127

 

THREE MILES OUT TO SEA, NEARLY 12:00 NOON

Gwen hit the water in a bone-screaming collision. She smashed through the froth of a breaking wave, then plummeted into the black. She went so deep she felt her ears would implode. And she kept going down. She was desperate to stop her descent, could do nothing but go with it. When at last she began to slow and stop. She jackknifed, arrowed up, desperate for the breath smashed out of her by the impact.

She came up to a heaving, desolate world. Fifty feet away the helicopter, rotors thrashing the waves, slowly sank. Of the pilot, there was no sign. Rising and falling with the waves about ten feet from her was Randy Sieber’s body. He lay face up. Eyes unmoving. Gwen looked at him without pity. He had fought. He had lost. He had got what he deserved. She turned away. She had another battle to fight.

What way was home? How far away were they? Which way to swim? Around her the waves were cresting, breaking on her. She worked her arms and legs, treading water, staying afloat, just. She was beyond lucky. Nothing broken, just hideous bruising. She pulled off her boots, struggled out of her jeans and shirt.

Her watch, her Garmin with its GPS system, was still strapped to her wrist. It was waterproof. But crash proof? It had survived enough surf wipeouts, but nothing like this. Gwen said a small prayer, flicked on the GPS. It worked! The shore was indicated by an arrow. It was three miles away. She’d swum that far before. Easily, but never in seas like this. And not after a slamming fall that had bruised every inch of her and had killed a man. What choice did she have? Stay here with Sieber’s body?

Shit! He moved.

“Help me,” he called, thrashing suddenly. “My legs … they’re broken.”

Gwen didn’t say a word. Just looked at him for a moment, checking there was no pistol in his floundering hands. There wasn’t. In water your body could cool twenty-five times as fast as in air. Unable to swim, to move to keep warm, Sieber wouldn’t last long before he succumbed to hypothermia. That was if he didn’t drown first. Justice for Al Freidland, for Elise Rochberger, and for whoever else Sieber might have killed.

Gwen turned and swam away. Sieber’s cries soon faded.

She fought through the water, doing a slow front crawl. She couldn’t look back, couldn’t stop to check over her shoulder for looming waves that might crash on her. All she could do was swim, and keep swimming.

Her body rose and fell with the waves. Water gushed in from all angles. The air was saturated with water, spume, and spray. The spindrift spooled like shredded white ribbons. It looked pretty, in pictures. It was deadly to swimmers.

Gwen breathed through clenched teeth, careful not to suck in water. When she did, she had to stop, cough, grab at a slice of calm, carry on.

The minutes passed; the waves grew bigger still. Up and down she went, riding the waves, propelled forward, but too often down, underwater. The wind screamed with an almost personal savagery. The rain sluiced down. Fighting to stay afloat, to move forward, Gwen felt her muscles begin to burn. Oxygen, she needed more oxygen. She sucked in more breath, told herself, over and over, you can do it, you can do it. She checked her Garmin to ensure she was swimming as straight a line for shore as she could. She had covered one mile. Two to go.

Hope flared. She imagined arriving at the shore. Somewhere near San Luis Obispo, if the currents didn’t push her north or south. She tried to see it in her mind, saw herself feeling sand under her feet, saw herself on dry land. The images of the truly enormous waves that would be breaking on the shore, should she even make it that far, she blanked from her mind. Arm over arm, leg kick, leg kick. On she went as the storm built and the sky darkened.