“Yes, sir.”
“I know Preston and Chapman and their staffs have debriefed you.
I have their notes here,” the President said, motioning to the folders arranged in front of him. “General Elliott, why the hell didn’t you notify the White House of your intention to fly this mission to Haiti?” “If we were to have any chance of stopping the terrorists responsible for the attack on our aerostats and air-staging platforms we had to act—”
“You’re right, but not unilaterally. You don’t have the authority to bomb another country. You could have caused a major embarrassment to this administration. We counted on you to lead the Border Security Force in time of a major disaster. I find you were out bombing some airstrip in Haiti—and with Stealth fighters, which you surely have no authority to employ.”
The President paused, staring at Elliott. Elliott stared back. “We all know you’re a resourceful, intelligent and effective commander, Brad—but dammit, you’re an agent of the President of the United States, not an authority unto yourself.”
“I’m sure you realize, Mr. President, that I believe that all my actions were based on what I thought was necessary and right for security and for the Border Security Force,” Elliott said. “I do have a responsibility to defend the United States, and I did what I thought was necessary at the time to do that. I made a decision and acted.” “So you did.” The President folded his hands, took a deep breath and said, “All right, on consultation with the Cabinet—which was by no means unanimous—no action will be taken against you. We need to get through this and back on our feet. It’s not an endorsement of what you did. I expect you to carry out the orders given you and to conduct operations within your specific area of responsibility, namely the border identification areas specified in the Border Security Force charter. All other operations require approval by me. Clear, General?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Brad, you’re a hell of an officer, a man who can get things done, but if I can’t trust you I’ll replace you in a heartbeat. My meaning had better be crystal clear.”
“It is, sir.”
“Okay.” He opened the first folder in front of him, an agenda of items to consider in response to the attack. “Let’s talk about what we do next ...”
“If I may, sir,” Elliott spoke up immediately. The President looked up from his notes, suppressed a sigh and acknowledged him with a slight nod.
“The first thing you need to do, Mr. President, is fire me and deactivate the Hammerhead Two air-staging platform.”
“What? Elliott, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Sir, the smuggling outfit of Colonel Agusto Salazar has gone underground. We weren’t able to get an accurate fix on his location when he made his escape from Haiti. He could be anywhere in Central or South America. I’ve got a plan that I think will help draw him out of hiding to attempt a large-scale drug shipment, but for it to be successful we have to convince him that the Hammerheads are being phased out and that it will be relatively safe for him to make another shipment...” He looked for a reaction, saw none and rushed on . . . “For that to be believable you must announce that I will be forced to step down because of my bungling Border Security Force operations, and that the Hammerhead Two platform will be towed into shore for repairs and eventual replacement in the Straits of Florida, where Hammerhead One used to be.” Now he was getting reactions, mostly incredulous stares. “You will announce that the carrier Coral Sea will be moved to west Florida to replace Hammerhead Two, but instead it will pull into port, at St. Petersburg or Mobile, Alabama, and stay there because of budget constraints and Congressional opposition to the whole Border Security Force concept.”
"This may not be a pretend scenario, General,” the President said, “if you keep on like this ..."
“Sir, we can’t allow Salazar’s group the luxury of developing alternate smuggling routes and distribution networks across the Mexican border or in the west—the Hammerheads aren’t set up yet for large- scale operations there. His networks are already well established in Florida and the southeast, and so are the Hammerheads. But if we make some macho pledge to blast every unknown vessel or aircraft in the region to hell, Salazar may well not risk sending his planes or ships into the area and decide to stay underground. If he does that it may take our intelligence network months to find him.”
“What makes you so sure he won’t stay underground and bring his drugs in some other place, Brad?” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Curtis asked. “This Salazar guy’s a rat but he’s not stupid.”
“I have no guarantee that he won’t ignore what is happening and continue operating someplace else. But all our information points to one significant fact—that the drug capital of the w’orld is, and probably always will be, south Florida. We’ve noted that drugs that have been imported someplace other than Florida, as far away as California, are eventually tracked back to Florida, where they’re put into the distribution pipeline. For example, the smugglers killed in the raid in Louisiana were members of a New York crime syndicate that operates out of Miami. We have every indication that the shipment brought in that night was headed for New York but back through Florida. There’s no established pipeline for shipments this size from the deep south to the northeast—they all must go through Florida. The only reason that shipment landed in Louisiana was because we had the southeast locked up tight. I feel if we tell the world we will continue to secure the southeast, especially with heavy weapons, then Salazar will quietly explore entrees in other areas. But if he perceives what he thinks is a weakness in our operations in the southeast he might be bold enough and cocky enough to rush in, or at least surface. Then we have a chance of catching him.”
“If you have no platforms or radars watching the coast,” Vice President Martindale asked, “how are you going to find the smugglers—if they’re all that cooperative and try more drug runs?”
“With the ROTH radar in Arkansas, sir. The over-the-horizon backscatter radar can detect planes and vessels for hundreds of miles, from the North Carolina coast almost to California. That system can get our planes in close enough for them to use their on-board radars to complete the intercept.”
“I’ve seen the ROTH radar in action,” Drug Control Advisor Massey said, “and it is a very impressive device. But you pointed out several serious deficiencies in the system—its lack of reliable altitude data, its atmospheric vulnerability, its experimental status. Can we count on this ROTH radar to stop Salazar when and if he tries another drug run?”
“I understand there are a lot of ifs here,” Elliott said. “But I believe it’s our best chance. We can rely on intelligence and informants to find Salazar, and hope by then that he hasn’t busted the borders wide open and flooded the market with drugs before we nail him. Or we can try to lure him out by pretending to be weakened by his attack.
“Salazar feeds on weakness and is driven by greed. He’ll return because the chances for big profits are better than ever before. But if we send in the Navy to secure the southeast he’ll stay away and find another weak spot—and we have a lot of them, especially over the Mexican border. We’ve seen him move his operation westward faster than we can keep up with him, and we have to stop him before he establishes a major network there.”
The President turned to the others around him. “Comments?” “With respect, General Elliott,” Drug Advisor Samuel Massey said, “I think this incident has shown us that we should rethink this entire Border Security Force concept. We may have called it the Border Security Force, and we may delude ourselves into thinking this is only a paramilitary organization, but in essence the Border Security Force, these Hammerheads, are fulfilling a military function, Brad. I give you and Admiral Hardcastle and Chief Inspector Geffar all the credit in the world. What you’ve done in the past couple of years has been outstanding. But now we have to keep an aircraft carrier in place out there, plus pay billions more to replace what was destroyed—not to mention the irreplaceable loss of lif
e—and on top of all that we still need to insure that we have adequate military forces in the region to protect all these assets ... I suggest we disband the Border Security Force for real and integrate the remaining assets into the standing military forces. We could use mothballed Navy ships on patrol in place of vulnerable oil platforms. These vessels can still launch and recover aircraft and drones, and drug-interdiction duties can be combined with other exercises or patrols ...”
And you, Massey, you son of a bitch, can get rid of us, which you’ve wanted to do ever since Hardcastle came up with the Hammerheads idea, Elliott thought and almost said aloud. Fortunately the President made it unnecessary.
“Very good, Sam, draw up some notes for me, turn them over to the Vice President. For now, however, I want the Border Security Force to continue their operations as planned.”
He then turned to the Vice President: “Kevin, I’m going to drop this one on your lap. Get together with General Elliott and Secretary Preston, draw up a plan of action, and brief me on it as soon as possible. It’s an intriguing ploy, we’ll give it a try.” To Elliott he said, “Brad”—he paused, an exasperated-amused smile was on his face— “Brad, you’re like damned cat—somehow you always manage to land on your feet. I was ready to string you up this morning, and here I am going along with your crazy idea. Which you better pray works . . .”
Jabbing a thumb at Elliott, he turned to the Vice President and said with a straight face, “Okay, Kevin, fire that sonofabitch.”
CHAPTER NINE
Westchester, Florida
Two Weeks Later
Hardcastle surprised himself at how good he used to live. The house that his ex-wife Jennifer now lived in with Daniel was a lovely two-story Tudor-style home in a gated community southwest of Miami. As he parked his old station wagon out front, he reminded himself he was not here on a nostalgia trip. He was here to try to regain a son.
He saw a brand-new motorcycle parked beside the garage under the eaves. So this was Jennifer’s solution to the trouble Daniel had gotten into when he “borrowed” the motorcycle to see his father. His irritation quickly subsided when he realized that the incident had happened almost three years ago. And he had seen Daniel maybe a dozen times since then.
He noted another car in the driveway, a foreign job he didn’t recognize. But he was sure it belonged to Jennifer’s attorney and sometime companion—Hardcastle still couldn’t imagine them as lovers—Vance Hargrove.
Hardcastle had come here right after another fifteen-hour day at Border Security Force headquarters. Too damn many hassles with the Navy, the DOD, the Coast Guard, everybody . . . Getting the Coral Sea moved to west Florida was bad enough, but now the state of Florida and the Coast Guard were having major problems moving the Hammerhead Two platform to the east side—they were afraid of toxic spills, terrorist acts, expenses, of their own damn shadows.
Jennifer had sounded upset enough to make him come right over from Aladdin City without changing out of his Hammerheads flight overalls with his SIG Sauer automatic in the belt holster—the old rule about Border Security Force members not wearing sidearms off-duty had been relaxed since the attacks on the aerostat units. At first he’d been annoyed, then realized it could be serious, and maybe it would give him a chance to get close to Daniel . . .
Jennifer answered the door, and skipped the niceties.
“Come in.” She said it like an order, not an invitation.
“What’s wrong? You sounded upset over the phone.” In the foyer he wasn’t surprised to see Vance in his six-hundred-dollar suit and silk tie, a crystal glass of something amber in his hand.
“He’s upstairs,” she said coolly.
“What’s he doing?”
“You tell me.”
“Come on, Jen, what’s up?”
“What’s up is I think he’s doing drugs. He spends all his time in his room. He stays out until all hours. I’m worried about him.”
“Have you tried talking to him?”
“Of course. He says there’s nothing to worry about, everything’s fine. But, he just seems more and more ... distant. I can’t control him, I’m at a loss—”
“I can see that.” He nodded toward Hargrove. “Why is he here?”
“He called this afternoon. I told him what I thought was happening and he came over . . .”
“He’s your lawyer, not Danny’s father. Never mind,” he said; he unbuckled his leather belt, removed his ammunition belt and holster.
Hardcastle could smell it before he reached the top of the stairs, the sweet but pungent odor of marijuana. Oddly enough, Hardcastle’s first reaction wasn’t anger towards Daniel—it was anger towards his ex-wife. Cooking heroin? Jennifer was a bit protected all her life, but he assumed even she could recognize pot when she smelled it.
He went to Daniel's room and knocked on the door. “Daniel?”
“Dad?” He noted a bit of surprise in his son’s voice; he fully expected a long delay as Daniel tried to conceal the evidence, but the door opened right away. “Hey, Dad, I didn’t expect you.”
“Can I come in?”
Daniel seemed genuinely surprised at the question. “Hey, it’s your house . . .” Then, he grinned and added, “Well, it used to be ... I mean . . .”
“Forget it. I know what you mean.” He entered the room, and Daniel shoveled an armful of clothes off an armchair—one of the armchairs that used to be downstairs, one of his den chairs—and motioned his father to sit down.
“Fine, dad, fine.” Daniel was trying hard to carry it off. “Just up here studying for a test. How are things with you? Sounds like the Hammerheads are in some hot water.”
“We’ve had better days. Your mother’s worried about you,” Hardcastle began. “She thinks you’re up here cooking heroin.” “Heroin? Is she kidding . . . ?”
“No, she’s very serious,” Hardcastle said. He looked around the room, then back at his son. “She doesn’t know—or chooses not to know—what marijuana smells like. She’s scared, bud. I wish you’d straighten it out with her.”
“It wouldn’t do any good . .
“You know that’s not true, Daniel. She adores you. If you explain what you’re doing, she’ll listen.”
Daniel looked at his father with a puzzled expression. “What about you? You’re not mad at me? For doing grass up here?”
“You were expecting me to be angry . . . maybe hoping I’d be. Listen, Daniel, I don’t like it, you know that. Considering what I do for a living, it’s not exactly what I’d hoped for. But, damn it, you’re old enough to make up your own mind about some things. You want to do that stuff, it’s your life, go ahead and do it. But I do care. I worry about you. I’m worried that you need pot to help yourself feel good, and I’m worried that you might be out driving that motorcycle after you’ve had a few hits of that stuff. I’m worried that if you keep on doing grass that it might lead to your doing hard drugs, and then your life will really be screwed up. But I know I can’t run your life for you, Danny. Just think about why you’re doing it before you do it. Think about going on the freeways with that motorcycle out there before doing that stuff—if you get into an accident on that thing ... Remember, other people can get hurt.” He paused. “Well, open up with your mother a bit more ...”
“I don’t think she’d understand, Dad. I think she’d go into hysterics. She’d throw me into a rehab clinic—or into jail.” He paused, smiled, then added, “Or call my father on me. Is that what she did? Call the old man?”
Hardcastle wanted to smile at his son’s intuitiveness, indulge in a little “chip off the old block” self-gratification, but instead he shook his head. “Never mind that. The bottom line is this: she was worried about you—terrified is more like it—and she wanted to talk with someone before she confronted you like an inquisitor. That’s the kind of treatment you get when you’re dishonest with someone.”
“With Mom, it’s better to keep this kind of news away from her,” Daniel insisted. “If I dr
ank a bottle of wine at dinner every night, she’d think I was being sociable. If I took one hit on a joint in her presence she’d flip out.”
“Probably so. Most people would.”
“Sure. I get it. ‘Wine is fine but pot is not,’ right?”
“Christ,” Hardcastle said with a sardonic laugh, “that’s the same damned line we used back in the sixties, and I’m sorry we used it back then because it sounds pretty lame now. Neither is fine, and you know it.” Daniel shrugged and nodded.
“Just think about why you’re doing it before you do it, that’s all I ask. Remember it’s just like drinking alcohol—it’ll impair your driving, your reaction time, your motor skills. Think about going on the freeways with that motorcycle out there before doing that stuff—if you get into an accident on that thing, you're dead meat. Also, remember that the slightest reference to drugs these days will bring the wrath of God down on you—the cops are everywhere, the judges are under a lot of pressure to reduce drug use—and lines like ‘wine is fine but pot is not’ won’t get you anywhere with the law. If they catch you using, carrying, or buying that stuff in anything but tiny quantities, they’ll hammer you, hammer me, hammer your mother. Do you understand what I’m saying? Vice is not a victimless crime, Daniel. Other people get hurt. I just want you to know that. Hey, I’m a great one to talk. Flying that Sea Lion after your victory dinner wasn’t exactly a smart idea. Remember that?”
“How can I ever forget? I was shocked, scared, I guess I thought I’d die.” Daniel touched his head where bits of the pilot’s helmet and his seat had cut him, blasted by the smuggler’s bullets. Hardcastle shook his head ... his son came so close to death ... “I lectured you that night you got pulled in by the sheriff, and then I pulled a stunt like flying after drinking.”
Brown, Dale - Independent 02 Page 56