“This is Morgan,” I shouted. “Tell Kloppenberg to blow the tanks. Repeat, tell Sci to blow the tanks.”
Before there was any response, the second kiteboarder flew through the air and landed in front of me, skimmed up beside his partner, both heading straight up the face of the oncoming, cresting wave, a ten-footer easy.
I instantly realized I’d probably be thrown into a backflip if I stayed on their course, and I cut the sled left where the shoulder of the wave wasn’t breaking yet, watching the two kiteboarders reach the crest. The helicopter search lamps were on them when they exploded off the wave and out into space, sailing on their kites, thirty, maybe forty feet in the air.
Right at the apex of their flight, Sci triggered the CO2 tanks.
They released with such force that the dry bags instantly inflated, straining against the cords that held them to the boards. The sudden change in aerodynamics threw both kiteboarders out of control.
The gusting wind caught the kites at the same time the dry bags burst, throwing a small amount of currency and a large amount of cut newspaper out into the sky like so much confetti. The boarders went flipping through the night, board over kite, somersaulting until the blade wash of one of the helicopters caught and hurled them like rag dolls straight down, twenty feet, through the swirling paper bills.
They crashed hard against the sea.
I sped up, sure now that I was looking for bodies, injured or dead. I spotted the first one facedown, partially covered by his kite. One of the Baywatch boats was on the scene now, heading for the other kiteboarder.
I grabbed mine by the back of his harness and yanked him up out of the water alongside the Sea-Doo. He hung there a second, then started choking and hacking. After several moments, he looked up at me in a daze.
“What the fuck, dude?” he moaned. “Blowing us out of the sky was definitely not part of the script.”
PART THREE
A TIME FOR TRAUMA
Chapter 45
AT TEN O’CLOCK that evening, forty minutes after I’d pulled one of the kiteboarders from the sea, county lifeguards and fire-fighters began to hoist the backboard and litter bearing Rick Del Rio up over the south railing of the Huntington Beach Pier, twenty yards east of where the bomb had detonated.
The smoke was gone, doused by the rain and fire hoses, but a harsh, charred chemical stench hung in the air as investigators worked to co
rdon off the area and document the carnage the explosion had wrought. Media helicopters circled the pier, filming the aftermath for the eleven o’clock news.
Six people were dead, including my surveillance specialist Bud Rankin, who’d been nearly decapitated by flying chunks of cement. The other five were an entire young family from Oxnard, the Deloits, husband, wife, and three kids under the age of ten. They’d been inside the diner at a table by the window having ice cream sundaes.
Another ten were injured, including Chief Mickey Fescoe, who’d been briefly knocked unconscious and had suffered cheek and arm lacerations. But he’d refused to be taken to the hospital and had just started toward me with a stone-faced Sheriff Lou Cammarata when Del Rio’s litter appeared at the railing.
“Morgan,” Cammarata growled at me.
I held up a finger and went to Del Rio’s side.
His face was burned, contused. He was in a lot of pain but alert. He focused on me immediately.
“You good?” I asked, feeling the enormity of the moment now. Del Rio was more a brother to me than my own brother. We’d been through hell together many times and had always survived and recovered. But he’d had a feeling about this gig. He’d tried to stop me from taking it on. The idea that now he might be paralyzed was almost more than I could take.
He shook his head stoically. “Nothing from the waist down, Jack.”
I felt my stomach drop forty stories. “Nothing yet,” I said. “Stay positive.”
“Kind of hard when you’ve been on the wrong end of a yo-yo,” he replied. “You get them?”
“Yes and no. I’ll explain later. I’ll see you at the hospital. Semper Fi.”
He nodded, said with little conviction, “Hoorah, Jack.”
Two EMTs lifted Del Rio onto a gurney and slid him into the rear of the latest ambulance to back down the pier. The doors closed and he was gone.
“Morgan, you’ve ruined us,” Sheriff Cammarata said in my ear.
I pivoted to find him glaring at me. “And how have I done that?”