The Narrows

CHAPTER 42

Rechel ejected the magazine from Backus's gun and found it had been fully loaded until she took the two shots at him. She slapped it back into place and went to the window.

"You want me to go with you?" Ed Thomas asked from behind.

She turned. He had cut himself free. He was standing, holding the knife up and ready.

"Do what Harry said. Get us backup."

She stepped onto the sill and jumped out into the rain. She quickly moved along the bougainvillea until she found an opening and pushed through to the river fence. She put Backus's gun in her holster and climbed up and over, snagging her jacket sleeve on the top and tearing it. She dropped onto the gravel shoulder two feet from the edge. She looked over the side and saw the water was only three feet from the overflow. It was cascading against the concrete, creating the roaring sound of death. She looked away and then further down the track. She saw Backus running. He was halfway to the bridge at Saticoy. Rachel got up and started running. She fired a shot into the air so he would think about what was coming behind him, not what might be waiting for him at the bridge.

The Mercedes skidded into the curb on the top of the bridge. I jumped out, not bothering to kill the engine, and ran to the railing. I saw Rachel running toward me, gun up, on the shoulder of the canal. But I didn't see Backus.

I stepped back and looked in all directions but still didn't see him. I thought that it would have been impossible for him to have reached the bridge ahead of me. I ran down to the gate that sided the bridge and offered entrance to the channel's shoulder. It was locked but I could see that the shoulder continued under the bridge. It was the only alternative. I knew Backus had to be hiding under there.

Quickly I climbed over the gate and dropped down to the gravel. I came up, gun pointed in both hands at the dark opening beneath the bridge. I ducked and moved into the darkness.

The noise of the rushing water echoed loudly beneath the bridge. The underside of the bridge was segmented by four large concrete supports. Backus could easily be hidden behind any one of them.

"Backus!" I called out. "You want to live, come out! Now!'"

Nothing. Only the sound of the water. Then I heard the far-off sound of a voice and I turned back to see Rachel. She was still a hundred yards away. She was yelling but her words were lost in the water noise.

Backus huddled in the darkness. He tried to stave off all the emotions and concentrate on the moment. He had been here before. Cornered in the dark. He had survived before and he would survive now. What was important now was to concentrate on the moment, draw his strength from the darkness.

He heard his pursuer call out to him. He was close now. He had the weapon but Backus had the darkness. Darkness had always been on his side. He pressed back against the concrete and willed himself to disappear in the shadows. He would be patient and make his move when the time was right.

I turned away from the distant figure of Rachel and focused back on clearing the bridge. I moved forward, staying as far back from the concrete shelters as I could without falling into the channel. I cleared the first two and glanced back at Rachel again. She was fifty yards away now. She started signaling with her left arm but I didn't understand the hooked movement she was repeating.

I suddenly realized my mistake. I had left the keys in the car. Backus could come up on the other side of the bridge and get to the car.

I started to run, hoping to get there in time to take a shot at the tires. But I was wrong about the car. As I passed the third concrete support Backus suddenly leaped out at me, hitting me solidly with his shoulder. I went sprawling backward with him on top of me, sliding on the gravel to the edge of the concrete channel.

He was going for my gun, using both hands to tear it from my grip. I knew in an instant that if he got the gun everything was over, that he'd kill me and then Rachel. He couldn't get the gun.

He slammed his left elbow into my jaw and I felt my grip weaken. I fired the gun twice, hoping I might catch a finger or a palm. He yelped in pain but then I felt the pressure even more as he redoubled his effort, now fueled by pain and red anger.

His blood worked its way into my grip and helped loosen it. I was going to lose the gun. I could tell. He had position on me and an animal strength. My grip was slipping. I could try to hang on a few more seconds until Rachel got there but by then she could also be running into a death trap.

Instead I took the only alternative I had left. I dug my heels into the gravel and flexed my whole body upward. My shoulders slid over the concrete edge. I replanted my heels and did it again. This time it was enough. Backus seemed to suddenly realize his situation. He let go of the gun and reached back to the edge. But it was too late for him, too.

Together we went over the edge and into the black water.

Rachel saw them fall from just a few yards away. She yelled "No!" as if that might stop them. She got to the spot and looked down and saw nothing. She then ran along the edge and out from beneath the bridge. She saw nothing. She looked downriver for any sign of them in the cascading current.

Then she saw Bosch come up and whip his head around as if to check his position. He was struggling with something under the water and then she realized it was his raincoat. He was trying to take it off.

She scanned the river but didn't see the bald head of Backus anywhere. She looked back at Bosch as he was carried away from her. She saw him looking back at her. He raised an arm out of the water and pointed. She followed and saw the Mercedes parked on top of the bridge. She saw its windshield wipers moving back and forth and she knew the keys were still there.

She started running.

The water was cold, more so than I would have imagined. And I was already weak from the struggle with Backus. I felt heavy in the water and found it difficult to keep my face up and clear. The water seemed to be alive, as if it was gripping me and pulling me down.

My gun was gone and there was no sign of Backus. I spread my arms and tried to maneuver my body so that I could simply ride the rapids until I had some strength back and could make a move or Rachel got help.

I remembered the boy who had gone into the river so many years before. Firemen, cops, even passersby tried to save him, hanging down hoses and ladders and ropes. But they all missed and he went down. Eventually, they all go down in the narrows.

I tried not to think about that I tried not to panic. I turned my palms down and I seemed to be able to keep my face up out of the water better. It increased my speed in the current but it kept my head up out of the water. It gave me confidence. I started to think that I could make it For a while. It all depended on when help got to me. I looked up into the sky. No helicopters. No fire department. No help yet. Just the gray void of emptiness up there and rain coming down.

The 911 operator told Rachel to stay on the line but she couldn't drive fast and well and safely with the phone to her ear. She dropped it on the passenger seat without disconnecting. When she came to the next stop sign she stopped so short that the phone was hurled into the foot well and out of her reach. She didn't care. She was speeding down the street checking to her left at every intersection for the next bridge crossing the channel. When she finally saw one she sped to it and stopped the Mercedes right on top of it in a traffic lane. She jumped out and went to the railing.

Neither Bosch nor Backus was in sight. She thought she might have gotten ahead of them. She ran across the Street, drawing a horn blast from a motorist but not caring, and went to the opposite rail.

She studied the roiling surface for a long moment and then saw Bosch. His head was above the surface and canted back, his face to the sky. She panicked. Was he still alive? Or was he drowned and his body just moving in the current? Then almost as quickly as the fear had grabbed her she saw movement as Bosch whipped his head, as swimmers often do to get hair and water out of their eyes. He was ah've and maybe a hundred yards from the bridge. She could see him struggling to move his position in the stream. She leaned forward and looked down. She knew what he was doing. He was going to try to catch one of the bridge's support beams. If he could grab it and hold on, he could be extracted and saved right here.

Rachel ran back to the car and threw open the rear hatch. She looked in the back for anything that might help. Her bag was there and almost nothing else. She yanked it out to the ground without caring and lifted the carpeted floor panel. Someone stuck behind -the Mercedes on the street started honking. She didn't even turn to look.

I hit the middle pier of the bridge so hard that I lost all of my breath and thought I'd broken four or five ribs. But I held on. I knew this was my shot. I held on with everything I had left.

The water had claws. I could feel them as it rushed by me. Thousands of claws pulling at me, grabbing me, trying to take me back into the dark torrent. The water backed up on me and rose into my face. Arms on either side of the pier, I tried to shimmy up the slippery concrete but every time I gained a few inches, the claws would grab me and pull me back down. I quickly learned that the best I could do was hold on. And wait.

As I hugged the concrete I thought of my daughter. I thought of her urging me to hold on, telling me I had to make it for her. She told me no matter where I was or what I did, she still needed me. Even in the moment, I knew it was illusion but I found comfort in it. I found the strength to hold on.

There were tools and a spare tire in the compartment, nothing that would work. Then, beneath the tire, through the design holes in the wheel, she saw black and red cables. Jumper cables.

She put her fingers through the holes in the wheel and yanked it upward. It was large, heavy and awkward but she was not deterred. She pulled the wheel up and out and just dropped it on the road. She grabbed the cables and ran back across the road, causing a car to slide sideways as its driver hit the brakes.

At the railing she looked into the river but didn't see Bosch at first. Then she looked down and saw him clinging to the support beam, the water backing up against him as it grabbed and pulled at him. His hands and fingers were scratched and bloody. He was looking up at her and had what she thought might have been a small smile on his face, ahnost like he was telling her that he was going to be all right.

Not sure how she was going to complete the rescue, she dropped one end of the cables over the side. They were far too short.

"Shit!"

She knew she had to go over. There was a utility pipe running along the side of the bridge. She knew if she could get down to that she could lower the cables another five feet down. It might be enough.

"Lady, are you all right?" She turned. There was a man standing there. He was under an umbrella. He had been crossing the bridge.-

"There's a man down there in the river. Call nine-one-one. Do you have a cell? Call nine-one-one."

The man began pulling a cell phone from his jacket pocket. Rachel turned back to the railing and started to climb up on it.

That was the easy part. Going over the railing and climbing down to the pipe was the risky maneuver. She put the cables around her neck and slowly reached one foot down to the pipe, then the other. She slid down with one leg on either side of the pipe like she was riding a horse.

This time she knew the cable would reach Bosch. She started lowering it to him and he reached for it. But just as his hand grabbed it, there was a blur of color in the water and Bosch was struck by something and knocked loose from the support beam. In that moment Rachel realized it was Backus, either alive or dead, that had knocked him loose.

She hadn't been ready. When Bosch was knocked loose he kept his grip on the cable line. But his weight and Backus's weight and the current were too much for Rachel. The other end of the cable was jerked out of her grasp and it went down into the water and under the bridge.

"They're coming! They're coming!"

She looked up at the man under the umbrella at the top of the railing.

"It's too late," she said. "He's gone." I was weak but Backus was weaker. I could tell he didn't have the same strength he'd brought to the confrontation on the river's edge. He had pulled me loose from the bridge because I hadn't seen him coming and he'd hit me with all his weight But now he was grabbing at me like a drowning man, just trying to hold on.

We tumbled through the water, drawing down to the bottom. I tried to open my eyes but the water was too dark to see through. I drove him down hard into the concrete floor and then shifted behind him. I wrapped the cable I still gripped around his neck. I did it again and again until his hands let go of me and went to his own neck. My lungs were burning. I needed air. I pushed off him to move toward the surface. As we separated he made a last grab for my ankles but I was able to kick away and break his grasp.

In the last moments Backus saw his father. Long dead and burned, he appeared alive. He had the stern set of eyes that Backus always remembered. He had one hand behind his back, as if he was hiding something. His other hand beckoned his son to come forward. To come home.

Backus smiled and then he laughed. Water rushed into his mouth and lungs. He didn't panic. He welcomed it He knew he would be reborn. He would return. He knew evil could never be vanquished. It just moved from one place to another and waited. I surfaced and gulped down air. I spun in the water to look for Backus but he was gone. I was safe from him but not from the water. I was exhausted. My arms felt so heavy in the water that I could barely bring them to the surface. I thought about the boy again, about how scared he must have been, all alone and the claws grabbing at him.

Up ahead I could see where the wash emptied into the main river channel. I was fifty yards away and I knew the river would be wider and shallower and more violent there. But the concrete walls were sloped in the main channel and I knew I might have a shot at pulling myself out if I could somehow slow my speed and find purchase.

I lowered my eyes and decided to move as close to the wall as I could without getting pushed hard into it. Then I saw a more immediate salvation. The tree I had seen in the channel from the window of Turrentine's house was a hundred yards ahead of me in the river. It must have gotten hung up at the bridge or in the shallows and I had caught up to it.

Using my last reserve of strength I started swimming with the current, picking up speed and heading to the tree. I knew it would be my boat. I'd be able to ride it all the way to the Pacific if I needed to.

Rachel lost the river. The streets took her further away from it and soon she had lost it. She couldn't get back to it. There was a GPS screen in the car but she didn't know how to work it and doubted she'd be able to get a satellite fix in this weather anyway. She pulled over and banged the wheel angrily with the heel of her palm. She felt like she was deserting Harry, that it was going to be her fault if he drowned.

Then she heard the helicopter. It was low flying and moving fast. She leaned forward to see up through the windshield. She didn't see anything. She got out in the rain and turned circles on the street looking. She could still hear it but she couldn't see it.

It had to be the rescue, she thought. In this weather, who else would be flying? She got a bead on the sound and jumped back into the Mercedes. She took the first right she came to and started heading to the sound. She drove with the window down, with the rain coming in but her not caring. She listened to the sound of the helicopter in the distance.

Soon she saw it. It was circling ahead and to the right. She kept going and when she came to Reseda Boulevard she turned right again and could see there were actually two helicopters, one low and the other above it. Both were red with white lettering on the side. Not television or radio call letters. The helicopters were marked LAFD.

There was a bridge ahead and Rachel could see cars stopped and people getting out in the rain to rush to the railing. They were looking down into the river.

She pulled up, stopped in a traffic lane and did the same. She rushed to the railing in time to see the rescue. Bosch was in a yellow safety harness being lifted on a wire out of a fallen tree that was stalled in the shallows where the river widened to fifty yards across.

As he was raised to the helicopter Bosch looked down into the raging current below him. Soon the tree broke free of its catch and tumbled over and over in the cascades. It picked up speed and washed beneath the bridge, its branches crashing into the support pylons and shearing off.

Rachel watched the rescuers bring Bosch into the helicopter. Not until he was inside and safe and the helicopter started to bank away did she look away. And that was only when some of the others on the bridge had started to yell and point down into the river. She looked down and saw what it was. Another man in the water. But for this man there would be no rescue. He floated facedown, his arms loose and his body limp. Red and black jumper cables were tangled around bis body and neck. His shaven skull looked like a child's lost ball bobbing in the current.

The second helicopter followed the body from above, waiting for it to get hung up like the tree had before any extraction was risked. There was no hurry this time.

As the current thickened to move between the pylons of the bridge, the body's fluid travel was disturbed and it turned over in the water. Just before it went under the bridge Rachel caught a glimpse of Backus's face. His eyes were open beneath the glaze of water. But it seemed to her that he was looking right at her before he disappeared under the bridge.

Many years ago, when I served in the army in Vietnam, I was wounded in a tunnel. I was extracted by my comrades and put on a helicopter back to base camp. I remember that as the chopper rose and took me from harm's way, I felt an elation that far obscured the pain of my wound and the exhaustion I had felt.

I felt the same way that day on the river. Deja vu all over again, as they say. I had made it. I had survived. I was out of harm's way. I was smiling as a fireman in a safety helmet wrapped a blanket around me.

"We're taking you to USC to get checked out," he yelled over the roar of the rotor and the rain. "ETA in ten minutes."

He gave me the okay sign and I gave it back to him, noticing that my ringers were a bluish white and that I was shaking with something more than cold.

"I'm sorry about your friend," the fireman yelled.

I saw he was looking down through a glass panel on the lower part of the door he had just slid closed. I leaned over and looked and I could see Backus in the water below. He was faceup and moving languidly in the current*

"I'm not sorry," I said, but not loud enough to be heard.

I leaned back on the jump seat they had put me on. I closed my eyes and nodded to the conjured image of my silent partner, Terry McCaleb, smiling and standing in the stern of his boat.