by Bob Neir
“Fox 3. Roger. Den Mother. We’re up and after ‘em. Tanks are full.”
Trent checked his chart and said, “Follow this heading.”
“Christ. There’s nothing out there but ocean,” the co-pilot mumbled. “I don’t get it.”
“Do it,” Trent ordered.
* * *
On course 280 degrees, Fox 3 easily picked up Rabbit on their infrared radar. The operator tracked the green and white image on the cockpit screen. Zooming in on Rabbit, he adjusted for detail and locked on. Operator Cleo Warnes clicked on his inter-phone. “I’ve locked on our man,” he said. “Speed 120 knots, course 270.” Warnes marked his chart under a small red spotlight. “We’ll intersect in twenty minutes.” He settled back into his seat and focused on the screen.
Warnes reported, “Five miles ahead. Five-hundred feet below, closure rate ten knots.” Fox 3’s pilot, Lt. Ken Ambrose moved closer to drop down behind his quarry. The Pelican’s FLIR, its forward-looking infrared radar, fixed on Rabbit’s red-hot engine exhaust. Ambrose inched the ‘copter up carefully, taking station off to the rear and slightly to the left side. “Den Mother says they got machine guns. Stay away from the cargo door. They sprayed Navy 1. She’s holding steady. I bet they don t have a clue we are here.
“Shall we let them in on our secret?” Ambrose banked Fox 3 over until he was directly above Rabbit. “I’m going to get me some tail,” he laughed. “Hang on, guys, here we go,” Ambrose yelled as he increased speed, dropped in altitude, and pulled up abreast Rabbits cockpit. He held that position until he was certain Rabbit had seen them, and then Fox 3 fell astern and held station one-quarter mile behind. Fox 3 settled in a groove, with speeds matched, the engines at a constant pitched drone.
“That didn’t shake them up one damn bit,” An older co-pilot named Sam MacAfee said. “They know we ain’t going to shoot them down.”
“The pilot in that bucket is a good buddy of mine. Hang tight. They’re changing course. Heading 295 degrees,” Warnes shouted over the inter-phone. “I don’t get it. That puts Rabbit on a course splitting the headings of Hestia and Bandera. What do you make of it?”
“Could be Trent hasn’t made up his mind which ship to head for,” Warnes said. “With these headwinds, he’d better make up his mind soon. Bandera is already marginal. Rabbit took off on the late side; fortunately for him, Hestia is dragging. Not a good situation developing. That old rust bucket is slower than molasses. If the make for her, Yacona has a good chance at interception. Maybe he’ll call it quits, break off and make for land. They say this Trent guy has tricks up his sleeve.”
As the sky blackened, Ambrose strained to follow Rabbit in the fading light.
“We’d better check with Den Mother.”
Warnes said, “Rabbit will hear too, you know.”
“Two of our guys are in there with Trent.”
“Den Mother. This is Fox 3.”
“Go ahead Fox 3.”
“Rabbit’s in sight. Heading 295 degrees. Ground speed is 80 knots, headwinds 40 knots. Need guidance. What’s this guy up to?”
“Fox 3. Bandera is 160 miles out off coast on course 315. Hestia is 35 miles out on course 258. Either ship could be final destination. Navy 1 and Navy 2 and Fox 1 are positioned to intercept if Rabbit makes for a landfall. Good luck.”
“O.K. Ambrose, what do we do now?”
“Stay with Rabbit until he makes a mistake. Did you notice, Den Mother didn’t mention Fox 2?”
“Yeah! I noticed.” Ambrose shook his head. In the dark cockpit, Ambrose could be seen leaning forward, his teeth flashed in the darkness. His life jacket hung loose, his helmet had pinched his black hair tight to his scalp.
“There it is. I got it,” MacAfee exclaimed. “A homing signal. Heading 312. It’s Bandera.”
“Rabbit must have it too, but he didn’t turn,” Warnes shouted over the inter-phone. “Shit! Where the hell did he go?” Ambrose hollered. “Rabbit broke away.” Warnes replied, “He’s off my screen. He could be anywhere, even behind us.”
“Fox 3. This is Den Mother. Rabbit is off to your left. He is moving up on you.”
“I don’t see…” A spray of flame erupted from out of the black as bullets cut into Fox 3’s side. Madden peered through Rabbit’s open cargo door, his waist belt held him tight. “…Jesus! Get us outta here,” Warnes screamed. Ambrose gritted his teeth, kicked the pedals and pulled maximum power. Fox 3 swung hard left as the Pelican vibrated her tortured frame. Rabbit countered with a hard right, looped around and zoomed down, to gather speed. “Damn it. He’s bugging out,” Warnes shouted over the howling engine. Rabbit was a dark shape racing away, fading to nothingness in the distance. “Bring us back around.”
Fox 3 came up and did a full circle.
“I got him,” Warnes snapped into the inter-phone. “He’s hauling ass, fast. He’s heading for Bandera. Get after him.” The helicopter banked and picked up speed. “What the hell did he do that for?” MacAfee spoke, “We were hanging in too close. He wants to shake us loose.” The sweat was pouring from his forehead. “The bastard did a pick on us.”
“He turned off his lights.”
“What’s his heading?”
“Heading 320.”
“I lost visual,” Ambrose was sucking in deep breaths.
“I’m still locked on,” Warnes said. “He’s five miles out. Stay with him. He’s accelerating.”
“On that heading, it’s Bandera,” MacAfee blurted out.
“Rabbit. This is Den Mother.”
“Den Mother. This is Rabbit. Tell Fox 3 if he insists on snapping at my tail, he’s going to get bit.”
“Rabbit. Bandera is marginal. You are on course into 70 knot headwinds. Bandera is 170 miles off coast.”
“Trent. Simons, here.”
“What can I do for you, Chief?”
“Burns is under arrest. We have his confession. Seems you turned him into a basket case. He will be court-martialed.”
“It’s a little late for amends, isn’t it?”
“At least, it might salve your conscience.”
“Thanks.”
“Does that change your plans any?”
“You are too late. We have the thirty million. Bandera is within reach.”
Simons offered, “The Coast Guard has ordered both ships to come about and remain in U.S. waters. Both captains have agreed.” Trent retorted, “Not that it makes any difference but we are armed and we will land. Tell Fox 3 not to interfere.”
“A night landing is tricky,” Simons interjected. “You’ll have rough seas to contend with.”
“Rabbit, over and out.” Trent clicked off.
“Track and monitor. Nuts!” Warnes grumbled.
“Those are our orders, Cleo,” Ambrose winced. “Harass Rabbit, just short of endangering lives. We can’t go up against them without weapons; anyway, let VTS vector in the cutters. Yacona mounts a.50cal. machine gun. Maybe, those guys can do better.”
Warnes came on the inter-phone. “Lieutenant, if you get any closer, you’ll nip off Rabbit’s tail. Back off! Shit! Too late, they fell off. I’ve lost them. The smart-asses. They cut power, dropped and let us overrun.”
“Damn. Damn. Damn.”
“Where are they now?”
“I haven’t the foggiest.” Warnes looked at his monitor and stabbed at buttons. For the moment, they fell silent. The rushing wind and clattering roar of the Pelican overcame the muffing effect of their headsets. “The scope is blank ahead. Give me a fuel reading.”
MacAfee exclaimed, “Bad news. We are burning gas like it’s coming out a water tap. Neither of us has exactly been in long-range cruise. If Trent makes for Bandera,” MacAfee droned on. “He’ll be flying on fumes. I’d bet the winds scare him off.”
“What are Rabbit’s other options?” Ambrose asked.
“Hold your shirt, I’m figuring,” Warnes shouted back. “Damn. It can’t be. Get this: Rabbit is 80 miles out of Tofino on Vancouver Island, 80 miles fro
m the Bandera and 80 miles from the Hestia. Damn. That bastard had a no-go point.” He carried on, “Tatoosh is the closest on the American side. That’s back 120 miles. If he went north to Tofino, he’s on an easy heading. He could make that easy. Then, there’s the Hestia. She lies southeast on heading 135. Rabbit would have a tail wind. He might even over fly and hit the coast.”
“Smart cookie. Then, which way did he go?” Ambrose screamed. “And, don’t give me a lesson in geography.” He continued, “This could be that miracle Den Mother said we should pray for - turn Rabbit back.” Ambrose said. “Raise Den Mother.”
“Den Mother, here. Fox 3. Rabbit is 82 miles due north of Hestia on heading 133. Seas are too rough, impossible to set down on deck. Track Rabbit to Hestia, then abandon chase and head for home. Job well done. Do not intercept. I repeat. Take no overt action.”
“Fox 3. We copy. Roger.”
Fox 3 turned to its new heading.
“Hang on, you guys. We got some catching up to do,” Ambrose said. He tightened his grip on the collective and cyclic and bent his neck into the seat back. He pulled collective and braced himself as Fox 3 shot off in hot pursuit. The Fox set off to chase the Rabbit.
* * *
The chopper trembled like a fleeing animal beneath his feet. Trent felt the wind-blast through the open door as he looked down on a boiling ocean of whitecaps below. Relieved, with troubles behind, life felt almost normal again. Then, suddenly he felt sick: terribly sick and tired of it all. His anger dissipated; his lust for revenge gone, leaving him weak with tiredness. It had been just days ago and now, it was almost over. He was reeling from a high and now he was falling. He tugged fretfully at his life jacket. Over the thrum of the ‘copter, there was no chatter. How did the men feel, had the caper changed them? Oddly, he didn’t know how to ask. No one moved, and no one spoke. They rode on silently as Madden tended Graves’ wound.
Trent was first to sight the outbound ship. Although, her upper works were well lighted, the Hestia was a barely visible moving shape, smaller than he remembered her. She wallowed, laboring heavily as she passed in and out of patches of heavy spray. Her single stack belched heavy, black smoke as she plowed bow down into great, green wall. Water leaped over the bows and roared aft with the force of an express train. She was standing away, she had not yet reversed course as ordered. There wasn’t a soul to be seen on their bridge wing. Trent guessed that the Hestia’s Captain and his Chinese crew, brooked no interest in a curious, unexplained request by the U.S. Coast Guard as he held his course. Rabbit approached, circled and hovered over the freighter, her powerful; probing searchlight splashed the freighter’s deck from stem to stern. Crewmen were dashing about tying down loose lines. The Hestia was swinging away fast and Trent bit his lip as the sea room opened rapidly. It was still a good distance, less than a quarter mile, but on an approach course. A collision at sea is a nightmare all sailors had to live with, but one just tried not to think about it. Like airplane crashes or an auto accident, it wasn’t going to happen until it did.
“Nice and flat,” Madden said. “Nothing but stacked containers. Just like an airport runway.”
The pilot said, “You better look close; look at those wires. And, the cargo booms, they are swinging freely all over the place. And, the waves are crashing over starboard side clear to port. And, to boot, she’s top-heavy and overloaded. She’s riding up and down like a baby-buggy, dropping off into holes.” The Hestia had a decided list and was rolling badly. “Her position makes face-the-wind hover impossible. We have crosswinds gusting to 30 knots.”
Rabbit circled, and circled again the plodding ship.
Madden said, “She’s damaged. The hull plating looks smashed in, I’d swear she appears to be foundering.” Waves washed over her in monotonous regularity.
The pilot shouted, “I can’t land. This is tougher than making a carrier landing in rough seas. No room for error. I gotta come in steady all the way without flinching. If I miss, we’re in for a swim, if the miss doesn’t kill us. That tub is bouncing up and down like a cork. And, if I do get her down, I’ll need a trap to hold her from slipping over the side,” The pilot screamed over the din. “This is crazy. It’s suicide.”
“Make another pass,” Trent ordered.
The ‘copter swung over, the bright beam of the searchlight poked into the wheelhouse. Trent clearly saw panic on the illuminated faces of the men inside. The ‘copter moved aft in synch with the ship. The men on deck held curious looks on their faces. As the ‘copter moved closer, the crew waved, then pleaded, and gestured to be lifted off. He then realized, the Coast Guard helicopter held a different meaning to the men below.
Crewmen dashed for the main boom beneath which a lifeboat was already being stripped of its canvas.
“Good God,” Madden said. “They are foundering.”
“We can’t go down there,” The pilot said.
“We must,” Trent replied.
“It’s insane.”
“The Hestia is our only chance,” Trent droned, “We have no other choice.”
“Tony. Graves is dying, he has lost conscious.”
Trent placed a muzzle to the back of the pilot’s head. “Take her down,” he ordered.
The hugeness of Rabbit settled warily toward the flat surface of the sea-going containers lined up side-by-side. The pilot, sweating profusely, hovered, gingerly gauging the motion of the violently, tossing ship. He hesitated, avoiding wires and timing himself to catch and hang on to the end of a moving metronome. Then, he lowered Rabbit the last few feet and met the deck coming up. It touched, bounced and was down, then was thrown off and fell precipitously into the sea. The situation had gone to hell in five short seconds.
As they struggled to escape the maelstrom, the Hestia sailed on.
~ * * * ~
epilogue
Simons bent to toss another small log into the iron stove, then gently edged it onto the flames. Yellow tongues greedily licked at the dry wood. He leaned forward and held his hands to the flames. He sat in the chair and waited as the ache in his legs gently eased. He wished his head didn’t feel so heavy, that he could give himself over to quietude.
“I’ve had a great thirty-year career,” Simons reflected, easing back in the chair, “but never have I felt such a feeling of triumph and achievement as I do now. Closure. Your capture was inevitable, you know, but to me it became irrelevant. I do feel a pang of pity for the way it ended. The chase was exhilarating.”
“Maybe, if we had landed successfully, I would still have the helicopter.” Trent saw Simons’ face etched against the flames.
“You’d be tracked to the threshold of freedom.”
“The Hestia later foundered, you know,” Simons added.
“I guessed as much. Trying to land aboard was a desperate move on my part.”
“I’d say suicidal.”
“Stupid, at best. I forced the pilots to land, but the blade caught a wave top and we rode the ‘copter in. The pilots never made it out of their harnesses. Harper tried to swim away, but he went under. Wasn’t much he could do with a broken arm.”
“We never found Graves.”
“No surprise. He screamed the money was his. He bear-hugged one of the suitcases and refused to let go. It dragged him under; he didn’t come back up.”
“The Coast Guard found all kinds of debris where she foundered.”
“The Hestia was a floating junkyard. All sorts of stuff came over the side then shot to the surface. Madden got nailed by a wooden crate that shot up from underneath. Some noble sailor loosed a Carly-float overboard. I swam towards it, grabbed on and climbed in. I called to Madden and he answered, but even paddling as hard as I could, the wind blew me back. His voice faded and I never heard him again. Exhausted, I fell asleep and didn’t come out of it until morning. By then, the storm had abated and the sun was shining brightly. I knew the wind and current would carry me ashore. I just had to be patient. A low plane flew over so I dropped over the side
to avoid being seen. With the float empty, it was ignored.”
“The coroner said Maxie died of a heart attack, but he wouldn’t have lived much longer, anyway. You can’t take the blame for his death. I did tell you Flo died. She didn’t know of Maxie’s death.”
“I might have hastened his death,” Trent replied. “I offered to call in the Navy; but Maxie wouldn’t let me. This was the way he wanted it.”
“We found Newby Hatcher’s body bundled up on the lower projectile deck where you placed him. The Coast Guard searched but never found Hank Graves or Ben Harper or Madden, for that matter. We were sure you had drowned, too. We were sure the pilots went down with the ‘copter. Fox 3 reported they couldn’t have survived.”
“I ran out of options. Maybe, if we headed for the coast…dropped the idea,” Trent wrung his hands.
“We didn’t recover any of the money.”
“The suitcases were waterproof and they were supposed to float. They sank like rocks. Whose idea was that?”
“Nobody’s! Packing in all the money didn’t leave much room.”
“You guys are the losers.”
“Yeah! I promised Mitchell we’d recover the money. I read in the papers Mitchell and the city are still fighting over whose to pay up.”
“Grille got run out of office at the next election; Chitterman is still there. Grille took the heat. I think he was glad to try another career. I think he went into banking. These hot-seat political jobs don’t last long.”
“You mean, like a Police Chief.”
“Somehow, I got off easy. The public fuss buzzed around me; but I didn’t take a hit. And, now I have my pension. I notice it’s been a week. My buddies should be getting back soon.”
“What next?”
“For one thing, I’ll keep my word.”
“I appreciate that. I’m doing enough penance living in this place. Of course, in prison I’d get three square meals and a warm, dry place to sleep.”
