Mahina plunks down her shotgun near the money, gives her captive a baleful glare, then palms big handfuls of cash back into the pack and zips it shut.
“This money is not yours,” she says, Brock covering her, pistol in one hand and Polo’s hair still clenched in the other.
“These people think they can steal the Barrel from us,” says Jen. “For two million dollars.”
“Cute,” says Brock. “Where’s that two million going to come from? Not shark-finning.”
Wu’s smile is gone, replaced by a stony, affronted glare. Casey can tell that Wu wants respect, wants to be seen as dangerous.
Wu raises his hands and gets up from the table. In his Kings warm-ups and heavy gold, he moves purposefully across the galley to the life-jacket stowage cabinets. They’re well-marked with images of life vests, and text in English.
Facing his audience, Wu gestures to the nearest drawer.
“Behind this lock? New precursor for fentanyl, headed to Mexico. Very hard to get. Norfentanyl. Four-AP, and 1-boc-4-AP. Over six million dollars in there. Every cartel wants this. They bid up price.”
“Fresh from China,” says Brock.
“The best,” says Jimmy Wu. “And these.”
He signals another cabinet with his upturned palm. Casts a theatrical frown at Jen and opens it. Fog billows into the dank galley but Casey can’t make out what’s inside.
“Frozen shark fins,” Wu says. “More valuable than lobster or crab. Make happy boys and girls.”
Wu’s frown upshifts to a smile, and he won’t shut up:
“In other boats we have grass for San Francisco, Colombian cocaine for San Diego, NATO seven-six-two and five-five-six ammunition for Los Mochis. We have ghost guns, no serial number, private made in California. We have best bluefin tuna for Los Angeles, and fresh shark fins for the restaurants. And cash! So much you can’t believe. More in LA and San Diego. This is how the money comes to us. We can buy the Barrel easy, you bet! And my partners in Taiwan have much more!”
An odd moment of silence then as Bette Wu stares at Jen, and Polo finally stops struggling.
Casey sees men on the decks of the Luhrs and the Bayliner looking down on them. Same guys who shot up his phone. Guns scare him like a sixty-foot wave never could.
In the middle distance, the Cigarettes lurch like bulls in a chute.
He wonders where his God is right now, why He isn’t down here acting on behalf of the upright against the soldiers of Satan.
“Pirates, smugglers, shark finners, lawyers — you really are a fun crew,” says Brock. “Let’s do this again sometime.”
Brock underhands the backpack to Casey, and marches Polo to the door, followed by Mahina and her captive, then Jen and Casey.
All the while he’s got his gun on Wu, Danilo, or Benitez, alternately. Waits for his family to clear the galley, then releases the hostage and backpedals up the gangway to the deck.
Soon as Casey’s back in his truck and moving, Jen calls 911 and describes what she’s just seen at slip 41-B in the National City Marina.
In the rearview mirror Casey sees Bette, Jimmy, Benitez, and their outmaneuvered crew milling around on the deck of Empress II, apparently without a plan.
Jimmy shakes a fist, gold chains glinting in the bright San Diego sun.
Casey falls in behind his mother’s VW Beetle, top down, and follows it to the freeway, Brock driving and Mahina waving a big brown paw at him, her profuse, black island hair blowing in the wind.
12
Looking Back—
WHO WAS JOHN STONEBREAKER AND WHAT WENT WRONG AT MAVERICKS?
A big-wave surfing contest left one of the world’s premier professional surfers dead. Who was he and why did he die?
BY JEN STONEBREAKER
No more little surfer-girl crushes on John Stonebreaker. No more “Beach Blanket Bingo.”
No more gazing at him from five houses away at Top of the World, no more spying on him in the hippie van.
John Stonebreaker pulled me into his world that day at Imperial Beach like a riptide that has you before you know it, and you can’t really fight it until it lets you go.
The stats:
Five to seven feet.
Slight offshores.
Top-to-bottom barrels, over fast.
Short shoulders and hard crashes.
By the time we got out of the water at nine o’clock, I was so cold and weak I could barely get my wetsuit off. I stood there for a while with the neoprene pulled down to my waist and a black sweatshirt on, letting the sun thaw my skin and muscles.
I looked beyond the metal border fence to Tijuana, its shanties climbing the steep hills, smoke rising, the smell of burning trash, just a half-mile distant across the river.
I crashed butt first onto a towel in the slightly warm sand, still half-clad in my wetsuit, a hoodie zipped tight, hugging my knees, my hands brine-soaked and wrinkled, eyes closed and heart slowing. The sun warmed my eyelids and I saw the ornery, orange-burnished waves I’d just tried to surf in all their speed and sudden caprice. I missed at least a dozen, just couldn’t paddle fast enough. Quickly fell off a dozen more — they were much steeper and faster than I’d been riding up in Orange County. Crashed another ten or twelve times on the bottom turns — my legs weren’t strong enough. I caught four short, fast waves that I couldn’t outrace, and ended in nasty wipeouts. But what I saw most clearly on the orange-tinted big screen in my head were the three barrels I got into, and belched out of, with what seemed like the velocity of a motorcycle. These beautiful, ribbed, roaring cylinders held me close, then set me free.
And those moments you know why you do this and you believe that there is no other thing on Earth so personal and so good.
It was my introduction to big surf — yes, sir, yes, ma’am — please accept my wipeouts as bows and curtsies.
“You did good out there,” said John.
I stayed in my burnished orange world, eyes closed. Saw a five-foot section opening up for me like a gift, looked down to see my feet on the board and the leg-throbbing bottom snap to beat that crashing lip. Saw from the corner of my vision the collapsing wall of whitewater that took me out by surprise.
“Thanks, John.”
“You took a beating, too.”
“Nothing broken or cut.”
“Imperial’s a devil and you handled it.”
“I got to get stronger.”
“All your swim and polo training is great. You just need more waves. And bigger ones. You feel it, don’t you?”
“What.”
Some time went by as John thought. I felt the sun easing into my muscles and bones. Sleep knocked.
“How important this is. How it doesn’t matter but it means everything.”
“What exact everything does it mean, John?”
“Freedom. That if you go fast enough, time stops. The barrel is the moment but the moment is eternal. And you are free. Dad says that surfing can lead to God. I say, surfing is God.”
I opened my eyes and looked up at him. Saw that same older-than-his-years expression he had in the tiki light the night before. Saw the same boy’s glitter in his eyes. The child in his man’s body.
“That’s a bit much for me to believe, preacher son. But we never went to church, so what do I know?”
“I want someone to do this with, Jen. Don’t say anything. Just think about it. It would be our world. Our strength.”
“To ride waves?”
“Big waves. The biggest you can. There are these computerized programs that forecast waves all over the Earth. They crunch the wind and storm power and direction, the swell size and frequency, factor in bottoms and tides. They’re discovering big waves — enormous waves — that nobody knew about. The old Hawaiians say you can’t catch a wave over thirty feet by paddling into it. There’s talk about jet skis and fast boats and helicopters. That’s where I want to be. That’s what I want to ride. Dad’s got his church, and huge waves are going to be mine. I want a partner. Don’t say anything, Jen. I’m asking you not to say anything.”