Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (80 page)

 
          
“It’s
too late for that, Mike. He’s going to hit.
Am
I clear to engage?”

 
          
“Sound
the platform alarm,” Becker ordered. “Remain on yellow alert but warn the crew
of—”

 
          
Suddenly,
booming over the controller’s headphones, they heard: “Border Security, this is
Sundstrand three-five-one.” The voice was high-pitched, almost a screech. Becker
had never heard such terror in a man’s voice since
Vietnam
. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, can you hear
me,
don’t kill me
...”

 
          
“Get
him turned away from the platform, Angel,” Becker shouted. “Sundstrand
three-five-one, this is the Border Security Force. If you can hear me, turn
right immediately. Turn right forty degrees or you will be attacked . . .”

 
          
The
reaction was instantaneous. The target-aircraft veered at what appeared to be a
tight hard bank angle and headed away from the platform. Mink took a breath as
if it was her first in several minutes. “Target turning right, heading
zero-four-zero, climbing. Well clear of the platform.” Several crewmembers
allowed groans of relief. Becker found he had gotten to his feet and was
leaning over the front edge of his commander’s console, then dropped back into
his seat, removed his headphones and rubbed his eyes.

 
          
“Have
Two-One escort that sonofabitch Sundstrand Air flight to the Zoo,” Becker
ordered. “I’d like personally to bust that guy right in the face. Tell the F-16
thanks for the assist and send him home.” “Roger,” Mink said. On the tactical
frequency she announced, “Trap One, this is Hammerhead One. Our target is clear
and responding. Thanks for the assist.” Mink reconfigured her scope back to its
standard fifty-mile display and checked the traffic between the F-16 and
Homestead Air Force Base to the northwest. “Clear on heading three-five-zero,
take ten thousand feet, contact Homestead Approach on one-one-eight point one.
Good night.”

 
          
Mink
saw the newcomers just as the pilot of the F-16 responded, “Stand by,
Hammerhead One. I’ve got a—”

 
          
On
interphone, Mink called out, “I’ve got two targets bearing zero-seven-zero, ten
miles, altitude five hundred feet, speed four- hundred knots. Closing on us
fast. One more up high, near the F-16.” On the radio, she called out: “Trap
One, I have traffic at your
six o’clock
, eight miles. His indicated air speed is—”

 
          
Suddenly
on the emergency GUARD channel they heard, “Mayday, mayday, mayday, Trap One,
five miles southwest of the Hammerhead One platform. I am under attack. I am
hit. I am hit.” The GUARD channel broadcasts overrode all others, and the
pilot’s calls got more and more frantic—until they cut off completely.

 
          
“I’m
picking up an emergency locator beacon,” Mink said. “The F-16 ... I think the
F-16 is down.”

 
          
“What
the hell is going
on,
Angel?” Becker
said.

 
          
“Three
planes . . . no, I count four, four planes just appeared out of nowhere. I was
in short range and never saw them. Two are up high around the F-16. Two more
are off to the northeast, coming at us at high speed. No identification, no
flight plans.”

 
          
“Launch
all available Sea Lions,” Becker shouted. “Broadcast warning messages on all
frequencies.” He looked up at the faces of the command-center crew, then, his
attention directed at several who were standing at their consoles, he told
them, “Sound the emergency alarm. Report to the rescue stations.” He motioned
for Angel Mink to run for the exits, but she only turned in her seat, took olf
her headphones and watched . . .

 
          
A
few of those crewmembers, the younger and less experienced ones, bolted for the
emergency slide that would get them to the lifeboats on the lower level. Most
stayed by their consoles, continuing to issue advisories and warnings as two
AV-22 Sea Lion aircraft lifted off, followed by a third; the last AV-22 was
being raised up onto the flight deck on the central elevator when the planes
struck.

 
          
“Splash
one,” the radio message reported.

 
          
“Very
good, fangs, very good,” Agusto Salazar radioed to his wing- men from the lead
fighter. “Claws engaging. Fangs, take the high CAP and be ready to run.”

 
          
Because
they were so close to the air-defense units of the
United States
, all four jet fighters of the Cuchillos’
strike team were heavily armed for air-to-air combat, even though that one F-16
would be the only fighter they would encounter. One MiG-21 carried two fuel
tanks, two radar-guided missiles, two heat-seeking missiles and a 23 millimeter
cannon. One Dassault-Breguet Mirage F1C needed only one fuel tank for the
strike mission; it carried two 30-millimeter cannons and four missiles. These
were the fangs, the Cuchillos’ fighters reserved for air cover for the other
two jets.

 
          
The
other MiG-21 and Mirage F1C were also equipped for selfdefense, each carrying
two medium-range radar-guided missiles along with their external fuel tanks in
case a wave of air-defense fighters jumped the Cuchillos’ planes, which left
room for only two air-to-ground strike weapons apiece. Salazar equipped these
strike planes, the claws, with a single six-hundred-pound BL755 cluster- bomb
unit to strike the Hammerheads’ aerostat radar site in the
Bahamas
. Each British-built BL755 CBU carried one
hundred and forty smaller two-pound submunitions, which scattered all across
the aerostat site and control center and devastated the entire area. That had
left room for only one relatively small, lightweight weapon with which to
strike the Hammerhead One platform itself.

 
          
The
Argentinian-made Martin Pescador, the Kingfisher antiship missile, was the most
devastating strike weapon in the Cuchillos’ arsenal. It weighed only three
hundred pounds but it could fly for two or three miles at a speed of well over
Mach one, and even without its 88-pound high-explosive warhead, its destructive
power was enormous. Thanks to the large numbers of Kingfisher missiles put on
the international arms market after the Falklands War, when the world
discovered the awesome power of the Exocet missile, the Kingfisher was a
relative bargain by the time Salazar went shopping for weapons. The MiG and
Mirage fighters designated for the strike each carried one Kingfisher missile.

 
          
“Claws
engaging, lead’s in first. Good hunting.” Salazar’s MiG-21 and the other Mirage
F1C fighter slowed to below Mach 0.5 for weapons release, and launched the
missiles in a shallow dive when just outside two miles from the platform. The
Kingfisher missiles were radio-controlled, and even at night from two miles out
and with the platform blacked out it was a simple target. The fighters had to
continue flying toward the platform to aim the missiles all the way to impact,
so, unlike the cluster bomb attack, they got the opportunity to watch the
fireworks from start to finish . . .

 
          
Both
missiles hit the flight deck of the Hammerhead One platform at almost the same
instant, one hitting near the aerostat-recovery pad and the other directly on
the central elevator with the Sea Lion aircraft still on it. The nose of the
Kingfisher missile was actually a titanium projectile designed to split open
the skin of a vessel and allow the high-explosive warhead to penetrate inside
the ship before exploding. That was exactly what occurred.

 
          
The
first missile ripped through the second level easily, the warhead piercing the
roof of the second-story command center before detonating. The explosion
shelled out the command center and most of the east half of the second and
third levels of the platform, killing everyone remaining in the command center
and buckling the flight deck on the east side. The control tower on the
northeast corner collapsed into the crater, and the aerostat mooring and
control systems ruptured from the blast, releasing the aerostat balloon and
sending the two-mile long, four-thousand-pound mooring cable crashing back on
deck.

 
          
“Dead
center, dead center!” Salazar announced over the radio.

 
          
The
second missile powered through the flight deck, sending the explosive warhead
into the three-story maintenance hangar before detonating. One AV-22 aircraft
and one Dolphin helicopter were destroyed in the blast and fire. Twenty people
were killed instantly. The overpressure from the fuel explosion blew out the
entire west side of the platform, shearing loose the connecting points of two
of the four massive legs supporting the platform.

 
          
Weakened
and wracked by secondary explosions, the entire west side of the platform
collapsed into the sea, and the two legs buckled, sagged, and toppled over.
Four of the six legs did hold, but not enough to keep the entire platform from
rolling onto its destroyed side. The remaining legs kept the structure from
capsizing, but all of the lower decks and half of the flight deck hit the water
and flooded.

 
          
Fires
burned out of control, and leaking fuel and oil spread across the ocean
surface, setting the water on fire for a mile in every direction.

 
          
In
sixty seconds, the first Border Security Force air staging platform was
destroyed, and the four fighters were at maximum speed heading south to safety.
The AV-22 aircraft that were airborne at the time of the attack began rescue
operations, but they would soon learn the grisly details—forty-one men and
women on the platform had lost their lives, including Michael Becker and Angel
Mink and Ricardo Motoika.

 
          
Aboard the AV-22 Aircraft Lion Two-Nine, in
West
Florida

 
          
“Attention
all aircraft, attention all aircraft, this is an air defense emergency warning
message from the United States Border Security Force,” the radio transmission
began. “Be advised, SCATANA is implemented immediately in the
Jacksonville
,
Miami
and eastern
Houston
air traffic control regions. Repeat,
SCATANA procedures will be implemented immediately. All aircraft in receipt of
this message stand by for emergency air-travel instructions.”

 
          
Hardcastle
felt a shudder through the V-22C Sea Lion aircraft as the pilots heard the
warning message and accidentally nudged the controls, as if the airplane was
expressing the fear the pilots felt at that moment, the fear that something you
once thought was invulnerable and strong—namely, the continental United States
itself— had been breached and attacked by an unseen, unknown enemy. SCATANA,
the mouthful acronym for Security Control of Air Traffic and Air Navigation
Aids, was the plan developed to control inbound and coastal traffic in the
United States
and to deny the use of
U.S.
radio navigation aids to enemy aircraft in
the event of a wartime emergency. Except for infrequent exercises this was the
first time SCATANA had been implemented in the continental
United States
since its inception during the Cuban
Missile Crisis.

 
          
“All
IFR and VFR aircraft entering or transiting the United States on approved
flight plans on all Alpha and Bravo corridors and on Victor routes 157, 539 and
225, stand by for divert instructions,” the message, broadcast on UHF and VHF
GUARD emergency radio stations, continued. The message was also being broadcast
on marine radio channels, high-frequency and short-wave stations and on
satellite and TV networks that provided weather and information services to mariners
and commercial pilots. “Be prepared for radio navigation aid interruption. All
IFR aircraft, divert, and emergency instructions will be issued by your
controller. All other aircraft, exit American airspace immediately or you may
be fired on without warning. Contact the United States Border Security Force on
VHF frequency 121.5 or UHF frequency 243.0 for assistance.” The message began
to repeat, both in English and Spanish, and then instructions for aircraft in
specific sectors or destinations began air.

 
          
Hardcastle
felt a knot tighten in his stomach as he listened to the broadcasts. SCATANA
procedures were designed way back in the early sixties to deny enemy bombers
the use of
America
’s extensive air-navigation system during an attack. Under SCATANA, the
Border Security Force and the military could shut down all radio transmitters
that could be used as navigation or location markers—including commercial and
private radio and TV stations located within a hundred miles of the coastline,
as well as federal air-navigation facilities—and all for an indefinite period
of time. In an age of diminished military budgets, nuclear disarmament and
worldwide
perestroika,
SCATANA was
considered by many to be almost an anachronism, a relic of the disappearing
Cold War. An air attack against the
United States
was considered a fantasy.

 
          
But
someone had actually dared to do it. Someone had targeted the Hammerheads’
radar network for precise, coordinated air attacks

 
          
Agusto
Salazar, Hardcastle thought immediately. It had to be. The high-tech Cuban drug
smuggler, the so-called district military commander of Haiti that commanded
more concentrated firepower than several Caribbean nations combined, had
actually dared attack the United States’ offshore drug-interdiction facilities.

 
          
Salazar
might be a fanatic, even crazy, but right now this man had the upper hand.
Somehow, the attacking aircraft had sneaked through the radar coverage in the
confusion over the report of an attack on the CARABAL aerostat station, and
they had destroyed or disabled HIGHBAL. No transmissions and no radar data were
available from that station. No messages except for the SCATANA warning
messages had been received. The KEYSTONE, NAPALM (nickname for the Hammerhead
Two aerostat unit located off the coast from Naples, Florida) and even the Navy
radar sites at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and the Border Security Force sites in
Puerto Rico and the Turks and Caicos Islands might be in imminent danger.

 
          
Hardcastle
and his AV-22 shuttle were now on the ground at Na- pies Municipal Airport on
the west coast of Florida about fifty miles east of the Hammerhead Two
platform. They had just pulled up near the small Airport Authority general
aviation terminal, to the wideeyed shock of the teenagers in their golf carts who
usually met the small single-engine airplanes, washed the windows and checked
the fuel and oil. He undogged and opened the starboard-side hatch and was
greeted by a teenage girl in yellow shorts and a blue satin jacket carrying a
bucket with windshield cleaning supplies and another with cold soft drinks and
a Thermos of coffee.

 
          
“Welcome
to Naples Airport Executive Terminal, sir,” the obviously confused but
determined young woman began. “I’m Jennifer. Can I. . . check your oil or
something?” Jennifer was going to do her job, whether it was a rag-wing biplane
or a Concorde jet that pulled up to her terminal. Hardcastle told her to stay
away from the engine nacelles and the rear cargo ramp and ran to the executive
terminal building.

 
          
The
evening airport manager at the terminal, less stunned by the Sea Lion’s
arrival, had the phone out on the countertop and did not say a word as
Hardcastle ran inside and dialed the line to the duty- controller’s desk at
Border Security Force headquarters at
Aladdin
City
.

 
          
As
Annette Fields answered the phone, Hardcastle could hear a confusion of voices
in the background, the excited, tense voices of controllers talking with
uncharacteristically loud voices. It had to be a madhouse out there. “Aladdin,
duty controller. Stand by . . .”

 
          
“This
is Hardcastle, Annette.”

 
          
“Ian,
I’m glad you called on the land line. The radios are a mess. I see on the
status board that you’re down, but where the hell are you? Are you okay?”

 
          
“We
landed at Naples Municipal. The crew and the plane are safe. I heard the
SCATANA warning. Can you give me the situation? Where do you need Lion
Two-Nine?”

 
          
“I
think the best place for you and the crew is back here at the Zoo,” Fields
said. “Hammerhead One was hit. Bad. Reports from some of the Sea Lion birds
that made it off said that the platform was hit by two missiles launched from
high-speed fighters. The platform was heavily damaged and on fire.”

 
          
Hardcastle
was struck dumb by the horror of the news. He swallowed hard. “Casualties?”

 
          
“No
count yet.” The reply was wooden. Hardcastle could imagine what the answer was.
“Two Sea Lions made it off. Each had five on board. They’re involved in rescue
operations now.” What Hardcastle was expecting was left unsaid—the rescue crews
had not recovered any survivors.

 
          
“I’ll
bring Two-Nine to the Zoo, drop off the crew and head on over to Hammerhead
One. How many Sea Lions does Hammerhead Two have available?”

 
          
“Four,
plus two Dolphins. All their planes are airborne and ready.” “They’re all set
in case of an attack,” Hardcastle said. “The bird I’ve got is in shuttle
configuration only—it’s no good for rescue work. I'll go back to Aladdin with
the crew, refuel, take out the seats and put on a winch, boats and a gun pod.”

 
          
“All
right, I’ll be expecting you. I’ll have a maintenance crew standing by to
configure your plane.”

 
          
“Any
word from KEYSTONE or any marine units?” “KEYSTONE and Hammerhead Two are still
on the air,” Fields said. “We’re expecting attacks on them but the air traffic
situation is a nightmare. We’re trying to sort it out but—”

 
          
“You’ve
got to keep aircraft away from those sites, Annette,” Hardcastle said. “If they
shut down NAPALM and KEYSTONE . . .”

 
          
“I
know, I know. We’ll be blind. But no one would be crazy enough to try to attack
those two sites. KEYSTONE is on
U.S.
territory and Hammerhead Two is too far
north.”

 
          
Hardcastle
thought about Salazar trying to kidnap their “Russian” fighter crew earlier
that same day—hell, he’d try anything, especially if he felt threatened. “Don’t
bet on it, Annette. What about the jets that attacked HIGHBAL? Are they headed
toward KEYSTONE or Hammerhead Two?”

 
          
“KEYSTONE
tracked the four jets that hit CARABAL and HIGHBAL heading south by southeast
at high speed and low altitude. It looks like they’re done for the day. We’re
trying to get a fix on their destination.”

 
          
“I
can tell you what their damned destination is . . .” But Hardcastle paused.
During his conversation a crowd had begun to gather around him, all wanting to
know what was happening. “I’ll see you in twenty minutes,” he said abruptly and
hung up.

 
          
Over the
Dry
Tortugas
, Eighty Miles South of the Hammerhead Two
Platform.

           
Even with weeks of planning, days of
briefings and practice runs it would have been difficult for even the
best-trained air crews to execute the two-pronged strike mission against the
Hammerhead airstaging platforms precisely on time. Yet the Cuchillos were doing
it with an outdated, untested plan, with a few hours of briefing and
preparation and no practice runs. Having the two separate strike packages only
ten minutes off was a minor miracle—a miracle that spoke well of the skills of
the Cuchillo pilots and had an unexpected consequence.

 
          
The
four Cuchillo jets striking CARABAL and Hammerhead One had to fly fourteen
hundred miles, much of it at low altitude, to destroy both radar sites and
return to Verrettes; it was easy for communications to break down, route timing
to deteriorate, corrections not to be made. In the heat of battle, especially
if under attack, force-timing and strike-package integrity were sacrificed to
survive. If the plan was discovered it was important to get your plane over the
target, evade the defenders and worry about coordination and timing later.
These pilots would be flying right down the barrel of the gun, directly at the
heart of the Border Security Force’s center of operations.

 
          
The
second group of strike aircraft, another group of two MiG-21 fighters and
Mirage F1C fighter-bombers, had to fly almost eighteen hundred miles to
complete their mission, all but twenty minutes of the flight flown in relative
safety. The second strike package had travelled from
Haiti
up along the north coast of
Cuba
, following established airways and talking
with Cuban military flight controllers. With such routing the planes attracted
almost no attention from the Border Security Force, who routinely monitored all
such flights. When the planes suddenly turned northward, the attack on the
aerostat site on
Grand Bahama
Island
had been completed and the attack on
Hammerhead One was underway. The confusion factor was very great as all
attention was focused on events to the east.