Brown, Dale - Independent 02

by Hammerheads (v1. 1)

  “The Citation will pick up the bad guy as soon as he can,” Masters continued, chambering a round in his pistol, lowering the hammer, and holstering the weapon. “We won’t have much time—I’ll probably be dropping the ground crew at the landing site fast and hard. Listen up on the radios and stay alert. Questions?” None. “Sandra?”

  Geffar completed her suiting-up. “We go in and hit them hard. These guys are obviously well armed. The Coasties dropped the ball—now we have to go in and clean up.” She motioned to the Bahaman policemen. “Edouard, Philip, you two stay in the Black Hawk and cover the ground crew.” The two big constables, armed with M-16s and wearing navy blue windbreakers with “U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE” in bright yellow letters, nodded, obviously excited. “The rest of you, back up your teammate and stay alert. Let’s do it.”

  The Shorts 330 crossed between Key Largo and Sunset Point on the Florida Keys and skipped across the islands of Florida Bay. Hugging the water only a few dozen feet above the murky water, it turned northwest and headed for the black swamps and thick forests on the southern tip of the Florida peninsula.

  Aboard Omaha Seven-One

  “Message from SLINGSHOT, Admiral,” Lieutenant McAlister, piloting the Coast Guard Dolphin chopper, radioed back to Hardcastle. “They’ve got a Citation airborne tracking the Shorts, Omaha call sign Four-Zero, and they’ve vectored a Customs Service Black Hawk, Omaha Four-Nine, in on the smuggler. We’ve got a heading toward them. ETA fifteen minutes.”

  “Roger. Keep me advised,” Hardcastle replied. They had cleared the lights of Miami and reached the southern outskirts of the metropolitan area, with traffic lines snarled on the Florida Turnpike. Hardcastle had one of the dropmasters open the sliding cargo hatch on the chopper and fasten a safety strap onto a ring on his combat rig, then he leaned out the door, letting the warm slipstream bathe his face.

  Just like Vietnam. Hanging out the door—no safety belts then, just hanging out the door as if no one ever fell out of a Huey before—was one of the small pleasures a man learned to savor in the middle of hell. Hardcastle had been a Marine Corps platoon leader, a cherry first lieutenant in charge of a veteran bomb disposal unit. He had spent most of his time in Nam being bounced from ship to ship and post to post on details ranging from jammed rifles to corroded fuses on huge seventeen-inch rounds on Navy battleships. After two tours of duty and seeing too many buddies lose their lives on BDU missions, hanging out a helicopter door over the South China Sea was tame stuff.

  In fact, he had become so casual about life and death back then that, slowly and silently, he did go a little crazy. Which had been the end of one life, and the beginning of his next, his Coast Guard life

  He brought his attention back to the radios as the Dolphin helicopter raced over Metro Zoo, following the turnpike south toward the Everglades. McAlister had just keyed the mike on the secure radio channel: “SLINGSHOT, this is Omaha Seven-O. Request range and bearing to suspect. Over—”

  Suddenly they heard, “Seven-One, this is Omaha Four-Nine.” Hardcastle recognized the voice right away—Rushell Masters, the Customs Service Air Division’s operations officer. “This is an active frequency. Please clear this channel. Over.”

  “Four-Nine, this is Admiral Hardcastle, Seventh Coast Guard District commander . . .”

  “I copy, sir,” Masters replied. His voice was polite but firm. “We’ve got a Black Hawk and a Citation in the area. We won’t be able to keep track of all these birds when the fur starts flying. Request you stay clear. Out.”

  “Four-Nine,” Hardcastle radioed back, “we believe that the suspects have shot down a Coast Guard jet. We are over Florida City. Relay your location and location of suspect aircraft and we’ll take up a position in support. Over.”

  “Ian, I thank you for your offer but it won’t be necessary,” a new voice cut in.

  “Agent Geffar,” McAlister’s copilot said.

  “You mean Wonder Woman—”

  “Knock it off,” Hardcastle told McAlister.

  “Take your helo and stay north of route 27 and clear of the national park,” Masters radioed back. “We’ll call if we need any help. Out.” “Sandra, dammit, this is no routine smuggling chase. These guys murdered four people on one of my Falcons. Take the collar—all I want is to make sure they don’t get away—”

  “Then we both want the same thing, Admiral. But you know the drill—once these guys are over land and we have them identified they belong to us.”

  “They committed piracy and murder in U.S. waters under Coast Guard jurisdiction ...” But Hardcastle already knew his arguments were going nowhere. Geffar and Masters had enough on their plates without a Coastie bearing down on them.

  McAlister clicked on the interphone: “What do we do, Admiral?” Geffar and Masters were right—it was time to back off. The Coast Guard, to be honest, wasn’t trained as well as Customs in this kind of combat, and there was little or no integration of tactics and procedures between them. In a ground skirmish his men could get badly hurt . . .

  “Can you set us down somewhere close?” Hardcastle radioed to his pilot.

  McAlister and his copilot checked their charts. “There’s a deactivated rocket-test site a few miles east—we’ve done some training there before. I’ll set it down there.”

  “Do it,” Hardcastle said. “But I want SLINGSHOT to give us constant updates on the situation out there. Advise them of our position and our status. We won’t get in Masters’ way but we’re going to be looking right over his shoulder in case ...”

  Near the Suspect’s Plane, Everglades National Park

  Circling three thousand feet overhead, the Customs Service Citation, call sign Omaha Four-Zero, kept watch on the big Shorts transport through the infrared scanner. The green-and-white image on the cockpit screen showed amazing detail. Zooming in on the transport, the Citation’s sensor operator studied the image, adjusting bright and contrast, then clicked on his interphone: “I see flaps, sir. Target velocity decreasing.”

  “He’s slowing down, Four-Nine,” the Citation’s copilot reported to Masters. “He might be getting ready to land. We see flaps deployed. Stand by.”

  Geffar held up a chart under a small red spotlight. “Twenty-five miles southwest of Florida City.”

  “Mahogany H .mmock,” Masters said. “Blackwater Island. It’s the only dry enough place around for a plane that size, unless they got a Shorts with floats on it.”

  “A night landing out here is tricky any time,” Geffar said. “Unless they have a landing zone marked out. . . they might be going for an aerial delivery too.” Geffar switched to her tactical radio. “SLINGSHOT, this is Omaha Four-Nine. They might be heading for Black- water Island. Repeat, Mahogany Hammock, Blackwater Island. We are closing to intercept. Have Dade County sheriffs seal off route 27, and I want another Black Hawk airborne to cover any escape routes through the Glades. Break. Omaha Four-Zero, stay on the Shorts. If he makes a break for it, track and identify if possible. Report if he makes a drop, then mark drop position for intercept. Out.”

  “Roger, Four-Nine,” the Citation pilot replied.

  It did not take long. On board the Citation the sensor operator concentrated on every move, every detail of the target plane. Suddenly a large rectangular object flew out the aft end of the plane. Four more objects, resembling hay bales or steamer trunks roped together, followed in rapid succession. “Position mark,” from the sensor operator.

  In the cockpit, the copilot hit a button on her LORAX-Omega navigation set labeled “FLIR PP.” The navigation computer would combine the Citation’s present position and altitude and the com- puted-sensor angle on the target and compute the exact position of the object in the FLIR sensor at the instant the button was depressed.

  The copilot called up the stored set of coordinates, checked them, then keyed his mike button: “Four-Nine, this is Four-Zero. Drop made. Repeat, drop made. We got it on film. Drop coordinates read: north two-five-three-zero point nine one, west eight-zero-
five-two point seven-three.”

  Aboard the U.S. Customs Service Helicopter Omaha Four-Nine

  Geffar punched the coordinates into her own Omega set and designated it as the target destination. Immediately the horizontal situation indicator on Masters’ instrument panel displayed the direction and range to the target. “Copy, Four-Zero. We’re three miles out. We’re moving in.” Masters lowered a pair of night-vision goggles over his eyes, heeled the Black Hawk helicopter hard left to center the HSI bug and began to search for the drop zone.

  Seconds later the dull green-and-white image through the night- vision goggles revealed movement in the thick undergrowth. “I’ve got airboats,” Masters called out. “Four . . . no, five airboats.” He scanned the area around the suspects. “No other clear areas around—I’ll have to drop right on top of them. Hang on, crew. We’re going in. Stand by on the Night Sun light.”

  “I’ve got you in sight, Four-Nine,” the sensor operator on Omaha Four-Zero reported. “The Shorts is coming around to your left. He . . . wait, I think he’s seen you. He’s peeling off—”

  “Stay on that Shorts, Four-Zero,” Geffar said. As the Black Hawk got closer to earth Masters flipped the night-vision goggles up out of the way, took a grip on the cyclic and collective and pressed his head back into his headrest to protect his back and neck from the shock of impact. “Crew, secure for impact, hit the light.”

  Masters kept the power high-right until the last second. Suddenly, the whole area lit up like daytime. Five airboats—flat-bottomed watercraft driven by huge propellers—were ranged around a small clearing less than a hundred feet square. He and Geffar had to marvel at the accuracy of whoever was dropping those bales—they’d put them on a tree-lined secluded area about the size of a baseball diamond at night and travelling almost three hundred feet per second— before the ground rushed up to meet them and the oversized landing wheels of the fifty-thousand-pound helicopter hit the marsh. Spotlights all around the Black Hawk snapped on. The rotor wash had flipped over one airboat, sending its occupants flying, and they had missed another airboat piled high with bales by only a few feet.

  “Stay with the bird,” Geffar shouted to Masters, throwing off her shoulder harness. She flung open the door and hit the soggy ground carrying her Steyr assault rifle. One Customs Service agent moved beside her, his M-16 pointed at an airboat, while a Bahamian constable moved into the right gunner’s seat trying to cover two more airboats with his M-16.

  “Everyone on these airboats,” Masters called over the Black Hawk’s loudspeakers. “This is the U.S. Customs Service. Drop your weapons and raise your hands.”

  Men on the airboat closest to Geffar crouched for cover behind bales. Geffar hip-leveled her Steyr, fired three rounds. A smuggler clutched his right shoulder, collapsed, and the other smugglers came to their feet, arms stretched over their heads.

  With the Bahamian constables covering the Black Hawk, the agents moved out, gesturing to the smugglers to kneel down and put their hands on their heads. Meanwhile, Masters had moved out of the chopper, shotgun in hand, to help the agent on the left.

  If he had stayed a few seconds longer, he would have heard the warning from the Citation overhead. Too late now. The Shorts transport had come back, flying at treetop level over the clearing. Suddenly the heavy pounding of machine gun fire could be heard—they had opened fire on the Black Hawk helicopter with the fifty-caliber machine gun.

  Geffar took three quick shots at the Shorts, shooting blind into the dark sky, then opened fire on the airboats and with her agent took off from the airboats, feet digging into the muddy soil as they ran for cover.

  They had managed only a few yards when a brilliant flash of light and a streak of flame erupted from the edge of the clearing, and moments later the Black Hawk exploded in a ball of fire. The body of the agent literally flew into her, and Geffar and what was left of the agent were picked up and tossed thirty feet into a shallow mud pit. Geffar stayed conscious long enough to dig her face out of the mud, then, dazed and bleeding from her wounds, collapsed.

  Aboard the Coast Guard Helicopter Omaha Seven-One

  Hardcastle heard the warning from the Citation and immediately was on the interphone: “Let’s move it, McAlister. Blackwater Island. Set up an orbit at one thousand feet. As soon as any other air units report in have them move in.” McAlister quickly had the Dolphin airborne, leveled off at a thousand feet, dipped its nose, accelerated and turned sharply left toward the dark Everglades beyond.

  Hardcastle chambered a 5.56 millimeter round in his M-16 rifle. Again like Vietnam, he thought—frantic radio messages, air support cautiously moving in, casualties from a sudden, unexpected assault. Even the air smelled the same—a suffocating, cloying mix of dirt, salt air, decay, fear, and death . . .

  On SLINGSHOT’s tactical frequency they heard, “Omaha Four- Nine, this is Omaha Four-Seven. We’re five miles out. What’s your situation? Over.” No reply—the Black Hawk was dead.

  “Four-Seven, this is Four-Zero,” the pilot aboard the Citation said. “Masters and his crew are down. Under heavy fire. Coordinates follow ...” He read off the coordinates of the smuggler’s drop zone. “We are orbiting overhead. Move in and assist. Over.”

  Hardcastle shook himself free of the images of battles past, and as he did he felt the same nervous excitement of years before when the close air support radioed in over a hot LZ in the rice paddies of southeast Asia. “SLINGSHOT, this is Omaha Seven-One,” Hardcastle called over the radio. “Vector to the Shorts.”

  A confused pause as the controllers back in Miami tried to sort out the situation. “Dammit, SLINGSHOT, where the hell is he?” “Roger, Seven-One, fly heading two-niner five, maintain one thousand feet. Your target will be at eleven o’clock position at four miles and two hundred feet. His groundspeed is one-one-zero knots.” The Dolphin swung hard onto its new heading and McAlister opened the throttles to max power.

  “Target accelerating, Seven-One. Groundspeed now one-two- five,” the controller reported. “Five degrees left, three-point-five miles.”

  Hardcastle pounded on the bulkhead. “Damn it, he’s bugging out.” “If he goes over one-sixty before we can catch him,” McAlister said over the howling engines, “we won’t have a chance—”

  “Just fly,” Hardcastle shouted.

  “Two miles, altitude three hundred feet, groundspeed one-forty.” “McAlister, take us down to three hundred feet,” Hardcastle said over interphone. “Put the Shorts on my side of the cabin.” And to the rescue specialist: “Take a position at the door, strap yourself in and fire on anything that moves down there.”

  “You mean shoot at the plane?” the very young dropmaster asked. Hardcastle tried to keep his temper in check. “Yes, shoot the goddamn plane. Those people are murderers. Keep your eyes open and don’t cross-fire with me.”

  “One point five miles—”

  “I got him,” McAlister shouted. “Eleven o’clock. He’s hauling ass.” The Shorts was close enough to be a dark shape just above the trees. Suddenly the cargo plane heeled left, trying to angle away from the Dolphin.

  “Cut him off,” Hardcastle ordered. McAlister threw the Dolphin into a hard left bank, turned inside the Shorts and aimed for a spot ahead of its flight path. The Shorts’ turn had cut its speed, and the more agile Dolphin helicopter could move closer to its target.

  Now the Shorts was off to the Dolphin’s right, and Hardcastle was about to switch over to the right side of the chopper when McAlister’s copilot yelled, “look out!” and McAlister yanked back on the collective just as a flash of light erupted from the Shorts’ left side.

  “Put him on the left,” Hardcastle ordered. McAlister banked hard right, looped over the Shorts transport and zoomed back down, using his airspeed to close the short distance between them. Hardcastle leaned out the door, and fighting the wind blast, took aim on the transport and fired.

  He had to remind himself to let up on the trigger after a few seconds of automatic fire.
The sound of the rotors beating overhead, the ear-shattering noise of the M-16, the target-fixation, the motion of the chopper, the force of the slipstream slapping the rifle muzzle, the excitement, the fear, the anticipation—it was all like a drug, he thought ironically.

  McAlister was shouting. “Cease fire, cease fire!”

  Hardcastle ignored him.

  Telltale sparks had jumped off the transport’s wings as Hardcastle began another volley. He only stopped as the transport moved farther back out of his field of fire and waited for Roosevelt to start shooting.

  Roosevelt had looked startled when the admiral had opened fire, but at a dark glance from the admiral he began spraying bullets right and left over the sky. He’d had his finger on the trigger for eight full seconds before Hardcastle stopped him. “Seaman, watch what the hell you’re doing.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Roosevelt shouted over the wind blast, not realizing he was screaming into the interphone, “but I haven’t shot an M-16 in almost a year.”

  Hardcastle looked at the young man, shook his head. The Shorts transport was in a steep right turn, passing underneath the Dolphin. “Right turn and come around on him again,” Hardcastle called to McAlister. “Don’t let him get on your right ...”

  McAlister hesitated, and that momentary pause was enough for the Shorts to get around to the right, and for its machine gun to explode into action once again. Heavy pings echoed off the Dolphin’s thin aluminum frame before McAlister could dodge away.

  “Move away, put him in my door,” Hardcastle shouted. This time McAlister complied, without hesitation or questioning. This time Roosevelt was ready too. As soon as the Shorts popped into view, now less than two hundred yards away, he opened fire directly on the cockpit.

  As he did a flash of yellow erupted from the Shorts’ right engine, and the transport started a lazy left turn, skimming the treetops. Roosevelt ejected his spent clip and fumbled for another, but Hardcastle waved a hand in his face. “Hold your fire, you won’t need it.” A moment later the Shorts, still in its left turn, lazily flipped over on its left wing and crashed into the thick trees and murky swamps below. A few muffled explosions, a hint of fire—then only the incessant beating of the Dolphin’s rotors overhead.