Dale Brown - Storming Heaven Read online

  Dale Brown - Storming Heaven

  Synopsis:

  Abused by American soldiers during an incarceration in Europe, Henri Cazaux has waited years to exact revenge on the U.s. He uses commercial aircraft to deploy bombs on major U.s. airports--killing thousands, halting air traffic, and creating national panic.

  Rear Admiral Ian Hardcastle and X. Col. Al Vincenti are ordered to reestablish security in the skies.

  Copyright 1994 by Dale F. Brown

  SUMMARY REPORT, Executive Committee on Terrorism, National Security Council June 1979):... The resolution of a serious dome tic incident might conceivably be beyond the capabilities of available civil police forces. The use of specially trained and equipped military forces might be necessary in order to restore order and preserve human life.... The FBI and other civil authorities have a substantial capacity to deal with terrorism situations, and the use of military force would be necessary only in extreme cases of highly sophisticated, paramilitary terrorism operations in the United States.

  U.s. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, Federal Aviation Administration Order 7210.3Knowledge, 16 September 1993, para.6-ab(4) an para.6-ea The air traffic manager shall take whatever steps or necessary to ensure that the Presidential flight, airplanes, helicopters, and entourage are given priority... Honor any request of the pilot concerning movement of the Presidential aircraft if it can be fulfilled in accordance with existing control procedures.

  WALL STREET JOURNAL, 2 December 1993:... In a bizarre case of mayhem and apparent market manipulation, Mr. Ramiro Helm eye [of Caracas, Venezuela is charged with heading a group that carrie out a flurry of terrorist bombings in order to profit from the resulting decline in the price of Venezuelan stocks and publicly traded government debt.

  ... Some speculate that Mr. Helmeyer and his alleged confederates might have been political terrorists, who engaged in market speculation in order to finance their activities.

  WASHINGTON TELECOM NEWS via Phillips Publishing, December 3, 1993: Acquisition officials from the Department of Justice's Immigration and Naturalization Service (Ins) and NASA are briefing potential private-sector telecommunications and information services partners in separate meetings... The partners are being asked to provide ultrasophisticated telecommunications and information services networks for politically sensitive missions mandated by the Clinton administration.

  INS was told by the White House that it would support a Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals: "sweeping" antiterrorist strategy storm heaven itself in our folly.

  throughout the federal governmement... that could help identify "potentially dangerous" foreign --Horace immigrants.

  CBS NEWS" "60 MINUTES," 26 December 1993 (reprinted with permission from Burrelle's Information Services)--... It's called GPS--GLOBAL positioning system: 24 orbiting satellites launched by the Pentagon that transmit mapping and targeting information with an accuracy never before known. It's free for anyone to use, and the scariest use would be in what the military calls the "poor man's cruise missile," which could enable any Third World nation, any madman, any terrorist, to send a missile right down the smokestack of the Pentagon.

  Prologue.

  What you're about to see," the talk-show host began, "is a videotape of what is a historic but tragic occurrence--the last time since World War Two that territory of the United States of America has been attacked by a foreign power.

  Our guest today says this can and will happen again, and he should know. You will see a videotape log of the control room of an American drug-interdiction station, located just off the east coast of Florida.

  Roll the tape." The studio audience was deathly silent as the monitors came to life.

  "Attention, all platform personnel, this is the command center.

  We have received notification that the aerostat radar unit on Grand Bahama Island has just come under attack and has been destroyed by hostile aircraft. I am placing this platform on yellow alert. Clear the flight deck and prepare for aircraft launch and recovery. Off-duty crew report to emergency stations." There were about ten people in a large room of computer consoles and radar screens, a room resembling a smaller version of Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Men and women were on their feet, expressions of confusion and fear visible on their faces. "Take your seats and watch your sectors, was an officer was shouting, his voice visibly shaking.

  He was obviously the senior officer, returning to a console slightly raised above the others.

  "Get your life jackets on but continue monitoring your sectors. Do it!

  was Technicians quickly moved back to their consoles, working with quiet efficiency, but the tension in the command center was obvious.

  "Sundstrand-351, acknowledge," came the voice of one of the female controllers. "You are exiting the entry corridor and approaching restricted airspace. Turn left to heading three-five-zero immediately." "Twenty-one, your target is at eleven o'clock, nine miles. You are cleared to engage. Suggest left turns to evade. Seagull One is at your four o'clock, five miles, on auto intercept." "Mike, Homestead is launching alert fighters in support. We've got one F-16 designation Trap-01, thirty miles out and closing at Mach one point two.

  "Damn it, was the senior officer could be heard saying, "keep making warning calls. Tell him he's about to be blown out of the sky." "Michael... ?" The senior officer's head jerked toward the speaker.

  "Tell twenty-one to intercept and identify that bastard," the officer named Michael responded quickly, as if startled into answering.

  "Tell the F-16 to break off the attack and stand by. "A few seconds later, they heard a loud, sharp boom. Heads visibly rippled across the command center at the sound. "I want a standard intercept, light signals, and warning flares. Get on his ass, get a light in his cockpit, but don't attack until he sees your FOLLOW ME lights. Is that clear? Get beside him, twenty-one. Close to gun range.

  Try a warning shot..." "Warning shots are for losers," the guest interjected.

  "I don't understand that, Admiral," the host said.

  "You've got to be absolutely, positively sure. Can you do that from a radar scope?" "If you break the law, if you violate restricted airspace, you should suffer the consequences the guest responded.

  "Shoot first, ask questions later, eh, Admiral?" the host asked.

  "It would have saved lives in this case." "In another, it may have wasted innocent lives." "I don't buy the argument that we should be prepared to let a hundred guilty persons go so that we make sure one innocent life is saved," the guest said The fact is, the innocent rarely are involved--we just end up letting the guilty go.

  It's time we stop this insanity." No one replied, but heads in the audience were nodding in agreement.

  The host saw himself losing control of his audience to his guest's arguments--this audience wasn't quite as liberal as he wanted. He made a mental note to speak with the producer about this. "let's continue with the scene, shall we?" he said quickly, and the attention turned back to the replay.

  "He's heading right for the platform--he's too close... I've got a missile lock, was another excited voice being transmitted over a radio shouted. "Am I clear to engage his his "Hold your fire. Get beside him.

  Make him turn away." "He's going to hit. Am I clear to engage?

  Am I clear to fire?" Suddenly, a different voice boomed over the radio, a frantic, completely filled voice: "Don't shoot, don't shoot, can you hear me, don't kill me! his "Get him turned away from the platform, Angel," the senior officer shouted.

  "Target turning right, heading zero-four-zero, climbing.

  well clear of the platform." The audience could see shoulders slumping in relief all across the control c
enter--in fact, the audience's shoulders relaxed as well. But just a few moments later, they heard the same female radar controller call 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." Then, a highpitched male voice: "Mayday, mayday, mayday, Trap-01, five miles southwest of the Hammerhead One platform, I am under attack.

  I am hit. I am hit." "Three planes... no, I count four, four planes just appeared out of nowhere... coming at us at high speed... no ID.

  attack profile." The videotape stopped abruptly.

  The audience was stunned into silence.

  "Of course, we all remember what happened then," retired U.s. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Ian Hardcastle said to the studio audience as Phil Donahue stepped to his mark to make his guest introduction. "The platform called Hammerhead One was hit by two cluster bombs and two Argentinean-made antiship cruise missiles. Forty-one men and women lost their lives." "The videotape you just saw was taken inside the command center of a U.s. Border Security Force platform in the ocean between the Bahamas and Florida, when it was attacked and destroyed by exiled Cuban military commander-turned-drug-smuggler Agusta Salazar a few years ago," Phil Donahue said to the camera by way of introduction. "My guest is no stranger to danger, or to controversy. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Admiral Ian Hardcastle, former Coast Guard admiral, former commander of the Seventh Coast Guard District in Miami, and former commander of the U.s. Border Security Force." The audience applauded politely, perhaps cautiously. Ian Hardcastle's reputation had definitely preceded him, and few persons could really say they had a firm fix on his views or motivations.

  "He's retired from twenty-seven years of government service, but now he's waging a one-man crusade to, as he said in the Op-Ed page of the Times, "stop the hemorrhaging of America's self-defense capability," was Donahue continued. "You've seen him on the cover of everything from Newsweek to People, shouting it from the rooftops: America is in danger because we've led ourselves to believe we're safe.

  The enemy is the shadowy, faceless world of terrorists, something of which America has not had any real experience. Are we really in dong drug-interdiction guru who found his frontier justice programs slip out of control? Your calls and comments for our special guest, the champion of America's pro-military hawks, Ian Hardcastle. Stay with us--we'll be right back." The audience followed the prompts from the stage director and the overhead lights and dutifully applauded.

  Donahue raced away to get his makeup touched up, and Hardcastle was left alone on stage, so he stood up to stretch.

  Hardcastle was tall and lean, with gray hair, a bit longer than he wore it in his Coast Guard days, swept gracefully back from his forehead.

  "Character lines" were deeply etched around his narrow blue eyes, giving him a hawklike visage to match his politics. He wore lightly tinted glasses now, a concession to the hard years of a former Marine Corps and Coast Guard officer finally catching up with him.

  He wore a dark suit that looked a size or two large for his thin, wiry frame, which only served to accentuate his rather fanatical Captain Ahab-like presence. He looked fearsome, but was a riveting personality.

  Hardcastle, age sixty, was a retired Coast Guard rear admiral.

  He was a Marine Corps officer during Vietnam in a bomb-disposal unit, and ultimately the stresses of the job and war turned him to drug dependency. Upon finishing detox, his commission was transferred to the Coast Guard, where he began a long and distinguished career, rising to become district commander of the busiest Coast Guard district in the U.s. In 1990, because of his efforts, Hardcastle was placed in operational co-command of a joint Coast Guard-Customs Service border securitystdrug-interdiction unit called the U.s. Border Security Force, colloquially known as the Hammerheads (after a 1920's-era Coast Guard alcohol-smuggling interdiction unit). The then-Vice President of the United States, Kevin Martindale, was one of its biggest supporters.

  Although it was responsible for many successful operations, the unit was under constant criticism for not adequately doing anything to stop the flow or the market for illegal drugs, and for its military-style weapons, aircraft, and tactics used against civilians.

  The Hammerheads were under intense pressure during the Presidential campaign to curtail their offense-oriented tactics, and were disbanded in 1993 under the new administration.

  Hardcastle retired in 1993, but became very active on the lecture and political-pundit circuit as a conservative political activist.

  He associated himself with a large conservative political action committee called the Project 2000 Task Force, which sought control of both the White House and Congress by the year 2000. Although his expertise was widely sought by many in Washington and nationwide, and although he was considered an effective, believable, and popular get tough speaker, Hardcastle's views were often considered too reactionary and extreme for political office or for a major government appointment.

  His personal life was also considered too politically distasteful.

  He successfully overcame a severe period of post-traumatic shock and depression from his tours in Vietnam, but that episode in his life, although far in the past, was always dredged up by critics, especially when Hardcastle was on one of his broadcast tirades about an issue that he felt strongly about.

  Others worried about his on-again off-again affair with alcohol. He was divorced and had repeatedly lost regular visitation rights to his minor children. More interestingly, he had a few rather liberal ideas, including legalization of some drugs and stricter gun control, that made him unpopular with far-right conservatives.

  A few moments later, Donahue came trotting out, gave Hardcastle a thumbs-up, took his microphone, and stepped briskly into the audience, which had just been commanded to start applauding as they rolled the intro. "We're back with Admiral Ian Hardcastle, former commander of the drug-interdiction unit called the Hammerheads," Donahue said when he got his cue.

  Some videotape started rolling on the monitors as Donahue did a voice-oven-it showed a large orange tilt-rotor aircraft with the words udds.

  BORDER SECURITY FORCE and FOLLOW ME in large letters on the side, firing missiles from fuselage pods and dropping off heavily armed assault officers onto a beach.

  "You all remember the Hammerheads, with their high-tech aircraft and robot helicopters fluttering over the beaches chasing smugglers--and I'm sure you remember the 1992 incident that sparked the controversy over the need for a unit like the Hammerheads." Donahue all but smiled.

  Videotape was rolling on the monitors.

  A shot from a low-flying helicopter circling overhead, showing a woman lying on the beach, surrounded by two small children and by armed men in orange flight suits. One of the large V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft was landed nearby, stirring up great clouds of sand as the huge double rotors on the plane's wing tips turned at idle speed.

  "This pregnant Mexican woman was killed during her arrest, in full view of horrified spectators and TV viewers. In their short history, the Hammerheads are gone, disbanded, certainly discredited.

  Admiral Hardcastle says the danger is still with us--but not just from smugglers, but from terrorists. What do you think?" Donahue's staff had already picked out a prescreened audience member who was liberal, highly opinionated, well-spoken, not afraid to speak her mind, rather pretty--she would be perfect to use coming out of commercial. "You'll stand, please," he said as he plucked her out of her seat and handed over the microphone to her.

  "Mr. Hardcastle, it looked to me like you were out there fighting a war," the woman from the audience said.

  "You got fighters all over the sky, guys with radar and guns and all--" "What's your question, ma'am?" Donahue briskly interrupted.

  "My question is, I don't see much security here --just a lot of killin', like a bunch of neo-Nazis in ugly orange suits ready to bomb innocent people if they don't play by your rules." "Ma'am, the Cuban drug smugglers under Colonel Agusta Salaz
ar used civilian planes faking distress to distract us, then bombed us with Cuban military aircraft," Hardcastle responded. "We didn't start this fight--they did." "But you were supposed to be on guard for this type of attack, weren't you, Admiral?" Donahue needled. "With all due respect to your troops, it seems like the attackers got you pretty easily." "We're sworn to play by the rules, Phil." Hardcastle shrugged.

  "Our rules of engagement at the time said we could fire only if fired upon. We knew there was a threat of attack--retaliation for being so effective --but Congress and the courts left us virtually defenseless.

  "But let me point out something here," Hardcastle said. "At the height of the Hammerheads' manning deployment levels, we were able to conduct radar surveillance of the entire southeast United States and seal off all of Florida with rapid-response aircraft.

  Drug use dropped significantly because availability of drugs like cocaine and marijuana plummeted--" "But gang violence and violent crime increased because the pushers and users were fighting for whatever product was on the street," Donahue added.