Beginning with You (12 page)

“Sir, it was just one of those situations where Locke happened to be available.”

“For a year?” Ward exploded. “You’re telling me this woman just conveniently happened to be there when another one of your personnel fell sick? You were in charge of deciding who gets leave and when. If you saw too many people were requesting leave at the same time, depriving you of the necessary crew on the line, why did you allow it to be approved?”

Chappie felt sweat running down either side of his rib cage. His pulse began to pound at his temple, creating a monstrous headache. “Sir, things weren’t exactly shipshape around here the last year.”

Ward ignored his feeble protest. “Let’s go to Seth Davis. Explain why he stood so much extra duty. He’s got a fine record and had high marks until he came here. What happened?”

“It was his attitude, sir.”

“What exactly is his attitude problem, Chief?” Ward saw the instant hatred in the chief’s squinted blue eyes. Jarvis was one of those salty old bastards who wore the label “redneck” well.

Chappie wanted to wipe his forehead; he could feel sweat collecting on it. “He had a bad attitude when he got here, sir. He didn’t like being told what to do and when. So, I assigned him extra duty to straighten him out.”

“Did you go to Lieutenant Welsh about Davis’s attitude problem, Chief?”

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

“I figured I could handle it, sir.”

Ward stared at him, allowing a good minute to pass in silence. The chief was sweating profusely. Slowly, he turned the page on his copious notes. “What about Angelo Marchetti? He’s a flight mech, too, but he seems to have fewer duty days than anyone.”

“He was sick an awful lot, sir.”

“Did you send him over to the dispensary to get a chit to prove it, Chief?”

“Uhh…no, sir, I didn’t.”

“So, you just gave him time off?”

Swallowing convulsively, Jams croaked, “Yes, sir.”

“You know, Chief, I can check all this out. As you can see, I’m writing down your explanations to all the questions I asked.”

“Yes, sir.” He blinked away the sweat, dragging in a couple of deep breaths. His back hurt from standing at such rigid attention for so long.

Ward pressed down the intercom. “June, get me the personnel files on Locke, Davis and Marchetti. Also, I want their medical records from sick bay.”

“Right away, Captain Stuart.”

“Thank you, June.”

Ward returned his attention to Jarvis, his eyes hardening. “Chief, I’ve got to tell you, I’m not happy with what I’ve discovered so far. The transfer rate, absenteeism and disciplinary rates are the highest I’ve ever encountered. They indicate something is wrong. You were in charge of the line. I’ve already alerted Lieutenant Welsh that he’s to take a stronger day-by-day interest in what is going on over there until this investigation can yield some solid answers. From this minute on, Lieutenant Welsh must approve your duty roster before you can institute it. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.” Ordinarily, no officer took interest in the duty sections. That was a chief’s responsibility. Now, Stuart was taking his power away from him and treating him like an errant child. He was almost twice Welsh’s age and felt humiliated by the order. Stuart was trying to embarrass him in front of the line crew.

“Further, Chief Andy Johnson will take over all maintenance on the MH-60s from this day on.”

Jarvis gasped, and he lost his stiff posture for an instant. “Captain, you can’t do that! I—”

Stuart leaped to his feet, both clenched fists resting lightly on the desk. “You’re at attention, Chief,” he whispered tautly.

Squaring his shoulders, Chappie stared straight ahead. Controlling his violent emotions, he rasped, “Why are you taking my job away from me?”

“To give you time to think about how you’ve played favorites with my people, for one. Let’s get something real clear between us, Chief. I don’t let anyone come down on the people who work under me. They’re all treated the same.”

It had to be Locke who blew the whistle on him, Chappie thought. He was reeling in shock. Davis had probably squealed, too—the bastard. Gathering what was left of his shredded ego, he muttered, “I have treated everyone fairly, sir.”

Ward relaxed. “I’ll know the answer to that soon enough, Chief. That’s all for now. Dismissed.”

Silence filled the office after Jarvis left. Ward was angry that the chief had tried to cover his ass and had lied to him. Restless, he got up and paced the spacious office. The wall of windows afforded him a view in two major directions: from the hook, he could look across the straits. In the distance, he could see British Columbia and its capital, Victoria. The other set of windows gave him a view behind the hook. The deep-water harbor was busy with freighters from Japan, which were hauling logs aboard with huge cranes. His thoughts turned to Rook Caldwell. Logan had taken her out on her first FAM flight, and he wondered how she was doing.

“This is CG 1406, Port Angeles.”

Rook glanced over at Gil. He had given her permission to fly and he answered the radio call from their station.

“This is CG 1406.”

“CG 1406, we’ve got a SAR case for you.”

“Wait one.” Gil always kept the knee board strapped to his right thigh. He took out a pen, ready to write. “Port Angeles, CG 1406. Go ahead.”

Rook listened intently, her heart picking up in beat. A SAR case! And Gil was going to take the call, even though she was a green copilot! Excitement wove with sudden fear as Rook wondered if she could do her end of the job without screwing up. True, they had an experienced flight mech with them. Angelo Marchetti seemed to know the ropes well enough. And Beau Jones was their rescue swimmer on board.

Gil signed off and gestured toward the open ocean just ahead of them. They had flown the coastline in a westerly direction, acquainting Rook with various important points that the pilots used when flying by sight.

“Possible boat sinking about four miles dead ahead.”

Rook glanced at him and then increased airspeed. The ’60’s rotary blades beat harder, and the shudder within the fuselage increased slightly. “The air station said it was telephoned in. Is that normal?”

“Smart cookie,” he congratulated her, pulling the map across his lap. “No, it’s not normal. You’re going to find out that some idiots think it’s funny to call in phony rescue calls. I can’t begin to tell you how much time, fuel and concern have been wasted on these false alarms.”

Anger made Rook frown. “Isn’t there any way to intercept that kind of call?”

“If there was, believe me, the Coast Guard would have employed it. Okay, let’s go down to five hundred feet. We’ve got good viz, visibility, and it will give you an edge on spotting the debris or people in the water a little quicker. If,” he said grimly “there really is a sinking.”

Clouds were moving in from the west, blotting out the sun. Rook knew this was ideal. Flight crews had a tough time spotting anything floating in the water when it glinted blindingly with sunlight.

Directed by Gil, Rook eased the ’60 into the first leg of an expanding square. They both kept a sharp lookout for debris, an oil slick or people on the fairly calm surface of the Pacific.

Gil fumed to himself. They’d dropped a DTM, datum marker buoy, which would record, via radio signal, the winds, tides and current direction. After forty-five minutes of widening the pattern, they’d seen absolutely nothing, not even debris or a telltale oil slick. “The ocean’s fairly calm today, with no strong currents in any particular direction,” he pointed out to Rook. “If it was running confused, we might have missed one of the indications for a yacht sinking, but this isn’t adding up.”

“You think it was a fake call?”

“You bet I do. I’m radioing Port Angeles. I’m recommending they suspend the search.”

District 13 Operations Center approved the suspended search. Logan got permission from Port Angeles to continue the FAM flight. At Gil’s request, they climbed to a thousand feet. Rook saw the rolling ocean beneath her booted feet. It was a patchwork of greens and grays as the sunlight moved through the swells.

“Hey, Mr. Logan, whales at four o’clock!” Marchetti sang out in an excited voice.

Whales? Rook craned her neck to the right, trying to get a look.

“Roger, four o’clock. Let’s go down and take a look,” Logan told her.

Excited by the possibility of seeing the beautiful, large mammals, Rook followed his orders. She banked the helo to the right, rapidly descending to a hundred feet. There, just below and a quarter mile ahead of them, was a large herd of sperm whales. Their black, barnacled backs shone sleekly as they surfaced and blew huge plumes of spray into the air.

“Can you see the new calves?” Gil asked, grinning. He pointed to a baby whale between its two gargantuan parents.

“Yes!” Rook’s excitement increased. “Aren’t they beautiful! There must be fifteen or twenty in this pod. And look! Are those porpoise over there?”

“Sure are. A lot of them, too. Here, let me take the controls. I want to go down for a closer look. I’ve got a camera I always carry. It’s behind my seat. Get it, and we’ll try and shoot a couple of pictures for your scrapbook.”

Rook hesitated. “Are we allowed to do this?”

Grinning, Gil took over flying and pointed the nose of the ’60 downward. “Of course—it’s part of your training. Right now, I’m going to show you some beeps to a hover.”

With a shake of her head, Rook reached behind his metal seat and drew out the camera. “I like your training methods, Gil.”

“Stick with me, kid, and I’ll show you a whole new world.”

Rook saw the entire herd dive as the ’60 came closer to them. The altimeter registered fifty feet. She got the camera ready, aiming it down in front of the nose, adjusting the focus.

“I’m going to try and guesstimate where they’ll surface from here,” Gil told her, jockeying the ’60 forward and hovering at fifteen feet above the ocean. “They gotta come up for air. We just have to figure out where.”

Smiling, Rook waited. Minutes passed without a sign of the mammals.

Gil was almost ready to move ahead when suddenly, a huge whale came boiling out of the depths of the Pacific, water churning and frothing in its wake.

Rook gasped, jerking back in her seat as the whale flipped its huge tail and propelled itself up…up…until finally, she could see its jet-black eye through the cockpit window. Her mouth fell open as she watched its nose come within two feet of the whirling rotor blade above them. His gleaming body filled the entire cockpit window surface, each barnacle and sucker fish attached to him visible. He hovered there briefly before gracefully sinking downward. A huge surge of water shot skyward as he disappeared back into the ocean.

Gil stared, stunned. Marchetti, who had wedged himself between the two seats, gasped. so did Jones. The camera dropped out of Rook’s hands and landed in her lap. Finally, reason interceded, and Gil quickly lifted the ’60 well out of range of the playful whale.

“Man, I don’t believe this,” Marchetti whispered. “Did you see that whale, Mr. Logan? I swear, he knew what he was doing and just how close he could get to those blades! That sucker jumped fifteen feet straight up in front of our windows. Outrageous!”

Gil shook his head, exchanging glances with Rook, who had paled. “Incredible,” he muttered.

“Impossible,” Rook stammered. “How was he able to judge the distance? His nose was barely two feet away from our rotors. My God, what if he’d hit them?”

Gil didn’t even want to think about that possibility—his ass would have been strung up so fast it would have made his head swim.

Managing a choked bit of laughter, Marchetti slapped the pilot on the shoulder. “Going out with you is downright dangerous, Mr. Logan.”

The shock began to wear off Rook as they flew back to the air station. She gave Gil an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, I forgot to snap the photo.”

“Don’t worry, none of us were thinking too straight when that bastard decided to scare the hell out of us,” he grumbled.

Her eyes rounded. “Do you really think that whale knew what he was doing?”

“If he didn’t, he sure as hell fooled me.”

“And me,” Marchetti chimed in, grinning from ear to ear. “Man, wait ‘til the guys hear about this one. The one that got away, Mr. Logan!”

Gil turned and nailed Marchetti with a dark look. “Not one word of this to anyone, Marchetti. You either, Jones. That’s an order. Understood?”

Glumly, the flight mech nodded. “Yes, sir, Mr. Logan.” And then he brightened. “But what a story! I mean, it’s fantastic, sir!”

“My court martial would be fantastic, and my career would be hung out to dry if anyone hears about this little stunt. Understood?”

“Yes, sir. Couldn’t I just tell my wife?”

“No!”

Marchetti slunk back to his seat near the door and strapped in for the coming landing.

Rook switched both pilots’ channels to Private so that she could speak to Gil without the flight mech overhearing their conversation. “Has this ever happened to you before? I mean, a whale playing tag with a helicopter?”

He gave a morose shake of his head. “Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen, Rook. I swear to God, that animal knew exactly what he was doing! Incredible, just incredible.”

“And beautiful. Do you know, I could see his eye? He was looking right at us, Gil.”

“Yeah, and I’ll bet if that whale could have smiled, there would’ve been a big grin spread across his chops, too.”

Laughing, Rook reached over, touching his arm momentarily. “What a FAM flight. Thanks, Gil.”

Smiling sheepishly, he brought the ’60 in for a landing “Don’t breathe a word to anyone, okay?”

“I won’t, I promise.” And then Rook looked over at him. “My God, do you realize what could have happened if that whale had hit our rotors?”

“Yeah. The score would be whale one and Coast Guard zero. We’d have bought some Pacific Ocean real estate at the cost of half a million dollars for a lost ’60. We’d be an overnight viral ‘Net sensation. Not a very pretty picture, is it?”

Sober now, Rook agreed. She unharnessed after Gil shut the ’60 down. Before leaving the cockpit, they went over their individual procedures. Rook then climbed out on the ramp and turned to wait for Gil. His hair was mussed as he took off the white-and orange helmet. She moved her hand to her own hair, thinking it must look just as bad. Good ol’ helmet hair, as they called it.