Heroes Proved

by Oliver North

  Roberto, leaning attentively from his chair, interjected anxiously, “Martin, we have less than two feet of freeboard over the tank deck. Without pumps we will not stay afloat through the night. It is already getting very dark. If we broach and capsize we may not make it out. We should go while we still can.”

  Cohen stood, looked out into the gloom, and asked, “Do we have any lights?”

  “Only this,” Roberto replied, reaching up and twisting a switch on the panel above his right shoulder. A high-intensity lamp mounted atop the pilothouse lit up the area in front of them like the headlights of a car in a snowstorm.

  “It’s better than nothing; leave it on. Pull up your life vests. Don’t inflate them until you go over the side or into the water. Let’s get ready to go.”

  Ahmad repeated the order in Persian and the two lifeboat teams lined up as instructed at the port and starboard hatches, awaiting Cohen’s signal. Rikki stayed at the wheel, attempting to hold the sinking vessel straight downwind until the last second.

  “We go after the next wave!” Cohen shouted. As soon as he felt the bow begin to pitch up he yelled, “Now!”

  Ahmad, Cohen, and Ebi bolted out the port-side hatch and headed aft into the wind. Rikki, as instructed, remained on the bridge long enough to crank the helm lock down as hard as he could to hold the rudder centered. The other four were already out the starboard hatch and headed up the ladder to the top of the pilothouse by the time Rikki caught up to Cohen and his crew at their lifeboat station. They almost made it.

  Cohen had just hit the hydrostatic release button to pop open the fiberglass container when another towering wave hit, knocking all four men down and washing them forward along the safety rail. In the five seconds it took Cohen and the others to get back on their feet, the rolled-up lifeboat floated out of its container and washed over the side. As the package reached the end of its forty-foot tether, the raft inflated as advertised.

  Blown forward and alongside the ship by the wind, the lifeboat was now in danger of being cut to pieces as it battered the rusty hull. Grabbing the line holding the raft to the Ileana Rosario, Cohen popped the inflation canister on his life vest, shouted, “Follow me!” and started working his way forward to where the raft was being buffeted against the vessel.

  They were all knocked down again by another wave before they made their way to the raft. No one let go of his grip on the line, but both Ahmad and Ebi lost the submachine guns that had been slung over their shoulders. In the glow of the light atop the pilothouse they crawled one by one over the rail and flung themselves into the inflated orange oval. Cohen was the last one in, landing square on top of Ebi. As soon as they were untangled he shouted, “¡Rikki, corte la cuerda!”

  The helmsman-turned-deckhand promptly pulled a knife out of his pocket, flicked it open, severed the line, and pushed them away from the sinking tanker. In a matter of seconds the beam emanating from the pilothouse was all but invisible. Rocking wildly in the wind, nearly blinded by the spray, Cohen grasped his chem-light, held it out in front of himself, cracked the plastic tube to activate it, and shouted to the others, “Turn on your lights!”

  In the dim illumination of the four chemical lights fastened to their life vests he located the lifeboat’s survival kit, canopy, sea anchor, and collapsible canvas buckets. With Ahmad and Ebi busy bailing, he and Rikki deployed the sea anchor and set up the canopy to protect them from the driving spray. Then, with everyone else occupied, he felt around the exterior of the inflated raft until he found what he was looking for.

  The little buoy, about the size and shape of a liter-sized soda bottle with a pencil sticking from the top, was floating behind them, tethered to the raft by a nylon cord. A tiny, blinking LED indicated its water-activated battery was working.

  Leaning far over the side of the raft, he pulled the apparatus close and flipped it over so he could see the number on the bottom. Holding Tico’s light in his teeth and wiping the blinding spray from his eyes, he read the tiny print: MMSI #775-425791C; CAT I 406MHz/121.5MHz.

  Satisfied he had done everything possible to save their lives, Cohen let the device slip into the water, pulled himself into the life raft, rolled onto his back, closed his eyes, and recalled the hymn he first heard at the Naval Academy fifty-eight years before:

  Eternal Father, strong to save,

  Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,

  Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep

  Its own appointed limits keep:

  O hear us when we cry to thee

  For those in peril on the sea . . .

  To which he added, Father, cause someone who cares to hear our EPIRB.

  CAIR PARAVEL

  ATLANTIC AVENUE

  PAWLEYS ISLAND, SC

  WEDNESDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER 2032

  2100 HOURS, LOCAL

  As usual at the beach, the kids ate dinner before the grownups. Afterward, as Peter and Elizabeth prepared a meal for the adults, Sarah gave the twins a bath while James read a chapter of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped to Seth and Josh. Pirate stories were always better at the beach. There followed a protracted negotiation between Josh and Seth over who would have the top or bottom bunk in “the boy cousins’ bedroom.”

  James successfully arbitrated an agreement that they would—as usual—take turns and the order—as usual—would be decided by tossing a coin. Seth won. Joshua grumbled, “As usual,” and snuggled beneath the covers of the bottom bunk. They were asleep in minutes.

  When Peter, James, Sarah, Elizabeth, and Mack Caperton assembled around the table, Peter—as usual—began by asking God’s blessing for the meal. After that, almost nothing about the evening went “as usual.”

  Dinner conversation, normally light and filled with family chatter about the day’s activities, was instead consumed with planning their next steps. The only levity revolved around the surgical removal of James’s PERT earlier in the day.

  * * * *

  Peter and Sarah took all four boys on an expedition down the nearly deserted beach, ostensibly on a quest for starfish, interesting shells, sharks’ teeth, or the most impressive finds possible at Pawleys—intact sand dollars and sea urchins. Back at the house, Elizabeth, Mack, and James took over Peter’s small office and turned it into a surreal surgical suite.

  They closed the blinds, taped aluminum foil over the windows, and erected a small aluminum-foil tent on Peter’s desk. Elizabeth assembled her surgical instruments and told her brother to sit down in the desk chair and rest his right foot beneath the “tent.” She and Mack pulled on latex gloves and with Mack holding a desk lamp in one hand and passing instruments to her with the other, it took her less than five minutes to extract the PERT from between James’s toes, wash it in alcohol, deposit the tiny device in the lead-lined leather pouch, and close up the incision.

  * * * *

  “So what kind of patient was he?” Peter asked as they passed the salad around the table.

  “It’s not dinner conversation, Dad,” Elizabeth replied.

  “Why?”

  “Because his foot smelled really bad. Nurse Caperton can confirm that.”

  “All true,” the senator chimed in with a laugh.

  “Aw, give me a break,” James said. “If your foot had been wrapped in aluminum foil for days, your foot would smell, too.”

  “James,” Elizabeth replied, “a lady’s feet never smell—right, Sarah?”

  “Absolutely. And James, I must tell you—after being married to you for ten years on Friday, your feet often smell.”

  “Okay, okay, so give me some foot powder for our anniversary.”

  “Sorry I started this,” said Peter. “I was really trying to find out what kind of doctor your sister is. Did it hurt?”

  “No. I really never felt a thing. Whatever that stuff is you sprayed on it, sis, it completely numbs all sensation.”

  “It’s actually a fast-acting neuron blocker that stops the transmission of all sensation from the site where it is applied.
In the dosage I used, the effects last for a few hours, but by applying the ECM material immediately after extracting the PERT, it’s unlikely you will have any discomfort. Barring an infection, the site should be completely healed in a day or two. I checked all the cuts I made yesterday and they all look fine.”

  “Did you do Sarah, Dad, and the kids the same way you did me?”

  “Uh huh. Except I did all theirs in the sick bay at the CSG Ops Center with better light in a TEMPEST-hardened facility, so I didn’t have to operate under aluminum foil or work so fast. And of course, they didn’t cry and their feet didn’t smell.”

  * * * *

  There was no more laughter at the table. Shortly after the good-natured sibling rivalry, Mack Caperton reached into his pocket, pulled out his PID, excused himself, and went into the living room to take a call.

  The others heard him say, “Caperton.” Then a few moments later, “Okay, go ahead and send it. I’ll get back to you if I need more. Thank you.”

  There was silence for a minute or so. When Mack returned to the table, holding the PID, he said, “That was my lieutenant commander friend at the U.S. Coast Guard Ops Center. He just came on duty and forwarded a message they transmitted about two hours ago.” He handed his PID to Peter so he could read the text:

  1. USMCC AUTOMATED SARSAT ALERT SYSTEM REPORTS TWO EPIRBS REGISTERED TO LIFEBOATS ABD MV ILEANA ROSARIO, IMO#775-425791 ARE TRANSMITTING DISTRESS/RESCUE SIGNALS ON 406.0MHZ/121.5MHZ.

  2. VESSEL IS CONTRABAND SUSPECT AND DNR TO RADIO OR DATA COMMS. NGA, FT. BELVOIR NOTIFIED.

  3. MEOSAR/DASS INDICATES POSITIONS AS FOLLOWS:

  IMO#775-425791A: 22°16’44.2"N; 88°28’2.7"W

  IMO#775-425791C: 22°10’28.9"N; 88°33’58.6"W

  1. NO VIZ/IR SAT/UAV COVERAGE AVAIL DUE TO HURRICANE LUCY.

  2. USN PROV P-8B AND HSV SUPPORT FOR SAR ASST.

  3. CDR USCG DIST. EIGHT DESIG. RCC OIC/POC.

  4. SECDEF CONCURS.

  BT

  After reading the message, Peter passed the PID to James, who in turn handed it to Sarah. Elizabeth, reading over Sarah’s shoulder, said, “Mack, you guys may get all this but it’s Greek to me. How about a translation?”

  Taking the PID back, Caperton scrolled to the top of the message and said, “Okay, here’s the short form of what it means. USMCC is the U.S. Satellite Mission Control Center in Suitland, Maryland, run by NOAA. Their automated SARSAT alert system is reporting that two EPIRBs from lifeboats on the Ileana Rosario have been activated—”

  “Back up,” Sarah interrupted. “SARSAT? EPIRB?”

  “Sorry,” said Mack, “lots of acronyms. SARSAT—Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking. EPIRB is Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon—every ship and lifeboat is required to carry them.”

  “What are all the numbers?”

  “The ship’s International Maritime Organization registration number. The first three digits tell us it is registered in Venezuela. The last six identify it as the Ileana Rosario—a contraband suspect. The A and C tell us that it has likely deployed two of at least three lifeboats. DNR is short for ‘does not respond.’ NGA is the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.”

  “What’s MEOSAR/DASS and all those numbers in the third paragraph?”

  “Medium Earth Orbit Search and Rescue—Distress-Alerting Satellite System—and all those numbers are the latitude and longitude of those two EPIRBs. It works with GPS—Global Positioning System—satellites, just like a PERT.”

  “Like a PERT?” Sarah exclaimed, grabbing the locket suspended around her neck.

  “Yes,” Peter interjected, “but with different data. Unshielded, your PERT identifies who you are and where you are—just like an EPIRB.”

  “Let me guess,” said Sarah, “the ‘no viz/ir sat/uav coverage avail’ means that there is no visual or infrared satellite or unmanned aerial vehicle coverage available because of Hurricane Lucy.”

  “Well done!” said James. “How did you know that?”

  “I’ve heard you talk for a decade. You didn’t think I was listening?”

  “Okay, Mack,” Elizabeth said, “what’s P-8B and HSV support?”

  “A P-8B is a U.S. Navy patrol aircraft, twin-engine jet—jammed full of sensors. The ones flying over the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico do a lot of surveillance, pinpointing Russian and Venezuelan submarines, chasing drug runners, and ever since climate change became a ‘major threat,’ tracking storms like Hurricane Lucy. HSVs—high-speed vessels—are those big water-jet-propelled multi-mission catamarans the Navy uses for special warfare operations.”

  “And the stuff at the end?”

  “It tells everyone Coast Guard District Eight Headquarters in New Orleans is the Rescue Coordination Center for this mission. The message doesn’t have his name in it, but that’s Rear Admiral Jeb Livingood. He’s designated as officer in charge and point of contact, and last, the Secretary of Defense has approved the Navy aircraft and surface support.”

  Peter waited until everyone had their questions answered and then asked one of his own: “Mack, how sure are we Marty Cohen ever made it to the Ileana Rosario?”

  “We’re not. My young friend in Coast Guard Intel and I are about the only ones who seem to have drawn that conclusion.”

  “Tell me again how you arrived at it.”

  “We know the time he was taken aboard that black speedboat—we have that on visual. We know the time the boat passed the sea buoy at the mouth of Galveston Bay and it does not show up in any port covered by our satellites or UAVs. Computer models show there were two possible link-ups in the Gulf—the Ileana Rosario and the Orfeo. Both vessels are coastal tankers and both are suspected drug runners.”

  “What do we know about where the Orfeo is now?”

  “Nothing. It’s disappeared. It may have gone down in the hurricane.”

  “Then we have to hope Marty is either safely ashore somewhere or he’s in one of those lifeboats. Let’s take a look at where that message says they are. I have a chart book in my office.”

  All five got up from the table and gathered around the desk Elizabeth had used as a surgical table for her brother. Peter grabbed a book of nautical charts, flipped it open to one showing the Gulf of Mexico, and said, “You were the swabbie, Mack, but it looks to me like those two EPIRBs are just north of the Yucatan Peninsula.”

  Mack checked the lat/long on his PID, bent over the chart, and said, “Well, if the hurricane holds its present course, it will blow them ashore right in the Federation Cartel’s home turf.”

  “The Federation Cartel, what’s that?” Elizabeth asked.

  “It’s the biggest criminal enterprise in the world,” Mack responded. “The ‘Federation’ is the ruling drug cartel in Mexico. They won a bloody, twenty-year-long turf war against six other cartels—and the government of Mexico—to control the shipment of cocaine and heroin into the U.S. and Europe.”

  “Wasn’t ‘legalization’ supposed to stop all that?”

  Caperton put away his PID, stood upright, and said, “That’s what people said when Congress voted to legalize and tax marijuana and then hashish. Remember, it was supposed to produce revenue for local, state, and of course the federal government. And of course legalization was going to make the hard stuff—cocaine, meth, heroin, and the like—less desirable. It didn’t work. If the classified HHS data is right, there are nearly forty million people in our country who routinely use cocaine, heroin, or some other opiate—”

  “Wait a minute, Mack,” Elizabeth interrupted. “That’s nearly ten percent of the U.S. population. And what’s this about the Department of Health and Human Services having classified data?”

  “HHS has lots of classified information nowadays—on pathogens being developed in bioengineering labs, naturally occurring communicable diseases, our supplies of various vaccines—even records on who travels to places where outbreaks of certain diseases occur. And yes, the number of users is staggering, but it’s twice as bad in Europe. The
Federation lets the other cartels deal the soft stuff—marijuana, hash, and meth—and the Fed Cartel controls the distribution of the hard stuff—cocaine from the Andean basin and heroin out of Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Fed also runs most of Mexico today, and the Yucatan Peninsula is their private domain.”

  “What’s that mean for Dr. Cohen?” asked Sarah.

  “Well,” said Mack, pointing at the chart, “if Marty is ashore there, he’s gone from the frying pan into the fire. The Fed’s enforcers are very well armed and absolutely vicious. They’re the ones who overran that National Guard outpost on the Arizona-Mexico border back in ’27.”

  “I remember,” Sarah interjected. “The newsies called it ‘the Massacre at Fort McCain.’ But it was like a one-day story and then it disappeared.”

  The senator nodded and said, “You’re correct. Over two hundred Federation enforcers crossed into the U.S. through the Tohono O’odham Autonomous Territory in armored vehicles and overran a National Guard border checkpoint using mortars, RPGs, and heavy machine guns. They killed and beheaded all twelve Guardsmen before escaping across the border.”

  “But why didn’t we hear more about it? Wasn’t there supposed to be a congressional investigation?”

  “The president declared the event to be a classified national security matter and then had the Attorney General lock up the two reporters who tried to dig into the attack. Two days later ‘big media’ dropped the story like a hot rock. That pretty much finished independent journalism in the U.S. I was on the Senate Homeland Security Committee and called for an investigation but the Progressives spiked it. They’re the majority on every committee and control whether we can subpoena records from the executive branch.”

  Peter remained silent through this exchange, but as he put away the chart book he said, “I think we ought to move the CSG HRU to Mexico City before Hurricane Lucy makes landfall. If we get the team on the ground before the storm hits, they will be in position to move if we get any info on Marty’s whereabouts.” He turned to his son and asked, “James, what do you think?”