Zavala was following Trout around the frothing rim. Again he brought the helicopter down until the rope was close enough for Trout to reach. Trout made a feeble grab for the line but it again eluded his grasp.

Austin guessed that Trout was too exhausted to pull himself out. He saw Gamay peering anxiously down at him from the helicopter. He gave her a wave, took a deep breath and jumped from the helicopter.

He came down in the water several feet from Trout and stroked his way closer to his friend. Trout croaked like a bullfrog with a bad cold:

“What... the ... hell ... are ... you ... doing ... here?”

“You looked like you were having fun, so I thought I'd join you.”

“You're crazy!”

Austin gave him a soggy grin. He struggled to buckle their flotation vests together. With that task finally accomplished, he looked up and saw the helicopter swooping back and forth over their heads.

Austin waved, and Zavala brought the helicopter in for another rescue attempt. After several tries, Austin saw that he would have to have the speed of a rattlesnake to grab the flapping rope. The cold water had sapped his energy, and he knew there was little chance he'd be able to pull them both from the water. But he kept on trying for the line, and didn't notice right away that something odd was occurring.

They were moving more slowly around the whirlpool. The angle of the water in the great watery pit was less steep than it had been. He thought it was his imagination, or simply an optical illusion, but after a moment or two he saw that the bottom of the whirlpool was rising, giving the gyre a bowl shape.

Around the rim of the gyre, the raging circle of breakers seemed to be subsiding. The water was dropping back to ordinary sea level.

The bottom continued to rise. At the same time, their forward motion slowed, until they were moving at the pace of a walk.

Zavala had seen the change in the whirlpool's configuration, and once more brought the helicopter in low over the struggling figures.

Austin felt a surge of adrenaline-fueled energy. He reached up and his fingers closed around the line. Gamay was tending it and giving him plenty of slack. His cold, fumbling fingers slipped the line under Trout's armpits, then around himself, and he signaled Zavala to haul them out.

As they rose above the wavetops, Austin could see the NOAA ship and the Throckmorton cutting the distance in their direction.

He glanced down, and his eyes grew wide at the sight that greeted them. The whirlpool had virtually vanished, and in its place was a great, dark circle of slowly rotating water filled with every kind of ocean debris imaginable.