“They are still not using their secure radios,” someone said to the man with the navigator’s dividers. The second man, the cruiser’s master, popped open a can of beer and poured half of it down his throat before continuing: “There must be something wrong with their radios.”
“The secure system is limited in range and effectiveness,” the first man told him in Spanish. “Besides, Canseco knows they have found him, and they know that their target has spotted them. Secrecy is no longer necessary.” He plotted Canseco’s last position and penciled in the point at which the chase aircraft had made contact.
“What sort of aircraft is out there?” the second man asked.
“They call it a Sea Lion,” the first man replied. “A sophisticated aircraft, faster and larger than a helicopter but able to hover like a helicopter.”
“It carries weapons?”
“Oh, yes,” the first man replied. “The Hammerheads will use them, too—this Bravo, Admiral Hardcastle, has an itchy trigger finger. Canseco must be prepared to stop if they press the intercept. They will open fire if he does not respond.” He tapped on the chart. “The Sea Lion had trouble finding Canseco . . . Both the platform radars and CARABAL must be ineffective at this range.”
“What was that you said?” the second man asked.
“It doesn’t matter. Canseco has earned his twenty thousand dollars tonight. I think he may have found the Hammerheads’ vulnerable spot.” “Okay, Adam,” Hardcastle said to Fontaine. “The SES is still pretty far out, and this guy ahead of us might be able to get around him— he’s hitting forty knots now. We’ve got to get him slowed down so the Sea Hawk can move in. I’m worried about that rifle I think I see, we’ve got to do this carefully. We’ll close our range gradually on him and move in to about one hundred yards’ range, then hit him with the ID light. If it doesn’t slow him down, back off and we’ll reevaluate.”
“What the hell does that mean? Reevaluate?”
“That means, ” Hardcastle told him, “that we begin getting lined up for a shot across his bow if he decides not to stop.” Fontaine did not reply; he only gripped the collective tighter.
“Two-Three, this is Five-One,” the skipper of the Sea Hawk reported, “we have radar contact on you at this time. We should be in position to see your target shortly. What’s his position?”
“He’s about three hundred yards in front of us, heading west at almost forty knots. We re going to move in to try to slow him down.” “We’ll be in position in five minutes,” Petraglia reported. “Be advised, we now have positive radar contact on your surface target. You can break off close pursuit at this time. Two-Three.”
Fontaine seemed to relax at that last transmission, but Hardcastle replied, “Negative, Five-One. We’re moving in. Stand by.”
Sandra Geffar tensed as she listened to that last interchange. She knew Hardcastle would move in, knew he would press the engagement no matter where the surface-effect ship was.
Annette Fields was thinking the same thing as she turned and looked up at Geffar. “He’s the on-scene commander,” Geffar told her. “It’s his action. If the target gets by the SES he’s in the best position to take over.”
Fields paused for a moment, then said, “He’s got a civilian on board.”
“What? Who?”
“His son Daniel. He brought him on board when—”
“He’s bringing his own son into a firefight?” She calmed herself down as the others in the platform’s command center turned to watch her, then told Fields, “I want him to recover that plane as soon as possible,” she said in carefully controlled words. That passenger is my responsibility too ... he must be protected as much as possible . . .”
By then Fontaine had taken the Sea Lion to within a hundred yards of the speeding yacht and down to fifty feet above the ocean. Hardcastle retracted his FLIR visor and with the infrared tracker still locked on, activated the NightSun identification light.
The five-thousand-watt searchlight flooded the area around the yacht with brilliant white light, and for the first time they had a good eyeball on their target. The two men on the yacht were clearly in view, as was, in stark clarity, the huge automatic rifle one of the suspects had aimed at them.
“Shark, this is Two-Three,” Hardcastle radioed. “We have visual contact on the evading target vessel. We have two male Latinos on board the target vessel. One is carrying a military-style rifle, probably an AK-47. Five-One, how do you copy?”
“Five-One copies,” Petraglia replied. “We see your ID light and we have a visual on the target. We can take over from here, Bravo.”
“Shark copies all, Two-Three,” Fields radioed from Hammerhead One. “Alpha requests you take all efforts to protect passenger and RTB. Acknowledge.”
Hardcastle looked at Fontaine, then back over his right shoulder at Daniel. He hit the mike button: “Say again, Shark?”
“In consideration of passenger safety, Alpha requests you RTB.” Hardcastle shook his head but nodded at Fontaine. “You heard, Adam. Give me a thousand feet. We’ll keep the light on this bozo from high altitude until Petraglia catches him, then head on back.” On the radio channel he said, “Roger, Shark. Two-Three will monitor the intercept from high altitude, then RTB. Over.”
“Copy, Two-Three. Will advise when situation under control. Out.”
Aboard WSES-2 Sea Hawk
“All hands report to LE stage-two stations,” Petraglia announced over the ship’s intercom from the bridge of the Sea Hawk. “This is not a drill.” Four miles ahead of them, just visible in the glare of the Sea Lion’s searchlight, was their quarry thundering through the swells and heading for the shore at full speed.
“Port and starboard M-60’s manned and ready,” the officer of the deck, Janet Cirillo, reported to Petraglia. Under law-enforcement readiness conditions, everyone on board—including the cook—had deck duties. Cirillo picked up a phone on the aft bulkhead of the bridge, listened for a few moments, then dropped it back into its holder. “Crew reports ready at LE two, sir.” Although the vessel and her crew were officially with the Border Security Force and techni cally had no military rank, the former Coast Guard vessel and her crew automatically reverted to their military training and experience in such situations. Their lifejackets and body armor displayed the “flying shark” insignia of the Hammerheads, but right underneath the stick-on patches they read “U.S. Coast Guard.” It would take time for allegiances to shift completely.
“Range three miles now and closing slowly,” the radar operator on the bridge reported. “Recommend heading three-three-zero to intercept in three point four miles.”
“Make it so,” Petraglia ordered. He scanned both sides of his bridge to check on his crew. Surface-effect ships were much more stable at high speeds than the Cigarette racing yachts—while their target was being pounded by the short choppy waves the Sea Hawk was gliding on a thick bubble of air with amazing stability for such a large craft. Even so, Petraglia checked his people to make sure they were moving about on deck and ready to engage the target.
“Sir, we might have a problem,” the radar operator said. “We’re approaching five miles to the shoreline and we’re on course to intercept in three and a half. We’ve got a cut-off, but it’s not much. He could reach shore before we catch up to him if he doesn’t slow down. If he turns farther north, we might lose him.”
“He’s got to slow down,” Cirillo said. “There are boats all over the place along the shore—”
“I don’t think this guy gives a rat’s ass who’s in his way,” Petraglia said. “This guy just wants to reach shore, period. If he gets close to shore or cuts into the Intracoastal Waterway through the Boca Raton inlet, he could kill a lot of people damn quick.” He reached up and grabbed the radio microphone. “Two-Three, this is Five-One.”
“Go ahead.”
“Bravo, our radar tells us we’re going to intercept in a little under four miles at this speed,” Petraglia told Hardcastle. “This could turn
into a tail chase, and then we’ll be out of position. If you could get him turned or slowed down, we could catch him farther out from shore. Please advise. Over.”
“Copy that, Five-One,” Hardcastle replied. He had seen the developing chase and had come to the same conclusion as Petraglia—they might catch the guy but not before he blasted very close into shore. “We’re maneuvering to intercept. Stand by.” He turned to Fontaine. “Take us back down to one hundred feet and move in to one hundred yards. Crew, stand by for intercept.” His adrenaline was really pumping.
Daniel found his breath was short, he felt frozen. The two gunners in the cargo bay of the V-22 Sea Lion had reloaded the starboard rocket pod with four live Sea Stinger missiles, leaving two warning flares in place. They had double-checked the feed mechanism of the Chain Gun in the port-side pod and prepared a second hundred- round magazine. Out the starboard windscreen Daniel could see the starboard pod with its deadly load motored back out into the slipstream. When it was locked into place the crewmen adjusted body armor and strapped themselves into their seats. They did not speak to Daniel, but one of them reached over to touch his holster pistol. He did not look too reassured.
Hardcastle was running down the checklist with Fontaine, whose attention seemed fixed on the brilliantly lit speedboat ahead of him. Then, as if jerking himself out of a trance, he forced his eyes to scan his instruments and around the cockpit. Hardcastle performed the checklist functions he could do and notified Fontaine of items that only the pilot in command could handle.
“Crew notified,” Hardcastle read. “Fuel quantity and feed, checked on AUTO, looks like another two hours’ worth. Fuel pressurization to AUTO. Generators checked, warning lights out. Hydraulics, primary and secondary, checked, warning lights out. Seat straps, shoulder harnesses, emergency equipment, checked and set. Flight controls checked, pilot and copilot.” Fontaine had again focused on the racing yacht. “Adam, bring your power back a notch.” No reply. “Adam?” Fontaine snapped his head, nodded and complied. He leveled off at one hundred feet as the radar altimeter warning light blinked at him, but he was still reluctant to decrease the range. “Move in another sixty yards,” Hardcastle prodded.
“He’s still got that rifle on us . . .”
“He’s also bouncing around. The first shot he takes, we’ll be all over him. Fly the aircraft.” Hardcastle clicked on the external loudspeaker and said into his microphone: “Attention racing vessel, this is the United States Border Security Force. Stop your engines and prepare for boarding.” In hesitant Spanish he repeated: “Atencion marinos. Esto es Border Security Force, Estados Unidos. Pare.Alto. Cuidado. ” No reply—the racing yacht continued on the same course, as fast as ever.
“Let’s try to maneuver to his right side,” Hardcastle said. “See if you can turn him farther south into the SES.”
Still keeping the nose pointed at and slightly ahead of the yacht, Fontaine sideslipped the V-22 around and off the yacht’s right side, keeping the ID light focused on the boat.
Still no response.
“Three miles from the shore,” Fontaine said, glancing at his DME distance readouts. “I can see the harbor entrance lights.” He had pulled slightly ahead and to the right of the yacht, flying sideways so he could keep it in view and so the speedboat’s crew could see the Sea Lion’s illuminated FOLLOW ME sign on its left side. The speedboat made zero turn to the left. “Either he knows the SES is coming onto him or he wants to get into the harbor real bad,” he told Hardcastle.
“I think it’s time to stop screwing with him,” Hardcastle said. “Crew, arming warning flare.” On the radio, he reported: “Shark, be advised, we are firing a warning rocket at this time.” To Fontaine he said, “All right, Adam. With a warning flare armed, you still center the doughnut on the target—the fire control system will automatically compute a fifty-yard lead point and fire the missile ahead of him. Center the doughnut, don’t worry about where the nose of the plane is.”
Fontaine made a small correction to the left. “Got it,” he muttered into the interphone between tight-clenched teeth.
“Batteries released. One warning rocket ready. Clear to shoot.” Fontaine unguarded the missile-launch button on his cyclic, took a deep breath, and pressed the button. They heard a sharp hiss from the right side, and suddenly a brilliant flash of light streaked by the canopy. The sudden glare startled Daniel so that he did not open his eyes for several seconds after the rocket was gone.
The rocket trailed a long bright yellow plume of fire and sparks as it sailed across the dark waters in front of the yacht. Even in the brilliance of the searchlight, the glare of the warning rocket was unmistakable.
The suspect’s reaction was just as unmistakable—the man carrying the AK-47 rifle could be seen raising his rifle toward the Sea Lion and although no muzzle flashes could be seen, the violent backward jerking motion on the gunman’s shoulder made it clear what was happening.
“Vector!” Hardcastle called out, but Fontaine had already banked the V-22 hard right away from the racing yacht. He had made almost a full 180-degree turn and had gained five-hundred feet of altitude in his escape maneuver before Hardcastle put his hands back on the controls. “I’ve got the aircraft.” It was then he saw that Fontaine’s side of the front canopy window had been starred by a bullet. “Report, everybody all right?”
“Aft end’s clear,” one of the gunnery techs in the cargo section reported.
Fontaine was brushing glass and plastic from his flight suit. “You okay, Adam?” Hardcastle said cross-cockpit,
“I’m okay,” but it was obvious he was not. Although he was hit by only a few pieces of debris, he had seemed to forget about the aircraft, the controls, his crew and didn’t stop wiping debris from his flight suit. Hardcastle gained a few hundred feet more altitude, put on the autopilot and checked Fontaine. He found blood streaming down the left side of Fontaine’s head under his helmet. It was a one in a million chance, but a heavy-caliber bullet from the AK-47 had found its way into the Sea Lion’s cockpit, and had gone right between Fontaine’s head and the side of his helmet—it missed killing the pilot by millimeters . . .
“Get up here and help Fontaine out of his seat,” Hardcastle ordered. Fontaine was already dazedly unbuckling his shoulder harness as he continued to track down pieces of glass scattered all across his chest. The gunnery techs lifted him out of his seat and over the control console in the center aisle and back to a clear space on the cargo-bay deck.Daniel looked on as the semi-conscious man, his face a mask of blood, his eyes fluttering, was laid out before him.
“Looks like he got creased across the left temple,” one of the gunnery techs reported. “He’s conscious but he looks like he’s going into shock.”
“Shark, this is Two-Three,” from Hardcastle. “Be advised, we have come under fire from this target. One injury, minor aircraft damage.”
“Roger, Two-Three,” from the controller on Hammerhead One. “We will get clearance for you to land at Boca Raton or Fort Lauderdale Executive. We will have emergency vehicles standing by.”
“Roger—” But just then Hardcastle saw the yacht speed past underneath him, still going full speed directly northwest toward Boca Raton. The gunman in the yacht’s cockpit was still taking shots at the Sea Lion, shaking a fist at the retreating aircraft. That was a sight that made something too long too controlled inside Hardcastle snap. The injured pilot, his son, everything except getting that yacht and its gunman was blocked out. He heeled the Sea Lion over hard right, sent it swooping down on the speedboat, selected the Chain Gun with the arming switch on his control panel. The searchlight immediately caged forward and the aiming crosshairs appeared in his electronic visor precisely in the center of the searchlight beam. Now a slight move of his head centered the crosshairs on the speedboat. He opened the safety guard on the trigger, and fired.
Less than twenty feet from where Daniel sat, the sudden activation of the Chain Gun and its thunderous, booming rattle made him nearly
jump out of his seat. The entire port-side windscreen was filled with the bright orange-and-blue flashes from the thirty millimeter cannon as three armor-piercing rounds per second hurtled toward the target.
Hardcastle saw smoke and a puff of fire erupt from the speedboat, but from two hundred feet up the results were not too satisfying— nothing short of total destruction would be. Hardcastle selected the Sea Stinger rocket pod, armed a missile and waited for the aiming doughnut to appear in his visor. When it did he found that his descent rate and altitude were both too high, but instead of easing his descent rate with the collective and improving his firing solution, he pitched the nose forward to center the doughnut on the racing yacht. At the first flash of the doughnut, signalling that a missile’s seeker head had locked onto the target, he fired.
The Sea Stinger with its eight-pound high-explosive warhead struck the engine compartment dead on target, but because of Hardcastle’s steep descent and velocity the Sea Lion aircraft was right behind it. The missile detonated on impact, turning the left engine in the yacht into scrap and exploding the remaining gallons of fuel— as Hardcastle pulled the V-22 out of its dive and banked sharply left, the fuel-tank explosion was just fifty feet away.
The Sea Lion felt as if it had been hit by a giant fly swatter. The right engine raced, its power controls torn apart. The concussion shattered the pilot’s right-side windscreen, sending a shower of glass into the cockpit and buffeting Hardcastle with one-hundred-mile winds. The Sea Lion felt as if it was doing an aileron roll with the right wing jerked violently up and straight overhead. Hardcastle pushed the power to full and cut back pressure on the cyclic, reducing the system torque seconds before the tremendous stress on the drive system would have snapped the left rotors clean off the nacelle. With less counter-torque driving the wing over, Hardcastle was just able to bring the Sea Lion under control a few scant yards above the dark waters of the Atlantic.
But the right engine was not responding to control inputs, and pressure readings indicated it was losing oil. Hardcastle quickly switched the system to cross-over power, which would use the left engine to power both rotors, then pulled the fuel cut-off control to the right engine to shut it down before the loss of oil pressure completely seized it.
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