Chapter Twenty-Three
Phil heard the helicopter first. It roared in over the compound, circled once, and dropped without ceremony in the center of the large parking lot below. They had cleared the area for just such a landing, but there were no flights due in. Keith and Phil hurried from the control room toward the main doors of the building. As they stepped out of the building, they saw several men in uniform and one man in a dark suit debark a large U.S. Navy chopper, ducking as they passed through the wash from the rotor blades.
The three approached and without preliminary, the man in the suit, tall with dark hair going to gray, stepped forward. He ignored Keith and stared at Phil in what might have been shock. The briefcase dropped from his hand, and he glanced down at it, just for a second, before snapping his head back up to stare again.
“Phil?” he asked. It wasn’t really a question, and sounded even less like one when he repeated it. “Phil Wicks?”
Phil returned the gaze for a moment, and then broke into a grin. “Matt Schmidt. My God. And in a suit, no less. Shouldn’t you be out flying something?”
Matt’s shock broke and he returned Phil’s grin. “They told me, and I didn’t believe it,” he said. He gripped Phil’s hand tightly, then drew him closer and gave him a quick hug. “Unbelievable,” he added for emphasis.
Keith, who had been standing quietly by, tugged on Phil’s arm, bringing him back to the moment.
“What’s up, Matt?” he asked quickly. “We have kind of a situation here . . .”
“You always were one for understatement,” Matt laughed. “That’s why I’m here. And no, I don’t fly anymore—eyes aren’t quite what they used to be. I took a position with the State Department when I retired. After your hasty exit from the clinic up in Norfolk, they ran some checks on you. When they found the files and figured out what you were up to when you disappeared, it didn’t take them long to make the connection to that storm out there.”
He pointed in the direction of the ocean. “It also didn’t take them long to put you together with my name and to call me. We have to talk, Phil.”
“Not a lot of time for talk just now,” Keith cut in. “We have to get inside and monitor the operation. Lives are at stake.”
“Matt was with me on Operation Stormfury,” Phil said, turning to Keith. “He might be of some help.”
“Let’s get inside, and we can find out what these gentlemen want from us while we check on Andrea and the boats.”
“Ah,” Matt said, “then it was her. We got reports from the USCG that they tried to warn off a couple of ocean-going tugs, loaded to the gills with barges and heading directly into the path of the storm. Somehow, all of the details only pointed in one direction.”
“You know Andrea,” Phil said bleakly.
Matt put a hand on Phil’s shoulder. “I know you’re worried, Phil, but the government needs to know what’s going on, too. I have a lot of resources at my command, and I’ll tell you—if they can stop that storm, divert it, or do anything useful to it at all—I’m here to help.”
“Just like the good old days,” Phil said.
The two uniformed officers stepped forward then, and offered their hands. Phil and Keith each took one, then swapped.
“Captain Jason Barnes,” the first one said. “I’m with NOAA.”
“Lieutenant Mike Penn,” the second officer said, in turn. “I’m a pilot out of Oceana Naval Air Station. They sent me down to cover all the bases. I have experience flying over hurricanes.” He smiled at Phil. “Apparently we have something in common, sir.”
They turned as a group and entered the main building. Keith led them through the clean room and into the control center. As they glanced around, taking in the sophisticated equipment and the confused expressions of the operators, Matt laughed.
“Man,” he said, turning to Phil once again, “this is as good as anything we have at the Pentagon. Sure is a long way from the old days.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Phil replied. “This is all new to me, too.”
Matt nodded soberly. “Forgot, just for a minute there, why I was here. You were gone a long time, Phil. I’d like to hear about it, when we get a minute. Questions are being asked about where you’ve been, how your plane could have flown in the condition it’s in, and a few other things.”
“There was nothing wrong with my plane.” Phil frowned. “I know the landing was rough, but under the circumstances . . .”
“That’s what the ground crew said,” Matt nodded, “but . . . well, here.”
He opened his briefcase on one of the tables and pulled out a small stack of Polaroid photographs. He handed them to Phil without a word. Keith drifted past them to the main screen and was talking quietly to the operators.
Phil stared at the first photo and frowned. “This must be a mistake,” he said at last, flipping past it through the stack.
“I’m afraid not, partner,” Matt said. “I took these myself, just before we took off. We were one of the last aircraft to evacuate. They left your plane right where it was towed after the landing.”
The photographs showed the decrepit, desiccated hull of an airplane. The sides hung in rusted shreds. The tires were nothing but piles of windswept dust. It looked as if it had been parked and ignored for—well, for thirty years. No way had it flown only a few short hours before. No way had he been in it.
Keith stepped up, and Phil handed the photos to him, but before a word could be spoken, Susie called out from her console.
“We just heard from Daybreak,” she said excitedly. “Their engines are on line and they are en route. They should have time to catch up, if nothing else goes wrong. They have no comms with Moontide or the barges, though, and we’ve lost contact with the boats out of Bermuda, as well. Interference is heavy out there.”
“We had the same problem,” Captain Barnes said, stepping closer to the screen. “We have good radar images, like these,” he pointed at the swirling white mass on the screen, “but we can’t seem to raise anyone close to the storm on radio. It’s like everything within four hundred miles of the thing has been cut off from the rest of the world.”
Matt turned to Keith. “What’s going on out there? What is Andrea up to—and more importantly, how can I help?”
“It will take a while to explain what she’s trying to do,” Keith replied, moving to one of the consoles, “and at this point, I’m not sure what might help. I may be able to give us a better idea whether she can pull it off or not if I can get a simulation running. We’ve run the simulation with all of our equipment operational, but unfortunately, that isn’t the case here.”
“You run the simulation,” Phil said, turning to Matt suddenly. “Can you get me to Bermuda? I’m told we can reach the island from the far side, away from the storm. It will take a while to explain why, but I know the hurricane is going to miss the island. It’s already been as close as it’s going to get, so conditions shouldn’t get any worse.”
Matt thought for a second, and then nodded. “Give me a phone and about ten minutes to arrange it. I’ll get us something out of Norfolk, if there are still any aircraft that haven’t been evacuated. We can be there in twenty minutes, transfer, and be airborne.”
He turned to Lieutenant Penn. “You willing to take us?”
Penn grinned in return. “Always ready to fly, sir. That’s why I’m here.”
Matt stepped away to a desk, and a phone that Keith pointed out.
Phil only nodded. He was already seeing Andrea’s face, trying to etch the lines onto it that the years would have brought her, and wondering what it would be like to hold her now—whether she’d remember him, still love him, or just stare at him in shock, or horror. He certainly wasn’t the man he had been when they’d last seen one another.
“It’s set,” Matt said, replacing the phone on its hook. “Let’s roll.”
Keith gripped Phil by the shoulder. “Are you sure? Are you up to it?”
Phil shrugged. “Only one way to fin
d out. I can rest on the flight. I know you have a lot to do here, Keith, and I’m mostly just in the way. I’m so far out of the loop I don’t even recognize it. Over there, though,” he waved in the general direction of the storm, and Bermuda, “over there I may be able to find those boats, or even a way out there myself. I don’t know what I might find, but at least I’ll be doing something.”
Keith nodded. “Good luck, then.” He turned to his radio operator. “Susie, give Mr. Schmidt our frequencies. Once they’re in the air, we can stay in contact as long as the storm allows it. Maybe they’ll be able to spot the barges from the air and relay information.”
Susie jotted a couple of numbers onto a pad and ripped the sheet off, handing it over.
“We’ll check in as soon as we’re airborne,” Matt promised.
“I’m going to stay here, if you have no objections,” said Captain Barnes. “This is fascinating, and I have a lot of questions. If this is the heart of the operation, I’d like to be here to observe.”
Matt nodded. “That’s fine.”
Then Phil, Matt, and Lieutenant Penn turned and headed for the door, and the chopper waiting in the lot outside.
“Are you sure they’ll give us a plane?” Phil asked as they hurried past the computer bays. “They didn’t seem too happy with me when I touched down.”
“They’ll give it to us,” Matt replied, shouting now as they exited the building and neared the helicopter, which sat with its blades still spinning. “As long as they believe there’s a chance that Andrea can pull off a miracle, they’ll support it. I can’t say what they’re going to do when it’s all over, but for now, we’ve got as close to a free shot as the government ever gives.”
He stopped for a second, so that Lieutenant Penn would pull ahead a few steps, then said more quietly. “It’ll be good flying with you again, Captain.”
They hurried after Penn and stepped up into the helicopter. Moments later they were strapped in and soaring over the Dismal Swamp through hazy cloud cover, banking off into darkness.
~ * ~
Gabrielle cursed under her breath as the last of their barges swayed and tossed in the waves. The sky was gray and overcast. There was no rain yet, but she felt it in the air, heavy with potential threat. The other four barges were in place, and she’d seen the cruiser pass earlier, heading out to bring in the first crew. It was too tight. They should already have been in place and gone, but the roughening seas and the abbreviated crews had held them back. Now they had to get this final barge anchored and running.
At the helm, a grizzled old native seaman clung tightly, his face ashen. He was a very good sailor, as were the other five who would aid him in getting the tug out of harm’s way. He’d been sailing and fishing around the island all his life, and he could read the signs. He felt the storm, just as she did, but where Gabrielle’s fear was tainted with frustration, his was pure and absolute. He had seen hurricanes tear across the island too many times not to fear them, and he had been sailing long enough to know the foolishness of being at sea when they hit. Only his loyalty and the vague hope of “magic” kept him from veering away from the bouncing barge and making for the open sea.
The last of the crew, with the exception of Gabrielle, was lowered down the hi-line and hit the deck of the barge with a thump as a new swell raised it suddenly to meet her. There was a wild moment when it seemed she would be yanked back over the side, but strong arms grabbed her from both sides, and the harness swung free. They pulled it back to the tug, and the two seamen who were handling the lines turned almost frantically to Gabrielle.
She took a last glance at the darkening sky, gulped in a calming breath of air, and nodded. The two men helped her quickly into the harness, and over the side. Before she knew what had happened, she was stumbling on the deck of the barge, and the harness was torn free. As soon as she was down, the lines were released, and the tug throttled up, pulling a safe distance away so that the two vessels wouldn’t collide.
Gabrielle waved them off, and with a deep-throated rumble, the tugboat turned away from the barge, and from the path of the storm, and headed straight out past the island toward the open sea. As long as the storm moved parallel away from the island and didn’t turn straight into them too quickly, they had time.
Gabrielle turned to stare in the other direction, where the cutters should be coming from, but she could see nothing—not even the next barge. They were alone, and the waves rolled in huge sloping bulges beneath the barge, tugging at the anchor lines. They held.
With a few sharp commands she got them all moving, and the work of the moment took her mind off her growing terror. The pumps had to be started, and they had to be running long enough in advance of the front storm wall to make a difference in the overall temperature. She knew this could happen fairly quickly, but there was no way to gauge how much time they might have. She could call on the radio in the control shack when they were done, but for the moment they had to work, and the pitching, bucking deck fought them every step of the way.
It was almost half an hour before the first two pumps were operational. The third was quicker. They had their rhythm down by that point, and when it came time to start the two pumps on the far side of the barge, she broke them up into two groups. One hour and ten minutes after the tugboat veered away from the barge, all five pumps were pounding compressed air beneath the surface, forcing the cooler water up from below and sending rhythmic pulses through the barge, like giant heartbeats, slightly out of sync with one another. It was jarring, but bearable.
They gathered in the small shack around the radio and Gabrielle powered it up and began to call out. There was no response, and they could see nothing in any direction. The cloud cover had lowered over the surface of the water, and visibility was low. One of the others flipped a large circuit breaker, and huge strobing beacons flashed on poles at either end of the barge. It was impossible to tell how far they could be seen through the murky shadows. Gabrielle continued her message, reporting they were ready for pickup, but the radio spit back only silence—and the waves continued to grow taller and wider.
~ * ~
On the cutter Daybreak the radio operator turned to his captain. “We’ve lost contact with the base,” he said. “Shall I continue to try them?”
“There’s no point in that,” Captain Clayton replied, shaking his head with a frown. “We’ve lost comms with every ship that’s headed into this mess. We almost had the Moontide earlier, keep trying them, and keep trying for the barges. We’re in this for keeps, now—the only way to go is ahead, and we have to assume that we’ll find them where they’re supposed to be and get them out of there. We have time to get out, either way.”
The radioman nodded. He flipped the frequency dial to the circuit they had established between cutters, and began to call out to the other ship at regular intervals, each time waiting patiently for a response. The sky had grown hazy, and the endless static was almost maddening, but he kept at it. They were four hours out, and the closer they came to the target zone, and the place where the other cutter, and the barges, were supposed to be located, the more likely it was he’d raise somebody. At this point, if he’d raised a Nazi U-boat, he’d have been happy, but he kept this thought to himself. The cutter sliced easily through the waves, making good speed.
Clayton, who normally would have turned over the bridge to his mate and rested at this point, stood with his hands clasped behind his back, staring out across the water ahead. The red sky at sunrise was still fresh in his mind, and he hoped he wasn’t making a fatal error. It might be that the storm had screwed up reception, and that everything was fine. It might also be that something else had gone wrong, or, if the stories he’d heard about Captain Wicks’ last flight were true, it might be that no one was out there at all—that they were simply gone, and he was leading his own crew right in after them. He thought about his wife, and his son Bobby. He wondered what it would be like to return to them after thirty years, a very old man, and his
skin grew clammy at the thought. He kept the thoughts to himself, and the miles skimmed away beneath the hull.
He thought about the Moontide’s captain, and he whispered to him across the waves. “Where are you, Al, you old son of a bitch? Where the hell are you?”
Only the waves, and the wind, answered.
~ * ~
The cutter Moontide pulled away from the third barge with the crew safely aboard and turned toward the fourth. Things were going smoothly, but that wouldn’t help the crews on the second set of barges. Visibility was growing worse, and the rolling seas were making it difficult to get in close enough to take the crews aboard safely. Already there had been close calls, and they had at least three more barges to go.
The radio crackled, but no one paid much attention. The static pops and cracks had been grinding out of the speaker for hours, but they hadn’t heard another radio operator’s voice since they’d heard the half-message from Daybreak and gotten the garbled news that the second cutter had made repairs and was on its way. With the seas as heavy as they were, it was almost too late. It was something they hadn’t accounted for—the surge reaching them so far ahead of the storm wall. Even a Category five should have given them enough time to get in and out with the crews. This one, though? It was simply too large and too powerful to predict.
The radio crackled again, and Captain Al Menard turned with a scowl on his face. He strode briskly to the set, thinking he’d turn up the squelch and stop the infernal squawking sounds, but he stopped about a foot short and listened intently. At first what he heard seemed to be the ghost of a voice, not really in phase with the signal. He couldn’t make out any words clearly, but there was something there. He hurried the last few steps and grabbed the headset.
“Daybreak, this is Moontide; do you copy, over?”
There was another scratchy burst of static, and then, weak, but discernible, came the response. “Moontide, this is Daybreak. Have you weak, but readable. Are you in position, over?”
“Daybreak, this is Moontide. Affirmative. We have completed pickup number three. I repeat; we have picked up three.”
Mote in Andrea's Eye Page 24
