Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (57 page)

 
          
“Not
being too subtle about it, are they?” Hardcastle said.

 
          
“Let’s
fry these turkeys,” one of the seagull drone controllers said.

 
          
“Hold
your positions,” Geffar ordered. “We make sure the pilot knows we’re here and
we give him a chance to bug out. We don’t open fire until I give the word.” ,

 
          
Now
under manual control the camera continued to pan forward to the first set of
windows forward of the left cargo door. What they saw in the window amazed them
all.

 
          
There,
framed in the small oval window,
waving
at the Seagull drone, was a young girl—no more than three or four years old.
They could see her in detail... dark hair, big dark eyes, a wide happy grin.
She continued to wave at the drone as it cruised on ahead of the plane.

 
          
“Sweet
Mother of God,” GefiFar breathed, “they brought a
child
. . . a little girl.” She reached over to the communications
screen and punched up the AV-22 aircraft that was in pursuit. “Shark Two-Five,
this is Alpha. Acknowledge this transmission. Do not lock weapons on target
one. Over.”

 
          
“Two-Five
copies, do not lock weapons on target one. Acknowledged. What’s the problem?”

 
          
“Never
mind, ensure weapons on safe and stand by.”

 
          
The
camera moved toward the cockpit windshield and they saw the pilot, a Latino
about twenty years of age wearing “aviator” glasses and laughing at the camera
on the Seagull. With him was a young boy ten or twelve years old. The boy, too,
laughed at the drone, even gave the camera the finger.

 
          
“What
are we going to do?” a controller asked.

 
          
“We
can’t just sit here and do nothing,” Hardcastle said.

 
          
“We’ll
send the Sea Lion after any boats they make drops onto. We’ll keep the Seagull
on the plane and track it back to its home base.”

 
          
“Track it?”

           
“What do you suggest, Admiral?”

 
          
“Drop
in progress,” a controller broke in. Several of the fiberglass cases were flung
out the partially opened entry door on the left side of the plane, each with
lifejackets tied to them.

 
          
“Mark
and record drop coordinates and transmit to the AV-22.” The controllers called
up the smuggler’s exact location as plotted by the aerostat’s radars, which
coordinates would be transmitted to the AV-22 Sea Lion’s navigation system for
the intercept.

 
          
“We
can launch a Sea Lion and intercept the plane,” Hardcastle said. “The Chain Gun
can be targeted accurately enough to hit
noncritical
parts of the plane—”

 
          
“We’re
not shooting at him with a Chain Gun—”

 
          
“Then
put someone with an M-16 in the cargo door of the AV-22 and have him shoot at
the rudder or at the nose. He doesn’t have to try to disable it. A few bad
holes in him might convince the pilot to surrender—”

 
          
“We
can’t direct any kind of fire on a plane with children on board—”

 
          
“If
we don’t do
something
that same pilot
is going to be back tomorrow with a bigger plane and another load and more
kids. If they know they can get away with this they’ll do it again and again
until we act. We need some kind of response now—”

 
          
“Two-Five
is two minutes to the drop point,” the controller reported. “Target one has not
reversed course. He’s continuing toward shore.”

 
          
“He’s
making multiple drops,” Hardcastle said. “A couple more over the ocean, a few
on land—we won’t be able to cover all of them—”

 
          
“Launch
the Sky Lion from
Alladin
City
to cover any other sea drops. Have them get
a Customs enforcement team airborne to intercept any ground targets. Get
another Sea Lion airborne from
Homestead
.”

 
          
Hardcastle
got to his feet, reached up to remove his headset. “I’ll take one of our Sea
Lions—”

 
          
“No.
” It was as if Geffar’s word had
sucked the air out of the whole command center—the place went abruptly silent.

 
          
“There’s
a major delivery going down in west
Florida
, Sandra,” Hardcastle said, trying to keep
his voice under control. “It’s happening a hundred fifty miles from here. We’re
chatting on the radios, slinging orders, launching aircraft in several
different directions at once with no on-scene commanders. It’s no way to run an
operation—”

 
          
“I
know
that . . .”

 
          
“We’re
wasting valuable time. I say you get on that aircraft and take charge of this
mission, or I will.” He lowered his voice as he said those last words.

 
          
Geffar
slammed a fist down on the commander’s console, got to her feet and logged off
her computer terminal.
“I’ll
do it.
Take command of the platform. Prepare to launch support aircraft as necessary.”

 
          
Hardcastle
moved to the commander’s chair and entered his password into the computer
terminal, logging on as commander of Hammerhead One. “I’ve got command of the
platform,” he announced as Geffar ran for the exit.

 
          
As
she went through the door to the elevator she heard Hardcastle say, “All right,
people, we’re behind enough as it is. Prepare Shark Two-Eight on deck ASAP. Get
me a tactical display of the area. Get a line open to Customs, ask them where
their Black Hawk crew is. Move it. I want this leak plugged right
now.
”

 
          
Geffar
continued out through the door and toward the life-support shop to get suited
up for her flight. How do you tell a twenty-year Coast Guard veteran, who at
least was every bit as qualified to take action as she was,
not
to do anything?

 
          
Shark
Two-Five was in the drug-drop area five minutes later. “Shark base, this is
Two-Five. We’ve made contact with target two. We have a thirty-foot Chris Craft
sport fisher departing the area. Name on the stern removed but we might be able
to read the outline of the removed letters. It has a flying bridge, color
white, no flags, estimated speed twenty knots, heading east toward Ten Thousand
Islands. Four persons in sight on board. We’ll try to get a registration
number. Stand by.”

 
          
The
AV-22 tilt-rotor swooped lower toward the retreating vessel, flashing its
intercept lights and NightSun spotlights to get the attention of the vessel's
master. With the engine nacelles in full vertical position the Sea Lion
smoothly nestled down to one hundred feet above the water and maintained a
distance of about three hundred feet astern and to the left of the vessel. From
that distance the Sea Lion crew could see three crewmen on the boat cutting the
rope that tied the four fiberglass cases together. They didn’t seem worried
about discovery—they opened the cases right out on deck in full view of the
Border Security crew.

 
          
“Shark,
they have opened the fiberglass cases on deck ... I see . . . Shark, there are
several packages inside the cases that sure look like narcotics ... brown
shapes wrapped in plastic. They opened the cases right up on deck and—”

 
          
The
copilot making the report stopped, lowered his binoculars, and looked at his
pilot in stark disbelief. He raised them again and stared hard to confirm his
own shocking observation: “Shark, they’re unloading those cases and giving the
drugs to a bunch of
kids.
They have
children on board that boat helping them unload ...”

 
          
On
board Hammerhead One Hardcastle could hardly believe what he had just heard.
“Target two has kids on board too? So they figure they’ve found the perfect way
to keep us from attacking—give us a target we can’t shoot at . . .”

 
          
“Shark,
this is Two-Six. Beginning engine-start sequence.”

 
          
Hardcastle
hit his transmit button on the communications screen. “Roger, Two-Six. Be
advised, Two-Five reports that target two is also carrying children on board.
How copy?”

 
          
Silence
for a long moment, then just before Hardcastle was going to repeat his message
Geffar replied: “Copy, Shark. Break. Two-Five, this is Alpha. Do not lock
weapons on target two. Track and monitor. Acknowledge.”

 
          
“Two-Five
acknowledges. Target two heading toward shore. We are in pursuit.”

 
          
“Two-Six,”
Hardcastle radioed, “we have no sea or shore assets in position. We must use
the air assets to stop these targets or they’ll get away—”

 
          
“Get
assistance from Customs to handle the shore targets,” GefiFar said from the
AV-22. “Continue to track and monitor the sea targets but do not open fire on
them. Broadcast those orders to all Hammerhead units.”

 
          
Hardcastle
paused, the anger swelling up. On the intercom, he said, “Ed, broadcast to all
air units, do not open fire on the sea targets. Track and monitor.” “ ‘Track
and monitor’,” the pilot of Shark Two-Five, Eric Whipple, muttered on
interphone. “What a waste.” He was flying his AV-22 Sea Lion several hundred
yards behind the speeding Chris Craft sport-fisher, maintaining an altitude of
two hundred feet. He was flashing the NightSun searchlight at the vessel,
trying anything to get the boat to stop. Nothing was working. The vessel
continued its steady trek eastbound for the
Everglades
.

 
          
“This
is bullshit,” Whipple’s copilot, an older pilot named Hardy, added. “This is
supposed to be a
war.
In war
innocents get hurt . . . including my in-laws in
Naples
. These druggies will be cruising right by
my nieces and nephews. They get a pass, then they push their drugs to
my
relatives and kill
them.
We got the stuff to stop these
people, and they won’t let us.”

 
          
Whipple
nodded, clicked on the radio channel. “Shark, this is Two- Five. We’re right on
these turkeys. What the hell are we supposed to do now?”

 
          
Hardcastle
looked at the right large-screen monitor, which was focused on the launch pad
as Shark Two-Six, GefiFar aboard, was just lifting off. He stabbed at the
transmit button on the communications screen. “Two-Five, this is Shark.
Maintain radio discipline. That’s an order.”

 
          
“Fine,
fine, I’ll talk nice and pretty for you if you tell me what we’re supposed to
be doing I have these guys only six miles from shore. We got any backup on the
way?”

 
          
“Customs
is. ETA to the shore position, twenty minutes.” That was only an estimate—in
fact, the Customs tactical team, which were supposed to make arrests on land or
in port, had not yet left
Homestead
. It would take them twenty minutes at max speed just to reach the
general area where the smugglers would go ashore; then, they had to find the
smugglers and get in position to drop in on them. The bottom line—these
smugglers were going to get away if the Hammerheads didn’t stop them.

 
          
This
pointed out a very serious deficiency in the border security program. The
Hammerheads were the front line, the main defense against illegal smugglers and
intruders. They
had
to act
decisively— the ripple effect of any problems they encountered would create a
major gap in border coverage. If the Sea Lion aircraft or Seagull drones
couldn’t force a smuggler to turn around or stop, other support units had to be
called into action immediately. They—the Hammerheads, and especially the person
logged in as commander—was responsible for calling on those support units when
a problem developed. Customs was out of position, and it was all because they
didn’t act fast enough when it was discovered they could not attack the
smugglers.