Pilot: “Roger that.” He had a floor of one hundred feet unless he received permission to go lower from Commander Mello.
Home Base: “Pilot, report your fuel status.”
Pilot: “Maybe forty minutes. Fighting this wind is really sucking it dry.”
Big Eyes: “Course heading on the go-fast boat?”
Pilot: “Thermal is fading in and out, but he has definitely turned north. Heading is now 350 degrees, almost directly into the wind.”
Big Eyes: “Speed?”
Pilot: “Hard to tell. Slow, less than ten knots. Request permission to take her lower to try to get a better fix on the go-fast boat.”
Home Base: “Risk factor to the drone?”
Pilot: “Very high, sir, but if I don’t go lower I won’t be able to pick her out from the storm spray and waves.”
Gollum: “Do it, Pilot!”
Home Base: “That’s not your call, dammit! That is a Coast Guard drone!”
Gollum: “And it is useless to us if it cannot locate the go-fast boat!”
In the Command Center, Honeycutt took a deep breath, considering what he could offer. And if he had the authority. Screw it, he thumbed the microphone toggle.
Gollum: “I will see to it that you are fully reimbursed if the drone is lost.”
At the Rockland Coast Guard Station, Commander Mello drummed his fingers in thought. A good report from the DEA would look very good for this Station, he knew. Very good. And besides, the DEA had oodles of money.
Home Base: “Pilot, permission granted.”
Mello turned to Ensign Kauders. “Tell the boys to get the Jayhawk ready. I want it ready to go on two-minute notice.”
Pilot: “Crap, I lost him again. Taking the drone lower to regain fix on the target.”
Chapter 24
Arturo’s Big Mistake
The roar of the storm was so loud that Mateo couldn’t hear the others, even with his headset on. The waves had grown another three feet and the thirty-foot Shockwave slammed around like a steer being herded through the gates at a slaughter house.
He had been running straight for the Maine coast, but got a bad scare when the Shockwave almost broached and rolled over as two large waves slammed into the boat’s starboard side in quick succession. He turned into the waves, increasing throttle to power up their forward side and then reducing throttle once he was at the crest. So far, the wave incidence had not increased, but if it did, they were dead. The Shockwave just wasn’t meant for this type of weather.
He ran north for a few minutes, more to settle his nerves than anything else, then decided to come around and run 270 degrees until he reached the Maine coastline, where he hoped the water would be calmer. From there he would hug the coastline, running southwest until he was in the lee of one of the larger islands, where he would get down on his knees and thank the Blessed Virgin Mary for bringing him through the storm.
He no longer cared how late they would arrive – he just wanted to survive.
“Pablo! Arturo!” he shouted until they looked up. “We’re going to turn! I want one of you on each side of the boat to watch for waves. If you see a really big one coming down on us, tell me. Understand? Right away!”
The two men nodded. Mateo peered through the rain-streaked windshield. He would kill for some hot coffee, but the thermos had disappeared over the side an hour ago. He took the boat up two more waves, engine roaring on the steep face of each wave, then the entire boat falling down the backside while he reduced throttle and tried not to jam the bow into the face of the next wave. He was waiting for a slightly smaller wave to make his move, and finally got one. This one was more rounded, slightly less steep, without the dreaded, curling whitecap at its peak.
It was his only chance. He took it.
“Hold on!” he shouted, but had no idea if they could hear him or not. He goosed the throttle to climb up the face, then near the crest he reduced throttle, spun the wheel quickly to the left and, now sitting on top of the broad wave peak, brought the boat around until he was running back down and across its face, neatly reversing course from north to south. Their speed picked up rapidly and he ran through the trough of the wave and began to run up the back slope of the wave in front. He angled over so that they were going diagonally across the back slope on a heading of about 260 degrees, then when they reached the crest, he flicked the boat due south and they slid down the wave’s face. Then he overtook the back of the next wave and again angled their ascent to 260 degrees, only to turn south again at the top.
In this way they slowly, laboriously sidestepped their way towards the coast of Maine.
And although they didn’t know it, directly into the path of the oncoming Coast Guard Cutter Vigilant.
______________
On the Vigilant, Captain O’Brien peered through the dark night and wind-swept rain and saw…nothing. Grunting in frustration, she turned her head to the Petty Officer in charge of the radar.
“Elkin! What have you got?”
Petty Officer First Class Sanford Elkin sat back in his chair with a sigh. “Captain, I’ve good, solid returns from every wavetop within a mile in all directions. It looks like Grand Central Station at rush hour. If there’s a small boat out there, it’s hidden in all this garbage.”
Captain O’Brien stepped behind him and peered at his large screen. It was one of the new blue ones, easier on the eyes than the older green models. White lines spiked in every direction and the background was a roiling fuzz. In the distance, there was a clean return from a large, metal object.
“That’s the freighter, ma’am, heading toward Saint John. We think the small boat we’re looking for is somewhere in this area,” he said, pointing to the display showing wind-driven waves. “But even if it’s there, most of the time it is in the trough of these waves, invisible to us. And there is so much wave, spray and rain activity that when it does appear, we’ll only spot it for a moment or so.”
“What are you telling me, Elkin?” O’Brien snapped.
“Captain, unless we spot that go-fast boat sitting on top of one of these waves within, oh, five-hundred yards of us, we aren’t going to see ‘em.” Elkins looked apologetic and O’Brien clapped him on the shoulder.
“Keep at it, Mr. Elkins,” she told him, but inwardly she seethed. It was a mighty big ocean and a damn dark night, and a five-hundred-yard net was pretty darn small. She sighed. Maybe the drone could locate the boat.”
Then her Executive Officer touched her shoulder. “Ma’am?”
“What is it, Mr. Hillson?”
The XO shook his head. “It’s the drone, ma’am. It’s gone in.”
Well, heck, Captain O’Brien fumed. If that don’t beat all.
______________
Unaware of what was coming, Mateo gauged the waves and tried to generally head 270 degrees, due west. But the boat kept yawing so that sometimes he was headed 300 degrees and other times 230 degrees, with the result that he was weaving his way sluggishly westward. Fortunately, the waves seem slightly smaller as they moved west, nearer the coastline. He wondered if the storm winds were already shifting to come from the northwest, and so for now slightly flattening the waves that had originated from the northeast. Whatever it was, he was grateful.
At one point Pablo came to him, shouting in his ear: “We’re taking on water in the cabin below. Must have sprung a leak from the waves.”
Mateo felt a spike of panic. “How bad?” he shouted back.
“Not bad yet,” Pablo assured him, clapping him on the shoulder. “Arturo and I are taking turns bailing. Have to keep an eye on it.” He looked at his friend, whose face had aged ten years in the last few hours. “Want me to spell you for a few minutes?”
Mateo shook his head. “I’ve got a feel for it now. Keep your eyes peeled; that damn Coast Guard ship has to be out here somewhere.” He didn’t tell Pablo that he was worried they might run out of fuel before they could get back to port. Pablo started to turn away, but Mateo shouted after
him. “You were right, one fucking pig of a night!”
Pablo flashed a grin and turned to watch the horizon.
Where, just off their port quarter, a large, white Coast Guard cutter burst from the gloom not one hundred feet away.
“Yankees!” Pablo screamed and pointed.
And despite the howling winds, Mateo could hear the piercing “WHOOOP WHOOOP” sound of the ship’s battle stations siren.
______________
On the Vigilant, two things happened almost simultaneously.
First, the pilot lost control of the LUNA drone and it slammed into the ocean and sank. Captain O’Brien’s hope of spotting the go-fast boat from the air sank with it.
Then, Petty Officer First Class Sanford Elkin sat bolt upright in his chair. “Contact! Contact, right on top of us!”
“Heading, Mr. Elkin! What’s their heading?” O’Brien snapped.
“Uh, heading is 300 degrees, relative bearing is 120 degrees. Crossing right to left in front of us!”
“How far? How far is it?” she demanded, her eyes searching through the wrap-around windshield.
“Right in front of us! It’s right in front, crossing under our bow!” Elkin shouted.
“What?” Captain O’Brien turned to the ship’s pilot. “Hard left rudder! Full over! Emergency stop!” Then she had to brace herself as the twin screws jolted to an emergency stop, then changed direction and began to thrash at the water in reverse. She threw herself forward to look out of the wrap-around windshield, peering in vain to spot the tiny craft.
God help me, she raged inwardly. All this work and I end up ramming the bastards!
______________
Not getting rammed was foremost on Mateo’s mind. He turned the boat hard to the right, pointing them due north again, where he did not want to go. Fifty feet away he could see a figure crowded against the Coast Guard cutter’s bridge windshield. Headed back into the waves now, but momentarily clear of the cutter, he waited until he was in the trough of the next wave and cut the wheel sharply to the left, bringing them back to a westerly course. Then he gunned the engines, intent on putting as much distance between them and the goddamned cutter as he could.
In the small cabin, Arturo had been pumping out water. When he heard Pablo scream, “Yankees!” he dropped the pump and ran back to the open deck. And there, so close he felt he could touch it, was a big white ship with a big red diagonal stripe down its bow.
The enemy.
Arturo picked up the PKMS machine gun and quickly locked it onto the tripod. He already had a 100-round ammo cannister fixed to the gun. The PKMS had an effective range of 1,000 meters, at one hundred feet he didn’t even bother with the night-vision scope, he just aimed at the bridge over open sights and pulled the trigger. He walked the tracer rounds across the bridge as they passed directly in front of the cutter, but then the Shockwave turned away from the cutter and he lost the favorable angle. “Turn back!” he roared to Mateo.
Then the Coast Guard cutter was out of sight as the boat sank into a trough, but Arturo could feel the Shockwave turning left. He mounted another 100-round cannister and got ready, feet apart, bracing himself against the storm.
The next wave rolled under them, lifting them higher, higher, and there was the cutter again, parallel to them. Exposed and vulnerable.
Arturo opened fire with the PKMS, raking the cutter from bow to stern. Then he grabbed another 100-round cannister and, as the cutter began to pull astern of them, shot down the length of the boat, hoping that he might find a barrel of fuel or a window that he could shoot through and wreak havoc on those who hunted them.
He quickly ran out of ammunition and by the time he fitted in the next 100-round cannister, the Vigilant was disappearing into the night, a tongue of flame licking up the back of its superstructure.
Arturo laughed for the sheer joy of it.
______________
On the Vigilant, the bridge windscreen imploded under the force of the heavy slugs from the PKMS. Captain O’Brien felt something slam into her shoulder, spin her around and smash her into the bulkhead. Stars and spots competed for control of her vision, but she gradually grew aware that she was staring at the ceiling.
And that people were screaming all around her.
Her left arm didn’t work, so Captain O’Brien pushed herself up on her right. “Master Chief Ramirez, get on the Bushmaster and nail them!” She turned her head. “Pilot! Pilot, dammit, are you alive?”
Petty Officer First Class Cynthia Foster, shaken and pale, replied: “Yes. Yes, Captain.”
“Well, turn us around, darn it! Get after that go-fast boat,” O’Brien snapped. “Radar! Do we have them on radar?”
The ship’s medic crouched down beside her. “Hold still, Captain, you’re bleeding badly,” he ordered, cutting away her uniform on her left shoulder.
“In a minute, darn it!” She pushed him away. “Where’s the XO? Mr. Hillson!”
Lieutenant Commander Hillson appeared beside her. “Here, Captain.”
“Are we tracking them on radar?” she demanded.
Hillson looked over at the radar station, where Petty Officer First Class Elkin’s headless body sat at its station, still strapped in by the emergency harness. The radar display had two large bullet holes in it.
“No, ma’am,” Hillson sighed. “We’ve lost them on radar.”
O’Brien grunted with the effort of pulling herself up. “Master Chief, use the thermal imaging to find them!” The room spun for a moment. She thought she was going to throw up, but fought it off through sheer will.
Master Chief Petty Officer George Ramirez sat at the gunnery station and activated the chain-driven autocannon. The Bushmaster M242 autocannon was his baby. It could fire 200 rounds per minute and he could select from either armor-piercing or high explosive incendiary rounds. Both came with tracer rounds to help his aim. And they were heavy rounds, almost five and a half inches long, designed to kill small ships, unarmored vehicles and helicopters, with an effective range out to just under two miles, not that he could possibly see two miles in this crap. The cannon even came with a 10 kW spotting laser, the big brother to the red dot lasers used by police and special forces.
If he could see the damn go-fast boat, he could hit it.
The autocannon was mounted on the top of the superstructure to allow for a 360-degree firing arc. His computer screen had a large hole through it, so he slipped on the Galaxy View MX-72 virtual reality headset they had been experimenting with and turned it on. After a moment, the picture snapped into view and it was as if he was standing atop the Vigilant, peering through the storm. The rain had lessened for a moment, but the waves were still running eight to ten feet. The image was so real that he adjusted the VR controls to dampen the rolling motion of the ship. He turned in a complete circle, scanning for any sign of the drug runner’s boat.
Nothing.
He flicked on the thermal imaging and did another circle. To the west, there was an intermittent smudge. Just a smudge. Then gone. He set the controls so the thermal sensor would alert him both visually and aurally. Then he took a deep breath and scanned the area again.
And again.
______________
On the Shockwave, Arturo stacked four fresh cannisters of ammo next to him and lined up the thermal imager on where he thought the Yankee ship would be when they hit the top of the wave.
He put his finger lightly on the trigger.
At the wheel, Mateo suddenly realized that something was missing: the rain. It had stopped raining. This close to the Coast Guard cutter, it meant that they would stand out like a bonfire on the Yankee’s thermal imaging sensors.
“Pablo!” he screamed. “Turn on the sprayer! Turn it on!”
Pablo understood immediately and leapt forward, slapping his hand against the switch. The electric pump chattered on and a fine mist suddenly rose over the engine compartment and blew backwards with the wind.
Mateo felt a wave lift them up and praye
d that the cooling spray would mask them from the Yankee’s thermal sensors.
As soon as they reached the crest, Mateo slammed the throttle forward and raced down the back of the wave, seeking concealment in the trough.
______________
Master Chief Ramirez swept the thermal sights back and forth in a 60-degree arc. “C’mon, you bastards,” he growled. “Come out and play.” But before he could spot anything, a torrent of red tracers raked across the Vigilant’s hull. There were a series of loud thuds as the rounds struck the ship squarely, and one round ZINNNGGGGEEEDD off the hull. The last of the tracers seemed to be coming right at him and Ramirez ducked involuntarily, then cursed as he belatedly remembered that he was wearing the VR helmet and he was on the bridge, not outside on the deck.
“Ayup,” Captain O’Brien said, struggling to sound Down East despite the black spots that were rapidly crowding her field of vision. “That’s the boat we’re after. I would appreciate it, Master Chief, if you would show them the error of their ways.”
The Master Chief quickly snapped his head back to where the tracers had originated. The Bushmaster swiveled with his head motions.
Nothing.
______________
Temporarily hidden in the trough of another wave, Mateo turned on Arturo. “Arturo, you stupid son of a jackass whore!” he shouted angrily. “DO NOT SHOOT!”
Arturo glared at him, but lowered the barrel of the machine gun.
Mateo had only caught a glimpse of the Coast Guard cutter, but thought it was maybe 500 meters or more behind them. It would have to turn around in these waves, which would slow it down. He kept the throttles forward and steered slightly up the backside of a wave, then tried to maintain that position as they raced westward, but he kept sliding back into the trough and then onto the face of the advancing wave on his starboard side. He pushed the throttles harder, desperately seeking to increase the distance between his thin-skinned little boat and the Yankee warship.
He thought about all the men he had killed in his service to the Cartel, and wondered if they waited for him, arms extended to pull him beneath the storm-maddened waves.
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