.
A wall of white buildups hovered over the eastern boundary of his playground, but he saw the silhouette of another merchant to the southeast. Checking his fuel—7,000 pounds — he had more than enough fuel and time to check out his personal contact of interest to the south.
As he expected, he soon identified a motor yacht with a pointed bow and sleek, raked lines. A smile formed under Trench’s mask. Yachts meant money, and money meant girls… and girls in the tropics are outside.
The yacht was cruising west, the dazzling sun still climbing toward its noon apex. Trench rolled easy right and peered left over his leading edge extension to check for any other airwing knuckleheads who had the same idea he did. Doing his duty, he wrote down the course, speed, lat/long and time.
Like he had with the merchant ship, he approached the yacht from the aft to surprise it, and got down to 300 feet as he came up along the boats’ starboard side. The noise from his engines would alert the people on the yacht to his presence only seconds before he roared over unless somebody happened to be scanning the horizon. Inside a mile, he didn’t see anyone on the fantail. He surmised it was about 100 feet, with a rigid hull inflatable boat hanging from davits on the top deck aft of the flying bridge. Atop the mast was a SATCOM dome and marine radar spinning around looking for surface returns.
Approaching the bow, his suspicions turned out to be true. There, Trench’s trained eye saw two bikini-clad girls lying on their backs, and one was waving at him.
Jackpot!
With heart pounding, Trench shoved the throttles to afterburner and pulled hard across the bow. He craned his head to keep sight of the yacht while he formed a plan. He would turn hard, extend for a few seconds, then pull hard again back to the yacht. He would then slow himself down to 200 knots and descend to 100 feet for another pass.
While turning back, he set the radar altimeter bug to 80 feet — if he broke 80 feet it would warn him — and paid close attention as he pulled back to the yacht. Keeping the engines spooled up, he extended the speed brake to remain slow and got as low as he dared as he crossed the yacht’s wake. The small craft continued on course, as if to beckon him to come back for a closer look. He scanned the skies again for air traffic.
He was alone.
Stabilized, he slid up next to the yacht, his hand shielding his eyes from the sun glinting off the deck. There they were! Still on the bow waiting for him, jumping up and down and pointing with excitement. Trench banked left and waved as he passed only 100 feet over the girls, getting a good look all right. Despite the glinting sun off the flying bridge, he was ready to set up for another pass when…