At Sea, Coast of France
December, the First Year
The first week at sea was miserable. It was common to see Yvonne and Yvette vomiting over the stern rail in stereo. After the week of seasickness, everyone aboard Durobrabis got into a regular daily routine. There was plenty of hard work, including countless hours of pulling the handle on the Katadyn Survivor 35 desalinator, a reverse-osmosis unit that turned salt water into drinking water. Carston Simms ran a tight ship and insisted on keeping the freshwater tanks full.
Until Andy and the Tafts got accustomed to navigating and handling the rigging, the sailing was mostly handled by Carston and Angie, who each put in grueling ten-hour watches. Angie piloted from 0500 to 1500, and Carston from 1500 to 0100. As the days passed, everyone else on the boat took on more and more responsibility in handling the rigging and, eventually, piloting. At the end of his watch, Carston Simms would either set the Simrad autopilot (in calm seas) or drop sail and set the sea anchor (in rougher seas). Andy’s topside security duty was nightly from 2100 to 0800.
Every morning after being relieved by Simone Taft (their day watch, eyeballs-only security), Andy would carefully oil the SIG and its magazines. He was very conscious of the depredations of damp, salty air on gunmetal. Then he’d do his best to sleep in the darkness of the sail locker.
One of Laine’s top priorities was familiarizing the adults on the yacht with safe gun handling. He did this in one-on-one classes held late in the afternoons. He taught them how to load, fire, and reload the pistol. Jules got an abbreviated version of the same instruction. The Tafts’ eleven-year-old twins weren’t taught gun handling out of fear that one of them might accidentally drop the precious gun overboard. But they were taught how to refill magazines, which they practiced regularly.
Most of the training consisted of dry practice with an unloaded gun, and with all of the gun’s ammunition safely in another compartment. But after a week of that, Andy gave Jules and all the adults the chance to actually shoot the SIG. Their targets were sealed empty bottles that were thrown off the bow. In all, they shot just twenty-eight cartridges.
After every lesson, Andy said, “If I go down, then you pick this gun up and you continue the fight until the threat is vanquished. You do not quit. Do you understand?”
After the first phase of firearms training, Andy moved on to hand-to-hand combatives and knife fighting, using his own amalgam of tae kwon do, pistol handling, and Krav Maga, which Laine dubbed “SIG kwon do.” Adding to the standard katas, Andy taught how to use a pistol that had been shot dry as a club and as a pressure-point tool. For the latter, he used the barrel protruding from the pistol with its slide locked to the rear. The small surface area of the muzzle, he showed, could deliver tremendous force in strikes to the solar plexus, groin, kidneys, or neck of an opponent.
Each morning from ten to noon, Alan Taft taught everyone Spanish. Sailing instruction—also for everyone—took up most of each afternoon. Nearly every night after the dinner dishes were washed, there were endless games of cards, mostly cribbage.
Andy was having trouble getting to sleep. They were 250 miles west of Portugal. It was a Tuesday, and his contact was scheduled for that night, so he felt anxious. He was hoping for good propagation.
Andy set his radio’s alarm for 0315. As he set up the dipole antenna along the rail, he was surprised to see Carston standing in the open hatchway. In a soft voice Andy explained what he was doing. Simms nodded. Andy sat down and completed hooking up the transceiver. Then he said, “Well, five minutes, and then I’ll know if we’ve got good propagation.”
Carston offered, “That can be tricky on shortwave.”
Andy replied, “Yeah.”
The silence was overwhelming. Andy watched Carston Simms still standing in the doorway. Still in a whisper, he asked, “Tell me, how did this boat get the name Durobrabis?”
Carston sighed and explained: “She’s named after some old Celt ruins somewhere. You see, before I bought her, this boat belonged to an archaeology professor from the western end of Kent. He only rarely sailed her.” After a pause he added, “I didn’t particularly like the name, but being an old salt, I consider it bad luck to change a boat’s name.”
At 0329, at Andy’s request, Simms tacked to put Durobrabis on a southwesterly heading. This left the dipole antenna roughly facing the Great Circle line of bearing to the western United States. Precisely at 0330 GMT, Andy heard a strong cadence in Morse, with Lars’s distinctive stuttering “fist” on his preferred traditional Morse key:
“K5CLA DE K5CLB BT
“K5CLA DE K5CLB BT”
Andy replied: “K5CLB DE K5CLA BT”
Lars hammered back, “HOT DANG, GOT YOU AT S3. R-U AT SEA?”
“YES, MAKING GOOD TIME, FB, NOW IN DEEP OCEAN. NO WORRIES. HOW IS KL?”
“SHES FINE, LEARNING M-MORSE N WANTS 2 CHAT”
“PLZ PUT KL ON THE KEY”
Then, in a ponderously slow Morse rate of six words per minute, Andy heard: “I LOVE YOUU DRLING, 88, 88, 88. DYING TO SEE YOU. ANY ETA? BR”
How could he even begin to explain to her that it might be many months before he got home?
24
Down in Hondo
���We are steadily asked about the age at which to teach young people to shoot. The answer to this obviously depends upon the particular individual; not only his physical maturity but his desire. Apart from these considerations, however, I think it important to understand that it is the duty of the father to teach the son to shoot. Before the young man leaves home, there are certain things he should know and certain skills he should acquire, apart from any state-sponsored activity. Certainly the youngster should be taught to swim, strongly and safely, at distance. And young people of either sex should be taught to drive a motor vehicle, and if at all possible, how to fly a light airplane. I believe a youngster should be taught the rudiments of hand-to-hand combat, unarmed, together with basic survival skills. The list is long, but it is a parent’s duty to make sure that the child does not go forth into the world helpless in the face of its perils. Shooting, of course, is our business, and shooting should not be left up to the state.”
—Colonel Jeff Cooper
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
May, Twenty Years Before the Crunch
More than two decades before the Crunch, Ian Doyle had a temporary duty (TDY) assignment to Honduras that changed his life.
The leader of the Hondo Expedition was Major Alan Brennan, a quiet man who was the son of a retired Air Force colonel. Brennan’s leadership was competent but very laid-back. He made it clear that he expected his squadron members to be punctual for all meetings, and completely sober before each scheduled mission. He summed up his guidance by stating simply, “We’ve got excellent maintenance NCOs, and the civilian techs know the gear inside and out. Stand back and let them do their jobs. Just be at the briefings and be on flight line on time. ‘Kick the tire, light the fire,’ and come home safe.”
Brennan, who had recently been married, was fascinated by pre-Columbian history and spent a lot of his time off in a rented jeep wandering around ancient ruins, taking pictures. Other than on his mission days, Doyle rarely saw him.
The Air Force terminated its tactical reconnaissance program for F-16s in 1993, with plans to shift most of those missions to UAVs. But as a follow-on, there was an interim program using the U.S. Navy–developed Tactical Aerial Reconnaissance Pod System (TARPS) mounted on F-16s. Doyle’s squadron was one of the two fighter squadrons that got tapped for this strap-on recon test program, which only lasted eighteen months. While technically a success, from an operational and logistics standpoint, the results were mixed. And since UAV technology was meanwhile maturing rapidly, the decision was made to mothball the TARPS pods and support gear. It was during the TARPS test program that Ian Doyle was part of the Hondo Expedition.
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By the time that the USAF got involved, the TARPS pods were a well-matured technology. Most of the technical support was supplied by civilian contractors from Grumman, the company that had originally developed the system. The seventeen-foot, 1,850-pound pods were essentially a strap-on system, adaptable to many types of aircraft. They could be mounted on standard hard points. First developed for Navy F-14s and Marine Corps F/A-18s, the TARPS pods were, as one of the Grumman camera technicians put it, “foolproof and pilotproof, but then, I repeat myself.”
The expedition included four F-16s—two for missions and two for spares and side trips—four mission pilots, and a C-130 to shuttle the support crew and umpteen spare parts—both for the planes and for the TARPS pods. The TDY rotation was five months, making it just short of the six-month threshold for a PCS. This made the personnel paperwork easier and reduced the overall cost of the program.
All of the pilots were housed at the “White House” (La Casa Blanca), the guest quarters in Tegucigalpa that were run by the American embassy, in Colonia Loma Linda Norte district, on La Avenida FAO. The White House was a gathering place of myth and legend. It served as the catchall for visiting company-grade military officers, CIA types on temporary assignment, and assorted contractors on government business. The atmosphere was jovial and there were even some fraternity-style bashes on weekends. The CIA officers called it a safe house, but its presence was hardly clandestine. Even the local newspaper mentioned it from time to time, often by its nicknames, Rick’s Café Américain or Rick’s Place, in honor of the Humphrey Bogart movie Casablanca.
Junior officers at La Casa Blanca were expected to share rooms. Ian Doyle’s roommate was Bryson Pitcher, an Air Force intelligence first lieutenant, who was permanent party with the intel cell at the American embassy.
Shortly after meeting Pitcher, Ian Doyle summed up the Expedition to him: “It’s an intense assignment, but a good one. I’ll fly three, maybe four missions a week, all in daylight hours, and they are just six hours each. Other than some intel briefing dog and pony shows once every ten or twelve days either here or down at Soto Cano, I get all the rest of my days off to hike, swim, and see the sights. My only regret is that this is only a five-month TDY. I wish it were a couple of years, to really soak up the local culture.”
Bryson’s curiosity was piqued. “Well, what are you doing, exactly? This is the first time I’ve seen F-16s in Hondo. We haven’t heard squat about it, even in the intel shop.”
“I could tell you, but then I’d have to shoot you.”
Bryson snorted.
Ian grinned and said, “Just kidding. What’s your clearance?”
“TS-SBI, with a bunch of funny little letters after that, for SCI compartments that I can’t tell you about.”
“Well, what do you do here, Bryson, in a nutshell?”
“I task and receive reports from a bunch of overeducated NCOs, and we analyze them for liaison with the Honduran government and for an unspecified strategic mission.”
“Stuff from aircraft?” Doyle asked.
“Nope. Stuff from, ah . . . non-air-breathing platforms.”
“Ahhh, gotcha.” Hearing the euphemism for spy satellites made it clear to Doyle that he could ask no further questions.
“Okay, well, then, I guess I can certainly talk about the basics, even though you’re in the strategic world, while my bailiwick is mostly tactical. A little crossover, I suppose. You’ll probably get briefed in a week or two, anyway.”
Bryson nodded.
Ian looked up at the slowly rotating ceiling fan and asked, “Are you familiar with a system called TARPS?”
“Sure, it’s the Navy’s pod-mounted photo recon system. It’s pretty idiotproof, as long as they remember to hook up the external power and use a squirt of Windex before they take off.”
“That’s the one. Were going to be using F-16s with TARPS pods flying recon over Colombia, keeping track of the, ahem, ‘opposition’s’ troop movements. Meanwhile there are some Army intelligence guys, using a system called Guardrail, out of Panama, to monitor the FARC’s radio transmissions. You piece all that intel together, along with what you guys up in ‘Echelons Above Reality’ provide, and that gives a pretty complete picture for the theater command, most of which—after it’s properly sanitized—can get shared with the host country.”
Doyle sat up and turned to look at Pitcher, and continued: “It’s pretty straightforward stick-and-rudder stuff. I just follow the preprogrammed flight profiles: Fly to these coordinates, spiral down to this altitude and assume this heading and fly straight and level for x minutes until you’re at these coordinates, then turn to this heading and fly x minutes, then climb out, suck some gas at a tanker, and return to base.”
Pitcher chided, “Ha! One of the new UAVs could probably handle that—from a lot closer in than Hondo.”
“No kidding. I’ve been told that it was more political than anything else, to show support for the Colombian and Honduran governments—you know, show the flag. So they didn’t want just a ‘man in the loop’ but an actual ‘man on the stick.’ For reasons of physical security on the ground, they couldn’t base our planes in-country in Colombia, so they decided to base us at Tegucigalpa.”
“Wouldn’t it be safer for the planes to be at Soto Cano?”
“Yes, but El Presidente likes F-16s, so he insisted, since this is just a five-month gig, that we be here in the capital, rather than at Soto Cano. I think he’s hoping to get a ‘dollar ride’ in a D-model.”
“Do you have any two-seaters down here?”
“No, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that magically get added to the scope of the mission.”
“So basing at Colombia was out, and the political fix was in for Tegucigalpa. Better for you, anyway. At Soto Cano, you’d be living in some corrugated steel hooch with no running water,” Bryson summarized.
“Yeah, it would be muy jodido to have some FARC dude blow up a couple of F-16s on the ramp. As I recall, Vipers were nineteen million dollars per copy, back when the last ones rolled off the assembly line. Now that production has shut down, the airframes are basically irreplaceable. It would be very bad PR if we lost one.”
“So you poor baby! You have three or four days a week on your hands for the next five months to chase skirts and to sip Port Royal beer. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you all the best places to go, and I have friends with cars that can take you there.”
“I’m not much of a skirt chaser. You see, I believe in courting ladies, not dating them. But I have been known to enjoy a good beer.”
“In moderation, no doubt.”
Doyle echoed, “Yes, exactly: in moderation.”
Bryson punched his shoulder. “I think you’re gonna have a blast here.”
Doyle’s plans for the next five months changed radically the next day when he heard what he later called the voice of an angel, as he came in for a landing approach after a forty-minute operational test flight with the newly fitted TARPS pod. The voice on the radio from the control tower sounded enchanting, obviously that of a young woman. Soon after hitting the tarmac, he asked the liaison crew chief about the voice. The master sergeant replied, “Oh, that’s Blanca Araneta. But I’ve gotta warn you: She’s single, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two, and she’s an absolute doll. But she’s made of pure unobtanium. Many before you have tried and failed, young Jedi.”
Doyle immediately took that as a challenge. He got his first glimpse of the young woman as he loitered outside the control tower during the evening shift change. He spotted her just as she stepped into her car, a battered old Mercedes station wagon. Ian was surprised to see that, having heard she was from a wealthy family. She drove away before he had the chance to approach her and introduce himself. She was indeed a beautiful woman, with large, expressive eyes, a perfectly symmetrical face, and full lips. Her shoulder-leng
th black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Ian Doyle was smitten.
He immediately started gathering intelligence and planning a strategy. He first learned that Blanca was indeed from a wealthy family that lived about an hour’s drive north of the air base. After much prying with other members of the control tower staff, Doyle found out that Blanca Araneta was a recent graduate of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras and was a licensed private pilot. To Ian this meant bonus points: finding a woman with whom he could talk aviation and not have her eyes glaze over. She still lived in an apartment near the university.
Further inquiries garnered the married name of her college roommate: Consuelo Dalgon, a linguistics major who now taught public school and lived near the airport. Blanca still had a close friendship with Dalgon. After buying a few more beers, he was given Dalgon’s phone number. That same evening, Ian phoned her, explaining that he was TDY and was looking for a Spanish tutor. Dalgon immediately answered affirmatively, explaining that she had married another recent graduate who was just getting started as a management trainee, so she could use the extra money.
Ian’s lessons began the next Saturday at the Dalgons’ apartment. Not only did he get a thorough immersion course in Spanish, but he also began to pick up tidbits about the mysterious Señorita Blanca Araneta.
He learned that Blanca’s father, Arturo Araneta y Vasquez, was a semiretired mining engineer and investor. He was also a former member of the Honduran Olympic tennis team.
Consuelo confided to Ian that Blanca had told her that she hated tennis. This was because she had been forced to take tennis lessons from an early age. Doyle learned that Blanca loved swimming and aerobatic flying. He was also told that Blanca read and wrote English much better than she spoke it.
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