Chapter 1-4
530 Words
The Linda bucked hard, momentarily making Patty float off her seat. She wanted to shriek with delight.
“You a roller coaster boy, Mick?” She leaned forward to brace herself against her flight harness to keep her hand steady on the controls. Still she could barely follow what he was doing. Goddamn, but he could fly.
“Never been on one,” his voice remained Mick-steady. He actually flipped the helicopter upside down in a sideways rollover as he shifted from right-side up on one side of the ship to right-side up on the other.
“Wait! What?” Patty gasped for breath as the adrenaline pounded. Her efforts to match Mick’s imperturbable calm were a total failure. “Did you…Oh Crap!,” a searchlight swung their way, but Mick was no longer there, spinning them off over the ocean’s darkness, “…grow up deprived?”
“No coasters in Alaska except the little ones at county fairs.”
“Well, we gotta fix that.”
“You going into the carnival business, O’Donoghue?” When he slewed across the deck again, Patty could see trouble was coming soon.
“I’m not gonna—”
She keyed the mike. “Sofia. Our boat is arming. Only rifles so far, but they’re scrambling now.”
“Roger,” Sofia called back. “SEAL team needs two minutes more.”
“—build one,” Patty picked up right where she left off. “I’m getting your butt on the next one I can.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“My luck you’ll be a sicker. But it’s a total right of passage and you gotta do it. Can you get me right over the deck?”
“Didn’t you just say that they’re arming?” He moved off their bow.
She flashed the landing light full in their faces down the length of the deck before Mick dodged aside once more.
“Seriously. I’ve got a special delivery for them.”
“Is this something I want to be party to?”
“Absotively! Now do it. Because your only other option is to circle the stern, and you don’t want to draw their attention there.”
“SEAL Team clear,” Sofia announced.
Mick cursed under his breath. It was nice to know he wasn’t so perfectly cool all the time.
“The Carrie-Anne still has to recover the team and in these seas that could take some doing,” she nudged at him.
“Will your special delivery buy the SEALs some time?”
“Duh!” Why else did he think she was suggesting it?
Mick played a game of peek-a-boo over the bow: starboard, dead ahead, and port.
Then he yanked up on the collective and slid the cyclic forward. The Little Bird leapt, but she kept a firm grip on the weapon’s release she’d pre-rigged back in Anchorage.
He carved a turn back the other way, out of sight below the line of their bow but with her side of the helicopter so close to the waves that she instinctively edged upslope out of her seat. The water was so close that, if not for the g-force and her safety harness, she’d have crawled right into Mick’s lap to get away from it.
Exactly amidships, he turned directly for the boat. He climbed sharply to clear the deck and the railings. Armed seamen out on the deck flattened themselves to avoid being hit by his racing helicopter’s skids—he was that low.
Damn he was good! She liked that sooo much in a pilot.
Exactly amidships, he went vertical. Directly above the center of the ship’s deck, he shot upward rather than crossing the rest of the way to the far side.
It was all she needed.
Patty hit the release.
At her “Whoop! Cargo away!” Mick laid down the hammer again and shot off into the darkness.
- Writer
