The Weathermakers (1967) (24 page)

“No rush,” Ted replied. “We can spend the night here. I want to see her develop firsthand.”

Barney said, “Ted, don’t be foolish. It’s going to be dangerous.”

He grinned at her. “Jealous? Don’t worry, I just want to get a look at her, then I’ll come flying home to you.”

“You stubborn . . .”

The blonde curl popped back over her eyes again and she pushed it away angrily. “Ted, it’s time you stopped acting like a spoiled little boy! You bet I’m jealous. I’m tired of competing against the whole twirling atmosphere! You’ve got responsibilities, and if you don’t want to live up to them . . . well, you’d better, that’s all!”

“Okay, okay. We’ll be back tomorrow morning. Be safer traveling in daylight anyway. Omega’s still moving slowly; we’ll have plenty time.”

“Not if she starts to move faster. Tins computer run was only a first-order look at the problem. The storm could accelerate sooner than we think.”

“We’ll get to Miami okay, don’t worry.”

“No, why should I worry?” Barney said. “You’re only six hundred miles out at sea with a hurricane bearing down on you.”

“Just an hour away from home. Get some sleep. We’ll fly over in the morning.”

The wind was picking up as I went back to my bunk, and the ship was starting to rock in the deepening sea. I had sailed open boats through storms and slept in worse weather than this. It wasn’t the conditions of the moment that bothered me. It was the knowledge of what was coming.

Ted stayed out on deck, watching the southern skies darken with the deathly fascination of a general observing the approach of a much stronger army. I dropped off to sleep telling myself that I’d get Ted off this ship as soon as a plane could pick us up, even if I had to get the sailors to wrap him in anchor chains.

By morning, it was raining hard and the ship was bucking badly in the heavy waves. It was an effort to push through the narrow passageway to the bridge, with the deck bobbing beneath my feet and the ship tossing hard enough to slam me against the bulkheads.

Up on the bridge, the wind was howling evilly as a sailor helped me into a slicker and life vest. When I turned to tug them on, I saw that the helicopter pad out on the stern was empty.

“Chopper took most of the crew out about an hour ago,” the sailor hollered into my ear. “Went to meet the seaplane west of here, where it ain’t so rough. When it comes back we’re all pulling out.”

I nodded and thanked him.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Ted shouted at me as I stepped onto the open section of the bridge. “Moving up a lot faster than we thought.”

I grabbed a handhold between him and the lieutenant. To the south of us was a solid wall of black. Waves were breaking over the bows and the rain was a battering force against our faces.

“Will the helicopter be able to get back to us?” I asked the lieutenant.

“We’ve had worse blows than this,” he shouted back, “but I wouldn’t want to hang around for another hour or so.”

The communications tech staggered across the bridge to us. “Chopper’s on the way, sir. Ought to be here in ten to fifteen minutes.”

The lieutenant nodded. “I’ll have to go aft and see that the helicopter’s properly dogged down when she lands. You two be ready to hop on when the word goes out.”

“We’ll be ready,” I said.

As the lieutenant left the bridge, I asked Ted, “Well, is this doing you any good? Frankly, I would’ve been a lot happier in Miami . . .”

“She’s a real brute,” he shouted. “This is a lot different from watching a map.”

“But why . . .”

“This is the enemy, Jerry. This is what we’re trying to kill. Think how much better you’re going to feel after we’ve learned how to stop hurricanes.”

“If we live long enough to learn how!”

The helicopter struggled into view, leaning heavily into the raging wind. I watched, equally fascinated and terrified, as it worked its way to the landing pad, tried to come down, got blown backwards by a terrific gust, fought toward the pad again, and finally touched down on the heaving deck. A team of sailors scrambled across the wet square to attach heavy lines to the landing gear, even before the rotor blades started to slow down. A wave smashed across the ship’s stern and one of the sailors went sprawling. Only then did I notice that each man had a stout lifeline around his middle. They finally got the “copter secured.

I turned back to Ted. “Let’s go before it’s too late.”

We started down the slippery ladder to the main deck. As we inched back toward the stern, a tremendous wave caught the picket amidships and sloughed her around broadside. The little ship shuddered violently and the deck dropped out from under us. I sagged to my knees.

Ted pulled me up. “Come on, buddy, Omega’s here.”

Another wave smashed across us. I grabbed for a handhold and as my eyes cleared, saw the helicopter pitching crazily over to one side, the moorings on her landing gear flapping loosely in the wind.

“It’s broken away!”

The deck heaved again and the ‘copter careened over on its side, rotors smashing against the pad. Another wave caught us. The ship bucked terribly. The helicopter slid backwards along its side and then, lifted by a solid wall of foaming green, smashed through the gunwale and into the sea.

Groping senselessly on my hands and knees, soaking wet, battered like an overmatched prizefighter, I watched our only link to safety disappear into the furious sea.

I
CLAMBERED
to my feet on the slippery deck of the Navy picket. The ship shuddered again and slewed around. A wave hit the other side and washed across, putting us knee-deep in foaming water until the deck lurched upward again and cleared the waves temporarily.

“Omega’s won,” Ted roared in my ear, over the screaming wind. “We’re trapped!”

We stood there, hanging onto the handholds. The sea was impossible to describe—a tangled fury of waves, with no sense or pattern to them, their tops ripped off by the wind, spray mixing with blinding rain.

The lieutenant groped by, edging hand-over-hand on the lifeline that ran along the superstructure bulkhead.

“Are you two all right?”

“No broken bones.”

“You’d better come up to the bridge,” he shouted. We were face-to-face, nearly touching noses, yet we could hardly hear him. “I’ve given orders to cast off the anchors and get up steam. We’ve got to try to ride out this blow under power. If we just sit here we’ll be swamped.”

“Is there anything we can do?”

He shot me a grim look. “Next time you tinker with a hurricane, make it when I’m on shore!”

We followed the lieutenant up to the bridge. I nearly fell off the rain-slicked ladder, but Ted grabbed me with one of his powerful paws.

The bridge was sloshing from the monstrous waves and spray that were drenching the decks. The communications panels seemed to be intact, though. We could see the map that Ted had set up on the autoplotter screen; it was still alight. Omega spread across the screen like an engulfing demon. The tiny pinpoint of light marking the ship’s location was well inside the hurricane’s swirl.

The lieutenant fought his way to the ship’s intercom while Ted and I grabbed for handholds.

“All the horses you’ve got, Chief,” I heard the lieutenant bellow into the intercom mike. “I’ll get every available man on the pumps. Keep those engines going. If we lose power we’re sunk!”

I realized he meant it literally.

The lieutenant crossed over toward us and hung on to the chart table.

“Is that map accurate?” he yelled at Ted.

The big redhead nodded. “Up to the minute. Why?”

“I’m trying to figure a course that’ll take us out of this blow. We can’t stand much more of this battering. She’s taking on more water than the pumps can handle. Engine room’s getting swamped.”

“Head southwest then,” Ted said at the top of his lungs. “Get out of her quickest that way.”

“We can’t! I’ve got to keep the sea on our bows or else we’ll capsize!”

“What?”

“He’s got to point her into the wind,” I yelled. “Just about straight into the waves.”

“Right!” the lieutenant agreed.

“But you’ll be riding along with the storm. Never get out that way. She’ll just carry us along all day!”

“How do you know which way the storm’s going to go? She might change course.”

“Not a chance.” Ted jabbed a finger toward the plotting screen. “She’s heading northwesterly now and she’ll stay on that course the rest of the day. Best bet is to head for the eye.”

“Toward the center? We’d never make it!”

Ted shook his head. “Never get out of it if you keep heading straight into the wind. But if you can make five knots or so, we can spiral into the eye. Calm there.”

The lieutenant stared at the screen. “Are you sure? Do you know exactly where the storm’s moving and how fast she’s going to go?”

“We can check it out.”

Quickly, we called THUNDER headquarters, transmitting up to the Atlantic Station satellite for relay to Miami. Barney was nearly frantic, but we got her off the line fast. Tuli answered our questions and gave us the exact predictions for Omega’s direction and speed.

Ted went inside with a soggy handful of notes to put the information into the ship’s course computer. Barney pushed her way onto the viewscreen.

“Jerry . . . are you all right?”

“I’ve been better, but we’ll get through it okay. The ship’s in no real trouble,” I lied.

“You’re sure?”

“Certainly. Ted’s working out a course with the skipper. We’ll be back in Miami in a few hours.”

“It looks awful out there.”

Another mammoth wave broke across the bow and drowned the bridge with spray.

“It’s not picnic weather,” I admitted, “but we’re not worried, so don’t you go getting upset.”
Not worried
, I added silently,
were scared white.

Reluctantly, the lieutenant agreed to head for the storm’s eye. It was either that or face a battering that would split the ship in a few hours. We told Tuli to send a plane to the eye to try to pick us up.

Time lost all meaning. We just hung on, drenched to the skin, plunging through a wild, watery inferno, the wind shrieking evilly at us, the seas absolutely chaotic. No one remained on the bridge except the lieutenant, Ted, and me. The rest of the ship’s skeleton crew were below decks, working every pump on board as hard as they could be run. The ship’s autopilot and computer-run guidance system kept us heading on the course Ted and the lieutenant had figured.

Passing into the hurricane’s eye was like stepping through a door from bedlam to a peaceful garden. One minute we were being pounded by mountainous waves and merciless wind, with rain and spray making it hard to see even the bow. Then the sun broke through and the wind abruptly died. The waves were still hectic, frothing, as we limped out into the open. But at least we could raise our heads without being battered by the wind-driven spray.

Towering clouds rose all about us, but this patch of ocean was safe. Birds hovered around us, and high overhead a vertijet was circling, sent out by Tuli. The plane made a tight pass over us, then descended onto the helicopter landing pad on the ship’s fantail. Her landing gear barely touched the deck, and her tail stuck out over the smashed railing where the helicopter had broken through.

We had to duck under the plane’s nose and enter from a hatch in her belly because the outer wing jets were still blazing. As we huddled in the crammed passenger compartment, the plane hoisted straight up. The jetpods swiveled back for horizontal flight and the wings slid to supersonic sweep. We climbed steeply and headed up over the clouds.

As I looked down at the fast-shrinking little picket, I realized the lieutenant was also craning his neck at the port for a last look.

“I’m sorry you had to lose your ship,” I said.

“Well, another hour in those seas would have finished us,” he said quietly. But he kept staring wistfully out the port until the clouds covered the abandoned vessel.

Barney was waiting for us at the Navy airport with dry clothes, the latest charts and forecasts on Omega, and a large share of feminine emotion. I’ll never forget the sight of her running toward us as we stepped down from the vertijet’s main hatch. She threw her arms around Ted’s neck, then around mine, and then around Ted again.

“You had me so frightened, the two of you!”

Ted laughed. “We were kind of ruffled ourselves.”

It took nearly an hour to get away from the airport. Navy brass hats, debriefing officers, newsmen, photographers—they all wanted a crack at us. I turned them onto the lieutenant: “He’s the real hero,” I told them. “Without him, we would’ve all drowned.” While they converged on him,

Ted and I got a chance to change our clothes in an officers’ wardroom and scuttle out to the car Barney had waiting.

“Dr. Weis has been on the phone all day,” Barney said as the driver pulled out for the main highway leading to the Miami bayfront and THUNDER headquarters.

Ted frowned and spread the reports on Omega across his lap.

Sitting between the two of us, she pointed to the latest chart. “Here’s the storm track . . . ninety percent reliability, plus-or-minus two percent.”