Chapter 29
1209 Words
Chapter 29
“You promise you aren’t going to kill me?” Daniel had to shout to be heard over the noise on the deck of the aircraft carrier.
“Nuh-uh! No such promises.” Major Beale was practically laughing at him and Daniel had no recourse.
He was only so much baggage. Had been for the last twenty hours.
Civilian transport had moved him from Dulles to Tokyo over the pole. Then a quick transport had shuffled him down to Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. Thirty minutes later, a Marine Corps V-22 Osprey, only recently authorized to operate over Japanese soil, lifted him into international waters and dropped him on the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Harry S. Truman at close to midnight.
Beale and Henderson had awaited him there. The Sea of Japan was in a very bad mood tonight. Waves strong enough to roll the carrier’s deck by several feet rushed by unseen in the darkness below. The wind cast nasty ice particles at his face; cast the same way a machine g*n cast bullets, continuous and painful.
The group of them as much blew into as climbed aboard the waiting Black Hawk.
“Is this safe flying weather?” he listened to the rattle of the ice against the cargo bay door windows once they were closed and he could hear himself think.
Big John, one of the crew chiefs, flashed a grin at him from where he somehow had mashed into the tiny seat set up for the crew chiefs.
“When the post office gives it up as a bad job, we do their deliveries.”
Great.
Tim handed him a helmet and suggested he buckle in as the turbine engines began whining to life. Outside he could see the organized scurry of the deck crew preparing to receive an incoming jet and launch their helicopter. All their vests color-coded by their tasks. The deck was not awash in a blaze of light as he’d expected. For night operations, they didn’t want to blind the pilots, so lights were low and carefully positioned.
Inside the helicopter there was actually very little to see. Daniel sat in one of the three seats across the back of the cabin. Cabin, a glorious word for a space four feet high and perhaps eight-by-eight feet inside. He tried to imagine it crammed with a dozen troops and all their gear and couldn’t imagine it. Of course, the Major’s helicopter was an attack version, so carrying crew would be less of a priority.
At the very front of the cabin the two crew chiefs sat back-to-back. Immediately in front of them were closed windows. Daniel knew they could swing those windows aside in moments and grasp the controls of the mini-guns rigged there. For now, they were just passive travelers, any information they might need projected on the inside of their visors.
Daniel’s visor was clear. A “dummies helmet” he’d been informed. They didn’t want to be revealing any more than they had to for their North Korean guest. Henderson figured it would be more politic if Daniel wore the same thing they had. Clear plastic, audio hookup only. And an emergency locator beacon if they had to ditch in the ocean.
What in the world had he gotten himself into?
Straight ahead, between the two armor-wrapped seats, Daniel could see only the dimmest of console lights. They were rigged to be used with the pilots’ night-vision goggles; no extra light. There was little variation inside the cabin whether Daniel opened or closed his eyes.
The rotor blades were at full speed now, pounding the night air with the ferocity of a rabid dog.
Daniel contemplated his chances for survival. Storms, aircraft carriers, helicopters at night, North Korea. And he knew that if he lived there were things he’d have to do. One especially. He sent a quick message from his cell phone to set them in motion.
He managed to hit “send” as they jolted rather than lifted into the night sky. Once they crossed over the edge of the carrier’s windswept deck, the helicopter plunged abruptly down toward the black of the deep ocean.
Daniel’s yelp was going to be the last sound of his life before the waves swallowed him. He wished he’d told Alice. He wasn’t sure what, he just wished he had.
He should have sent the text to her instead.
Too late!
With a twist and jerk that elicited another cry he couldn’t quite contain, the helicopter’s nose tipped forward and they raced ahead.
Daniel leaned over to glance backward out the side window. The aircraft carrier rapidly disappearing astern. Before it wholly disappeared from view, he was able to guess that they were skimming ten or twenty feet above the waves.
“Damn. It. Emily!” It took him two gasping breathes and a dozen racing beats of his heart to get out the three words.
“Sorry, Daniel.” Her voice didn’t sound in the least contrite. “We didn’t want any radar image to show a flight departing westbound. Rather than circling around, we decided to lose ourselves in the clutter cast up by waves and spray.”
“You’re making me feel so much better.”
Daniel decided his best bet was to ignore her. And her husband. He could feel Mark’s grin even though he faced forward in the left-hand pilot’s seat.
“Left seat? I thought pilot flew right seat on military helicopters.” Mark was the senior commanding officer.
“Yep!” Mark replied in a terrible Texas drawl. “My little lady likes to drive and who am I to complain?”
Future note for self, Daniel thought, this helmet mike picked up even an idle whisper. Henderson had to be one brave man to call Major Emily Beale, “my little lady.” Daniel would bet that even her father didn’t take such risks. He knew the President, her closest childhood friend, certainly didn’t take such liberties.
“Okay, now it gets interesting. Entering Russian airspace.”
“Russian?” Daniel tried looking out the window, but only darkness met his gaze. Away from the carrier, the only light glimmered from the dim console instruments. Unseen waves below, solid overcast above, nasty storm in between. All pitch black.
Henderson continued his commentary as his wife flew the helicopter. “Even in bad weather, North Korea watches their waters pretty closely. There’s a risk crossing over a land border, but perhaps less of a risk.”
“How much longer is the flight because of the detour?”
“Just a few minutes. Thirty minutes each way total if all goes well.”
Daniel wished he’d started a timer on his watch, though it was buried under parka and heavy gloves that barely cut the December cold.
The carrier had been steaming south through the Sea of Japan. That would also draw most of the region’s attention with it. It wasn’t often that a full carrier group cruised this particular stretch of the world’s oceans.
“Feet dry,” Beale announced.
At least they were over land now and clear of any rogue wave that might be reaching out to grab them.
Then the helo banked hard left, jerked up and dropped back down. Daniel floated for a moment in the chair’s safety harness, then slapped back down into his seat.
“Sometimes it gets a little rough,” Big John observed in a laconic voice suitable for a summer picnic, “but this storm’s mostly out to sea, so it should be a quiet flight.”
The helicopter threw him sideways against his harness as it tipped right then left.
“Just got to watch out for trees and things.”
“Cows,” was Emily Beale’s sole offering to the conversation.
Daniel thought about the implications and then just closed his eyes against the darkness.
They were flying so low that she had to maneuver to avoid the cows.
- Writer
