09-Twelve Mile Limit Read Online Free PDF Page A

over and made room for the lady. I felt the heat of her skin on my bare legs, felt the bosomy softness beneath her T-shirt as she pulled herself close, using my chest for a pillow. Her breath was warmer than the wind as she said into my ear, “Should we go say something to him? How long can he keep that up?”
    From the guest stateroom forward, muted by bulkheads of fiberglass and wood, came a booming thud-a-thud-a-thud backdropped by the sound of a grown man sobbing. It was Jeth, banging his fist or his head against the hull as he cried.
    I said, “No. We’ve got to let him get it out in his own way. But after this, when we get home, we need to keep a close eye on him. There are all kinds of ways for people to self-destruct. I’d say he’s a prime candidate.”
    She laid there quietly for a couple of minutes, holding me tight, hearing the wind, hearing Jeth, before she said, “What I hate to even think about, Doc, is that Janet’s still out there. Still alive and hoping we’ll find her, but that we haven’t looked in the right place. God, it just kills me when I think of that! Makes me feel so helpless.”
    I hadn’t yet said anything to anyone about what I felt the chances were of Janet surviving for even twenty-four hours adrift in the Gulf of Mexico, but now I did. Maybe I shouldn’t have. I’m far from being an expert on human physiology, but because I’ve done a fair amount of diving, I’ve read the basic literature on survival at sea. Rightly or wrongly, I attempted to comfort her, because false hope is a common source of human pain.
    I said, “Trust me, JoAnn, you don’t need to think about that anymore. You know about tropic hypothermia? Warm water hypothermia, it’s the same thing. I need to look it up again to be sure of the details, but I think I’m pretty close. Tropic hypothermia you get in water that’s eighty-two, eighty-three degrees, and it feels like bathwater. Stay in for a couple of hours, and you won’t even notice that your body’s core temperature is gradually dropping to match the temperature of the water. But that’s what happens.
    “I didn’t memorize the tables exactly, but in water that’s in the low eighties, even a healthy person might survive for only twenty-four hours or so. I checked it our first day out—the water temp here’s seventy-seven degrees. I doubt that Janet or the other two made it through the second night still conscious.”
    I was wrong, as I would learn later. Absolutely wrong in the face of the facts and the newest research data. Like mostly poorly informed people, though, I spoke with a conviction so firm that JoAnn was convinced.
    “Oh God, Doc, that’s so sad. But they were wearing wet suits … wouldn’t that make it—”
    “Janet showed me her wet suit before she did her first open-water dive, her new pink one with the black panels. Remember when she did that trip to Key Largo? It’s a shorty, covered just her thighs and upper body. A warm-water suit. I’m not sure how thick the neoprene was, but it wasn’t real thick. Two, maybe three millimeters, which is about pretty typical for tropical water divers.
    “The other two people were wearing similar wet suits, according to my Coast Guard pals. Michael Sanford’s was blue and black, Grace Walker’s was blue and green, and Janet’s, at least, was a high-visibility pink. What people forget is that human beings are not built for the water. We are land creatures. Water removes heat from the body about twenty-five times faster than cold air, and most of that heat loss occurs through the head. Swimming, thrashing around, or struggling in water increases heat loss. And you know how rough it is out here.”
    “Do I ever. The way we’ve gotten banged around, I’ll be sore for a week.” I felt JoAnn’s body move as she sighed heavily. “Then she’s dead. Janet’s dead. That’s what you’re saying. You’ve known all along.”
    “If she’s still in the water, that’d be my guess. But like I said, I need to go back and do some research. I have