Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (3 page)

 
          
“On
what grounds? He’s not an unknown. He’s been cleared in. Bacchus is a common
enough name—you got fifty names like it on that printout. With only two old
hits it’s pretty weak.”

 
          
“But
this guy matches up with previous suspects,” Gusman said. “His chances of
making it to Saint Pete are poor to nil.”

 
          
Wexfall
still didn’t seem conv inced.

 
          
“We
have the authority to launch a chase plane on our own—”

 
          
“I
know, I know,” Wexfall said. As senior controller at SLINGSHOT, it was his
decision. But every launch against a so-called probable suspect, especially
night intercepts, was expensive and risky and laid a guy open to criticism—any
mistake against a plane attempting to follow the rules could be disastrous. If
it was a low-flying unidentified target the decision would be a lot easier.
“The military codes worry me. Maybe we should ask the Air Force to get someone
up there to check him out.”

 
          
“They’d
laugh us right into tomorrow,” Gusman said.

 
          
Wexfall
nodded—the military was even more squeamish about sending an armed fighter up
against a civilian prop-job. “Who’s on deck for this intercept?”

 
          
“Coast
Guard,” Gusman told him.

 
          
Wexfall
shrugged—they would have to do. In years past the Customs Service handled
intercepts on suspected smugglers like this one, but since the entry of the
Coast Guard into drug interdiction in the mid-1980s the job was often split
between the two. There was no rhyme or reason to the selection—it depended on
who was on deck or whose turn it was to do an intercept. It wasn’t exactly the
most effective or logical way to go, but that was the way it was.

 
          
‘Get
a Coast Guard Falcon on ten-minute standby,” Wexfall said to the Coast
Guardsman seated beside him. “Then get the air interdiction duty officer on the
line. He might nix this intercept but we should have a bird ready to go in case
he doesn’t.”

 
          
Miami
Coast Guard Air Station,
Opa-Locka Airport
,
Florida

 
          
The
quarter spun in the air. Lieutenant Commander Kevin Rawlins let it drop into
his left hand, turned it over onto the back of his right hand with a slap, then
removed his left hand. He peered at the coin with a satisfied grin. “Heads, I
win.” He took the TV remote from his partner’s hand, aimed it at the TV and
pushed a button.
“Moonlighting's
on
in five minutes.”

 
          
Let
me see that quarter, his copilot, Kelly Sandino, demanded.

 
          
Sore
loser.” Rawlins dropped into an armchair and lazily extended his legs across an
oak coffee table in front of the television, letting his flight boots dangle
over the opposite edge. Rawlins was of average height but had long lanky legs
that were sometimes a real hassle. The rest of his thin wiry frame had just
refused to grow along with his legs; even his flight suit was custom-made. His
fellow Coast Guard HU-25C Falcon pilots always knew when Rawlins was the last
to fly the plane because the seat was set all the way back and the rudder
pedals set all the way forward.

 
          
“And
don’t forget the microwave popcorn, the one without the salt,” Rawlins said.

 
          
‘Kiss
it,” Sandino told him. Lieutenant, j.g., Kelly “Grace” Sandino, one of only
seventy female pilots in the U. S. Coast Guard, was a dark-eyed beauty from
Puerto Rico who somehow managed to tolerate Rawlins antics and the role of
being the only female jet pilot at Opa-Locka, to become one of its best pilots,
period.

 
          
The
crew was in good spirits. They had just begun the last day of a week-long alert
cycle—twenty-four hours on, twenty-four off; this was their last on day before
a two-week leave. Kevin was on his way to
Key West
for a long fishing trip, as far from a
flight line as he could manage.

 
          
The
alert day had started at
4:00 P.M.
, nearly five hours earlier, with a routine
patrol sortie. This patrol was quick and dirty—actually a flight currency trip
for one of the district headquarter’s staff members, who were required to fly
at least six hours every two months to hold their flight status. They had
another Falcon up on patrol, and the staffer did a few practice intercepts on
him, being directed at first by SLINGSHOT, the joint Coast Guard and Customs
Service ground radar controller, and then by the Falcon’s own radar intercept
officer. A few practice landings and the mission was over.

 
          
They
were on bravo-ten alert status the rest of the tour, which meant that if they
received a call to do an intercept they had to be airborne in ten minutes or
less. Miami Air Station, the busiest search- and-rescue station, had Dolphin
helicopters and Falcon jets on various levels of alert, from five to thirty
minutes depending on the number of airframes on station, mission requirements
and warning time they could expect. Most of the rescue jets, like the search-and-
rescue A-model Falcon and the drug interdiction C-model, were usually on
ten-minute alert; Dolphin rescue choppers, the sleek, French-built high-tech
jet helicopters, were on five-minute alert.

 
          
Kelly
Sandino had just returned two minutes later with a steaming bag of popcorn when
the public address system clicked on: “Ready, alpha, report to the CQ’s
office.”

 
          
Rawlins
threw the remote onto the coffee table, shuffled to his feet and grabbed a
handful of popcorn as he found a phone and dialed the Charge of Quarters’
office. “Rawlins here. What’s up?”

 
          
“SLINGSHOT’s
putting you on ten-minute alert,” the CQ, one of Rawlins’ fellow pilots,
replied. “They got an in-bound north of
Cuba
they want to take a look at.”

 
          
Rawlins
turned to Sandino, who was retying the laces on her flight boots. “Grade, get
the crew together. Let’s spin ’em up. I’ll do the paperwork.”

 
          
Sandino
had the crew on board, the auxiliary power unit on and activated and the crew
chief ready to supervise the engine start by the time Rawlins came on board.
Their Falcon jet was a Dassault- Breguet Falcon 20 jetliner, built in France, a
big sexy workhorse of an air machine. Although the official designation was
HU-25C Guardian, pilots assigned to drug interdiction kept the unofficial name
Falcon on account of the high-tech, combat-fighterlike surveillance equipment
and tactics they used chasing drug smugglers.

 
          
This
version of the Coast Guard s newest rescue-and-patrol jet carried the APG-66
intercept attack radar, the same as on the Air Force s F-16 Fighting Falcon jet
fighter, which could detect targets out to sixty miles and track up to six
targets simultaneously. The Falcon also carried a high-resolution FLIR, a
forward-looking infrared scanner, that was able to track air targets several miles
away as well as ground objects as small as a dog from a mile in the sky.

 
          
All
they needed, Rawlins had thought as he hurried up the airstairs and boarded the
plane, were a few Sidewinder missiles on the wings and smugglers might think
again about bringing their shit into
America
.

 
          
Sandino
had the switches configured, external power on, and was all strapped in ready
to go. “Ready on number one,” Rawlins said as he quickly strapped in. He
couldn’t help but notice how Sandino s breasts always seemed to strain against
the shoulder harness. If there was ever a manpower shortage in the Coast Guard,
Rawlins thought, all they had to do was make a recruiting poster starring
Gracie—it didn’t matter if she was wearing a flight suit. She’d look dynamite
in a poncho. Guys would be kicking down the doors to enlist.

 
          
Snap
out of it, you old letch, Rawlins admonished himself. We’ve got work to do.
“Crew, stand by for engine start.”

 
          
“Radar
ready,” from Petty Officer Joe Conklin in the rear end of the Falcon by his sensor
console as he moved to a window to act as safety watch during each engine
start.

 
          
“Clear
on the right,” Sandino responded. “Air, power, radios, lights set. Ready on
one.”

 
          
Rawlins
showed one index finger to Specialist First Class John Choy outside, then
twirled it in a tight circle. After a last check around the left-engine area to
clear, Choy gave Rawlins a thumbs-up and a twirling index finger.

 
          
“Starting
one.” Rawlins advanced the throttle a half-inch, engaged the starters and the
six-thousand-pound-thrust turbofan screamed to life. Thirty seconds later, as
soon as Choy had moved his fire-extinguisher bottle and comm cord to the
number-two engine, Sandino had the right engine started. Choy jumped on board,
dogged the entry airstair closed and strapped himself in near the big
observation window on the port side. A minute later they had taxied the short
distance to the end of Opa-Locka’s main east-west runway and were ready to go.

 
          
The
Falcon accelerated smoothly down the nine-thousand-foot runway and soon the
scene outside the cockpit windows was filled with the brilliant sprawling
lights of
Miami
as they turned south-bound over
Miami Beach
. “Pretty romantic, don’t you think, Gra-
cie?” Rawlins remarked cross-cockpit as the dazzling panorama swept before
them.

 
          
Sandino
set the newly assigned
Miami
Center
frequency into the number one UHF radio.
“Sure is,” the lady copilot replied. She shot a glance at Rawlins and smiled
slyly. “Present company excluded.”

 
          
“Don’t
you think this is exciting?” Rawlins pressed, sneaking a few more glances at
his copilot’s stunning profile. “Even highly stimulating? The lights, the
ocean, the speed. Doesn’t it make your Latin blood hot?”

 
          
“Know
what really makes me hot, Rawl?”

 
          
“Tell
me, baby.”

 
          
“Pilots
who are only two thousand feet above ground and who start a five hundred
foot-per-minute descent instead of climbing. Watch your altitude.” Rawlins
pulled back on the control wheel and retrimmed properly for a two hundred knot
climb.

 
          
Five
minutes later the Falcon was clear through Miami International’s terminal
control area. “
Miami
Center, Omaha One-One changing to tactical frequency. Good evening.”

 
          
The
Omaha call sign was a common one for any drug interdiction air unit on an
active intercept, and air-traffic-control agencies knew to clear as much
airspace as possible and stay on their toes when they heard that sign. “Omaha
One-One, change to company frequency, contact me on this frequency when
returning,” the air traffic controller replied. Sandino switched the radio to
SLINGSHOT’s scrambled frequency, and both she and Rawlins slid one headphone
pad off their ears as a raucous squealing and chirping obliterated all radio
sound. Now the chirping sounds subsided until only a faint crackle could be
heard as the anti-eavesdropping encryption-synchronization routine matched the
built-in codes on the Falcon’s radio receiver—only a radio with the built-in
codes could lock out the interference.

 
          
Rawlins
knew the smugglers would soon break the codes on this system, just as they
found all the federal frequencies and started intercepting or eavesdropping on
them. Incredibly, many of the law-enforcement radio frequencies had been
published,
and it was a relatively
simple process to build or steal a descrambler.
They
had all the advantages—especially the money—to fight the drug
wars.