A fusillade of high-powered rounds ripped into the side of the Star of Honolulu, walking the entire length of the cruise ship as the nose of the JetRanger slowly turned first right, then back left.
Pandemonium erupted while the shocked crew and passengers reacted to the violent attack. Some of the panicked visitors screamed hysterically while others cursed and crawled across the deck in search of shelter. Bullets ricocheted off the hull and interior fittings as people stumbled over each other in the rain of debris.
After what seemed like an eternity of living hell, the two automatic weapons bolted to the helo's landing skids mercifully stopped firing. The pilot spun the vividly painted helicopter toward the northeast and dipped its nose to gain speed.
Initially paralyzed by the blazing assault, the captain gathered his wits and sent out a Mayday call, then immediately began rescue efforts to save the people who had either been blown into the water or had jumped out of fear of being killed.
Two National Park Service employees and a group of visitors, who were crouched in a corner of the memorial during the attack, hurried down to the pier to help three shooting victims and several other passengers out of the water.
A minute later, the Captain saw a Navy launch and two additional open motorboats hurrying to assist the stricken ship. He also heard sirens in the distance and saw flashing lights approaching the Arizona Memorial Visitor Center located across the harbor.
Anger now replaced shock on the main and upper decks as the uninjured passengers scrambled to assist the wounded. A woman yelled over and over that her husband and four other people were dead on the main deck. Cries of pain and anguish filled the air while the captain repeatedly radioed for medical help and passed along a description of the helicopter.
Chapter 1
The morning sunlight glinted off the water as the large, smooth ocean swells peaked into steep sets of waves. Theresa Garney slowed the descending helicopter while she watched a line of surfers paddle their distinctively colored boards out beyond the crests of breaking waves. With powerful strokes, the majority of the surfers propelled themselves to the prime position where the largest rollers were forming.
Once in place, they paddled swiftly toward shore to attain the speed they needed to catch the momentum of the wave. After the surfers had topped the crest of a huge breaker, they rose first to a kneeling position, then popped upright and coasted down the towering face of the wave until it went flat near the shoreline.
Theresa Louise Garney, who enjoyed surfing and scuba diving on her days off, studied the daring windsurfers further offshore before she shifted her gaze to the experienced surfers closer to the beach. The trim, athletic young pilot knew that only the best surfed diagonally toward the shore at Waimea Bay, especially under heavy surf conditions.
The hordes of spectators sprawled on the beach casually glanced up at the first sound of the colorful JetRanger. They were accustomed to having the "Sky Nine" helo film various surfing contests, along with other sporting events around the island. Many of the local sun-worshipers, who religiously watched Theresa's airborne reports on television, happily waved at the Channel 9 helicopter.
The blue-eyed brunette with the pixie haircut and impish smile was a popular island celebrity who was highly respected for having saved the life of a tourist who had been swept out to sea.
Fighting high winds and choppy waves, she had lowered the JetRanger's landing skids into the ocean next to the stricken swimmer. The exhausted man wrapped his arms and legs around the metal frame, clinging in desperation while Theresa carefully flew him to the safety of the beach and his grateful family. After the incident, she became the official ambassador of goodwill for the television station.
Theresa lowered the collective-pitch lever and maneuvered the helicopter closer to the breaking waves. Cliff Ackerman, the station's wizened veteran cameraman, continued to film the darkly tanned surfers while she skillfully flew sideways for a better camera angle.
Theresa placed the nimble JetRanger in a stationary hover while her cameraman panned the beach from the modified camera port.
The powerful rotor blade downwash whipped the surface of the ocean into a frothy gale, sending sheets of spray up through the tail rotor. She eased the helo back to keep the mist from floating over the surfers.
Finally, Theresa pressed the intercom button. "Have you got enough, Cliff?"
"Yeah, almost. I'd like to move up and away from the breakers so I can get a panoramic effect."
"Okay, here we go."
With the dexterity of a thoracic surgeon, she worked the cyclic-pitch lever, tail-rotor control pedals, and collective-pitch lever to execute a coordinated climb while the Sky Nine helicopter moved sideways. Theresa was a seat-of-the-pants natural, whether she was at the controls of a helicopter or an aerobatic biplane.
Ackerman let the video camera swing along the coastline and then leaned inside. "That's a wrap."
"Okay."
Canting the nose down, Theresa smoothly added power to accelerate. "Do you want to check Makaha before we head back?"
The world-famous four-meter waves that sometimes formed along Makaha Beach could propel expert surfers for over half a mile.
"Why not?" He popped a fresh stick of cinnamon gum in his mouth. "I've got a feeling that this is gonna be a slow news day."
Climbing to 4,400 feet to clear the Waianae Mountains, Theresa adjusted her headset and increased the volume on the mobile radio, selected the discrete switch, then raised the edge of her boom mike to her mouth.
"Sky Nine to base."
The instant response surprised. her.
"Sky Nine," blurted the familiar female voice, "we've been trying to contact you. Where are you?"
Theresa looked down to her left and then glanced at the runway paralleling the shoreline on the right. "Sky Nine is a mile west of Waialua, just crossing the coast east of Dillingham Field."
"Stand by."
The radio remained silent for a few seconds.
"We don't have all of the information yet," the excited dispatcher continued, "but there's been some type of mass shooting at Pearl Harbor — actually, it happened at the Arizona Memorial about fifteen to twenty minutes ago."
"Sky Nine copies, and we're en route." Theresa glanced at Kaala Peak and then out toward Ford Island. "We should be there in approximately ten to twelve minutes if we can get priority handling from approach control."
Another pause followed the acknowledgment.
"Sky Nine, it looks like we'll be ready to go live — they want live coverage as soon as you're on the scene."
"We're set to transmit. Sky Nine out." Theresa turned to Ackerman and pressed the intercom switch. "Cliff, did you catch that?"
"Yeah. You want me to monitor base while you talk with approach?"
She nodded her thanks and quickly tuned the VHF radio to Honolulu Approach Control on 119.1 megahertz. She was about to press the transmit button when two Hawaiian Air National Guard F-15 Eagles streaked over the JetRanger, then snapped into punishing knife-edge turns. The fighters emitted streaks of grayish-white vapor from their wingtips as they rapidly decelerated.
"Well," Cliff drawled with his usual trace of sarcasm, "the Air Force is out burnin' up those tax dollars."
Ignoring the remark, Theresa kept an eye on the jets and keyed her radio transmit button. "Honolulu Approach, Sky Nine with a request."
"Sky Nine, squawk three-three-four-six," the radar controller shot back in a crisply detached tone.
"Thirty-three-forty-six," Theresa replied while she switched her radar transponder code to the appropriate setting.