Free HeroAdrift_PRC by Desconhecido(a) Page A

heaving decks. It probably wouldn't even come to that.
    "Everyone, here I am," called John Stella, her teacher's aide.
    Some kids were scurrying to obey, while a few others lingered at the rail. Abby went over to hurry them along.
    She felt a tug on the bottom of her blouse and looked down at the excited face of Billy Borrelli.
    "Ms. Smithton, do you think the Coast Guard will ram us?" he asked with a mixture of fear and excitement on his cherubic face and in his voice.
    "No, Billy, they will not ram us," she said firmly.
    "Oh." He looked a bit crestfallen. "Well, it could happen."
    "Only on a computer game," she replied. "Now hurry up and find your buddy and get in line. We want to be able to do everything the Coast Guard tells us when they get on board, okay?"
    Billy nodded and took one last long look at the boats drawing up to them.
    Another child called her name and she turned away, one thought in her mind--getting everyone safely off this boat and back on land.

    * * * *
    The U.S.S. Comfort pulled aside the Niagara Belle and Petty Officer Oliver Robinson balanced his weight on the balls of his feet as the skipper, Lieutenant George Danheiser throttled back and sent the diesel engine of their forty-seven-foot Motor Life Boat into idle. The current on the Niagara River was fast, with wind whipping up around twenty knots causing whitecaps to swell. The Belle was being pulled closer and closer to the International Railway Bridge and no one wanted to see whether ship or bridge would win that battle. The destruction was one thing, the possible disruption of the commercial railway traffic between the United States and Canada another. In fact, Oliver looked over and saw a boat from the Canadian Coast Guard tearing up river, as well as support craft from the local law enforcement agencies.
    The plan was to position the Comfort in front of the Belle and, using a tow line, keep her steady while they transferred the passengers to smaller crafts and returned them to land. Perhaps in normal situations, they would just leave the passengers aboard and tow the Belle back to port. But this wasn't a normal situation. They had a report the Belle's captain had collapsed with a possible heart attack. They also had learned the Belle was hosting over a hundred elementary school students from the area. No one wanted to risk anything happening to the youngsters, so the decision had been made to take everyone off the Belle, just in case.
    Search and rescue were the prime functions of the Coast Guard and one of the biggest reasons Oliver had signed up. Of course, since he'd been in, things had changed with the Guard taking on more and more responsibilities for law enforcement and homeland security.
    But search and rescue had always held a special spot in Oliver's gut. It was the thing he'd miss most when he left the Guard.
    This rescue was a little trickier than normal because of the children involved, but he also felt a little relieved. Oliver had just been transferred to Buffalo after spending eight months at Air Station Miami, where the duty was always exciting and hazardous. Buffalo normally wasn't quite so active, but with his shoulder still acting up after he had been shot on his last Miami op by the drug dealer they were trying to capture, Oliver could use a little light duty.
    He turned his thoughts away from Miami. There was no use going over it again because thinking about that evening just pissed him off and he couldn't do anything to change what had happened. He also didn't need to have those thoughts in his mind when he was facing a rescue.
    One thing Oliver had learned early in his CG career was to never take any rescue for granted and keep his mind one hundred percent on the job.
    The Comfort was in place and Oliver saw the signal from Danheiser that things were ready. Seaman Joe Poreda stepped from the Comfort onto the Belle, temporary anchor in hand, and headed to the stern. He made quick work of securing the anchor and then tying