Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (44 page)

 
          
“Roger,”
Field replied from Hammerhead One. “Will you be on board, tiger?”

 
          
“Negative.
There’s a crew here.”

 
          
“Uh
. . . we’re not night-intercept qualified, sir,” Fontaine said.

 
          
“What?
I thought you were checked out—”

 
          
“I
was signed off when the number was five,” Fontaine said. “The number’s fifteen
now; I’ve only got eleven. And a half.”

 
          
Hardcastle
rolled his eyes in frustration. “Well what the hell are you doing on night
alert?” he asked, suddenly aware of his son standing nearby. “What’s the use in
having you out here if you can’t run a night intercept?”

 
          
“Surveillance,
support, rescue—and toga,” Fontaine said quietly.

 
          
“Toga?
What does
that
mean?”

 
          
“T-O-G-A.
The Only Guy Available.” He noted Hardcastle was not amused. “Sir, the
commander knew my rundown, she put me out here.”

 
          
Hardcastle
tried to control himself. “Well, you’re going to get your night intercepts
tonight. We’re going to get that guy before he reaches the three-mile line.” He
turned to the Sea Lion’s plane captain. “Get her towed out to the ramp and
ready for launch.” He looked at Daniel. “If you’re game you can ride along.”

 
          
Daniel
was clearly surprised. Fontaine looked even more surprised. “Uh, sir, do you
think that’s a good idea . . . ?”

 
          
Hardcastle
slapped his hands eagerly. “We’ve given TV interviews, brought reporters and
politicians on Sea Lion night sorties—”

 
          
“But
on a night-training mission?”

 
          
Hardcastle
didn’t seem to hear him. “Get him body armor and a life jacket and let’s get
rolling. I’ll file flight orders and get us a clearance.” Hardcastle trotted
into the operations center to change into a flight suit as the V-22’s plane
captain attached a motorized tow cart to the Sea Lion’s nose gear and prepared
to tow it out of its hangar for takeoff.

 
          
When
Hardcastle returned, he found his son in the starboard aft- facing jump seat
right behind the pilot. Hardcastle could see him easily by looking over his
shoulder from the left-side copilot’s seat. Daniel was securely strapped into a
thinly padded metal tube seat with thick web belts, but the straps would allow
him movement to turn in his seat or look out the rectangular observation window
beside him. Bundled in a light shirt underneath the heavy, inch-thick
bulletproof body armor, an orange Hammerheads windbreaker, and a CLU-93
twin-bladder underarm inflatable life preserver strapped on over it, plus a
helmet with built-in headphone and night-vision goggles, Daniel’s normally
athletic frame looked stuffed and trussed.

 
          
“All
set?” Hardcastle yelled back to Daniel as the Sea Lion’s auxiliary power unit
revved up. Daniel gave him a thumbs up.

           
Daniel’s seat provided a dramatic
view of the configuration of the V-22 Sea Lion from stowed to takeoff
positions. Slowly the wings swiveled around from their stowed position along
the fuselage until they were locked in their normal position. The engine
nacelles swiveled to vertical and the rotor blades motored up from their stowed
positions down along the nacelles to their normal positions. It was like
watching a giant transformer toy unfolding by itself. Less than three minutes
after the wings and engines were back in their more conventional positions they
were ready for takeoff.

 
          
The
Hammerheads headquarters area at
Alladin
City
had a five- thousand-foot runway, but the
Sea Lion needed only a fraction of that distance for takeoff. Fontaine made it
with a gentle stream of instructions from Hardcastle. As the engine nacelles
cocked just a few degrees down from the vertical and the wing flaps extended,
Daniel heard the engines wind up to full power. They rolled only what seemed
like a few short yards down the runway and then, with a powerful leap that
drove Daniel right down into his seat, the V-22 jumped into the air. But unlike
any of the helicopter rides Daniel had ever taken, the Sea Lion gained forward
velocity with breathtaking speed. Soon the nacelles were fully horizontal, the
wing flaps retracted and the Sea Lion was hurtling through the dark skies over
the east coast of
Florida
.

 
          
“Shark,
this is Shark Two-Three, airborne headquarters, passing two thousand feet for
three thousand five hundred.”

 
          
“Two-Three,
this is Shark, radar contact,” the controller aboard the Hammerhead One
platform replied. “Surface target is at your
twelve o’clock
, forty miles. His speed is approximately
twenty-eight knots, occasionally thirty-three in light to medium seas. Your ETA
is eight minutes.”

 
          
“Have
you tried him on the radio?” Hardcastle asked.

 
          
“Affirmative,
Two-Three. No response on any frequencies.”

 
          
“Well,
the turkey’s making thirty knots in light to medium seas,” Hardcastle mused on
interphone, “so it's obvious he’s not in distress. He’s obviously ducking us.”
He turned around to glance into the V-22’s cabin. “I’d like all warning flares
loaded in the starboard pod,” he said. He caught Daniel’s eyes just then—round
with both excitement and a little fear. Daniel turned to watch as the rocket-launcher
pod was motored back inside the cabin and three of the six missiles were
unloaded and replaced by three four-foot-long missiles with yellow markings.
The three missiles that were removed carried fluorescent red markings: FIM-93
RMP LIVE HE—live high-explosive Sea Stinger missiles. For Daniel it was like
watching the old newsreel-type videos of news reporters in combat in
Vietnam
—except this was real and now.

 
          
Hardcastle
lowered his FLIR visor down over his eyes and activated the system. “Night intercepts
are no diflFerent than night- rescue or night-support missions,” he told
Fontaine. “Let the copilot take the FLIR and the radios until you get within a
few miles of your target, then switch the FLIR image back and forth until you
get yourself orientated. Use the ID light within one hundred meters or so.
Flying the aircraft is job one—don’t get fixated looking at the target and
forget about the plane. Use your crew. If you feel yourself getting overwhelmed
get some safe altitude, hover out of ground eflfect and get it together before
continuing.”

 
          
“The
main difference is integrating the weapons solutions with everything else?”
Fontaine said.

 
          
“You
use the weapons just like every other sensor on board,” Hardcastle said. “I’ll
bring the guns on line and safe—check it out.” Hardcastle activated the
port-gun turret and Fontaine lowered the sensor visor into place. In the center
of his field of view was a tiny set of crosshairs projected onto the
green-and-white infrared scene. As he moved his head side to side and up and
down, the crosshairs moved as well, staying centered at all times. But as he
looked to the left toward the nose, the crosshairs stopped moving. “That’s the
limit of the gun turret,” Hardcastle told him. “It won’t let you shoot in front
of the Sea Lion’s flight path, even in tight turns. The system computes the
impact point using altitude and airspeed information, so the more straight,
level and unaccelerated you are, the more accurate your shots will be.

 
          
“Here’s
the Sea Stinger sight.” Hardcastle deactivated the Chain Gun and turned on the
missile-weapon system. The crosshairs were replaced by a thick yellow circle,
the “doughnut” that represents the approximate seeker head’s field of view.
“It’s not a steerable circle like the Chain Gun turret, so you have to be a bit
more skillful in maneuvering the aircraft to place the target inside the
doughnut. Once you have the target in the doughnut, hit the missile-select
switch on your cyclic. That will power-up a missile, run a self-test and uncover
its seeker head to give the missile a look at the target. Once the missile is
locked on, the doughnut will change from yellow to flashing green and you’ll
get a tone in your headset. Clear your area of fire, choose your direction to
maneuver after missile launch— usually to the left, but it can be in any
direction, even in reverse— uncover the launch button and let ’er rip.”

 
          
“Two-Three,
distance to last known target position, fifteen miles,” the controller aboard
Hammerhead One reported. “Be advised, contact is intermittent from HIGHBAL.
Attempting to relocate via CARABAL.” Hardcastle thought back to a GefiFar
warning about using a Sky Lion drone with the poor reception at the extreme
ranges of the platform’s aerostat radar—maybe she was right. He lowered his
FLIR visor and began scanning the sea ahead of the aircraft, trying to find a
bright yellow object that might be the boat they were seeking.

 
          
Hammerhead One Air Staging Platform

 
          
The
intercom system was shut off in Geffar’s cabin, but the sounds of increased
activity and the muted announcements out in the hallway finally woke her. She
got to her feet and glanced at the repeater of the master monitor in the
command center, but she had shut it off hours earlier. Muttering to herself,
she flicked on the monitor and went to get a glass of water as the large
twenty-four-inch repeater came to life.

 
          
When
she returned she studied the display through weary eyes. The coastline was on
the left, and two Hammerheads machines were highlighted by their encoded data
blocks—Two-Three, a V-22 tilt- rotor from Alladin Gity, and Five-One, a 95-foot
surface-effect patrol ship from
Fort Lauderdale
. An area in front of both vessels was
highlighted by the computer but it showed nothing—no data blocks, no radar
returns.

 
          
She
went to her desk and hit the intercom button: “Annette, what’s up?”

 
          
Fields
replied from the command center: “We have a surface operation in progress. We
have an unidentified fast-moving vessel from Bimini crossing in and out of
restricted waters heading for shore. We have a V-22 and a SES in pursuit.”

 
          
“No
Customs clearance?”

 
          
“Falsified
registration. Just came through.”

 
          
“When
did you launch the Sea Lion, then?”

 
          
“I
didn’t launch it. The Admiral did ...”

 
          
“Hardcastle?
Where is he? Headquarters . . . ?” Geffar closed her eyes. She knew damn well
where Hardcastle would be . . .

 
          
“He’s
on the Sea Lion.”

 
          
I
knew
it, Geffar said to herself. To
Fields: “I’ll be right up,” and clicked off the intercom.

 
          
Aboard the V-22 Sea Lion Aircraft

 
          
“Three
miles to computer-projected position, Two-Three,” the controller reported. “No
contact from CARABAL.”

 
          
Only
three miles away—a fast-moving vessel of any size should be a huge target on
the infrared scanner, Hardcastle was thinking. Several times he had steered
Fontaine toward what he thought was the boat, only to have it disappear or be
something else—a northbound whale, an oil slick, a trail of garbage jettisoned
by some cruise ship or freighter.

 
          
“Two-Three,
this is Alpha,” he heard on the radio.

 
          
“Go
ahead, Alpha.”

 
          
“We’re
all surprised to see you airborne, Bravo,” Geffar said. “Cut your vacation
short?”

 
          
“Trying
to combine a little training with an actual intercept, Alpha. He didn’t miss
the edge in Geffar’s voice.“We’ll get this crew checked out soon as possible.”