Vasko turned to see a turquoise helicopter hovering over the barge.
“Where’s the crate that was passed aboard?” he asked.
“Right behind you.”
Vasko kicked away some jackets to find the crate at the rear of the bridge. He unlatched the container to reveal four AK-47 rifles and some gas masks on a top shelf. He moved those aside in favor of a rocket-propelled grenade launcher that was fastened above a row of projectiles. He removed the launcher and loaded one of the rounds.
Five hundred feet above the barge, the NUMA helicopter accelerated forward.
“We better alert Rudi to get Homeland Security on them now.” Pitt was satisfied they had the right barge, affirmed by its three forward bollards. As they skimmed above the tow line, Giordino gave him a warning.
“Man on the deck with a weapon.”
Pitt had seen him as well. It was Vasko, raising a heavy weapon to his shoulder. Pitt pitched the Robinson’s nose down, to force more speed, while rolling sharply to the right.
Vasko had little time to aim at the fast-moving chopper, so he simply pointed and shot. The RPG burst from the launcher just as Pitt flung the helicopter nearly onto its side.
The projectile whistled past the Robinson’s fuselage, coming within a whisker of missing the helicopter altogether. But by the thinnest of margins, the RPG tagged the spinning tail rotor—and detonated.
The blast demolished the tail assembly and sent a shower of shrapnel into the underside fuselage and engine compartment. The wounded helicopter shot past the tug before the mortal blow began to take effect. Inside the cockpit, smoke from the damaged engine filled the air. Pitt could feel the Robinson begin to spin from the loss of the tail rotor. He reached for the collective stick and cut the throttle.
The seemingly counterintuitive move disengaged the engine from the main rotor, eliminating the torque-producing spin. It also created a state of autorotation, where the freewheeling main rotor slowed the helicopter’s descent. With some forward momentum, Pitt could descend in a semicontrolled glide. But he had only a few seconds before they touched down.
“Wet landing,” he called out, knowing the shoreline was more than a half mile away.
“Watch out for a large vessel
ahead.” Giordino choked out the words.
The cockpit was filled with a thick blue haze. The two men could barely see each other, let alone anything in their path. Pitt had his face pressed to the side window, watching the water draw near, then glanced forward. The image of a large black mass was faintly visible, but they wouldn’t make it far enough to fear a collision.
Out the side window, Pitt watched the helicopter drop altitude until they were fifty feet off the water. Then he pulled back on the cyclic control to raise the nose, flaring their speed. At just ten feet, he goosed the throttle for a burst of lift, then killed the power.
The Robinson struck the bay with a hard jolt. Landing flat, the helicopter held afloat for just a second as smoke poured from the engine. The chopper then plunged beneath the surface, its main rotor slapping the bay. Two of the blades splintered on impact, spinning across the water.
Amid a thrashing of white water and air bubbles, the Robinson sank to the bottom of the bay, disclosing no sign of its occupants.
83
“I guess there’s no avoiding a swim,” Giordino said as water swirled up to his knees.
Pitt unbuckled his seat belt. “We’ll have to wait till she floods to get the doors open.”
Though they had descended without power, Pitt had made a textbook emergency landing, without injury. Their only problem was they had landed in water.
While the Robinson was completely submerged, the cockpit was only partially flooded. The two men calmly waited for the water inside to rise above the doorframes. The helicopter was twenty feet deep and sinking fast. They took a last breath from the remaining air pocket, shoved open their side doors, and stroked toward daylight.
They broke the surface, gulping for air, and were orienting themselves for a swim to shore when a pair of ropes splashed into the water beside them.
“Grab hold and we’ll pull you aboard,” a man yelled.
Pitt turned and saw a massive black-hulled sailing ship moving down the bay. He reached for the nearest rope and was yanked to the vessel’s curved wooden hull. Cannon protruded from a white ribbon of gun ports a level beneath its main deck. Pitt recognized the ship with surprise. She was the USS Constellation, a pre–Civil War sloop and long-standing museum ship based in Baltimore Harbor.
Hauling himself up the rope, Pitt reached the side rail and hopped onto her deck. A small group of middle-aged men gripped the other end of the rope while another team pulled Giordino aboard.
“Thanks for the line.” Pitt shook off the water. “I didn’t expect to see the Connie out, stretching her legs.”
A keen-eyed man in a yellow Hawaiian shirt approached. “She just came out of dry dock. We’re making a test run to prove she’s seaworthy. We hope to sail her to New York and Boston later this summer.” He reached out a hand. “My name’s Wayne Valero. I head up the Constellation’s volunteer sailing crew.”