“Hook!” he yelled. “Gimme a hook”And then he slid off onto the skid, holding on to the cold, wet aluminum for a second before dropping into the freezing water. -He cringed as he hit, instinctively trying to pull his legs up under him, waiting for the shock of hitting a rock, but thankfully, it was deep water, but god damned cold. It felt like fire this time, painful, every inch of his skin immersed in the icy-hot grasp of the current.
Go. Swim. Move. The helo was coming lower, but there was no hook. He used a hard breaststroke to get over to the bag, then grabbed a strap.
The . lower end of the bag submerged, bobbing beneath the black surface.
He worked his way around to the end where the dog was hanging on and yelled some encouragement to him. He patted the lumpy shape in the bag, thanking God that body bags were waterproof. He thought he felt the lump move again, but there was a steel hook dropping close to the water alongside the bag. Train grabbed it, felt the wallop of a static shock discharging through his elbow into the water, and then the hook was yanked out of his hand as the helo lifted for some reason. Train swore, but then the hook was back as the crewman once again swung out on the skids, now only fifteen feet above the river, and worked the rescue hoist. Train dragged the hook back along the bag and tried to snap the hook onto a strap, but his hands weren’t working. He stared at the dog’s face, its eyes shut, its teeth gleaming white against the glistening black rubber. His own brain numbed by the cold, he tried to figure out what to do next. Then the hook was yanked again and he refocused, and with a huge effort, he pushed the moused hook over the heavy strap. He raised his right hand and gestured to lift. He was tempted to hold on to the bag as the wire tightened, but he didn’t know how strong the cable was or whether he even could hold on. But the dog could. Train grinned lopsidedly as he saw that Gutter, eyes slitted open now, wasn’t going to let go of that god damned bag for anything.
And then he was alone in the river as the helo pilot maneuvered to keep the aircraft stable against the sudden weight on one side. The spotlight moved sideways, and Train relaxed, not so cold now, letting the current just carry him, no longer having to struggle quite so hard. He looked out across the water and realized he was way out in the middle of the river, the black banks on either side’ several hundred feet away. The helo was stationary over the river as they worked the lift, and his view became clearer as he sailed downstream. He watched the bag, now dangling lengthwise, with the unlikely shape of the big dog holding on with its teeth near the hook, lift up to the cabin hatch and then disappear into the cabin. The helo moved even farther away and up as the crewman and the pilot worked to redistribute the load inside, which was when Train felt something, a deep, rumbling vibration behind hi.-n. He made a lazy turn in the water, frustratingly slowly, his coldnumbed senses resisting his efforts to bring them back to life, and looked downstream.
So,-nething wrong with the. river. A near horizon, a line of darkness visible against a curtain of silver spray that seemed to span the main channel, a line that was maybe four hundred yards away, and W preaching.
He tried to think. Why was there a line in the water? He couldn’t understand it. And then he did.
Then the helo was coming back, its roaring rotor noise and blazing spotlight coming in fast, the cable already back down in the water, with the horse collar skipping wildly across the water like a game fish on the hook. The pilot flared the aircraft out right overhead, perfectly positioned, the collar actually batting Train in the head a couple of times before he sluggishly reached for it. But he didn’t put it on.
What was that damned line? He’d just figured it out and now he’d forgotten. He turned around in the water again, looking downstream for the black line. A moment ago, he’d had it, knew what the line was all about. But he couldn’t think, all this god damned noise, that bright fight; he couldn’t see it, but he could feel something in the water, a different feel, a drumming against his hips and legs that seemed to be in perfect sync with the drumming of his helicopter, his own personal helicopter. Not cold anymore, really. This water’s not so bad; it’s just so-what? So wet, that’s what it was, wet, yeah. He laughed, but no sound came out, not with all that damned noise above him. He still held on to the collar. Collar. The drumming feeling was now beginning to overcome the helo noise, and the water was moving faster. He could feel it, a swiftness and a strengthening grip, an embrace as it hurried, hurried-where? Toward the falls.
Yeah, that was it.
The falls. That black line. The collar jerked in his hands.
Put the damn collar on. Why? Hands don’t work. This water’s not so bad, not so cold. The rumbling was shaking him now, the air different, the spray cloud from the helo above him going somewhere else now, the spotlight more intense.
Put the collar on. You’re close. Really goddamned close.
Put the collar on. Might be interesting, see what happens.
Then amazingly, he felt his boots dragging on the bottom.
What the hell? Supposed to be deep out here in the middle.
His upper body was being clutched upright by the rushing current, and then he actually heard the throaty roar of falling water. Shocked finally into action, he thrust his head and arms through the collar just as he felt his feet banging up against the lip of the falls. He nearly popped out of the collar with the shock of lift. His shoulder sockets screamed with pain as the winch locked and the helo rose off the river.
Fold your arms, he remembered, now on the verge of passing out. Fold your arms under the collar. Then he felt his shoulder bang up against the edge of the skid and a strong, grappling arm was reaching under his sweater for his belt, and then he was sprawling across the cabin floor, sliding along the length of a slippery, wet bag and jointly into the arms of Karen Lawrence and a very excited Doberman. See, he tried to tell them as he passed out, that wasn’t so bad.
It was after eleven when the docs were finished with him and Mcnair was allowed into the hospital room. The Park Police helo had flown them both to the Bethesda Naval Medical Center up on Wisconsin Avenue after finding out they were Navy. Train had tried to talk to Karen before she was whisked off to another room in the ER, but he really hadn’t been operating all that well himself. Mcnair’s face was a surprisingly welcome sight.
“Well, G-man,” Mcnair said, pulling up a chair. “They say you’re going to live. Feet like talking?”
“Why do I think I’m gonna have to listen first?” Train replied carefully. The skin on his face felt rubbery. His voice was a hoarse croak. He could feel some vestiges of intense cold still lurking in the marrow of his long bones.
“What, you expect me to chew your ass?”
Yup.
“Consider it chewed. Actually, putting aside the fact that you invaded a crime scene and otherwise messed around with an ongoing police investigation, you did pretty good.
We should have left somebody there.”
Train shrugged, then regretted it immediately. His shoulders were very sore.
“The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” Train said, ling to make his lips work. “Where did that blessed come from?”
“Park Police. They own the river, and they have the helicopters and the crews who know how to do water rescue.
You two were lucky enough to have a Park Police helicopter already up and operating a possible drowning down at Little Falls dam.”