Chapter 30 Splash and Grab

Chapter 30

Splash and Grab

I situated myself squarely in my seat. “My airplane.”

Disco didn’t release the controls. “How many times have you dropped SEALs on moving boats?”

“Counting this one,” I said, “it’ll be one.”

He shook his head. “My airplane. Which side is he going out?”

I glanced over my shoulder. “He’s set up in the portside door.”

Disco lowered the nose. Our airspeed increased in the dive, and the distance between us and our self-driving RHIB melted away. Our chief pilot slid open the window on his door and stuck his head through the opening as he raised the nose to match the speed of the RHIB.

With one eye on Shawn and one on our pilot, I waited to see the delicate dance the two were about to perform. Disco’s attention was focused on the RHIB, so I kept my head on a swivel, scanning ahead, astern, and through the open portside hatch.

A grove of trees materialized in front of us, and I said, “Big sweeper to the left, coming up in three…two…one.”

Disco turned his head ever so slightly and banked the Huey to match the RHIB’s long, skidding turn through the bend.

I called out, “Long stretch. Now’s the time.”

He gave no reply other than descending to three feet above the racing boat. A second later, Disco said, “Send him!”

I flashed the signal, and Shawn shoved off from the deck and disappeared past the skid. I wasn’t expecting the maneuver that followed Shawn’s exit, but Disco aggressively raised the collective and climbed away from the bayou. My stomach sank in my gut as the G-forces pulled on my body in the high-speed climb. The next maneuver was even more aggressive. Disco crushed the left pedal and yanked the chopper around with the nose pointing directly at the RHIB.

I gathered my wits and focused on our boat slowing to a halt in the bayou below. “He did it.”

Disco said, “You didn’t have any doubt, did you? He’s a SEAL.”

Kodiak’s voice rang through my helmet. “He’s rigged for sling loading. I’ve got your ground calls.”

“Send it,” Disco said.

Kodiak sounded as if he’d done it a thousand times. “Down thirty… Ahead ten.”

Disco maneuvered the chopper with the precision of a surgeon.

“Ahead five… Down three… Hold… Hold… Secure, haul away.”

“Haul away,” Disco repeated, and we slowly climbed from ten feet above the bayou to five hundred with our SEAL cradled comfortably in our flying RHIB.

“Where now, boss?” Disco asked.

“The other way.”

He said, “Do you want to fly?”

Flying with three thousand extra pounds hanging twenty feet beneath the Huey was a little more precarious than flying slick, but that was no time for practice. Finding Gator and Cecilia was far more important than me learning a new skill.

I said, “Negative. It’s all you.”

We accelerated slowly and reached ninety knots.

Disco said, “Everything looks the same out here.”

I pointed through the windshield. “Keep running southeast. That’s the only direction that makes sense.”

Everything inside me wanted to lean out the door and check on Shawn and his magic flying carpet, but scanning the water ahead was priority number one. Disco was right. The bayou seemed to be an endless landscape of repeating sites.

I called the CIC. “We recovered the RHIB, but there’s no sign of Gator or Cecilia. If you’ve got any ideas, we’re all ears.”

Skipper said, “I’m tasking a satellite, but it’s taking longer than it should. I got an intermittent hit on Gator’s sat-phone, but it was just a flash.”

“Give me the coordinates.”

She rattled off the numbers, and I programmed the GPS. “We’re headed there now. If you get that satellite up and running, designate every target within five miles of their last-known position. We’ll run them down one by one if we have to.”

“Roger,” she said. “The satellite is coming online now. Is Mongo with you?”

“Affirmative. He’s in the back.”

Skipper said, “Sierra Six, CIC.”

“Go for Six,” Mongo answered.

“There’s a drone in a Pelican case on the rear bulkhead. Get it running, and I can fly it from here. That’ll add one more layer to our search.”

“On it,” Mongo said.

Even as powerful as the Huey was, we could feel the weight shift when our giant moved to the back of the cabin to retrieve the drone. He had the device’s propellers spinning in seconds.

He said, “CIC, Sierra Six. Drone is operational.”

Skipper said, “Sat link is complete. Launch it.”

I looked over my shoulder to see Mongo throw the carbon fiber flying machine out the door.

An instant later, Skipper said, “Got it. We’re flying. I’ll have targets for you shortly.”

With three surveillance platforms operational, we had hundreds of square miles covered. All that remained was to locate, identify, and pursue likely targets.

Disco beat me to the punch. “Tallyho! One o’clock low and running south.”

I stared along the imaginary line of his extended finger and spotted a roiling wake behind a boat. “Got ’em.” I fumbled through the helmet bag beside my seat and pulled out my binoculars. Tracking a moving target from a moving platform isn’t easy through glass tubes, but I managed to center the boat in my optics and bring it into focus. “I’ve got two on deck. Keep closing. It could be them.”

Disco continued working his way ever closer to the boat. It couldn’t outrun us, but we had to keep the ride as smooth as possible to keep Shawn inside the RHIB suspended beneath us.

“How about now?” Disco asked when he’d closed half the distance to the fleeing vessel.

I pressed the binoculars back to my face and refocused. “I still can’t tell.”

A few seconds later, the back of the driver’s body and head came into clear focus. “It’s not them. Break off.”

We turned to the northeast and continued searching for any sign of life that wasn’t an alligator. We had a different kind of Gator in mind.

Skipper said, “Contact! Ten o’clock to you and four miles. I’m locked on with the drone.”

“Have you got video?” I asked.

“Working on it.”

Less than a breath later, the screen of my phone lit up with the video feed from the drone.

“You should have it,” Skipper said.

“Got it, but it’s small on my phone. How many do you see on board?”

“I’ve just got one,” she said, “but from the looks of the driver, it’s definitely female.”

“Nice work,” I said. “Vector us to intercept.”

She said, “Turn ten degrees right and hold that course.”

Disco followed her instructions, and the boat soon came into view.

“There they are,” I said, “and I know that boat. That’s Kenneth’s log-retrieving craft. It’s strong and fast.”

“What’s the plan?” Disco asked.

“Stay behind her, and don’t let her see you while I map the bayou in front of her.”

“Roger. Holding back.”

I studied the map on the GPS against the real world unfolding before us and found it to be dead-on. “Swing to the north, and maneuver in front of her, out of sight. We’re going to drop the RHIB to intercept her.”

Disco gave me a nod, but he didn’t say a word. His skill at the controls was second to none, and his level of concentration was unlike any other pilot I’d ever known. We slipped behind a grove of tupelo trees well north of Cecilia and three miles ahead of her.

Kodiak threw himself back to the deck with his head and shoulders hanging out of the Huey. “I’ve got ground calls. Continue… Down thirty… Twenty… Ten… Easy… Easy… Splash. Jettison the hook.”

Disco pulled the handle, releasing the rigging that had held the RHIB beneath the chopper, and the lines fell.

“Who’s going?” Kodiak asked.

I released my seat belt and pulled off my helmet. “Me and you. Let’s go.”

As I squeezed between the seats and into the cabin, Kodiak kept giving calls. “Down ten, right five.”

Disco lowered us to within feet of the RHIB, and Kodiak and I stepped from the skid and onto the starboard tube.

Shawn grabbed each of our wrists and steadied us until we were solidly on deck. He brought the twin engines to life, spun the boat in its own length, and powered to the west on an intercept course for Cecilia and Kenneth’s boat.

Rounding the first bend, our target came into sight far closer than I expected. Cecilia seemed to know it was us, and she aimed her bow directly for ours. She was determined to ram us with the larger, more powerful boat, but Shawn had a different plan.

He yelled, “Get ready. We’re doing a splash and grab.”

I looked at Kodiak, and he shrugged.

“We don’t know what that means,” I yelled over the roar of the wind and engines.

Shawn never took his eyes off the oncoming craft. “It means jump on her boat as soon as I lay us alongside.”

“How are you going to do that?” I asked.

“Just get ready to board. You’ll see.”

Cecilia kept coming, and the bow of the massive boat grew ever larger, blocking out the trees and the sky beyond. I grabbed the rail beside the center console and prepared to abandon ship. It was obvious we were an instant away from a massive collision that would likely slice our RHIB in half, but Shawn appeared unfazed.

Kodiak met my stare, and it was clear he felt just as uncomfortable as I did. I don’t know what made me do it, but I looked up to see the Huey laying off to the north with Mongo hanging from the starboard door and the M134 Minigun in his hands. He was ready to cut Cecilia down if she didn’t surrender.

“Don’t shoot her,” I yelled, hoping my bone transmission device glued to my mandible would carry the sound to my transmitter and into our giant’s ear.

The collision was imminent, and Kodiak looked just as ready to jump for his life as I did, but Shawn yelled, “Hold on. Here comes the splash. Kodiak, get ready to take the wheel when we come about.”

He spun the wheel hard over to the left and crushed the right throttle, steepening the turn even harder than steering alone. A massive wall of water rose, obscuring the oncoming vessel.

Shawn’s next move was something right out of the movies. He yanked the RHIB back to the right and crushed both throttles. Before my brain could visualize what he was doing, we performed a figure-eight and came out of the maneuver, running only inches beside the timber boat.

The SEAL yelled, “Kodiak, take the wheel!”

Kodiak slipped between Shawn and the wheel and assumed command of the RHIB. Shawn joined me at the portside tube, and we leapt from our craft and onto the starboard gunwale of Kenneth’s boat. We hauled ourselves over the combing and onto the deck behind Cecilia.

She wiped away the face full of water Shawn dumped on her during the turn, and it was suddenly time for the second half of Shawn’s splash and grab.

Disoriented from the wall of water, Cecilia shook her head and caught the first glimpse of her aggressors. She reacted in an instant by spinning right and yanking both throttles full aft.

The action sent the gears of the transmission grinding and screaming against the assault. When the machinery finally surrendered, the stern of the boat rose in violent opposition to the bow that was diving for the bottom of the bayou. Cecilia braced herself for the force, but Shawn and I did not. Her brilliant tactic threw both of us from our feet and headfirst into the console. I rolled my head to the left and pinned my chin to my chest, praying the collision of cranium against console wouldn’t result in unconsciousness, but even remaining conscious wouldn’t provide me with any defense against the pistol Cecilia raised in her left hand.