The Coast Guard MH-65 Dolphin rocked and shook as the wind tossed it about. Stevens gripped Windermere’s hand, tight, and stared down into the night. Far below them, the cutter Vigilant was a tiny cluster of lights on an otherwise coal-black sea.
Windermere peered across Stevens at the vessel beneath them. Then she grinned at him. “You get seasick, too?”
Stevens grimaced as the helicopter descended. The Vigilant looked impossibly small down there. “Guess we’ll find out,” he said.
The helicopter dropped down to a hover just above the cutter’s stern. A crew member slid open the side door, and immediately the wind roared into the cabin, buffeting Stevens and pushing him back from the void. He stared out the yawning door and fought to keep his stomach under control.
The crew member yelled something. Gestured at Windermere. She listened, nodding. Then she turned to Stevens. “They’re going to drop us on the stern,” she said. “Don’t think about it, just do it, okay?”
Stevens nodded. “Okay.”
Windermere grinned at him again, her face close, her eyes bright. “This is FBI living, Stevens,” she said. “Welcome to the big show.”
The helicopter descended until it was just a few feet above the Vigilant’s roiling deck. The boat looked bigger up close—it was probably a couple hundred feet long—but the black night seemed to dwarf it, and it rolled with the ocean’s swell. Windermere glanced back at Stevens in the doorway. Flashed him a thumbs-up, then dropped out of sight.
The crew member turned to Stevens. “Your turn, sir.”
Stevens closed his eyes and edged toward the open door. He could see Windermere on the deck below, hustling away from the helicopter’s spinning rotors. A seaman stood on deck, arms outstretched, waiting for him. Stevens closed his eyes, thought of Nancy, and dropped.
A split second of gut-wrenching free fall. Then he hit the deck. The seaman grabbed him and hurried him away from the helicopter. The chopper’s engine roared as it lifted off again. Within seconds, it was hundreds of feet above.
The ship was strangely quiet without the helicopter’s screaming engine. Stevens let the seaman usher him to where Windermere waited at an open doorway. He looked around the vessel, his legs unsteady as the ship rocked beneath him. Then he looked up into the sky, found the helicopter’s tiny lights as it raced back to shore. He leaned against the bulkhead and tried to calm his racing heart. “Holy shit,” he said. “God damn the FBI.”