And he was still accelerating.
He wanted his eyes open now for this last bit. Wanted to see everything. He wanted to stare down the fear as he sped toward his very certain death. He could see the wicked curved blades of each screw in perfect detail as he hurtled headlong into the vortex.
He forced his eyes to stay wide open.
He was in the relentless grip of the outboard screw. It was happening. He was entering the roiling pipeline to death. He started spinning now, now that he was in the tube. The vibration and the noise blotted out everything but the looming knife-edges of the whirling blades. The screw seemed to have slowed a fraction, but perhaps it was just his imagination. All in slow motion now.
He strained against the harness, trying to see it coming. The gaps between the blades were much larger from this angle. But not wide enough with the pod at this forty-five-degree attitude. What if he could get weight suddenly forward? Hope surged. He might even slip through if he could somehow get his nose down—wait—the seat pin was out—the weight of the ejection seat slamming forward again just might be enough to—he grabbed the handles on either side of the cockpit and yanked himself forward with as much force as he could generate.
It was one last utterly desperate gamble and he might just kill himself doing it. But if the nose was angling downward as he passed between two of the blades, perhaps gravity and hydrodynamics would be on his side. He was no physicist, no expert on wave mechanics, but what the bloody hell, he—
The seat shot ahead on the rails and he slammed once more into the leading edge of the canopy. His helmet took the brunt of the impact again. He heard a loud pop, the sound of the helmet splitting or maybe the canopy. No water, though. Just fresh sheets of warm blood that drenched his face. He couldn’t see. He thought he felt the nose dip a fraction before merciful blackness descended and surrounded him.
Disoriented and rolling violently in the screw’s wake, he regained consciousness and suddenly saw the orange sun bouncing on the horizon.
Somehow, he was still alive.
He wiped some blood from his eyes and noticed that he was bobbing violently on the ocean’s surface. The forces tossing him about came from the backwash of the Lincoln’s four giant meat grinders. He could see the looming stern of the carrier moving away from him. His heart was pounding against his ribs with such force he felt the bloody organ might rip away from his chest wall. He knew he had to do something to get out of the capsule but he couldn’t control his shaking hands. He tried several times to blow the canopy but he just didn’t seem to have the necessary coordination to do it. Until his third try.
He blew the canopy.
And realized very quickly he’d made a very serious mistake. The cockpit capsule immediately began flooding with water. Seawater rose instantly above his knees. It kept rising, slopping around, quickly filling the cockpit. Since the nose had the most air to displace, the capsule nosed over. It submerged and immediately began to sink. He was going straight down fast. He tugged furiously at his harness, clawed at it, shredding his fingertips.
At about thirty or forty feet beneath the surface, his fingers ripped at the buckles one last time and he managed to wrench himself free. He wriggled out of the harness, kicked away from what little remained of his lost aircraft, and started clawing his way to the surface.
Breaking the water, he heard a loud thumping noise above and saw a big Sea King helicopter blotting out the sky overhead. One rescue swimmer, already in the water, was paddling furiously toward him. Another stood poised in the open hatch. The downdraft was making the waves worse and Hawke went under, swallowing a pint or two of seawater. He felt the crewman yanking upward on his flight suit. A few seconds later, he was sputtering on the surface again, only to be blindsided by another crashing wave.
“Christ, sir,” the swimmer shouted at him above the chopper’s roar, somehow looping a line over his head and getting it down over his shoulders. “We almost lost you when she swamped!”
“Yeah, I know!”
“Are you crazy, sir? Why the hell did you blow your canopy?”
Hawke spat out the last saltwater he could summon up from his burning pipes, then wrenched his head around and smiled. His savior was just a kid, couldn’t be much more than twenty years old. The cinch tightened over Hawke’s chest and he was jerked upward, slowly at first, toward the hovering Sea King.
“Never blow the canopy!” the kid shouted again.
“Next time this happens,” Hawke shouted down to the kid, “I’ll try to remember not to do that!”
Chapter Thirty-three
New York City
AMBROSE CONGREVE ARRIVED AT 21 WEST FIFTY-SECOND Street in a sunny mood. Why not? He was dining at the “21” club, his favorite watering hole in all of New York. The leisurely stroll down Fifth Avenue in the warm twilight had been delightful. He had suitable accommodations, having been satisfactorily installed in a nice corner room at the Carlyle up on Seventy-sixth and Madison. Plenty of cozy chintz and overstuffed furniture. And there’d been a huge arrangement of hydrangeas waiting in his room when he’d checked in that afternoon.
The scented blue envelope from the Park Avenue florists, now safely tucked inside his waistcoat pocket, would have to wait. He knew who it was from and that was sufficient.
He was saving the card. He envisioned ordering an ice-cold martini and then reading her words while standing at the bar waiting for his dinner companion. He was deliberately early. He wanted time to savor Diana’s note laced with gin.
“Good evening, Mr. Congreve,” the debonair gentleman standing at the entrance to the dining room said. He offered his hand as Ambrose entered the familiar room, chockablock with model boats, aircraft, and sports memorabilia hung from the ceiling. “It’s good to have you back with us again.”
Congreve shook the man’s hand warmly. Bruce Snyder, as far as he was concerned, was the heart and soul of the legendary old speakeasy. A tall and good-looking chap with slicked-back hair and impeccable tailoring, Bruce managed to combine an elegant New York sophistication with an easygoing manner that was part and parcel of his Oklahoma upbringing.
Still, Snyder was the keeper of the flame in this very clubby atmosphere; the arbiter of social stratification within these hallowed walls. It was he who decided whether you were seated at one of the cherished banquettes in the front room or banished to Siberia behind the bar. But Ambrose knew that, unlike many in his position, Snyder was a good man who wore his mantle of power lightly and with genuine bonhomie.
“I’m meeting someone, Bruce,” Congreve said. “I’m a little early. And thirsty. I thought I might have something cold and clear at the bar first.”
“Good idea. I’ve saved the banquette table in the corner whenever you’re ready,” Snyder said. “Business or pleasure bring you to New York this trip, Chief Inspector?”
“Both. Two items are on my personal menu this evening, Bruce. Your delicious lobster and that tough old bird Mariucci. A sort of ‘Surf and Turf,’ I suppose one might say.”
“He’s not so tough.” Snyder laughed. “Matter of fact, he was in with his granddaughter just the other night. Her birthday.”
“Moochie didn’t shoot out the candles?”
Snyder laughed again and walked with him toward the bar. “We make him check his six-shooter at the door. Just give me a shout when you’re ready to sit down.”
Ambrose ordered a very dry Bombay Sapphire straight up and pulled the small pale blue envelope from his pocket. It was the same shade as the hydrangeas that Diana had sent to the Carlyle. He noticed that his hands were trembling. His martini arrived magically and he put the envelope down, feeling like he needed a drink before he opened it. He really was losing it, he thought—just going starkers and—