Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (45 page)

 
          
“Just
find the guy, steer the SES in on him and RTB,” Geffar said. “We have a
training program—no real need to freelance on an actual intercept. Vector in
the SES and bring it on home.”

 
          
“We
got it wired, Alpha,” Hardcastle said. “We should be coming up on him any
second.”

 
          
Geffar
shook her head. That was not an acknowledgment. It was a direct challenge.
Hardcastle was going to take an inexperienced crew and perform an actual
intercept.

 
          
Should
she tell him to return? This was not the time to start an argument on the
radio—less than three miles from an intercept, low altitude, a nervous crew
chasing an evasive target. And she knew she’d get one from him. No. He was an
experienced pilot, and he was at the controls and on the scene. It was
Hardcastle’s sortie.

 
          
Less
than two miles to go. Fontaine had slowed to less than one hundred knots, the
Sea Lion’s rotating nacelles at twenty degrees below the vertical. As they
approached the computer’s estimated intercept point—determined by taking the
last known position, speed and direction and dead-reckoning it out over time—he
reduced speed and brought the nacelles full vertical, slowing to ninety knots
so Hardcastle would have a better chance of spotting him.

 
          
“Nothing,”
Hardcastle muttered. “Damn it, he should be right off our nose.”

 
          
“This
guy’s no dummy,” Fontaine said. “Most of them would make a dash for shore—this
guy’s evading us and so far doing a good job of it.”

 
          
With
its anti-collision and position lights on, the low-flying aircraft was easy to
see as it came closer. When it was about a half mile away, Carlos Canseco
turned sharply left perpendicular to the aircraft’s flight path, traveled a few
hundred yards, turned a full one-eighty so his bow was pointed at the approach
aircraft, and brought his engines to idle. Canseco had been told how military
aircraft searched for sea targets. Present a low visual cross-section, keep the
engines hidden as much as possible, don’t stay on the same course and don’t
move when it was in close—that was the way to avoid detection, especially at
night. As the Cigarette ocean-racing yacht came to a halt, Canseco threw a dark
blanket over the thin, sloping windshield to neutralize any reflection.

 
          
The
man riding with Canseco, a Puerto Rican gun for hire, raised up an AK-47
assault rifle with a fifty-round banana clip and muzzle- flash suppressor and
pointed it at the oncoming noise. “Sounds like a big one,” the gunman said to
Canseco. “It’ll be like shooting ducks . . .”

 
          
“I
didn’t bring you along to shoot at airplanes,” Canseco said. “I hired you
because you know these waters and you know English. You had better be ready to
throw that thing overboard if they find us.”

 
          
“These
American Coast Guard don’t worry me ...” The deep-throated hiss of the approaching
aircraft became louder. “. . . I have done it many times before. Fire a few
shots at them and they run for cover and yell for help—”

 
          
Canseco
was younger and smarter. “If you want your money, you do as I say.” He knew
that although many military aircraft had some capability of scanning astern, he
was safer by far so long as he stayed behind the search aircraft. “Now hold
on.” Canseco yanked the blanket off the windshield, gunned the engine and
headed toward shore.

 
          
The
gunman slung the rifle over his shoulder just as the aircraft zoomed past. What
a weird job this was turning out to be, he thought. This kid from
Colombia
, a stupid snot-nosed kid with a hundred-
thousand-dollar boat, says he’s going to race to
Florida
and back. He’s not carrying weight, he’s
not on the run—he even clears through Customs. Another spoiled rich kid. He was
offering a couple thousand for a credentialed English-speaking pilot, someone
who had tried to make the run recently . . .

 
          
Of
course he had brought his own shipment—five kilos of blow in a duffel bag
weighed down with a half-dozen bricks. This kid just wanted company, nothing
more. He didn’t need a pilot or throttle- man—he was doing just fine by
himself. Now he says he doesn’t need a gunner. Well, he’s got one anyway.

 
          
Canseco
caught a glimpse of the strange-looking aircraft ahead— this was not a regular
Coast Guard plane. It had twin rotor blades like a helicopter, but it was far
quieter and much larger than a standard search helicopter. Even more unusual
were the large words on the side of the plane—FOLLOW ME, highlighted in big
bright letters that could clearly be seen even several hundred feet away, plus
rotating lights all over the plane’s fuselage just like a police car. If that
plane found them, they were going nowhere.

           
He had been told about the strange
new aircraft the new American Coast Guard troops were using, unusual aircraft
that could fly like planes and hover like helicopters and carried bombs and
missiles. Was this one of those machines? He was not sure, but better to assume
that it was and get to shore as fast as possible . . .

 
          
“Dammit,”
Hardcastle said over the interphone. “The bastard’s just disappeared.” He
clicked open the radio channel. “Shark, any readout from CARABAL on this
target?”

 
          
“Negative,”
the controller replied. “They’re picking up false targets at their extreme
range capability. Low confidence in all targets right now.”

 
          
“The
FLIR is doing us no good at low altitude like this,” Hardcastle said. “We’ll
have to climb up and start a search over this area. Damn, I
know
he’s around here ...”

 
          
“Uh
. . . dad?” It was Daniel calling on interphone from his aft- facing jump seat.

 
          
“Go
ahead, Daniel.”

 
          
“Can
you start a left turn out here? I thought I saw something back behind us.”

 
          
“You
sure?”

 
          
There
was a pause. “No. There are a lot of waves and they all look the same. But I
thought I saw a reflection.”

 
          
“Of
what?”

 
          
“I
don’t know, maybe nothing.”

 
          
It
was worth a try. “Give me a slow turn to the left,” he told Fontaine. He
lowered his FLIR visor and turned around in his seat facing aft and to port,
which would slew around the seeker turret in that same direction, and slowly
began a side-to-side scan of the choppy waters.

 
          
Daniel
only saw his father staring directly at him with dark visors on, which made him
nervous. When he saw his father slowly shaking his head, Daniel shouted to him,
“I’m sorry, dad . . .”

 
          
“No,
you did good. I’m looking outside with the FLIR, not at you.”

 
          
“It’s
like you’re Darth Vader shaking your head at me before putting me into a Jedi
throat-lock—”

 
          
“Contact,”
Hardcastle called out. “I got him.” He hit a switch on Ms cyclic’s control
panel, which locked the infrared image in the center of the FLIR’s scan and
provided steering signals for Fontaine. “Target’s locked on, Adam. We got him.”

 
          
As
the rotating lights suddenly stopped retreating and began a lazy left turn,
Canseco began a correction to the right to place himself farther off the
plane’s tail. But suddenly the plane began a tighter left turn and a rapid
descent to just a few meters above the water, and he knew they had found him.

 
          
“We’re
only a few miles from shore,” he said in Spanish to the gunman riding with him.
“We’ll try to make a run to shore.” He gunned the throttles and made a beeline
for the lights just popping over the horizon. The racing yacht began pounding
over the choppy waves, sending a rooster’s-tail of water flying twenty feet
high behind it. With the throttles at full power Canseco wedged himself in as
tight as he could into the padded seat, grabbed on tight to a handhold on the
padded dashboard, and concentrated on controlling the boat as best he could.

 
          
He
was not able to see the near-gleeful face of the gunman iff the bench seat
behind him. The man shook his fist at the approaching plane, unslung the AK-47
assault rifle, chambered a round, braced himself against the pounding of the
yacht under his feet, and wrapped the shoulder sling around his hands to steady
his aim . . .

 
          
“It
looks like a forty-two foot Cigarette racer,” Hardcastle reported over the
radio. “No registration numbers yet. Jet powered, racing cockpit. Looks like
two males aboard. I think we might have one with a weapon. Stand by.”

 
          
“Two-Three,
this is Shark Five-One. We’re ten miles from your position, ETA one-eight
minutes,” the skipper aboard the SES
Thomas
Petragna
radioed in. WSES-2
Sea Hawk,
an ex-Coast Guard SES, a surface effect ship, was a twin-hulled fast patrol
boat, very much like the 110-foot, Island-class cutter in size, crew and
armament with a much greater top speed and a much shallower draft for inland
and shallow-water operations; the
Sea
Hawk
had two 900 horsepower engines that powered huge fans under its bottom
to pump air through the catamaran channels in its hull, which in turn allowed
the vessel to ride a cushion of air at speeds approaching fifty miles an hour.
Along with six of the Coast Guard’s eight WFCI ocean interceptors and ten of
its sixteen WPB Island-class cutters, four WSES cutters had been transferred to
the Hammerheads for drug interdiction duties.

 
          
“Roger.
Five-One,” Hardcastle replied. “He’s heading just north of
Pompano Beach
, directly for shore—he might be able to see
the Boca Raton Inlet harbor light and might be aiming for it. His estimated
speed is three-six knots. Be advised we may see one weapon on board. Use
caution. Over.”

 
          
“We
copy, Two-Three,” Thomas Petraglia replied from the
Sea Hawk.
“Negative radar contact yet on surface target. Will
advise. Out.”

           
Hardcastle switched his radio
channel to the pre-set emergency channel. “Unidentified racing vessel east of
Pompano Beach
,
Florida
, this is the United States Border Security Force. You have entered
restricted waters without clearance. Shut down your engines or we will open
fire. Repeat, shut down your engines or we will open fire. Acknowledge on any
frequency. Over.” He repeated that warning over several emergency channels and
set the V-22’s radio to scan them once every three seconds.

 
          
There
was no reply.

 
          
“What
is he saying?” Canseco yelled to the gunman behind him. There was no reply. He
risked a quick turn and saw the man pointing his AK-47 at the oncoming
aircraft.

 
          
“No,
don’t shoot ...”

 
          
“Why?
It’ll scare them off.”

 
          
“You
idiot, they’ll kill us if you shoot. We’re not here to shoot at Coast Guard
planes!”

 
          
“So
why else are we here?”

 
          
Canseco
did not reply. He picked up the radio’s microphone and said quickly in Spanish,
“Our position is ten miles north-northeast of
Pompano Beach
harbor light R-5, heading west. We have
been intercepted by a large aircraft with twin rotors, but it is not a
helicopter. I cannot see more details. They are warning us in English but I
cannot understand them and this Cuban is an idiot. He understands less English
than I thought, or is pretending to . . . Repeat. We are ten miles
north-northeast of
Pompano Beach
. They have found us. They are chasing us with a very large twin-rotor
aircraft. We will be caught within minutes.” He dropped the microphone and held
on as his Cigarette yacht careened off yet another swell and hurled itself into
the air.