Brown, Dale - Independent 02

by Hammerheads (v1. 1)

  Border Security Force Headquarters, Aladdin City, Florida

  Three Hours Later

  The Hammerheads were in the glassed-in, soundproof room overlooking the command center—Elliott, Hardcastle, Masters, McLanahan, members of the Hammerheads’ I-Team, including the I-Team’s new chief and Geffar’s old deputy at Homestead, Curtis Long, Elliott started off. “Well, we have a solid lead on both Salazar and Van Nuys. They’re in Mexico. But Salazar apparently has some serious juice now. The Mexican government won’t even consider touching him without a federal grand-jury indictment.”

  Geffar spoke what the rest were thinking. “This was the man who put together the attack on our radar sites . . . killed forty persons . . . and the Mexican government won’t help us nail him?”

  Elliott nodded. “Salazar apparently works for the Mexican government as a so-called military contractor, and the government protects contractors unless indicted by a Mexican federal grand jury or a military high tribunal—I doubt if an American grand jury would get him extradited. Van Nuys holds an American passport so we can get to him a little easier.”

  “And Van Nuys is with Salazar in Mexico?” Long put in. “I thought we had a warrant out for him. Why the hell wasn’t he picked up when he entered Mexico? The Mexican government is supposed to cooperate—”

  “Salazar,” Elliott told him, “seems to own the Customs Bureau, the militia, the police—the works. He decides who comes and goes. My guess is that Van Nuys had been in Colombia with the Medellin Cartel up until now. He might well be working for them. State and Justice want to make an official request for help in getting Van Nuys but I asked them to hold off. If we march in with federal marshals to get Van Nuys, Salazar may dive deep underground again.”

  Elliott called up a map of central America on the five-foot briefing screen. “Salazar runs an air charter service in eastern Mexico called Carmen del Sol Airlines in the coastal town of Ciudad del Carmen. He’s managed to bring in most of his aircraft from Haiti into Mexico, and he’s got access to spare parts, fuel, weapons, even military hardware—he does contract work for the Mexican Air Force. Our source says Salazar’s worked on everything from the presidential shuttle to fighter jets.”

  “First the Haitians, now the Mexicans,” Hardcastle muttered.

  “Salazar has the region wired for sound,” Elliott continued. “He’s got people that inform his organization about every move the Mexican government makes and every move our agents make. We’ve been getting intelligence on Salazar only because we’ve gotten down to stuff out of John Le Carre. But our source is no longer available. Now we have no solid intelligence on Salazar’s and Van Nuys’ exact location, we only know that they’re both in Ciudad del Carmen. Our contact reports activity at Salazar’s charter company ... he thinks several of Salazar’s largest planes may be taking off soon—”

  “Which means he’s planning a big delivery,” Geffar said. “This is the delivery we’ve been waiting for. But we need more info on the specifics.”

  “I can give you a plan to put a combined DEA and I-Team unit in Ciudad del Carmen to begin surveillance on Salazar and his charter air service,” Long said. “We can’t do anything too elaborate or Salazar will bolt. But we need enough manpower to stop his soldiers and planes if we turn up anything.”

  “Or we can grab Van Nuys,” Geffar said. “He’s obviously involved in this. He might be able to give us the information we need to jump Salazar—”

  “Can’t trust Van Nuys,” Hardcastle said, looking at Geffar. “He tried to kill you once, he’ll do it again. He has nothing to lose now. And even if we do grab him we have no assurance that he’ll tell us anything about Salazar’s operation. I’d guess he’s more afraid of Salazar and the Cartel than U.S. justice.” He turned to Elliott. “Why don’t we just send the I-Team in and level Salazar’s charter operation? Why don’t we just go in and grab Salazar?”

  “Not that easy,” Curtis Long put in. “We either catch him out in the open, or we stand a good chance of missing.”

  “And an I-Team raid on the charter operation is out for now,” Elliott said. “We’d never get approval... Even if we got a grand-jury indictment against Salazar and then approval from Mexico to enforce it, it would be a Mexican operation, not a Hammerheads’. They won’t even let an I-Team cross the border, let alone help their police or militia.”

  “So what do we do?” McLanahan said impatiently. “Just continue surveillance?”

  “That’s our only option right now. Reinforce the backscatter radar with P-3 and E-2 flights ofiF the Mexican coast. If, or when, Salazar tries this big delivery, we can hope to be ready and waiting . . . Meanwhile, Curt, I’d like a plan from you to take an I-Team into Cuidad del Carmen to arrest Van Nuys and Salazar ...”

  As the group filed out of the briefing center Geffar and Hardcastle stayed back. “Brad,” GefiFar said, “nobody can stand this waiting. We all know tomorrow can be too late . . . send me into Ciudad del Carmen to find Van Nuys.”

  “Out of the damn question. You’d be dead the minute you stepped on Mexican soil. Salazar has informants everywhere—Customs, the police, storekeepers, hotels. They target Americans for round-the- clock surveillance—”

  “And even if you did find him, what then?” Hardcastle said. “You going to drag him by the locks back to Miami? With Salazar he’ll be under heavy guard. Even if you did find him, he’d blow you away before he’d let you take him back to the States.”

  “Listen,” Geffar said angrily, “we’re wasting time. We know some things now . . . we know the area where Salazar and Van Nuys are, we know they’re planning a big operation, a major drug shipment, and we know that we need to get someone in to find out specifics. We can’t send an I-Team, and we can’t go through official channels—”

  “If we did decide to send someone in it wouldn’t be you,” Elliott said. “You’re still hurt, Van Nuys knows you, he no doubt told Salazar’s men about you, they’ll be on the lookout—”

  “Forget all that. I think I can turn Van Nuys. I talked to him before Hokum shot me at Sunrise Beach. At the time he was more scared than anything else. He wants an out... He doesn’t want to deal with Salazar but figures he has no choice. Salazar owns him, Van Nuys needs money. I tell you he was ready to deal when I found him out at Sunrise Beach. He was ready to turn over Salazar and what he knows about the Medellin Cartel in exchange for his freedom. I think he’ll still deal with me. I know he won’t deal with anyone else. And even if he only pretends to go along, figuring he can handle any female, and so forth, I’m ready for that too ...”

  Elliott was shaking his head.

  “General, I feel strong enough about this to request a leave of absence and fly down there myself.”

  Elliott said, “It’s a suicide mission—”

  “I disagree, but I’d like a little backup when I get down there. I’ll do without, though, if that’s how you want it.”

  “If you really think Van Nuys can be turned, we’ll send someone else—maybe use the DEA agent in place down there—”

  “You know that won’t work. The contact would be blown, Salazar would kill the contact and take off, and Van Nuys would disappear too. I’ll have an advantage over anyone else you can think of.” “And more disadvantages,” Elliott said. “You’d be going in there with no support, your face is known, you’re not a hundred percent fit—”

  “General, like I said and you know, we lose our best opportunity to get Salazar if we pass this up. We can get a Sea Lion to fly me in tonight and I’ll make my way to Ciudad del Carmen to Van Nuys. I’ll either convince him to cooperate with us and take down Salazar ... or I’ll get out.”

  Nobody said a word. It was the closest Elliott could come to saying yes.

  Isla del Carmen, Mexico

  Later That Evening

  In an estate on the south-central side of Isla del Carmen, about five miles east of the city, the Cuchillos were presenting their mission plan to Salazar and Van Nuys. They were in
a large office with a spectacular view of the Laguna de Terminos to the south and the lush green forests of the Candelaria River valley beyond, all still visible in the rapidly approaching twilight. The office was on the fifth floor of the mansion, surrounded by bulletproof glass. The estate itself was on top of a man-made hill that made Salazar’s retreat the highest elevation of any spot in the state of Campeche. The twenty-acre compound was guarded by a small, well-equipped army of Cuchillos soldiers; the mansion itself was more like a medieval castle, complete with drawbridges and gates along the road leading to the house designed to slow7 advancing vehicles.

  Major Jose Trujillo, the Cuchillos’ senior pilot, was standing by the briefing board with a pointer. Just like his old military days—in full uniform, inspection-ready, with all ribbons and awards earned over fifteen years as a squadron commander in the Cuban Revolutionary Air Force. He was not only presenting a plan to his commander—he was presenting the Cuchillos as a united, strengthened force of top aviators ready to go to war again.

  “The transports will begin launching in one hour for the flight to Valdivia, Colombia. Our plan is to begin launching aircraft one every ten or fifteen minutes, as close as possible to our normal departure scheduling and interspersing these departures with normal civilian traffic.

  “The slower planes, the light twins and heavy singles, will move out first, followed by the fight turboprops and then by the heavy turboprops and jets. The fight aircraft have stops planned in San Salvador, San Jose and Panama City. Some medium-range planes will make stops in Costa Rica and Bluefields in Nicaragua. The heavy transports can make it all the way on one refueling, but we have planned stops for them in Cartagena, Colombia, and David, Panama, to resemble our regularly scheduled flights as much as possible. All our flights will be on approved ICAO international aviation convention flight plans with Carmen del Sol Airlines call signs.”

  Trujillo motioned to Van Nuys, who got to his feet. “I’ve arranged for customs clearances for all our flights to Valdivia. All our flights have no-inspection clearances straight through. But since we can never count on those to hold up, each crewmember must be prepared for a full check in case of a no-notice inspection. That means current passports, current inoculations and all immigration papers in order. The planes have to be sanitized so as to not reveal the flight’s actual destination in Colombia or any evidence of the deliveries into North America.

  “If they find one scrap of evidence to suggest what we’re carrying, they will confiscate it and arrest everyone on the spot. If one crewman opens his mouth and mentions one word about Valdivia, drugs or the Cartel to the wrong person it could ruin everything. Don’t assume a man in a Customs uniform is a Customs officer—he could be a DEA agent or an informer or a spy. You keep your mouths shut and be alert for trouble.”

  “Gachez told me you could guarantee safe passage for all my crewmembers, Van Nuys,” Salazar said angrily.

  “I can’t guarantee anything. I’ve put the Cartel’s paid inspectors on duty in the proper time and place for each flight’s arrival, but I have no control over what actually happens, especially in Panama, El Salvador and Costa Rica—the U.S. has a lot of clout there. You know that Customs work in these countries is political, Colonel. I’ve set up everything, that’s all I can do.”

  “It had better work,” Salazar said. “You are betting your life on it.”

  In the silence that followed that exchange, Trujillo pressed on. “All aircraft are due in Valdivia by tomorrow morning. They will begin loading immediately after servicing and refueling. The bulk of the cargo will be handled by the Antonov, Shorts and Douglas transports, with ten thousand kilos on board the Antonov-26, six thousand on the Shorts 440 and nine thousand for the Douglas DC-3. The remaining twenty-five thousand kilos will be divided among the other ten planes.”

  Trujillo flipped charts on the briefing board. Instead of a series of lines leading overland from Mexico to Colombia, this chart had a series of lines going from Colombia overwater to several Caribbean islands. “The return flights will be long and difficult. We will divide the planes into three groups. All aircraft will refuel in northern Colombia, either at Uribia or Cienaga. The smaller planes, the light twins and heavy singles, will fly to remote landing strips in Panama, Jamaica or Haiti, depending on fuel reserves and flight performances . . . you all have packages that describe the landing points, with LORAN coordinates and WET SNOW marker beacon-codes and frequencies—I have produced instrument letdown plates and instructions for each package in case you need to use the landing spot in bad weather.

  “The planes heading westbound will refuel at remote strips in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and then here at Ciudad del Carmen. Our alternate for the Mexican planes are Valladolid in the northeastern part of the Yucatan Peninsula, where we have our improved recovery strip. These planes will proceed overwater to drop zones along the Cuban coastline, the Straits of Florida and into Bahamian waters. Flights going to Jamaica will proceed over Cuba for drops in the Florida Everglades. Flights refueling in Haiti will make drops in the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas.

  “The larger aircraft, after refueling in northern Colombia will either proceed north to drop points in the Bahamas, or fly here, refuel and then make drops in New Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana. These flights will be on approved American flight plans but will divert from their flight plans at the last moment to make their drops.

  “Our intelligence informs us there has been no Border Security

  Force activity in this region or in Florida for some time,” Trujillo said. “The Hammerhead Two platform has been towed into Key West for repairs before being moved to the Atlantic Ocean side of Florida, and the aircraft carrier that in the past has been used to stage interceptor flights in eastern Florida is now at anchor near Miami. Aircraft have been observed using it but our sources believe these are training flights only.

  “Our greatest threat comes from U.S. Air Force jet interceptors, but that threat is very limited. We will be saturating the area with over a dozen low slow-moving targets, only a few of which actually threaten the coast itself. As long as we stay low and close to normal airways we will not be intercepted. The Americans have not shown a willingness to use their air-defense aircraft for drug-interdiction duties. This gives us an advantage.

  “The planes flying into the Everglades are under the greatest threat of interception. That is why I will be flying one of these planes, along with Captain Estevez and Captain Garzon, our most experienced pilots. We also will have the Mexican F-5 jets for air cover for the heavy transports heading into Texas and Louisiana—”

  A knock on the door to Salazar’s office, and a clerk hurried in with a note for Salazar. He read it, smiled, stood and took the podium from Trujillo.

  “Thank you, Major Trujillo. Your plan is a masterwork of deception, operational redundancy and attention to detail. I thank you and your staff.” To the assembled pilots: “Well, the battle begins. I have just received an advisory from Mexican Customs. A United States Border Security AV-22 with eight crewmen has requested permission to fly into Veracruz the day after tomorrow, estimated time of arrival, eleven o’clock local. Our sources are checking out the nature of their visit, but it’s fairly obvious they will be moving in on us very soon.” He turned to Trujillo “All flights will use the Valladolid alternate recovery base. Do not fly in Ciudad del Carmen until further notice. The Border Security Force will be too late,” Salazar went on. “When the Hammerheads arrive in Ciudad del Carmen ... I estimate no more than one hour after landing in Veracruz ... our planes will have completed their missions and dispersed to locations for scrubdowns and records-updating before returning here. If we do our jobs right we can present proof to all inspectors about where our planes were at all times. There will be no evidence of the mission except for a group of happy, tired pilots. Of course, because of crew- rest regulations you will not be interviewed by anyone. I will see to that. We will annotate your logbooks to correspond to your assigned routes and
schedules—their inspection will lead to nothing.”

  He paced the front of the office, then said, “We have already won a major victory. The U.S. has denounced the Border Security Force for what it is—a terrorist organization that tried to dominate the entire hemisphere with their weapons. We taught them a lesson by attacking the Hammerheads’ radar installations. Our actions were vindicated by the people and the Congress when they deactivated the Border Security Force. It took the dedication of all of you .. . and the lives of comrades.

  “You are soldiers and you have a mission.” His voice rose slightly, its intensity deepened greatly. “You fly because you are the best pilots in the world, and now you test your skills and courage against a huge, meddling superpower. Money is fine, and you deserve all you receive, but the mission is manhood, which you test in the night sky and against overwhelming odds. You are the Cuchillos. You will be victorious ...”

  Salazar waited as his young pilots erupted as planned and prepared by him. He let them carry on for a few moments longer, then raised his hand.

  “I must also tell you that I will be aboard the Mirage F1C fighter to protect the Antonov transport as it makes its way into the United States. I will be the last line of defense for our flagship.” Which announcement brought forth a second outburst, followed, ironically, by the Cuban national anthem.

  After the pilots had gone to the buses to be taken to the airport, Van Nuys had to compliment Salazar on his hold over the Cuchillo pilots. “My only purpose is to make sure my crewmen believe in themselves and in what they are about to do.”

  “Whatever you say,” Van Nuys said, “but you seem to whip these guys up pretty easy. It’s almost like they’re on something themselves.”

  “Not exactly. Their food and drink were ... fortified with amphetamines, to keep them alert on their long trip.”

  “You drugged your own pilots?”

  “They keep their fighting edge better with a little stimulation. The same will be done in Valdivia before they depart for the United States and the drop sites. Don’t worry about my pilots, Van Nuys. Worry about the Customs procedures and the money. If even one of my men has trouble with Customs anywhere, your services are terminated. Worry about that for a while.”