The Complete US Coast Guard

Chapter 3

3

Carlos glanced up at the sky and decided that he shouldn’t be in too much trouble. September in the Pacific Northwest was changeable in mood, but tended toward the more pleasant. It wasn’t until October that the weather really flipped. Today was sixty degrees and maybe fifteen miles-an-hour of wind—thirteenish knots he corrected himself. Sailors always thought in nautical miles for reasons passing understanding.

Then he looked down at the dock again and was less sure. The weather here at the Cape Disappointment Coast Guard station in Ilwaco, Washington on the far bank of the wide Columbia River was blowing up stormy right from the gate.

A Senior Chief Petty Officer McAllister, with the sense of humor of a lead brick, had come to fetch him from security.

“Always glad to have a visit from Crossing the Bar,” he grumbled a greeting. “Of course your aunt never went out of her way to antagonize my best new Surfman.”

Carlos opened his mouth…

McAllister looked really unhappy about something.

…so Carlos closed his mouth again.

He’d thought that he and Surfman Sarah Goodwin were just having a little friendly banter for the show. In fact, they’d gone on long enough that he’d had to end the show and just keep recording. He’d briefly muted his own connection to Surfman Sarah to promise the podcast listeners that he’d be continuing the interview in future episodes. He’d gotten enough material to make it a five-part series.

Then at the end of the interview, Petty Officer Sarah Goodwin BM1 had asked if he’d like to go out on a training cruise the next day. He knew that Aunt Roz got out on the cargo ships whenever she could. If he was ever going to be serious about taking over the show, he figured he’d have to do the same. And on his first day she’d offered him the chance to try it out.

Also, as a one-up on his aunt, she’d never gone out on the search-and-rescue surf boats. She’d been out with the bar pilots’ transport tugs as they motored out to vessels to guide them back over the bar. She’d also had a local helo pilot who exchanged free sightseeing ads on the show for giving her a quick ride out onto the occasional incoming vessel.

But to get out on the working craft of the US Coast Guard, the 47-foot Motor Lifeboat, better known as the 47-MLB, that was a definite coup. He’d planned on getting major mileage out of that at the next family dinner.

Or so he’d thought as he blithely accepted Surfman Sarah’s offer.

Aunt Roz’s and Dad’s brother had been a US Coast Guard helicopter mechanic for thirty years here by the Columbia—still was. And three of his four daughters had married Coasties. (The fourth, Maggie, a total reprobate and the most fun of the lot, had become a helicopter mechanic for a group of firefighters and married one of the team’s civilian helo pilots. Total outcast at family gatherings. He hung with her whenever he could.) But what with all the brothers-in-law’s training, he knew how to read a ticked-off Coastie.

And when that Coastie was a Senior Chief Petty Officer, Carlos knew the wind was going to be blowing cold no matter what the weather.

The Senior Chief turned to look at him.

Carlos didn’t recall coming to a stop at the head of the pier.

“Go on down, boy. Last boat in the line. You earned it.” This time the Senior’s grimace might have been a mocking smile. He slapped Carlos hard enough on the shoulder that it was a miracle he wasn’t catapulted out to sea as some part of a Man Overboard (and don’t bother rescuing him) Drill. He and the Senior were the same height, and Carlos liked keeping fit, but he had nothing on the man for raw power.

Turning the slam’s momentum into a forward stumble, he headed down the pier. There were five of the boats tied up: two to the left, then three to the right—all parked stern-in along narrow floating docks. Another group of three more were moored on another leg of the long pier. Each crew he passed looked down at him from their boats and then made some snide comment he could never quite hear. But he heard the laughter trailing behind him.

The long path of shame.

It was like the long walk to the principal’s office, one he’d worn well over the years. “Directionless.” “Inattentive.” “Joker.” (Prankster actually, but he tried not to correct Dr. Bream too often. Pointing out during his first visit with the man that he’d been named for a fish—but a pretty one, good eating too—hadn’t earned him as much good will as you might think.) He’d pulled any number of stunts over the years: reprogramming the school bells to ring at odd times and changing out the recording of the national anthem for morning announcements with Louie Louie by the Notre Dame Marching Band—the best version in his humble opinion.

Carlos managed to get As when he cared: English, History, Journalism. Cs when he didn’t: just about everything else except track-and-field. No college. He’d wanted to get a little “down and dirty.” Which had turned out to be less fun than it sounded over the last five years. He’d done some paid blogging, a little sports writing, local cable TV, made it to the news desk. And got bored out of his gourd.

A local broadcast station—a good local in Seattle—offered him a test at a weekend anchor slot.

We think you’ve got what it takes. We want you to bring it to our market.

He sat in as a “guest co-anchor” for a pair of evening and late-night news slots.

He’d quit the cable station the next day. But instead of turning his car north for Seattle, he’d turned west and ended up in Aunt Roz’s Victorian-tower broadcast studio. Quite how or why that had happened still eluded him.

And high school. It had been a long time since Carlos had thought about that long walk down the echoing concrete hallway between all the sports trophies he’d helped win and all the academic awards that he hadn’t.

“Shake it off, dude.” Though he kept his voice low as another round of titters followed him along. “Yeah, just keep that up, guys. Who knew that full-grown Coasties ‘tittered’? Definitely going into the next podcast.” He felt better for that decision.

The last boat down the line didn’t have a tittering crew watching him go by. They were busy preparing to go to sea.

A pair of guys in full float gear were checking over their equipment. They were dressed in bright red, head-to-toe float suits with the hoods tugged back. Another guy with a clipboard and a toolbelt was conferring with them.

And up on the open bridge, there was a woman standing there like she was a Greek goddess. At least that was his first impression. The sun, still low to the east, was dazzling behind her. She had her feet planted wide and her arms crossed in front of her. She rolled so easily with the rocking of the boat that it seemed she was the one who stayed still and the rest of the world bobbed and dipped around her center. He couldn’t see anything else about her because she also wore one of the bulky float suits. Maybe her hair was made of purest gold, maybe that was just the sun—it was hard to tell.

“Mr. Torres. So glad you could join us.” Just like on the radio, Petty Office Sarah Goodwin had a low, warm voice that sounded deceptively friendly. In fact, if not for the Senior Chief’s warning, he’d have thought it was. Now he could hear the chill sweeping south from Alaska. Or perhaps the Arctic Ocean. Deep chill. He wasn’t just in the deep end of the pool; the bottom had gone missing while he wasn’t watching.

The 47-MLB was just that, forty-seven feet of custom-designed purebred Motor Lifeboat. He’d done what research he could last night. It was all aluminum. No air-filled bladders that made the smaller 42-foot Near Shore Lifeboat look like a Zodiac on steroids with rubber-bladder sides. Five feet of length was only the smallest of the differences. The 47-MLB had an open bridge exposed to the weather and an enclosed bridge that stayed watertight even if the boat became fully submerged. There was even a watertight survivor compartment complete with medical gear and a stretcher if they had to do a helicopter evacuation. Twin Detroit diesel engines could practically make the boat fly.

It was forty-seven feet, eighteen tons (incredibly light for a boat of this size), and over a million dollars of mean, robust, Coast Guard machine.

“Thanks for having me.” If she was going to pretend to play it light, so could he.

She watched him for a long moment, then shrugged. “Vicks and Marnham. Get him suited up to get wet. You don’t mind getting wet, do you?”

“No, ma’am,” seemed the safest answer. But he risked adding, “Though usually I’m more of a track-and-field guy.” Because why the hell not?