“Don’t mention it, Admiral.” Three minutes later Hardcastle was racing across the brilliantly lit airport, heading north toward Opa- Locka Airport. .
Miami Coast Guard Air Station, Opa-Locka Airport, Florida
The CQ was completing his duty log when Hardcastle trotted into the operations center. Flustered, the Coast Guard lieutenant stumbled to his feet. “Admiral Hardcastle ...”
“Jeff, was that Falcon that just launched on an intercept?” Hardcastle hurriedly asked the pilot as he studied the duty board on the wall.
“Yes, sir,” the CQ, Lieutenant Jeff Teichert, replied. He followed Hardcastle’s gaze onto the duty board, pointing at the relevant line. “Commander Rawlins and Lieutenant j.g. Sandino’s crew is in alpha alert.” Quickly Teichert filled Hardcastle in on the sortie's scenario.
“Kev Rawlins is a good stick . . . and Sandino’s good too, but she’s green.” Hardcastle paused for a moment, then: “Squawking military codes, then switching to civilian codes? What’s the word from Air Ops?”
“Continue to track, identify if possible and advise,” Teichert told him, reading from the log. Not sure if he should instruct the admiral on something he might already be aware of, Teichert continued anyway: “Air Ops won’t decide for at least an hour whether to launch a Customs Service sortie.”
“Doesn’t make sense,” Hardcastle said. “Did they ask for a military unit?”
“Nothing on that has come over, sir.”
“Where are they now?”
“I haven’t been tracking them,” Teichert said uneasily. He turned on the descrambler to listen in on the radio conversations, and Hardcastle went to a map of the southeastern United States, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, ready to plot the Falcon’s position as it continued its pursuit.
Aboard the Coast Guard Falcon Reconnaissance Jet
“Three miles. One thousand feet above, closure rate twenty knots.”—Rawlins’ Falcon crew with Sandino at the controls had maneuvered to five miles of the plane with lights off, then circled around behind the quarry and was approaching carefully from the rear and slightly off its left side.
The Falcon’s FLIR, its forward-looking infrared scanner slaved to point in the same azimuth and elevation as the APG-66 radar, had locked onto the red-hot plane against the cold-winter ocean at ten miles. Cloud cover was minimal and the FLIR maintained a solid auto-track lock on the suspect aircraft.
“This guy’s burning up,” Conklin said. “Range two point eight, one thousand feet below us, closure rate twenty knots. His engines are white hot.”
“He’s probably leaned way back to save fuel,” Rawlins said. Reducing the ratio of fuel to air m the carburetor saved on fuel but greatly increased the engine’s operating temperature, which caused the striking infrared image on Conklin’s screen.
“We need some profile info for the tape, radar,” Sandino said over intercom. Rawlins pulled out a book of aircraft silhouettes. “Single or twin? Looks like a twin to me.”
“That checks, Lieutenant,” Conklin said. “Twin. Big sucker—looks like a medium-range commuter plane. High-wing, engine nacelles look like they’re under the wing. Big boxy shape. I’m getting it all on tape.”
“Any numbers yet?”
“Still too far,” Conklin said. “Two miles, closure rate fifteen.”
Rawlins noticed Sandino fidgeting at the controls. Up until now her procedures had been excellent, acknowledging all position calls, making the right corrections, not getting too anxious to close on the target. Now she was tense, alternately squeezing and kneading the throttles and control wheel. The jet began to feel as jittery as Sandino looked. “Ease up, Grade.”
“I ... I got a little dizzy . .
Rawlins positioned his hands near the controls but did not grab them. Staring out into a dark sky and focusing in on a tiny spot created a sensation, autorotation, where the spot begins to spiral around by itself. It was very easy to lose one’s sense of up and down, so much so that you would begin to steer the jet to follow the images your mind was creating. A lot of planes, he knew, were lost that way.
“Your wings are level, Gracie.” Grabbing the controls would have caused her to go into a panic to regain control, and being only a few hundred feet above water and travelling at four hundred feet per second, going out of control even for a few seconds would be fatal. “Wings level. Take a look at the horizon, get your bearings, don’t fixate on him. Relax.” The jiggling in the jet’s flight-path subsided, as she took a deep breath and relaxed her grip on the steering column.
“Thanks, Kev.”
“One point five miles, closure fifteen.”
“Keep it coming, Gracie,” Rawlins said. “Nice and easy.”
“Range one point two miles, five hundred feet below, closure twenty knots.”
“Ease off,” Rawlins said. “Keep it under fifteen this close.” Sandino made a barely perceptible throttle change and the big jet settled in to a more comfortable closure rate.
Time seemed to crawl along. The white image of the plane on the screen grew, its two wing-mounted engines glowing brightly. Conklin zoomed the FLIR to its maximum magnification as he studied the image on his screen.
“Look at that nose . . .” Conklin said, comparing the image to his own copy of the aircraft-identification book. “Commander, I make this guy as a Shorts 330 light cargo plane, like an Air Force Sherpa,” Conklin said, speaking out aloud for the benefit of the running video tape, which also recorded all radio conversations. “Those suckers can carry over three thousand pounds of cargo. Looks like a false cargo door on the plane's port side as well, maybe styrofoam or cloth.”
The image grew in size, and more details on the plane could be seen. Rawlins stared at the FLIR screen. “No nav radio antennae visible. No wheel pants. No aft cargo door. These guys ripped out every extraneous piece of metal to save weight.” Rawlins was on the radio to Opa-Locka, relaying the aircraft’s description for retransmission to the Customs Service.
“Range three zero hundred feet, one hundred feet below, closure fifteen knots,” Conklin reported. “You’re right, it looks like a smuggler’s plane to me . . . hey, it looks also like they spray-painted over their registration numbers ...”
Sandino checked the radar readouts on the screen. “C’mon, Conklin,” she said, her fists tight on the controls. “Read the damn numbers.”
On interphone Rawlins asked, “Any chance of reading those numbers, Conk?”
“Wait . . . wait . . . yes, I think I can get ’em. There’s only a thin coat of paint, and the numbers underneath are warmer than the paint.” As the image on the screen grew larger Conklin punched off the auto-track function of the FLIR, which had locked onto the plane’s left-engine nacelle, and slewed the FLIR scanner back along the plane’s fuselage.
Sandino was becoming more and more edgy as they moved closer. “Conk . .
“Few more seconds and I’ll—
Suddenly Conklin saw the side of the plane near the cargo door grow dark and a man could be seen inside the plane, moving around. There was a hint of motion . . . then a long tongue of blinding white light lashed out toward the Falcon, obliterating the entire infrared image in a yellow-and-white haze. In the cockpit all Rawlins and Sandino saw was a bright flash of light cutting through the darkness from somewhere on the horizon . . .
“Gun!” Conklin called out. “Port turn.”
Rawlins was barely able to grab the controls, put in full throttle and haul the jet into a left turn before the heavy caliber bullets from the smuggler’s plane found their target. The shells ripped through the heavy Plexiglas canopy on the right side, one shell hitting Kelly Sandino in the face, others tearing across her right shoulder before Rawlins could fully turn away. The shells continued to rip through the fuselage, a few piercing the pressure skin and pinging around inside the cabin, before the fusillade found the starboard turbofan engine. One shell pierced the first and second stage turbine blades, sending shards of metal blasting through t
he engine and tearing apart fuel lines. The engine exploded as the ruptured fuel lines pumped a gallon of volatile jet fuel onto the growing fire every few seconds.
The loss of the right engine sent the Falcon jet into a wild swing to the right as Rawlins held in the hard left turn. Now the jet was twisting in two directions at once, which combined with the loss of the right engine’s thrust bled off precious airspeed needed to keep the thirty-thousand-pound jet flying. As if the jet had been plucked from midair, it hung in a full-stall at ninety degrees of bank, then fell directly downward and crashed into the sea.
Hardcastle stood smoking a cigar in the CQ’s office, staring out the window towards the flight line. Teichert was still juggling phones and radios, trying to keep at least three different agencies up on what was going on with the suspected drug smugglers. Hardcastle had considered trying to help the swamped clerk but that would probably just make the guy even more nervous, he decided.
The ground-support crews had just finished towing a HH-65A Dolphin helicopter out of its hangar in preparation for its backup flight, and Hardcastle was watching the ground crew get her ready to fly when another phone rang—but, instead of a friendly jingle this one blew a whistle that sounded like the doomsday trumpets. Teichert lunged for a large red button on his console as he picked up a grease pencil and the receiver.
A warning horn sounded inside the ready room and out on the flight line as Teichert clicked on a microphone. “Scramble, scramble, helo two, aircraft down over ocean, four souls on board, button one. Repeat, helo two, aircraft down over ocean, four souls on-board, vector on button one.” The maintenance men put final touches on their work and moved clear as the flight-and-rescue crews ran out the doors toward the waiting chopper.
“What the hell happened, Teichert?” Hardcastle shouted over the horn.
“SLINGSHOT lost contact with our Falcon. They say the plane may have crashed.”
Hardcastle turned to watch as the HH-65 started engines and made ready for takeoff, then turned angrily toward the CQ. “Jeff, I want another Dolphin, a flight crew and two armed men on-board and ready for takeoff in five minutes.” Teichert wasn’t going to second-guess the admiral this time—he called another Dolphin crew together without another word.
When the Dolphin flight crew—two pilots, a crew chief/hoist operator, and rescue specialist—reported to the CQ’s office, Hardcastle was the one issuing orders. “We’re going after that smuggler—the first Dolphin will get the Falcon crew. Lieutenant McAlister, get your helo ready to go in five. I’ll sign the flight orders—get going/ The pilot, copilot and crew chief hurried off. Hardcastle scanned the paperwork Teichert began putting on the desktop, then told Roosevelt, the rescue man, to go to the armory and check out two M-16s, web gear, body armor and an ammo pack apiece. “Be on board that Dolphin by the time I get out there. Move.” Teichert tossed Roosevelt the keys to the armory as he rushed off, then put his finger on every place Hardcastle had to sign on the flight orders. He took a deep breath. “Sir, are you sure you know what you’re doing—”
Hardcastle gave the pilot a look. “Button it, Teichert . . .”
“Sir, I’m responsible for the procedures being followed around this ready room. You have the authority to take a helo, its crew, and rifles, sir, but when they ask me how come I let you do it . . .”
“You did your job,” Hardcastle said, finishing with the paperwork as Roosevelt hurried up to the admiral carrying weapons and combat gear. Hardcastle quickly buckled on a web belt and Velcroed on the body armor. “You followed orders and you questioned those orders when they didn’t make any sense,” he went on to Teichert as he affixed a three-clip ammo pouch to the belt. “Report my orders and my actions to Area headquarters if you think you have to, or call your commander, Captain Harbaugh.” Hardcastle grabbed an M-16 from Roosevelt and headed out toward the flight line, where the scream of a Dolphin helicopter’s turbines could be heard.
Teichert watched the tall figure run out onto the tarmac. The guy had a John Wayne complex, no doubt about it, he thought. A nut case—so the rumors went.
Customs Service Air Division Base, Homestead AFB, Florida
“This is what we got,” Special Agent Rushell Masters said as he slipped on his body-armor vest and secured it against his barrel chest. Six feet tall with curly red hair, two hundred and sixty pounds and built like a professional wrestler, Masters dwarfed his fellow agents, and the bulk of his body armor, utility vest and lifejacket only served to enhance his massive frame. “An unidentified cargo plane from Colombia is going around Key West radar into south Florida. A Coas- tie jet was chasing it when SLINGSHOT lost contact with it. They think it may have been attacked by the suspects.”
Masters was briefing the five-man operations crew of his UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter in preparation for taking up the chase of the smugglers. In addition to Masters, the crew pilot, the Black Hawk carried a copilot, two armed Customs Service agents and two Bahamian constables. The Bahamian police were carried on-board in case a smuggler tried to evade to the expansive Bahamas island chain—the U.S. Customs Service, with no jurisdiction in the Bahamas, acted as high-tech taxi drivers while the constables made the arrests.
“SLINGSHOT has maintained radar contact on the suspects,” Masters went on, “and we have been directed to—” Masters was abruptly distracted by a shapely woman’s leg propped up on the sill of the Black Hawk assault helicopter.
“Get on with it, Masters,” the woman’s voice cut in. Her words plus the sight of an ankle holster wrapped around her calf holding a Smith and Wesson .380 semi-automatic pistol snapped him out of it and he continued his briefing as she began to put on body armor, utility vest, shoulder holster and lifejacket.
The diversion was Special Agent Sandra Geffar, in charge of the Customs Service Air Division base at Homestead. Tall, blond, of German descent, the fifteen-year Customs Service veteran was also a fixed- and rotary-wing pilot, an experienced investigator and Olympic-class marksman. As she sometimes did in emergency cases such as this one, Geffar was personally taking charge as well as acting as copilot of the Black Hawk.
Sandra Geffar was striking enough to make a bear like Masters trip over his tongue, but she had also proved herself in dozens of drug arrests and drug ops. She was more than just one-of-the-boys. Every agent in the place was supposed to be both a pilot and an investigator, but Sandra Geffar genuinely excelled at both. She had cut her teeth in the army as a provost marshal. Where most female GIs in the late sixties and early seventies found themselves behind typewriters, Geffar was volunteering and getting domestic investigations, off-base patrols, law enforcement—building a reputation on jobs no one wanted. When not on duty she spent time at the pistol ranges, where she beat out her eventual first husband as a top army pistol champion. She might even have made the Olympic shooting team except for a messy divorce.
The treatment she received as part of her divorce only spurred her on. She secured a warrant officer’s commission and went to army helicopter school to fill an affirmative-action quota that she found insulting not only to herself but to her fellow GIs as well. She used it, though, to become one of the army’s best chopper pilots. She flew medevac missions for three years, two of them in Thailand during the evacuation of U.S. and Allied forces from Vietnam, and twice decorated for bravery in the chaos that followed the American withdrawal from Vietnam.
During the post-Vietnam drawdown she left the army on a Palace Chase option that gave her preferential choice on other government jobs if she would voluntarily leave the army before retirement. Instead of swelling the ranks of the Postal Service or Fish and Wildlife Services as many others did, she joined the Customs Service as an investigator. The GI Bill paid for a commercial pilot’s license in rotary and fixed-wing aircraft, and she then joined the Customs Service’s Mobile, Alabama, air branch soon after it was opened.
The air branch seemed tailor-made for Sandra Geffar. Drug smuggling in the mid-seventies was booming, and the Customs Servic
e air branch was like the federal marshals in the Old West assigned to clean up a territory. Flying almost every day, planning and executing surveillance and arrest operations, interrelating with the FBI and the DEA, even going undercover—all challenges that she met well and that called attention, however grudging, to herself. After an assignment in Washington as liaison to the Secretary of the Treasury, where she married and divorced her second husband, she returned to flying in Miami.
In the eighties, with drug smuggling an increasingly hot topic, Sandra Geffar was in the center of the action. She fought to expand the size and scope of the air branch and was involved in negotiations between the State Department and the government of the Bahamas for overflight and landing privileges, which greatly increased the Customs Service’s area of responsibility. The payoff was almost instantaneous. A joint Customs Service and DEA task force led by Geffar was responsible for the largest single marijuana bust in history, a Mexican freighter off the coast of Bimini carrying seventeen thousand tons of pot. Soon after she was made chief of the Miami air branch and turned that station into the most respected (some said feared) drug-interdiction air-unit in the country.
Off in the background now a Customs Service Citation business jet screamed at high speed down the parking ramp toward the Air Force fighter base’s main runway. The Citation was configured much like the Coast Guard Falcon, with an APG-66 radar and FLIR scanner; it was, in fact, designed to search, track and identify smugglers’ aircraft in all weather, just like the Falcon. The Citation, call sign Omaha Four-Zero, carried a crew much like Master's Black Hawk with the addition of a radar intercept specialist to operate the scanners. All on-board both aircraft, including the RIO and both pilots, carried semi-automatic sidearms, a smaller caliber semi-automatic pistol in an ankle holster and either a pump action shotgun, M-16 automatic rifle or Steyr semi-automatic assault rifle.
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