Cave Rescue Courtship Read online

  As if. She had some strange effect on him that he couldn’t quite get a grip on. It was like every time he got near her; he sort of lost who he was. She was all the things Hailey wasn’t: quiet, elegant, and alarmingly pretty. He was never, ever tongue-tied around women. Years of cruising the bars with Sly, he’d had plenty of practice, and they could cut quite a swath with the ladies.

  Not with Petty Officer Vera Chu. Her gentle dignity caught him off guard every time. Maybe if he—

  “Dolphin Three-niner, this is Steadfast.” The radio call didn’t help his thoughts, as he knew that Vera was right down there on the cutter they’d been overflying all morning.

  “Go ahead, Steadfast.”

  “I have a petty officer here with a novel theory,” Chief Petty Officer Mackey’s tone was as dry as the day wasn’t. “Have you checked Hug Point, specifically the cave?”

  He and Sly looked at each other. Two years patrolling the Oregon Coast together, and they’d never had to do a cave rescue, the worst of all SAR scenarios. Partly because the coast had only three—two local and the third over a hundred miles to the south. The last was the big Sea Lion Caves, and it had an elevator for tourists that led to the safe highway far above. The two smaller ones could be incredibly dangerous.

  The cave at Hug Point seemed unlikely, because there was a fairly easy land escape nearby—the path tourists used to visit the cave in kinder weather. They’d check it first, as it was closest to them, but now he had a very bad feeling about this.

  Hug Point had gotten its name back in the time of the old wagon trains. Before there were any inland routes carved through the rough Coast Range, it had been the only north-south trade road. The wagons had to literally hug the cliff even at low tide to avoid being washed out to sea.

  Nosing the helo down and turning south, they reached the prominence of Hug Point in minutes. There was a waterfall, fifteen feet high and twenty-five wide, which normally made a pretty curtain. With the rush of the winter storm, the curtain was more of a shooting cannon, arcing out from the cliff in a powerful stream.

  Just to the north, the surf was washing up into the sea-cave in the basalt-and-sandstone cliffs. Ham hovered as low as he dared in the turbulence where Pacific Ocean storm met steep cliff. The day was dark enough that the searchlight actually lit much of the cave’s interior.

  Nothing.

  “Oh man,” Ham really didn’t like this.

  Sly switched off the searchlight as Ham lifted and raced north.

  There was one other cave near here, just south of Cannon Beach, inaccessible except briefly at the very lowest tides on the calmest days.

  5

  “No one at Hug Point,” Chief Petty Officer Mackey’s voice was grim.

  “It was just an idea.” Though Vera still felt that it had been a good one. “Sorry to have wasted your time, Chief.” Hopefully he wouldn’t hold it against her. Two weeks on the Steadfast hadn’t earned her much crazy-idea credit yet. She’d rushed onto the bridge, without being summoned, so sure that she had the solution.

  Tourists were always getting into trouble at the Picture Rocks Caves on Lake Superior. A summer storm would blow up out of nowhere and slam into the beach taking a high toll among the unwary. Even all of the way down to Sector Detroit, the USCG stories of those scenic caves were told far too frequently.

  “Hold your position, Petty Officer,” Mackey cut off her escape.

  He waved her over to the chart table where he and the captain had been conferring.

  She came over and stood at the best attention she could against the bucking ship. Thankfully, Coast Guard protocol allowed her to hang onto the table’s side rail and still technically remain at attention.

  “At ease, Chu. Jesus, I know you’re not some first-year. Got a brain? You’re not in trouble with me as long as you use it.”

  “Yes, Chief.” She’d heard similar lines before and experience had taught her that they were trustworthy about half the time. Only two weeks aboard the Steadfast, she didn’t yet know which side of that coin Chief Mackey landed on.

  “The problem is here,” he stabbed a finger at the electronic chart. It was less than five miles from their current position.

  She hadn’t had time to learn the coast yet, but she recognized Cannon Beach by its large sandstone sea mounts and shallow hard-basalt reefs. The chief was pointing just to the south.

  “There are only two significant caves along this section of the coast. With Hug Point empty, if your guess is right, they’re in a world of hurt. Silver Cave.”

  “What’s the lay of the land there?”

  “In a storm? Start with Hell. Then make it worse.”

  6

  “You’re shitting me.” In two years of flying rescue along the Columbia Bar and a couple hundred miles of seashore to the north and south, Ham had never had occasion to come so close to Silver Cave.

  Though the cove lay just south of the resort town of Cannon Beach, it was almost wholly inaccessible. The cliffs offered no landside entry, and the sea was filled with boat-ripping rocks. On a calm day, it was a beautiful place. Steep cliffs over a hidden beach. Sometimes there was sand, but in the winter the beach was big cobbles and rocks.

  Just off the jagged point, a small sea mount had been cut off from the land. It sat prettily, like the period on an exclamation point. Tenacious conifers formed a small green crown on the hard rock.

  At low tide, it was connected to the land by a wash of seaweed-shrouded boulders and tide pools. At high tide, it became an island.

  In a storm?

  “You’re shitting me,” Sly echoed his comment.

  The deep ocean swell hit the shallows in twenty-foot surf that shattered against the back of the small sea mount. The passage between the mount and the land was a thrash of crossing currents that had slammed around either side of mount to smash against each other when they met on the far side.

  Clouds of spray and confused whitewater breakers filled the intervening area with chop tall enough to bury a helicopter without even noticing.

  And on the landside of the sea mount, facing the inaccessible cliff rather than the sea, was Silver Cave. It had been carved into the back side of the hard point of the sea mount that had withstood the waves.

  “Winds at thirty, north-northwest. Gusting thirty-five.”

  Ham really wished it hadn’t been his turn as pilot-in-command. But, because Sly was a stickler as well as being a good guy, unless the flight dragged on too long and fatigue became a factor, it was Ham’s flight for the duration.

  “Call the cliff,” he instructed Sly.

  “Roger.”

  A Dolphin HH-65’s rotor was forty feet across. The distance from cliff to cave was six times that, but in this wind, he wanted an extra set of eyes on it.

  He came in high, but there was nothing to see.

  Easing down, he kept his nose into the wind to get the least buffeting from each gust. That northwest wind turned them so that Sly faced mostly toward the cliff. He began calling distances.

  Ham eased down into the slot.

  “I’ve got some color,” Tad called out from the rear.

  “See it.” Please let it just be a fisherman’s float.

  Bright blue. Then yellow.

  Then…

  Two double kayaks, one snapped in half, came into view. They’d been dragged partway into the cave.

  He eased down another ten feet to get a better angle on the cave.

  There was still a body in one of the seats.

  But its head was impossibly far forward, and it wasn’t moving.

  A face peeked out from deeper within the cave.

  Someone waved at them desperately, then was almost dragged out to sea as the surf washed into the cave’s mouth. He’d be a goner except that the cave’s floor sloped up to the rear.

  “Got a live one,” he and Tad called simultaneously.

  7

  Vera looked at the video feed from the helo. Even Lake Michigan never created a me
ss like this one.

  There was nowhere to drop the rescue swimmer that he wouldn’t be immediately killed against the massive boulders. Lowering him in by a winch would still drop him in the surf that the boulders were churning into a maelstrom.

  Vera checked her watch. “This tide has another six feet of rise.”

  “That’s a death certificate,” Mackey acknowledged.

  The captain was already underway toward the sea mount, not that there was anything a cutter could do there.

  Even a small boat…

  “Uh, Chief? No never mind.” It was too stupid for words. No crazy-idea credits in the world would cover this one. But the image stuck in her mind.

  “Spit it out, Vera.” She was surprised he even knew her first name.

  Even after the Captain approved it ten minutes later, she still knew it was the craziest idea of her life.

  “One more thing, sir?”

  The captain nodded at her as he studied the detailed chart to see how close he could get to the shore.

  “Request permission to volunteer, sir.”

  That snagged his full attention.

  “If someone else went, and this doesn’t work…”

  He studied her intently and she didn’t flinch.

  Finally he nodded. “Do the Guard proud.” Then he turned to confer with the navigator.

  She scrambled aft to get ready. She’d just gone from crazy to stupid. Hopefully she wouldn’t go to dead.

  8

  Ham hovered twenty feet above the wavetops while Craig lowered Tad, their rescue swimmer, down on the helicopter’s winch cable.

  He couldn’t see what was beneath him, so Craig the crew chief was calling out positioning moves. “Five back. Hold. Up ten. Hold.”

  The litany had been practiced too many times for it to fully occupy his thoughts, though he wished it did.

  He’d been called back to the ship just as the Response Boat-Small was lowered into the water by the cutter. He couldn’t carry the RB-S, they’d need a JayHawk for that, but there wasn’t one available for another hour, and that might be too late.

  But that wasn’t the heartstopper. That happened when Ham saw one of the RB-S’s occupants. No one, but no one moved like Petty Officer Vera Chu. Her elegance showed in every gesture, even fighting to help the coxswain get the boat launched. It had been impressed on his very eyeballs since the first moment he saw her. Too dumbfounded to speak, he’d slid to hover over the pitching rubber boat.

  “What the hell is she doing there?” He couldn’t keep it in any longer.

  “Who?” Craig asked from the back. “Left ten.”

  “No way. That was her?” Sly tried to look down at the RB-S through the nose window by their feet.

  “Swimmer in the boat,” Craig announced. “And…we’re hooked to the RB-S. Up ten, I’m spooling cable. Up ten more.”

  Ham lifted the helo even as his heart sunk.

  9

  “You crazy, sister?”

  “Asks the rescue swimmer,” Vera chided him. They were the ultimate warrior in the Coast Guard hierarchy, jumping out of helos to rescue desperate people from fast-sinking boats. She’d never seen him before. He must be the substitute for Harvey now on his honeymoon.

  “Hey, I’m paid to be crazy. You’re doing that all on your own. I like that in a Guardsman.”

  “Guardswoman.” Vera wore a full float suit, unlike the diver who wore a dry suit. If she hit the water, she’d float like a balloon animal; he needed to be able to swim and dive. They were both International Orange for maximum visibility.

  Like a lot of swimmers, he was a big guy. His broad shoulders and well-muscled legs were obvious even through his suit. Which had her looking aloft.

  Hammond was up there. Just fifty feet away. And he was now her lifeline.

  Literally.

  Here was her crazy idea come to life. A Dolphin helo—too small to wholly lift an RB-S—could, however, offer stabilization. With the two big engines removed and a small one in their place, the helo could even loft the boat briefly between the worst troughs, hopefully keeping its bottom off the submerged reef. Most importantly, its three-point lifting harness that had been rigged onto the boat should keep it upright.

  The rubber tube sides of the boat itself would hopefully protect them when they would be inevitably slammed sideways into rocks.

  At least that was the image in her head.

  10

  “You okay, Ham?”

  “Why wouldn’t he be okay?” Craig, the substitute crew chief, jumped on Sly’s question like an attack dog.

  “Because that’s his girlfriend down there. So shut up a minute.”

  Ham looked down, not that there was anything to see. The RB-S was beneath and slightly behind them as he dragged it toward the coast. The only thing visible was the churning surf he was now dragging her into.

  Petty Officer Vera Chu wasn’t his girlfriend. All they’d ever done was sat and talked. Sly and Hailey would be off cracking jokes in the middle of a crowd or dancing in the limited space between the tables at the Workers Tavern. He and Vera would be talking about their Coast Guard pasts.

  Last night, walking her home, he found out that they’d both lost a parent to the Iraq War: his Air Force father, her Coast Guard mother. He’d also learned that, like him, she was committed to the Coast Guard until they retired them or were carried out feet first. Her pride of being a third generation Coastie shone in every word she spoke about following in her mother’s footsteps.

  He’d never liked anyone as much…not even women he’d slept with.

  And here he was dragging her into one of those situations that could end with her broken or dead all too easily.

  Suddenly he was so glad he was the pilot-in-command. Because if anyone was going to protect her dream, it was damn well going to be him.

  “I got this,” he told Sly, then eased up on the collective enough to feel the strain on the winch cable and started the race for the beach.

  11

  Something had changed.

  Vera could feel the Dolphin hesitating, hanging there above them as the RB-S rode up and down the big ocean swell close behind the first line of breakers.

  Suddenly, their boat was being dragged forward, riding the back of a wave at exactly the same speed as the water. It was a good move. When the wave broke, they’d be able to ride the leading edge of the trough…the deepest water that wasn’t under a breaker.

  “You’re watching that helo hard enough to make a man jealous, sister,” the rescue swimmer was teasing her again.

  “That’s my man up there.” She didn’t know why she said it. The change in control had probably been Sly taking command from Hammond, which meant that was Hailey’s man doing the flying up there. But she didn’t care.

  “Shit. Why are the hot ones always taken?” He made it sound like a compliment and tease rather than grumpy and chauvinistic.

  “Guess I’m just lucky.”

  He snorted a laugh then turned his attention to the fast approaching sea mount. Suddenly he was all business. “You ready?” he shouted at the coxswain sitting back by the small engine. He nodded rather than trying to shout against the rain and wind.

  “All you two have to do is get this boat nosed as far into the cave as you can. I’ll be off before the second wave breaks. My goal is to load one person between each breaker and be out of there by the fifth wave. I figure that’s about four times longer than our luck is likely to hold and I get itchy when I push my luck by more than a factor of ten. So, we aren’t gonna go there. Clear?”

  “Clear.”

  The crest before them started to shatter. She sat in the frontmost seat, where the gunner’s mate would normally sit when an M2 .50 cal machine gun would be on the forward swivel mount. She felt a little naked with no gun and just a bow rope in her hands.

  The seat itself was like a narrow horse saddle without stirrups. The horn and cantle were curved bars to provide secure handholds fore and aft. She
could clamp her knees on the side and still have both feet firmly on the deck. It allowed her to sway back and forth like a bronc rider as the RB-S slammed through the waves.

  Her nerves were moving faster than the waves though.

  “You think this is going to work?” Vera shouted to the swimmer though he sat just in the next seat back and to the side.

  “Crazy as shit, but it’s the best chance these people have. If we survive, I’m gonna have to shake the hand of whatever crazy bastard thought this up.”

  “Why wait?” She held out her hand. “And that would be crazy bitch.” She didn’t know what had come over her, but she liked the way it felt.

  He shook her hand hard and grinned before nodding aloft. “Does he know how goddamn lucky he is?”

  She didn’t know. But if they lived through this, she was certainly going ask.

  12

  Ham really wished he surfed. He’d saved enough surfers over the years, and failed to save a few others, that there wasn’t a chance they’d ever get him out on a board. But knowing the waves better would be really useful at the moment.

  “Twelve-thirty!” Sly called out and held out a fist aimed close ahead and just to the right.

  The trough immediately ahead of their wave dipped down to reveal a massive boulder.

  Ham swung left, hoping he’d drag the RB-S sideways in time. They’d have no vision ahead and had to trust the flight crew. Because of the long lead on the winch line, he had to judge the lag time in guiding them.

  “And—” Sly didn’t even have time to point.

  “Got it.” Ham slalomed them back the other way. The deeper channel was darker blue, and he began following it.

  “Sea mount in ten.” Sly fed him information he didn’t have time to think about for himself.