Nighthawk

45

Kurt descended twenty feet before moving horizontally and passing under the approaching boat.

Rolling over on his back, Kurt watched the wake of the small boat flare out around the air bags and slow. The yellow bags began to move. The occupants of the boat were gathering them in.

Putting space between himself and the cleanup crew, Kurt continued toward the rolling thunder of the waterfall.

As he approached it, the current around him became more turbulent and confused. The falling water dropped into the lake with so much force that it continued downward in a column until it hit the bottom, spreading out in all directions. It scoured away all sediment and loose debris, forming a deep well known as a plunge pool, often filled with heavy boulders resting on hardened rock.

Others called this pool the washing machine because the downward force of the water caused swirling vortices all around it. They led outward, up and then back down. Horizontal drums of churning liquid.

Water surged away from the falls in general, but get too close and Kurt would be sucked right into the washing machine and shoved downward into the plunge pool.

Unfortunately, to many daredevils who’d gone over Niagara Falls in various barrels, capsules and other vehicles, getting caught in the washing machine at the bottom of the falls had proved more deadly than going over them in the first place. Once they got trapped inside the vortex, it was incredibly difficult to get out. Several attempts ended in disaster when the homemade conveyances survived the drop only to be pinned at the bottom and held there until the occupants ran out of oxygen.

Kurt had no intention of getting into the washing machine. His plan was to swim around the edge of the falls, stay far enough out to avoid trouble and surface behind it. It was a good plan in theory, but the upper end of the lake narrowed so tightly around the falls that it proved difficult.

Pushed outward at first by the churning water, Kurt found himself forced upward as well. Swimming harder, he made a little progress but was still being pushed back nearly as fast as he went forward.

Tired of being caught on a liquid conveyer belt, and well aware that he might be seen at any moment, Kurt angled more directly toward the falls, charging into the semicircle of water that boiled upward from below.

Straining every muscle in his body, he began to make progress. All at once, the outward pressure of the water waned and he was moving forward.

Too far, too fast.

He changed direction and fought the pull of the eddy, trying to use the momentum he’d gained to slingshot around it. Despite his powerful stroke, the vortex had him. He was dragged toward the thundering wall of falling liquid and pulled downward in the grasp of an underwater storm.

There was no fighting it now; he had to go with the flow. Surrounded in the swirling white foam, Kurt was forced deeper and deeper. Even after slowing through seventy feet of water, the column hit bottom with surprising strength.

Kurt was slammed downward and shoved sideways into the rocks. His shoulder took one hit, the aluminum cylinder on his back took another.

He was pushed into a large boulder and then swung around back in the other direction, where he crashed into a pile of rocks worn smooth by the constant tumbling action beneath the falls.

He could feel the water hammering him, pressing him into the stones. His fins were ripped off; water forced itself into a gap where the helmet sealed around his neck, filling the helmet with frigid liquid, cutting off his air supply and chilling his face in the process.

Kurt had ahold of one large boulder — he clung to it and pulled himself along. The water pressed him downward; there was no swimming, only crawling.

He scraped across the two boulders, then pushed up against the wall of stone behind the waterfall and caught under a ledge for a moment. Bracing himself, he refused to be held in the trap. He found a foothold and pushed himself outward and up.

Suddenly, he was on the far side of the vortex. Instead of crushing him downward, it carried him up on a rapidly ascending elevator.

He breached the surface in a swirl of foam on the back side of the falls.

Kurt lunged forward and pulled himself onto the rocks. He was battered, bruised and exhausted, but the risk had paid off. He was now hidden behind enemy lines.