“We have about 20 planes we requisitioned, and more coming. We are staging them at a small municipal field inland about 10 miles from Galveston.” The Lieutenant answered. “We chose Galveston because we located a chemical manufacturer in Houston with a stockpile of copper sulfate. We have 2 tanker trucks at the field. That’s over 18,000 gallons. Six more tankers will arrive at the field within two hours.”
“What training do our pilots need in order to spray?”
“When they’re ready to spray, they pull a lever. Training took 30 seconds to show them which lever to pull. The first flight should lift off within the hour.”
“Excellent. Have the buoys been set, and are rescue aircraft and boats in place? The Commander asked. “What about radios, hazmat suits and respirators for the pilots and rescue teams?”
“Dr. Kate raided the firehouses in Houston and Galveston.” The lieutenant responded. “Local police and fire personnel bent over backwards to help. The planes already have radios, but they’re not very powerful. The flight leader will have military grade com, and will relay orders to the pilots. Everyone is kitted out with suits and respirators.
“We have plenty of rescue choppers, but we are limited in surface rescue to local assets for now. The Navy heavies are in route, and will be on station by tomorrow.
“The biggest problem is the mechanical condition of the planes. We have no idea how they’ve been maintained, or how many hours are on each engine. Those flying buckets are about to be subjected to round-the-clock flights. We have three volunteer pilots for each plane. They take off, head for their target, get in formation, dump their load, and then turn for home and refill. Repeat, then repeat again. Sir, we must understand some of the planes are going to fall out of the sky when the engine craps out. It’s not a matter of if, but when..” The Lieutenant replied solemnly.
“I know, son. I know. I want top mechanics with spare parts at the fields at all times, one crew per plane.” The Commander instructed. “Each time they touch down for refuel, they get checked out. Any sign of mechanical issues, the plane gets grounded.”
“We’re going to need more planes to replace the crop duster’s that get taken out of duty, or crash. Commander, the mechanics estimate we’ll lose 50% of the planes to mechanical failure every 24 hours of flight time. Maybe more. They weren’t designed or maintained for this kind of operation.”
“Damn, that’s a lot our men and women who will drop into that soup. Make sure everyone in the air has personal floatation.” The commander felt a large lump in his chest, as he contemplated pilots ditching their aircraft.
All military pilots are trained in ditch maneuvers over water. The procedure relies upon gliding the plane in as flat an approach to the surface as possible, then laying the craft nose up on the water to avoid flipping the plane upside down. This was impossible for the crop duster’s. Each had fixed landing gear struts designed for landing in bumpy pastures. They were intentionally very sturdy, and not retractable. No matter how flat the approach, the landing gear would hit the water first, creating tremendous drag that would flip the plane causing it to cartwheel in the water. Wings would shear off, the fuselage violently compromised. The downed plane would immediately sink like a rock.
The Commander realized, any plane forced to set down on water would be a recovery operation, not a rescue.
Laguna Vista, Texas
Sam McClintock stood beside his patrol car, motioning vehicles to keep moving in both lanes of the 2 lane highway leading out of town. Fellow State police, joined by Texas Rangers were spaced out along the highway to keep people moving, and to diffuse any incidents that may arise. Sam never dreamed he would need to shoot someone during an evacuation, but that proved to not be the case. ”You simply cannot rely on people to act in their own self-interest,” he thought, “even in an emergency. Crazy. People just go crazy.”
A Ranger Sam had just met a few hours earlier walked to stand beside him.
“You OK, Sam?” Sharon Lammers asked. Behind them, EMT’s were loading the body into a vehicle, while other team members administered to a middle aged man’s flesh wound to his left arm. His weeping wife and two children hovered nearby.
“Yeah, I’m OK. I’m having a great day.”
“There was nothing you could do. You reacted as you were trained. As we both are trained to do. You fired and ended it before I did. You reacted faster than I, or I would be in your shoes. I directed that guy to merge into traffic, and the Buick to stop. That old sonofabitch stomped on the gas and damn near hit me, then started shooting into the minivan with that guy’s wife and kids inside. It’s a miracle he was the only one hit.”
Sharon tried reason and logic to lessen the Trooper’s guilt. Anyone in law enforcement who is forced to use deadly force understands no amount of justification or exoneration would heal the wound to his soul of having taken a life. No matter how righteous the shooting, Sam would relive this moment the rest of his days.
An old woman in a wheel chair, the shooter’s wife asked an EMT where her husband was, and would he return from the store soon. He assured her he would be home soon. Her dementia prevented understanding. After a few moments, she politely asked again, as she had for the last 30 minutes. She was unable to recall if she had any children or relatives when asked by first responders. For now, and perhaps forever, she was alone in the world.
Ciudad Madero, Mexico
Miguel understood opportunity when it was presented, and this one was big. His position in the Cartel was to get the Cartel’s drugs into the United States. The Cartel had a very simple and efficient mechanism for promotion. Success was rewarded handsomely. Failure was likewise recognized. The loss of shipments could happen at any moment, and mid-level leaders were not overly punished when the authorities captured a shipment of smuggled drugs. It was the cost of doing business. That is, unless the person in charge of smuggling the drugs north made the same mistake twice, and lost one too many very large shipments. Such was Miguel’s fate. He had been unlucky more often than successful the last six months, and the bosses were not happy. He also understood he would already be dead if not for the chaos of the Marea Rojo, the Red Tide.
With chaos comes opportunity for misdirection, and Miguel certainly needed his boss to look in another direction. The authorities, both north and south of the border were certainly distracted by tens of thousands evacuating the coast, hundreds suffering from lung infections, and the chaos of the epidemic.
Miguel had made his bones and caught the attention of the Cartel bosses during Hurricane Rita in 2005. The storm followed Hurricane Katrina by just three weeks, and bombed into a Category Five just before slamming into the coast of Northern Mexico. Miguel was a low level and quite expendable mule in those days, physically crossing into the US with drugs he could carry on his person. Pretty high risk and inefficient.
As Rita raged through Matamoros on the Mexican Texas border, Miguel and a dozen mules were gathered in a warehouse to load up their packs for another border crossing, and took shelter under three drug laden trucks. Fierce winds threatened to destroy the sheet metal structure, and all inside. The bosses had fled to sturdier shelter having ordered the mules stay put to guard the trucks. All but three had disobeyed and sought shelter elsewhere. The warehouse was doomed, and they knew it. Rather than die under a crushed roof, they elected to take their chances with the bosses, an equally fatal decision.
Lying on his belly under a truck, his arms sheltering his head against debris flying about as the sheet metal was ripped from the warehouse walls, Miguel knew with certainty he had to escape the warehouse or die. He scrambled out from beneath the truck, and climbed into the cab. He fired the diesel engine, and struggled to put the vehicle into gear. He had never driven a truck before.
Soon the two men with him scrambled into the cab beside him. Thankfully, one knew how to operate the gears, and quickly leaned over to make the connection. Miguel floored the gas pedal, and the truck burst through the side warehouse out i
nto the ferocious storm. He could barely see to drive through the wind and rain. Gusts hit the side of the box truck so hard, it was tipped up on two wheels, but miraculously the truck crashed back on all four wheels as Miguel swerved to avoid downed light poles and flying sheet metal from the now collapsed warehouse. The two trucks left behind were crushed by the collapse of steel beams and the roof. He would be dead had he stayed in the warehouse.
They flew through the streets in a mad dash to outrun the storm, turning down any side street that was not blocked with debris. Larger buildings provided momentary shelter from the wind. On they drove for what seemed like an eternity. The desperate and terrified men had no sense of time, or direction.
When the wind and rain finally began to subside, they increased speed as they found themselves on a divided highway, the sole vehicle moving. They had no idea where they were, only that the storm was weakening quickly.
Ahead, a road sign, twisted from the winds, was bent nearly to the ground, it’s markings facing them. As he read the numerals, Miguel stomped on the brakes, sending his passengers head first into the windshield. I-77. Interstate 77, Texas. San Antonio 20 Miles. Miguel had inadvertently delivered a half ton of cocaine into the United States under cover of the storm, to within 20 minutes of its final destination.
Miguel again had the opportunity to make a spectacular score for the bosses. Instead of running for the hills away from the toxic air and water, Miguel would use the danger as his cover to move huge shipments of drugs to the San Antonio safe house, from which they would be distributed throughout the southwest. From the coast to 20 miles inland between Ciudad Madero and the border with Texas the land was virtually deserted. North of the border, State Police and Texas Rangers were rapidly evacuating residents on every major and minor road leading away from the coast. If he could somehow get past the border crossing check station at Matamoras, he could simply join the flood of evacuees headed inland on I-77 to San Antonio. The Norte Americano police would be his escort.
Sergeant Hector Gonzales commanded a platoon of soldiers tasked with the evacuation of the sick from Ciudad Madero’s sole medical clinic. The dead had already been removed by stacking the bodies like cordwood into a deuce and a half truck. Grisly work for his elite Drug Enforcement Unit, but necessary. No one wanted to add potential diseases from decaying bodies to the disaster unfolding. The truck had just returned, and he supervised wiping the bed down with bleach water before loading the living patients.
Hector was not a typical Spanish blooded Mexican. His parentage was native, and his dark, almost African complexion told the story. His mother was Yaqui Indian, his father a tall, Spanish blooded son of a land baron who took a fancy to the young housemaid. Hector was the result. His birth father never recognized Hector as his offspring, but took pains to ensure his mother and he were taken care of. Hector attended good schools. His un-spoken parentage soon became obvious to all. The average Yaqui male was no taller than five feet. Hector topped six foot two at age sixteen. Still, he grew up Yaqui, roaming the mountains, tracking game for dinner, a throw-back to another century, but with a modern education.
An ambulance siren briefly split the air with a single loud whoop. Turning, Hector saw two large ambulances threading their way through the crowded street. Thank God, at least a few of the worst stricken would ride to safety in comfort instead of the back of an army truck. As the ambulances drew near the front of the clinic, a doctor rushed to the leading vehicle driver’s side, gesturing and imploring them to stop. Instead, the driver slowed to a crawl to engage in conversation with the doctor trotting alongside. The conversation grew animated, as the doctor pounded on the window sill of the vehicle, which suddenly turned right and accelerated, leaving the doctor standing in the middle of the road, shoulders slumped and speechless.
Still 30 yards from the scene, Hector took two steps forward just as the lead ambulance turned broadside to his position, and stopped dead in his tracks. Miguel Suarez was driving the ambulance.
Immediately, Hector knew the ambulances carried no sick or injured, but a far deadlier cargo to be sold north of the border. Brilliant. He had heard the legend of how Miguel had become a made-man in the Cartel for his daring ride through the heart of a hurricane when all the other Cartel mules and bosses had fled to safety. He had earned the Cartel $50 million dollars at street price for his three hour ride through the jaws of hell, and a boss position for himself. Now the son-of-a-bitch was doing it again.
“Rodriguez, to me now!” he barked.
“Sir!” Rodriguez smartly saluted, skidding to a halt before his Sergeant.
“Take Jimenez and a radio, and follow those ambulances. Commandeer a civilian vehicle, and do not let them know you follow. Give me their position every half hour. They will turn north as soon as they can, and head for Matamoras on the coast. That’s the closest crossing with serviceable roads for an ambulance. There, they will make their move.”
Rodriguez spun to carry out his orders and find Jimenez in the crowd, but not before Hector called one last instruction.
“Rodriguez, remove your ski mask and find a civilian shirt. Tell Jimenez to do the same. You must look like civilians, not DEA soldiers. Keep your weapons with you but out of sight. Now go!”
Hector watched the ambulances slowly thread through the crowded streets. His men would have no problem catching up. Miguel wants to hide in plain sight with the refugees. So too will my soldiers. Hector finally lost sight of the ambulances rounding a corner, as he recalled his pledge on the beach. “I will deal with you before this day is over.”
Chapter Twelve
Municipal Field Airport, Galveston, Texas
Kate and Lt. Jemison strode towards the line of crop dusters. They were each swarmed with mechanics checking engines, oil and fuel levels, and their liquid cargo. There now numbered 32 serviceable planes, six rejected aircraft pushed to the side of the tarmac, along with every other civilian aircraft not part of Operation Gulf Storm. All buildings and facilities, were ringed by fully armed Marines, as was the entire field. Humvees mounted with .50 Cal machine guns slowly patrolled the field perimeter
A few wealthy plane owners briefly protested Marines manhandling their big boy toys into the grass, but were promptly put in their place by a 20 year striped sleeved Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant using the most colorful language imaginable. Kate chuckled to herself at the memory of six overweight, middle aged men in Bermuda shorts and polo shirts with the collars turned up sprinting for their lives. One lost a shoe in his scramble for safety. The Gunny picked it up, and threw it at him as he ran. It almost connected, too.
“What’s so funny, doc?” the Lieutenant asked.
“Those fat guys the Gunny ran off. They probably never moved so fast in their entire lives.” Kate smiled at the Lieutenant. “I’m starting to like you soldier boys and girls. You people don’t mess around.”
“Navy Dr. Kate, Navy. We ain’t soldiers. We leave the inferior to join the Army and become soldiers. We’re Sailors and Marines. Our flyboys and girls are Naval Aviators, not pilots. As a Coasty, I’m technically in the Navy. And yes, ma’am, the last thing any sane person would want to do is mess with a Chief Gunnery Sergeant. I’ve seen Generals and Admirals turn tail and scamper after provoking one of them.” Jemison replied. “Now that’s high entertainment. Just don’t ever make the mistake of smiling or laughing during the performance.”
Kate chuckled. “I’ll bet it is. I guess the Admiral will rip you to shreds for that infraction. How do the Gunny’s not get in trouble talking back to a superior officer?”
“If you get caught in a laugh or smile, it ain’t the Admiral you have to worry about. The Gunny will be on you in a split second for disrespecting his officer. And you better believe, they are HIS officer. Gunny will gut you right on the spot, as his officer watches. After 20 years in the Corp, a Gunny knows exactly how to talk to an officer. They will snap to attention, ramrod straight, fix their eyes to a point four inches above the officer
’s head, and tell him or her which way is up in no uncertain terms, liberally punctuated with Sir or Ma’am. They’re like a force of nature. But you better not disrespect His officer. Death would be less painful.”
The Lieutenant and Kate were interrupted by the sight of 96 aviators striding towards their aircraft. Instead of standard issue flight suits, each wore a baggy hazmat suit under a self-inflating life preserver vest, with a hazmat respirator mask in one hand, and an oxygen bottle in the other. The uniforms may not have been standard, but the swagger spoke volumes. These men and women were the best trained aviators in the world. They had proved it in combat and rescue so often, there was simply no need for anyone to say it out loud.
“Why are all the pilots coming out? There aren’t enough planes for all of them?” Kate, shielding her eyes with her hand from the morning sun asked.
“Because no one knows which planes will crap out during take-off, in flight to target, over the ocean, on the way back or trying to land. They drew straws this morning to see who would be in the first flight of planes. Each returning flight will get fresh pilots, so the risk gets spread out among all of them. They are all here to support the first group. They will all still be here to count how many planes return after each flight. They know not all of them will make it.”
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