Chapter 4
The room filled with the sound of wind.
A mechanical voice called altitude.
The camera shook.
Rain crossed the lens in silver streaks.
Then Gabe's voice came through the speakers.
“Swimmer's clear. Survivor in the cabin.”
My own voice answered.
“Roger. Count.”
A pause.
“Fourteen aboard.”
Another voice came through.
Dominic.
“Captain, I've got one more in the water.”
I closed my eyes.
I remembered exactly where he was.
Off the trawler's port side.
Beyond a tangle of floating debris.
Pavel Lund.
Twenty-six years old.
A deckhand who had spent the last forty minutes helping other men into rescue equipment.
Gabe said, “I don't have visual.”
Dominic answered, “I saw him. Red immersion suit. He's out there.”
I heard myself say, “Give me a position.”
The camera swung toward black water.
For a few seconds, there was nothing.
Then a red shape appeared between two waves.
Gabe shouted, “There!”
The helicopter moved.
The altimeter warning sounded.
I heard myself say, “Easy. I've got it.”
Dominic was already moving.
“Permission to deploy?”
There was a pause.
Not a long one.
Less than two seconds.
But I remembered everything I had calculated inside it.
Fuel.
Wind.
Distance to the cutter.
The helicopter's weight.
The exhausted swimmer.
Fourteen rescued people behind me.
And one man still in the water.
“Approved,” I said.
The camera showed Dominic dropping into darkness.
Grandpa's hands tightened around his cane.
The recording continued.
Gabe called out corrections.
“Left five. Forward two. Hold.”
I answered each instruction.
Then a wave swallowed the red suit.
Dominic shouted, “Lost visual!”
Another wave hit him.
Gabe called, “Swimmer drifting aft!”
I adjusted.
The aircraft shuddered.
“Fuel state,” I asked.
The copilot answered.
Then came the sentence I had spent nearly ten years trying not to remember.
“Kate, we're at bingo fuel.”
The point at which we had to leave if we were going to reach the cutter safely.
I could hear my breathing in the recording.
Then my own voice.
“One more minute.”
The room was completely silent.
On the screen, the ocean rose and fell.
Dominic searched.
Gabe kept the helicopter positioned over him.
Thirty seconds passed.
Forty.
Then Dominic's voice came through.
“I can't find him.”
I heard myself say, “Keep looking.”
Ten more seconds.
The copilot spoke.
“Commander. We have to go.”
I remembered looking down at the sea.
I remembered wanting to lower the helicopter until the skids touched the water.