The Rising Sea

42

Two hours later, Kurt, Joe and Akiko were moving across Nagasaki Bay in a thirty-foot bowrider with a powerful inboard engine. The V-shaped hull cut through the swells as they followed a heading that took them out to sea and away from the darkened island.

There had been no time to order up the usual high-tech gear from NUMA’s quartermaster so Kurt had “borrowed” the powerboat and a modicum of diving gear and other equipment from a rental outfit. All of which would be returned in one piece or paid for by a disgruntled NUMA accountant.

Akiko was at the wheel while Kurt checked the wind and Joe prepped the diving gear.

“Turn to the northwest,” Kurt said. “Take us out a couple miles and then turn back to the island.”

Akiko turned the wheel to the right and the boat leaned into the turn. As it straightened up once again, Joe arrived from the stern.

“I’m sure you know what you’re doing, amigo, but the island is thataway.” Using his thumb, he pointed over his shoulder. “That’s going to make for a long swim.”

“Observant as usual,” Kurt said, “but having studied satellite images and a hundred other pictures, I can tell you swimming is not the way to go here.”

He pulled out the laptop and showed Joe a high-resolution aerial photo. “There’s a forty-foot seawall encasing the entire island, complete with waves breaking against it and tricky currents sweeping past. If we didn’t get battered to death against the rocks and the foundation of the wall, we’d be quickly dragged past and dumped back in the bay.”

Joe nodded. “There’s a dock here and pilings on the far end. Stairways in three different places. We could use those.”

“The dock is concrete and designed for a larger boat,” Kurt said. “The pilings are a concrete jumble at the far point of the island. You know what the surfers say: points draw the waves. We’d be fighting the current and the breakers. As for the stairs, those are the most obvious points of access on the entire island. Unless Han is a fool, they’ll be monitored and guarded.”

“So why bring all the diving gear?”

“We need a way off the island when we’re finished,” Kurt said. “If we can find Nagano and get him out before the tide changes, we’ll have an easy ride into the bay.”

“I’m glad we have an exit strategy,” Joe said. “Thinking ahead. I consider that growth. But how do we get on the island in the first place?”

“Did you wonder why I took this particular boat?”

“It has nice lines.”

“It also has a lot of torque and towing power, which they use for the adrenaline junkies and their new sport, wingboarding.”

Joe cut his eyes at Kurt. “Wingboarding?”

“It’s like parasailing, only you have a chute above your head and a wing beneath your feet.”

“We’re going to fly onto the island?”

“Glide onto it,” Kurt said. “Akiko will pilot the boat as we get up to altitude and then tow us in. We cut the cord about a mile out and ride the sea breeze toward the island. Instead of crawling out of the water like a couple of amphibians, we’ll drop in from the sky like a pair of owls.”

“What if they have radar?”

“Doubtful,” Kurt said. “That island is supposed to be abandoned and off-limits. They won’t have a radar installation, searchlights or anything else large or obvious. Nothing out in the open that would give them away. At best, they’d have a surveillance system of hidden cameras and motion detectors. But they’ll be outward-looking, watching the perimeter for intruders approaching from the sea. Not inward and monitoring the deserted center of the island.”

“So fly in over the top of their perimeter and what?”

Pulling out a pair of goggles with large, oddly shaped lenses, Kurt said, “These have infrared sensors built in. By approaching from the sky, we’ll get a full view of the island. Whatever Han’s people are doing, they’ll need lights, power and equipment. All those things produce heat. Heat that will be easy to see on an otherwise cold and deserted island.”

Joe understood perfectly. “We’ll scan the island as we descend and then follow the heat trail like it’s the Yellow Brick Road.”

“I’ll scan,” Kurt said. “You’re the pilot. I’m counting on you to do the flying. And the landing. On the roof of one of those buildings.”

Clad in black neoprene, Kurt and Joe took their positions on a twelve-foot wing at the back end of the powerboat. They stood side by side, each of them with one foot forward and the second foot back, behind and canted sideways, a stance that provided balance and control.

Backpacks strapped to their shoulders held the compact oxygen bottles, masks and fins that they would use to swim off the island once they found Superintendent Nagano and any clue suggesting what Han was up to.

With their feet set, they grabbed a pair of guide cables that would allow them to maneuver the wingboard and the parasail that would rise up above them. A short video told them how to control the wing.

“This doesn’t seem too hard,” Joe said. “Lean left, it turns left; lean right and it turns right.”

“How far in do you want me to take you?” Akiko asked.

Kurt had already done the calculations. “Get us within two miles and then give us a little waggle. We’ll pull the cord.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Two miles? That’s a long way out.”

“According to the information I read online, this contraption has a glide ratio of twelve-to-one. With the cable fully extended, we’ll be almost fifteen hundred feet above you. High enough to cover three and a half miles. But considering the headwind and our inexperience guiding this thing, I want a safety margin to play with. Two miles will do just fine.”

Akiko nodded, glanced at the GPS receiver and then looked back over her shoulder at the two of them. “Ready?”

Joe reached up and double-checked a pair of goggles currently perched on his head. His were designed for night vision. While Kurt’s looked for heat, Joe’s amplified the available light. As they closed in on the island, Joe would pull the goggles down in front of his eyes and look for a landing spot.

With the goggles strapped securely to his head, Joe gave the thumbs-up and set both hands on the guide line.

Kurt did the same. “Release the cable.”

Keeping one hand on the wheel, Akiko reached over and pulled on a lever to her right.

Clamps released and the parasail billowed out behind Kurt and Joe, filling with air. The lines snapped taut and pulled them back as the wing beneath their feet disconnected from its moorings.

In an instant they were airborne and rising fast, as the cable spooled out from a drum in the back of the boat.

They climbed with surprising speed as the two wings provided ample lift. By the time the cable was maxed out, Kurt could see all of Nagasaki lit up, but all he could see of the boat was the shimmer of the wake it was leaving behind.

Working together, he and Joe practiced a few maneuvers. The wingboard responded easily, working in perfect tandem with the parasail above. The ride through the cool night air was smooth as glass.

“Easy peasy,” Joe shouted over the wind. “The trick is going to be controlling it once the cable is cut. The wings are staggered like an old biplane. As long as we keep the parasail filled, we’ll have control. But if our forward speed drops too much and the sail collapses, we’re in trouble.”

Kurt looked up at the graceful curve of the parasail stretched above them like a crescent moon. “If that happens, we pull the emergency release and dump the wing; we’ll lose some distance but we can parachute down. Did you pick a landing site?”

“I studied the satellite image,” Joe said. “There are forty buildings on that island with a flat roof. Plenty of landing spots. Which one we pick all depends on the angle of our approach. I’ll make a final choice when we get closer.”

“You lead, I’ll follow,” Kurt said.

Kurt nodded and reached for the radio strapped to his arm. “Turn toward the island. Keep an eye on the GPS and give us a little shake when we hit two miles. We’ll pull the cord and glide the rest of the way in. Once you feel us go, haul in the cable and make your way back to the channel between the island and Nagasaki.”

“Will do,” Akiko said, her voice reaching Kurt through the earbud. “Good luck.”

The lights below went dark and the wake began marking a curve to the left. A few seconds elapsed before the cable began to haul them around in matching fashion. Leaning to the left in tandem, Kurt and Joe easily maneuvered their flying machine into the turn. As they straightened up, the island appeared. It was nothing more than a dark spot against the shimmer of the sea.

On a direct heading toward it, they began to pick up speed. A few minutes later, the boat began to weave back and forth.

“That’s our signal,” Kurt said. “Here goes nothing.”

He reached forward and grabbed a red handle designed to release the cable in an emergency. One pull brought it back to a safety detent. A second pull finished the job.

The cable snapped free with a metallic whine. The wingboard and the parasail rose unencumbered and began to slow.

Leaning forward like snowboarders ready to move downhill, Kurt and Joe eased the craft into a mild descent. The wake of the powerboat vanished down below as Akiko turned away and in a moment the only sound Kurt or Joe could hear was the wind blowing past them and the rush of blood in their ears.

“Slight crosswind,” Joe said. “We’re drifting to the south.”

They leaned to the left and the board tilted beneath them. For an instant it felt as if it would slip away, but the brilliance of the twin wing system became evident as the parasail above corrected for any overzealous maneuvering done down below.

Having adjusted for the wind drift, they overshot for thirty seconds and then turned back on course. The feeling was incredible. Kurt had made a hundred jumps in various kinds of parachutes. He’d BASE-jumped in a wingsuit and even flown an expendable glider nicknamed the Lunatic Express, but all those descents were either fast and furious or slow and peaceful. The wingboard was somewhere in the middle, controllable with a simple body lean; it responded to the slightest weight shift, but there was a graceful sense to the pace. It moved at forty miles an hour instead of traveling like a bullet the way you did in a wingsuit. “This is like surfing the sky.”

Joe was grinning as broadly as Kurt. “If we survive tonight, I’m going to make this my new hobby.”

Kurt glanced at the timer on his wrist and then at the altimeter. “Eight hundred feet. Been just over a minute. We’re more than halfway there.”

As they moved closer, the jagged black shape of the island grew larger and appeared to rise up in front of them. Even in the dark there was something sinister about the place. Kurt could see waves breaking against it in splashes of angry white foam. The abandoned buildings looked like battlements in the low light.

“Time to enhance our vision,” Kurt said.

Kurt reached up and pulled the infrared lenses over his eyes while Joe pulled down the night vision goggles.

Joe suddenly saw the island in green with gray tones. He could see the outlines of the buildings, the narrow overgrown alleyways between them and the rubble strewn in open spaces. The closer they got, the more dilapidated everything appeared.

The island had been abandoned since 1974. Some of the buildings had fallen into disrepair before then. The place had survived several typhoons and hundreds of storms. The concrete shells of the buildings remained standing, but they were crumbling badly, the windows were all gone and foliage growing in the gaps was doing its best to split the structures apart.

“We’re right on target,” Joe said, “but still drifting a little. We should have no problem clearing the first row of buildings and dropping on the second row, closer to the center of the island.”

“Can you tell the condition of the roofs yet?”

“Not really,” Joe said, leaning to the left once again. “We’re still too far away.”

Kurt’s view of the island was almost invisible. The cold concrete was actually cooler than the surrounding waters, making the island a dark void in a swath of gray. There were tiny dots of heat here and there, but, based on their size, he knew they were probably rodents and birds that lived on the island.

“Any sign of the Yellow Brick Road?” Joe asked.

“Not even a munchkin or a flying monkey,” Kurt said.

He scanned methodically, but the maze of buildings made it hard to see anything at ground level. “Can we drift right a little and then come back against the wind? I need a better view of the alleys.”

“We’re getting closer,” Joe said. “We’ll have to make it quick.”

They shifted their weight to the right and the wingboard made a graceful turn. Kurt got a view between many of the buildings, spied a dimly glowing area and made a mental note of where it was. “Can we go a little more?”

“Ten more seconds,” Joe said, “then we turn back.”

Joe began a mental count as Kurt peered back and forth, looking for any sign of activity.

“That’s it,” Joe said. “Lean hard left.”

Joe leaned into the turn and felt Kurt doing the same. As they threw their weight over and pulled on the control cables, the twin-winged glider pulled up and turned sharply. “Level off.”

They were now dropping rapidly and picking up speed at the same time. The sea vanished and the outer layer of man-made structures raced by, not far beneath the wing.

“We’re going too fast.”

Pulling back on the chute stopped the descent momentarily. The glider ballooned upward as the speed dropped. By the time they leveled off and began descending again Joe could see they were going to miss the landing zone.

“It’s no good,” Joe said. “We’re going to overshoot and crash into the mountain. Divert to the left, we’ll have to cross over and land in the open area at the front of the island.”

Joe leaned into the turn. Kurt reacted instantly and the wingboard curved toward a gap between the rock wall and the tallest building.

To Joe’s amazement, Kurt was still looking through the thermal imaging goggles, following Joe’s instructions perfectly, while studying the island for heat sources.

“Straighten up,” Joe said.

They were rushing toward the gap between the central peak and a building to its left. Joe calculated that they’d clear the gap with twenty feet to spare.

Suddenly Kurt pulled on the cables. “Turn back,” he shouted.

“What? Why?”

“Hard left,” Kurt said, leaning over sharply.

Joe did as Kurt ordered and they turned the wingboard rapidly, whipping it around in a 180. This cost them a lot of speed and momentum and they dropped fast on their new heading.

Trees growing out from one of the buildings scraped the bottom of the wingboard and Joe scanned ahead of them, searching for a landing zone.

There was a wide roof two hundred feet directly ahead of them, but he could see they’d never make it.

“Lean right,” Joe said.

They curved back to the right, dropped farther and thumped onto the roof of another building. The impact was hard enough that they bounced, skidded forward and then spun when the right-hand tip of the wing clipped a vent.

Joe was thrown from the bindings that locked his feet into position. He hit and rolled, tumbling several times and losing the night vision goggles in the process.

He looked up to see the wingboard sliding, stopping and then moving again as the parasail caught the wind off the peak. Kurt was still locked into the bindings and was gathering in the sail as fast as he could.

Joe rushed toward him, caught the other end of the parasail and pulled hard. The parasail collapsed with his effort and the wingboard stopped where it was.

Before Joe could ask why Kurt had called for the dangerous last-minute turn, a helicopter rose up from the far side of the central hill and thundered overhead. It was heard more than seen as all its lights were still out.

“Sorry for messing up our nice approach and landing, but I caught sight of the heat plume from their engines before we crested the hill,” Kurt said. “Another few seconds and we’d have fouled their rotors in a very painful way.”

“I hope they didn’t see us,” Joe said. He glanced into the distance. He could hear the helicopter traveling straight and low. It was still blacked out and moving away from the island. There was nothing to indicate anyone on board had spotted them. “They must have been using our backup landing zone as a helipad. Awfully tight quarters to take off and land in. If I was the pilot, I’d be far more worried about the side clearance than keeping an eye out above me for anything that might be dropping in.”

“They’d be coming back if they’d spotted us,” Kurt said. “Let’s get this chute tucked away.”

Kurt gathered the last of the parasail’s material and wrapped it with the guide wires. Joe lifted the edge of the wingboard and helped Kurt shove the sail underneath.

In the distance, the helicopter switched its lights on and banked toward the city. “They don’t seem to be coming back,” Joe said. “But the real question is, did they take Nagano with them?”

Kurt shook his head. “It would make no sense to bring him here and then take him away. That was a shuttle run. A drop-off. He’s here, all right, probably with your old friend Ushi-Oni. They just can’t keep the helicopter here for too long on the chance someone would notice.”