between the United States government and Peru, a situation the struggling South American nation could ill afford. Pitt was on safe ground in assuming that no local bureaucrat or military officer would risk political disaster regardless of any under-the-table payoff by the Solpemachaco.
Pitt limped back to the cockpit, slid into the copilot's seat, and picked up the radio microphone. He brushed aside all caution as he pressed the transmit button. To hell with any bought-and-paid-for Solpemachaco cronies who were monitoring the airwaves, he thought.
'NUMA calling Deep Fathom. Talk to me, Stucky.'
'Come in, NUMA. This is Deep Fathom. What is your position?'
My, what big eyes you have, and how your voice has changed, Grandma.'
'Say again, NUMA.'
'Not even a credible effort.' Pitt laughed. 'Rich Little you ain't.' He looked over at Giordino. 'We've got a comic impersonator on our party line.'
'I think you better give him our position,' Giordino said with more than a trace of cynicism in his voice.
'Right you are.' Pitt nodded. 'Deep Fathom, this is NUMA. Our position is just south of the Magic Castle between Jungleland and the Pirates of the Caribbean.'
'Please repeat your position,' came the voice of the flustered mercenary who had broken in on Pitt's call to Stucky.
'What's this, a radio commercial for Disneyland?' Stucky's familiar voice popped over the speaker.
'Well, well, the genuine article. What took you so long to answer, Stucky?'
I was listening to what my alter ego had to say. You guys landed in Chiclayo yet?'
'We were sidetracked and decided to head home,' said Pitt. 'Is the skipper handy?'
'He's on the bridge playing Captain Bligh, lashing the crew in an attempt to set a speed record. Another knot and our rivets will start falling out.'
'We do not have a visual on you. Do you have us on radar?'
'Affirmative,' answered Stucky. 'Change your heading to two-seven-two magnetic. That will put us on a converging course.'
'Altering course to two-seven-two,' Giordino acknowledged.
How far to rendezvous?' Pitt asked Stucky.
'The skipper makes it about sixty kilometers.'
'They should be in sight soon.' Pitt looked over at Giordino. 'What do you think?'
Giordino stared woefully at the fuel gauges, then at the instrument panel clock. The dial read 10:47 A.m. He couldn't believe so much had happened in so little time since he and Pitt had responded to the rescue appeal by the imposter of Doc Miller. He swore it took three years off his life expectancy.
'I'm milking her for every liter of fuel at an airspeed of only forty klicks an hour,' he said finally. 'A slight tailwind off the shore helps, but I estimate we have only another fifteen or twenty minutes of flight time left. Your guess is as good as mine.'
'Let us hope the gauges read on the low side,' said Pitt. 'Hello, Stucky.'
'I'm here.'
'You'd better prepare for a water rescue. All predictions point to a wet landing.'
'I'll pass the word to the skipper. Alert me when you ditch.'
'You'll be the first to know.'
'Good luck.'
The helicopter droned over the tops of the rolling swells. Pitt and Giordino spoke very little. Their ears were tuned to the sound of the turbines, as if expecting them to abruptly go silent at any moment. They instinctively tensed when the fuel warning alarm whooped through the cockpit.
'So much for the reserves,' said Pitt. 'Now we're flying on fumes.'
He looked down at the deep cobalt blue of the water only 10 meters (33 feet) beneath the belly of the chopper. The sea looked reasonably smooth. He figured wave height from trough to crest was less than a meter. The water looked warm and inviting. A power-off landing did not appear to be too rough, and the old Mi-8 should float for a good sixty seconds if Giordino didn't burst the seams when he dropped her in.
Pitt called Shannon to the cockpit. She appeared in the doorway, looked down at him, and smiled faintly. 'Is your ship in sight?'
'Just over the horizon, I should think. But not close enough to reach with the fuel that's left. Tell everybody to prepare for a water landing.'
'Then we do have to swim the rest of the way,' she said cynically.
'A mere technicality,' said Pitt. 'Have Rodgers move the life raft close to the passenger door and be ready to heave it in the water as soon as we ditch. And impress upon him the importance of pulling the inflation cord after the raft is safely through the door. I for one do not want to get my feet wet.'
Giordino pointed dead ahead. 'The Deep Fathom.'
Pitt nodded as he squinted at the dark tiny speck on the horizon. He spoke into the radio mike. 'We have you on visual, Stucky.'
'Come to the party,' answered Stucky. 'We'll open the bar early just for you.'
'Heaven forbid,' said Pitt, elaborately sarcastic. 'I don't imagine the admiral will take kindly to that suggestion.'
Their employer, chief director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, Admiral James Sandecker, had a regulation etched in stone banning all alcoholic spirits from NUMA vessels. A vegetarian and a fitness nut, Sandecker thought he was adding years to the hired help's life span. As with prohibition in the nineteen twenties, men who seldom touched the stuff began smuggling cases of beer on board or buying it in foreign ports.
'Would you prefer a hearty glass of Ovaltine?' retorted Stucky.
'Only if you mix it with carrot juice and alfalfa sprouts--'
'We just lost an engine,' announced Giordino conversationally.
Pitt 's eyes darted to the instruments. Across the board, the needles of the gauges monitoring the port turbine were flickering back to their stops. He turned and looked up at Shannon. 'Warn everyone that we'll impact the water on the starboard side of the aircraft.'
Shannon looked confused. 'Why not land vertically?' 'If we go in bottom first, the rotor blades settle, strike the water, and shatter on a level with the fuselage. The whirling fragments can easily penetrate the cabin's skin, especially the cockpit, resulting in the loss of our intrepid pilot's head. Coming down on the side throws the shattered blades out and away from us.'
'Why the starboard side?'
'I don't have chalk and a blackboard,' snapped Pitt in exasperation. 'So you'll die happy, it has to do with the directional rotation of the rotor blades and the fact the exit door is on the port side.'
Enlightened, Shannon nodded. 'Understood.'
'Immediately after impact,' Pitt continued, 'get the students out the door before this thing sinks. Now get to your seat and buckle up.' Then he slapped Giordino on the shoulder. 'Take her in while you still have power,' he said as he snapped on his safety harness.
Giordino needed no coaxing. Before he lost his remaining engine, he pulled back on the collective pitch and pulled back the throttle on his one operating engine. As the helicopter lost its forward motion from a height of 3 meters above the sea, he leaned it gently onto the starboard side. The rotor blades smacked the water and snapped off in a cloud of debris and spray as the craft settled in the restless waves with the awkward poise of a pregnant albatross. The impact came with the jolt of a speeding car hitting a sharp dip in the road. Giordino shut down the one engine and was pleasantly surprised to find the old Mi-8, Hip-C floating drunkenly in the sea as if she belonged there.
'End of the line!' Pitt boomed. 'Everyone the hell out!'
The gentle lapping of the waves against the fuselage came as a pleasant contrast to the fading whine of the engines and thump of the rotor blades. The pungent salt air filled the stuffy interior of the compartment when Rodgers slid open the passenger door and dropped the collapsible twenty-person life raft into the water. He was extra careful not to pull the inflation cord too soon and was relieved to hear the hiss of compressed air and see the raft puff out safely beyond the door. In a few moments it was bobbing alongside the helicopter, its mooring line
