Devil's Sea

CHAPTER TWO

“KHAQQ calling Itasca. We must be on you but cannot see you. Gas is running low. Over.”

Amelia Earhart knew the sunrise she was watching might well be her last as she let go of the Transmit button and there was no reply to her latest attempt to contact the Coast Guard cutter Itasca. The very top of the sun was rising, as if directly out of the Pacific Ocean, which stretched in all directions as far as she could see from the cockpit. She was flying at twelve thousand feet, so the range of vision was quite far. But no sign of Howland Island or the Itasca, which was supposed to be on station just offshore the unpopulated island. It was waiting for her arrival to refuel the plane.

She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, had already flown twenty-two thousand miles in the past several months in her quest to be the first woman to fly around the world. But this section was the most dangerous: the longest they would be over water. They’d taken off from Lae, New Guinea, the previous day at noon, and she knew she only had about two more hours worth of fuel in the Lockheed Electra’s gas tanks. She had had the plane specifically modified for the flight, adding fuel tanks and radio-directionn- finding equipment.

Noonan had been working the direction-finding equipment all through the night, trying to keep them oriented, but reception was intermittent. The Itasca was supposed to be transmitting nonstop, giving them a target to fix on, but there had been long periods where she could pick up nothing.

“Give me a fix, Fred.” Earhart glanced at her compass. She was on a course slightly north of due east, but Howland was so small that the slightest deviation would cause them to miss it, thus the reliance on the Itasca’s transmissions. If they didn’t make the island, they would run out of gas and go down in the ocean. There was no other land within range for them to divert to.

“I’m getting a lot of static,” Noonan reported.

Earhart reached down and grabbed some smelling salts, taking a deep whiff, her eyes tearing. She didn’t drink coffee, and she had learned that she needed the salts on such a long flight. She’d been at the controls for eighteen hours, and tired didn’t even begin to describe how she felt. She’d recently had dysentery and had still not completely regained her strength. She had made the decision, during one of the long legs of the trip, that this would be her last flight of adventure. From now on, she would only fly for pleasure.

She was a striking woman: tall, with short brown hair. Many in the media had called her Lady Lindbergh, and there was some resemblance between the first woman to fly across the Atlantic and the first man. Of course, Earhart’s first trip across the Atlantic had basically been as luggage, a passenger as two men piloted the plane, but that didn’t stop the sensation the flight caused in 1928. Ever since, she had been pushing the envelope, to a large degree because of the scorn of the few who pointed out that she hadn’t piloted on that first flight, and partly because her husband, George Putnam, the famous publisher, encouraged her, keeping her in the limelight. Throughout the flight, she had filed dispatches from her journal.

She did fly the Atlantic solo in 1932, only the second person after Lindbergh to do so, and that was just one of the many long-distance-record flights she accomplished. This was to be her crowning achievement, another first in a long list of firsts. Noonan had been chosen to accompany her because he had served as a navigator on the Pan American Pacific Clipper so he was familiar with the region where they expected the most difficulty.

She had planned on starting from Hawaii and going west, but on takeoff from Luke Field, the tip of one wing of the fuel-laden plane clipped the runway, and the Electra was badly damaged. It was shipped back to the States, and Earhart decided to reverse the direction of the flight and the start point. On 1 June, they took off from Miami, Florida, and flew to Puerto Rico on the first stage. They’d flown along the northern edge of South America to Africa at the narrowest part of the South Atlantic, then across Africa, along the southern tip of Arabia, and across India. That latter stage was another first for Earhart; no one had ever flown nonstop from the Red Sea to India before. They’d then hopped down toward Australia from Karachi to Calcutta, then to Rangoon, Bangkok, Singapore, and Bandoeng. There bad weather delayed them, and she came down with dysentery. Also during that time, Noonan had made repairs on the long-distance receivers and transmitters, which had been giving them trouble all through the long flight. On 27 June, they’d flown from Bandoeng to Darwin, where more repairs on the direction finder were completed, and their parachutes were shipped back to the States. Given that the rest of the trip would be over the Pacific, the parachutes were no longer needed.

They’d reached Lae, New Guinea, on 29 June, over two-thirds of the trip done and seven thousand miles to go. But the last legs were all over the Pacific, the most dangerous part of the journey. At Lae, she had cabled her last article to the Herald Tribune and her last journal entry to George.

“I need a fix,” Amelia said. “We’re getting close, and we’re not going to have fuel to turn around if we miss it on the first pass.”

“I know that.” Noonan’s voice was tight. They were both exhausted. “I don’t know why I can’t pick up the ship. The equipment is working correctly,” he added defensively.

There was a smudge on the ocean ahead. Earhart’s heart leapt as she though it must be smoke from the Itasca. She grabbed the transmitter and keyed it. “K-H-A-Q-Q calling Itasca. I see smoke. Are you making smoke? Over.”

There was no answer.

Noonan had a set of binoculars, and he put them to his eyes. “I don’t think that’s a ship’s smoke.”

“An island?” Earhart asked.

“It’s like fog.”

“It can’t be fog,” Earhart said. “It’s too small.”

“It’s getting bigger,” Noonan said.

Even without the glasses, Earhart could see that it was growing larger. There was a yellowish tinge to the fog, and it was billowing upward and out ward at an unnatural rate.

“I’m getting something,” Noonan said. He had his hands over his headset, listening intently.

Amelia’s gaze shifted between the compass and the growing cloud on the horizon as she waited.

“I don’t know what it is,” Noonan finally said. “A lot of static, then what sounds like Morse Code, but I can’t-” he fell silent once more as he focused on listening, his eyes closed. “It’s clearer now.” Noonan opened his eyes and picked up a pencil and began to record the letters in the flight log, speaking them out loud, as he heard the dashes and dots.

“T-U-R-N-O-F-F-R-A-D-I-O-O-R-D-I-E.”

“What?” Earhart was so tired her brain couldn’t make immediate sense of the letters.

“Turn off radio or die,” Noonan succinctly informed her.

“We can’t. We won’t be able to navigate.”

“Hell, we haven’t’ been navigating for hours, “ Noonan noted.

“Who’s sending?” Earhart was confused. If it wasn’t the Itasca, who was out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“I have no idea.”

The fog was now less than five miles ahead and was huge, blocking their path now at twelve thousand feet and continuing to climb. In all her flights, she had never seen anything like it. She had a feeling they shouldn’t fly into it, but if she changed course, she would burn fuel and get off their track to Howland Island. A startling thought crossed her mind: Had she already flown past Howland Island and the Itasca? She pushed that negative thinking aside. She knew exactly how fast they had been going and how long they had been in the air. But, she argued with herself, there was the possibility of a strong headwind or tailwind, multiplied by the nineteen hours they’d been in the air, skewing her math.

“I think we should shut the radio off,” Noonan suggested, drawing her back to the immediate problem. “I don’t like the looks of that.”

“Find out who’s sending,” Earhart ordered.

Noonan had a knee key on his thigh, and he tapped out a quick query in Morse, trying to get the identity of the sender of the message.

A golden beam slashed out of the fog directly for the Electra. Earhart reacted, pushing forward and dropping the nose of the plane. The gold beam missed them by less than ten feet.

“Stop transmitting!” she yelled as she pulled the plane out of the dive and banked hard left. The fog was now less than two miles away, a wall stretching as far as she could see north and south and reaching up at least fifteen thousand feet.

“What was that?” Noonan was flipping switches, cutting power to their transmitter and receivers.

Earhart noted the fuel gauges. Not much left, and she had no idea where they were. Glancing out the window, she noted that even though she was flying a parallel course, the fog was closer, which meant it was still expanding.

“I’m going to ditch,” she announced.

Noonan said nothing, knowing there really weren’t any other options. They had an inflatable raft on board, and it was best to go down while they still had engine power so she could have some control of the landing.

Earhart turned away from the strange fog and began descending. Fortunately, the water was relatively calm, the swell no more than half a foot. When they were ten feet above the waves, she began throttling back, slowing the plane to just above stall speed.

The Electra hit, bounced hit once more, and again bounced into the air. Then they were down, both slammed forward against their seat belts as the water slowed the plane. Earhart cut power to the engines, and an eerie silence reigned, strange after so many hours in the air, the sound of the engines their constant companion. Her first thought was that silence was the sound of failure: she had fallen short of her goal. She shook that thought out of her head and knew she had to focus on the immediate problem, which was getting out of the plane. She unbuckled, knowing they had some time before the plane went down, as the empty fuel tanks would keep it afloat for a little while. Earhart got up and began gathering essential equipment.

Noonan opened the door below the right wing, then went and got the raft. Earhart stuck her head out the door and looked to the rear. The fog was still coming, now less than a quarter mile away. Noonan began to inflate the raft after tying it off to a wing strut, while she piled supplies next to the door. She considered making a distress call, but the memory of what had happened the last time she’d transmitted stopped her. When they didn’t arrive, the Itasca would come looking for her. And she knew her husband would get the president to launch a search.

“I hope whoever warned us is nearby,” she told Noonan.

“That wasn’t lightning that almost hit us,” he said.” It’s like someone shot at us.”

“With what?”

Noonan had the raft mostly inflated and was still pumping when the fog reached the tail of the plane. Earhart couldn’t see more than a couple of feet into it. The plane was beginning to settle deeper, water washing close to the doorway.

“Let’s go,” she said. “We can finish pumping once we’re away.” Then she remembered the photos and her journal. “Wait a second.”

She dashed back into the plane, ran to the cockpit, and grabbed the box containing the photos she had taken for the Navy and her journal. As she came back, she could barely see Noonan standing in the raft, holding on to the wing. She was just about to step through the door and into the raft when a long tentacle shot out the water and wrapped around Noonan, who gave a surprised yell. She froze in place.

“Help me!” He screamed as he was lifted into the air.

Another tentacle surfaced, searching along the bottom of the wing by feel. Then a half dozen more, like a forest of red, exploded out of the water. Earhart remained still, fear and self-preservation locking her in place inside the aircraft. She could see that there were what appeared to be mouths on the ends of the tentacles, about six inches wide, snapping open, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth.

As she watched helplessly, one of those mouths struck Noonan in the chest and bore into him, blood spurting out around it. He screamed, his face rigid with pain, his back arching, trying to get away, but being held in place by the first tentacle wrapped around his body. Earhart staggered back in shock as the tip of the second tentacle came out of Noonan’s back, teeth covered in his blood, still snapping. Noonan slumped, lifeless.

One of the other tentacles turned toward her, and she finally moved, slamming the door shut. She heard tentacles slithering over the plane’s metal skin. Then she noted her feet were wet. There was about a foot of water inside, and the level was getting higher as the plane slowly sank.

She ran forward to the cockpit and looked out. The sea was churning with red arms. Looking back, there was no sign of Noonan or the raft, and the plane was completely inside the fog.

Suddenly, a wide flash of gold came out of the fog slicing neatly through the tentacles in its path. In a second they vanished beneath the surface. A light illuminated the fog, pushing it away — but it was coming from below the plane. Earhart gasped as a curved black wall came out of the water, surrounding the plane in all directions. For several moments, Earhart couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing; then she realized, as more of the wall came out of the water and it curved inward, that her plane was in the middle of an opening on the top of what must be a great sphere.

The opening began to iris shut, and something solid touched the plane below, causing Earhart to stagger. When the opening was completely closed, she was in total darkness.

Then a blue glow suffused the plane, and she passed out.