When the call came, João saying, “Next week—gonna be huge,” Sharkey alerted the team, told them of his plan, and had João set up a jet ski for the tow, and without telling anyone else flew to New York and changed at JFK for a flight to Lisbon.

I can do this, I have been preparing for it my whole life, he thought: this week, this day, this wave.

“Vacation?” the man in the seat next to him said as they landed in Lisbon.

“Sort of.”

“Not good weather,” the man said. “Come in summer. These months the sea is rough. Too cold. They close the beaches.”

“That suits me,” Sharkey said.

He drove the most direct route to Nazaré, calling ahead to João to warn him that the photographers and the Prime Fuel team would be coming.

“They here now,” João said. “Lotta guys.”

“No,” Sharkey said. “They’re just leaving New York with the crew. Some are coming from Australia.”

“They here. They on the cliff. They setting up cameras and tents.”

“Yeah, right,” Sharkey said, and hung up, because the call was a distraction, the road was narrow, rain spattered the windshield, and he had no idea what João was talking about.

As before, João met him in front of the church, the Portuguese man conspicuous in his yellow slicker and his deeply tanned face framed by his hood. Instead of walking, they drove to the lighthouse on the cliff and saw the tents and the windbreaks.

“Those aren’t my people,” Sharkey said.

“I know now, “João said. “They tell me. Is the news.”

“What news?”

“Good news is the wave is coming big tomorrow. Bad news”—he punched Sharkey playfully—“your friend is here.”

“What friend?”

“Mr. Garrett.”

“McNamara’s here?”

“With his team. He going out tomorrow.”

There was something in João’s poor pronunciation that Sharkey found especially annoying, his slurring delivery of this unwelcome news.

“What about my team?”

“Maybe they come soon.”

“But I want to ride the wave tomorrow.” Sharkey heard a plaintive tone in his voice, almost a note of helpless pleading.

“You ride the wave,” João said. “Is come big all week.”

Sharkey did not have the heart to say, “I want to be first.”

“Where’s Garrett staying?”

“Here. Nazaré. Same hotel.” Joao took it all as a joke, an irony, a coincidence.

Lingering in the lobby after he checked in, Sharkey heard the familiar friendly voice: “Aloha, Joe—how’s it? Hey, this is great. You here for the wave? Of course you are, why not?”

“You didn’t say you’d be here.”

“You didn’t ask.”

Garrett was kneeling over a unblemished surfboard bag, longer and fatter than any bag Sharkey had ever seen. He’d unbuckled the tension straps and was unzipping the sides.