“What the fuck, Jack! Why did you help these guys?” Alan shot back from the fantail, pushing through the Americans as he moved forward and up to the cockpit.
“We go aboard this beast with them or spend the night in a Chinese jail with them,” Jack answered him, pointing at the patrol craft now inside 500 yards. You’ve got a minute to gather what you can in a backpack. Now go! Or stay if you want.”
“Dammit!” Alan cursed, unhappy that his China holiday plans had taken a drastic turn.
“You had better be right!” Jack muttered to Paganelli.
“The book and movie rights alone will get you a yacht twice this big,” Paganelli answered. Jack just groaned.
The yacht slowed and drew up close to the accom ladder as the ship moved ahead. Not only was a moving wall of steel next to them, but above them was a “ceiling” of hull plates that supported the flight deck that extended far away from the carrier’s side. As wake waves bounced the yacht, Jack had difficulty controlling it.
Sailors in float-coats were at the bottom of the ladder, only three feet above the water’s undulating surface, as Jack maneuvered the yacht with white-knuckle inputs to the wheel and throttles. A line was thrown over and the two pilots on the bow took it and secured it to a deck cleat under the rail. The Chinese police boat now slowed and turned to match the relative motion of the carrier and yacht. They shouted commands in Chinese that the Americans and Aussies did not understand… but understood.
The carrier was making five knots, and Jack held position on the accom ladder platform, taking care not to hit it as he tried to hold the yacht steady. It was now time to jump for it. Naval tradition held that the senior officer disembarked first. Paganelli took measure of the platform next to the bobbing boat and the churned up shadowy froth of the dark water below it. He was now unsure if he should leave Jack.
“Go mate, we’ll be behind you. And when we are finished with this, I want a 28-meter Ferrenti—with twin V-12 diesels — that sleeps 10!” Jack said as he struggled to hold steady.
“You got it!” Paganelli said as he slapped Jack on his back and turned to slide down the ladder rails to the yacht’s stern deck. Once there, he assessed the relative motion and thought, I’m too old for this shit. Sensing a moment of stability, the fifty-year-old captain bounded up on the gunwale and, in one motion, leapt across the three-foot distance to the accom ladder platform where his sailors caught him. Climbing the ladder, he looked back to see another of his officers make the jump just as the yacht’s mast was pushed up by a swell into the carrier’s steel sponson above them. The force of the collision cracked the fiberglass above Jack, and Paganelli heard him curse as the yacht moved away from the carrier’s hull.
Paganelli had no time to waste as he raced up the steps to the quarterdeck where a flabbergasted young officer greeted him with a salute. “Four officers and four civilians are following me up. Render assistance!” Paganelli shouted as he turned inboard and then forward to another ladder, the first of nine he had to ascend to the bridge. Aboard! he thought, relieved for a moment, but only for a moment as he considered what he had to do with only half a crew.
The Chinese boat was now ten meters off the yacht. The angry crew shouted at Jack in Chinese and trained their automatic weapons on him as they, too, held position at five knots. The terrified women shrieked in fear and cowered along the port rail as the Air Boss timed the roll and clambered up the ladder, with another officer close behind him.
Jack had a difficult time holding the yacht in place as the carrier’s wake grew in strength. Above him was a steel ceiling that his mangled mast cracked into with each swell, and next to him a patrol craft of angry Chinese with automatic weapons. He looked to the accom ladder for deliverance and saw none, just the Yankees scurrying up like scared bunnies. Then, behind him, he saw a rigid-hull inflatable boat bounding up between him and the patrol craft, with two armed men training their automatic weapons on the Chinese. Both sides of the RHIB were dangerously close to each vessel as the crews shouted at one another and pointed their weapons. Jack did some shouting of his own at Joanna and Gayle.
“Girls, jump on the ladder! Alan, go first and help them!”
Alan and one of the pilots leapt from the yacht to the accom landing, and held an arm out for the women. Gayle, terrified, held on to the yacht’s rail in frozen fear. The men called for her to jump but she could not.
Next to them a burst of automatic fire from one of the SEALs on the RHIB shocked everyone, and Gayle shrieked as she jumped over two feet of churning water into Alan’s arms. The warning shot caused the Chinese to fall off, and a SEAL jumped aboard the yacht to help Joanna over. She timed her jump well and was caught by both men and followed Gayle up the ladder into more unknown.
Amid heated shouts from the patrol craft and the RHIB, the SEAL petty officer came up to the cockpit. “I’ve got it, sir. You can come with us.” Jack didn’t argue as the 200-pound operator took the helm and pulled away from John Adams as sailors on the RHIB lashed the two boats together. “Come with me, sir,” the SEAL said, commanding more than asking, and a dazed Jack complied, jumping into the RHIB where he was directed to take a place aft. They cast off the yacht as it bobbed in the carrier’s wake, and with deft movements the coxswain maneuvered them under the carrier’s starboard aft sponson. Davit lines were already trailing just above the waves as other SEALs took them and attached them to fittings on the RHIB. In the darkness Jack saw the lines’ tension, then soon felt his body — indeed the whole boat — being lifted out of the water as the coxswain secured the motors. The massive hull plates of the great ship passed along their left as they were hoisted up by the davit crane, then brought onto a weather deck with the bright lights of Macau twinkling miles to starboard. Jack was stunned by it all.
“What’s your name, sir?” a SEAL asked him.
Shocked by the question, that all of this wasn’t a dream, a dumbfounded Jack answered. “Jack Coppinger…”
“Mister Coppinger, welcome aboard USS John Adams.”
Jack was silent as he watched his yacht fall behind while the angry Chinese patrol craft approached it for boarding.
CHAPTER 4
Captain Jim Wilson bolted upright in bed at the sound of the phone and looked at the clock: 0510. It was still dark in Lemoore, California.
Who could be calling at this hour? he thought as he reached for the handset. The fact it was the house phone filled him with dread. Prepared for bad news about his ailing uncle, he checked the phone’s window: CORONADO, CA. Uh, oh, he thought. Is this Naval Air Pacific? He cleared his throat.
“Hello?”
“Stand by for Admiral Van Wert,” a male voice said, followed by silence. Wilson cleared his throat again.
Holy shit! And on a Saturday morning!
Mary, also awakened from a sound sleep, stirred beside him. “Who is it?” she asked, concerned by the surprise call.
“Admiral Van Wert!” Wilson whispered as he covered the phone’s mouthpiece. Because it skipped at least one link in the chain of command, a call from Commander Naval Air Forces, the “Air Boss” himself, was unprecedented, and the early morning hour made it even more baffling.
“What’s going on?” Mary said as she turned on her nightstand lamp and drew the covers up to her neck.
“Don’t know,” Wilson whispered before he heard the phone line rattle.