Fright Wave (6 page)

***

"What's wrong?" Joe asked. He was standing on a rocky beach, the parachute bunched up in his arms. "Those guys aren't coming after us. As soon as they saw us land here, they took off. They probably would have ripped the bottom out of that boat if they tried to bring it in here."

Jade didn't respond. She had the harness half off and was staring at a signpost stuck in the sand. Danger! it warned in big red letters. Keep Off! Beneath that was a single Hawaiian word, Kahoolawe.

"Hey," Joe said when he saw the sign. "I thought you said all the beaches in Hawaii were public. Who's this Kahoolawe guy?"

Jade turned to him. There was fear in her eyes. "That's the name of the island," she said. "The whole thing belongs to the navy."

"So we'll get arrested for trespassing on government property," Joe replied. "It's better than wrestling with sharks."

Jade shook her head. "You don't understand. Nobody comes here - not even the navy.

"They use the island only for target practice."

***

Ten minutes later a helicopter swooped down out of the sky, hovered for a moment, then settled down gently on the end of the pier. Frank was surprised that the dock could hold all that weight, but he didn't stop to analyze it.

The door of the cockpit swung open. Frank ducked and ran over to it, the rotors whirling just a few feet over his head. He started to climb in, grabbing the door frame with both hands and stepping on the front of the skid bar.

The helicopter wobbled slightly. Frank looked down. The machine wasn't resting on the pier at all. It was hovering just a few inches above it. Frank glanced across the seat at the pilot.

The man flashed a wide grin through his bushy beard. "Welcome to Doyle Island Tours. I'm your pilot, Hank Doyle. Hurry up and get in. I charge by the hour."

Frank clambered into the copilot's seat and strapped himself in. "Let's go," he shouted over the deafening howl of the engine.

Doyle tapped his headset and pointed to a similar unit on a hook on the side of the copilot's seat. Frank put it on. The headphones covered his ears, cutting out some of the noise. A small microphone was attached on one side.

"So you're a friend of Freddie Ahina's?" a voice crackled in Frank's ear.

"Actually I just met him today," Frank admitted.

The pilot turned to him. "You mean I'm supposed to take on the U.S. Navy for some lousy tourist? I owe Freddie a favor, but this is really pushing it. Who are you, anyway?"

Frank looked at him, trying to penetrate Doyle's aviator shades with his gaze. He chose his words carefully. "I'm a guy who needs your help. I can't make you help me - I can't even ask you. I wouldn't ask anybody to risk his life flying into a target area during a naval barrage."

Frank slapped the release button on the shoulder straps of the copilot's seat. "My brother's on Kahoolawe, and that's where I'm going. If you won't take me, I'll figure out some other way to get there."

He started to take off the headset. Doyle's voice came through the earphones. "Hold on a second. You didn't answer my question. Who are you?"

"What difference does it make?" Frank asked.

The pilot grinned. "If we're going to get killed together, we should be on a first-name basis, don't you think?" He took his right hand off the control stick and held it out. "My friends call me Skydog."

Frank grasped Doyle's hand. "Thanks," he sighed. "My name's Frank Hardy. Whatever it costs, I'll find some way to pay you."

Doyle pulled back on the control stick and the helicopter banked up and away from the pier. "Forget it." He laughed. "If I had a dollar for every grunt I pulled out of a fire zone, I'd be a rich man. Besides, I can't stand those armchair admirals and their pretend wars. Somebody should put some howitzers on that island and start shooting back. That'd give them something to put in their reports!"

Frank watched as Doyle worked the controls. It looked a lot like flying an airplane - except there seemed to be an extra lever by the left side of the seat. All of the pilot's controls were also duplicated on the copilot's side. Frank glanced over to his left and saw a lever next to his seat, too. He reached down and touched the handgrip.

"You know anything about flying?" Doyle suddenly asked.

Frank shrugged. "I took a few lessons back home. I could land a single-engine plane if I had to, but this looks a lot trickier."

That was an understatement. The dizzying array of dials, gauges, and switches were a total mystery to Frank.

Doyle nodded. "It takes a special breed to be a chopper jockey. Helicopters can do a lot of things airplanes can't - like hover, fly backward, and take off and land vertically. So they need more controls. It takes two hands and two feet all working together to fly this baby."

He patted the control stick in front of him. "This is the cyclic pitch control. Moving this changes the angle of the main rotor blades. You push it forward and you go forward. You pull it back, and you go backward. Simple, right?"

"So far," Frank replied. "But how do you turn?"

The pilot pointed at his feet. "See those pedals?

80

They control the tail rotor. Press one and you increase the tail rotor thrust, and you turn one way." He pushed down on the left pedal and the helicopter banked to the left. "Press the other, and you decrease the tail thrust."

"And you turn right - right?" Frank said.

"You got it," Doyle replied. "Now all you need to know is how to make it go up and down."

Frank smiled. "I bet that lever next to the seat is the missing ingredient."

"Right again," Doyle said. "That's the collective pitch control. Pull it up, and up we go." He gripped the lever and pulled. The helicopter soared upward.

Then abruptly he pushed the lever down. The helicopter swooped in a steep dive. Frank's stomach felt as if it had just jumped into his throat. He clutched at the control stick in front of him. It was the closest thing he could hang onto.

The bearded pilot eased the lever up, and the helicopter pulled out of the dive just before they hit the water. "Yee - ha!" he yelled. "This is the only way to travel!" The waves rushed by just a few feet beneath them.

Frank realized a good-size swell could easily swamp them. "Shouldn't we pull up a little?" he suggested, trying to sound cool and casual. "Like maybe to an altitude where we might show up on the navy's radar?"

Doyle laughed. "Great idea, kid! Let's take her up where we can get a real close look at some of those sixteen-inch shells that the sailors like to throw at Kahoolawe."

"If they know we're here," Frank said, "they won't fire, right?"

"I wouldn't bet my life on it," the pilot answered. "Let's give them a call and see what happens." He thumbed a switch on the control panel and spoke into the microphone. "Mayday! Mayday! This is Victor Able one five niner. We have lost hydraulic pressure and are going down on Kahoolawe."

There was a long pause. Static hissed through the headset. Then another voice crackled in Frank's ears. "Ah, say again, Victor Able one five niner. We didn't copy that."

"Mayday!" Doyle barked. "We are making an emergency landing on Kahoolawe!"

There was another static-filled pause, and then, "Ah, negative on that, Victor Able. You are entering a restricted flight zone. There is a naval exercise in progress. Alter course immediately. Do not, repeat, do not land on Kahoolawe."

The pilot looked at Frank and shrugged. He reached over to the control panel and flipped the radio switch on and off rapidly as he spoke into the microphone. "Signal breaking up. We did not copy last message. Repeat - we are going down on Kahoolawe. Mayday! Mayday!"

He shut off the radio and turned to Frank.

"Maybe that will confuse them long enough for us to get in and out."

Frank heard a hollow whistling sound, and something whizzed by overhead. He looked at the island ahead and saw a patch of ground erupt in a spray of dirt and smoke.

"I wouldn't bet my life on it," he replied grimly.

***

Frank spotted something down on the rocky beach. He heard the telltale whistling again, and then another chunk of the island was smashed into a rain of pebbles and dust. When the smoke cleared, whatever had been there was gone. Still, he thought it was worth a look.

He tapped the pilot's shoulder and pointed. "Take us down there! I thought I saw something."

Doyle nodded and moved the control stick. The helicopter turned and raced down the shoreline. Frank scanned the beach. Nothing but sand and boulders. A splash of color caught Frank's eye.

"Hold it!" he yelled. "Go back! There is something back there!"

Doyle's feet shifted on the pedals. The helicopter circled around and set down on the rocky beach.

Frank jumped out and picked up a strip of yellow cloth. There were other scraps of material scattered in the sand. He recognized the rainbow colors of the parachute. There was nothing left but confetti. Frank shuddered. He prayed that Joe and Jade weren't anywhere near the parachute when the explosion ripped into it.

Somebody coughed. Frank whirled and saw a ghost - at least it looked like a ghost. The figure was grayish white from head to toe. It coughed again. "About time you got here," it rasped.

Another dusty figure crawled out from behind a small rock outcropping.

Frank stared at them. "Joe? Jade? Is that you?"

"Who else were you expecting?" Joe replied hoarsely. "The Ghost of Christmas past?"

"You look horrible," Frank gasped. "Are you all right?"

Joe looked down at himself. "Yeah, I think so." He tried to brush off some of the dust, and a small cloud puffed up around him. He coughed again. "I could use a bath, though."

***

"So where are we going?" Hank Doyle asked after Frank introduced Joe and Jade, and they had flown some distance away from the small, scorched island. "Back to Maui?"

Frank looked at Joe and Jade in the backseat of the helicopter. "We've got to figure out our next move."

"Let's fly back to Oahu," Joe suggested. "We'll go have a little talk with Nick Hawk."

He cracked his knuckles. "I'll give him five or ten good reasons to call off the dogs."

Frank shook his head. "Something tells me this goes way beyond Nick's gambling problems. They were double-teaming us back on Maui - first the guys in the car, and then the two goons in the speedboat."

Joe could see where his brother was leading. "That means somebody with heavy mob connections or a lot of money to burn on hired guns."

"Or both," Frank said.

"So what do we do now?" Jade asked. "We can't stay in this helicopter forever."

"We need to buy some time to come up with a plan," Frank said. "We need a place where nobody can find us for a while."

"I know just the place," the pilot said. He looked at the fuel gauge and tapped it with his finger. "We might just have enough fuel to make it."

"Might?" Joe responded. "What happens if we don't?"

Doyle chuckled. "Then we get wet!" He worked the foot pedals, and the helicopter banked hard to the left.

Frank glanced at the fuel gauge. The needle was still close to F. The tank was almost full. Frank smiled. Doyle had a weird sense of humor, but he was beginning to like him. "Cheer up, Joe," he said. "You said you needed a bath, anyway."