He had gone through an ejection once before. But that was over dry land. He’d been nailed by an SA-3 that popped through an undercast in Iraq. In the confusion that followed — the Iraqis had been as surprised as he that they’d scored a hit — he was snatched out of Indian country by an Air Force helo.
Bass suspected that this occasion would be different. This was not bumbling, incompetent Iraq. China was a global super power with the largest military force in Asia. And he was supposedly a non-combatant who had just destroyed two of their aircraft. Would they try him as a war criminal or a spy?
The nearness of the sea below triggered another wave of fear. He tried to remember the drill after you went into the water. Would the chute release automatically? Didn’t it have some kind of salt water-activated gadgets? Was he supposed to inflate the flotation unit before he hit the water? What about the raft?
He fumbled for the handles of the flotation unit, found them, and gave them a yank. Both lobes of the unit inflated around his waist. Then he remembered the seat kit and life raft. God, yes, the raft! He found the release handle and—
Sploosh! He hadn’t seen the slick, opaque surface of the sea rushing up at him. It felt like hitting concrete. He was deep under the surface, the water ramming into his nose and head cavities like hot lava.
Bass tried to resist the panic that was overcoming him. He couldn’t breathe. Why wasn’t the flotation unit working? He was supposed to float on the surface, not sink like a goddamn boat anchor.
Something was restraining him. He couldn’t move his legs, couldn’t see, couldn’t kick to the surface. Couldn’t breathe. I’m drowning. The realization came from deep inside him like a voice from his darkest dreams. Drowning. It was the worst thing that could happen. It was why he joined the Air Force instead of the fucking Navy—
He popped to the surface.
Air. Blessed air. He coughed, gasped, swallowed a quart of seawater, went into a fit of coughing, gasping for air. Around him was the canopy of the parachute, the shroud lines entangling him like a serpent.
Coughing, choking, trying to suck in a lungful of the blessed air. As he coughed, regurgitating seawater, he became aware of something else.
A noise. A whop-whopping sound, like the blades of—
A helicopter.
Oh, flaming godawful motherfrigging shit. They’re here already. Maybe he should have drowned. Better than being tortured and used by the ChiComs.
He realized that he couldn’t see. Had he been blinded by the impact? Something hurt like hell.
His helmet, his oxygen mask. The impact with the water had snatched his helmet over his forehead. The oxygen mask was up around his eyes, obscuring his vision, clamping around his face like a vice.
He unfastened the fitting, and the mask dropped free. The pain eased around his face and, as in a widening tunnel, his vision began to return.
The whopping noise was coming from directly overhead. He saw someone drop from a sling into the water. Bass tried to decide whether he should resist, make them kill him, or just surrender.
The dark figure in the water was wearing a wet suit. As the man reached for him, Bass threw a punch. Make the bastard take him by force.
The man easily deflected the punch. He seized Bass’s arm. “Just calm down, bubba.” The voice had a deep Texas twang. “We ain’t got time to fight. We have to get your silly ass out of here.”
CHAPTER 6 — DELIVERANCE
“The name is Swan. Parachute rigger, second class, but that ain’t my real job. I’m an aircrewman, and my specialty is yanking people like you out of the drink. You’re lucky I was on deck today, cause I’m the best damn sling man in the business.”
Bass nodded. “I’m cold.”
Another crewman produced towels, and a wool blanket that might have been a relic from the Korean War. It smelled like an old horse, but Bass didn’t care.
“Sir, I need your name, rank, and some ID if you have it.”
Bass unzipped a front flight suit pocket and retrieved his combat wallet. Inside was currency from every country in that part of the world, including China — all soaking wet. He handed over his laminated U.S. Air Force ID card.
“Wow!” said the Petty Officer Swan, looking at Bass’s ID card. “A real live Air Force major. Who woulda thought we’d find a guy like you out here. I’ll have to give this to the aircraft commander, but I’ll get it back to you, promise.”
Bass shook his head. He didn’t feel like talking.
Swan stepped through a door in the front of the helicopter. In five minutes he was back. He returned Bass’s ID card.
“You’d just be flatass amazed,” Swan went on, “how many guys don’t know how to get out of their equipment. Sometimes we get there and all we find is a perfectly good raft floating in the water. Pilot got himself all snaggled up in the shroud lines and sank. Or else he forgot to buckle his float units together and he wound up face down in the water.” Swan had a good chuckle over this.
He went on for another twenty minutes or so while the helicopter clattered low over the surface of the Strait. Bass had no idea where they were going. He knew the Americans had him. He also knew he was in violation of at least four articles of the UCMJ — the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He needed to conjure up a good story, but his brain was still numb from nearly drowning. Whenever he tried to talk, he went into another spasm of coughing and regurgitating seawater.
He felt the big helicopter climb and slow to a hover. Through the cabin window he could see the gray mass of a ship. One hell of a big ship. Had to be an aircraft carrier.
The wheels of the helicopter clunked down on the deck. The whopping of the unloaded blades took on a quiet whooshing sound.
Someone opened the main cabin door, and a din of turbine noise flooded the cabin. A figure wearing a float vest and a cranial protector appeared in the open door.
“Major Bass? he yelled over the din outside. “Welcome to the USS Ronald Reagan. I’m the ship’s XO. If you’ll follow me, one of our flight surgeons will have a look at you. Then some other gentlemen would like to have a little chat.”
Bass shook hands with Petty Officer Swan, then followed the man in the cranial helmet across the deck and through a door in the island superstructure. They climbed down a stairwell that looked for all the world like a ladder.
“Careful on the ladder. It’s a little steep.”
Bass felt wobbly. He climbed down carefully, first one, then two more ladders. He followed his escort through an oval shaped doorway, then tripped on the raised metal ledge jutting up from the floor.
The man turned and helped him to his feet. “You’ll have to watch out going through these hatches. The knee-knockers are hell on your shins. Especially when the deck’s moving.”
It was all gibberish to Bass. Hatches? Knee-knockers? He could sense blood oozing from his shin. From invisible loudspeakers came whistles and bells and announcements in some variant of English.
He noticed the smell — a mixture of gun metal, oil, sweat, and something like paint. It was everywhere. Hanging from the ceiling were miles of wires and cables. Deep inside the metal maze, they came to the ship’s sick bay. A white-jacketed flight surgeon and two medical corpsmen were waiting.
After a quick exam, the doctor declared him to be okay. Nothing broken, a few contusions from the high-speed ejection, a lot of ingested saltwater, which would soon be gone if he kept puking his guts out. The worst damage was the laceration on his shin.