Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (106 page)

 
          
“What
are we going to do?” the
Cheyenne
’s copilot said. “They’re going to shoot . . .”

 
          
“Quiet,”
Trujillo
said. “Get on the short-wave radio and try
to reach one of the other Cuchillos. Tell them we have been intercepted.” He
pulled the throttles back to seventy-percent power, reached over to the center
console and pulled the landing gear handle down. The “GEAR UNSAFE WARNING”
light came on briefly as the gear dropped into the slipstream, but it soon went
out and was replaced by three green “GEAR DOWN AND LOCKED” lights.

 
          
Trujillo
switched his radio to the Hammerheads’
common frequency. “Carmen del Sol Airlines flight niner-zero-niner-Charlie has
lowered its landing gear. We protest this unwarranted action and demand that
the Border Security Force aircraft at our
seven o’clock
position move away and turn off that
searchlight. We are cancelling our international flight plan and are exiting
American airspace. We are no longer under your control. Move clear.”

 
          
“Zero-niner-Charlie,
you have been intercepted by the United States Border Security Force. You are
required to follow my directions and acknowledge all transmissions or you will
be fired on. Traffic separation and obstacle clearance will be provided by me.
Turn right to magnetic heading three-five-zero and prepare for a visual
approach and landing at
Taimiami
Airport
.”

 
          
Trujillo
turned his head at the glare of the
searchlight, then began a slow right turn to the heading he was given. As he
did he reached up to the patch on his left breast pocket of his flight suit—a
blue diamond with a set of gold hawk’s wings, the symbol of the Cuchillos
borrowed from the wings of the Cuban Revolutionary Air Force. He ripped the
patch off his flight suit and tossed it away, a silent apology to the man who
had betrayed him—Colonel Agusto Salazar.

 
          
Border Security Force Headquarters,
Aladdin
City
,
Florida

 
          
“Suspect
is decelerating and turning northbound,” Fields said, her voice rising.
“Three-Three reports he has lowered his landing gear.” A cheer from the main
command center controllers.

 
          
“We
need Customs and the Coast Guard to pick up the other canisters and check out
that pickup boat,” Elliott said. “See if we can get another Sea Lion airborne
to escort the
Cheyenne
back into Taimiami, and have Three-Three fly into
Homestead
to have his crewman dropped off at the base
hospital.”

 
          
“Yes,
sir,
” Field said.

 
          
Elliott
looked at Annette Fields. “This is turning into a major bust, and we only got
two of the twelve planes Van Nuys said would be on this operation.”

 
          
Ciudad
del
Carmen
Airport
,
Mexico

 
          
Twenty Minutes Later

 
          
Agusto
Salazar was just completing a walk around inspection of one of the two F-5E
fighters that would be going on the escort flight. The F-5, he had to admit,
was a beautiful plane, as deadly looking as a stiletto even with two big fuel
tanks on the wings and a big ground- and surface-attack rocket-pod on the
belly. A far-cry from his old MiGs, and sleeker and faster-looking than the
French-built Mirage F1C. The Mexican government had purchased a lot of new
equipment for these F-5s, so Salazar was going to fly them on this escort
mission instead of the bigger but less capable Mirages.

 
          
His
F-5 also carried two M39-A2 20-millimeter guns in the nose, each with 280
rounds of ammunition; two older Air Force AIM-9J Sidewinder missiles, the
cheaper but less capable heat-seeking missiles that were useful only
short-range stern chases, mounted on wingtip rails; and two ancient AIM-4 Genie
radar-guided missiles linked to the F-5’s upgraded AN/APQ-159 radar on wing
hardpoints. The AIM-4 missiles were a last-minute experiment for this mission
and had never been tested, but the missiles would “talk” with the fire-control
radar so he was going with the untested Genie missiles to retain a longer-range
radar attack weapon. His wingman would be similarly equipped, except the other
F-5 had only one 20-millimeter cannon instead of two. Both fighters were still
in their maintenance hangars, shielding their activities from curious
onlookers—the Mexican Air Force would certainly not approve of their aircraft
loaded up with missiles and ammunition on an unauthorized drug-smuggling escort
flight.

 
          
The
plan was to launch the F-5s as the Antonov and Douglas transport planes made
their way north through
Mexico
toward the
United States
. The fighters would join with the
transports over the
Gulf
of Mexico
east of
Tampico
, outside of radar coverage of both
Mexico
and the
United States
, then fly in close formation with the
transports as they made their drops.

 
          
With
the extra fuel tanks and a bit of luck, the F-5s could fly for almost two
thousand miles, which would allow the fighters to escort the transports well
inside the
United States
to their drop points and well back into
Mexico
. They had refueling points set up for the
returning planes all through central
Mexico
, at civilian airports as well as remote
landing strips.

 
          
A
clerk ran over to Salazar as he walked to the boarding ladder to finish his
cockpit checks. “Urgent message for you, sir,” the clerk said. Salazar read the
note as his wingman, Captain Tony Vasquez, walked over to his side.  
.

 
          
“Trouble,
Colonel?”

 
          
“We
received an HF message from nine-nine-Charlie.
Trujillo
was intercepted by the Hammerheads east of
Marathon
. The Hammerheads also got Gachez’s pickup
boat.” He crumpled up the note and threw it into the clerk’s face.

           
“How are they finding our planes?”
But of course he knew. Van Nuys . . .

 
          
“They
must be using satellites or radar planes,” Vasquez said. “We know they don’t
have one aerostat or carrier out there.” He paused. “What about the other
planes? What are we going to do—?”

 
          
“We
continue, of course,” Salazar said. “The Hammerheads could have a dozen radar
planes up there but they can’t catch us if we’re spread out over two thousand
miles across the continent. Besides, we win every time one of those canisters
leaves our planes. This is a war of numbers, Captain. We will win it.” Salazar
chose not to mention that he would become that much richer if the mission
continued. He turned to the clerk, who had stayed and waited for any orders. “I
want an update on the cargo planes headed to
Texas
,
New Mexico
and
Louisiana
,” he said.

 
          
“Right
here, sir,” the clerk said, producing a clipboard. “All three planes have
landed safely in
Valladolid
and are refueling now. They should be airborne in fifteen minutes.”

 
          
Salazar
checked his watch and made some fast mental calculations. “We will launch as
scheduled in one hour, and rendezvous in about two hours near
Ciudad Victoria
,” he said. “We still have the upper hand.
The Hammerheads are too late to stop us.”

 
          
Over
North-Central Mexico
, Near San Antonio de Bravo

 
          
Three Hours Later

 
          
The
rendezvous had gone off without a hitch. Two hundred miles east of
Tampico
, on
Mexico
’s east central coast, Salazar and his
wingman in their F-5E fighters rendezvoused with the Antonov-26 and the Douglas
DC-3 cargo planes. It was a textbook operation, using strict timing and course
control with only occasional bursts of attack radar data from the F-5s to make
the joinup. The two F-5s each sided with a cargo plane and tucked in close,
nearly merging wingtips. By the time the flight of aircraft was within radar
range of Mexican air-traffic controllers at Tampico, they looked precisely what
their flight plans said they would be—two Carmen del Sol Airlines planes flying
together. The planes were precisely on course and on time, and so they received
immediate clearance to enter Mexican airspace. As the flight of aircraft
reached a point one hundred miles east of Chihuahua, the DC-3 with its F-5
fighter continued northeast on its flight-plan route to Nogales, while the
Antonov-26 headed north towards Ciudad Juarez, skirting the Rio Grande River.

 
          
The
routing of this flight was critical. Unlike the DC-3, which would land in
Nogales
and offload its cargo on the ground, the
Antonov-26 would make a drop along the U. S.-Mexican border in spots between
the towns of Ojinaga and Felix Gomez in an area that had restricted radar
coverage. A Border Security Force aerostat unit was located in
Eagle Pass
,
Texas
, and another at
Fort Huachuca
,
Arizona
, and both sites were effective and well
maintained. But two other sites at
Deming
,
New Mexico
, and
Marfa
,
Texas
, had suspended operations on account of
budget constraints. So there was a significant gap in radar coverage that was
only partially offset by air-traflic-control radars in
El Paso
and
Juarez
. Although Customs and Border Security Force
patrols had been increased in the southwest Texas border area, there should be
no way to track an aircraft at low altitude in this area ... at least that was
what Salazar believed as the Antonov-26 cleared off frequency with air-traffic
controllers in Chihuahua, waited a few minutes until safely off the
controller’s screens, then descended to a thousand feet to begin their drops.

 
          
Salazar’s
intelligence was correct: the aerostat radar balloons at Marfa and Deming were
indeed impotent—they were flying as a show, the radars were not functional. But
the ROTH radar site in north-central
Arkansas
scanned the border area constantly, and it
had steered the Hammerheads’ modified P-3 Orion radar plane and two AV-22 Sea
Lion aircraft into the area. Another Border Security Force radar plane was
carefully following the
Douglas
transport as it made its way to
Nogales
. . .

 
          
“Lion
flight, this is Shark,” the controller aboard the P-3 called on the scrambled
tactical frequency, “your target has just begun a descent. He’s at your
ten o’clock
, twenty miles. Descend to four thousand
feet MSL, use caution, high terrain and power lines in your vicinity and within
five hundred feet of your final altitude,
El Paso
altimeter, two-niner-niner-eight.”