Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (7 page)

 
          
“Take
your helo and stay north of route 27 and clear of the national park,” Masters
radioed back. “We’ll call if we need any help. Out.” “Sandra, dammit, this is
no routine smuggling chase. These guys murdered four people on one of my
Falcons. Take the collar—all I want is to make sure they don’t get away—”

 
          
“Then
we both want the same thing, Admiral. But you know the drill—once these guys
are over land and we have them identified they belong to us.”

 
          
“They
committed piracy and murder in
U.S.
waters under Coast Guard jurisdiction ...”
But Hardcastle already knew his arguments were going nowhere. Geffar and
Masters had enough on their plates without a Coastie bearing down on them.

 
          
McAlister
clicked on the interphone: “What do we do, Admiral?” Geffar and Masters were
right—it was time to back off. The Coast Guard, to be honest, wasn’t trained as
well as Customs in this kind of combat, and there was little or no integration
of tactics and procedures between them. In a ground skirmish his men could get
badly hurt . . .

 
          
“Can
you set us down somewhere close?” Hardcastle radioed to his pilot.

 
          
McAlister
and his copilot checked their charts. “There’s a deactivated rocket-test site a
few miles east—we’ve done some training there before. I’ll set it down there.”

 
          
“Do
it,” Hardcastle said. “But I want SLINGSHOT to give us constant updates on the
situation out there. Advise them of our position and our status. We won’t get
in Masters’ way but we’re going to be looking right over his shoulder in case
...”

 
          
Near the Suspect’s Plane,
Everglades
National
Park

 
          
Circling
three thousand feet overhead, the Customs Service Citation, call sign
Omaha
Four-Zero, kept watch on the big Shorts
transport through the infrared scanner. The green-and-white image on the
cockpit screen showed amazing detail. Zooming in on the transport, the
Citation’s sensor operator studied the image, adjusting bright and contrast,
then clicked on his interphone: “I see flaps, sir. Target velocity decreasing.”

 
          
“He’s
slowing down, Four-Nine,” the Citation’s copilot reported to Masters. “He might
be getting ready to land. We see flaps deployed. Stand by.”

 
          
Geffar
held up a chart under a small red spotlight. “Twenty-five miles southwest of
Florida
City
.”

           
“Mahogany H .mmock,” Masters said. “
Blackwater
Island
. It’s the only dry enough place around for
a plane that size, unless they got a Shorts with floats on it.”

 
          
“A
night landing out here is tricky any time,” Geffar said. “Unless they have a
landing zone marked out. . . they might be going for an aerial delivery too.”
Geffar switched to her tactical radio. “SLINGSHOT, this is
Omaha
Four-Nine. They might be heading for Black-
water
Island
. Repeat, Mahogany Hammock,
Blackwater
Island
. We are closing to intercept. Have
Dade
County
sheriffs seal off route 27, and I want
another Black Hawk airborne to cover any escape routes through the Glades.
Break.
Omaha
Four-Zero, stay on the Shorts. If he makes
a break for it, track and identify if possible. Report if he makes a drop, then
mark drop position for intercept. Out.”

 
          
“Roger,
Four-Nine,” the Citation pilot replied.

 
          
It
did not take long. On board the Citation the sensor operator concentrated on
every move, every detail of the target plane. Suddenly a large rectangular
object flew out the aft end of the plane. Four more objects, resembling hay
bales or steamer trunks roped together, followed in rapid succession. “Position
mark,”
from the sensor operator.

 
          
In
the cockpit, the copilot hit a button on her LORAX-Omega navigation set labeled
“FLIR PP.” The navigation computer would combine the Citation’s present
position and altitude and the com- puted-sensor angle on the target and compute
the exact position of the object in the FLIR sensor at the instant the button
was depressed.

 
          
The
copilot called up the stored set of coordinates, checked them, then keyed his
mike button: “Four-Nine, this is Four-Zero. Drop made. Repeat, drop made. We
got it on film. Drop coordinates read: north two-five-three-zero point nine
one, west eight-zero-five-two point seven-three.”

 
          
Aboard the
U.S.
Customs Service Helicopter
Omaha
Four-Nine

 
          
Geffar
punched the coordinates into her own Omega set and designated it as the target
destination. Immediately the horizontal situation indicator on Masters’
instrument panel displayed the direction and range to the target. “Copy,
Four-Zero. We’re three miles out. We’re moving in.” Masters lowered a pair of
night-vision goggles over his eyes, heeled the Black Hawk helicopter hard left
to center the HSI bug and began to search for the drop zone.

 
          
Seconds
later the dull green-and-white image through the night- vision goggles revealed
movement in the thick undergrowth. “I’ve got airboats,” Masters called out.
“Four . . . no, five airboats.” He scanned the area around the suspects. “No
other clear areas around—I’ll have to drop right on top of them. Hang on, crew.
We’re going in. Stand by on the Night Sun light.”

 
          
“I’ve
got you in sight, Four-Nine,” the sensor operator on
Omaha
Four-Zero reported. “The Shorts is coming
around to your left. He . . . wait, I think he’s seen you. He’s peeling off—”

 
          
“Stay
on that Shorts, Four-Zero,” Geffar said. As the Black Hawk got closer to earth
Masters flipped the night-vision goggles up out of the way, took a grip on the
cyclic and collective and pressed his head back into his headrest to protect
his back and neck from the shock of impact. “Crew, secure for impact, hit the
light.”

 
          
Masters
kept the power high-right until the last second. Suddenly, the whole area lit
up like daytime. Five airboats—flat-bottomed watercraft driven by huge
propellers—were ranged around a small clearing less than a hundred feet square.
He and Geffar had to marvel at the accuracy of whoever was dropping those
bales—they’d put them on a tree-lined secluded area about the size of a
baseball diamond at night and travelling almost three hundred feet per second—
before the ground rushed up to meet them and the oversized landing wheels of
the fifty-thousand-pound helicopter hit the marsh. Spotlights all around the
Black Hawk snapped on. The rotor wash had flipped over one airboat, sending its
occupants flying, and they had missed another airboat piled high with bales by
only a few feet.

 
          
“Stay
with the bird,” Geffar shouted to Masters, throwing off her shoulder harness.
She flung open the door and hit the soggy ground carrying her Steyr assault
rifle. One Customs Service agent moved beside her, his M-16 pointed at an
airboat, while a Bahamian constable moved into the right gunner’s seat trying
to cover two more airboats with his M-16.

 
          
“Everyone
on these airboats,” Masters called over the Black Hawk’s loudspeakers. “This is
the U.S. Customs Service. Drop your weapons and raise your hands.”

 
          
Men
on the airboat closest to Geffar crouched for cover behind bales. Geffar
hip-leveled her Steyr, fired three rounds. A smuggler clutched his right
shoulder, collapsed, and the other smugglers came to their feet, arms stretched
over their heads.

 
          
With
the Bahamian constables covering the Black Hawk, the agents moved out,
gesturing to the smugglers to kneel down and put their hands on their heads.
Meanwhile, Masters had moved out of the chopper, shotgun in hand, to help the
agent on the left.

 
          
If
he had stayed a few seconds longer, he would have heard the warning from the
Citation overhead. Too late now. The Shorts transport had come back, flying at
treetop level over the clearing. Suddenly the heavy pounding of machine gun
fire could be heard—they had opened fire on the Black Hawk helicopter with the
fifty-caliber machine gun.

           
Geffar took three quick shots at the
Shorts, shooting blind into the dark sky, then opened fire on the airboats and
with her agent took off from the airboats, feet digging into the muddy soil as
they ran for cover.

 
          
They
had managed only a few yards when a brilliant flash of light and a streak of
flame erupted from the edge of the clearing, and moments later the Black Hawk
exploded in a ball of fire. The body of the agent literally flew into her, and
Geffar and what was left of the agent were picked up and tossed thirty feet
into a shallow mud pit. Geffar stayed conscious long enough to dig her face out
of the mud, then, dazed and bleeding from her wounds, collapsed.

 
          
Aboard the Coast Guard Helicopter
Omaha
Seven-One

 
          
Hardcastle
heard the warning from the Citation and immediately was on the interphone:
“Let’s move it, McAlister. Blackwater Island. Set up an orbit at one thousand
feet. As soon as any other air units report in have them move in.” McAlister
quickly had the Dolphin airborne, leveled off at a thousand feet, dipped its
nose, accelerated and turned sharply left toward the dark Everglades beyond.

 
          
Hardcastle
chambered a 5.56 millimeter round in his M-16 rifle. Again like Vietnam, he
thought—frantic radio messages, air support cautiously moving in, casualties
from a sudden, unexpected assault. Even the air smelled the same—a suffocating,
cloying mix of dirt, salt air, decay, fear, and death . . .

 
          
On
SLINGSHOT’s tactical frequency they heard, “Omaha Four- Nine, this is Omaha
Four-Seven. We’re five miles out. What’s your situation? Over.” No reply—the
Black Hawk was dead.

 
          
“Four-Seven,
this is Four-Zero,” the pilot aboard the Citation said. “Masters and his crew
are down. Under heavy fire. Coordinates follow ...” He read off the coordinates
of the smuggler’s drop zone. “We are orbiting overhead. Move in and assist.
Over.”

 
          
Hardcastle
shook himself free of the images of battles past, and as he did he felt the
same nervous excitement of years before when the close air support radioed in
over a hot LZ in the rice paddies of southeast Asia. “SLINGSHOT, this is Omaha
Seven-One,” Hardcastle called over the radio. “Vector to the Shorts.”

 
          
A
confused pause as the controllers back in Miami tried to sort out the
situation. “Dammit, SLINGSHOT, where the hell is he?” “Roger, Seven-One, fly
heading two-niner five, maintain one thousand feet. Your target will be at
eleven o’clock position at four miles and two hundred feet. His groundspeed is
one-one-zero knots.” The Dolphin swung hard onto its new heading and McAlister
opened the throttles to max power.

           
“Target accelerating, Seven-One.
Groundspeed now one-two- five,” the controller reported. “Five degrees left,
three-point-five miles.”

 
          
Hardcastle
pounded on the bulkhead. “Damn it, he’s bugging out.” “If he goes over
one-sixty before we can catch him,” McAlister said over the howling engines,
“we won’t have a chance—”