Chapter 66 - The Winch over the Breakers
The downdraft from the twin turbines of the Sikorsky MH-60T Jayhawk hit the lighthouse gallery like an avalanche of compressed ice. Snow swirled in a deafening, blinding vortex around the rusted iron railing, illuminated by thirty million candlepower of white searchlight. Down in the surging black waters of the Apostle channel, the syndicate’s cutter was already pinned between the two towering white hulls of the Coast Guard cutters, their sirens echoing off the sea caves like mournful foghorns.
Through the howling tempest, an orange-suited rescue swimmer swung down from the hoist cable, his boots landing with a heavy clatter on the metal grate beside us.
"Coast Guard Rescue!" the swimmer yelled through his comm helmet, his breath venting in sharp white bursts. "Who's injured?"
"All of us," Thomas shouted back, his arm clamped around Chloe to keep her from tumbling over the waist-high iron rail. "Head trauma! Gunshots below! And there's an infant!"
The swimmer’s gaze immediately locked onto the bulge beneath my heavy canvas coat. Without wasting a breath, he unclipped a specialized, insulated rescue harness from his utility harness. "Infant and mother first! Ma'am, look at me! Keep your hands wrapped around the child, do not let go of the harness ring!"
"Amanda, go!" Marilyn yelled, bracing her back against the brick wall of the burning lantern tower. Thick, oily smoke was now pouring through the gallery doorway behind us; the century-old pine and dried pitch inside the keeper's quarters were roaring like a blast furnace. "We'll be right behind you!"
I let the swimmer clip the heavy steel carabiner through the chest loop of my harness. He wrapped his arms around me, shielding Ruby’s head from the ferocious prop wash with his own padded shoulder.
"Hoist up!" the swimmer signaled with his gloved fist to the crewman leaning out of the open helicopter door fifty feet above.
The cable went taut with a violent jerk that ripped my boots from the iron decking. For five terrifying seconds, we dangled over the churning black abyss of Lake Superior, the freezing spray from the breakers drenching my legs. Below us, the roof of the lightkeeper’s house collapsed inward in an explosion of orange sparks. In that brief, blinding flare, I looked through the blown-out second-story window.
Arthur Vance was not lying in the fire.
The floorboards where he had fallen were charred and empty. The iron fire door leading down to the cistern conduits—the submerged sea-tunnels Donald had sealed eighty years ago—stood wide open like a gaping black mouth.
Before I could scream over the wind, the winch dragged us through the cabin door of the Jayhawk. Two pairs of powerful hands pulled us onto the rubber-matted floor. A flight medic immediately threw a heavy thermal blanket over Ruby and me, snapping an oxygen monitor onto my finger while checking the baby's pulse through the fleece lining.
"Hypothermia level one, but respirations are steady," the medic called into his headset. "Child is crying, airway clear!"
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I buried my face into Ruby’s damp hair, weeping silently as her cries filled the roaring belly of the aircraft. Minutes later, the cable hauled up Thomas and a hysterical Chloe, followed finally by Marilyn Freeman. The auditor collapsed onto the aluminum bench, her gray hair plastered to her skull with soot and melted sleet, her hands trembling uncontrollably as the crew chief slammed the heavy sliding door shut and the helicopter banked hard toward the mainland.
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