Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (22 page)

 
          
“Did
you see that?” Long said as they started down. “Damn, I thought the Vice
President was going to kiss McLanahan’s ring. What the hell did he do—save the
world or something?”

 
          
Hardcastle
looked at Admiral Cronin, who gave him nothing. He knew what Elliott and
McLanahan had done, Hardcastle thought. He’s not saying, at least not here, but
judging by his expression it must have been pretty awesome.

 
          
The
flight of the Old Dog was, of course, still top secret. And so, therefore, were
the roles Elliott and McLanahan had played in it.

 
          
Hardcastle
turned to Becker. “How’s it look so far, Mike?”

 
          
“So
far I’d say they’re impressed, Admiral. The platform is in better shape than
we’d hoped, and we had time to give it a few coats of paint and a good washing
before the choppers showed up.”

 
          
“Ready
to go to the briefing room?”

 
          
“Yes,
sir.”

 
          
“I’m
impressed myself, Ian,” Cronin said, wiping sweat from his forehead as the
air-conditioned lower decks began to take effect. “But
Preston
, Coultrane and Crandall aren’t as wide-eyed
about this as the Vice President. What they see is their drug-interdiction
appropriations going out the window, out of their budgets and into your
hot-shot, high-tech special project here.”

 
          
They
were on the third floor of the platform, fifty feet above the gentle swells of
the
Straits of
Florida
. They
could see two Coast Guard cutters about a half-mile away circling the platform
and keeping the curious away. Occasionally a Coast Guard Dolphin helicopter
could be seen as it continued its security sweep of the waters around
Hammerhead One.

 
          
The
room had been transformed into a radar command-and-con- trol center. Two radar
consoles had been set up in the center of the room, with three sixty-inch color
projection screens in front of the consoles. Major McLanahan was commanding the
consoles. Hardcastle began his presentation:

 
          
“Welcome
to Hammerhead One, Mr. Vice President, members of the President’s Cabinet,
ladies and gentlemen,” Hardcastle began. “We propose to use these huge
platforms, suitably modified, as bases for an extensive, bold and far-reaching
border security force. Please note, I used the term border security, not only
drug interdiction. As I see it, the key to successful drug interdiction is not
just routine investigation and arrest but more aggressive, more sweeping
tactical operations of a paramilitary organization concentrating on securing
America’s borders against unidentified vessels and aircraft.”

 
          
Hardcastle
pressed a button on a remote control device and the left screen snapped on,
showing a digital chart of the southeast United States, ranging from South
Carolina through Florida to Texas and as far south as South America.

 
          
“Why
not law-enforcement tactics? Why paramilitary tactics? Because we are talking
about the skies and seas surrounding the
United States
, and the problems associated with
controlling our vast frontiers require much more than routine patrol and
port-entry efforts. If we take the area three miles from shore out to the
twelve-mile limit, we’re talking about thirty-six thousand square miles of open
ocean in the southeast
United States
alone. Thirty-six thousand square miles. At
present we have approximately one hundred vessels and eighty aircraft,
representing both the Coast Guard
and
the Customs Service, to patrol this area. Factor in the airspace and we’re
talking about over one hundred thousand cubic
miles
of territory.” The center screen snapped on, showing stock
video images of Coast Guard and Customs Service radar installations aircraft
and ships. “The Coast Guard and Customs Service can adequately watch this
territory, and the two agencies patrol the major known smuggling routes
throughout this entire area. But even though we may detect unidentified
aircraft or vessels with our surveillance systems we have no way to intercept
all of them. We would need ten times the number of aircraft and ships we now
have to accomplish this. The cost would be prohibitive, ranging in the tens of
billions of dollars.” Hardcastle moved over to the right large-screen monitor
as it snapped on. “However, there’s another way of securing this tremendous
expanse of territory. By changing the rules on how vessels can enter our
country.”

           
“Let’s talk about ships first.” A
spider’s web of lines crisscrossed the ocean areas of the chart; most
culminated at known port cities such as
Miami
,
Ft.
Lauderdale
,
Tampa
, and
Charleston
. “Vessels entering the
United States
routinely follow established shipping lanes
to American ports. They are not
required
to follow any particular routing, can freely navigate American coastal waters
at will. They may be stopped and boarded by the Coast Guard at any time while
inside this area but such boardings are rare—there aren’t enough ships to cover
this enormous area. Outside of normal shipping lanes, far from normal patrol
areas or port areas, unidentified vessels can operate with virtual impunity
even though we can usually detect them and may even have them under
surveillance.

 
          
“Let’s
get to air traffic.” The computer-sketched chart changed; now the area was much
wider. “This depicts the Air Defense Identification Zone, the ADIZ. All
aircraft entering the
United States
are required to contact air traffic control
before entering the ADIZ. Fewer than fifty percent do it. They know we don’t
have resources now to respond with. They know that they have only a one in
twenty chance of being intercepted. Military air-defense forces key in on very
specific flight parameters—high speed, low altitude, military strike flight
profiles. Their job is
not
to go
after the smugglers, even if they can see them and track them. Understandably,
we don’t like our military chasing civilians, even if they’re criminals.

 
          
“In
spite of the Customs Air Service’s fine record, they don’t have the resources
to intercept every unidentified aircraft they detect,” Hardcastle said. “Like
air defense, they key on specific flight parameters. They go after big targets,
obvious smuggling profiles and intelligence reports—”

 
          
GefiFar
broke in. “If we had a hundred aircraft, we’d do it the same way—we’d only
expand those flight parameters you mentioned. Instead of keying in on aircraft
exceeding one hundred and eighty knots, for example, we’d go after planes
exceeding one-fifty. You can’t pair one law-enforcement aircraft with one
inbound aircraft. It can’t be done—”

 
          
“There’s
a way it can be done, Inspector,” Hardcastle said. He motioned to the right
screen, which showed the territorial waters in orange around the
United States
, and the right screen, which showed the
ADIZ in orange. He pressed a button and ten white lines were drawn across the
orange bands leading into the
U.S.
coastline aimed right at the major port
cities of the southeast. The center screen changed, showing an expanded view of
the southern tip of
Florida
, with a blinking dot in the center of the screen. The territorial
waters and ADIZ airspace were still outlined in orange. The white line, which
in the center screen led from the
Gulf of Mexico
toward
Miami
, was now a thin corridor, with the blinking dot at the edge of the
territorial waters area.

 
          
“This
is how we propose to do it. The area in orange, from twelve to two miles out,
becomes a positive identification zone for both aircraft and vessels. Neither
may transit this area without permission and without positive identification at
all times. Our surveillance systems can detect any vessel larger than fifteen
feet in length and track it with precision. We’ve demonstrated capability for
detecting and tracking any vessel within two hundred miles of our shores.

 
          
“This
is how authorized vessels in the positive control area can be tracked and
monitored, sir. The computers that operate with our radar systems can monitor
hundreds of vessels simultaneously. Anyone operating inside the positive
control area can be monitored continuously.”

 
          
“But,”
Customs Service Commissioner Crandall interjected, “we can monitor those ships
but they can still be smugglers and they can still operate inside our waters.
What’s different about your system?”

 
          
Hardcastle
pointed to the blinking dot on the center screen outside the edge of the orange
area. “This dot is our location, sir. Hammerhead One, forty-five miles
southeast of
Homestead
. With this system in full operation all vessels entering our
territorial waters must stop at one of these platforms for registration,
inspection of documents and cargo and positive identification before
proceeding.”

 
          
“You’re
suggesting,” Crandall said, “that we set up these oil platforms as offshore
border-inspection points for
ships?”

 
          
“This’s
right, sir. Hammerhead One can accommodate several large ships alongside, and
we can service others within a few hundred yards. A vessel must stop, have its
papers examined, must submit to a Coast Guard or Customs Service inspection;
these can be like border-crossing points on land. We can decide to do a
documents- only review, a cursory inspection, a more detailed inspection, or a
full-vessel search with the crew removed. Once cleared through the entry point
it must follow this corridor to its destination unless it is cleared to deviate.

 
          
“It
seems you could have some serious bottlenecks at these inspection points,”
Crandall said.

 
          
“More
platforms and extra manpower could be added as traffic increased.”

 
          
“What
happens to unidentified vessels in the orange zone?” Secretary of Transportation
Coultrane challenged.

 
          
“They’re
violating American law and are subject to arrest.”

 
          
“Which
brings us back to the original question, how do you get the guy that’s in
violation? You said yourself that detection is not a problem. Interception is.
How do you propose doing it?”

 
          
“Isolating
the target is the primary way to get him. It’s easier to intercept if he’s all
alone in restricted waters. Deploying helicopters or aircraft like the Sea Lion
tilt-rotor offshore on oil platforms such as Hammerhead One is the other
answer. We
also
propose, as a part of
the interdiction mix ...”

 
          
He
hit another button on his remote-control device and two of the three screens
changed at once, showing two different aerial video images—one focusing on the
sky, the other scanning the crystal blue waters below. The aircraft taking the
shots were from different altitudes, some very close to the water, some
apparently at very high altitude.

 
          
“What’s
you’re seeing are video shots from two different UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles—drones.
These drones are controlled right from this console in front of you by computer
commands radioed to the drones via secure UHF data links—if we have a radar
that can see a target we can steer a drone over it.”

 
          
Hardcastle
moved over to the console in front of the giant screens. “Older drone-control
centers used to look like aircraft cockpits with throttles and control sticks
and flight instruments and you had to be a pilot to fly a drone. Now we
highlight a target and the computer controlling the drone’s autopilot flies it
to intercept its target.” Hardcastle reached over to the console and picked up
a large model of what appeared to be a V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft. It had the
same twin rotors mounted on the ends of its main wing, a cylindrical fuselage,
ski-type landing rigs and ports for bulbous sensors and scanners.