“Working on it,” Willis rasped.
“Losing power in Number One,” Johns said. He twisted the throttle all the way and managed to get some of it back. His two-engine aircraft was now operating on one of its engines at 80 percent power. “Let’s get Two back, Captain. We have a hundred foot per minute of ‘down’ right now.”
“Working,” Willis repeated. The rain eased a little, and Number Two started turning and burning again, but delivered only 40 percent. “I think the P3 loss just got worse. We got a shit sandwich here, Colonel. Forty miles. We’re committed to Alternate One now.”
“At least we have an option. I never could swim worth a damn.” PJ’s hands were sweaty now. He could feel them loose inside the handmade gloves. Intercom time: “AC to crew, we’re about fifteen minutes out,” he told them. “One-five minutes out.”
Riley had assembled a group of ten, all experienced crewmen. Each had a safety line around his waist, and Riley checked every knot and buckle personally. Though all had life preservers on, finding a man overboard in these conditions would require a miracle from an especially loving God who had lots of things to keep Him busy tonight, Riley thought. Tie-down chains and more two-inch line was assembled and set in place, already secured to the deck wherever possible. He took the deck crew forward, standing them against the aft-facing wall of the superstructure. “All ready here,” he said over the phone to the XO in flight control. To his people: “If any of you fuck up and go over the side, I’ll fucking jump overboard an’ strangle you myself!”
They were in a whirlpool of wind. According to the navigational display, they were now north of their target, traveling at nearly two hundred fifty knots. The buffet now was the worst it had been. One downburst hurled them down at the black waves until Johns stopped at a bare hundred feet. It was now to the point that the pilot wanted to throw up. He’d never flown in conditions like this, and it was worse than the manuals said it was. “How far?”
“We should be there right now, sir!” Willis said. “Dead south.”
“Okay.” Johns pushed the stick to the left. The sudden change of direction relative to the wind threatened to snap the helicopter over, but he held it and crabbed onto the new course. Two minutes later, they were in the clear.
“Panache, this is CAESAR, where the hell are you?”
“Lights on, everything, now!” Wegener shouted when he heard the call. In a moment Panache was lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Goddamn if you don’t look pretty down there!” the voice said a few seconds later.
Adele was a small, weak, disorganized hurricane, now turning back into a tropical storm due to confused local weather conditions. That made her winds weaker than everyone had feared, but the eye was also small and disorganized, and the eye was what they needed now.
It is a common misconception that the eye of a hurricane is calm. It is not, though after experiencing the powerful winds in the innermost wall of clouds, the fifteen knots of breeze there seem like less than nothing to an observer. But the wind is unsteady and shifting, and the seas in the eye, though not as tall as those in the storm proper, are confused. Wegener had stationed his ship within a mile of the northwest edge of the eye, which was barely four miles across. The storm was moving at about fifteen knots. They had fifteen minutes to recover the helicopter. About the only good news was that the air was clear. No rain was falling, and the crew in the pilothouse could see the waves and allow for them.
Aft at flight control, the executive officer donned his headset and started talking.
“CAESAR, this is Panache. I am the flight-operations officer, and I will guide your approach. We have fifteen knots of wind, and the direction is variable. The ship is pitching and rolling in what looks like about fifteen-foot seas. We have about ten or fifteen minutes to do this, so there’s not that much of a rush.” That last sentence was merely aimed at making the helicopter’s crew feel better. He wondered if anyone could bring this off.
“Skipper, a few more knots and I can hold her a little steadier,” Portagee reported at the wheel.
“We can’t run out of the eye.”
“I know that, sir, but I need a little more way on.”
Wegener went outside to look. The helicopter was visible now, its strobes blinking in the darkness as it circled the ship to allow the pilot to size things up. If anything screws this up, it’s going to be the roll, Wegener realized. Portagee was right about the speed. ‘Two-thirds,” he called back inside.
“Christ, that’s a little boat,” Johns heard Willis breathe.
“Just so the oars ain’t in the way.” PJ took the helicopter down, circling one last tune and coming to a straight course dead aft of the cutter. He leveled out at one hundred feet and found that he couldn’t hover very well. He lacked the power, and the aircraft wavered left and right when he tried.
“Hold that damned boat steady!” he said over the radio circuit.
“We are trying, sir,” the XO replied. “We have the wind off the port bow at the moment. I recommend you come in from the portside and stay at an angle to the deck all the way in.”
“Roger, I can see why.” Johns adjusted power one more time and moved in.
“Okay, let’s move!” Riley told his men. They divided into three teams, one for each of the helicopter’s wheel assemblies.
The deck, Johns saw, was not quite large enough for a fore-and-aft landing, but by angling his approach he could plant all six wheels on the black surface. He came in slowly, fifteen knots faster than the ship to start, and sloughing that off as he closed, but the wind shifted and turned the helicopter. Johns swore and turned fully away to try again.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I have some power problems here.”
“Roger, take your time, sir,” the XO replied.
PJ started again, a thousand yards out. The approach this time went well. He flared the aircraft a hundred yards aft to drop off excess speed, then flattened out and eased forward. His main gear touched just where he wanted, but the ship rolled hard and threw the aircraft to starboard. Instinctively PJ hit power and collective to lift free of the deck. He shouldn’t have, and knew it even as he did so.
“This is hard,” he said over the radio, managing not to curse as he brought the chopper back around.
“Shame we don’t have more time to practice,” the Coast Guard officer agreed. “That was a good, smooth approach. The ship just took a bad roll on us. Do that one more time, you’ll be just fine.”
“Okay, one more time.” PJ came in again.
The ship was rolling twenty degrees left and right despite her stabilizers and bilge keels, but Johns fixed his eyes on the center of the target area, which wasn’t rolling at all, just a fixed point in space. That had to be the trick, he told himself, pick the spot that isn’t moving. Again he flared out to kill off speed and inched forward. Just as he approached the deck, his eyes shifted to where the nosewheels had to hit, and slammed the collective down. It felt almost as bad as a crash, but the collective held the chopper in place.
Riley was first up and rolled under the aircraft at the nose-wheels. Another boatswain’s mate followed with the tie-down chains. The master chief found a likely spot and hooked them in place, then shot his arm out and made a fist. Two men on the other end of the chains pulled them taut, and the chief rolled free and went down the portside to get to work on the main gear. It took several minutes. The Pave Low shifted twice before they had it secured, but soon they had two-inch line to back up the chains. By the time Riley was finished, it would have taken explosives to lift it from the deck. The deck crew entered the helicopter at the stern ramp and guided the passengers out. Riley counted fifteen people. He’d been told to expect more than that. Then he saw the bodies, and the men who were struggling with them.
Forward, Johns and Willis shut down their engines.
“CLAW, CAESAR is down. Return to base.” Johns took off his helmet too soon to catch the reply, though Willis caught it.
“Roger. Out.”
Johns looked around. He didn’t feel like a pilot now. His aircraft was down. He was safe. It was time to get out and do something else. He couldn’t get out his door without risking a fall overboard and… he’d allowed himself to forget Buck Zimmer. That door in his mind opened itself now. Well, he told himself, Buck would understand. The colonel stepped over the flight-engineer console. Ryan was still there, his flight suit speckled from his nausea. Johns knelt by the side of his sergeant. They’d served together on and off for over twenty years.