Eric Mentzer

Waikiki Beach - June, 2006

 

The hot tropical sun  shone brightly over Waikiki. The beach was crowded with tourists and families on vacation, but Isabella Zander had found a quiet spot all to herself and was happy for the solitude. Her dark olive skin soaked in the sun’s rays like a Saharan nomad stumbling on an oasis. 

            This was her first vacation in quite some time and her body needed the rest. She always enjoyed her time alone because her life was that of utter chaos. She worked hard and she played hard. Isabella was the director of emergency medical services at Baltimore's Shock Trauma Hospital. As a trauma surgeon, she was always on call for the worst cases. She also volunteered her time as flight surgeon on board Life Lion medi-vac helicopter stationed at Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA. She often mused that it was the most exciting job she ever had. In her spare time her favorite hobby was searching for sunken treasures. She and her husband, Amos, were well known for their heroic exploits above the water as well as below the sea, which always seemed to lead them into trouble with some sort of evil, menacing bad guy.

            While she lay in the sand, her mind drifted to Amos, and his current project just off of the coast of Florida near St. Augustine, where he was diving on the Spanish galleon, the Santissima Concepcion that he had recently discovered. She worried about him, because although he didn't usually take unnecessary risks, he seemed to have “Murphy's” luck. If something could go wrong it would, and he never retreated from anything. He always squared off and took things head on, thus her constant worry. But she also knew of all the men in the world, Amos was probably the most experienced and best prepared for any situation.

            As her mind wandered, she realized that she had to make a decision, since it was almost dinner time. Should she go back into the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, where she was staying and get ready for dinner or should she go for another swim? She thought about the buffet at the hotel where she and Amos usually stayed. Amos always said he liked staying there, because of its rich historical value. He liked being where many of the submarine sailors on shore leave in WW II stayed. He said it was nostalgic. But she knew it was really the scrumptious seafood buffet with all the rock lobster and steamed clams you could eat that truly tugged at his heart.

            Even after being on the beach for almost six hours, she still wasn’t ready to go back to the hotel. So her final decision was to take another swim. Arising and walking to the water’s edge, all eyes on the beach were on her. Isabella was built like a model, but had the strength of a body builder and was in extremely good physical shape.  A pleasing sight, her fire engine red hair flowed down around her shoulders. She had bee-stung lips and high cheekbones. Today she had chosen to wear a tiny tie-dyed bikini that showed off her well rounded breasts, and made every male head on Waikiki beach turn as though it was on a swivel. Walking across the sand her well defined thighs moved as if marching to the beat of a drum. Isabella was like a chameleon. She was comfortable in sweats at the gym showing the male jocks how it was done, and then laughing at their juvenile minds. She was also just as comfortable in a “Versace” floor length gown at a thousand dollar a plate fund raiser in Georgetown, being the talk of the town. She could mix it up with the guys’ on the ball team or mingle with the most powerful men in Washington and make them all feel very small and insignificant.

            Isabella waded out into the surf, tucked her head down and dove in swimming hard for the outer limits of the breakwater. She continued past the coral reef that protected the shore line, turned south and headed towards Diamond Head. Soon she reached the open water where only the most seasoned swimmer dared swim. Approaching the heavy breakers around Diamond Head, she rolled over and kicked into a backstroke for the return trip. It was now almost an hour and fifteen minutes into her swim.

            After flipping over in the water, she was now headed back toward the beach where she had started. Something caught her attention. It was a large boat headed towards shore. An Azmut aft cabin motor yacht, and it appeared to be about seventy-five feet long and moving at about fifteen knots. Isabella watched it as she swam. She was swimming on the seaward side of the reef and knew the captain would have to veer off course soon or risk slicing the keel to shreds, because at that point the reef rose to within a few feet of the surface. With her extensive knowledge of boats, Isabella also knew that the Azmut drafted almost six feet. If she swam the same course, Isabella figured she would come almost close enough to touch its hull as it passed by her.

            An old familiar twinge began to crawl up the back of her neck. She often described it as feeling like the icy fingers of death were creeping up the back of her spine. It made every one of her senses work overtime. She knew there was something wrong, but what? Then she realized what it was. The boat was not turning. It was headed straight towards shore, a shoreline where the beach was covered with unsuspecting people. Families vacationing on the hot sand, playing in the surf, and most of them would not be able to get out of the way, if the boat managed to jump over the reef.

            Isabella decided that she had to do something. She thought if she could get in front of the boat, maybe, she could get the captain’s attention. So she reached out and stroked hard, closing the distance between her and the Azmut rapidly. With the boat about fifty yards in front of her, she stopped and began treading water, waving her arms wildly above her head. She could see on the port side was printed the boat’s name, “My Isabella”. The irony of it barely had time to sink in. The boat did not move. It didn't veer off, either, like she had planned. Then she realized that there was no crew out on deck to see her, and she could not see anyone at the helm. It was getting closer and closer to her and the reef with no signs of stopping. She could not believe a captain would be so reckless and careless. This guy was really risking a catastrophe if his boat jumped the reef. It looked like certain death for many innocent swimmers on Waikiki beach. Isabella’s sense of survival kicked in and she made the decision to do something. In a split second she made the decision to try to board the raging boat. She knew this was a crazy idea, but she didn't dwell on it, because someone had to do something and she was the only one in a position to do it. Well, she was the only one crazy enough to try.

            As the boat drew near, she decided to get in close to the port side. Isabella put her shoulder down in the water so she could turn quickly as it passed. Timing was going to be everything. The slightest hesitation and she would be shark bait after the boat’s twin propellers were done with her. She coiled up ready to spring at the boat, but she misjudged its speed and the fiberglass hull struck her left shoulder with a huge glancing blow, almost knocking her unconscious and dislocating her shoulder. She fought to maintain consciousness, and as the aft end came past her, she reached out and grabbed a hold of the aft swim platform. Her fingers locked into the slots in the teak wood, nearly ripping them from their sockets. The pain exploded in her shoulder as it was abruptly pulled back into its socket. While she was dragged along behind the wildly gyrating propellers, she paused for nearly three seconds to let the pain in her shoulder subsided before she summoned all of her strength and pulled herself up onto the platform. Quickly reaching up and pulling her body over the aft railing, she crashed to the deck on the other side. Isabella lay there on her back for a moment taking stock of her injuries. After assuring herself that none of them were life threatening, she jumped to her feet and hit the deck at a dead run. She covered the thirty feet from the aft railing to the bridge ladder like a cheetah chasing after its dinner.

            Isabella’s slender body quickly climbed the ladder and she threw open the bridge door where she promptly tripped. Her body went sprawling across the bridge deck. She barely had time to notice that it was the body of the first mate which had sent her unceremoniously to the deck. She quickly rose to her feet and headed to the control console where she saw that the captain was slumped over the wheel. It was obvious that he was dead. Blood had poured from every orifice of his body. She quickly realized why they were headed straight towards shore. The captain’s body had the wheel pinned in the straight ahead position and in his death throes his right hand had thrust the throttles to their stops in the full on position. Isabella looked out the forward bridge window and realized that they were dangerously close to the reef, and if she could not turn this boat around soon, many innocent people would die. She summoned all of her strength, grabbed the dead captain around the waist, pulled upward and then took three steps back allowing his body to fall to the floor. Isabella then grabbed the wheel with both hands and spun the wheel hard to port. The Azmut’s starboard side rose out of the water as the boat slowly made the turn away from the reef. The forward keel kissed the edge of the reef leaving a fifteen foot gash in the starboard side, before the boat was safely turned back to sea, away from the dangers of the reef and Waikiki beach.

      It wasn't till the boat was on a safe course back out toward deep water that Isabella grabbed the throttles and eased them back to a manageable speed. After quickly studying the control console she threw the manual bilge pump switches into the continuous on position. Hopefully they would counter the flow of sea water coming in through the deep gash in the boats side long enough for her to get it to a safe harbor. Quickly scanning the controls again she found the autopilot. Isabella and Amos, were expert boaters and Waikiki was their favorite boating area, so it only took her a few seconds to program the coordinates and set the way points to Pearl Harbor from memory into the autopilot’s onboard computer.

That being done, she decided to take a look around. She looked back at the first mate and saw that he, too, had died while spewing blood from every orifice. He and the captain both seemed to have died from the same symptoms. Their eyes were sunken into their skull as if all the fluid had leaked from within the eyeball. Their skin was red and bloodied with lesions and there was a strange mottling to their skin. The stench of death lingered thickly in the cabin. She decided now was as good a time as any to search the boat.

            Isabella walked down the hallway toward the main salon stopping at each of the three staterooms. In each stateroom, she saw the same ghastly sight. There were bunk beds in each room and in each room there was a crew member lying in each bunk. They all were dead and each had met the same grotesque fate that the skipper and first mate had befallen. When she came to the end of the hallway she entered the main salon. Everything in there was normal. Nothing was out of place. It looked as if the crew had just cleaned it and walked away. She walked to the other side of the salon and opened the door to the master stateroom. This room was a different story. There was blood everywhere. The ceiling and the walls were covered and dripping with blood. The room looked like a slaughterhouse. There were two bodies lying in the bed, that of a male and a female. They had apparently died of the same mysterious causes the rest of the crew had died of. On the floor lay the body of a man dressed in what had once been a very expensive business suit. Isabella fought to keep the bile from rising in her throat as she took in the ghastly scene. It was apparent that the blood on the walls and the ceiling had come from the man on the floor. His head was completely missing, and his body was contorted as if he had fought against his attacker to the very end. Strangely enough, this man had not died from the same malady that had befallen the rest of the people on the boat. He did not have the lesions that the others had. The only blood loss came from the stump where his head was once attached to his body.

             As Isabella stood there absorbing the horrifying sight, she heard a thumping sound. It was faint, but it seemed to come with the rocking of the boat. She strained to hear the noise over the boat’s diesel engines. For a second she thought that the thumping sound was coming from somewhere nearby. Turning to leave  she was about to step through the door to the master stateroom when she stopped and reached over opening the thin door to the bathroom. Finally, the bile erupted from her throat as she came face to face with the missing head. It was rolling from side to side with the rocking of the boat, making a soft thump each time it hit a bulkhead. Isabella quickly regained her composure. This was not something that would normally bother her. She is a trauma surgeon and was accustomed to seeing this kind of thing often, but she started to notice that since she came onboard this death ship she had started to feel ill.

            Her mind was racing and that icy feeling of death was thick in the air. She turned back to the beheaded body and knelt down next to it. She rifled through the pockets. In the breast pocket of the man’s jacket she found a leather identification wallet. She opened it and was shocked to see an FBI badge and ID with the name Clark Kerry.

            Realizing that time was working against her, Isabella stuffed the ID in the waistband of her bikini and headed back to the bridge. Working her way back through the boat she thought that this is usually the sort of thing that happens to Amos, not her. Upon arriving on the bridge she used the marine radio to notify the Coast Guard and let them know that she was bringing the boat into the military dock at Pearl Harbor, because that was the easiest harbor to secure. This situation was certainly one that she did not want getting out to the public.

            Isabella disengaged the autopilot and took the controls herself. As Isabella passed by Ford Island, she could see the dock that was her intended destination. She felt much sicker and her vision was getting fuzzy. Through the blurred vision she could see the dock was swarming with M.P.s and wondered how they knew. Her mind was starting to get fuzzy like her vision and she could barely remember where she was and what she was doing. Confusion was beginning to set in now. Struggling to clear her foggy mind she barely brought the boat up to the dock without smashing its side into the wooden pier. The M.P.s quickly jumped onboard and secured the ropes to the halyards on the dock. As she turned to leave the bridge the fuzziness in her vision turned to darkness and the last thing she saw was a big burly marine as she fell unconscious into his arms.