Chapter Three

 

 

DAN jumped from the Jeep, and Karl fell into step beside him. He didn’t feel the cuts or bruises or anything but the urgency to perform. They left everything behind and ran into the station. Lang, Scobey, and Gent joined them as they filed into the briefing room. Jameson waited half a second while they got seated.

“Have a ship requesting medical evacuation of one of their crew. He’s got a serious laceration on the left arm—visible bone, and they worry there’s tendon damage as his hand is unresponsive. They’ve apparently got him duct-taped closed and stable, but it’s more than they can fix on board. And they’re nowhere near their turnaround.” Jameson pulled one of the many maps down over the front whiteboard and poked at a nowhere spot in the ocean.

“Turnaround?” Dan whispered to Lang.

“Our slang for saying they haven’t been out long enough to get in all their fishing pots or whatever, and they’re unwilling to come back in if they don’t have to.” Lang shrugged. “Pretty typical up here, but nothing bad in it—just crews making a living.”

Dan made a note. “Got it. Thanks.”

“We have low crosswinds, and the squall forecasted to be in our area has stalled far west of the ship’s position. Should be a straightforward grab and go. Once the patient is secured, we’ll deliver him directly to the hospital.” Jameson rolled the printouts and whapped them against his palm. “All right. Let’s get to it.”

Dan grinned—he couldn’t help it—and matched everyone’s controlled but quick exit from the room.

Jameson halted him with the roll of paper stuck in his path. “Good luck out there. Make it a good first. Okay?”

Dan nodded. “I certainly will.” He ran to his locker, got changed, stashed the note and key, and dashed out into the rain to the chopper.

Karl had somehow beaten him there, checklist in hand. Dan got in, settled on the bench, and went over his own necessary checks before takeoff. In minutes Lang and Scobey had the chopper whirring, and he watched the world drop away as the nose turned toward the ocean. Adrenaline surged, and Dan’s nerves buzzed enough to make him fidget with anticipation, but he wasn’t distracted or afraid. If anything, he was impatient, ready to go.

He tracked their progress over the water against the chart he brought on board. It looked like he was being a good newbie and learning on the job, but he wasn’t paying attention to their end destination. Instead he followed the arced line of travel the helicopter had taken the day Axe disappeared. When they split from that trajectory, he stared hard into the distance where the ocean got darker and deeper and then stared back to find land. They were so far out that it wasn’t visible.

Dan added that to his mental list and then folded and stowed the chart. Time to pay attention to the task at hand. He breathed steadily and went over his steps and the order of operation. He imagined the rescue again and again, visualizing it all so his actions could click into automatic when they got there.

Karl looked at him askance, and he could read the question in his dark eyes. He gave a thumbs-up, but Karl continued to watch him with both eyebrows arched in question, and Dan couldn’t keep from smiling in readiness. He shook his head, but Karl nodded, seemingly satisfied, and went back to work. Dan’s smile didn’t quite fade, and he ignored the warm rush in his chest from Karl’s reassurance.

Some thirty minutes out, Lang announced they were nearing the rescue site. He barely registered the ongoing prattle of their arrival, coordinates, state of weather conditions, and the ship below. Karl waved him to the winch, and he duck-walked over. His movements were automatic and expert as he clipped his harness to the line and pitched himself out. Then he was over the lip of the deck and going down.

Wind from the rotors buffeted and lashed him with spray, but Dan hardly noticed. He focused on the target below as Karl worked to help guide him there. As he neared the ship, he steered with his hands and legs. The fishing boat bobbed bow to stern in huge, undulating waves, and he had a wary eye on the midship bridge that rose above everything and the equipment arms at starboard that poked jagged fingers toward the sky.

“Easy.” Karl’s voice on the comm sounded confident and controlled. “Thread the needle, and we’ll hang a minute, make sure we’re square, and then let you down.”

“Copy.” Dan folded his arms in, and the line swayed and worked him around the equipment. He watched without fear as he swung toward the raised bridge. He could tell by feel that the swing wasn’t enough to knock him into it. When Dan’s momentum slowed to as still as he’d get, he raised a hand to signal.

“This feels good.”

“Good?” Karl double-checked.

“Copy. I’d say I’m stable and good to go down.”

“Watch your feet by the big open bay there in the middle of the deck. And the pile of buoys behind you. Chop from the blades is giving them a bit of a ride.”

“Copy. Thanks.” Dan didn’t question or resent the information. Karl was up in the chopper controlling the rescue for a reason.

He made contact with the ship’s deck, loosened his knees, and bobbed to match the movements of the boat. When he steadied he unclipped the line. Then he called it, held the clip until it cleared overhead, and then gave his full attention to the ship.

“Hello. Who’s the captain?”

A craggy-faced man broke from the group. “That’d be me. This way.” He didn’t waste time or breath, and Dan followed him below deck.

The patient was propped on the galley table, his injured arm tucked on a shelf above it, wrapped in bloody towels. He was alert and responsive and muttered more about the pay he’d miss and the crap the boys had already given him than the pain. His face didn’t have good color, but he wasn’t green or shocky white.

“Hi there. I’m Dan. My team and I are ready to get you out of here.” He should give his name and rank, but it always seemed dickish to him. “I’m going to have a look at you, and then we’ll get you on board my ride and on your way to get that arm patched up. Sound good?”

“No.” The man’s watery blue eyes wouldn’t quite focus on Dan, and he slurred his words. “Rather stay, but capt’n said no dice. Can’t use this hand anyway, so guess that’s about right. Call me Jeb.”

“Great. Thanks Jeb.” Dan smiled and hopped onto the table to sit next to him.

He went through a battery of questions and subtly checked Jeb’s vitals as he went. Jeb wasn’t quick on the uptake, but nothing was wrong enough to alarm Dan.

“Time to haul you up top. Here.” Dan stood, pushed his hip into the side of the table, and wrapped an arm around Jeb. “Give me your weight and take your time.”

Jeb scoffed at the idea—he was bigger around than a barrel—but Dan stood firm. After attempting to slide off under his own steam Jeb huffed a low curse and did as Dan directed.

Dan had to angle them through the narrow doors and passages, and he let go of Jeb and half pushed, half supported him from behind to get them upstairs. He let Karl know they were almost ready for pickup, and apprised Gent of the initial wellness check.

He glanced around for a good spot to leave Jeb, sat him on a nearby spool of something that looked solid, and then he gave the signal for the basket.

Karl had it at the ready, and it dropped from the helicopter and onto the deck with precision. Dan snagged a corner before it could skitter around, and with help from one of the crew, lifted Jeb into it. He tucked the injured arm in against Jeb’s chest.

“You keep your arm in like that as you go up. There’s no way you can fall out of this basket, so don’t worry about hanging on. They’ll help you get out once you’ve reached the helicopter. Just sit tight and let them. We don’t want you opening that back up or doing more damage after we did all this work to rescue you.” He grinned and winked, and Jeb managed a tight smile.

“Patient’s in the basket. Basket is ready to fly.” Dan patted Jeb’s shoulder. “You’re going to be fine. The trip will go faster than you think. She’s solid, so you just lie back and stay calm. Okay?”

He could tell Jeb was scared shitless at the prospect of floating in a wire basket above the open ocean, which might be the wise way to regard it, as opposed to Dan’s no-holds-barred love for every moment. But there was nothing to be done about that.

Dan guided the basket as it lifted and steadied it until he could no longer reach. “For reference, Jeb looks like this is the absolute last thing he wants to be doing, so watch for him to be a bit nervous at the top.”

“Copy that,” Karl acknowledged.

Dan leaned back and watched. Shielding his face with a hand, he nodded at Karl’s outstretched thumbs-up. He looked over when the captain approached.

“This came up in one of our pots. Found it yesterday. We were holding on to it, thinking to turn it in once we got back ashore. But with you here, seems best I turn it in. Don’t know if it’s onna yers or what, but you’ll know.” The captain held a small bundle out to Dan. “Prolly hasn’t been under too long. Color on it’s still good, and no critters living in it yet.”

Dan took it and blinked in surprise at its heavy weight.

“Was far down, ’cause we had our pots at a good depth. Figure the weights got snagged around the line somehow.”

The captain unfolded the bundle to reveal a misshapen hunk of lead with a closed hook at its top, like some oversized version of the line sinks he used while fishing as a kid. Fabric was jammed and tied through the loop, and Dan’s blood went cold at what dangled at the end of it.

“Thanks for this. Definitely something we’re glad to have.” Dan hefted the small bundle. “Did you find anything else?”

“Nah. But we’ll keep our eyes out.” The captain nodded as though he were in on something important.

He just might be.

Dan patted his shoulder. “Great.”

He heard the procedural chatter on his headset but didn’t listen. His ears rang, and he had to relax his shoulders by increments so he could nod normally at the captain. Then he zipped the bundle into his suit and returned to the clear spot on the deck to wait for the line’s arrival to fetch him.

“We’ll radio when we get Jeb to the hospital. He’s in good hands.”

“I know it. Why d’ya think I called?”

“Aside from not wanting to give up on your pot run before you even started?” Dan chanced throwing in.

The captain gave him a momentarily gimlet eye and then cracked up and whapped him on the shoulder. “About right, boy. Thanks for coming. Good seas to ya.”

“And good seas to you.” It seemed rude not to return the sentiment.

He acknowledged Karl’s call that the line was three-quarters of the way down, and he made hand motions to get the crew backed away. They each gave him a firm nod, and he appreciated their stout lack of panic and their simple gratitude. The swells picked up, and Dan instinctively crouched as though he were riding a surfboard. He watched above as the line dangled nearer and nearer.

“Hold while I adjust,” Lang instructed.

“Copy that. Holding.” Dan’s eyebrows went up when the line clanked into the equipment and then swung back his way. The helicopter maneuvered with purpose in opposition to the momentum of the line and kept it steady while the boat heaved.

“Good as it’ll get.”

“Copy. Line all the way in.” Karl watched from above.

Dan felt the intensity of Karl’s stare, his concentration and care, and it seemed to surround him in safety. That emboldened him to grab the line and clip in.

“I’m secured.”

“Copy. Diver coming up.”

Dan saluted the crew and then focused on the hazards of his ascent. The foreign lump of the bundle in his suit worried at him. It was a gnawing presence, and he wasn’t sure what to do with it. As he approached the chopper, he shoved the worries aside, and drilled-in motions took hold. Karl gripped his hand, and he climbed aboard. They worked together to quickly get him unclipped and out of the doorway.

Dan shuffled back to give him room, and in moments Karl had the door closed and informed Lang that they were ready to get underway. His body ached, his eyes burned, and his mind swam in a whirlpool of questions and doubts. The fatigue and unrest weren’t caused by the routine rescue. He didn’t know any protocol for dealing with what he’d discovered. He could—should—go to Curtis with his discovery and then step back as the investigation took its course. But it wasn’t that easy. The neat, weighty bundle of fabric sat ominously in his mind’s eye.

He didn’t have anything but himself—no support structure, fallback, or even friends in Staggered Cove. He’d known that coming in, but the stark truth of it hit like a punch.

“Good work.” Karl crouched in front of him, and Dan was startled out of his thoughts. “You okay, kid?”

“All good.” He swallowed the lie and unconsciously covered the bundle next to his heart. “Thanks.”

Dan glanced over to watch Gent deal with Jeb, who was already laid out on a stretcher. When he looked back, Karl was still staring at him, intently. Unable to read Karl’s expression, Dan licked his lips and tasted salt. His adrenaline gave over to unease.

“Sure?”

“Sure.”

Flecks of color glimmered in Karl’s eyes in the reddish half-light. The chopper shook and vibrated, and the noise was ceaseless. Dan followed the sardonic arch of Karl’s eyebrows, his straight, narrow nose, to the full pillow of Karl’s lower lip.

He shook his head. “Double sure.”

“Okay, then.” Karl patted Dan’s leg.

Dan again pressed his hand to the bundle against his chest and closed his eyes.

They landed at the hospital and transferred Jeb to their care by rote movement and response. The flight back to the station was a blur. When they landed, Dan finished his cross-checks, remembered to say thanks and good work to Lang, Scobey, and Gent, and then hit the helipad and nearly ran for the station.

He couldn’t quite look at Karl, but he felt Karl watching him go.

Jameson caught him on his way to his room, and Dan hid his impatience to get there, stripped, and out to the shower before Karl made it inside.

“Textbook mission, Farnsworth. And we already have word Jeb is stabilized.”

“Thank you, sir. It went well.”

“G’on and get cleaned up and warm. We’ll do a short debrief after that. Great first start—like we said.” Jameson waited a beat and then nudged Dan along.

“Yes, yeah, definitely,” Dan managed with a flat smile and a flatter tone.

He darted past the duty station and mess. The corridor seemed triple its length, and every noise made him jump to see if Karl had caught up with him. Dan entered their room like a criminal, back to the wall, gaze wild and everywhere, before he caught his breath and patted the literal lump in his chest.

Dan unzipped his suit and dumped the bundle on his desk. It landed with a thud so loud he cringed and held still to the count of five. Nothing. He unfolded the fabric to reveal unmistakable items—a neatly cut square of the orange-red cloth of a Coastie’s dry suit, personal radio beacon attached, the long tail of the cloth threaded through two large fishing-line sinks.

He should pick it up, run right back to Curtis’s office, and hand it over. Instead Dan hid the weights and radio beacon in a zipped bag that he buried in his footlocker. His whole body shook as he undressed, fingers barely able to manipulate buttons and zippers and elastic. Someone had weighted down a personal radio beacon and sunk it in the ocean. If the beacon was Axe’s—Dan somehow just knew it was, and what were the odds?—it opened a whole mess of new questions. What did it mean? And who tied it down to get lost to the fathomless ocean?

Dan hurried down the hall and fumbled the shower controls, but there wasn’t a shower long enough to clean away the disturbed unease churning his insides.

Finding the beacon was bad. But it was Jameson’s words that rang in his mind. It had been a great rescue. More than that, during the rescue Dan was comfortable, confident, able to do his job without a worry, because he already trusted Karl with his life without a second thought. They had an easy and immediate rapport as they worked together, and he was reassured when Karl checked up on him when he got back in the chopper. Karl’s dark eyes had been serious with a concern beyond duty.

Karl Radin, the man he’d shown up ready to interrogate, blame, even hate for Axe’s disappearance, was calm, skilled, and efficient. After one mission Dan could already tell that Karl was the best he’d worked with. Someone that conscientious on a routine rescue—so careful with his swimmer and his crew—didn’t seem likely to have let Axe get in trouble or worse without a fight.

He didn’t know what to make of that and reluctantly added it to his list of things he had to find out.

 

 

KARL completed his postrescue checklist and sat on the deck of the helicopter. He toed the asphalt landing pad and drummed his fingers on his knee.

Lang came around the chopper with a clipboard folded to his chest. He nodded at Karl and lifted a fist. “Way to not screw up out there.”

“Way to not pilot us into the drink.” Karl held his fist out, and they traded up-and-down bumps.

“The kid did good.”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. He did.”

“What? You don’t think so?” Lang skimmed the chopper’s skin and prodded a few spots. “I miss something?”

“No, nothing.” Karl got his thoughts together when Lang stopped and frowned at him. “It went fine, and I think it’s gonna work okay. And I like him so far, so.” He shrugged.

“Wow, that’s a lot from you. I won’t let on.” Lang squinted west out over the water. “And we got in before the sun disappeared. I like that.”

“Did you see where Dan—Worth,” he corrected, “hurried off to?”

“Inside and over, so pretty sure the showers.”

Karl pictured it for half a second, and his throat tightened. “We have hours of duty left,” he managed and sounded cranky for trying.

“Yeah, and he’s the only one who got drenched, cold, and coated with salt.” Lang whapped Karl’s shoulder. “And you only just managed to say you liked him. Don’t be so hard on the kid. It’s a shower, not a spa day. Gent’s probably already napping, and I’m about to go slay some dragons with Scobey. You might even relax too. It could happen.”

Karl grunted. “Yeah, yeah. It was just a question.” He didn’t think Dan was shirking—he wanted to know where Dan headed when they landed.

Lang nodded and then walked to the nose of the chopper to finish his checklist. He kicked Karl as he went by with the kind of friendly, on-purpose asshole gesture they all tended toward.

Karl’s smile quickly disappeared. He sat in the relative shelter of the helicopter as the wind picked up and waited until Lang went inside. He should be satisfied with the rescue, with liking Dan well enough based on their scant interactions, but he couldn’t be. After a long exhale, he unfolded whatever it was Dan had forgotten in some of the gear strapping. No reason to be anxious, but his pulse thumped an uncertain rhythm, and his hands trembled. Something in Dan’s eye after the rescue got Karl’s hackles up, and Dan scurrying away, downcast and evasive, only deepened his suspicions.

Karl scowled as he stared at the chart spread over his lap, hating that it did nothing to alleviate the feeling that something was off with Dan and had been from the get-go. He didn’t need to double-check the coordinates marked on the map to recognize them.

He pictured Dan scanning the water—the coastline and the far horizon—as they flew to the rescue. He thought Dan was getting a sense of things, a first good look at the kind of ocean they contended with up here. He’d been inordinately pleased by Dan’s seeming dedication to duty and learning. It wasn’t exactly his business what Dan did in town, but his long disappearance didn’t sit well with him. Dan was serious about the rescue, and as long as Dan did well in the water, that’s all that mattered.

But as he scanned the chart—a plotted course from the station to the wreckage where Axe had disappeared at sea—all his misgivings roared back with a vengeance.

There was no direct reason for them, quite. Dan could be curious about the accident but unwilling to ask around about it. He might not want to bother anyone or bring up bad memories. It could be simple reconnaissance to get his own eyes on the place where it happened, how far from land and how vast the dark ocean was out there, as both a warning and a lesson. But Karl couldn’t shake the feeling that it was more than that.

He folded the chart and slipped it into his pocket. A thin layer of clouds had wrapped the coastline, and light rain began to patter as he walked to the station.

“Ha. I was raised in the Philippines, and then south Texas. You got nothing on me, California.” Scobey’s voice carried from the mess, and Karl peered inside. He found her making an I win face at Dan and holding a mug of coffee in each hand. Lang watched her impatiently over the back of a sofa that faced a wall of monitors.

“That seems fair, except for the part where I actually get in the water and you stay way above, nice and cozy.” Dan wore fresh clothes and sock feet, and his hair was wet.

Karl ignored the small warm pang seeing those sock feet caused. Nothing about Dan—size, build, clear capability during the rescue—was vulnerable. The last thing his sanity needed was to start inventing reasons to prove Dan needed concern, caretaking, a lot more. Of course Dan had that lost look and the disappointed confusion that Karl picked up on during their trip to town. Karl sensed a furtive uncertainty just under the surface. But yeah, no.

Not with the other stuff going on. Not at all.

Scobey made a grudging, but not conceding, noise and boosted over the back of the sofa to slide into place next to Lang without spilling a drop. The huge middle screen flickered to life, and well-armored figures rampaged across a wooded landscape. The other screens displayed local radar on a continual loop and national weather on a muted broadcast.

Karl got water, a coffee, and something to eat. A hot cheesy-mac casserole and veggies felt good going down after the chill of outside. Dan busied himself at the kitchen pass-through and then settled into a chair next to him. Karl supposed it would look weird for Dan to sit at a different table in the mostly empty mess, but he still told himself to act normal as he shoved the salt and pepper in Dan’s direction.

Dan nodded and added so much salt to everything that the surface glistened. They ate in silence.

“Hey—you guys hear?” Marcum entered the mess with a round-faced, “built like a fireplug” man on his heels. “Old Swift’s place came tumbling down today.”

The fireplug kicked a chair back and sat with them. His dark eyes sparkled as he held a hand to Dan, unlined, light-brown skin making him look anywhere between twenty and forty. “Lon Yazzie. You can call me Yaz. You must be Farnsworth. Me and Marcum here are usually busy in the hangar making things go.”

“Yeah, so be nice to us.” Marcum smirked as he set a plate full of cookies in the center of the table and then laid out two other plates full of dinner. “Try not to break anything we’ll have to fix either.”

Dan shook their hands and snagged a cookie. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“We listened to the volunteer fire department spend the afternoon poking around the doomed cabin. Sounded like near the whole thing just slid down the mountain.” Marcum folded a napkin on his lap and started to shovel food in.

“No one’ll miss it. That place should have been condemned,” Lang called from the sofa without missing a beat while he bashed some grizzled elf-thing.

“Oh yeah?” Karl tried to remember what he’d heard about Swift’s, but he couldn’t put a finger on it.

Marcum paused long enough to wave his fork around. “Was rumored to be a meth lab for a while.”

“Production dried up just as quickly several months ago, I heard.” Yaz shrugged. “Cabin’s been abandoned ever since.”

Karl didn’t miss how Dan stiffened and stopped chewing during their exchange.

“Was anyone hurt?” Karl watched with interest as Dan reduced what was left of his cookie into crumbs on his napkin.

“Nope.” Yaz ate his apple straight through, including the core. “The place has been falling apart for years. Looked like the old chimney finally gave way and took the rest with it.”

“Glad to hear that,” Karl said as Dan crumpled the napkin into a fist and excused himself with a nod, not quite looking at anyone.

Dan dumped his plate and silverware in the correct bins with almost normal movements and tight shoulders.

“Any idea who was doing the cooking?” Karl probed the missing fragment of his memory about the cabin.

“Eh, nah.” Yaz folded a cookie in half and ate it all in a large bite. “Whoever cooked it slipped through the cracks. You know how slippery ownership is out here. Cash in hand, squatters, people without attachments disappear, and no one the wiser.”

Karl nodded. True enough. It was almost common in Alaska—part of why some people came there.

“Thing is, I don’t remember meth ripping through here.” Marcum stacked his empty plates and leaned way back. He held his breath, belched loudly, and then sat forward again. “I mean, it wasn’t sold local. We’d have known about it.”

“Nasty shit. Let’s be glad it wasn’t.” Yaz stole Marcum’s unused napkin, wiped his mouth, and tossed it back.

The image of Dan trotting out of town under the morning’s wide blue sky and mellow sun repeated on a loop in Karl’s mind.

“Where was the cabin, anyway?” he asked.

“Northwest, up out of town into the foothills.” Marcum nodded at the cookies. “Want any?”

Karl shook his head. Marcum pocketed the six left on the plate and deposited his dishes in the bins.

Northwest, in the foothills. Unless Dan had circled around or wandered aimlessly, he’d headed northwest, up out of town, that morning and returned dirty, scraped up, and clearly preoccupied on the same day that a derelict cabin suddenly fell to the ground—the same day he scanned the ocean searching for a very specific wreck site.

“Yaz?”

“Say what?”

“Neal’s boat. Axe’s,” he clarified, though not for Yaz. A quick glance confirmed Dan had shifted forward. Good—paying attention. “Did anything ever happen to it?” Karl smiled. “I know, topic jump. Slippery ownership made me think of it, and I remembered you saying maybe it could get donated to a good cause if no one claimed it.”

Yaz’s mouth pulled down at the corners. “You know, I have no idea.” He stood and leaned with his hands spread on the table. “Want me to find out?”

“No, thanks. Doesn’t seem important.”

“Okay, cool. But let me know.” Yaz bopped Karl’s shoulder with a fist and followed Marcum out the door.

Karl liked Yaz. They got along and had plenty in common. He’d have to be sure to tell Dan that Yaz was another real live born-and-bred Alaskan, raised in an Inuit village far to the north. But first he’d have to get under that shadow over Dan and find out what had set off such an unlikely bunch of coincidences.

He got more coffee and wandered to the duty station. Dan sat in the corner, quietly observing, as Jameson and other staff took care of the mundane tasks of running the place. Karl thought about what Scobey called Dan—California.

Karl watched the small bubbles in his coffee cling and float against the edge of the mug. A not-quite premonition danced in his brain like those bubbles, and he swirled the mug and broke the last of them in a tiny wave.

Axe was from California.

When he glanced up, Dan was staring at him, so he stared back. Dan nodded and half smiled. Then he went back to studying the monitors and pulldown charts that hung from a different wall.

There was that lost expression again, and it tugged at his heart. Given everything else he’d seen that day, Karl had a duty to find out why.