HAMMERHEADS
DALE BROWN
Copyright © 1990 by Dale Brown, Inc.
Hammerhead insignia copyright © 1990 by Dale Brown, Inc.
V-22 Osprey Joint Service Aircraft diagram, pp. xii-xiii, courtesy of Bell-Boeing.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Published in the United States of America by Donald I. Fine, Inc. and in Canada by General Publishing Company Limited.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brown, Dale, 1956-
Hammerheads / by Dale Brown, p. cm.
Title.
PS3552.R68543H3 1989
813'.54—dc20 89-46026 CIP
Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6
Designed by Irving Perkins Associates
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or publisher.
To Jean—
yes, you deserve it
and
to Mayme—
you ’re the greatest!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Hammerheads was conceived in December of 1988 in a quaint old restaurant in London, England, during a relaxing dinner with Jonathan Lloyd, managing director of Grafton Books, and my agents George and Olga Wieser. It was they who planted the idea in my mind to investigate the world of drug trafficking and drug interdiction, an area I previously knew little about, and it is to them that I wish to thank first of all for their ideas, suggestions, and encouragement.
I would like to thank the following individuals, agencies, and companies for their invaluable assistance in the making of Hammerheads:
United States Customs Service: To Joe Krokos, Ralph Muser and Ed Perez, for arranging a very enlightening visit to all the south Florida operations; Lt. Cmdr. Jim Wade and Gene Wilcox at C-3 and C-3-I radar centers in Miami; to all the agents of the Blue Thunder Marine Division for a thrilling ride in their big interceptors; to Inspectors Frank Mullin, Mike Norwood, and Michael Holloway of the Contraband Enforcement Team, who showed me the “down and dirty” (and “saucy!”) side of drug interdiction; and to Senior Inspector Roger Garland, pilot Dave Sherrey, and the other professionals of the Miami Air Branch, for their hospitality during my visit to the nation’s best drug air interdiction unit.
United States Coast Guard: A very special thanks to Lt. Jeff Karo- nis, Chief of Public Affairs, Seventh Coast Guard District in Miami, for arranging a spectacular visit to the Coast Guard’s Miami and Ft. Lauderdale operations; to Capt. Kent Vallantyne, former commander of Coast Guard Air Station Miami, the world’s busiest search and rescue operation; to Lt. Kevin Rahl and his HU-25C Falcon crew for a spectacular air patrol; to Lt. Curry, commander of the Coast Guard patrol boat WPB-1302 Manitou; and to Lt. Scott Burhoe and the men and women of Coast Guard Station Ft. Lauderdale, for their time and helpfulness.
To Terry Arnold and Bob Leder of Bell Helicopter Textron and everyone at the Bell-Boeing Joint Development Team, Arlington, Texas, for their help in providing information on the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft;
To my wife, Jean, for legal research into federal agency reorganization regulations and for her valuable advice and help; and to Dennis Hall, for his help in arranging research trips, gathering information, and for his support;
Thanks to Air Force Major Ronald D. Fuchs, Deputy Director and Chief of Media Relations, Western Region, Air Force Office of Public Affairs, for the information he provided that was invaluable in understanding the border security responsibilities of the U.S. Air Force;
To the U.S. Naval Institute Military Database, for information on defense data for nations of the Caribbean and South America; and to the CompuServe Information Service, Columbus, Ohio, for information and assistance in a wide array of topics.
Details on fighter air combat maneuvers in the various chapters provided by Robert L. Shaw’s Fighter Combat, Tactics and Maneuvering (Naval Institute Press, 1987).
Text from a news briefing by Dick Cheney, U.S. Secretary of Defense, at the Pentagon, 18 September 1989:
“There can be no doubt that international trafficking in drugs is a national security problem for the United States. Therefore, detecting and countering the production and trafficking of illegal drugs is a high-priority, national security mission of the Department of Defense.
“We will work hard to stop the delivery of drugs on their way to the United States and at our borders and ports of entry. Deploying appropriate elements of the armed forces with the primary mission of cutting off the flow of drugs should help reduce the flow of drugs into the country over time. At the very least, it will immediately complicate the challenge of getting illegal drugs into America and increase the cost and risk of drug smuggling.
“. . . The Department of Defense will be the lead agency in performing the interdiction mission.”
(from “Defense 89,” official publication of the U.S. Department of Defense, American Forces Information Service, Alexandria, VA, November-December 1989)
Aircraft Characteristics
Spread_________________ _________
Length ....................................... 57' 4"
Width .......................................... 84' 7"
Height......................................... 22'. 7"
Folded _____________________ ____
Length ....................................... 62' 7"
Width .......................................... 18' 5"
Height......................................... 18' 1"
Take-Off Weights__________________
VTOL/STOL .......................... 55,000 lb.
Self Deploy STOL ................ 60,500 lb.
Fuel Capacity........................ 2015 gal.
V-22 Osprey Joint Service Aircraft
MISSIONS
U.S. Marine Corps — MV-22
Vertical Assault Transport of troops, equipment and supplies from amphibious assault ships and land bases.
U.S. Navy — HV-22
Strike Rescue, delivery and retrieval of special warfare teams, and logistics transportation in support of the fleet.
U.S. Air Force — CV-22
Long Range special operations missions, insertion and extraction of U.S. Army special forces teams and equipment at mission radii in excess of 500NM.
U.S. Army — MV-22
Aeromedical evacuation, special operations, long range combat logistics support, combat air assault and low intensity conflict support.
DESCRIPTION____________________________________________________
—Two 38 foot rotor systems
—Powered by two Allison T406-AD-400 engines — 6150 SHP each —Operates as a helicopter when taking off and landing vertically —Nacelles rotate 90 degrees forward once airborne, converting the aircraft into a turboprop airplane —Speeds from hover to 300 knots
—Transmission interconnect shaft in case of an engine failure
—Folds for stowage aboard ship
—70% composite construction
—Crashworthy troop and crew seats
—Two 10,000 lb. external cargo hooks
—Rescue hoist
—Cargo winch and pulley system for internal cargo loads —Aft loading ramp
—Capable of all weather, day/night, low-level, nap-of-the-earth flight
—Continuous operation in moderate icing
—Inflight refueling
—Ballistic tolerant
-Self-deployable world-wid
e
DEVELOPMENT
First Flight......................................................................................1988
Service Use ................................................................................... 1992
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
Joint Tactical Drug Interdiction Information Center,
Miami Air Traffic Control Center, Miami, Florida
They called it the “witching hour,” the time from 8:00 P.M. to 1:00 A.M., when the smugglers seemed to come out of the woodwork. Like cockroaches, they said, when the sun went down the smuggler came out.
In the basement of Miami Air Traffic Control Center, three men were looking for them. These men, two Customs Service agents and one Coast Guard petty officer, were manning the radar screens of the Joint Tactical Drug Interdiction Information Center, known as JTDIIC, where all air traffic in the southeast United States was kept under watch. On the two twenty-four-inch radar screens in the boxlike room the JTDIIC, call sign SLINGSHOT, combined radar data from Federal Aviation Administration radars, aerostats—balloon- borne radars located in Florida, the Bahamas and Puerto Rico—and military radar units to form a composite picture of the hundreds of aircraft from North Carolina to New Orleans, including the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the eastern Caribbean and northern Cuba. They could scan aircraft, receive coded identification and flight data information, gain access to flight plans and Customs pre-declarations, talk with air-traffic controllers and vector in Customs Service or Coast Guard interceptor aircraft to trail a suspect aircraft.
In reality SLINGSHOT didn’t watch each and every aircraft out there—impossible for three men. Computers processed the information on the screens and squelched or eliminated aircraft not suspected of anything illegal or following suspect flight profiles. So, as far as possible, commercial airliners, local flights, aircraft cleared or talking with air-traffic control or aircraft on established airways and flying at normal route altitudes and airspeeds were electronically removed from the screen.
Theoretically, that left only the bad guys.
Theoretically.
Aircraft from foreign departure points were supposed to inform Customs of their arrival time and destination and to file flight plans when entering the coastal ADIZ, the Air Defense Identification Zones—huge blocks of airspace some as much as a hundred and fifty miles wide along the edges of North America’s borders that were scanned by the military to warn of any hostile aircraft approaching the continent.
Since it was illegal to fly anywhere in the huge Bahamas island chain at night, aircraft flying to or from the Bahamas after sunset were immediately suspect. Of course, any plane flying very low to the water or obviously trying to skirt the fixed radar sites along the coast were suspect.
Despite this being the witching hour it seemed to be shaping up to be a pretty quiet evening. Jose Gusman, a Customs Service GS-13 from Hialeah, yawned sleepily as he rolled a cursor across his screen onto a red square on his radar screen. The red indicated that the return was not “squawking,” transmitting any coded identification signals. He hit a button on his console and a small data block of numerals flashed on the screen: “UNK TR 4.” The return was an unknown, but from its altitude, airspeed and signal-strength information the computer had assigned it a track reliability of 4, which meant that it probably wasn’t an aircraft at all—more likely an isolated thundercloud or a flock of birds.
Gusman turned his attention away from the newcomer but did not forget about it—the computer was known to be wrong, this thundercloud could turn into a real plane. “Must be a storm brewing out there, I’m getting a lot of fuzz,” he said to his partner, Stan Wexfall.
“I got one that’s definitely not fuzz,” Wexfall said. “Take a look over Santa Clara.”
Gusman, reconfiguring his scope, knew where to look—central Cuba. Santa Clara was the location of a major Cuban airport and, more importantly, an air-navigation checkpoint on the South America to Florida smuggling run. But it was also a major air-traffic corridor, used every day, all day, by dozens of aircraft—but only for airlines friendly with the Castro regime. “1 got him now,” Gusman said. “No mode four or mode C.”
“Weird. Not transmitting any standard air-traffic control codes,” Wexfall said, zooming his scope in to an area thirty miles around the newcomer, “but flying right over central Cuba at night. The Cuban Air Force usually gets nervous about night flights—they scream bloody murder when we launch patrols near them at night.” Wexfall looked over at Gusman. “Military?”
“Gotta be,” Gusman replied. “The Cubans wouldn’t let an unidentified plane just fly around like that. We’ll have to call the Air Force or Navy to get a readout on him—we can’t display military IFF codes on our sets.” Gusman picked up his coffee cup and went over to a desk that had a computer terminal and printer and logged onto the system. “I’ll ask Navy if they got any codes on this guy.”
A few minutes later they received a response via the computer terminal: “Bingo. Message from naval intelligence: this guy is squawking military modes and codes.”
“Thought so.”
Wexfall continued to watch the target as it progressed northward. Suddenly: “Hey, look at this!”
The target symbol had changed from red to green as it crossed the northern coastline of Cuba—the aircraft had begun transmitting standard U.S. identification codes. Wexfall said, “Now he’s showing normal modes and codes. Bacchus 204 Delta. Altitude twelve thousand five hundred, airspeed two-forty, dead on the airway.” Gusman turned to the computer terminal again, this time to get a copy of any flight plans the newcomer may have filed.
This guy was smarter than most. A lot of smugglers, either unaware of the extensive surveillance network in south Florida or just willing to take a chance, never activated their IFF radios or attempted to contact anyone by radio. Such activities were prima facia evidence of smuggling and they become fair game for Customs and Coast Guard interceptors.
But smugglers were getting savvy to procedures. It was a simple matter for them to file the proper entry-request forms and use their radios, thereby greatly increasing their chances of safely entering the country. And once over land they could pretty much navigate unmolested.
“Filed for entry yesterday, processed, verified and approved,” Gusman said. “Departed Santa Marta, Colombia, three hours ago. Destination St. Petersburg. Two passengers carrying bank records and accounting materials.”
Heads turned toward Gusman when he read “Colombia.” Flights from Colombia and Bolivia, the drug producing and export centers of the Western world, were tops on the list of countries watched by Customs.
Gusman returned to the terminal keyboard. “I’ll run a cross-check on the port-of-entry request and the hit list,” he said. He was excited—one of the few things that kept people going at the job was getting involved in a major drug bust.
Gusman entered keywords from the port-of-entry request to crosscheck with the hit list—the names of arrests or busted smugglers with the name “Bacchus” in the database. The system would now try to match those keywords with the files headed “Bacchus.”
During the search Wexfall kept track on the suspect while he turned over area-wide surveillance to the third Coast Guard specialist. Ten minutes later Gusman called out, “I got something. Nineteen seventy-two. Damn near identical flight path, except back then the guy didn’t file a port-of-entry request. Early evening flight, directly across Cuba, departure Santa Maria, reported as an in-and-out— never landed, just flew in and flew out. Call sign: Bacchus one-seven- three X-ray November.”
“Yeah, but he’s got a flight plan this time,” Wexfall said
. “He’s cleared to enter. He—”
The printer clattered to life again. “Another hit. Nineteen eighty. Flights recorded by a Bacchus aircraft, Santa Marta and Cartagena, Colombia, to Saint Pete, Sarasota and Bradenton. Checked out good for several weeks except once for an apparent no-show after reporting in to Miami Center. Flights discontinued soon after.” He read on further, then added: “Manifest says he was carrying—what else?— accounting materials.”
Wexfall checked his screen. The target had crossed over Cuba and was out into the Strait of Florida on course for St. Petersburg, making no attempt to avoid the aerostat site or Navy radar sites at Key West and still transmitting the proper I.D. codes.
“What now, Stan?” Gusman said. “Get someone up there to check him out?”
“On what grounds? He’s not an unknown. He’s been cleared in. Bacchus is a common enough name—you got fifty names like it on that printout. With only two old hits it’s pretty weak.”
“But this guy matches up with previous suspects,” Gusman said. “His chances of making it to Saint Pete are poor to nil.”
Wexfall still didn’t seem conv inced.
“We have the authority to launch a chase plane on our own—”
“I know, I know,” Wexfall said. As senior controller at SLINGSHOT, it was his decision. But every launch against a so-called probable suspect, especially night intercepts, was expensive and risky and laid a guy open to criticism—any mistake against a plane attempting to follow the rules could be disastrous. If it was a low-flying unidentified target the decision would be a lot easier. “The military codes worry me. Maybe we should ask the Air Force to get someone up there to check him out.”
“They’d laugh us right into tomorrow,” Gusman said.
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