Chapter 1

Camilla

October 20, 1989

Cypress Street Viaduct, Oakland, California

ordon said he saw her this time—through the gap under the crossbeam, but she crawled away again.”

“Gordon’s wrong. It’s been three days since the last live rescue.” Dan Prescott looked down the black row of rubber body bags, lined up like dominos on the buckled asphalt. “Our window’s closed—they’re all dead.”

“But the crew from Engine Company Eight heard her, too—yesterday, under the H span. She was singing.”

Dan shook his head. His gaze followed the collapsed section of elevated freeway stretching a mile into the distance. The two-story spans were sandwiched together, the upper crushing the lower, resting against the crumbled concrete pylons.

“How could anyone still be alive in there?” he asked.

“I’m telling you, they saw her.” Manuel Garcia’s voice cracked. “They heard her.”

“I’ve been doing this for fifteen years, and I know,” Dan said. “At this point, it’s strictly recovery. I’m sorry, Manny.”

Black smoke billowed out of the small gaps between the roadway spans. Some of the crushed cars trapped inside were still smoldering four days after the earthquake. Two blocks away, a hook-and-ladder truck angled close to the rubble. A fireman clung to the ladder, spraying a stream of water into the narrow crack between the pancaked roadways.

Manuel stared at the constricted, smoking gap, his face drawn with anguish.

“They said she looked like a little angel, lost in the darkness,” he said. “She was singing to herself.”

Dan turned to the younger paramedic and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“I went home for a couple hours last night,” he said. “Looked in on my daughters, asleep in their beds… and I cried. Something like this, you can’t really get your head around it. You don’t know what to believe in anymore. So our minds invent phantoms, showing us what we want to see. Or hear.”

He looked at his junior partner and saw himself fifteen years ago. He spoke as gently as he could.

“Manny, there is no girl.”

Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ

A column of names ran down one side of the clipboard Dan held, question marks after them. On the other side were detailed descriptions: gender, approximate age, hair, eyes, clothing, but no names. He stared at the list, pen in hand, but a deep voice snapped him out of his bleary-eyed focus.

“We’re cutting into H section.”

Dan squeezed the bridge of his nose and blinked at Ballard, the fire lieutenant.

“Waste of effort,” he said.

Ballard’s expression hardened. “You should go home, Dan.”

Dan could see exhaustion etched into Ballard’s face, but his jaw was set. The rest of the crew from Engine Company 8 came around the side of the ambulance, carrying a Hurst tool—the Jaws of Life, used to pry open mangled vehicles. Two of them lugged a large rotary concrete saw, trailing its thick orange power cable. All wore bulky knee and elbow pads.

Manny Garcia stood next to Ballard. He wouldn’t meet Dan’s eyes.

Ballard pointed at Gordon, his station chief.

“Gordy says she’s in there, Dan. We’re going in to get her.”

Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ

Three hours later, Dan had check marks next to most of the fifty-eight names on his clipboard. He counted down the list of missing with his pen, pausing at the name that caught his eye again: Camilla Becker, seven years old.

Their imaginary girl?

He circled the name with his pen and continued down the list. A yell interrupted him. He looked up.

Shouts came from the hole in the concrete where Ballard’s crew had gone in. The yellow of a fireman’s protective greatcoat glimmered in the floodlights. They were coming out.

“Prescott, Garcia, over here.” Ballard’s deep voice echoed across the cracked concrete. “Now.”

Dan’s eyes widened. He turned to Manny, who was already hauling a stretcher from the back of the truck. He grabbed the other end, and they ran toward the gap.

Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ

“She’s alive.”

Dan had Dispatch on the radio. It sounded strange, hearing himself say the words, but there was no joy in them.

“Her legs—both of them,” he said. “She needs to go into surgery as soon as possible.”

He listened to the dispatcher while he watched the girl. She sat upright atop a stretcher near the fire truck fifty feet away. A blanket covered her from the waist down. He was sure her legs would heal, given time. The problem was the damage that didn’t show.

He held the radio handset loosely. The dispatcher asked a question.

“Seven years old, I think,” Dan said. “I’m not sure. She can’t speak.”

The girl’s face was expressionless under a layer of soot. She looked like a life-size doll. Manny stood next to her, speaking to her, stroking her hair gently. Her eyes were dark glass marbles. Unresponsive. Empty.

Whoever the girl had been was gone forever, lost in the darkness behind those eyes. She was catatonic.

“No media,” Dan said. “It’s not a feel-good story.”

The girl—Camilla?—sat like a mannequin, unaware of her surroundings. She was nearly the same age as his oldest daughter. He looked away, down at the cracks in the concrete, and tried to focus on what Dispatch was saying.

“Channel Four?” He swore under his breath. “Who called them?”

He could hear sirens in the distance now, getting louder.

“Look, Ballard’s crew went back in to try and locate the vehicle,” he said. “To establish her identity… to find the rest of her family.”

He looked up at the hole the fire crew had cut in the concrete. They were coming out now, climbing down from between the spans. He watched them as he listened to Dispatch coordinating with the hospital. There was something odd about the way the crew was moving. Slowly. Like they all had been hurt somehow, where it didn’t show.

Ballard walked toward him. Dan couldn’t read his expression, but his cheeks and forehead looked pale under the dust and soot.

“Media?” Ballard asked. His voice was hesitant, not the usual commanding baritone.

Dan nodded. “Television.”

“Shit.”

Ballard turned away, walking faster now, and waved his crew into a huddle. Dan couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they all turned to stare at the girl. Gordon and Ballard appeared to be arguing. Gordon shook his head and left the huddle to join Manny next to the girl. Dan watched Gordon lean toward Manny, speaking with quiet urgency. What was he telling him?

Ballard and the rest of the crew broke the huddle, moving with resolve. They picked up the concrete saw and the Hurst tool again.

Ballard raced over to the fire truck and opened a side compartment. He reached inside and pulled out a chainsaw.

Dan covered the radio handset with his hand. “What the hell…?”

“Not now.” Sorrow and shock warred on Ballard’s face. “Oh Christ, Dan, she…” He swallowed and wiped a hand across his cheeks. “Don’t say a word to the media when they get here.”

“But—”

“Not a goddamn word.” Ballard pointed toward the girl on the stretcher. “For her sake.”

He hustled away, carrying the chainsaw, and scooped up two empty body bags with his free hand. Then he hesitated, dropped them, and grabbed four smaller bags instead. Ballard followed his crew, disappearing into the hole in the concrete.

Confused, Dan looked at Gordon and Manny, standing over the girl’s stretcher. Manny was still smoothing the girl’s hair with one hand. As Gordon spoke to him, his hand slowed. Then it stopped moving, frozen in mid-air.

Manny slowly pulled his hand back, tucked it under his arm, and took a step away from the stretcher. Then he turned and stumbled after Gordon, who stalked away with angry strides.

Baffled by Manny’s withdrawal, Dan walked toward the girl. She looked so lost, so alone now. He put his hands in his pockets and stared at her blank, doll-like face.

Are you still trapped under there, Camilla Becker?

Inside her mind, was she still crawling through wreckage and flames, surrounded by the dead and the dying? He couldn’t imagine what she’d been through these last four days, or what kind of damage it had done to her. Had she given up, or was she still trying to find her way out of the darkness?

Her parents had been in the car with her, according to his clipboard. An only child. No next of kin listed. He didn’t know what Ballard and the others had seen when they found her family, but in fifteen years he had never seen those guys shaken like that.

Dan tilted his head, watching her. Maybe it’s a mercy if you never come back.

Then he frowned. Singing to herself yesterday, Manny said…

The girl was alive for a reason. She was a fighter.

Dan’s throat tightened. I gave up on you. I shouldn’t have. Manny’s right about me—I’ve been doing this so long, I’d lost hope. But you…

His vision blurred.

You’ve given me a reason to believe again, Camilla. I do think you’re going to find your way out of the darkness.

Something flickered in her expression.

Dan leaned closer, but it was only the red flashes from the arriving emergency vehicles reflected in her unseeing eyes. A long and difficult road lay ahead for her.

Despite himself, he reached out and touched her forearm in awe.

Chapter 2

J T

September 11, 2007

FOB Salerno, Northeastern Afghanistan

he Valley of Death.”

Sanchez dropped his cigarette and ground it into the tarmac. “I should have guessed. The goddamn Korengal Valley.”

JT ignored him and squinted against the dust. He liked the kid, but Sanchez hadn’t been with 1^st Force Recon in Iraq. He hadn’t been there for Fallujah.

Without turning around, JT raised his voice to be heard over the rotors. “DiMarco, what are we looking for out there?”

“Hell if I know. One-three brass wouldn’t say. Routine patrol, they told me.”

Predawn glow outlined the row of black AH-64 Apache helicopters that stretched into the distance. The 173^rd would ferry them in-country in one of the larger Chinooks, though. Its dark bulk loomed behind him, dotted with pinpoints of red—running lights.

JT would have preferred the Apache’s firepower. Bringing in 1^st Force Recon Marines for this operation meant something. This wasn’t a routine patrol.

The cool, dry desert air chilled his skin, but in a few hours it would be scorching. Six years today, he thought. Six years since the planes hit the towers and the world changed forever. He had joined the Corps that same afternoon, walking away from a full engineering scholarship at U.C. Berkeley, and had never regretted his decision.

Their pilot walked across the tarmac toward them. Alone. He climbed into the cockpit.

“Saddle up, gents.”

“Where’s your buddy?” JT asked.

“He’s in no shape to fly, Corporal. Birthday last night. I don’t want him puking in my cockpit.”

JT stared at him hard. “Regs say we don’t fly without a copilot. You better get on that radio.”

“I’ve got him logged as flight crew anyway, so we’re good.” The pilot looked flustered. JT had that effect on most people. “Cut him some slack. Brass doesn’t need to know he isn’t aboard, or he’s looking at a disciplinary.”

DiMarco’s voice cut the air. “Let it go, Corporal. Let it go.”

Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ

“They stand there looking at you…” Sanchez leaned forward, a hand on his helmet. The beat of the rotors made him hard to hear. “You’re there helping ’em, right? Fixing the village’s water, treating the sick, talking to the elders, and whatnot. Winning hearts and minds—all that shit. And you know. You just know.”

JT watched the dark tree line of the Abas Ghar ridge slide by outside in the dim gray half-light. The kid was right, but so what? This was the new face of war. Get used to it.

Across from him, Collins nodded. “You see it in their eyes,” he said. “The ones hanging in back of the crowd. But you can’t do a goddamn thing about it. And then you’re heading back to base, you’re thinking, sniper? IED? Or full-on ambush this time?”

The deck of the copter bounced under their feet.

“Stop your bitching,” JT said. “This is a holiday, after Iraq.”

DiMarco laughed. “At least these Taliban run away when you return fire. And they fall down when you hit ’em.”

JT leaned forward to slap Sanchez on the knee. “Fucking Fallujah was different. It was like Dawn of the Dead. Muj there were true believers, not like these sorry-asses. You’d blow their arms and legs off, they’d keep coming at you.”

“An IED took out a U.S. medical convoy,” DiMarco said. “The mujahideen got a huge stockpile of drugs off it. That’s what we were up against.”

JT nodded. “Muj were jacked on amphetamines, shooting up epinephrine—pure medical adrenaline. Word came down: head shots only. Waste of time shooting them anywhere else. I saw a guy get hosed by a SAW, musta’ been hit fifteen, twenty times. Didn’t even slow him down. I shot him five or six times myself. Nothing. Fucker was just laughing at us, shooting back. DiMarco had to take him out with an RPG.”

DiMarco leaned forward and bumped his own fist against JT’s dark knuckles. “Listen to the man. You guys are on vacation here. Relax.”

“What the hell?” The surprise in the pilot’s voice was alarming.

JT looked down at the valley floor. Shadows moved amid the cedar trees. Men and vehicles. A lot of them.

“That’s not right,” he said.

He reached over to smack DiMarco’s shoulder, but DiMarco had already seen them. He stared back at JT in confusion.

“Those aren’t—”

The Chinook lurched, and something wet sprayed the side of JT’s face. He whipped his head around to see the pilot slump sideways. A red fan spread across the ceiling above him.

“Shit,” Collins yelled. “We’re hit!”

JT’s eyes narrowed. He grabbed DiMarco’s tac vest, pulled him close, and leaned into his face.

“Let it go, DiMarco? Let it go?” He spoke very slowly, holding DiMarco’s eyes with his own. “No copilot now, motherfucker.”

“The IFF. Get the IFF on.” DiMarco’s voice was hoarse. “That’s an order, Corporal.”

JT shoved him away and unbuckled. The Chinook tilted sideways and nosed down, bouncing and shaking like a truck riding on cross ties. Bracing himself against the ceiling, the muscles of his arms bulging, he worked his way toward the cockpit.

Sparks drizzled from the overhead switch panel. Black smoke filled the cabin. JT could hear Sanchez behind him, speaking rapid Spanish. Praying. The air stank of sweat and fear.

The pilot was dead, no question about that. JT shoved him aside, and yanked back on the cyclic. The Chinook failed to respond. Through the canopy, the ridgeline slipped by beneath them, dropping away into the next valley. Enemy territory. He grabbed the radio handset.

“Mayday. Mayday.”

The radio was dead.

JT scanned the control board, locating the IFF beacon that DiMarco wanted. It would signal their location to friendlies. He flipped the switch, and a red light came on, blinking with a steady rhythm. Outside the glass canopy, the tree-dotted far wall of the valley filled his view, looming larger with every passing second.

Mounting a rescue operation would take hours, he knew—the enemy owned this valley. But first, he had to survive the crash, and they were coming down hard. He levered himself up and scrambled out of the cockpit, dragging the dead pilot behind him. Pulling himself up into his seat one-handed, he raced to buckle his harness and tighten his straps. He looked at Sanchez. The kid was mumbling, staring at the floor, face contorted with terror.

JT felt trickles of sweat rolling down his shaved head. He pulled the pilot up off the deck and draped the limp body over Sanchez’s lap and his own.

Sanchez jerked his head up and stared at JT rabbit eyed. He tried to shove the dead pilot off his knees.

JT pushed down with an elbow, holding the pilot in place.

“Crash padding,” he said.

He stretched his other arm past DiMarco, pulled the canvas first aid kit free, and hugged it to his chest, forcing it under his harness straps.

The Chinook tilted the other way, the whine of the rotors rising in pitch. The airframe shuddered, and JT heard the shriek of metal rending above them.

A rotor blade tore through the cabin, six feet from him, and DiMarco grunted. DiMarco’s lower body and legs darkened, drenched with blood. He stared at JT in shock.

JT looked at the injury and shook his head at DiMarco. Game over.

Disintegrating blades from the aft rotor slashed through the cabin walls, coming closer and closer. The Chinook’s tail slewed as the heavy craft autorotated on its remaining forward rotor. Liquid misted JT’s face, stinging his eyes. The smell of aviation fuel filled the air.

Collins coughed. “We’re fucked.”

The Chinook plunged beneath their feet.

Sanchez’s breath was coming in gasps. JT reached out and grabbed Sanchez’s hand. Sanchez looked at him, and the fear in his eyes gave way to gratitude. He matched JT’s solid grip with his own panicky one.

With his other hand, JT reached for Collins and held him steady.

Wind whipped through the cabin, blowing from the widening gap next to DiMarco.

JT’s gaze was drawn to the light of the IFF beacon. It blinked steadily, the red rhythm slow, almost lazy, as the wall of the valley grew larger and larger in the windscreen behind it. The beacon looked like a red eye winking at him.

Then the world shredded apart in a chaos of noise, motion, rock, and flying metal.

Chapter 3

Lauren

August 6, 2007

Trango Tower, Karakoram Range, Pakistan

he metal piton whistled past, nearly hitting Lauren King in the head. She looked over her shoulder and watched it fall away. The four-inch angled steel spike drifted down alongside the planet’s tallest vertical rock face, shrinking until it was lost from sight, invisible against the white ice of the Baltoro Glacier six thousand feet below.

Reflexively, Lauren hugged the granite tighter. She glanced up at her companions, and her eyes narrowed. God damn it, Terry.

After five days on the wall, all three of them were tired and clumsy, but Terry was coming apart now. He was going too fast, fumbling and dropping gear.

Trango’s summit, a fang of orange rock, rose far above them. Too far. Lauren took a deep breath and turned to stare out at the ice-laden peaks around them, lit by dawn’s pink rays: Uli Biaho, K2, Gasherbrum IV, Cathedral. Across the empty gulf of thin air, the neighboring spires looked close enough to touch. A cascade of fog poured through Cathedral’s saddle like a silent waterfall, dissipating in midair a thousand feet down. They were on the roof of the world. No room for mistakes up here.

Her eyes dropped again to the glacier, over a mile below. Straight down. Terry shouldn’t be leading this pitch—or any pitch on Trango. She’d seen him get in trouble trying to solo the Nose on El Cap. Dumb-ass was going to earn himself a Darwin Award, trying to climb five-fourteen. Why hadn’t he said no to this trip?

Lauren knew damn well why Terry had come, though. She had caught his puppy-dog glances all summer in Yosemite’s Camp 4. She’d noticed the way his voice changed whenever he talked to her.

Christ, Terry, it was never going to happen.

She wasn’t sure what it was about her that attracted men, but even back in her suburban Danville high school, she had been a source of fascination for many. Maybe it was her mixed heritage—the contrast between her half-Chinese features and the long, muscular limbs that let her do more pull-ups than the male jocks she routinely humiliated. Or maybe the go-to-hell look in her eyes was a challenge they just couldn’t ignore. But whatever the reason, she knew Terry would have said yes to any trip she was going on, no matter where.

She gritted her teeth and let go with one hand, shaking her fingers to loosen them. By touch, she double-checked the figure-eight knot that tied the safety line into her harness loop, then slid her hand up the rope. Her fingers traced it past her belly, chest and shoulder, gauging the slack. A hundred thirty feet of 10.8-millimeter red and gold bi-pattern rope connected her climbing harness to Matt, who had led the pitch above her as they simulclimbed, and was now belaying both her and Terry above him.

Her gaze followed the line up the wall, counting Matt’s pro—his protection: the chocks, cams, and pins that he had set into the rock every twenty feet and tied into. Hardware secured the rope at four spots between Matt and Lauren, ready to catch Matt if he fell.

Far above her, Matt met her eyes. He shook his head, pointing up at the top of their line, where Terry clung eighty feet above him.

Lauren turned away. Don’t look at me, cowboy. This wasn’t my idea.

She dipped her fingers into the bag of climbing chalk hanging from the back of her waist harness, and reached for the next hold: a narrow flake of orange granite two feet above her head.

She looked at her hands, gripping the rock. Those large, square, unfeminine hands, with their knobby knuckles and strong fingers, were her deadbeat father’s. As a child, she had been ashamed of her hands. When Lauren was twelve, her mom had laid a dainty hand atop the back of Lauren’s own and nicknamed her “Mi-Go,” which meant “yeti”—the abominable snowman.

Those hands had gotten her in trouble, too—suspended in her sophomore year for breaking Sarah Calloway’s nose in the locker room. But Lauren wasn’t going to let a fucking cheerleader call her “Sasquatch” behind her back. Not after “Mi-Go.”

It had been a revelation to discover that her hands were perfectly designed for gripping and pinching and jamming invisible routes on rock that defied all other challengers. Her hands were the only thing she had ever been able to count on; people always disappointed her, sooner or later.

Lauren shifted a foot, smearing the smooth rubber of her climbing shoe against a granite nub, and pushed herself higher to bring her face level with Matt’s first piece of pro.

Her eyes widened.

The piton Matt had clipped their rope into was a dull, tarnished gray instead of green-painted chrome-moly steel like the ones dangling from Lauren’s own harness. She knew what that meant. Matt and Terry were both rushing. They were reusing old pro, tying into hardware the last team of climbers had left behind five years ago, instead of placing their own. Her chest tightened.

You know better than this, Matt. You taught me, remember?

After five seasons of water melting and freezing in the rock, expanding and contracting in all the little fissures, the old pro couldn’t be trusted.

Lauren braced herself against the rock face. She grabbed the carabiner clipping their rope to the piton’s eyehole, looped two fingers through the three-inch aluminum D-ring, and yanked. To her horror, the old pin pulled free from the crack, grating in the silence.

The piton dangled from her fingers, trailing the arc of limp rope. Three more pieces of hardware dotted the rock between her and Matt, and four between Matt and Terry. Lauren grimaced, knowing the rest of the pro above her was probably no good, either.

Nice going, team.

She looked up. High above her, Terry’s leg slipped, and her stomach clenched. He was losing it, which didn’t surprise her, but the bad pro meant that if he fell now, he would zipper the rope off the wall and take Matt with him. They would both drop, ripping out all seven pieces above her, and then the rope tied to Lauren’s harness would be the only thing connecting Matt and Terry to the face.

Her heart accelerated, thudding wildly in her chest. They would pull her off the wall, too.

Matt waved an arm, calling instructions down to her. His voice was bright with urgency, the words just senseless noise to her ears. Lauren shut him out and pressed her cheek against the cold orange rock. She could feel her teammates’ jerky movements vibrating down the rope. It felt like the first gentle trickles of snow that signaled the coming avalanche.

The moment she’d been dreading for days was finally here. But maybe they still had a chance of surviving this.

Matt had been impatient with her all morning, saying she was taking too long to clean the route and pull the gear behind them. What Lauren hadn’t told him was that she was trailing a second rope, looped through a Petzl GriGri as a self-belay. She was taking the time to sink her own anchors, sacrificing gear as they went. She was violating every principle of clean climbing because she had seen something like this coming.

But how much pro had she left in place below her right now?

Her eyes followed her self-belay rope down the granite wall. The loop dangled from her harness, hanging loosely for fifty feet to where she had threaded it through cams she’d placed in the rock. Another forty feet below that, the loop’s end was tied through angle pins she had worked into a Y-shaped crack. That was it. That was all of her pro, the climber’s protection supposed to catch her if she fell.

Fucking Matt. If it hadn’t been for his stupid bitching that she was slowing the pace, she’d have placed more of her own gear. A lot more.

Lauren gritted her teeth and ignored the scrabbling sounds and movements above her. Her breath came in shallow pants, leaving chuffs of icy vapor hanging in the still air.

Would her backup pro be enough to hold all three of them? If not, they would drop a vertical mile. Thirty seconds of free fall, conscious the whole way. Then they would crater into a pink smudge on the glacier.

Ignoring Matt’s panicked shouts, Lauren looked at her hands again. They had never failed her, the way other people always did. Maybe they could save her now.

If there was enough time, she could sink more gear, tie herself to the wall.

Letting go with her left hand, she groped amongst the nuts and cams hanging from her harness belt until her trembling fingers closed around a climber’s “friend.” She quickly wedged the safety device into the crack, and its opposing cams expanded to lock into place. She reached for another and jammed it right above the first. She frantically threaded her harness rope through both of them. Her fingers flew, tying a clove hitch one-handed. She needed more time.

But there was no time left. The lead rope slackened suddenly as Terry came off the wall high above her. Lauren pressed her cheek against the cold granite again, seeing the speckled rock in high relief. She listened hard but heard nothing other than the fear-monster’s roar, the sound of blood rushing in her ears.

Matt had gotten them into this because he couldn’t admit she was a better climber than he ever was. That’s really why we’re up here, isn’t it, Matt? She forced her fingers into motion again, and grabbed a fixed nut, still attached to her harness loop. She wedged the hex nut into the crack at her waist.

Slamming more hardware in as fast as she could, she strained to hear.

When the sound came, she felt it thrum through the rope: the high, innocuous ping of Terry’s first anchor pulling free from the rock. A couple seconds later, there came another metallic ping, followed almost immediately by a third. The lead rope was unzipping.

Her rope went taut and she was jerked up hard against the rock. Terry had torn Matt away from the face, too.

Terry plummeted past. He flashed by in Lauren’s peripheral vision in eerie silence. Her hands scrabbled for a final death grip on the granite.

So none of this is your fault, Lauren? Really?

She thrust the unwelcome thought away.

Ping! That’s four.

Ping! Five.

The thrums were coming through the rope faster now, the anchors tearing out more violently as gravity sucked her teammates toward the earth.

Ping! Something sparked off the rock next to her face, sprinkling her chin with rock splinters. Part of an anchor cam.

Lauren’s eyes widened. They were shattering to pieces.

Matt plunged past, trailing the rope that connected them. His fingers almost touched her shoulder.

Ping! Last one.

She took a shuddering breath and locked every muscle rigid. She tried to melt herself into the rock, feeling her face contort into a tight mask of fear.

The rope through her harness ripped her away from the wall, yanking her downwards in a violent spray of broken cams and metal fragments, like she had been hit by a truck. Pain exploded through her chest and back as she tumbled head over heels into empty space.

Had she slowed them enough for the rest of her pro to catch them?

Her helmet struck the wall. She heard it fracture. A band of pain gripped her head. Sky and rock spun past over and over again. Her own self-belay rope looped thru the air behind her—when it snapped taut a hundred feet down, would her last two anchors hold?

I’m twenty-three.

She was dragged earthwards. Loose rope tangled her arms and legs.

I’ve barely done anything with my life.

The wall blurred past just out of reach.

I’ve never been in love.

Lauren gave herself fully to her terror.

I don’t want to die.

Chapter 4

Brent

December 26, 2004

Ton Sai Bay, Koh Phi Phi Island, Thailand

he green waters rolled back, parting like a curtain to reveal a scene of utter devastation. Brent Wilson looked at his wife and son, standing on either side of him. He gripped their hands in his and held them tight as the three stood together on the fourth-floor hotel balcony, watching the waters recede.

The sea drained away from the narrow isthmus, pouring down the beaches on both sides. The churning waves drew wreckage in their wake: capsized long-tail boats, bamboo roofs, lounge chairs, beach umbrellas. And people. Hundreds of bodies swirled amid the flotsam—men, women, children—some struggling, but most limp and still.

Brent closed his eyes for a moment. So many dead.

Tourists and Thai villagers alike had been swept along when the tsunami’s twin waves surged up the crescent-shaped beaches that lined either side of the island. The two waves had come together in the crowded strip of palm trees between the two beaches, where Ton Sai village’s shops and restaurants clustered thickest. Most of the structures were gone now, dismantled by the crushing weight of water.

There had been no warning.

“Dad, the people that were on the beach—why didn’t they run away?”

Brent heard his son’s voice crack. They had booked this family trip months ago, to celebrate Brent’s fiftieth birthday. He put an arm around the boy’s shoulders and hugged him tight. In the face of the tragedy below, he seemed so young, so vulnerable. Fifteen—almost an adult, but in so many ways still a child. Had Brent been the same way at his age?

“I was watching them, Dad. When the bay emptied and all the boats beached, some of them actually ran closer—chasing the waterline out. Why would they do that? Didn’t they know the water would come rushing back? I saw a woman pulling her kids forward. Didn’t she realize they were going to die?”

Brent shared a glance with Mary. After twenty-four years of marriage, he could read the question behind her troubled look. Will he be all right? her eyes asked. How badly will this scar our son?

He took a deep breath. That was part of the problem, of course: she sheltered their son too much. But there were things he would soon have to face. They all would. He released the boy and tried to answer his question.

“It’s human nature, son. Evolution. Most of us aren’t wired for survival anymore.”

“I don’t understand. They weren’t panicking or anything. They just stood there.”

Brent laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder and squeezed. “That happens. It’s what nine out of ten people do in an emergency. They get confused, freeze up. I see it all the time as a doctor.”

The boy nodded, unable to tear his eyes away from the carnage down below.

Brent looked over at Mary again. She was holding his black medical bag.

“Let’s go,” she said. “Grab as many blankets and sheets as you can carry. I’ll help with triage.”

He smiled. His face felt tight. He stepped over and hugged his wife, taking the bag from her. “I love you, Mary.”

He knew she was strong, and she would need to be—but for a different reason than what they now faced today.

“I keep thinking of that family with the flower shop.” Mary stripped the blankets from the bed and bundled them in her arms. “They were so nice to us. All these people are. I hope they’re all right.”

“Come on.” Brent turned to his son. “We’ve got work to do.”

Mary stiffened. “No. He should stay here. It’ll be bad…”

He put a hand on her arm. “It’s better if we do this as a family.”

Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ

The first floor of the hotel was awash with sodden debris. The expansive lobby on the second floor had been converted to a field hospital. The injured lay in rows, covered by blankets and sheets. Next door, they had set up a makeshift morgue in the shell of a restaurant. Outside, seabirds split the air with raucous cries, swooping down to feast on the bounty of stranded fish that flopped amid the wet wreckage. Urgency distorted the shouts of rescuers, lending a grim cadence to the singsong Thai voices. Rescue parties brought a steady stream of casualties to both buildings.

The other doctors and volunteers deferred automatically to Brent, because of his ER experience and silver hair but also because his height and stocky shoulders cut an imposing figure among the shorter, slighter Thai. He had taken charge, directing the emergency treatment and rescue efforts.

The morgue was filling fast as well.

Brent finished stabilizing his current patient, a Thai man with two broken legs. Many of the injured had lower-extremity lacerations and breaks caused by wave-borne debris. The less fortunate had been struck higher on their bodies or crushed in the grinding wreckage. He could hear helicopters outside, ferrying the worst injured to the mainland.

He stood up and tucked his hands into his vest pockets. They had done some good here. He looked around for his son and spotted him by the window. He looked pale. He was doing fine, though, helping where he could. Brent’s chest swelled in a burst of bittersweet pride. He walked over and surprised the boy with a heartfelt hug.

“Where’s your mom?”

“She’s trying to track down some antibiotics. We ran out.” The boy suddenly pointed out the window. “Look, that guy over there in the orange baseball cap, helping search. When the water started going out, I saw him, Dad. Everyone else just stood there, but he climbed up in that big mango tree.”

“A survivor-type.” He looked at the man his son had indicated: a short Thai with skinny arms and bad teeth. Nothing noteworthy about the man’s appearance. Brent observed him closely. “About one out of ten people is an instinctive survivor, who somehow always seems to beat the odds. This guy… well, we can learn a lot from people like that.”

“What makes survivors different?”

“Nobody really knows.” He continued to watch the man in the baseball cap with rapt attention. “Genetics, upbringing—these things are certainly factors. But there’s no test for it, other than a real life-or-death situation like this.”

“Sa-was-dee krup, Doctor Brent.” The hotel manager stood nearby. He dipped his head in a respectful half bow. “We found a young girl. She is in very bad shape. Please, maybe you can save her.”

Brent followed the hotel manager out. He glanced back at his son, a silhouette standing by the window. The boy looked insubstantial.

Son, I don’t know what it takes to be a survivor. But I’m afraid I’m going to need to learn.

The icy ball of fear shifted in the pit of Brent’s stomach again. It had become his constant companion lately. He hadn’t told them yet. He had actually planned to break the news today, but nature had had other plans. He would have to wait a few more days now.

Brent thought about the moment, three weeks ago, when he and the fear had first become inseparable. Steve, the radiologist, had been unusually quiet, making none of his jokes. He had brought the CAT scan up on the screen, and Brent had seen the unmistakable signs: the irregular lumps and winding white tendrils where there should only be gray. The icy ball had rooted itself in his abdomen then, although his outward reaction had been angry and immediate.

“There’s some sort of mistake. You fucked this up somehow.” Brent had heard the irrationality of his own reasoning even as he spoke. “That can’t be me, Steve. I’m a doctor.”