The TAO sighed and jotted down the details in his watch log. He turned
to the CDC watch officer, the person normally responsible for the
operations of CDC. “Let’s do the standard challenge and reply. That
contact’s course puts him well to the west of us, but he’s transiting
our area.
Could be drug runners, could be a civilian pilot who’s lost.
My bet is on the former rather than the latter.”
The CDC officer nodded and reached for the microphone.
“I bet we don’t get an answer.”
“No bet. I’d say you’re right. We’ll notify the Coast Guard.”
“Unidentified air contact at-” the CDC officer glanced at the
latitude-longitude readout on his screen” thirty-two north, seventy-two
west, altitude five thousand feet, speed one-three-zero knots, this is
USS Thomas Jefferson. Over.”
He waited for a few minutes for a reply, then repeated the call-up.
After the third time, he turned back to the TAO. “No response, sir.
Big surprise.”
“Notify the Coast Guard in Miami. We’ll let the normal law enforcement
handle this.” The TAO turned back to the briefing sheet before him,
wondering whether his summaries of the previous day’s flights and
engagements would take long enough to kill the rest of the watch.
“Keep an eye on it,” the TAO said. “If its course puts it within ten
nautical miles of the battle group, we’ll talk to Tactical Rag Command
Center about what to do. Until then, just be sure the data is relayed
to SOUTHCOM. We’ll let them worry about it.”
0310 Local (+5 GMT) }
Commander, Southern Forces, Miami :
“New contact,” the operations specialist at SOUTHCOM j announced. “My
bet is it’s a drug runner.” ( The watch officer at SOUTHCOM, the
composite commander responsible for all areas south of the continental
United States, glanced at the big-screen display. “The Coast Guard
knows about it?”
The operations specialist nodded. “They’re checking into it, but there
doesn’t appear to be a flight plan. Not much we can do about it now,
but they’ll be alert for a contact on the return from Cuba.”
The watch officer frowned. “Could be another one of those rescue
operations. We had two last month, you remember. American activists
trying to evacuate relatives from Cuba. Let’s make sure INS is in the
loop.”
“Already on it,” the operations specialist announced smugly.
0315 Local (+5 GMT) Fulcrum 101
The small contact was now five hundred yards in front of him and one
thousand feet below. There was still no visible contact, and the
Fulcrum was closing rapidly on the slower target.
“And if you had honorable intentions, my friend, you would be showing
your running lights,” Santana said aloud.
“Since you aren’t, I suspect you don’t want me to see you.”
The contact was not painting brightly on his radar scope.
Santana was certain he hadn’t been detected in return, since the
contact was emitting no radar pulses. He waited until he was only five
hundred feet behind the small contact and, still without visual
contact, put the Fulcrum into a steep climb. If he judged correctly,
the wake from his two Klimov-Sarkisov RV-33 turbofan engines would
buffet the smaller aircraft, letting him know that he’d been
detected.
; Just to be sure, Santana slammed the throttles forward and
kicked in the afterburners. ; He ascended to ten thousand feet, smugly
certain that the civilian aircraft knew it was no longer alone in the
skies. He stood the Fulcrum on its tail, then executed a sharp turn
downward. He watched the radar scope carefully, judging his approach
angle. If this worked correctly, he would cut directly in front of the
small contact. ; When the scope indicated he was almost in front of
the smaller plane, Santana flipped on all of his external lights.
He watched on the scope as the small aircraft executed a hard turn to
the right, and grinned. Whatever the contact was, its maneuverability
and speed were no match for the Fulcrum, and he was willing to bet that
the other pilot would need a change of underwear as soon as he was back
on the ground.
Wherever that might be. He frowned, wondering why the Americans had
decided to pull such a stupid tactical maneuver.