Eden Two

by Mike Sullivan

  Seabury decided against going into the ugly details of her relationship with Cyril Barat. “I’m needed up front,” he said and headed back to the pilot’s cabin.

  By now, morning came quickly. A stream of faint clouds broke through layers of blue sky. Mister Yeong looked up as Seabury entered the cabin. “The tanker’s here. They’ve lowered the drogue.”

  Seabury looked out the window then turned back to Lee. Immediately, he noticed the difference between air-to-air refueling and refueling at sea. The two methods were as opposite as night and day. At sea, you needed to watch out for high seas, water displacement, the position of the ships, and the wind. He figured the main difficulty in air-to-air refueling was the pilot’s experience. Yet, nothing in life was ever guaranteed. The pilot had to fly through the turbulence created by the tanker. Lee also had to account for a sufficient amount of reverse power to do this. He wound up the engines now.

  Seabury felt the chopper’s backward thrust kick in. He braced himself against the wall and stared out the window. The refueling drogue broke its snake-like head through a stream of faint clouds. Lee caught a glimpse of it in the front window. He’d positioned the chopper outward beyond the tanker’s left wing to align with the probe on the left side of the chopper. The Osprey’s powerful, air-cooled turbine engines growled in the air above them.

  “Okay.” Seabury curled his fingers and waved Lee in closer to the drogue. A tiny shift in the air current came from back outside. The chopper shook and shuddered briefly. Seabury stared across at Lee and then at the aviation map and helicopter chart guide that fell from a shelf onto the floor.

  “Whoa. No more of that now,” said Lee as if to himself as he adjusted the speed of the of the engines. “A little air turbulence is okay,” he explained to Seabury. “Too much isn’t good.”

  Moments later, the drogue aligned with the probe where the fuel would enter into large tanks at the bottom of the chopper. Lee smiled and gave Seabury a thumbs up gesture. Seabury heard the sound of fuel rush into tanks at the back of the plane.

  For a moment, the chopper and the refueling tanker stood almost stationary in the air. The tanker’s powerful engines propelled the huge craft through the sky at a speed of 130 mph. The thirsty chopper trailed behind, in tight, next to the outer flow of air coming off the tanker’s left wing.

  “Shouldn’t be much longer,” Lee said to Seabury, who stood looking out the window. “The fuel’s pouring in at a good speed.”

  Lee radioed the pilot in the tanker. “Looks good back here.”

  “Okay,” the voice replied. “Roger. Over and out.”

  Seabury felt a sudden jolt under him when suddenly, the chopper leapt forward and zoomed higher into the air, closer to the wing of the tanker.

  “Holy, Jesus,” Lee yelled. “An upward thermal.”

  Seabury grabbed hold of a metal sanction near the window. The abrupt shift in turbulence shot the chopper higher into the air, closer to the tanker. Outside, the drogue rocked side-to-side, back and forth in the air. As Seabury stared outside the window in horror, the chopper’s whirling propeller snipped off the drogue, like someone had cut it with a pair of scissors. A wave of fuel splattered across the window. Seabury tried to stare through it as Lee radioed the tanker, again.

  “Snipped off.” Lee’s voice raced with alarm and fear.

  “Yeah, we saw it,” the tanker pilot said.

  “What now?” Lee asked, frozen in fear.

  “What’s your fuel gauge read?”

  Lee scrabbled toward the gauge, pressing his finger up against the glass dial. He could just as well have glanced over. Seabury noticed Lee’s face. It turned a ghostly white color. His eyes bulged with fear, and faint, whimpering sounds slipped out the corners of his mouth. “Not enough…I don’t think enough,” he called back over the phone.

  “Power down,” the tanker pilot said. “There’s a southwesterly wind at your back. You should be able to reach the coast and land safely if you power down right now. I’ll radio ahead. Alert the air tower in Balikpapan. I’ll contact the Coast Guard, in case you have to ditch it.”

  “I’m not planning on ditching it,” said Lee, panic entering his voice. “I’ve got four passengers on board, and their lives are in danger.”

  “Okay.” The tanker pilot’s voice was calm. “Power down. You should be all right. There’s less than two hundred miles left before you reach the coast.”

  He hung up, and Lee turned to the side, facing Seabury. “Start praying,” he said. “There’s not much fuel left.”

  Seabury stood near the window and stared at the terror in Lee’s eyes. He’d been in shipboard accidents before, sailing inside fog-sodden harbors going back out to sea. He’d learned never to panic in times of crisis.

  “Did you shut everything down?” Seabury asked.

  “Yes, yes.” Lee shook his head. Everything’s down.”

  Lee brought the chopper down to 3,000 feet and looked at the fuel gauge. The needle crawled past the red marker onto a dark line inside the dial.

  “How many gallons entered the tank?”

  “I don’t know,” said Lee. Like an animal caught in a trap, his almond eyes darkened with fear in his pale face. “Not enough. Maybe a few liters…I don’t know.”

  “The winds are at out back,” said Seabury. “That’s a plus.” He turned back toward the door. “I’m going back to check on the others.”

  “Don’t say anything,” Lee said.

  Seabury noticed the angst in his voice. In the midst of the crisis, Lee reacted in a state of panic. Worry filled his eyes, and Seabury could almost feel the heat of anxiety rolling off his body. He said nothing, opened the door, and stepped back into the compartment outside.

  Lois, dressed in beige slacks and a white cotton blouse, met him with a cheery smile. “Well, are we filled up?”

  Seabury swallowed hard against the lump lodged in his throat, but it wouldn’t budge. Anxiousness, fear and a sense of déjà vu fought to the surface as he remembered another time, another place, another ship heading for disaster. He looked at Lois and the others behind her. He couldn’t let them die, too.

  “We’re less than two hundred miles from the coast.” Seabury noticed the odd look she gave him. In the narrow space separating them, he sensed a note of doubt and fear enter her eyes.

  “Everything’s okay?” she asked. “Isn’t it?”

  “Hey, is that a fresh pot of coffee?” Pasting a grin on his face, he turned aside, ignoring her question. He poured the rich liquid into a cup and sat down on the edge of the bed next to her.

  Lois looked at him. “Why do I have a feeling you’re holding something back?”

  Gretchen had rolled out of bed, he noticed, and dressed into jeans and a blue tank top. Hornsby lay asleep, until the first sputter of the engine shook him awake.

  “What’s that?” Lois shouted.

  “Air turbulence, probably,” said Seabury, trying to sound as calm as possible. It wasn’t working, because Lois’s face suddenly twisted into a ball of wrinkles.

  “That sounds like…oh, my God.” Lois’s hands balled into fists. The color drained from her face. She started to shake. “Tell me it isn’t engine trouble.”

  The chopper shook and sputtered, nose-dived, and shot down at a steep angle in the sky.

  Lois grabbed onto Seabury. Gretchen fell on a bunk. Hornsby, wide awake now, grabbed a handrail near the side of the bed and held on tightly.

  “What is it, Sam?” he shouted across the cabin as the chopper nose-dived further toward the sea. The girls screamed. The sound rocked the cabin. It set Seabury’s nerves on edge as his heart stopped in a moment of terror. Was this the end? He felt helpless.

  A moment later, the Osprey leveled out again, and the engines hummed, propelling the chopper across the sky. Seabury took a minute to answer. “We had problems refueling. An updraft caused a surge, and we lost the drogue. We couldn’t complete the transfer.”

  Lois sprang off the bed, grabbed
Gretchen, and the sisters held each other tightly. Hornsby grabbed his trousers from a hook nearby, turned his back to the women, and slipped into them. He pulled on a gray cotton shirt and turned back around.

  “Okay, listen.” Seabury held a hand up, his voice calm. “Lee has powered down. The wind is at our backs. There’s some fuel still in the tank. We have a chance to reach land, but we need to stay calm and trust Lee’s skill as a pilot. He’s on the phone now with the Coast Guard. If we have to ditch in the ocean, it won’t be long before they find us. I’m praying that won’t happen, but it’s a distinct possibility.”

  He looked at Gretchen. A faint smile crossed his lips. “You’re the swimmer, so you can save all of us.”

  She didn’t respond. He saw tears in her eyes. “We’ll be okay, folks. Just hang in there,” he said reassuringly.

  Lois got out her Bible and began to pray. “Dear Heavenly Father, let this burden pass from us, but if the time is near, let your blessing ring deep in our hearts and souls. In your Holy Name, amen.” She turned and pointed to inflatable vests on the wall. “Let’s get these on and remove loose items in the cabin. Take off your shoes. We don’t need anything to weigh us down in the water if we have to ditch the plane.”

  They did what Lois said. With his vest on, Seabury moved around her on his way to the cockpit as the engine sputtered, again.

  “How far are we from the coastline?” Seabury asked Lee as he entered the cockpit.

  “A half hour…maybe a little more.” Lee pointed out the window. “I’ve dropped to one thousand feet. You can see the ocean below . The Coast Guard radioed me a few minutes ago. They have a frigate standing by in case we have to ditch. I gave our latitude-longitude position.” His voice went an octave lower. “My God, I hope we don’t have to ditch in the ocean. I can’t swim. I never learned how.”

  Seabury said nothing, and Lee turned back to the controls. Waiting in the cockpit, Seabury sat down near a window. He checked his watch. Twenty minutes passed by. The chopper chocked and sputtered, and it nosed closer to the water. He looked outside. Whitecaps spread out across a blue ocean. The engines skipped and hissed and revved out loud above him. They died and sprang back to life, again.

  Another ten minutes went by. Suddenly, Lois banged open the door to the cockpit and rushed inside. “Did you see it, Sam?” She rushed to the window.

  “Yes,” Seabury beamed, excitedly. “It’s the coastline. I saw it a few minutes ago.”

  Lee leaned over, a changed man. He smiled in pure delight, reached over, and slapped Seabury’s hand in a resounding high-five. “We’re going to make it. Lord God Almighty, we’re going to do it.”

  “The Good Lord’s delivered us from harm. I just knew it. There’s no power like the power of prayer,” Lois said.

  They winged in on the fumes left in the tank, glided over green patches of swampland, and coasted over small commercial buildings on the edge of Balikpapan. A few minutes later, Seabury saw the air control tower and heard a voice coming over a set of speakers.

  “We’ve been sitting on pins and needles for over an hour,” a voice said. “All of us here in the tower have been praying for a safe flight. Allah has answered our prayers.”

  Chapter Ten

  After clearing customs, Seabury looked around the terminal, surprised. I’m amazed. I can’t believe it. No police, no APB, no border patrol with handcuffs. No port authorities to detain me. He looked around as they left the airport. Borneo was over 900 miles from Indonesia—two different countries, two separate worlds. He walked out the front door as a crowd moved inside past him. I’m free, he said. At least for now.

  The sky stretched bright and blue above them as the driver edged the taxi into the traffic and drove along the road next to the sea. As they passed the petroleum refinery, light rolled past the window. The sun would turn hot around 10:30 a.m. Seabury knew they’d be sweating profusely in the heat and humidity.

  At the hotel, he kept his eyes lowered, glancing at Lois as she registered them inside the Hotel Nomadic. He caught the boutique and gift shop down the hall to his right. They hadn’t a bag or a change of clothes. Nothing. They’d left Jakarta so quickly.

  “I think it’s time,” Lois said, “don’t you? I haven’t a thing to wear. None of us have, and I think a shopping spree is in order.”

  Seabury followed them down to the boutique. The shop was larger than he thought and contained women’s clothing as well as men’s. Lois and Gretchen browsed through women’s casual wear. He saw Lois pulling shirts, sweaters, and jeans off the rack, and she and Gretchen headed for the changing rooms.

  “I’m not much of a shopper,” Hornsby told him. “I’m due to make a presentation this afternoon in Balikpapan.” Seabury gave him a funny look. “I know. I never told you. We left so quickly last night, but Lois knows about it. So, I’ll need a sport jacket, a white shirt, and a tie. Throw in a couple pairs of jeans, a sweater, and hiking boots, and that should do it. Thank the stars, I sent my slide presentation over in advance. Now, all I’ll need to do is convince the audience I know what I’m talking about.”

  They tried on jeans in the changing room. Seabury found two pairs of denim jeans that fit him perfectly. He left Hornsby in the changing area, piled two cotton work shirts and a jacket into his shopping basket, and headed for the sundry section. He found what he needed to complete a disguise—dark glasses, a thin moustache, a wide and lumpy hat, and spirit tape. If the law treated him like a fugitive, he’d change his facial features to fool them.

  A short time later, Lois, Gretchen, and Hornsby joined him at the checkout counter loaded with clothing items. He paid for everything in cash. Outside, in the lobby, a room attendant showed them to their rooms on the third floor. Lois and Gretchen in one room, he and Hornsby in the other.

  The room contained two beds, a desk, a wardrobe, a sink, and a shower. As Hornsby watched him from a chair near a wall mirror, Seabury removed the moustache from a plastic bag, applied spirit tape, and glued it on. He rinsed his hair with a reddish shampoo, which dyed his hair a dark brown color instead of black. Donning a pair of dark reading glasses completed the disguise.

  “You don’t look like Mel Gibson or Tom Cruise, but you don’t look like Sam Seabury, either,” Hornsby commented.

  “That’s the best thing you could have told me.” Seabury grinned.

  They left the room, and Seabury knocked on the room next door. Gretchen opened the door as her body jolted. “It’s me,” he said. “Tah, dah. How do I look?” then added, “No, don’t tell me.”

  “You don’t look like…”

  “Good. Good,” Seabury interrupted her as Lois moved to the door.

  “Oh, my God. It’s you,” Lois said, amused. “How funny.”

  They went below and ordered lunch in a restaurant off a small bar near the main lobby. A group of patrons sat at a long table in back of the room. Chinese and Indonesians dressed in dark, power suits. Seated together like a family, they huddled together and argued over a business lunch, their voices raised as the tempo of the conversation increased.

  Lois turned her back to shut them out and said, “I’m going to insist that Daddy buy a Lear jet and get rid of that chopper. He can afford it.”

  Gretchen agreed. No more chopper flights for her. “We could have been killed back there,” she said. “I’m too young to die. I haven’t even experienced boys in my life, yet. What a bummer if I was to die early.” She shook her head at the thought and finished her meal of rice and curry.

  Hornsby sat back satisfied after a meal of boiled rice and seafood. He sipped a glass of red wine and gazed at Seabury. “You’re a good man, I’ve decided,” he said. “I can’t remember when I’ve seen a man so calm in such a terrible crisis. You must have ice water in your veins.”

  “Yeah, you were good,” Gretchen said.

  Seabury said nothing. Lois turned away.

  “I didn’t sleep very well last night,” said Gretchen, rubbing the back of her neck. “That old, lu
mpy mattress kept me awake half the night. It was like sleeping on a bed of beaver pelts or something. I got a kink in my back, too.” She touched her back with the tips of her fingers. Her nails sparkled in a glossy red and white sprinkle. Meantime, she yawned and stretched. “I’m tired,” she said. “I think I could sleep for a whole week.”

  “You’re going to miss something special,” Hornsby said. “The chance of a lifetime if you sleep your life away.” He smiled across the table at her in a warm, fatherly way.

  “You mean the treasure hunt?” she asked.

  “The thought entered my mind.”

  He looked at Lois and smiled. She didn’t return his smile. Instead, she looked back at her sister. “I’m a little tired myself,” she said to Gretchen.

  A trace of hurt entered Hornsby’s eyes at Lois’s lack of civility. Their religious beliefs caused a definite clash in personalities.

  “I want to get up river as soon as possible,” Lois said. “Getting out of Jakarta was a miracle, so we need to keep moving, except for…”

  “I know,” Hornsby said, cutting her off. “My presentation this afternoon at one o’clock. I’m sorry.” He grinned humbly, having passed the olive branch to her on more than one occasion, but she never seemed to take hold of it.

  They finished lunch. Seabury paid the tab in cash, and the group went back upstairs to their rooms. In no time, Seabury had the television on and scanned the remote control across the local channels, looking for his face on the noontime broadcasts.

  “Nothing yet,” he said to Hornsby with a sigh of relief.

  A frown stitched Hornsby’s brow. He removed his wired glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I hate to see us spend money for a room here when we’re not staying the night.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Seabury looked at him. “We’ll stay the night in Samarinda. It’s about what…ninety miles away?”

  Hornsby nodded. “Yes.” Then, with a look of regret, he said, “I tried to reschedule the conference, but they wouldn’t have it.”