Mid Ocean

by T Rafael Cimino

  Lynn appeared in the wheelhouse looking very uptight.

  “Look, Regis I can hear you all the way back there. If you don’t settle down you’re going to blow it for all of us,” Lynn shouted as Regis stared down at the carpet, shaking his head like a kid who had just been rebuked.

  “Regis is going to do just fine. Look, we all have our parts to play,” Tony said.

  “Regis, make sure the VHF is on Channel 16, they may be trying to hail us. I don’t want anything to look out of the ordinary. If they call us, the sooner we respond the better. Also, switch the AM to 2182 in case they try that route first. I want all bases covered. The rest of you need to get this boat straightened up. This boat looks like it belongs in a fucking trailer park. We’re expecting company,” Del charged.

  •

  Thirty minutes later, a 25-foot, solid orange, rigid-bottom inflatable with two powerful outboards came alongside the Jolene Marie. Regis backed down the throttles before shifting the transmissions into neutral as one of the Coast Guardsmen called into his radio microphone over marine Channel 16, the standard working and distress frequency. His transmission echoed inside the yacht’s wheelhouse.

  “Alpha-three to Dauntless. Target is DIW, Dead in the Water. We have at least four persons on board.”

  As the captain of record, Tony ran to the aft to meet the boarding party.

  “Skipper, I’m Boarding Agent Ortega, United States Coast Guard. Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, we just got caught in this crazy storm. We are trying to get to Miami for a funeral,” Tony answered.

  “I understand sir. We will need to make a routine inspection and then we will let you go.”

  “Please, let us be on our way. This charter is a very important man.”

  “Believe me I understand, but I have orders and my directions come from equally important men,” the boarding officer replied.

  “Yes, sir,” Tony answered.

  Regis looked down at the teak-trimmed circuit panel. On the second row, six switches down, he saw a breaker marked stabilizers. The stabilizers were a series of fin-shaped projectiles that ran the length of the boat, deep below the waterline. They were set up in pairs, one on either corresponding side of the boat. The Jolene Marie had two sets of stabilizers, four fins in all. These projectiles were hooked to large hydraulic pistons which in turn were hooked to a complex array of circuits all focused to one computer brain located in the boat’s exact core, the intersection of the center of gravity and the linier centerline. The computer, a virtual gyroscope, acted like a person’s inner ear sensing the slightest movements of the yacht. Each sway and roll the computer responded by sending activating signals to the hydraulic pistons that in turn moved the underwater fins. The fins moved the boat in a way to counteract the natural movements of the sea and give the boat a smoother ride. The stabilizers were to a yacht what shock absorbers were to a smooth-riding Cadillac.

  As Tony and the boarding crew came into the wheelhouse, their captain noticed a more dramatic effect from the waves against the boat.

  “What’s with the stabilizers?” Tony asked.

  “They must have shut down again,” Regis replied.

  Again was the key word. There might have been problems with any other piece of equipment on the boat, but the stabilizers were fairly new, and Tony knew it. Then, without warning, the huge yacht pitched into a deep oncoming wave, one that sent her stern into the air pulling the bow of the inflatable, which was tied tightly, up with it.

  Back in the main salon, one of the boarding crew, a young man who couldn’t have been over twenty with the Juan Chavez style mustache, fell towards Lynn. Trying not to land on the seemingly fragile woman, he grabbed for a loose lamp on the end table, which fell to the carpeted deck. His reacting arms, in a desperate gesture to grab onto something stable, squeezed tightly around the stock of his AR-15, inadvertently squeezing the trigger. Within a fraction of a second, a powerful round discharged from the black metal tube and shot toward the ceiling. The salon was instantly filled with a blue tinge of gun smoke and the acrid smell of burning Fiberglas. Lynn watched in horror as the still smoking gun fell with him, its muzzle aimed straight at her forehead. Instinctively, she dropped to the deck, hitting her head on the corner of the teak and cherry coffee table while Del, who had been sitting on the couch, grabbed the end of the gun.

  “Nobody move!” the boarding chief yelled as he entered the aft salon with his .45 Colt drawn up to his shoulder. Tony and the third member of the boarding party came up from the aft stairs.

  “What’s going on?” Tony asked, just before looking at the small cut over Lynn’s left eye. “My God! What happened?”

  “It’s all my fault,” the young Coast Guardsman said. “I lost my balance when the stern surged up and the boat rolled.”

  “Do you have a first aid kit on board?” the chief asked, rolling a handkerchief and applying pressure to Lynn’s bleeding forehead.

  Regis, hearing the request, grabbed the first aid kit from the wheelhouse head and went aft. As he entered the salon, his heart pounded faster as he saw Lynn on the floor bleeding with Del, Tony, and the chief all at her side.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Just a minor flesh wound.”

  “Yeah, but a few inches more and it could have blown her head off!” Del shouted rather aggressively to the now defensive chief.

  “The gun misfired long before the muzzle hit her in the forehead. Sir, I am so sorry, please forgive me,” the younger Coasty said.

  Regis reached to a spot in the ceiling, sticking his finger through the mesh-type material that was exposed by the new hole.

  “Here’s where your bullet went boys,” he pointed out.

  “Holy shit!” Tony yelled, rising to his feet.

  Regis immediately went out the aft doorway and climbed up the aft deck ladder to the overhead deck and into the salon. All those inside the salon could here his feet scurrying about on the topside as the rainwater squeaked between his deck shoes and the slick Fiberglas deck. The chief continued to aid Lynn with the help of Del, who held a handful of gauze over her wound. Then the chief wrapped more rolled gauze around her head to keep it in place.

  Regis jumped down to the lower deck with a look of frustration in his face.

  “Just as I thought! The slug went through the overhead and penetrated clean through the hull of our Boston Whaler strapped on top. There goes our lifeboat.”

  “Sir, the United States Government will pay...”

  BAMMMMM!

  Everyone in the salon looked aft to see the Coast Guard inflatable bounce off the yacht’s transom.

  “Look, that’s all fine and good. Why don’t you nice Coast Guard people leave before we really need that lifeboat with a hole in it,” Lynn said, looking aft with one hand on her forehead.

  “Yes ma’am. On behalf of the Coast Guard, I apologize. I will write a complete incident report and fax it to the Miami group. They will contact you in a few days to arrange for repairs. But before I leave…”

  “Yes?” Tony asked, hoping there wasn’t a catch.

  “Ma’am, are you sure you’re alright? I mean, we have a very capable paramedic on board the ship. I would be more than willing to have him come over and take a look at that cut for you.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I used to be a nurse - it’s just a surface cut. The scalp usually bleeds worse than other cuts of the body. It looks a lot worse than it really is, but thanks for the concern. I’ll be sure and have it checked once we hit Miami.”

  “As you wish. Ma’am…” the chief said.

  As soon as the boarding party had appeared, they departed and headed back to the Dauntless.

  “Jesus, can you believe this shit?”

  “Good thinking Regis,” Tony replied, patting him on the back. “Now go back and turn those damn stabilizers back on before we all get sick.”

  As the Coast Guard inflatable made its way back to the Dauntless, the chief looked back, now from a distance
, looking over his shoulder at the departing Jolene Marie.

  Who would have guessed that the boarding would have gone so poorly, he thought to himself as he watched a flume of smoke rise to the sky from the aft-vented exhaust. Still, something wasn’t right. Their float plan, the ports of call, they were going to all the wrong places. It just didn’t make sense. Any other charter would be moored in the Yucatan at some safe harbor sipping up the cocktails. His fax to the Miami group would be more detailed than he had previously intended.

  * * * * *

  Flight

  The pavement that made up one of the taxiways was wet with the early morning dew, a byproduct of the humidity that hung in the air like a wet rag. A lone Bell-47 helicopter sat on the tarmac as Sven Jorgenson performed his daily preflight check. Two weeks earlier the student pilot pulled into the parking lot of Tam-Flight Limited, a private flight school, towing the Bell helicopter on a custom trailer with his Ford dually pickup. He gained a lot of attention during his thirty-two hundred mile journey from Seattle to the training facility that was located on the grounds of the Tamiami Regional Airport in southwest Miami.

  Jorgenson had already gotten his pilot’s license but his rating was limited to the simplest of planes, the Cessna-152. In the past year he had managed to amass one hundred and twenty hours in the small, fixed-wing aircraft and he now had his sights on something more complex. He bought the Bell at an estate sale for thirty-five thousand and upgraded the avionics for another eight thousand. He loved the design of the small two-seater that, with its large glass bubble, resembled a large insect that reminded him of his childhood, having watched them bring in the wounded on the television show MASH as a kid. Still, Jorgenson was not a professional though his reputation as an experienced aviator grew each time someone in the chain told the story. He was just a guy, who knew a guy, who was related to a woman, who was married to a mechanic with a Miami powerboat racing team.

  During his two weeks of training he had mastered many of the primary tasks required to fly the Bell. He was diligent, spending everyday with his instructor going through checklists, preparing for emergencies, and building his skills for this day when he would take his first solo helicopter flight.

  •

  Six-tenths of a mile to the southeast, supervising U. S. Attorney Pat Stephens and Miami Assistant U. S. Attorney Sam Bittel sat side-by-side at a long metal table within the confines of the prisoner interrogation room at the Federal Metro Correctional Institution. On the other side of the table was a prominent Coral Gables attorney and his client, the defendant, Guillermo Morales.

  “Counselor, for the record, do you have the discovery package containing the evidence we have compiled against your client?” Pat asked.

  “I do.”

  “And yet, at last week’s arraignment, your client pled not guilty.”

  “We did.”

  “I have some new evidence I would like to submit to you verbally, first, of course.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “As I’m sure you’re aware, an associate of your clients was murdered last week - one Mr. Aaron Donaldson. Ring any bells?”

  “I am aware of the murder. We are not, at this point, acknowledging or denying an association with the deceased.”

  “Well, when my jury hears this new evidence that I am prepared to present next week, I’m sure they will hand down an additional count of murder in the first degree,” Pat announced confidently.

  “Mr. Stephens, are you saying that you plan to charge my client with the murder of Aaron Donaldson? A murder, I might add, that occurred while you had my client locked up, right here at MCI, in federal custody?”

  “As you know, it wouldn’t be up to me counselor. The jury of twenty-three of your client’s peers would have to decide that.”

  “And you are putting this on the table because?”

  “Because your client is facing a certain life sentence and now the possibility of the death penalty.”

  “I think it’s obvious Mr. Stephens.”

  “What’s obvious?”

  “Why you’re still working for the government when competent lawyers like myself are in private practice with billable hours worth over eight million dollars last year.”

  “Excuse me?” Pat asked.

  “You heard me. What do you take me for you cheap fuck! Look at you in your pressed suit from Sears and Roebuck. Shit counselor, my watch cost more than your car.”

  “It’s not about the money, and you know it.”

  “What is it about then? Let’s do some good and all of that crap? What you stand for is typical government mediocrity and I wouldn’t forget that if I were you. You go ahead and indict. We both know you could charge a suckling pig with grand theft auto with these ridiculous juries.”

  “I think we are through here,” Pat said, feeling put down.

  “I’ll be waiting for that discovery.”

  Without answering, Pat limply looked his adversary in the eye as the three lawyers stood and left the room while the defendant was escorted to the yard for his daily one hour outdoor time.

  •

  Six-tenths of a mile back to the northwest, Jorgensen finished his preflight check and ignited the Bell-47’s gas piston engine. It fired without hesitation as the new pilot increased the throttle control. As he did, the 40-foot main rotor overhead started to turn slowly, gaining speed with every revolution, throwing a repeating shadow over the glass bubble below. As the blades spun faster, Jorgensen turned more switches activating the red and white anti-collision beacons. After that he checked his gauges while he waited for the engine and transmission temperatures to rise to their normal operating levels. Patiently, his instructor stood at the edge of the tarmac, watching as his newest student took the Bell to a controlled hover.

  “Whiskey Lima 500 to Tamiami tower.”

  “Go Whisky Lima 500.”

  “Permission to taxi hover to runway nine left for departure.”

  “Negative Whisky Lima 500, clear traffic, you can depart from the tarmac.”

  “Roger that Tamiami. I’m going to make a few passes around the field and return to the tarmac.”

  Jorgensen increased his collective pitch and with a cloud of dust the Bell was off.

  •

  What did it matter? Pat thought to himself. These high dollar defense lawyers were assholes anyway and besides, Jhenna was going to have a baby, his baby, and what could be better than that?

  Pat hated going to this detention center. It was designed with numerous redundancies, one of which included a maze of hallways that led him through three security checkpoints. His preferred route of departure was to cut across the inmate yard and exit directly at the facility’s departing-receiving unit where his car was parked. This broke every Bureau of Prisons protocol in the book, but since the yard had an adequate amount of guards, he felt safe and the jaunt would save him at least ten minutes.

  “I’m cutting through,” Pat said to the guard at the door that led to the yard.

  “I don’t see anything,” the guard replied.

  “It’s our secret, thanks,” Pat answered with a smile.

  The fresh air felt good on his face. He hated the stuffiness of the federal facilities, the piped-in warm air that was mixed with the odor of sweat. And then he saw him, Guillermo Morales, standing with a group of Latin men. For a second, the hairs on the back of Pat’s neck stood on end, like a tourist who was lost in a dark alley with a pocketful of cash. Morales saw him also and motioned to one of his buddies who looked over at Pat who was wearing a dark blue suit in a sea of orange jumpsuits.

  Then without warning, the loud beating of Jorgensen and his Bell-47 helicopter cleared the main building’s roof next to the yard and made a wide, poorly coordinated turn to hover over the group of prisoners. Then as Pat watched in disbelief, he decreased the aircraft’s collective pitch and the Bell sank deeper into the yard, holding a position just a few feet from the ground. Then Morales made his break, running at full spee
d towards the hovering chopper. At the same time, a uniformed guard gave chase yelling into a handheld radio. Instinctively, Pat headed towards the commotion. As Morales started to climb onto the Bell’s skid, the chasing officer approached from the rear. Jorgensen pushed the left pedal, spinning the tail boom towards the guard, using the spinning rear rotor blade as a weapon. The guard dove for the ground as Morales fell from the skid, immediately climbing back to his feet. Disoriented, Jorgensen climbed a few feet as Morales grabbed a hold of the metal skid. Another guard came from the opposite direction and Jorgensen pushed on the right pedal making a sweep at him with his pending passenger hanging on a few feet from the ground, still holding strong to the skid. Pat was now running at full speed as the second guard hit the ground to avoid being hit by the swinging tail boom. As Morales started to pull himself up onto the skid, Pat got closer. Forty feet, thirty, twenty, ten and then with a dive an NFL wide receiver would have been proud of, five-foot-eight-inch Pat Stephens made impact with the left flank of six-foot-one-inch Guillermo Morales, knocking the plump Cuban from the skid. The two fell to the ground just as the first guard got to his feet. Seeing that he had lost his passenger, Jorgensen reversed his slow spin, pushing back on the left pedal, making a wide swing for the approaching first guard. Jorgensen didn’t see what was behind him as the spinning tail rotor struck the twelve-foot-high galvanized chain link fence that separated the yard from the free world on the other side. Losing complete control, the Bell-47 turned up, end to end, flipping on its side as the massive main rotor blade took deep bites into the grassy yard.

  Pat pinned Morales to the ground as six other officers ran into the yard, securing the other inmates and handcuffing Morales who was led off to the solitary holding unit. Sam Bittel ran across the yard where Pat stood, brushing dirt and grass cuttings from his suit.