The Last Run (31 page)

Once he had the nose cocked straight into the wind stream, he fed the engines gas. He gave them enough to accelerate to eighty knots of speed. But the helicopter wasn’t moving.

“Full power! Full power!”

Now the real fight began. Before, Molthen had only been holding the aircraft level and at a certain altitude while the tailwind drove out to sea and whisked the helicopter with it. Now he was up against the full force of the hurricane —a 100-mph headwind and boomer gusts like the paws of a gigantic bear cuffed them back and forth and side to side like a piñata.

“Okay,” Adickes coaxed him coolly. “That’s it. We’re moving now. Good. We’re moving nice and slow. Nice and slow. Don’t rush it. Just keep her moving forward like that.”

But there was nothing steady about it; it felt as though they were riding a roller coaster car the way the Jayhawk jerked and shuddered, lurched and pitched. Piloting had become a matter of brute strength and Molthen was using all he had in his arms and legs on each stick motion, each push of the pedals, to compensate for the fists of wind pummeling the aircraft.

Adickes kept minding the instruments and coaxing Molthen without overdoing it. Christ, he thought. We’re giving an H-60 full power and our ground speed is below seventy knots. How are we supposed to fly an organized search pattern against these gusts? The pattern is going to look like a misshapen bowel when we get done and our accuracy is going to drop. We need to get down closer to the ocean.

He said, “Can you step us down to two hundred feet?” Molthen did not take his eyes off the instruments.

“I can try,” Molthen said.

“Not too fast.”

They began cloverleafing, dropping down a few feet, swinging the nose across the wind, then bouncing up a few feet before dropping and twisting down lower. Their ground speed slowed to forty-five knots, then thirty knots, then twenty knots. Gradually they came down to two hundred feet. Adickes gazed down through his chin bubble, the curved window on the floor of the cockpit between his legs. With his night-vision goggles on he saw white streaks of sleet and snow, some blowing foam and an occasional whitecap against a black pallet of ocean. Nothing more.

“Closer,” Adickes said.

“How close?”

“A hundred and fifty feet.”

The warbling sound was stronger now in his headset.

“You’re doing fine,” he said. He noticed Molthen was having to work extra hard to make himself drop their altitude. He was doing it, but fighting his instincts. “Take us down easy,” Adickes said in a calm but firm voice.

Now the sea was appearing in glimpses. He flipped on the floodlights, which threw cones of light down from the aircraft’s belly. Shafts of light lit up the snow and sleet in blurry lines. He looked out his side window.

The ocean was so dark it was like trying to spot a glint of moonlight at the bottom of a well. Sometimes he could see boils of foam or the crest of a wave shearing off and snapping away in the wind like a long, white whip. But the seas were not running anywhere, only jumping up and down. It was like the water in his bathtub when his three-year-old, Ryan, was pushing it down and releasing it. No thinking about Ryan now, Adickes said to himself. This doesn’t make any sense. Why isn’t there a dominant pattern to the currents? Where’s the swell line?

“Bring us down a little closer,” Adickes said.

“Down a little closer,” Molthen repeated.

The helicopter was bucking and swaying but moving in the direction of the EPIRB signal. Now, too, it was easier to pick out the tops of the waves, massive black shapes that bulged and arched themselves up seemingly free of the ocean, and Adickes wondered how any ship —even a thousand-foot freighter —could stay upright in such chaos, and he thought how very fortunate he was to be sitting in the heated, encased cockpit of a helicopter peering down at it. It suddenly occurred to him that at any moment, as the aircraft’s commander, he could take over the controls and pull them out of there. He could fly them to shore whenever he wanted. That thought calmed him. Keep your head clear and level, he told himself. Keep it focused. You’ve got an EPIRB to find.

And then he thought he saw something.

It was a twinkle, a weak point of light—like seeing a lightning bug on a muggy night from several hundred yards. That’s no wave crest, he thought. He adjusted his night-vision goggles.

Again he saw the blink.

“I think I see something,” he said.

“Where?”

“Take us forward and left.”

The next time it took him more than thirty seconds to spot the twinkle of light. That’s an EPIRB all right, he thought. Maybe some big ship dropped it. I hope so. I hope this is the end of the case so I can go home and crawl into bed beside Carin and hug her and hug her and hug her.

They pounded on, yard by yard. Twice more Adickes spotted the blink. And then he saw blurs—squiggles, to be more precise, like those in a night photograph of cars driving with their headlights on. There’s something down there, he thought. It could be a raft. It could be people in the water. It could be debris from something that fell overboard a ship. It could be the boat sinking. But dammit, there’s something there.

Then, as the cone lights from the aircraft’s belly brushed the blackness below, he saw pairs of the squiggly lines moving together, from side to side —the reflective tape on the shoulders of a survival suit.

His jaw tightened.

“There are people in the water.”

“Don’t you
ever
quit whining?”

“All I’m saying is—“

“Oh, shut up,” Gig Mork said. “Shut up!”

“But-”

“Shut the fuck up!”

The four of them had managed to hold on to one another since the rogue wave took David Hanlon. Bob Doyle was struggling to keep Mark Morley on his chest. The man felt heavier somehow. He was listening to Gig Mork and Mike DeCapua sniping at each other.

“We should have gone,” he heard DeCapua say.

“Shut up!”

“We should’ve pulled the gear—“

“If you hadn’t noticed—“

“—and gone in. Why didn’t we?”

“—we’re in the fucking mess together!”

“Why?”

A curler with a barrel big enough to carry two Winnebagos slammed them. When they came sputtering up, the first thing Bob Doyle heard from DeCapua was:

“I hate this shit!”

“I hate you!” Mork yelled right back. “I’m letting you go.”

“Wait, Giggy—“

“I’m letting you go!”

“No, don’t!”

“Well, then,” Mork said, “you shut—”

“Okay!”

“—the fuck—“

“Okay!”

“—up! Bob, I’m gonna kill this—“

“OKAY!”

They lost count of the waves. And in a way, they were also losing perspective on their universe. They’d been sucked into so many wave troughs, buried by so many breakers, blinded and gagged by so much wind, sleet and spray that they no longer fully appreciated how remorseless nature had turned or how horrible their predicament had become. Everything had gone so cold and bleak, the roar of waves now reverberated round them in so many dimensions, that it was as if all grace and gentility had withdrawn from the world. Past and future had no meaning. Time hung absolutely still. Sight, smell, touch, taste —except, perhaps, the taste of salt and vomit—were being stripped away, one sense at a time.

And yet as monstrous as the swells grew, as many times as the combers left them breathing seawater, there was nothing more horrible than the rogue waves. Some of the swells they were able to stay on top of, and ride to great heights. Not the rogues. They made no sound, gave no warning as they stealthily approached, and they crushed them with such absolute force that when Bob Doyle popped back up through the surface he wondered, briefly, if he had died and his spirit left to drown in the seas for the rest of eternity.

After one of those rogues, Gig Mork screamed out:

“Where are those goddamned Coasties?”

“Coming,” Bob Doyle said. “You’ll see a C-130 first.” He didn’t believe it when he said it, but hoped he’d been convincing.

“What’s that?”

“A big plane.”

“Then what?”

“Then comes the helicopter.”

He couldn’t picture a helicopter flying in such conditions. Maybe a C-130. But not a helicopter. They’ll circle us all night, he thought. They’ll stay with us until morning. Maybe. But what good will that do? We aren’t going to make it until the morning.

He wondered what was going on at the air station at that moment. I’ll bet they thought our distress signal was a mistake, he thought. No one is coming out in this shit. Would you? Would you fly out here in this shit? Maybe I would, he thought, but not to save anybody like me.

A wail from Mark Morley startled him.

“Tamara!”

He had passed out for a few minutes, and just as suddenly snapped awake.

“Tamaraaaaaaa!”

“No, Mark! It’s me, Bob.”

“Bob?”

“Yeah, it’s Bob.”

“Oh,” Morley said. He was slurring his words now. “I have a kid and a wife and I ain’t gonna make it.”

“You will.”

A wave buried them. When they resurfaced Morley asked him, “Where are they, Bob?”

“They’re coming.”

“Why?”

“Why what, Mark?”

“Tamara, I love you,” and again he began sobbing.

He’s losing it, Bob Doyle thought. Say something. Say anything. “Listen, buddy, you’re gonna see her tomorrow. Tomorrow.”

“Tamara?”

Another wave pummeled them into frigid black. When they popped up, Bob Doyle pulled Morley back up on his chest. The skipper’s teeth were chattering, his body jerking. “I hope we’re rescued soon, Bob. I’m not doing too good.”

“Keep trying, buddy. We’ve all gotta keep trying.”

“I need to… my… my… kid …”

Bob Doyle put his lips next to Morley’s ear. “You’re going to see him,” he said. “You’re gonna be the first one up in that chopper. You just got to hang on till the Coasties come.”

He had begun to shiver himself now that water was getting between the seal of his hood and his cheek. It was as though ice was being dragged along his skin, slowly, down his spine, across his buttocks, down his legs. Each drop that entered his suit seemed to mushroom as it slid down his body and gathered in his suit legs. The sensation of pinpricks around his ankles was fading now; his feet were deadening.

“You… you got… great kids, Bob,” Morley said. This guy’s amazing, Bob Doyle thought. He’s trying to talk to stay alive. Don’t tune him out. Talk to him.

Bob Doyle said, “Our kids will play together someday. You’ll see. We’ll laugh about this.”

“Where are the Coasties?”

“Coming.”

“How… how long we been …”

I don’t know and I don’t want to know, Bob Doyle thought. He did not answer.

“Bob?”

“What, Mark?”

“I can’t… see …”

Bob Doyle felt a sting of panic in his throat. Was the loss of eyesight on the checklist of symptoms for advanced hypothermia? He wasn’t sure, but it might have been.

“None of us can see. None of us.” That much was true, he thought.

“I’m dying, Bob.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I sank it,” Morley said. “I was the skipper… and I… sank it.”

“Stop talking like that.”

“They’re gonna… sue me,” Morley said. “Dave is… gone and… I’m —I’m right behind him.”

“Stop it.”

“I’m dying. And I hate it.”

“You got to fight. You hear me? Think of your kid. Remember? You’re going to have a kid.”

Morley’s head went forward and his shoulders began shaking. He was sobbing again.

“I hate it,” he said.

Just then they saw the light in the sky.

E
verything was jumping around the cockpit: binoculars, flight manuals, maps, the pilots. Dan Molthen did his best to read his instruments. But with the helicopter bouncing as it was, the dials were a constant blur.

“How many are down there?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Bill Adickes said. “Maybe four, maybe five people in the water.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“There could be more,” Adickes said. He flipped up his night-vision goggles. “There could be as many as eight. Give me the binocs.” He held the binoculars to his eyes, and then lowered them. “I can’t see shit with these things. There’s no way I can be sure. But my guess is there’s four or five.”

The moment he heard Adickes say he had spotted reflective tape, a wild excitement had rushed through Molthen. He still felt it, actually. He could not control the emotion.

“Rich!” Molthen barked.

“Sir?” said Rich Sansone.

“Get dressed out. Prepare to deploy.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sansone undid his gunner’s belt, knelt on the cabin floor and unzipped his nylon bag. He started pulling out his rescue swimmer’s wet suit.

Adickes looked at Molthen sharply.

“No, no, no, no,” Adickes said. “We are definitely
not
going to do that. We are
not
putting anyone out in this.” He turned on his intercom. “Rich,” he said, “there is no way in hell you’re going out that door. Sit down.”

Sansone let go of the bag. “Yes, sir.” He took his seat again. Molthen said nothing. He was looping them back around to the last recorded position of the distress beacon. Why did I have to say that? he asked himself. Of course we’re not going to stick Rich in the water. What’s wrong with you?

“Bill,” Molthen said, “I don’t know why I —”

“Forget it,” Adickes said. He had seen this thing happen to many men under pressure and he had learned how to amputate the emotion before it took over an aircraft. “You just keep flying this thing the way you’re flying it.”

Molthen said nothing.

“Dan,” Adickes said, “we need to start the hoist checklist.”

“Right,” Molthen said. He took a breath. “Cabin crew,” he said over the intercom, “rescue checklist, part two.”

Adickes said to Sansone, “Rich, it’s about time to let somebody out there know there are people in the water and that we’ve seen them.”

“Mr. Adickes,” Sansone said, “we’ve lost comms.”

“I know that,” Bill Adickes told him. “Try every frequency. Have you tried eleven megs?”