Brown, Dale - Independent 02

by Hammerheads (v1. 1)

  “Have you tried him on the radio?” Hardcastle asked.

  “Affirmative, Two-Three. No response on any frequencies.”

  “Well, the turkey’s making thirty knots in light to medium seas,” Hardcastle mused on interphone, “so it's obvious he’s not in distress. He’s obviously ducking us.” He turned around to glance into the V-22’s cabin. “I’d like all warning flares loaded in the starboard pod,” he said. He caught Daniel’s eyes just then—round with both excitement and a little fear. Daniel turned to watch as the rocket-launcher pod was motored back inside the cabin and three of the six missiles were unloaded and replaced by three four-foot-long missiles with yellow markings. The three missiles that were removed carried fluorescent red markings: FIM-93 RMP LIVE HE—live high-explosive Sea Stinger missiles. For Daniel it was like watching the old newsreel-type videos of news reporters in combat in Vietnam—except this was real and now.

  Hardcastle lowered his FLIR visor down over his eyes and activated the system. “Night intercepts are no diflFerent than night- rescue or night-support missions,” he told Fontaine. “Let the copilot take the FLIR and the radios until you get within a few miles of your target, then switch the FLIR image back and forth until you get yourself orientated. Use the ID light within one hundred meters or so. Flying the aircraft is job one—don’t get fixated looking at the target and forget about the plane. Use your crew. If you feel yourself getting overwhelmed get some safe altitude, hover out of ground eflfect and get it together before continuing.”

  “The main difference is integrating the weapons solutions with everything else?” Fontaine said.

  “You use the weapons just like every other sensor on board,” Hardcastle said. “I’ll bring the guns on line and safe—check it out.” Hardcastle activated the port-gun turret and Fontaine lowered the sensor visor into place. In the center of his field of view was a tiny set of crosshairs projected onto the green-and-white infrared scene. As he moved his head side to side and up and down, the crosshairs moved as well, staying centered at all times. But as he looked to the left toward the nose, the crosshairs stopped moving. “That’s the limit of the gun turret,” Hardcastle told him. “It won’t let you shoot in front of the Sea Lion’s flight path, even in tight turns. The system computes the impact point using altitude and airspeed information, so the more straight, level and unaccelerated you are, the more accurate your shots will be.

  “Here’s the Sea Stinger sight.” Hardcastle deactivated the Chain Gun and turned on the missile-weapon system. The crosshairs were replaced by a thick yellow circle, the “doughnut” that represents the approximate seeker head’s field of view. “It’s not a steerable circle like the Chain Gun turret, so you have to be a bit more skillful in maneuvering the aircraft to place the target inside the doughnut. Once you have the target in the doughnut, hit the missile-select switch on your cyclic. That will power-up a missile, run a self-test and uncover its seeker head to give the missile a look at the target. Once the missile is locked on, the doughnut will change from yellow to flashing green and you’ll get a tone in your headset. Clear your area of fire, choose your direction to maneuver after missile launch— usually to the left, but it can be in any direction, even in reverse— uncover the launch button and let ’er rip.”

  “Two-Three, distance to last known target position, fifteen miles,” the controller aboard Hammerhead One reported. “Be advised, contact is intermittent from HIGHBAL. Attempting to relocate via CARABAL.” Hardcastle thought back to a GefiFar warning about using a Sky Lion drone with the poor reception at the extreme ranges of the platform’s aerostat radar—maybe she was right. He lowered his FLIR visor and began scanning the sea ahead of the aircraft, trying to find a bright yellow object that might be the boat they were seeking.

  Hammerhead One Air Staging Platform

  The intercom system was shut off in Geffar’s cabin, but the sounds of increased activity and the muted announcements out in the hallway finally woke her. She got to her feet and glanced at the repeater of the master monitor in the command center, but she had shut it off hours earlier. Muttering to herself, she flicked on the monitor and went to get a glass of water as the large twenty-four-inch repeater came to life.

  When she returned she studied the display through weary eyes. The coastline was on the left, and two Hammerheads machines were highlighted by their encoded data blocks—Two-Three, a V-22 tilt- rotor from Alladin Gity, and Five-One, a 95-foot surface-effect patrol ship from Fort Lauderdale. An area in front of both vessels was highlighted by the computer but it showed nothing—no data blocks, no radar returns.

  She went to her desk and hit the intercom button: “Annette, what’s up?”

  Fields replied from the command center: “We have a surface operation in progress. We have an unidentified fast-moving vessel from Bimini crossing in and out of restricted waters heading for shore. We have a V-22 and a SES in pursuit.”

  “No Customs clearance?”

  “Falsified registration. Just came through.”

  “When did you launch the Sea Lion, then?”

  “I didn’t launch it. The Admiral did ...”

  “Hardcastle? Where is he? Headquarters . . . ?” Geffar closed her eyes. She knew damn well where Hardcastle would be . . .

  “He’s on the Sea Lion.”

  I knew it, Geffar said to herself. To Fields: “I’ll be right up,” and clicked off the intercom.

  Aboard the V-22 Sea Lion Aircraft

  “Three miles to computer-projected position, Two-Three,” the controller reported. “No contact from CARABAL.”

  Only three miles away—a fast-moving vessel of any size should be a huge target on the infrared scanner, Hardcastle was thinking. Several times he had steered Fontaine toward what he thought was the boat, only to have it disappear or be something else—a northbound whale, an oil slick, a trail of garbage jettisoned by some cruise ship or freighter.

  “Two-Three, this is Alpha,” he heard on the radio.

  “Go ahead, Alpha.”

  “We’re all surprised to see you airborne, Bravo,” Geffar said. “Cut your vacation short?”

  “Trying to combine a little training with an actual intercept, Alpha. He didn’t miss the edge in Geffar’s voice.“We’ll get this crew checked out soon as possible.”

  “Just find the guy, steer the SES in on him and RTB,” Geffar said. “We have a training program—no real need to freelance on an actual intercept. Vector in the SES and bring it on home.”

  “We got it wired, Alpha,” Hardcastle said. “We should be coming up on him any second.”

  Geffar shook her head. That was not an acknowledgment. It was a direct challenge. Hardcastle was going to take an inexperienced crew and perform an actual intercept.

  Should she tell him to return? This was not the time to start an argument on the radio—less than three miles from an intercept, low altitude, a nervous crew chasing an evasive target. And she knew she’d get one from him. No. He was an experienced pilot, and he was at the controls and on the scene. It was Hardcastle’s sortie.

  Less than two miles to go. Fontaine had slowed to less than one hundred knots, the Sea Lion’s rotating nacelles at twenty degrees below the vertical. As they approached the computer’s estimated intercept point—determined by taking the last known position, speed and direction and dead-reckoning it out over time—he reduced speed and brought the nacelles full vertical, slowing to ninety knots so Hardcastle would have a better chance of spotting him.

  “Nothing,” Hardcastle muttered. “Damn it, he should be right off our nose.”

  “This guy’s no dummy,” Fontaine said. “Most of them would make a dash for shore—this guy’s evading us and so far doing a good job of it.”

  With its anti-collision and position lights on, the low-flying aircraft was easy to see as it came closer. When it was about a half mile away, Carlos Canseco turned sharply left perpendicular to the aircraft’s flight path, traveled a few hundred yards, turned a full one-ei
ghty so his bow was pointed at the approach aircraft, and brought his engines to idle. Canseco had been told how military aircraft searched for sea targets. Present a low visual cross-section, keep the engines hidden as much as possible, don’t stay on the same course and don’t move when it was in close—that was the way to avoid detection, especially at night. As the Cigarette ocean-racing yacht came to a halt, Canseco threw a dark blanket over the thin, sloping windshield to neutralize any reflection.

  The man riding with Canseco, a Puerto Rican gun for hire, raised up an AK-47 assault rifle with a fifty-round banana clip and muzzle- flash suppressor and pointed it at the oncoming noise. “Sounds like a big one,” the gunman said to Canseco. “It’ll be like shooting ducks . . .”

  “I didn’t bring you along to shoot at airplanes,” Canseco said. “I hired you because you know these waters and you know English. You had better be ready to throw that thing overboard if they find us.”

  “These American Coast Guard don’t worry me ...” The deep-throated hiss of the approaching aircraft became louder. “. . . I have done it many times before. Fire a few shots at them and they run for cover and yell for help—”

  Canseco was younger and smarter. “If you want your money, you do as I say.” He knew that although many military aircraft had some capability of scanning astern, he was safer by far so long as he stayed behind the search aircraft. “Now hold on.” Canseco yanked the blanket off the windshield, gunned the engine and headed toward shore.

  The gunman slung the rifle over his shoulder just as the aircraft zoomed past. What a weird job this was turning out to be, he thought. This kid from Colombia, a stupid snot-nosed kid with a hundred- thousand-dollar boat, says he’s going to race to Florida and back. He’s not carrying weight, he’s not on the run—he even clears through Customs. Another spoiled rich kid. He was offering a couple thousand for a credentialed English-speaking pilot, someone who had tried to make the run recently . . .

  Of course he had brought his own shipment—five kilos of blow in a duffel bag weighed down with a half-dozen bricks. This kid just wanted company, nothing more. He didn’t need a pilot or throttle- man—he was doing just fine by himself. Now he says he doesn’t need a gunner. Well, he’s got one anyway.

  Canseco caught a glimpse of the strange-looking aircraft ahead— this was not a regular Coast Guard plane. It had twin rotor blades like a helicopter, but it was far quieter and much larger than a standard search helicopter. Even more unusual were the large words on the side of the plane—FOLLOW ME, highlighted in big bright letters that could clearly be seen even several hundred feet away, plus rotating lights all over the plane’s fuselage just like a police car. If that plane found them, they were going nowhere.

  He had been told about the strange new aircraft the new American Coast Guard troops were using, unusual aircraft that could fly like planes and hover like helicopters and carried bombs and missiles. Was this one of those machines? He was not sure, but better to assume that it was and get to shore as fast as possible . . .

  “Dammit,” Hardcastle said over the interphone. “The bastard’s just disappeared.” He clicked open the radio channel. “Shark, any readout from CARABAL on this target?”

  “Negative,” the controller replied. “They’re picking up false targets at their extreme range capability. Low confidence in all targets right now.”

  “The FLIR is doing us no good at low altitude like this,” Hardcastle said. “We’ll have to climb up and start a search over this area. Damn, I know he’s around here ...”

  “Uh . . . dad?” It was Daniel calling on interphone from his aft- facing jump seat.

  “Go ahead, Daniel.”

  “Can you start a left turn out here? I thought I saw something back behind us.”

  “You sure?”

  There was a pause. “No. There are a lot of waves and they all look the same. But I thought I saw a reflection.”

  “Of what?”

  “I don’t know, maybe nothing.”

  It was worth a try. “Give me a slow turn to the left,” he told Fontaine. He lowered his FLIR visor and turned around in his seat facing aft and to port, which would slew around the seeker turret in that same direction, and slowly began a side-to-side scan of the choppy waters.

  Daniel only saw his father staring directly at him with dark visors on, which made him nervous. When he saw his father slowly shaking his head, Daniel shouted to him, “I’m sorry, dad . . .”

  “No, you did good. I’m looking outside with the FLIR, not at you.”

  “It’s like you’re Darth Vader shaking your head at me before putting me into a Jedi throat-lock—”

  “Contact,” Hardcastle called out. “I got him.” He hit a switch on Ms cyclic’s control panel, which locked the infrared image in the center of the FLIR’s scan and provided steering signals for Fontaine. “Target’s locked on, Adam. We got him.”

  As the rotating lights suddenly stopped retreating and began a lazy left turn, Canseco began a correction to the right to place himself farther off the plane’s tail. But suddenly the plane began a tighter left turn and a rapid descent to just a few meters above the water, and he knew they had found him.

  “We’re only a few miles from shore,” he said in Spanish to the gunman riding with him. “We’ll try to make a run to shore.” He gunned the throttles and made a beeline for the lights just popping over the horizon. The racing yacht began pounding over the choppy waves, sending a rooster’s-tail of water flying twenty feet high behind it. With the throttles at full power Canseco wedged himself in as tight as he could into the padded seat, grabbed on tight to a handhold on the padded dashboard, and concentrated on controlling the boat as best he could.

  He was not able to see the near-gleeful face of the gunman iff the bench seat behind him. The man shook his fist at the approaching plane, unslung the AK-47 assault rifle, chambered a round, braced himself against the pounding of the yacht under his feet, and wrapped the shoulder sling around his hands to steady his aim . . .

  “It looks like a forty-two foot Cigarette racer,” Hardcastle reported over the radio. “No registration numbers yet. Jet powered, racing cockpit. Looks like two males aboard. I think we might have one with a weapon. Stand by.”

  “Two-Three, this is Shark Five-One. We’re ten miles from your position, ETA one-eight minutes,” the skipper aboard the SES Thomas Petragna radioed in. WSES-2 Sea Hawk, an ex-Coast Guard SES, a surface effect ship, was a twin-hulled fast patrol boat, very much like the 110-foot, Island-class cutter in size, crew and armament with a much greater top speed and a much shallower draft for inland and shallow-water operations; the Sea Hawk had two 900 horsepower engines that powered huge fans under its bottom to pump air through the catamaran channels in its hull, which in turn allowed the vessel to ride a cushion of air at speeds approaching fifty miles an hour. Along with six of the Coast Guard’s eight WFCI ocean interceptors and ten of its sixteen WPB Island-class cutters, four WSES cutters had been transferred to the Hammerheads for drug interdiction duties.

  “Roger. Five-One,” Hardcastle replied. “He’s heading just north of Pompano Beach, directly for shore—he might be able to see the Boca Raton Inlet harbor light and might be aiming for it. His estimated speed is three-six knots. Be advised we may see one weapon on board. Use caution. Over.”

  “We copy, Two-Three,” Thomas Petraglia replied from the Sea Hawk. “Negative radar contact yet on surface target. Will advise. Out.”

  Hardcastle switched his radio channel to the pre-set emergency channel. “Unidentified racing vessel east of Pompano Beach, Florida, this is the United States Border Security Force. You have entered restricted waters without clearance. Shut down your engines or we will open fire. Repeat, shut down your engines or we will open fire. Acknowledge on any frequency. Over.” He repeated that warning over several emergency channels and set the V-22’s radio to scan them once every three seconds.

  There was no reply.

  “What is he saying?” Ca
nseco yelled to the gunman behind him. There was no reply. He risked a quick turn and saw the man pointing his AK-47 at the oncoming aircraft.

  “No, don’t shoot ...”

  “Why? It’ll scare them off.”

  “You idiot, they’ll kill us if you shoot. We’re not here to shoot at Coast Guard planes!”

  “So why else are we here?”

  Canseco did not reply. He picked up the radio’s microphone and said quickly in Spanish, “Our position is ten miles north-northeast of Pompano Beach harbor light R-5, heading west. We have been intercepted by a large aircraft with twin rotors, but it is not a helicopter. I cannot see more details. They are warning us in English but I cannot understand them and this Cuban is an idiot. He understands less English than I thought, or is pretending to . . . Repeat. We are ten miles north-northeast of Pompano Beach. They have found us. They are chasing us with a very large twin-rotor aircraft. We will be caught within minutes.” He dropped the microphone and held on as his Cigarette yacht careened off yet another swell and hurled itself into the air.

  Near Delray Beach, Florida, about fifteen miles north of where the chase was beginning its final leg, a fifty-foot cabin cruiser motored slowly, traveling right at the edge of the recognized three-mile limit of unrestricted coastal waters. It carried several high-powered transceiver antennae arranged all along its deck plus a small satellite transceiver located in a protective fiberglass “golf ball” on top of the main cabin.

  Down below in the main galley a pair of dividers walked across a chart of Florida’s eastern coast. Several penciled marks on the chart depicted the course of Canseco’s rakehell dash from Bimini to Florida. The marks on the chart were made with the practiced skill of an experienced sailor and navigator—small, precise and as neat as a draftsman.