As soon as the Navy helo touched down on the tarmac at Guantanamo Bay, Charity climbed out, arching her back and stretching. Looking around, there wasn’t a whole lot to see. There was a control tower halfway down the airstrip, with a few buildings clustered along the taxiway. Aside from that, it looked like one of many palm-covered islands in the Caribbean.
Looking further inland to the north, Charity saw the mountains rising above the jungle. The jungle seemed to call out to her somehow. She shook it off, as Seaman Chaffey approached. The pilots were still in the cockpit, going through their post-flight check.
“Your bird’s in the hangar,” Chaffey said, pointing to one of the large buildings by the taxiway.
“Thanks, Wayne,” Charity said. “Can you take me there now, or do I need to check in with someone?”
“Sure, I’ll take you over. As far as anyone knows, you’re not even here, so nobody to check in with.”
Minutes later, the two of them stepped through the slightly open hangar door. Charity removed her sunglasses and looked around. Her Huey sat in the center of the building. It was still black, but now sported legal numbers on the tail boom, and the phony company name and logo on the doors.
It also had wheels added to the skids. Not the typical dolly wheels used to drag the chopper around, though. The skids had been lengthened and reinforced aft, and large double wheels with beefy-looking hydraulic shocks were mounted a little further back than where the dollies were usually located, near the center of gravity.
Forward, smaller caster-type wheels were mounted on both skids, to allow the bird to turn on the ground. These probably wouldn’t survive a hard landing, but in the event of one, she still had the sturdy skids.
Walking toward the helo, Charity inspected the odd retrofit work. She’d never seen a Huey with wheels, but everything looked as though it had been professionally engineered and installed. They’d even installed a hydraulic system to let the bird sit on the skids when not in use.
“Where was the oil leak?” she asked.
Chaffey quickly moved a ladder next to the Huey, climbed up, and fished a Snoopy tool from his pocket. Turning the Dzus locks holding the starboard engine cover in place, he handed it down to her.
Climbing down, he said, “It was on the high pressure line from the pump to the oil cooler. It was barely a wet spot, really.” Charity climbed up to inspect the engine, as Chaffey continued. “I removed the line, checked it for blockages and cracks, then replaced both seals and reinstalled it. I had the hangar guys move her outside and Lieutenant Bradshaw and I spun the blades for an hour.”
Charity took a small pen light from her pocket and shined it on the pump, looking closely at the oil line connections. “I’ll keep an eye on it,” she said, seeing no sign of dirt or oil. “Thanks for checking her over so thoroughly.”
“We don’t get many overnight visitors,” Chaffey said, as she climbed down. “It was a pleasurable diversion.”
Charity smiled, and Chaffey climbed back up, replaced the cover and climbed back down again.
“I’ll be leaving immediately. Can you have her brought outside?”
“Give me ten minutes,” Chaffey said, trotting off to the corner of the hangar.
Quickly climbing aboard, Charity opened the floor panel in the back of the Huey. Inside were a number of cameras and lenses in cases, along with a sturdy tripod and other equipment. She moved everything out of the way and searched the starboard bulkhead for the release catch. Though Stockwell had told her just where it was, it still took a moment to find.
The engine on the tow motor started as Charity pushed the release catch, and the edge of the storage box popped up slightly. She got a finger under the lip and lifted the box up and out of the recess, exposing the hidden compartment below it. The bottom of the box had a metal ring into which the catch fit when the box was pushed down into the recess, snapping and locking the box in place.
Inside was a new M40 rifle, scope, suppressor, ammo, and a Sig Sauer P229 handgun. Next to the rifle was a red backpack. She pulled it out, strapping it in the co-pilot’s seat, and quickly put her black backpack inside.
Hearing the tow motor moving at the far end of the hangar, Charity quickly snapped the box back into place, checking the tightness of the lip, then put all the camera gear back inside. Before exiting the chopper, she pushed the release again. The box popped up, even with the added weight. She snapped it back and closed the hatch.
Climbing out, Charity walked back out through the hangar door and waited as Bradshaw and Percy approached. Halfway to where she waited by the door, the two gave each other a fist bump and the co-pilot angled off toward what Charity figured was a ready room.
“You leaving right away?” Perry Bradshaw asked, just as the large metal doors began retracting, the wheels making a rusty, squeaking sound.
“In just a few minutes,” Charity replied.
Bradshaw frowned. “Percy and I were hoping you might join us for a drink in the Officer’s Club later. We don’t get a lot of visitors here.”
“I’ll have to take a raincheck on that,” Charity said, flashing a disarming smile. “I have a long way to go and very little time to get there.”
They watched as Chaffey pulled the helicopter out of the hangar with the tow motor, basically a four-wheeled motorized cart with a seat and steering wheel. It had a tow bar on the front connected to the front of the Huey’s skids, allowing Chaffey to maneuver the Huey around. The seat on this one didn’t look at all comfortable, with padding showing in some places, and just plain gone in others.
Once Chaffey had Charity’s helicopter far enough away from the building, he set the brake on the machine, jumped down, and decoupled it from the chopper. Then he went around and opened the door on the pilot’s side of the aircraft.
“I guess it would be pointless to ask what Tropical Luxury Magazine is.”
Charity smiled as she put on her dark aviator sunglasses. “It’s the magazine I work for,” she said, extending her hand. “Gabriella Fleming, photographer.”
Bradshaw shook her hand, laughing. “You be careful, Gabriella Fleming.”
“You do the same, Lieutenant Bradshaw,” Charity said, walking toward her bird. She loved being out on the water, but felt even more at home in the air, and she’d missed flying.
Chaffey drove the tow motor out of the way, waving as he passed Charity. She did a quick walk-around inspection on the aircraft before climbing in the cockpit. Then she raised the wheels so the skids were in contact with the tarmac, and worked through her startup checklist, bringing the big turbine engine humming to life.
When she lowered the wheels again, the bird started to turn. She countered the torque with a little left peddle and, as she rotated the throttle to the full open position, she noticed the co-pilot coming out of the ready room, dressed in civilian clothes.
Charity picked the helicopter up to a hover. The center of gravity felt normal, and the flight controls were smooth and responsive. Using the foot pedals, she turned the chopper toward the taxiway. Out of the corner of her eye, Charity saw Bradshaw open his wallet, take out a bill, and hand it to Percy.
Charity grinned and pulled the trigger on the cyclic push-to-talk switch so she could call the tower. Once she got clearance, she hovered down the taxiway and brought the Huey to the center of the runway.
Charity pivoted the nose of the aircraft toward the windward end of the runway and glanced over at the hangar. All three men stood watching. In one fluid movement, she pulled up hard on the collective and pushed forward on the cyclic.
The rotors beat the air heavily, with the distinctive whumping sound of the big Huey. The tail boom came way up, pitching the chopper forward at a steep angle. Quickly, it gathered speed, rising to ten feet off the runway.
At the end of the runway, the Huey was traveling at nearly a hundred knots, as it flashed across the sand and grass, between the end of the strip and the entrance to Guantanamo Bay. Flying out over the water, Charity pu
lled back and to the right on the cyclic, and the bird climbed steeply, turning south over the mouth of the bay, leaving Leeward Point Field behind.
Enough showing off, Charity thought, knowing that the heavy whump-whump of the Huey’s rotors during an extreme maneuver could be heard for miles. She reduced power and leveled off about a hundred feet above the water. She maintained a due south course until she was fifteen miles off the Cuban coast. Then she climbed to one thousand feet and turned east-southeast toward her first planned fuel stop in Santo Domingo.
It would be only a three-hour flight. She’d refuel there, get back in the air, and make Saint Croix three hours after that, just before dark. Aboard Wind Dancer, the trip would have taken four days.
Tomorrow, she planned to fly out early, refuel in Martinique, then arrive in Port of Spain, Trinidad by mid-afternoon, more than a week earlier than planned. Charity worried about the Dancer being left alone for at least five days, probably a week. But it did feel good to be back in the air.
Thurman Napier was up before the sun, something rare these days, unless he had a serious job to do. Opening the big hangar doors in the humid tropical air just before dawn brought more than a few beads of perspiration popping out on his forehead. Once he had the door pushed open a good twelve feet, he stopped and looked at the black boat.
Within minutes, he had the trailer hooked to his pickup and pulled the boat out into the gathering daylight. There wasn’t any need to close the door, so he continued out to Eastern Main Road, turned right, and headed toward the coastal town of Plum Mitan. A friend had a private boat ramp there in a small cove.
The woman that Stockwell wanted him to take upriver wouldn’t be arriving until late the following day, so he had at least thirty-six hours to see what the boat could do and get familiar with how it handled.
Seas were usually rougher on the windward side of the island of Trinidad, where he was headed. Napier wanted to see how the multihull handled the chop. He had no doubt it would perform well in shallow water, but there just wasn’t any between the island and the mainland.
It was a slow, time-consuming drive down the twisting mountain road, and it took over an hour to reach his friend’s house. Pulling the boat into the long driveway, he saw Marc Snow working on his boat. Napier tapped his horn and Snow looked toward him.
He’d met Snow, another ex-pat like himself, in a bar. They’d hit it off right away, matching shots of cheap rum with one another until the place closed down. Neither man was really sure who helped who out of the bar that night, but they’d both awakened on the fifty-foot schooner Snow was building. He’d been working on it steadily for five years and would probably be at least another year before he launched it. Napier had offered to help, but Snow took great pride in the fact that he’d fashioned every board and turned every brass screw himself.
Stopping the truck and getting out, Napier met Snow at the bottom of the ladder.
“What in blazes is that?” Snow asked, walking toward the black boat.
“It’s called a boat,” Napier replied, with a chuckle. “Unlike that pile of driftwood you’re working on.”
“Hardy har, I guess I walked into that one.
“A buddy brought it to me. Wants me to test it out on the Manamo.”
Snow looked at Napier doubtfully. “Well, if anyone’s nuts enough to cross Columbus Channel in that thing, it’d be you. Where’s the engines?”
Napier stepped up on the trailer’s fender and levered himself into the boat. Lifting the hatch, he pointed. “Twin air-cooled vee-twins.”
Snow climbed up and looked inside the engine bay, letting out a low whistle. “Vee-twins? Those things are huge. How many ponies?”
“One-eighty,” Napier replied. “Each. Wanna go out with me? I need to see how she handles the chop first.”
“Sure,” Snow replied. “If you promise not to kill me.”
“I ain’t killed you yet, have I?”
“Well,” Snow replied, grinning. “Not for lack of trying.”
Twenty minutes later, the two men had the boat in the water and tied off to Snow’s pier, the engines idling with a throaty rumble.
“You got any beer?” Snow asked.
“Cooler’s in the back of the truck,” Thurman replied, jerking his thumb as he climbed aboard. Marc started toward the truck and Thurman called after him: “Grab that bottle of rum off the front seat, too.”
Minutes later, Napier turned the boat around the small spit of land that protected the cove and pushed the twin throttles about a third of the way forward.
The exhaust blasted and the boat surged forward, straight and level. The feeling was different than most boats he’d driven; most boats brought the bow up and clawed their way up on top of the water.
The first wave they encountered had already broken, and the boat knifed through the churning whitewater, rising only slightly out of the water. The next wave came at them, threatening to break across the bow. The boat rose up to meet the breaking wave, and the twin hulls sliced cleanly through, spray shooting forward then up and over the single bowsprit in a cat’s sneeze. The console and small windshield kept the spray off the two men standing behind it.
“Not too shabby!” Snow shouted over the engines.
Thurman turned the boat and increased throttle. It responded like a sports car, remaining flat and level in the turn. With another wave approaching, Thurman angled to take it at a forty-five-degree angle.
Surprisingly, the boat crested the wave, coming slightly out of the water for a moment, before the aft quarter of the twin hulls came gently back down. No rough crash, like most boats.
Encouraged and thrilled at the performance so far, Napier pushed both throttles to the stops and headed further offshore. In seconds, the boat reached its top speed. Snow looked at the dash-mounted GPS. “Fifty knots! Holy shit!”
Slowly, Napier pulled back on the throttles until the boat settled down to idle speed, then he jammed them both to full throttle. He was certain the roar of the two engines could be heard all the way up in the mountains. The boat launched forward, like a rocket sled on rails, reaching fifty knots in just a few seconds.
When Thurman slowed again, he put the boat in neutral, then shut down the engines, leaving the cooling fans running. Mono-hull boats would rock precariously in these conditions, but the wide beam and twin hulls kept the boat a lot more stable, and moving around on the deck was much easier.
“Check the starboard engine,” Napier said as he stepped over and lifted the port engine cover.
The engine bay was as dry as could be. Any water that came over the bow or gunwales drained through scuppers at the stern. In really rough conditions, some spray might get sucked through the cooling fans, but the engine bay was separated from the rest of the hull, with two bilge pumps to remove any water that got in.
“Dry as a bone,” Snow said. “Oil level’s fine and it’s actually pretty cool to the touch.”
Napier bent over, licked a finger, and touched it quickly to one of the cylinder heads. When he touched it again, it was warm, but not hot. The oil coolers probably helped a lot in dissipating the heat.
For the next two hours, Napier put the boat through a punishing sea trial and was thoroughly impressed with everything. Running it closer to shore, parallel to the breaking waves, he found that the deck area occasionally filled ankle-deep with water and foam, but it drained out quickly and had almost no effect on the boat’s stability and handling. One unusually large wave caught Thurman off guard and pushed the boat a lot closer to shore than he wanted to run.
“Turn out!” Snow shouted, grabbing the rail mounted to his side of the console with both hands. He fully expected the boat to run aground at any second and come to a lurching halt.
Napier jammed the throttles, racing ahead of the breaking wave in no more than half a foot of water. Ahead of the foamy break, he finally turned, cresting the wave at a tight angle. The boat shot up, the port side coming up higher than the starboard. The boat
settled back into the water smoothly.
“That was insane!” Napier shouted, his heart pounding with adrenaline.
“That hadda pick up a ton of sand, man,” Snow said, as Thurman slowed and stopped the boat a hundred yards off the beach.
“Check the intakes,” Napier said, again opening the port hatch on his side. The huge water jet was directly behind the engine. Checking the intake strainer, he found only a few grains of sand.
“Almost nothin’,” Snow commented. “How big are the intake ports under the hull?”
“Hell if I know.”
“You never checked?”
Thurman closed and latched the cover. “Didn’t see a need to, but now I’m curious. That couldn’t have been no more than six inches of water.”
“Six my ass,” Snow said, laughing and peeling off his tee-shirt. He dumped the contents of his pants pockets onto the dash. “On this side, you were riding on nothin’ but foam, buddy.”
Snow put one hand on the gunwale and vaulted over the side, splashing into the water. He took a deep breath and dove under the boat, surfacing a moment later.
“Can’t see real clear without a mask, but they’re really long and narrow, covered with some kind of mesh.”
Napier reached down and grabbed Snow’s arm, nearly pulling him out of the water without any help. “Don’t know much about jet drives,” he admitted. “Tunnel hulls, sure. What kind of mesh?”
“Got me,” Snow replied. “I’ve seen a lot of jet drives, but nothing with this kind of intake. I guess with the really big area, the mesh helps keep debris out, without sacrificing how much water can enter.”
Hours later, the gas tank was sucking fumes and the cooler was long empty. The two men idled back into the cove, surfing just ahead of a wave. The sun was nearing the mountain peaks as they tied off to the dock. Napier tilted the rum bottle to his lips, then tossed the empty up on shore.
Ruthless Charity: A Charity Styles Novel (Caribbean Thriller Series Book 2) Page 7
