Brown, Dale - Independent 02

by Hammerheads (v1. 1)

  “We agreed it would not be wise to send the Cuchillos up against these Border Security Force troops right away,” Cerredo said. “The only way to bypass them was to stay away from the usual drop points near Florida. We shifted more to overland transport and our distribution routes in southern California—”

  “Yet we send the same amount of product but have more of it confiscated by the authorities. We need much more reliable means of getting our product into the United States. Every shipment we successfully make is worth its weight in gold—we can command nearly twice the price as before.”

  “I still think we should continue to improve our other import methods, rather than trying to reopen our usual routes,” one of the brasher lieutenants said. “My men have made several test runs into south Florida, and one of those Border Security Force planes always seem nearby. We constantly hear their warnings on the radio—” “But have you actually tried to penetrate their defenses?” Gachez asked. “Have you ever continued, to see what would happen?” The lieutenant looked uneasy. “Why ... no, we stay outside American waters—”

  “Why? We have heard warnings on the radio before ...” “Because, sir, we can see their ... whatever those small helicopter- planes are. The buzz around like flies. They fly one way, then suddenly stop and hover in place like a helicopter. It stays for a while, then flies off. Soon a larger plane appears and does the same, and soon one of their high-speed patrol boats comes.”

  Gachez was silent, pacing in front of the long bar, tapping on its polished surface. “We need to reestablish our intelligence base with this Border Security Force. I want to know exactly how these . . . these Hammerheads operate, who they are, what are their weaknesses. These drones, their special new aircraft—I want to know what their range is, their performance, how many they have operating in the area.”

  “We can do that immediately,” one of the officers said. “We can send several boats and planes in to test their surveillance. So far they have not fired on us if we have turned away from shore or are farther than twelve miles from shore—”

  “Wait,” Gachez said, raising a hand, straining to listen to the television interview again: “I think it’s interesting,” the interviewer was saying, “that one of your biggest supporters is a man that you arrested not too long ago—Maxwell Van Nuys ...”

  “Mr. Van Nuys flew into south Florida without a properly filed flight plan. He was fined twenty thousand dollars, his aircraft was confiscated, his pilot’s license was suspended for thirty days. There were mitigating circumstances—including serious equipment malfunctions at the time and his useful cooperation with the Border Security Force.”

  “You of course know that an important vote on the Department of Border Security Act is coming up shortly. Any thoughts on that?”

  “No. The Hammerheads is an operational entity with or without a new box on the White House organizational chart. Our work will continue and grow . . .” “Find him, ” Gachez said. He turned to his men in the room. “I want to know everything about this Van Nuys. Perhaps we can get to her by getting to him.”

  “Van Nuys is a jet-setter, a playboy,” Cerredo said. “Why don’t we deal with her directly?”

  “Because she is government. If we put pressure on this friend of hers, whatever he is, we may create an opening to her. Do it.

  “And I want to find the weaknesses in this Border Security Force. I am not convinced they can control access to the whole southeast coast of the United States. Find me a weakness I can exploit. I want to know exactly how and when this Border Security Force goes into action, I want to find a sure way to beat them . . .”

  “You mean draw them out?”

  “I don’t care how you do it, but I want it done. The Hammerheads charge ten thousand dollars and confiscate the airplane or vessel? I will pay the fine plus five thousand dollars and provide a boat for anyone with the courage to try it.” Still no takers—except for one hand raised in a corner of the office. The Cartel leader walked up to him. “What’s your name?”

  “Carlos,” a very young man answered. “Carlos Canseco.”

  “How old are you, Carlos?”

  “Nineteen, Senor Gachez.”

  “Nineteen.” He gave the boy an affectionate slap on the cheek, wrapped an arm around his shoulders and led him to the front of the room. “Here is a man. His bravery puts you all to shame. He will receive ten thousand dollars and a house for his courageous behavior.” He turned to the young man. “Bueno. We will have a Puerto Rican registered speedboat ready for you in Freeport tomorrow night. And if you make it to shore, as I am confident you will, I will give you an extra five-thousand-dollar bonus.”

  Canseco looked as if he might explode with pride.If Gachez had been wearing a ring the boy might have knelt and kissed it, Cerredo thought glumly.

  Hammerhead One Staging Platform

  The Next Morning

  Becker found Hardcastle asleep at his desk. “Morning, sir. Figured I’d find you here.”

  “What time is it?” Hardcastle asked, massaging his neck.

  “Six-thirty. The morning chopper will be landing any minute. I made sure there was room for you on it for the return trip.”

  “Hell, Mike, I go on duty in twelve hours. I might as well stay.” He turned toward his window and stared wordlessly out into the gray morning skies.

  “You’re off duty. I logged you off for the next two days.”

  “I appreciate the thought, Mike, but I can’t—”

  “It’s official.”

  Hardcastle turned and saw that the leave form Becker was holding up had his own name on it.

  “The Jay Hawk will wait until you’re on board. You’ve been hitting it harder than ever, sir,” Becker told him. “The Inspector and you . . . well, sir, pardon me, but I think you need to step back a little ...”

  “Dammit, Becker, I don’t need you to—” Hardcastle stopped himself, ran a hand over his eyes and across the night’s stubble on his face—“all right, all right, yes, I feel frustrated because I think we’re not doing enough, so I stay on board this platform and the more I stay on board the more frustrated I get.”

  Becker nodded. “It’s a matter of time, sir. You know that. Meanwhile, Sandra’s in charge of operations here. But you’re head of plans, weapons ... I mean, the Vice-President said it... you two have to make it work. It’s your baby, sir. She’s never denied that. Hey, if I’m out of line, sir ...” Hardcastle half-smiled and waved him off. “I’ll be up on deck waiting. And I know Daniel would sure like to see you."

  “Becker? Thanks, buddy. See you on deck.”

  It was a Saturday, and Hardcastle and his son took advantage of it.

  Hardcastle was the guest of the University of Miami’s baseball team at a pre-game breakfast before the first game of the season. Although a freshman and still mostly a bench-warmer or utility player, Daniel was considered an up-and-coming infielder with an impressive batting average and better than average fielding skills. Hardcastle put on a warm-up suit and jogging shoes and participated with the team in a two-mile run, then led them in a few calisthenics and warm-up drills later that morning. Afterward he stood with the coaches in the tower to watch batting and fielding practice and later was invited into the dugout to watch the game against the University of Georgia.

  Daniel was put in the game in the sixth inning after a minor injury to the Hurricanes’ second baseman and played well. His range around second base was excellent and he went one-for-two at bat with a double and a long fly-out before being rotated out of the lineup during a late-inning pitching change. For Hardcastle, it was hard to believe how fast his son had grown up . . .

  Over dinner they talked like long-lost best friends or brothers, not as father and son. Daniel held nothing back, including fellow-students’ reactions to him as the son of the creator and a chief officer of the Hammerheads. Over coffee Daniel asked his father if they could go out to Key Biscayne and see a V-22 Sea Lion and Hardcastle readily said yes.

>   “This thing is amazing,” Daniel Hardcastle said as they walked around the huge aircraft in its hangar just outside the Hammerheads’ operational headquarters. The Sea Lion at Alladin City was one of the non-platform-based alert aircraft configured to take off within minutes and loaded with extra fuel tanks, a Hughes Chain Gun in the port pod and six Sea Stinger missiles in the reloadable starboard pod. “What’s her top speed?”

  “About two hundred and fifty knots in airplane mode,” his father told him. “About one hundred knots in helicopter mode. It can even go about forty knots in reverse."

  Daniel walked quickly around the strange aircraft, pointing out things he recognized and asking about what he did not: “Looks like an FLIR turret, right? Infrared TV, steerable intercept I.D. lights ... a radar? Is that a radar?”

  “Multi-mode APG-176,” Hardcastle said. “Sea scan, air targets, ground mapping, navigation and terrain avoidance. It even picks up things like power lines, flocks of birds and large wind shifts to warn of dangerous wind shear conditions near thunderstorms. The guns and missiles use the TADS/PNVS system. Translation: Target Acquisition and Sight, Pilot Night Vision Sensor. It’s the same fire-control system used on the Apache attack helicopter.”

  “Radical,” Daniel said, then stopped, as Hardcastle knew he would, at the sleek aerodynamic Chain Gun pod, which looked something like a baby albino whale strapped on the Sea Lion’s port side. “You really put guns on this sucker, huh?” Hardcastle did not reply. Daniel turned toward him, a more somber expression on his young face. “Shoot anyone yet?”

  “No.”

  “Would you? If you found someone trying to—'

  He never got to finish the sentence. A horn blared outside the hangar where the Sea Lion was parked. Lights outside on the ramp snapped on. Hardcastle was about to head into the operations building when several crewmen walked into the hangar and began to climb inside the V-22.

  “They don’t seem to be in so much of a hurry,” Daniel said, expecting a firehouse rush of men to their stations.

  “The Alladin City crew is the third response crew. If the drones and Sea Lions out on the platform are busy they’ll send a drone from Marathon or aircraft from Homestead. If they need more support, they’ll launch aircraft from here.” He moved across to the right side of the V-22 to the pilot’s side. “What’s up, Adam?” he asked the Sea Lion pilot, Adam Fontaine, as he began to activate external power to monitor the radios.

  “CARABAL has picked up a fast-moving boat coming out of Bimini, heading somewhere north of Fort Lauderdale. They’re not launching any drones from Hammerhead One—they said it’s too far away for reliable data-link control—so they want aircraft on standby. We’re in better position to respond than Marathon or Homestead so we’ve been moved up in backup priority.”

  “Is he following the entry corridor?”

  “No. They said the guy was usually inside the corridor—between Alice Town and Fort Lauderdale you can’t help but be in the entry corridor—but it’s SLINGSHOT's guess that the guy's not following any corridor routing.”

  “No Customs clearance notification?”

  “That’s what triggered the alert,” Fontaine said. “He went through Customs in the harbor at Alice Town, but when they back- searched his registration the make and the model didn’t jive.” “What’s his destination?”

  “Some rinkydink marina along the inland waterway. I wouldn’t expect him to show up there, though. Sounds like a runner to me— not a very smart one, but still a runner.”

  Hardcastle’s eyes narrowed with anger and some frustration. “We should go get this guy right now. I wonder what the problem is on the platform?”

  “Geffar apparently wants to leave it to Customs,” Fontaine said. “They’re saying small potatoes, not worth a Sea Lion sortie—”

  “What? The whole damned idea behind the Hammerheads is to prevent slugs like that from even entering our waters. If he’s not challenged before he gets to shore we might never catch him without a large-scale hunt—and then it’ll really cost.” The pressure inside was building. “Who’s on the duty console?”

  “Geffar’s on board the platform,” Fontaine said, “but I think Annette Fields is on the desk.” A former Drug Enforcement Agency regional director, she was one of the first non-Coast Guard or Customs Service officers to join the Hammerheads. And because of her skill and expertise at commanding urban-scale enforcement operations she was immediately trained as a shift commander for a Hammerheads air-staging platform. She was in line to be the deputy of Hammerhead Two when it was completed.

  Hardcastle impatiently motioned to Fontaine to trade places, and moments later Hardcastle was sitting in the Sea Lion’s cockpit with a headset on. “Shark, this is Bravo. How copy?”

  “Bravo, this is Shark,” the controller aboard Hammerhead One replied immediately. “Copy five-by. Stand by for Kitty.” A few moments later Fields came on the channel. “Bravo, this is Kitty. How are you, tiger? Are you at headquarters?”

  “I’m with Shark Two-Three,” Hardcastle told her. “I want to put together an air sortie against the target heading north of your position. Do you have a machine out there ready to go?”

  A slight pause, then: “Not really, tiger. The target’s outside HIGH- BAL’s drone-range restriction and we only have one Victor-22 available—the other went down this morning. Alpha wants to keep it on deck unless we get an air target and let Customs have the northbound target. We’ve got an SES from Fort Lauderdale, call-sign Five-One, preparing to get underway to intercept, ETA twenty minutes.”

  “Twenty minutes?” Hardcastle muttered to no one in particular. “It’ll take an hour for him to get in position. The idea here is to stop the sons-of-bitches before they get in, not after.” On the radio Hardcastle said, “We’re going to launch Two-Three after him, Shark.”

  “Roger,” Field replied from Hammerhead One. “Will you be on board, tiger?”

  “Negative. There’s a crew here.”

  “Uh . . . we’re not night-intercept qualified, sir,” Fontaine said.

  “What? I thought you were checked out—”

  “I was signed off when the number was five,” Fontaine said. “The number’s fifteen now; I’ve only got eleven. And a half.”

  Hardcastle rolled his eyes in frustration. “Well what the hell are you doing on night alert?” he asked, suddenly aware of his son standing nearby. “What’s the use in having you out here if you can’t run a night intercept?”

  “Surveillance, support, rescue—and toga,” Fontaine said quietly.

  “Toga? What does that mean?”

  “T-O-G-A. The Only Guy Available.” He noted Hardcastle was not amused. “Sir, the commander knew my rundown, she put me out here.”

  Hardcastle tried to control himself. “Well, you’re going to get your night intercepts tonight. We’re going to get that guy before he reaches the three-mile line.” He turned to the Sea Lion’s plane captain. “Get her towed out to the ramp and ready for launch.” He looked at Daniel. “If you’re game you can ride along.”

  Daniel was clearly surprised. Fontaine looked even more surprised. “Uh, sir, do you think that’s a good idea . . . ?”

  Hardcastle slapped his hands eagerly. “We’ve given TV interviews, brought reporters and politicians on Sea Lion night sorties—”

  “But on a night-training mission?”

  Hardcastle didn’t seem to hear him. “Get him body armor and a life jacket and let’s get rolling. I’ll file flight orders and get us a clearance.” Hardcastle trotted into the operations center to change into a flight suit as the V-22’s plane captain attached a motorized tow cart to the Sea Lion’s nose gear and prepared to tow it out of its hangar for takeoff.

  When Hardcastle returned, he found his son in the starboard aft- facing jump seat right behind the pilot. Hardcastle could see him easily by looking over his shoulder from the left-side copilot’s seat. Daniel was securely strapped into a thinly padded metal tube seat with thick web b
elts, but the straps would allow him movement to turn in his seat or look out the rectangular observation window beside him. Bundled in a light shirt underneath the heavy, inch-thick bulletproof body armor, an orange Hammerheads windbreaker, and a CLU-93 twin-bladder underarm inflatable life preserver strapped on over it, plus a helmet with built-in headphone and night-vision goggles, Daniel’s normally athletic frame looked stuffed and trussed.

  “All set?” Hardcastle yelled back to Daniel as the Sea Lion’s auxiliary power unit revved up. Daniel gave him a thumbs up.

  Daniel’s seat provided a dramatic view of the configuration of the V-22 Sea Lion from stowed to takeoff positions. Slowly the wings swiveled around from their stowed position along the fuselage until they were locked in their normal position. The engine nacelles swiveled to vertical and the rotor blades motored up from their stowed positions down along the nacelles to their normal positions. It was like watching a giant transformer toy unfolding by itself. Less than three minutes after the wings and engines were back in their more conventional positions they were ready for takeoff.

  The Hammerheads headquarters area at Alladin City had a five- thousand-foot runway, but the Sea Lion needed only a fraction of that distance for takeoff. Fontaine made it with a gentle stream of instructions from Hardcastle. As the engine nacelles cocked just a few degrees down from the vertical and the wing flaps extended, Daniel heard the engines wind up to full power. They rolled only what seemed like a few short yards down the runway and then, with a powerful leap that drove Daniel right down into his seat, the V-22 jumped into the air. But unlike any of the helicopter rides Daniel had ever taken, the Sea Lion gained forward velocity with breathtaking speed. Soon the nacelles were fully horizontal, the wing flaps retracted and the Sea Lion was hurtling through the dark skies over the east coast of Florida.

  “Shark, this is Shark Two-Three, airborne headquarters, passing two thousand feet for three thousand five hundred.”

  “Two-Three, this is Shark, radar contact,” the controller aboard the Hammerhead One platform replied. “Surface target is at your twelve o’clock, forty miles. His speed is approximately twenty-eight knots, occasionally thirty-three in light to medium seas. Your ETA is eight minutes.”