Brown, Dale - Independent 02

by Hammerheads (v1. 1)

  Simpson let out a sigh. “Thank God . . .”

  “But you’re not out of it, Simpson, not by a damned long shot. All they told me was that, in their opinion, you had nothing to do with packing your household goods.”

  “Of course I didn’t have anything to do with it! I was staying in the ambassador’s residence when my goods were being packed—”

  “But you hired this company to move your things, bypassing the State Department guidelines for selecting a moving company . . .”

  Simpson rubbed his eyes wearily, then held up a hand. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d rather not go over all this again . . .”

  “You had better talk to me, Simpson ...”

  “My attorney said—”

  “Don’t give me that lawyer crap. I don’t care what your lawyer says. You’re a State Department official and a part of my section. All of this could have been avoided if you had cooperated with the FBI and told them what you know. Legal says the FBI would not have arrested you if you’d cooperated. But you waved the Constitution around like some sleaze Mafia boss, they put handcuffs on you and marched you through the building—my building. You are a major goddamn embarrassment, Simpson, and right now you are way beyond this ‘remain silent’ Miranda stuff. Now, when I tell you to talk, you talk and keep talking. When 1 tell you to shut up, you shut up. All clear on that?” Simpson nodded. “Okay, why did you hire that moving company to pack your stuff? You read the advisory from Border Security that said drug smugglers often front as moving companies to ship drugs. Why did you ignore that advisory and go outside department regulations?”

  “The moving company was owned by the nephew of one of the district Conservative Party chiefs,” Simpson said quietly. “He helped us establish the new free-trade-zone regulations a few months ago. It was a personal favor—”

  “It was also, at best, a damned stupid thing to do,” Riley said. “He was probably on the smuggler’s payroll. The whole free-trade-zone agreement was probably part of the smuggling operation, and you, bright boy, fell right into it. But why did you call Customs and complain about the handling your goods were getting? Why did you call the Customs commissioner’s office? You sounded like a pusher who couldn’t wait to go back into business.”

  “Because we’re paying three hundred dollars a night for a hotel room,” Simpson said. “Our goods have been in transit for almost a month—”

  “And that’s another thing. Why the hell are you staying at a suite at the Madison, living it up like some damned Arab sheik? The FBI was sure someone had lined your pockets with a little cash. It looked suspicious as hell.”

  Simpson’s head bowed a bit. “Tina . . . my wife, Tina . . . she was so happy to get out of Peru, to get back to the States . . . she always wanted to stay at the Madison. We were only going to stay for a week, sort of . . . sort of as a holiday. We just . . . never checked out . . .”

  “And you paid cash for your room?”

  “We . . . we had cashed in a lot of pesos . . .”

  Riley turned away from Simpson in disgust, shaking his head. “Stupid,” he muttered. He stared out the window for a few moments, letting Simpson squirm in the hard, thinly padded armless chair. Then: “You’ve been reassigned to Frank Melvin’s section. My secretary has your assignment folder outside.”

  Simpson looked ashen. “Melvin . . . I’ve been assigned to Africa? Why? I don’t understand ...”

  “The consul general in Lubumbashi has a request in for a replacement,” Riley said. “They need someone right away. You’re what the doctor ordered.”

  “Lubumbashi? You mean Zaire? You’re sending me to Zaire because of this?”

  “Have a nice trip, Simpson.”

  “But I’m innocent.” Simpson half-rose from the chair. “I didn’t know about the damn cocaine. I didn’t know about my household- goods shipment being used to transport drugs. I can account for every penny I’ve spent—”

  “Simpson, the Department takes care of its own, if they cooperate. I gave you a chance to take advantage of that when the FBI and Border Security people stormed into my office. You thought you’d hide behind some outside lawyer and your rights—well, now I’ve got FBI agents and Border Security I-Team investigators rummaging through my files, and I had to put up with a gimp prima donna Air Force general lecturing me on how to run my shop. You embarrassed this entire section. I can’t help you any more. Good luck, Mr. Simpson. Have a ball in the Congo.”

  Zaza Airfield, Verrettes, Haiti

  One Day Later

  “Senor Gachez. What a surprise,” Salazar said over the scrambled phone. He was at his desk in his office, getting a shoe shine from a young peasant boy. With Salazar was his chief pilot, Major Trujillo, and his aide, Field Captain Hermosa. They had all been expecting the call.

  “We heard about the unfortunate incident in San Diego the other day,” Salazar continued. “One hundred kilos. A small shipment but an incident of large consequences.”

  “Don’t gloat, Salazar,” Gachez said. “That was one small shipment. Others have been making it through ...”

  “Liquid cocaine? Frozen cocaine? Very imaginative, senor. Except it took only two weeks for the Hammerheads to discover it. Now the whole southwest is closed up tight. Radar balloons are flying everywhere—Arizona, New Mexico, Texas—and Customs has doubled their investigators at every inspection station. All because of one hundred kilos.”

  “Let me know when we can talk some business.”

  “You tried to cut me out, Senor Gachez. You tried to renege on our contract ...”

  “You were the one who reneged. We had a deal for six thousand dollars a kilo—”

  “And because of you the price has again gone up,” Salazar interrupted. “With the entire American border on full alert, it will cost extra for every shipment.” He paused, considering his thoughts, then decided: “It will now cost you twelve thousand dollars a kilo for delivery, anywhere. Half up-front, half on delivery to the place specified by your ground crew.”

  “Twelve ... thousand ... dollars ... I will never pay. I will see that you are executed instead—”

  “For that amount, I will guarantee delivery to any place in the United States,” Salazar said. “No matter what the Hammerheads do, you have my guarantee. And it will not be for a few measly kilos—we will ship every kilo you and the rest of the Cartel has ready.” There was a long pause on the line; Salazar thought Gachez had hung up on him again. Then: “Ten thousand a kilo.”

  “Twelve, senor. The price and the terms are not negotiable.” Another long pause, then: “Done.” And the line went dead. Salazar leaned back in his chair. The boy had scurried around to the other side of the desk to do the other boot. “We’re back in business, gentlemen,” he said, “at twelve thousand dollars a kilogram.”

  Hermosa was silent, his face grave as it usually was of late. Trujillo nodded his approval. “Good news, Colonel, but what I said about the Border Security Force is true. Their detection and interception systems are accurate and reliable. It will be very difficult to defeat them, even with fighter escort.”

  “We multiply our assets, spread the shipments out over more territory, move farther north and west ...”

  “That depends on where Gachez wants the deliveries made, sir,” Trujillo said. “If he insists on the southeast again, we may not be successful unless we devise another tactic.”

  “You will think of something, Major. I have confidence in you.” Salazar glanced down at the youngster busily running two soft-bristled brushes across his boots.

  “I think I may have an idea, Major,” Salazar said. “Yes . . .” And he reached down to pat the boy’s head.

  Hermosa saw the cold look on Salazar’s face, and his heart felt as if it had dropped to his feet. No, he screamed to himself. Not even Salazar could possibly be considering that. . .

  Hammerhead One Air Staging Platform, 0715

  Two Days Later

  “Attention on deck. Prepare for drone launch, pr
epare for drone launch.”

  Geffar was in the Seagull drone launch area as the drone-deck crew wheeled a delta-winged black Seagull drone out from the elevator near the center maintenance building to the catapult launch pits. Standing alongside her was Patrick McLanahan, now a full deputy- commander of the Hammerheads, in charge of drone operations. He was monitoring reports from the flight-operations tower on a wireless headset. “They sounded the alert at five past the hour,” he said, checking his watch. “They should have this baby airborne within five minutes.”

  “Where’s the target?”

  “One hundred fifty miles off the west coast of Florida,” McLanahan said. “No flight plan, no Customs clearance, smuggler’s profile. The Seagull will nail him in thirty minutes.” He listened for a moment, then added, “A Sea Lion tilt-rotor bird is reporting ready to go at Homestead for the follow-on.”

  The deck crew was like an Indy race-car crew prepping a racer in the pits. The Seagull drone was pushed and pulled into the launch- catapult area and lined up with the left launch rail, a fifty-foot-long channel in the deck, where a large hook was set. A bar on the Seagull’s front landing gear was set into the hook and tested for position, then raised out of the hook. “Drone in place, catapult checked and set, one minute gone,” McLanahan said, copying the times and a few notes on a clipboard. The deck crew secured the drone with a chain leading to tiedown bolts under each broad wing.

  “Why don’t you leave the gear bar in place?” GefiFar asked him.

  “In case the catapult accidentally fires we don’t want our guys flying ofif along with the drone. We also put the bar in place just before launch, when everyone’s clear, the engine’s running, and the data-link is active. We learn these things the hard way,” McLanahan told her. “We were preflighting a truck-launched model when the catapult accidentally went off. The wings nearly took a guy’s head ofif. The front gear got modified the way it is now.”

  Four technicians now moved around the machine. The multi-sensor cameras, the engine, propeller, fuel supply, antennae and overall condition of the bird were checked and a thumbs-up given to the safety officer. “Power-off preflight completed. Two minutes gone,” McLanahan said.

  The technicians scrambled and the safety fence at the end of the launch rail leading to the edge of the deck was lowered out of the way. “They’re activating the data-link,” McLanahan told GefiFar. The safety officer made one last check around the aft end of the drone, then signalled to the command center via his own headset. A moment later the engine coughed to life, the propeller snapped around, stopped, spun around, caught and roared to life. “Engine started, beginning power-on preflight,” McLanahan said. “Three minutes gone.”

  The controllers in the command center now performed a preflight on the Seagull, checking its flight control, recovery, backup, emergency and sensor equipment. The wing ailerons and wingtip rudders moved, the sensor ball could be seen swiveling around in its turret, and lights popped on and ofiF all around. The lone whine of the propeller oscillated up and down as the engine power and propeller pitch were changed—the drone danced on its wheels as the power was increased to full, despite the chains holding it securely to the deck.

  Moments later the power eased back to idle. “Power-on preflight completed, thirty seconds to go,” McLanahan said. “Pre-launch and launch checklists.” The tiedown chains were removed, the launch deck was cleared and safety nets were erected around the launch deck in case a brisk breeze blew the bird off course at launch. A holdback bar was placed on a bracket at the rear of the craft to keep it in place just before launch. The rudders were cocked to the left to compensate for a slight breeze from the left; at launch, its nose would then swing into the wind and prevent it from skidding back into the platform. The last step was the safety officer going out and engaging the catapult bar on the front landing gear of the Seagull.

  “Ready for launch, deck clear. Clear for launch.” The Seagull’s engine revved up to full power, creating a small whirlwind against the backstop net. It shook on its holdback bar, as if asking to be let free. Suddenly the holdbar bar popped out of the landing-gear bracket and the Seagull shot forward out toward the edge of the deck. The left wing dipped, and in response the nose angled upward and the bird rode on its rear landing-gear wheels as it cleared the platform. When it dipped several feet after leaving the deck, even with its nose high in the air, Geffar was afraid it would stall and crash into the ocean. But a few seconds later its nose-high descent subsided, it leveled off, shot into the sky and was quickly lost from sight.

  “Good data-link being received from the Seagull,” McLanahan reported. “It’s already tying in with the KEYSTONE aerostat and receiving intercept data on the target.”

  For back-up, just in case, a second Seagull was wheeled off the elevator and over to the launch area as they headed toward the maintenance building to the elevator that would take them down to the command center.

  Hardcastle was in the commander’s seat, studying the central radar display that showed the west coast of Florida within one hundred miles of the target they had just launched the Seagull against. Geffar logged into the commander’s terminal, and Hardcastle made room for her at the console. “KEYSTONE has contact with Seagull, on course and approaching Plantation Key,” he said. “We have radar contact on several vessels west of Cape Romano and Ten Thousand Islands that might be pickups.”

  “Any of our boats in the area?”

  “Nothing in the immediate area. Closest would be an SES out of

  Key West, about two hours cruising time. We should get a Sea Lion airborne and cover the target’s flight path.”

  “Right. Launch one out of Alladin City.”

  McLanahan glanced at Hardcastle. The veteran ex-Coast Guard officer looked less than ecstatic when Geffar suggested launching an aircraft out of the Hammerheads’ Everglades air base—no doubt he was hoping to fly a Sea Lion off the platform himself, McLanahan thought. Except for instructional and ferry flights, Hardcastle had been virtually grounded by Elliott since his so-called incident near Boca Raton—no operational flights. It had taken its obvious toll on him. Not to mention the snide shots taken at him by some in the media about his alleged drinking. And his son Daniel, part of the same story ... All of these because of the death of one of the smugglers? He had done what the Hammerheads were authorized to do, what he had envisioned would be the solution to the drug problem in the United States. And instead of being recognized for his actions he was being condemned. Damned unfair, McLanahan felt, and he wasn’t alone. Many of the line people in the Hammerheads agreed, and their morale was being affected.

  After he had issued the orders to launch the Sea Lion tilt-rotor aircraft from Alladin City, Hardcastle stood and headed out to the elevators. McLanahan followed.

  He found Hardcastle leaning on the safety fence between the maintenance building and the aircraft elevator. A Sea Lion was just being raised up to the main deck in preparation as backup to the ongoing chase operation in west Florida. He leaned up against the fence alongside him.

  “Hey, Admiral, how’s she going?”

  Hardcastle looked at him, offered a wary smile. “All right. Watched the launch on the monitors. Your crew is really humming. Got it off under five minutes this time.”

  “Yeah. Thanks. Remember just a few weeks ago when we thought launching one under ten minutes would be impossible? Now we do one under five and they think it’s no big deal.”

  “You’ve done a great job with the drones and the crew,” Hardcastle said.

  “For an Air Force jock, you mean?”

  “You’d make a pretty good sea-dog, too.”

  A few beats of silence, then McLanahan said, “How are things really going with you?”

  Hardcastle stared straight ahead, his lips taught, his eyes hard. “You know they changed the designation of the Sea Lion, don’t you? It s officially an A V-22, an attack plane.” McLanahan had indeed heard—it had come up in Congressional testimony about the o
ffensive way this “rescue” aircraft had been used.

  “I don’t know why you’re beating yourself up like this,” McLanahan said. “It was a good bust, a good intercept. Bringing Daniel on the flight, flying after drinking—”

  “I was not drunk.”

  “I know you weren’t. I’m just saying maybe that peripheral stuff wasn’t so hot, but damn it, you did the job, just the way she wrote . . . the way you wrote it.”

  “I was disappointed in Elliott, I thought he—”

  “Admiral, let me tell you something about Brad Elliott. You know him on a higher level than I do, but I think I maybe know him better than you do. We’ve done some flying together, and I can tell you that like you, Brad would rather be up there flying than in this big-deal executive job. But he took it on because the Hammerheads are on the cutting edge of something, and that’s what he likes. Me too. Frankly, I guess we’ll both be happier when we get back where we came from, to Dreamland and Brad’s toys. Meanwhile, though, I guarantee you that inside he’s really on your side. But he has to do some of this p.r. stuff to keep the wolves from the door and he’s doing it. Sorry, sir, end of speech, but I thought I should—”

  “Hardcastle looked at him, half-smiled. “You make a pretty good case, Patrick, and I appreciate it, but damn it, I still hate this inaction, and I feel left out.”

  “Admiral, you can’t be left out. Sandra Geffar is the commander of this platform, and she does a real good job, but everybody knows you’re the heart and soul of the Hammerheads. You made all this happen. You took on the big shots and the old-line people in Customs and Coast Guard. We all got in this because of the challenge and excitement that you gave it. We believe in what you believe in. So, if you don’t mind, sir, please keep that in mind when you’re feeling all low and lonely.”