The constant rumble of the helicopter's engine and the thump of the blades had finally merged into background noise for Johnny Earthquake. His heart was no longer trying to match the beat of the blades but had settled into a more normal rhythm. He spoke with the pilot, LT. Dan Jenkins, through the microphone and earphones built into the helmet. "How much longer?"

Lieutenant Jenkins pointed to a smudge on the horizon, visible through the perspex. "Fifteen, twenty minutes. There she is."

Their destination was an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, the Hail Mary. A worker on the rig, "Tug" Warner, had spent one of the counterfeit twenty-dollar bills they had been searching for. 

Frank Crellin, a senior agent with the Treasury Department, hired Johnny and Rusty to find a half million in counterfeit money that Noface had appropriated and hidden. Noface was now in custody, but the phony money was still out there somewhere. The government wanted it found before it got into circulation.

The oil rig was a slim lead, but the only one they had at the moment. Rusty had signed on to the rig undercover as a plumber's helper to get close to the suspect. Frank Crellin had arranged for Johnny to fly out a few days later on a Sikorsky transport from the Padre Island Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi. It was helpful to have a senior treasury agent at your beck and call.

Their plan was the classic good cop/bad cop routine. Johnny would come on heavy to the man and Rusty would be the sympathetic friend trying to help. They had no other leads, and the hope was that the man would crack and reveal where he had obtained the counterfeit cash.

Johnny had noticed the slight cough in the pattern of the engine hum, but it was the pilot's reaction that brought him out of his musing. Switches were being switched that had remained untouched throughout the flight. The engine hum had become a stutter. The pilot told him, "you might want to tighten your seat harness."

"What's the problem?" Johnny asked instinctively, even though he could hear the problem, or rather, the results of the problem. The engine was failing.

"Probably water in the gas," Jenkins told him. "Trying to purge it." The pilot worked for several more minutes at the controls and Johnny thought he could hear the engine noise even out. Or maybe he just hoped it sounded smoother.

Then the pilot told him in a calm voice, "We are going down. There is a life raft strapped to the ceiling behind me. You have to pull the red straps to get it down. When it is OUTSIDE the cabin, pull the yellow cord. Grab the red duffel on the way out."

Johnny wanted to say something, but he didn't know what to say. The sea was rushing towards them at an alarming rate. The waves seemed to reach up to grab them. Lt. Jenkins broadcast their situation and location in a calm voice that belied the urgency of their situation.

At the last moment, Jenkins cranked the control yoke, and the chopper slewed to the right, with the nose up slightly. Then Johnny lost all sense of orientation as his world went crazy. He felt the chopper hit through the soles of his feet, but then he was thrown violently to the left and topsy-turvy. He probably blacked out for a moment because the next thing he was aware of was a stream of water hitting his neck and left shoulder. The webbed harness was biting into his shoulders as he hung upside down in the cockpit. He looked to his left and could see the windscreen had smashed on that side of the helicopter and Jenkins was hanging lifelessly in his harness.

Johnny pulled on his harness release lever and dropped painfully to the ceiling of the chopper. He twisted left and checked Jenkins' pulse, but could not find one. Pulling himself through the bulkhead opening into the main cabin, he felt around on the floor/roof for the life raft. Following its contours, he found a red strap and pulled. The raft lifted but did not release fully. He searched further and found another strap on the other side. Water was starting to rise in the main cabin now, and Johnny knew he had to move faster.

The chopper was floating upside down, with seawater rushing in through the broken windscreen. One side seemed higher than the other, so Johnny went to that door. The door would only slide part-way open. The frame had twisted a bit. He checked to make sure the raft would fit through the opening, then sloshed back into the cockpit and felt the pilot's chest until he found the release.

With Jenkins free of the harness, Johnny dragged him back into the main cabin, worked a life vest onto him, found one of the red straps connected to the raft, and tied it to the vest. Satisfied it would hold, he worked the raft through the door frame. He had a moment of panic when he couldn't find the yellow cord.

The chopper settled a little lower in the water, and Johnny pushed Jenkins out through the door and into the sea. Half out of the opening himself, he jerked on the yellow cord. All it did was pull the bulk of the unfolded raft closer to him. Seawater was rushing through the open door now as the chopper settled a bit more. Johnny let go of the door frame, placed one hand on the raft, and pulled hard on the yellow cord with the other.

The results were dramatic. With a whoosh, the raft sprung open to full size, right side up in the water. The action pulled Johnny, the yellow cord firmly wrapped around his hand, out through the door and into the choppy sea, banging his knee against the door frame in the process.

Tugging on the yellow cord, he pulled the raft to him and got his left arm up over the side. He hung there a few minutes, catching his breath. He didn't notice just when the chopper disappeared behind him. But when he turned to look, there was no sign of it. He hauled himself up into the life raft and crawled to the side that held the pilot. Pulling him in was difficult, but working a bit at a time, he got him aboard. He checked again and confirmed that the lieutenant was dead. It was only then that he realized he had forgotten the red duffel. His own kit bag had also just sunk to the bottom of the sea.

Exhausted, Johnny lay back in the small raft, his head pillowed on the side. He knew the oil rig was nearby and assumed rescuers would be on the way. He tried to recall all that had happened aboard the chopper, wondering if the crash had been an accident. Then his thoughts went to the events that had brought him here. It had only been a week since Frank Crellin had hired him and Rusty to find the stash of counterfeit money that Noface had stolen. But it had been a busy week. Johnny reviewed the last few days, trying to find a clue that would lead to who might have sabotaged the chopper.