Ashore, someone fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the rescue attempt. The projectile struck water and exploded some fifty feet away, the concussion striking Graves in the groin and abdomen like a booted kick. He buckled over in the water, gagging, and the tether was gone, passing beyond all reach. Graves groped for the CSAR radio on its lanyard.
“Back!” he screamed. “Back!”
Retainer Zero One forged ahead for another twenty feet, then went to hover. Gingerly, the helo began to reverse in Graves’s direction, blindly trolling for the aviator.
A rifle slug tugged at the collar of his flight suit and seared a welt into the skin of his throat. Graves ignored it. It was now. He would do it now or he and Bubbles would die here.
He grabbed for the tether again and his fist closed around it.
He pulled Bubbles to the sound head and wrapped his arms about both her and it. Every movement of his distorted shoulder was excruciating, but he forced his limb to move.
“Go! Go! Go!”
The helo nosed down and gained way, heading out into the channel. The speed was low, possibly five knots, but the drag through the water was heavy. If the pain in his shoulder had been severe before, now it was unbelievable. It tore a cry out of him and set sparks dancing in front of his eyes.
He held his arms locked, however, simply because he had to.
“We still got‘, Gus?”
“Can’t tell, Lieutenant.”
Arkady held focus on his flight instrumentation, not daring to let his speed and altitude drift in the slightest. He literally had two lives hanging on a thread underneath him.
The plastic canopy beside his head starred under a glancing slug impact. He could feel other faint but decisive taps ripple through the helo’s airframe as well. More bullet hits.
The Sea Comanche was armored against rifle-caliber fire in many critical areas, but not in all. Almost as if answering his concern, Arkady heard a warning tone begin to sound.
“Gus, I’ve got my hands full. Check it out.”
“Engine systems warning! Low transmission fluid pressure!
We got a leak!”
“Verify it.”
“We got a rise in the gearbox temperature. Shit! We got transmission fluid all over outside the canopy back here! This is for real, Lieutenant! We’re going to lose it. We got maybe ten minutes at this throttle setting.”
Arkady kept his hands steady on the pitch and collective.
There was only one card left to him now. He had been afraid to try bringing it into play again. He had been afraid that there would still only be dead air on the other end of the radio circuit.
“Gray Lady, this is Retainer Zero One. Do you copy?”
“Retainer Zero One, this is Gray Lady. We read you.”
It was her voice. Arkady suddenly found himself believing in a future again. It felt great.
“Gray Lady, what is your position?”
“We had a degree of difficulty in the minefield, Retainer. We are clear of it now and are proceeding upriver to pickup point. What is your situation?”
“Better than it was two minutes ago. We are towing the Moondogs out into the central channel with the tether of our dunking sonar. We’ve had shooting problems. We are having systems problems, and we need to get these guys out of the water now.”
“We will be up with you in ten minutes,” the weary, static-ridden, and incredibly beautiful voice replied.
“That’ll be just about right.”
“Lieutenant, you will wish to see this.”
Zhou Shan ducked into the low deck house and crouched down beside the radar operator. Together they peered at the grainy sweep crawling around the circular screen of the torpedo boat’s “Skin Head” search radar.
“Surface target, Comrade Lieutenant. It just appeared in Beicao Hangcao channel. Large target. Proceeding upriver at eighteen knots. Estimated range at this time, eight miles.”
“Comrade Lieutenant,” the radio operator spoke up from the other side of the cramped compartment. “Some of the enemy jamming has cleared. I have acquired contact with Army coastal artillery command. They are reporting that a hostile warship has forced passage of the estuary mine barrier. It, too, is reported as proceeding upriver.”
Shan spoke no reply. He only returned swiftly to the cockpit.
Taking up his night glasses, he braced his elbows against the rail of the bridge combing and peered downstream. The blaze that had marked the hulk of the river-patrol gunboat had abruptly gone out a few moments before, the Hainan’s agony ending as it had settled beneath the river’s surface. The only light to the east came from the intermittent showers of starshells still falling out at the estuary mouth. One of them flared exceptionally bright, and Zhou Shan momentarily made out a shadowy shape. A silhouette too sleek for any ordinary ship to have, and the narrowed outline of a tall shark’s-fin mast.
“Radio Operator.” Shan’s voice was totally level as he spoke. The voice of a true commander. “Contact Army Artillery Command. Request they continue to fire illumination shells. We will need the target backlit when we attack.”
“Bosun Hoong!” he continued more loudly. “Signal all boats to start engines!”
“Stealth systems, RCS status?” The bridge-wing repeater panel on the port side was intact and functional, and Amanda had shifted her point of operations there.
“We have no stealth capacity, Captain. The Wetball systems are grounding out and we can’t isolate the shorting point. We are also reporting heavy RAM damage to the front facing of the superstructure.”
“Well, it’s not as if they don’t know we’re here. Carry on, Mr. Mckelsie.”
The Duke was well clear of the artillery now and was running fast through shadows again. Aboard the destroyer, the only transitory noises were the quiet clink of tools and the murmur of voices from the wheelhouse and the foredeck as the damage-control parties and rescue details went about their grim tasks. The only steady-state sounds were the moan of the turbines and the hiss of the bow cutting the river’s surface. Over them, Amanda thought she could just make out helicopter rotors.
“Lieutenant! High-temperature warning light on the rotor transmission gearbox! We got almost zero fluid pressure now!”
Arkady didn’t bother to comment. “Moondog, you guys still with us?”
“Still down here, Retainer.” The strained voice over the CSAR was almost drowned out by the fed-back thunder of the helo.
“Almost home, Moondog. Almost home. Hang in there. The ship’s almost up with us.”
“Or at least I hope she is,” Arkady muttered under his breath. “Gray Lady, Gray Lady. This is Zero One.”
“We read you, Zero One.” Amanda’s voice had lifted slightly. “We have just acquired you visually. We are preparing for pickup.”
“Roger, Gray Lady. Request helipad be prepared for immediate recovery following pickup.”,
“Do you have a problem, Retainer?” she demanded sharply.
“Not yet.”
The drag and the searing agony eased away as the towing helicopter returned to a hover once more. Digger Graves clung to the sonar tether and drew down great, gasping lungs full of air. Trying to keep Bubbles’s face out of the water, he had come close to drowning himself. At least out here, they weren’t being shot at.
“Hey, Moondog!” This time. Retainer Zero One’s voice sounded jubilant as it issued from the CSAR. “You want to see something pretty? Look downstream.”
It took a moment to orient himself, and then a moment more for the shades of night to differentiate themselves. Then Graves made out the ghostly slash of a bow wave and a curved prow blotting out a growing number of stars.