Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (47 page)

 
          
“He’s
still got that rifle on us . . .”

 
          
“He’s
also bouncing around. The first shot he takes, we’ll be all over him. Fly the
aircraft.” Hardcastle clicked on the external loudspeaker and said into his
microphone: “Attention racing vessel, this is the United States Border Security
Force. Stop your engines and prepare for boarding.” In hesitant Spanish he
repeated:
“Atencion marinos. Esto es
Border Security Force,
Estados Unidos.
Pare.Alto. Cuidado.
” No reply—the racing yacht continued on the same
course, as fast as ever.

 
          
“Let’s
try to maneuver to his right side,” Hardcastle said. “See if you can turn him
farther south into the SES.”

 
          
Still
keeping the nose pointed at and slightly ahead of the yacht, Fontaine
sideslipped the V-22 around and off the yacht’s right side, keeping the ID
light focused on the boat.

 
          
Still
no response.

 
          
“Three
miles from the shore,” Fontaine said, glancing at his DME distance readouts. “I
can see the harbor entrance lights.” He had pulled slightly ahead and to the
right of the yacht, flying sideways so he could keep it in view and so the
speedboat’s crew could see the Sea Lion’s illuminated FOLLOW ME sign on its
left side. The speedboat made zero turn to the left. “Either he knows the SES
is coming onto him or he wants to get into the harbor real bad,” he told
Hardcastle.

 
          
“I
think it’s time to stop screwing with him,” Hardcastle said. “Crew, arming
warning flare.” On the radio, he reported: “Shark, be advised, we are firing a
warning rocket at this time.” To Fontaine he said, “All right, Adam. With a
warning flare armed, you still center the doughnut on the target—the fire
control system will automatically compute a fifty-yard lead point and fire the
missile ahead of him. Center the doughnut, don’t worry about where the nose of
the plane is.”

 
          
Fontaine
made a small correction to the left. “Got it,” he muttered into the interphone
between tight-clenched teeth.

 
          
“Batteries
released. One warning rocket ready. Clear to shoot.” Fontaine unguarded the
missile-launch button on his cyclic, took a deep breath, and pressed the
button. They heard a sharp hiss from the right side, and suddenly a brilliant
flash of light streaked by the canopy. The sudden glare startled Daniel so that
he did not open his eyes for several seconds after the rocket was gone.

 
          
The
rocket trailed a long bright yellow plume of fire and sparks as it sailed
across the dark waters in front of the yacht. Even in the brilliance of the
searchlight, the glare of the warning rocket was unmistakable.

 
          
The
suspect’s reaction was just as unmistakable—the man carrying the AK-47 rifle
could be seen raising his rifle toward the Sea Lion and although no muzzle
flashes could be seen, the violent backward jerking motion on the gunman’s
shoulder made it clear what was happening.

 
          
“Vector!”
Hardcastle called out, but Fontaine had already banked the V-22 hard right away
from the racing yacht. He had made almost a full 180-degree turn and had gained
five-hundred feet of altitude in his escape maneuver before Hardcastle put his
hands back on the controls. “I’ve got the aircraft.” It was then he saw that Fontaine’s
side of the front canopy window had been starred by a bullet. “Report,
everybody all right?”

 
          
“Aft
end’s clear,” one of the gunnery techs in the cargo section reported.

 
          
Fontaine
was brushing glass and plastic from his flight suit. “You okay, Adam?”
Hardcastle said cross-cockpit,

 
          
“I’m
okay,” but it was obvious he was not. Although he was hit by only a few pieces
of debris, he had seemed to forget about the aircraft, the controls, his crew
and didn’t stop wiping debris from his flight suit. Hardcastle gained a few
hundred feet more altitude, put on the autopilot and checked Fontaine. He found
blood streaming down the left side of Fontaine’s head under his helmet. It was
a one in a million chance, but a heavy-caliber bullet from the AK-47 had found its
way into the Sea Lion’s cockpit, and had gone right between Fontaine’s head and
the side of his helmet—it missed killing the pilot by millimeters . . .

 
          
“Get
up here and help Fontaine out of his seat,” Hardcastle ordered. Fontaine was
already dazedly unbuckling his shoulder harness as he continued to track down
pieces of glass scattered all across his chest. The gunnery techs lifted him
out of his seat and over the control console in the center aisle and back to a
clear space on the cargo-bay deck.Daniel looked on as the semi-conscious man,
his face a mask of blood, his eyes fluttering, was laid out before him.

 
          
“Looks
like he got creased across the left temple,” one of the gunnery techs reported.
“He’s conscious but he looks like he’s going into shock.”

 
          
“Shark,
this is Two-Three,” from Hardcastle. “Be advised, we have come under fire from
this target. One injury, minor aircraft damage.”

 
          
“Roger,
Two-Three,” from the controller on Hammerhead One. “We will get clearance for
you to land at
Boca Raton
or Fort Lauderdale Executive. We will have emergency vehicles standing
by.”

 
          
“Roger—”
But just then Hardcastle saw the yacht speed past underneath him, still going
full speed directly northwest toward
Boca Raton
. The gunman in the yacht’s cockpit was
still taking shots at the Sea Lion, shaking a fist at the retreating aircraft.
That was a sight that made something too long too controlled inside Hardcastle
snap. The injured pilot, his son, everything except getting that yacht and its
gunman was blocked out. He heeled the Sea Lion over hard right, sent it
swooping down on the speedboat, selected the Chain Gun with the arming switch
on his control panel. The searchlight immediately caged forward and the aiming
crosshairs appeared in his electronic visor precisely in the center of the
searchlight beam. Now a slight move of his head centered the crosshairs on the
speedboat. He opened the safety guard on the trigger, and fired.

 
          
Less
than twenty feet from where Daniel sat, the sudden activation of the Chain Gun
and its thunderous, booming rattle made him nearly jump out of his seat. The
entire port-side windscreen was filled with the bright orange-and-blue flashes
from the thirty millimeter cannon as three armor-piercing rounds per second
hurtled toward the target.

 
          
Hardcastle
saw smoke and a puff of fire erupt from the speedboat, but from two hundred
feet up the results were not too satisfying— nothing short of total destruction
would be. Hardcastle selected the Sea Stinger rocket pod, armed a missile and
waited for the aiming doughnut to appear in his visor. When it did he found
that his descent rate and altitude were both too high, but instead of easing
his descent rate with the collective and improving his firing solution, he
pitched the nose forward to center the doughnut on the racing yacht. At the
first flash of the doughnut, signalling that a missile’s seeker head had locked
onto the target, he fired.

 
          
The
Sea Stinger with its eight-pound high-explosive warhead struck the engine
compartment dead on target, but because of Hardcastle’s steep descent and
velocity the Sea Lion aircraft was right behind it. The missile detonated on
impact, turning the left engine in the yacht into scrap and exploding the
remaining gallons of fuel— as Hardcastle pulled the V-22 out of its dive and
banked sharply left, the fuel-tank explosion was just fifty feet away.

 
          
The
Sea Lion felt as if it had been hit by a giant fly swatter. The right engine
raced, its power controls torn apart. The concussion shattered the pilot’s
right-side windscreen, sending a shower of glass into the cockpit and buffeting
Hardcastle with one-hundred-mile winds. The Sea Lion felt as if it was doing an
aileron roll with the right wing jerked violently up and straight overhead.
Hardcastle pushed the power to full and cut back pressure on the cyclic,
reducing the system torque seconds before the tremendous stress on the drive
system would have snapped the left rotors clean off the nacelle. With less
counter-torque driving the wing over, Hardcastle was just able to bring the Sea
Lion under control a few scant yards above the dark waters of the
Atlantic
.

 
          
But
the right engine was not responding to control inputs, and pressure readings
indicated it was losing oil. Hardcastle quickly switched the system to cross-over
power, which would use the left engine to power both rotors, then pulled the
fuel cut-off control to the right engine to shut it down before the loss of oil
pressure completely seized it.

 
          
“Shark,
this is Two-Three,” Hardcastle radioed. “We’ve sustained damage to the cockpit
and right engine. Right engine is shut down and we are in emergency cross-over
mode. We are declaring an emergency. We will attempt recovery at
Alladin
City
and keep you advised. Over.”

 
          
Geffar’s
was the next voice on the channel: “Copy all, Two-Three. We will notify ATC of
your emergency and your intentions.” She was about to ask how the Sea Lion
could be so badly damaged after she had just said to bring the Sea Lion back,
but no good to press it now. “Break. Five-One, what’s your situation?”

 
          
“Five-One
is in the green, approaching the suspect vessel now,” Petraglia replied. “We
have Two-Three visually. He is currently heading south just off the shoreline,
estimated altitude five thousand feet. We see no smoke or fire on board but he
was very close to the target just before ... he encountered damage.”

 
          
“Is
this an open channel?” Geffar asked Fields on intercom.

 
          
“Yes,
the secure channel is unreliable. We’ve been on the open VHF aerostat relay all
night.”

 
          
That
was the reason for Petraglia’s cryptic replies, Geffar realized—half the state
of
Florida
must be listening in on this. “Understand,
Five-One. What’s the status of the target?”

 
          
“We
are in sight of the target. He is dead in the water, possibly with a small fire
in his midsection and is listing by the stern. We are three hundred yards away
and closing. I see one person in the cockpit waving his arms. I see no weapons
but we are proceeding with caution under LE two.”

 
          
“Roger,
Five-One. Stand by.” To Fields, Geffar said, “Launch a Sea Lion to support
Five-One. I want a Dolphin on deck with a rescue crew to escort Hardcastle and
assist in emergency recovery. I’ll be riding along with the Dolphin.” Geffar
logged off her computer console and headed to the hangar deck.

 
          
They
caught up with Hardcastle’s Sea Lion just over Virginia Key five miles before
landing at the Border Security Force’s headquarters area. It was creeping along
at only forty miles an hour on account of the shattered right windscreen and
because it reduced the strain on the left engine. By flying in close formation
on the right side Geffar could see the missing right cockpit glass panel and
the streaks of oil and other evidence of blast damage on the right engine
nacelle.

 
          
“How’s
it handling, Ian?” Geffar radioed over on the secure radio frequency.

 
          
“It’s
fine. I’ve locked the system in full vertical flight mode to keep the nacelles
and wings from shifting. I get overspeed warnings past eighty-five percent
power but no unusual vibrations and no control problems.”

 
          
“All
right,” Geffar told him. “If you won’t have any trouble landing bring it in at
headquarters. If you think you might have trouble take it over the
Rickenbacker Highway
to Key Biscayne and land it in the
Crandon
Park
golf course. We have rescue vehicles
standing by. You can follow their truck lights to the touchdown point.”