“Copy.” Karl had command of the rescue, but he trusted Dan’s judgment. The basket was invaluable when you had somewhere to land it, but it could quickly turn into a real hindrance in open water.
“We are secured and ready.”
Karl reversed the winch and started to haul them up. He slowed as they cleared the water to reduce drag and let them stabilize as they climbed higher, and then hauled with a bit more oomph once the line steadied. Dan had a good double-looped hold of a kayaker who appeared to be responsive to Dan’s active questions. Good to keep the guy engaged and occupied.
Karl leaned out, caught Dan’s shoulder, and maneuvered his quarry to gain the deck. Dan twisted, and Heber grabbed the victim.
“Good call. Other guy down there thinks we have room for the kayaks. But this one, he just wanted out.” Dan perched on the edge again and winked at Karl. “Back in a jiffy.”
“Be careful.” Karl shifted on his feet and stretched out to give Dan a better drop point.
Dan stared at him instead of the water, and after a moment, he smiled—the kind of smile that might say things, if only Karl knew how to read it. His breath hitched, and heat speared his chest and spread up his cheeks. Dan’s smile widened and then ruptured into a grimace when the line lurched as the winch started to whine.
Karl stopped it, checked it, couldn’t find anything immediately wrong. He got Dan back in and unclipped, fed the line out and reeled it in again, on the watch for a birdcage in the strands or a misalignment on the spool.
“Seems okay. Let’s get the other one before it changes its mind.” Dan was expectant and boosted into ready position again.
“Not until I’m sure.” Karl braced his hand on the door and his arm across Dan’s chest.
“Problem?”
“Give me a wind break, Lang. I need to get out there.” Karl looked into the winch as soon as Lang turned the far side of the chopper into the wind. It ran smoothly so he tucked back inside and clipped Dan in.
“We’re good. We’re going.” Karl got Dan out the door and down.
He split his tense focus between Dan and the winch. Dan swam to the second kayaker, and Karl nodded and held his breath when he made the Go sign. A quarter of the way up, the winch shuddered and groaned. It sounded like it had chewed through something. Karl stopped it. He flinched as sparks flew and then he sat, his mind racing and wracked with indecision.
“Lower us back down. I’ll send our kayaker, and then you can come back for me. Less strain on things.”
“No way. I can nurse you both up a bit at a time.” Karl shook his head. “Not leaving you.”
“Just for the time it takes to get him in—we can do this.” Dan waved. “Better, or I’ll truss this guy up and unclip, and it’s a longer fall than I really wanna make.”
Karl grimaced. No good options, just the best of bad ones. If a total failure happened with both men on the line, they’d be stranded in midair. He didn’t think about what would happen if the failure occurred after the kayaker was aboard—if they deemed it best to leave Dan behind until backup arrived.
He couldn’t.
“Status report.” Jameson’s voice cracked the static and silence.
“Gear malfunction. It’s the winch. One kayaker and Rescue Swimmer Farnsworth are stuck dangling in midair.”
“Options?” Jameson’s voice was cool, but it sounded like censure and an order.
Karl wanted to scream. Instead he exhaled. “Working on it, sir.”
The winch had a solid cover, and he wouldn’t risk doing more damage by trying to pry into it, but he did consider giving it a swift kick. He started the line up again, and it rose in ungainly starts, jerking and bouncing Dan and the kayaker. Karl shut it off with a curse.
“Okay, Worth. One at a time it is.”
“Copy.”
Going down was easier, and the line slackened when they detached. Karl held the top end and kept careful watch. When Dan gave the signal and swam away, he brought the line in. His pulse thumped when it seized, but then it seemed to shift past an obstruction and continue a slow but steady climb.
Karl snagged the makeshift harness at the kayaker’s back and guided him to the door. Heber joined in the effort, and the guy was alert enough to do more than sag as deadweight.
“Second kayaker in. We pick up Worth, and we’re good.”
Lang cued in. “We’re holding steady and have plenty of fuel. Take your time, Radin. We’ll get him.”
“Fucking right,” he muttered, and he began the process all over again.
Down, no complaint. Dan clipped in. The winch cooperated. Karl counted every second, every inch. Three-quarters up the winch jammed. It sounded like shifting a car without using the clutch, and black smoke billowed from under the housing.
“Dammit.” Karl leaned far out and punched the thing with the side of his fist. All it did was hurt, but he reared back and punched it again. Next he huffed, cast about in the helicopter for a length of rope, and bellied onto the deck. He pushed with his toes until he lay with his hips at the edge and all the rest of him hanging over the void.
He fed the rope to Dan, but he had no idea what he’d do with it once Dan caught it.
“Millibars are dropping, and fast. I think those clouds are going to be more than a pretty show in the distance.”
Scobey’s report tightened the vise around Karl’s heart, but he didn’t give up.
“Radin—”
Heber shouted his name a second before landing on him to force all the air from his lungs. The decking dug into him, and he freaking heard his hips grind against the metal. The helicopter bucked again, and Heber was thrown aside. Karl slid sideways, hit the doorframe, and watched the sky appear overhead as he felt himself slip from the helicopter.
“Hey! Who’s got Karl? You copy me? Who’s got him? Get him in!”
Karl was abstractly aware of Dan yelling as he scrabbled for a handhold and tried to catch the edge with his knees. He knew a breathless second of weightlessness, grabbed hold of the safety line that tethered him to the helicopter, and braced for impact in case he swung wide and hit the struts. Someone grabbed his ankles, and he tensed. He pulled in from his core and performed an excruciating sit-up from being basically bent over backward. Heber grabbed his shoulder and hauled him in.
The kayaker in better shape hooked his armpit, and he landed on all fours in the middle of the helicopter. Karl let his forehead drop against the deck and sucked wind.
“Radin?”
Karl nodded, but Dan couldn’t see him.
“Yeah—here. I’m in.”
“Whew. Okay. Good.” Lang still sounded the perfect, crisp pilot, but a waver of stress escaped on his exhale.
“Roll over. C’mon.” Heber tilted Karl’s head from side to side and frowned. He pressed gauze to Karl’s cheek. “Shrapnel from whatever just blew up caught you. But I think you’ll live.”
“Do you know what the malfunction is?”
Lang’s question seemed like the most inane thing Karl had ever heard, but rationally he knew it wasn’t.
“Nope. Everything checked out preflight.”
“Possible something got sucked in there or crawled in on its own during the flight. Time for Plan C. Plan D. Whatever.” Lang lowered the chopper so Dan wasn’t dangling so far over the ocean.
“What if we drop Worth on land?” Scobey craned in her seat to look all around them. “It’s not too far to get there, and locals will be glad to come get him.”
Not exactly standard procedure, but in Alaska, you learned to improvise. Still.
“I don’t like it.” Karl got free from Heber and set his jaw.
“Of course you don’t.”
Karl growled at Lang. “Survival in the wild is difficult for a seasoned vet. And we’re just gonna drop Worth down in it? This isn’t some Outward Bound crap.”
“But it’s that or fly back with him like this the whole way. Not exactly optimal, but that storm isn’t going to wait on us. If
we were closer to base or didn’t have that storm to contend with, maybe we could manage. And have it not be too hard on Worth.” Lang paused. “We’re not leaving him behind, Radin.”
“Aren’t we?” he ground out. He could try the winch again. At best he could get Dan close enough to haul inside. At worst he could watch the fucker explode and Dan free-fall to smack against the water.
Lang guided them toward land. “We’re starting back, regardless.”
They flew in tense silence. Karl crawled to the open door and peered over. Dan was tucked in against the buffeting wind and looked secure.
“Smoke. Let’s get to it. Could be signs of civilization.” Scobey reported their heading and queried base on the plan.
Karl watched the undulating thread of a road appear under them through a scarred landscape recently logged. Older, graying stumps followed, and then the roofs of a scattering of buildings, surrounded by stacks of milled lumber—the source of Scobey’s smoke.
“This isn’t far from the highway. Someone’s here—four o’clock.”
Karl looked where Scobey indicated. Three figures emerged from one of the buildings. Two pickup trucks were nearby.
“What do we think?” Lang waited a beat and then said, “Radin, your call.”
As if on cue, hard, stinging rain laced with ice began to spatter. Dan looked up, and their gazes locked.
“Radin?”
Dan nodded and made the Okay sign.
“Be careful,” he said, not taking his eyes from Dan.
Lang hovered low but clear of the buildings and strings of power lines. The men from the mill waved and ran over to help stabilize Dan, and they all duck-walked clear of the rotors.
“Someone from the station will get you.” Lang gained altitude. “Hang tight, Worth.”
“Roger that. I’m good until then.”
Karl watched the ground drop away and kept his eyes on Dan’s diminishing figure. Almost out of sight, he waved. He didn’t know if Dan saw him. Then he shoved his worry aside and got back to work securing equipment and the door and assisted Heber with the kayakers as they made their way to the hospital.
DAN pressed his hand against the roof so he wasn’t bounced from the seat as the truck rumbled along the rutted road. He kept it there until they turned onto the highway. The millworkers had given him a sweatshirt to wear with his dry suit, but it stunk of machine oil and wet wood. His shoulders were on fire, and he flexed, winced, and slowly began to roll them.
“Not but thirty-some miles or so, and we’ll be to Eider.” Grizzly Ben hammered the clutch and forced the truck into a lower gear.
“Oh well, barely a blip.” Dan was teasing, but Ben gruffed and nodded in agreement.
Apparently Grizzly Ben was the man’s real, given name, and not a backwoods Alaska-only nickname earned for fighting a bear to a standstill of mutual respect to prove his worth. But he was built hugely enough to have done so—about the same height as Dan but probably twice as broad in the chest and arms. Dan assumed that logging and milling the old-fashioned way had that effect.
Clear from the rubble of downed trees, stacks of branches waiting to be cleared, and old stumps, the landscape returned to almost-black dense forest and a huge concrete sky as it started to rain. Dan tracked the mountains in the distance. He hadn’t seen them from that angle, but he recognized them from his view at the station.
“Thanks again for this.”
Ben shrugged. “Glad to help. Not many of us to go around out here, so lending a hand just makes sense.”
Dan accepted his logic. The guys at the mill had taken it pretty well in stride, as though a crippled Coast Guard chopper dropping off one of their own for temporary safekeeping was all in a normal day’s work.
“And Grady there knew Axe.” Ben went quiet and seemed to think something over but then shook his head. “Wouldn’t want to let that down.”
Dan’s mouth went dry. No one at the station volunteered anything about Axe. “Were they friends?”
Ben stroked his bushy mustache. “I’d say yes. After a sort.”
“Kinda cryptic.” Dan grinned at Ben’s quick look over at him. “Just saying.”
“They had some things in common they enjoyed together.”
What did that mean? A study of Ben told Dan he wouldn’t say more. It seemed as though he was trying not to speak ill against Axe’s memory. Could that tie to Swift’s old cabin—what he knew as the cabin Axe bought—and what happened there? The radio beacon dredged up from the dark sea?
He’d have to find a way to talk to Grady or find out about him. Dan worried at the problem until his low-level headache roared. He had a deep swallow of the chewable coffee they’d given him after his surprise landing and let his head fall back. Another mysterious piece to this stupid mess.
Nothing about the rescue bothered him—wrangling impatient and exhausted kayakers in the unforgiving surf and their flimsy craft and dangling midair, even the stutter-stops when he wondered if the winch would give out and drop him to bounce off the water. He took it in stride and didn’t dwell on it or let it rattle him. Just part of the job.
But watching Karl tip face-first out of the chopper—even knowing a safety line connected him to the bird—had made Dan’s heart seize. He started to climb the line without thought, hand-over-hand, desperately planning some harebrained scheme to do the impossible and catch Karl on the way down. Then Heber hauled Karl back inside, and Dan started to breathe again.
“You go on and rest up, Officer Farnsworth.”
Dan made a noise and opened his eyes. He hadn’t realized they’d closed. Grizzly Ben snapped the radio on. A yellowed tape poked from the slot like a bad tooth. He pushed it back in. Willie Nelson warbled through the cab, and Ben nodded along. Dan didn’t need to be called officer, but Dan let it go.
“I’ll jab you when we get to Eider.”
Dan wanted to stay awake and see the area, but he could only manage another low noise in agreement. His impulsive swim and that hairy rescue finally caught up, and exhaustion pulled at him, heavy, syrupy, and irresistible.
“Worth? C’mon.”
Dan muttered and pushed his face back to his pillow.
“Let’s get you to the station, and you can clean up and nap.”
He huffed and batted the hand that shook his arm.
“Worth, come on.” A dry huff and a low cuss, and Karl said, “Dan, wake up.”
He heard the click of his seat belt, and he pried an eye open. Karl stood in the open passenger door haloed by sunlight. Dan smiled, slid from the seat, and wrapped Karl in his arms. He tucked his face into Karl’s neck and breathed out, relieved and comforted, and tightened his hold. Tension he hadn’t realized had hold of him unraveled.
Karl rubbed his back, and they rocked in place. When Karl moved, Dan grunted in protest.
“Okay, buddy. You awake enough to get in the Jeep?”
Dan inhaled the warmth and scent of Karl’s sweat and skin and that something spicy underneath. He yawned and leaned away.
“Guess so,” he grumped. He squinted at Ben—oh yeah, Ben—and patted the seat. “Thanks, man.”
Ben glanced at Karl and back to Dan. He smiled. “You take care, Officer Farnsworth.” He nodded past him at Karl. “Radin, good seeing you.”
“It’s appreciated.” Karl had Dan’s elbow. He tugged Dan along, shut the truck door, and got him into the Jeep parked right next to it.
Karl wore a coat thrown over his flight suit and a butterfly stitch on his cheek.
“What’s this?” Dan had to touch it. He hated the bruises darkening under the bandage and under Karl’s eye and how hot with blood just under the skin they were.
Karl flinched, and Dan pulled his hand back.
“Sorry.”
“You surprised me. It didn’t hurt.” Karl rubbed his cheek like it itched.
Dan pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes and tried to come online. “How are our kayakers?”
“Stable and very
glad to be off the water. The lobster didn’t blister, so he got off lucky with that sunburn. They said to tell you thanks.”
“Good.”
“I had a look at the winch, and Yaz and the others are busy pulling it apart right now. Everything checked out preflight, and I have no idea what happened. It shouldn’t have happened.” Karl balled his hand into a fist that he tapped against the gear shift. “Dammit.”
“Unexpected things and accidents happen—like getting caught in a current you don’t know exists so you have to call the Coast Guard to pluck your ass out of the cold, cruel waters before you end up as an Orca snack.”
“Orca snack?”
That made Karl chuckle, and his hand loosened a bit. Dan liked that.
“Yeah. It’s totally a thing.” He shoved his hands under the smelly sweatshirt and repositioned his legs so different spots got the benefit of the heater. “It’s not like you did it on purpose. Yaz will get it figured out, and we’ll fix it. I’m fine. No harm done.”
Dan blinked as he remembered saying that earlier in the day, although it seemed years ago after everything that had happened. Karl’s reaction this time was a lot different.
“I’m glad there was none. I couldn’t…. ” Karl bit off anything more. “Jameson said you can debrief later, after you get changed and get some dinner in you.”
Dan’s stomach rumbled at the mention of food. He wanted to ask if Karl had volunteered to get him or been pressed into doing so, he wanted to ask about Grady, and he wanted to ask Karl to have dinner with him, even just to sit and keep him company. But he didn’t.
Karl parked in his spot, and Dan braced for the cold. His fatigue and the relative warmth of the shared Jeep made the air outside feel twice as frigid. He shivered but stopped because Karl’s attention was fixed on something in the distance.
“Hey, what?”
“I’m not sure.” Karl put his hands on his hips and glared at a spot in the trees, upland from the station. “Thought I saw a flash of something—almost like a scope or binoculars.”
Dan shaded his eyes with a hand and scanned the trees Karl was currently burning an angry laser-beam gaze into. “Yeah, I’m not picking it up.”
Staggered Cove Station Page 8