Overfall Read Free Page A

with binoculars. Even with the boat’s motion he could tell that she clung to seaweed-covered granite. She was well away from the cliffs and the point from which she had fallen. From her location it was too far to swim to shore in this current.
    For just a second his eyes left the figure in the water to look for another boat—any boat. Nothing.
    The wind was increasing fast, blowing right at the overfall. He knew the result: It would push the wave up, perhaps making it half again as high.
    He pondered whether he could save her. He loved his yacht as much as a man could love a material thing and still possess a soul. He loved Harry. If he went much closer he would risk losing Harry and the boat, maybe dying, and for a stranger who would probably drown anyway.
    Then he saw the solitary figure on the trail from which the woman had fallen. He breathed a sigh of hope. There were two dogs running, noses down, barking their frustration at the cliff and the vanished track.
    Through the binoculars he managed to get a shaky view of a man standing, looking down into the water, and then turning to walk away.
    She was waving frantically, but at Sam, not the man on the cliff. The man didn’t run or even look agitated. Assuming that he saw her, he plainly didn’t care if she died. Perhaps he even wanted her to die. A moment later he had disappeared.
    “Unbelievable,” Sam said aloud.
    With the wind the sea was building fast and the waves were washing over her. She would be swept away in minutes. Glancing at the wind indicator he saw the wind at thirty-five knots and building. It was going to be a williwaw.
    He brought the boat around into the wind and furled the jib, then ran to the wheel and concentrated on positioning the boat. Because he was upstream from the woman, the current, the wind, and the breaking sea were sweeping him toward her. With the sails down the boat rolled even worse in the building chop. He added power.
    According to the GPS, the current was pushing him at seven knots over the bottom. Sam was accustomed to risking his life, but there was still an adrenaline surge.
    In the distance the roar of the overfall filled his ears. Even from his location he couldn’t escape the white wave that sat just ahead of the largest saltwater whirlpool and undertow in the world. The boat would be drawn into it and the treacherous rocks all around as surely as the moon pulls the oceans. He wondered if his boat could survive the water that might fill it or bash it against the green-tinged jaws of rock that guarded the Paradise Channels.
    The wind was rising fast under a black sky. Forty-one knots, the incandescent numbers blinked.
    “Harry, go to your bed.”
    The little dog jumped up on the bulkhead, then dived down the hole of the companionway hatch into the pilothouse. Sam pulled the hatch shut. There would be water everywhere once they hit the overfall. He could see the woman, still clinging to the rock, thrashing with her legs, obviously trying to get a better purchase. She couldn’t climb out of the water, and with everything but her shoulders and head immersed she would develop hypothermia in minutes. She was still looking in his direction, waving one arm.
    “I see you,” he muttered. “Just hang on.”
    With less than two hundred feet to go he swung the boat into the wind and current, letting the rushing water push him backward against the full power of the diesel. It was like the middle of a river, and the force of swirling water jarred the boat, making it hard to hold the bow on a heading. Even with full power into the current he was going backward at about five knots over the bottom. He threw a strobe-lighted life ring with a safety line out the stern for her to grab if she missed the boat. The current was increasing—the fierce wind was doing the rest. Finding the lee of some islets that broke a little wind, twisted the water, and reduced the current, he was able to slow the boat’s backward movement. Silverwind’s