arranging them to balance the weight.

  The boat is going to be too heavy and sit too low in the water to be really safe, but there isn't really a choice. He either leaves them out here or he does his best to get them all in. He's not so worried about the open sea-the storm is calming down and he can negotiate the swells. The critical moment is going to be busting through the shore break, where the overloaded boat could easily flip or swamp. He doubts any of these kids are strong swimmers. If he doesn't bring the boat in upright, most of them will probably drown in the heavy white water that comes with the big swell.