Six Seconds

2

Five months later

Faust’s Fork, near Banff, Alberta, Canada

Haruki Ito was alone, hiking along the river when he stopped dead.

He raised his Nikon to his face, rolled his long lens until the bear in the distance filled his viewfinder. A grizzly sow, stalking trout on the bank of the wild Faust River in the Rocky Mountains.

Photographing the grizzly was a dream come true for Ito, on vacation from his job as a news photographer with The Yomiuri Shimbun, one of Tokyo’s largest news papers. As he took a picture then refocused for another, something blurred in his periphery.

He focused and shot it- a small hand rising from the rushing current.

Ito hurried along the bank to offer help, struggling through dense forests and over the mist-slicked rocks while glimpsing the hand, then an arm, then a head in the water before the river released its victim into an eddy nearby.

He stepped carefully toward the small, swirling pool. Then he slipped off his camera gear and made his way into the cold, waist-high water, bracing himself as he reached for the body of a child.

A Caucasian boy. About eight or nine, Ito estimated. Sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers.

He was dead.

Sadness flooded Ito’s heart.

As he prepared to lay the boy on the riverbank, the sudden loud thumping of something large bearing down forced Ito to flinch as a canoe crashed into the rocks next to him. It was empty.

Taking stock of the river, he shuddered.

Were there more victims?

Ito ran to the trailhead, and managed to wave down two women-German tourists riding bicycles-and within an hour park wardens had activated a search-and rescue operation.

The area was known as Faust’s Fork, a rugged section of rivers, lakes, forests, glaciers and mountain ranges straddling Banff National Park and Kananaskis Country. It was laced with trails and secluded camp sites. Access was by foot or horseback, except for a few day-use riverside points that you could drive to, and a cluster of remote drive-through campsites at the river’s edge which were served by an old logging road.

After confirming the boy’s death, and facing the pos sibility of other victims, park officials notified the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the medical examiner, para medics, local firefighters, provincial park rangers, con servation officers and other agencies. They established a search zone with gridded sectors.

Rescue boats were deployed up and down the river but were not able to look for survivors in the section where the boy was found. The flow was too wild. Search teams were assembled and scoured the area on foot, horseback and ATVs. All had radios, some had search dogs. A helicopter and a small fixed-wing plane joined the operation along with volunteer search groups, who advised other campers in Faust’s Fork.

Some distance upstream in a remote campsite, Daniel Graham stood alone on a small rise that offered a panoramic view of the river, the mountains and the sky.

He gazed upon the bronze urn he was holding, caressed the leaves and doves that were engraved in a fine band around its middle. After several moments, he unscrewed the lid, tilted the urn and offered the remain der of its contents to the wind. Fine, sandlike ashes swirled and danced along the river’s surface until there was nothing left.

Graham looked to the snow-crested peaks, as if they held the answer to something that was troubling him. But he never had time to find it. The serenity he’d sought was broken by a helicopter thudding by him less than one hundred feet over the river.

A few moments later, it made a second low-altitude pass in the opposite direction.

Must be a search, Graham figured, as he set the urn aside and looked along the river for any indication of what was happening. Not long after the chopper had subsided, the air crackled with the cross talk of radios as two men in bright orange overalls entered his campsite.

“Sir, we’re with search and rescue,” the first one said. “There’s been a boating accident on the river. We’ve got people looking for survivors. Please alert us if you see anything.”

“How serious?”

The searchers assessed Graham, standing there in his jeans and T-shirt. Late thirties, about six feet tall with a muscular build, and a couple days’ stubble covering his strong jaw, accentuating his intense, deep-set eyes.

He produced a leather wallet and opened it for them to study the gold badge with the crown, the wreaths of maple leaves, the words Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the bison’s head encircled with the scroll bearing the motto, Maintiens le Droit. The photo ID was for Royal Canadian Mounted Police Corporal Daniel Graham.

“You’re a Mountie?”

“With Major Crimes out of Calgary. Off duty at the moment. How serious is this accident? Are there fa talities?”

“One for sure. A young male. We don’t have con firmed details.”

“Have any members arrived yet? Can you raise your dispatcher?”

One of the men reached for his radio, made checks with the dispatcher and Graham was told that members of the local Banff and Canmore RCMP detachments were en route. Others were being called in to help.

“Do you have a scene and an identity on the victim?” Graham asked.

Over the radio a park dispatcher told Graham that the body of a young male, approximately eight to ten years of age, was found about a kilometer downriver from Graham’s location. It appeared a canoe had overturned and the wardens suspected there were other victims.

“It’s all happening now,” the dispatcher said.

“I’ll help search as I make my way to where the boy was found. Pass that along,” Graham said.

The searchers continued upstream while Graham collected some items and headed to the river, moving as quickly as he could along the harsh terrain. The inter ruption had distracted him from his purpose for being here. Graham pushed his personal problems aside to deal with the tragedy unfolding before him.

He paused to use his binoculars to scan the rugged banks and the water, concentrating on rocks spearing the surface. They created powerful spouts and rainbowcolored curtains of white water, as the current pounded against them. As he searched, Graham heard the inter mittent whump of the chopper and the buzz of the small plane overhead.

When he came to a perilous section, he slipped on the wet ledges, banging his knee. But he kept going, picking his way along the craggy formations, which stood as a gateway to a waterfall that dropped two stories. He could hear its roar.

As he steadied himself, Graham thought he’d seen a patch of color amid several large rocks that forced geysers of spray in the middle of the river. He found a secure position and focused his binoculars. The spray obscured his view but he was convinced that through the gushing watery fan, he could see a swatch of pink, low against the rock. He got into a better position and dis tinguished more details: a small head, an arm, a hand.

It’s a child. A girl. Pinned to the rock by the current. Clinging for life.

She was about the width of a football field away from him, concealed by a clear dome of water spray. At any moment she could slip under the water or off the rock and be swept to the falls. She’d never survive the plunge.

There was no time to lose. He didn’t have a radio. Or a cell phone. No other searchers were in sight. He had to make a decision.

Standing alongside the roaring river, staring at the tiny pink square, Graham could feel the vibrations of the rushing water in his rib cage. He knew the danger of going into the river. He’d have only one chance to reach her. If he missed, the current would carry him away to a life-and-death struggle to save himself before it took him over the falls and to the rocks below.

After all that had happened, what did he have left in his life?

Graham knew the risk. He would likely die. But so would that child if he didn’t try to save her.

He had to go after her.

He hurried back upstream, kicked off his boots, set aside his badge, binoculars-everything that would weigh him down-then slid into the frigid water.

The river swept him along, and adrenaline coursed through him as he maneuvered around the rocks while contending with the current. White flashed before his eyes as his lower leg slammed into a rock. Pain shot through him and he slipped below the surface. Water gurgled in his ears, gushed into his stomach.

He fought his way to the surface, coughing and spitting water, gulping air while struggling to find his bearings and to line up on the girl. The pink patch, his critical guide, had vanished. Rapids and spray concealed her. He was blinded by the water, only guessing her location.

A hidden rock punched the breath from him; he grabbed it, struggled to lift himself upon it, glimpsing pink downstream just as the river pulled him down, tearing his palm against the razor edge of a rock.

Graham slipped under the surface. In the churning water he saw small legs pressed against the rock ahead. Using all of his strength, he guided himself to it. The pressure welded him to the rock.

He was underwater, couldn’t move, couldn’t get to the surface.

Alarm rang in his ears. His lungs ached for air. He was not going to make it.

“Keep going, Daniel.” He heard his wife’s voice. “You have to keep going.”

It took every ounce of strength he had to battle the water’s power and to work his head to the surface, where he gulped mouthfuls of air while holding fast to the rock. After several seconds, his mind cleared and he worked his way around the rock, reaching as far as he could, until he felt small fingers, a hand, the arm of the girl. He continued positioning himself until he came face-to-face with her.

Little eyes, wide with terror, met his.

Her lips were blue.

She was alive, quaking with shock.

She appeared to be five or six years old.

Graham got closer, got his arm around her and peeled her from the rock. She was bleeding from a head wound. Graham worked their position around the rock to where he had more control, struggling to steady the girl and himself against the rock, praying it was not in vain.

As he held her, her eyes locked on to his.

He moved his mouth to her ear to offer her comfort.

“You’re going to be all right,” he said. “I’m going to help you. Hang on. Just hang on.”

She stared at him and her mouth began to move.

He pressed his ear closer, straining to hear above the river’s roar, but he was uncertain what she was saying.

“Don’t…daddy…don’t…please…”