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Their employer, chief director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, Admiral James Sandecker, had a regulation etched in stone ba
"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," a
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 Sha
Sha
"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, Sha
"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 tightly clutched in Rodgers's hand.
"Out you go," Rodgers yelled, herding the young Peruvian archaeology students through the door and into the raft.
Pitt released his safety harness and hurried into the rear cabin. Sha
"We haven't much time," he said, helping Sha
Giordino would have none of it. "Tradition of the sea. All walking wounded go first."
Before Pitt could protest, Giordino shoved him out the door, and then followed as the water swept over his ankles. Breaking out the raft's paddles, they pushed clear of the helicopter as its long tail boom dipped into the waves. Then a large swell surged through the open passenger door and the helicopter slipped backward into the uncaring sea. She disappeared with a faint gurgle and a few ripples, her shattered rotor blades being the last to go, the stumps slowly rotating from the force of the current as if she were descending to the seafloor under her own power. The water surged through her open door and she plunged under the waves to a final landing on the seafloor.
No one spoke. They all seemed saddened to see the helicopter go. It was as if they all suffered a personal loss. Pitt and Giordino were at home on the water. The others, suddenly finding themselves floating on a vast sea, felt an awful sense of emptiness coupled with the dread of helplessness. The latter feeling was particularly enhanced when a shark's fin abruptly broke the water and ominously began circling the raft.
"All your fault," Giordino said to Pitt in mock exasperation. "He's homed in on the scent of blood from your leg wound."
Pitt peered into the transparent water, studying the sleek shape as it passed under the raft, recognizing the horizontal stabilizerlike head with the eyes mounted like aircraft wing lights on the tips. "A hammerhead. No more than two and a half meters long. I shall ignore him."
Sha
Pitt shrugged. "Sharks seldom find life rafts appetizing."
"He invited his pals for di
Pitt could see the begi
Sha
Giordino quickly sized up Pitt's scheme and settled in. "That makes two of us."
No one knew quite how to react. Every pair of eyes in the raft swiveled from the seemingly dozing men from NUMA to the circling sharks and back again. The panic slowly subsided to uneasy apprehension while the minutes crawled by as if they were each an hour long.
Other sharks joined the predi
"We'll come right up on them at half speed before reversing the engines," he said to the helmsman.
"You don't want to stop and drift up to them, Captain?" asked the blond, ponytailed man at the wheel.
"They're surrounded by a school of sharks," said Stewart. "We can't waste time with caution." He stepped over and spoke into the ship's speaker system. "We'll approach the survivors on the port side. All available hands prepare to bring them aboard."