Damaged

CHAPTER 60

They had only been in the air a few minutes when the distress call came in. Liz heard Wilson talking to their command post, getting the details. She glanced over at Maggie. The FBI agent had looked okay until another outer band swept in. Now she clenched the leather hold-down and tightened her seat belt.

Liz realized that being in the air, the sensation of wind and rain was different. Wilson couldn't just fly above the clouds like a jetliner and get out of it. And his tight-fisted handling of the controls made the craft rock and plunge more than necessary.

She started preparing to be deployed. From the brief description it sounded like a medical emergency. The craft, a thirty-two-foot cabin cruiser, was intact, not taking on water and not disabled. That should make things easier but not much.

The water was choppy, waves cresting nine to twelve feet. It was crazy even for a professional to be out in this.

"Let's keep the swimmer out of the water," Wilson said.

She was still "the swimmer," Liz thought and immediately knew she needed to keep her focus on the boat below. The adrenaline had already started pumping. She didn't care about Wilson.

They could see the boat, the waves tossing it, almost perpendicular to the sky. Then the waves would crest and the boat would crash down. It looked like the boat was swallowed up whole then spit out, to begin the process all over.

"Let the boat deck rise up to meet you," Pete Kesnick was telling Liz through her helmet. "But get on before the wave crests. You want to hang on to something before it breaks."

She nodded but his eyes held hers as if he needed to see for himself that she was, indeed, up to the task.

Choppy seas always made it dangerous. The wind gusts and the moving boat contributed to the challenge.

"We'll never get a basket down with these winds," Wilson said.

"Did they say what the medical condition was?" Kesnick asked.

"No. They lost contact before giving any details."

"We try no more than three times," Kesnick said. He was talking to Liz. "If I think it's not working, I'm hauling you back up. Understand?"

"No heroics, Bailey," Wilson told her. "We don't want to lose our rescue swimmer before the hurricane even hits."