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"When I see an interval between the swells, at my command, give her full speed." Then he spoke into the ship's radio. "We're coming around in a heavy sea. Everyone brace yourselves and hold on for dear life."
Hunched over the console in front of the bridge window, Barnum gazed unblinkingly through the windshield and waited with the patience of a rock until he saw a wave coming that was higher than any that had passed.
"Full speed, if you please, Mr. Maverick."
Maverick instantly obeyed Barnum's order, but was horrified, certain of disaster, as an enormous wave bore down on the research ship. He was about to curse Barnum for turning too soon, but realized what the captain had in mind. There were no timely intervals. The monstrous waves almost seemed to mesh on one another, like soldiers marching in close formation. Barnum had jumped the gun and begun the turn early, gaining a precious minute while the ship took the blunt of the wave on an angle.
The implacable wave tossed the bow up and shoved Sea Sprite almost over to her port side before sweeping her over and around. For fifteen seconds the ship was overwhelmed by a seething white mass of water as she struggled partially through the crest that towered above the bridge. Then she was fishtailing viciously down the other side, rolling heavily to port, the sea inundating her deck railings. Almost miraculously, with agonizing slowness, she righted in the trough and took the next sea bow-on, plunging through on an even keel.
Maverick had walked ships' decks for eighteen years, but he had never seen a more professional, more intuitive, display of seamanship. He stared at Barnum and was amazed to see a smile, perhaps a grim smile, but a smile nonetheless, on the captain's face. My God, Maverick thought, the man is actually enjoying himself.
Fifty miles to the south of Sea Sprite, the outer edge of Hurricane Lizzie was within minutes of slamming into the Ocean Wanderer. The forward edge of the menacing clouds swept past, cutting off the sun and plunging the sea into an eerie gray darkness. A dense sheet of rain followed, pelting the windows of the floating hotel like the blast from a thousand machine guns.
"Too late!" Morton moaned to himself while standing in his office staring at the tumult that was headed directly for the hotel as if it was an enraged Tyrannosaurus rex with a vendetta. Despite the warnings and updates from Heidi Lisherness at the Hurricane Center, he did not conceive the incredible speed and distance the rampage had traveled since morning. Though Heidi Lisherness had given him up-to-date forecasts on the magnitude and speed, it didn't seem possible that calm seas and quiet skies could turn so fast. He could not believe Lizzie's forward fringe was already assaulting the building.
"Inform every staff director to assemble in the conference room immediately!" he snapped to his executive secretary as he marched into his office.
His anger at Specter's indecision to evacuate eleven hundred guests and employees when there was still of chance of transporting them to safety in the Dominican Republic only a few scant miles away bordered on fury. He became even more infuriated as the sound of aircraft engines warming up vibrated the windows. He walked over and stared below just in time to see Specter and his entourage board the Beriev Be-210 executive jet. The entry hatch was barely closed before the engines revved up and the plane began gathering speed, planing over the rising waves, throwing great billowing sheets of spray before lifting into the air and banking on a course toward the Dominican Republic.
"You rotten cowardly scum," Morton hissed at seeing Specter flee for his life without the least concern for the eleven hundred souls he left behind.
He watched until the plane was lost in the menacing clouds, and turned as his staff entered and gathered around the conference table. It was obvious by the expressions of apprehension on their faces that they were standing on the fine line between calm and panic.
"We underestimated the speed of the hurricane," he began. "Its full force is less than an hour away. Since it's too late to evacuate, we must move all guests and employees to the upper level of the hotel, where it's the safest."
"Can't the tugboats pull us out of harm's way?" inquired the reservation's director, a tall, perfectly groomed lady of thirty-five.
"The tugs were alerted early and should arrive shortly, but a rising sea will make it extremely difficult for them to make a connection with our towing capstans. If the procedure proves impossible then we have no choice but to weather the storm."
The concierge raised his hand. "Wouldn't it be safer to ride out the storm on the guest floors below the surface?" asked the concierge.
Morton slowly shook his head. "If the worst happens and the crush of the storm waves break our mooring lines, and the hotel drifts..." he paused and shrugged his shoulders. "I don't want to think about what would happen if we are driven onto Navidad Bank forty miles to the east or onto a rocky shoreline of the Dominican Republic that would tear out the glass walls of the lower floors."
The concierge nodded. "We understand. Once the water flooded into the lower levels the ballast tanks could not keep the hotel afloat and the waves would bash her to pieces on the rocks."
"And if it looks like that will happen?" asked Morton's assistant manager.
Morton's face turned very solemn indeed as he looked around the conference table. "Then we abandon the hotel, enter the life rafts and pray to God a few will survive."
9
Battered and lashed by Hurricane Lizzie, Barrett and Boozer fought to keep the plane on a level flight path. The double satanic gusts coming from flip-side directions and slamming into Galloping Gertie at almost the same time nearly tore her out of the air. Both pilots struggled with the controls together, fighting to keep Gertie on a straight course. With the rudder slack, they angled direction by reducing or increasing the rpms of their remaining two engines in unison with the ailerons.
Never in their combined years of chasing tropical storms had they ever encountered one that unleashed such incredible strength as Hurricane Lizzie. It was as though she was trying to twist the world apart.
Finally, after what seemed thirty hours but was closer to thirty minutes, the sky gradually turned from solid gray to dirty white to brilliant blue, as the badly pounded Orion escaped the fringes of the storm and staggered into calm weather.
"We'll never make it back to Miami," said Boozer, studying a navigation chart.
"A long shot with only two engines, a fuselage barely hanging together and our rudder frozen," Barrett said grimly. "Better divert to San Juan."
"San Juan, Puerto Rico, it is."
"She's all yours," said Barrett, taking his hands off the controls. "I'm going to check the science guys. No telling what I'll find back there."
He released his safety harness and stepped through the cockpit door into the main cabin of the Orion. The interior was a shambles. Computers, monitors and the racks of electronic instruments were scattered and piled as if thrown off a truck at a salvage yard. Equipment that had been mounted to sustain the worst turbulence had sheared from their bolts and screws as if ripped apart by a giant hand. Bodies were sprawled in different positions, a few unconscious and badly injured, lying against bulkheads, a few still on their feet tending to those who needed medical attention the most.
But that was not the most horrendous sight that met Barrett's eyes. The Orion's fuselage was cracked in a hundred places, rivets having popped out like bullets from a gun. In some areas he could actually see daylight. It was obvious that if they had lingered in the worst of the storm another five minutes, the plane would have ripped apart and crashed in a thousand pieces into the waiting arms of the murderous sea.
