Chapter 4.
Our next alert was three days after getting our pilot licenses, a US Coast Guard vessel was fired upon and seriously damaged (three crewmen injured, one dead) by a speedboat on the Gulf. It was suspected drug runners running from Yucatan to New Orleans (520 miles/40mph=13 hours), who ran into the Coast Guard and opened fire (four guys with automatic rifles and one mounted 20cal belt fed weap), now they were speeding back home towards Mexico, (faster than most CG ships), the USCG wanted them arrested or sunk. The jet flew us to Corpus Christi then by helicopter to the speedboat to try to stop them and facilitate an arrest. The Coast Guard had accessed a maritime shipping satellite to track them and provide coordinates to the helicopter.
According to our rules if they surrendered we'd take them into custody and hand them over to the USCG, but if they fired at us we'd sink it with them still on board. How long can you tread water?
The alert unit on our kitchen counter alarmed at 7:02pm, it urged us to move fast, the jet was already enroute, the display showed: RPT ELP URGENT. FGEAR-WEPS.
We didn't even shower or get into our suits, we jumped in his truck and ran red lights all the way to the airport. In the dark sky to the east of the airport I saw the single landing light on the front of the jet (a few miles from the end of the runway) as we drove around the passenger terminal to the employee entrance gate (at the east end of the terminal). The fuel truck was ready but he wasn't going to fill it, just enough to get us to the naval air station in Corpus Christi, about 700 miles. We got into our suits in the office bathroom together. The tug arrived and hooked up to the jet (Boeing F-15 HSCT variant with greatly increased range but no weapons or ejection seats, seats three, max alt 50k feet, max speed 1850mph above 50k feet, max range 2600miles) as the fuel dude was disconnecting the ground wire from the nose gear. He started the turbine while the canopy was open, and was going to taxi to Runway 22, the long one that sat at a diagonal. It was the same runway he landed on 26 minutes ago. We used our comms gear to ask the OD to call the ELP control tower (immediately) and advise them we were leaving (immediately) without clearance due to an emergency flight.
David tapped me on the back and pointed to the display in front of me that showed the airspace around the airport was empty but we were not clear to taxi or blastoff. Since this was a time-crunch emergency the pilot opted to trust his radars and twenty years of combat piloting experience and piss off the guys in the tower!
It's a long drive out to the east end of Runway 22, most planes rolled along at 10mph but I think we hit forty on the trip down the taxiway. With the canopy still open the pilot actually stood up and visually checked the sky to confirm what his radars said that there were no planes landing or on final approach to any of the three runways, no aircraft near the airspace, and no aircraft waiting for clearance to taxi or take off. On his radar he could also see the air space for another airport almost beside ELP, it was called Biggs Army Airfield and was one mile to the north and ran parallel to 22, we could see their runway just fine, there were no planes moving anywhere within a few miles.
The tower called us with orders to stop and return to the terminal or security would be called. The pilot remained silent.
In the final 200 feet he shut the canopy, strapped-in, and sped up during the big u-turn to line up with the runway and pushed the throttle in about 1/3 of the way.
The long runway at ELP is 22,000 feet long, that's about 4.2 miles of reinforced concrete and asphalt. It sat at an angle and if you took off (toward the NE) and never turned eventually you'd fly over Detroit. I've heard some pilots say that Runway 22 was exceptionally flat and smooth, your airplane tires never made that kathumpa-kathumpa-kathumpa sound on runway 22. Its 150 feet wide, you could land about any plane except the A380 or the space shuttle.
At both ends were very nice and well marked turn arounds, most passenger jets took them around 10mph and the passengers barely knew the plane turned around. But this little fighter jet pilot was already on the throttle when we got to the end and was speeding up going into the U-turn, he was nearly 55mph when he rolled onto the runway, so we didn't need much roll-out before we felt the g-force press us into our seats as the wings lifted us off 22. He immediately hit the button to retract the wheels and with a small increase in throttle he pulled the stick back and next thing I saw ahead of us was the moon. It was the same view they saw out of the windows of the shuttle when it lifted off from Florida. He hit the throttle a bit more and we felt ourselves pressed hard into our seats as we accelerated and flew straight up, from a spot above Runway 22, but only 1/5 of the way down the runway. That was a sight not too many people saw at a mostly civilian airport.
Not too far from the east end of Runway 22 was the new and very large basic training facility at Fort Bliss, they tore down the old one and lots of the old barracks, but the new ones were out in the desert not too far from the end of 22, I'm sure a lot of young soldiers were outside smoking and watching the tiny jet and its white light fly vertical like a Nike Hercules rocket back in the 1970s on McGregor Range.
We flew vertically for about twenty seconds then nosed over towards the gulf coast. 47,000 feet at 1,750mph ground speed we made it to the CC-NAS in 41 minutes. I half expected for him to be fake-arrested in the terminal at the NAS, of course it would be a ceremony more than a real arrest.
On the back of the pilot's seat was a small computer display that showed us airspeed, altitude, barometric pressure, temperature, heading, fuel, cockpit temperature, etc. It showed a basic map that looked like a computer map from the 1983 movie War Games. After 29 minutes in the air we started to slow and loose altitude. We felt that in our bellies and our ears.
We landed on Runway 15 at the naval air station, our next transport was already on the tarmac with the unique sound of the turbine in a helicopter starting-up, the crew was on board and ready to go immediately. They got some flimsy stairs for us to climb out quickly then we ran to the helicopter with our cases and strapped in. The gunner shouted at us to put our helmets on and they had clearance to lift-off.
This crew knew the story and was ready for a dangerous police action, in the dark over the Gulf searching for an armed high speed boat with anti-aircraft weapons. Within thirty seconds of clicking my seatbelt they shut the doors and sped up the prop, 11 seconds later we lifted off the tarmac in a helicopter I was unfamiliar with, the co-pilot said it was made in France and was used by the French CG for air-sea rescues and was known for extended range and speed. It was chosen because the CG did not want to risk them reaching Yucatan before we caught them. I pointed out something funny up front, they had a Hello Kitty air freshener hanging by the windshield. David chuckled too.
The crew already knew the story and urgency behind this mission and that we were prepared to sink or capture them before they reached Yucatan. The chopper crew knew the guys on the boat already shot several of their fellow Coast Guard sailors, and another CG ship was already on the Gulf heading towards them, already on combat alert. The first CG ship they shot at was caught unprepared. David whispered to me that he thought they'd buy a used Russian diesel submarine one of these days and use it instead.
We agreed that if they fired at us the entire mission would shift from (plan-a) capture and detain to (plan-b) the destruction their vessel (with them on board). Of course if they survived the sinking they still had a 190+ mile swim to shore in shark infested gulf waters. Over Whispernet we discussed emptying a machine gun clip or two at their boat, which would slowly sink it over thirty minutes (65 three-quarter inch holes in their hull should do the trick but prolong their demise).
We flew out over the Gulf and slowly gained altitude, the display in the back said we reached 2,000 feet and the air turbulence was tolerable; it was late enough that the evening storms had all died down.
The display we watched was in knots but I thought we were going about 190mph in a straight line and after about 35 minutes in the air the display changed and we saw a blip on their long range radar. It also showed a few oil platforms but the computer had already identified them. It showed commercial cargo ships and some fishing boats but there was only one vessel moving south at 37mph heading for Merida Mexico near the northwest tip of Yucatan. We also saw the CG cutter steaming at full speed to intercept, but they were nearly an hour away.
We bounced along for an hour and changed course slightly as the pilots decided how to approach the boat, what direction would give them the worst shooting accuracy and decided to approach from the south, their direction of travel.
If we approached low and in front of them they'd be shooting at their own bow in order to hit us with the mounted 20cal in back, which was our primary danger.
I asked David, "What are the cheapest ways to sink a boat?" And after thinking for a moment he whispered back, "The cheapest would be small arms fire but that's iffy. After that spiders would be the next more expensive way, and the biggest cost would be our nuclear device, and it would eliminate any trace of their boat and crew. Sinking them that far from land would do the same thing except half eaten body parts may be found or washed up on some beach in a couple weeks. The sharks would probably devour them within one day. Sinking them had to be done quickly so they didn't float on life jackets long enough to be rescued by anyone."
Some boat hulls were loaded with flotation material, they didn't sink unless they burned first. We discussed our selection of capsules for the spiders, but dropping spiders on a moving speedboat would be extremely difficult, we'd have to overfly it and toss them out the door and hope they landed on the boat and weren't spotted and thrown overboard by the four contrabandistas.
David turned on his helmet comms and asked the pilot how long we could remain in the area after firing at the boat and we were told twenty minutes. I heard the answer through my helmet too. So we had to do some thinking. The variable yield missiles were super expensive and bullets were super cheap.
David asked the pilot if they had any weapons on board and he advised they had smoke grenades, three shotguns, and three 45 cal pistols, that's it.
We took turns testing satellite comms to make sure everything worked, we confirmed comms with our office in El Paso even though we were outside the borders of the USA.
I sat on the bench seat watching my husband sitting by the side door holding our case and considered how weird my life was now. At age 15 when I was about to get my learner's permit for driving a car I knew at that age I wanted to work in electronics when I grew up, but never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd be flying in a helicopter staring at my husband with two nuclear missiles and machine guns by my side. And what's even weirder was we kept those nukes in our spare bedroom as if they were a family heirloom. The actual high-tech weapons we used most of the time were the spiders, they were absolutely amazing. I wondered what spider tech might be like around the time we're ready to retire in 2040. Maybe by then our jobs would be obsolete too.
After fifteen more minutes they told us to get ready because we were on final approach. We lost altitude so they could use the Big Voice System to command them to halt and disarm or we would shoot, and if they fired on us they would be destroyed. That was recorded in Spanish and English. I suggested they get it re-recorded by Clint Eastwood with Ride of the Valkyries in the background, everyone liked my suggestion.
The co-pilot suggested Mel Blanc, and the pilot suggested `the guy that did the voice of Darth Vader.' The gunner thought it should be Margaret Hamilton, and I added my vote for Mel Blanc, because he could do dozens of voices (back when he was still alive), I suggested doing the voice of Foghorn Leghorn:
Pay attention boys! Stop that there boat!
What's goin, I say what's going on here?
Don't stand there with your mouths open!
Say somethin, explain yourselves!
Yer guns are shootin but no bullets `er hittin.
Now put down yer weapons, cease fire that is!
The ship you shot up, a big white ship. Red with blood, they turned blue and ran. Red, white and blue, that's a joke son!
What `er you boys try'na do? Stupid that is!
I say throw your weapons in the drink or we'll shoot,
I said you're sunk boys! The game's over!
Nobody laughed at my Foghorn imitation, but David snickered, we both loved Foghorn Leghorn.
We discussed what to do over Whispernet while David got strapped into their door gunner 3-point harness and sat beside the sliding right side door. The gunner said they had to open both doors before we fired, they needed to vent our rocket exhaust. As the side doors opened the cockpit got super cold and both of us trembled horribly. I double checked that my machine gun was ready, our ride slowed and lowered even more. The creepy part was outside that side door was nothing but darkness. I had no idea if we were high above the water or just a few feet, but we could smell it.
Even with just one side door open the back part of the cockpit turned into a frozen wind tunnel that smelled like a beach. Out the windshield we saw tiny marine lights far ahead of us, we approached them from their front. The display said we were down to 600 feet and moving about 30mph as we approached their boat, the pilot said their craft looked like a modified US Navy Higgins LCP-L boat from WW2, going 37mph on calm seas. He commented that the craft must be just a floating gas tank to be able to drive that far that fast across the gulf to smuggle bulk heroin. He said he doubted it had any flotation cells or even life jackets on board.
When we got close enough to actually count people on the vessel the co-pilot played the message and hit them with the spotlight. The message played in Spanish first, then English, then it repeated both. It basically said surrender or die, it kind of reminded me of the Witch's sky writing: SURRENDER DOROTHY.
We saw little flashes of light and the pilot said they were shooting small arms, so David handed me his machine gun to hold, I unwrapped the dial-a-yield, the cellophane wrapper flew around the cabin then out the side door. While he twisted the yield ring all the way down I got out the firing tube, closed the case, and handed the tube to David.
David checked the yield setting and with a well practiced two hand grip he pushed down the pin and slid it inside the tube.
Despite the cabin noise with the doors open I heard the distinct click when the pin mated with the hole inside the firing tube, now the weapon was ready to aim.
The display said we were now 280 feet above the water. At our current position for them to use their mounted 20mm they'd have to either alter course or shoot the bow of their own vessel. I glanced again, it said 205 feet above the sea.
More flashes of light were seen on the boat now and coming from multiple spots but it was still just rifle fire. The combat intel system on the chopper alerted we were being fired upon but not being hit. The pilot said it's hard to shoot a helicopter or airplane with a rifle and even harder with a machine gun. "Just ask any punter that tried to kick a field goal at Soldier Field in January -- wind is everything."
We talked briefly and the pilot was mad about being shot at but we already switched to Plan B. We were trained on the nuke weapon but never used one in anger before. We only shot training rounds that were non-nuclear. The pilot said we were getting too close so he made a wide turn away from their boat, he flew a circle route and returned to a position far ahead of their boat again, about two miles in front of them at 190 feet above the sea. It took him about two minutes to get us back out in front of them. The co-pilot mentioned their boat must have an auto pilot because it had not varied course or speed one bit.
David asked the pilot to hover to their side so he could shoot out the right door. Everyone put on masks that covered their entire faces, the door gunner raised a safety curtain to divide us from the cockpit. I strapped myself into the bench seat beside David and held his belt to steady him, so I was seated beside him, the firing tube was on his shoulder, sort of between our heads.
The pilot asked how long it would be from firing to detonation and David told him just under three minutes so be ready to steer away from here as fast as you can go. "Affirmative on that!" The pilot responded.
When he said that I recalled seeing the Hello Kitty air freshener swinging wildly against the windshield and thinking how funny that actually was, too bad the expression on her face couldn't show fear because mine certainly was.
David had to sit where there was nothing immediately behind the tube so we didn't set the chopper (or our clothes) on fire. The ass end of the firing tube had a clear shot out the opposite side door.
In my mind I replayed the firing procedure. I heard him whisper the firing sequence, the ones we had drilled into our brains in Nevada.
I heard him over Whispernet: "Front, back, sides, all clear. Power on-check, uncapped-check, yield set-check, aimed and waiting for tone-check. Release, re-aim and re-acquire target and tone, release-check. Here we go: PRESS AND HOLD." (Don't inhale because you're about to get a face full of solid rocket engine exhaust which contained hot tiny grains like sand).
We flew closer and were about a mile away straight out the right side door. The instant he fired I told the pilot and he did a hard turn to the left to get us away from the blast. Both of us closed our eyes and looked down at the floor. We both got a blast of smoke and sand in the face as the device sped off like a tracer bullet, a tiny sparkling line in the sky heading towards the speedboat.
We sat there pressed against each other while the helicopter groaned and vibrated under the strain. At first we were pressed towards the open door, then he leaned against me as the chopper straightened out and gained speed and altitude, but the wind and vibration were tremendous. It scared the crap out of me. I lost track of time and found myself silently praying we got as far away as we could from the boat. The good part was with the speedboat well behind us we were all shielded from the light of the detonation. As a joke just after it launched David looked at me and said, "Check," which was always the final step in firing a weapon with the tube. As a joke between us after he fired he grabbed my hand then fake spit towards the floor like he got a mouth full of rocket exhaust debris.
It's not uncommon for shoulder fired weapons to be shot from a moving vehicle. There was a setting that worked as a time delay, after launch the projectile acquired the target but altered course, climbed, then shut down the rocket motor, and fell to the target with a small parachute and steering enabled so it could easily follow a moving target.
The pilot goosed the chopper to gain altitude and distance while David collapsed the tube and sat there by the open door and the great expanse of darkness outside the chopper. I grabbed his belt and pulled him all the way back into the seat so he was leaned back against something substantial. We both braced for the coming pulse. The helicopter strained to get away, the ride was like an old wooden roller coaster in a steep turn at full speed. I realized just then this was an extremely dangerous situation. I prayed the helicopter survived what was about to happen behind us.
The projectile flew towards the target then radically turned and flew straight up to about 2,000 feet then it jettisoned the rocket motor. The guidance part of the warhead used tiny aerosol jets, five steering fins, and a three foot diameter parachute to slowly lower itself in the darkness until it was 190 feet above the moving boat then detonated. I'm sure the men on the boat saw the chopper fly away and thought to themselves that we gave up and were going home defeated again: `US Coast Guard, what a bunch of pansies!'
By the time the device had descended to 200' above their boat we were six miles away, climbing and accelerating. In the final seconds before detonation I held tightly to the seat frame and the other hand on my seatbelt release in case the chopper went down.
Then something beautiful happened, it was like someone threw a switch and suddenly it was daytime outside! We saw fluffy white clouds, beautiful blue sky, and the calm surface of the Gulf as if it was the middle of a wonderful day.
Then came a horribly loud instantaneous CRACK like someone lit a firecracker inside the chopper, the entire craft shook like we crashed into something. Just after the CRACK it was dark again outside. I heard ringing in my ears from the volume of the detonation.
Seconds later we were hit hard from behind and several systems alarmed up front, probably including a stall warning due to the sudden wind and angle change. The cabin was in chaos and there were several different beeping alarms going off up front. The pilots struggled to steady the aircraft and silence the alarms.
Then the gunner closed both side doors and lowered the curtain. I felt my first blast of warm cabin air that felt really nice. I really wanted to hug David but couldn't.
We turned around and flew back where the speedboat was. The co-pilot said there was nothing on radar now except a round cloud. We circled the area with the searchlight and found nothing, no debris, no clothing, no life jackets, no survivors, not so much as a single scrap of paper or plastic straw or anything. Their boat simply vanished.
David collapsed the tube and put it back in the case while I returned the machine guns to the other case and asked them to take us back to the naval air station. Everyone on board was quiet, they'd never seen anything like that before. The door gunner, the guy in back shone the searchlight around and said there were dead fish popping up all around the area.
After they made a second pass at 500 feet above the water the only weird thing we saw was a circular wave pattern moving away from the boat's last position. David joked and told them it might actually generate a small tidal wave on the beaches of Corpus Christi but that's about all. We used our satellite comms to notify the boss of our success and how the mission ended. We were able to use Whispernet to update the office in El Paso so the chopper crew didn't hear us. The bad part was we were newbies with Whispernet and weren't always easy to understand. As we left the area the co-pilot told us it reminded him of atomic bomb testing films in the 1940s. I told him that the soundtrack on most of those films were Hollywood sound effects recordings and not the actual sound.
We didn't talk much on the way back to the NAS, but the crew talked amongst themselves like we weren't on board, like it was just another day. David and I sat side by side on the bench in the dark, and for a while I reached my hand down and held his hand because I knew he was upset. The one thing that really surprised me was none of the crew asked if that was an actual nuclear weapon or just a large explosion. And while we orbited the site none of them asked if there was a risk of exposure to radiation. We were prepared to answer both questions.
Back at the NAS we got a ride to the Corpus Christi International Airport and bought tickets to Dallas first thing in the morning then to El Paso to arrive there at 11:30am. We sat in both airports in side by side chairs waiting hours for our flights to board, I kept my arm over the back of his chair most of the time but David was very quiet. We took turns recording our report while we waited for our flight to Big D.
We left work at 12:50pm and drove home.
On the way across Fort Bliss we were stopped by an MP, he said they got a complaint that a truck like ours was seen last night running stoplights and speeding across the housing area, David asked him if he confirmed our license plate himself. It took about five minutes, then the MP walked back to our vehicle and handed David back his driver's license, "There you go, you're free to leave Sir." David remained silent as we drove home.
That was one weird ass day, but the boss said we earned a bonus too, but wasn't sure how much. We'd get checks in the mail sent to the airport office address.
Back at home David had purchased sheets of blank cardboard, spray painted them black and thumb tacked them over the windows. The purpose of the window covers was to stop anyone from looking inside.
We unloaded our stuff and ordered replacement components online for the ones we used. They would arrive by special van in a day or two, the warheads came from Amarillo, the small rocket motor sections came from Nevada. We assembled them by hand on our kitchen counter, they just screwed together like short sections of two inch wide steel pipe, hand tightened.
We plugged in the case and inserted our glasses to charge them. Inside our case were two pockets custom cut for our glasses, when we inserted them in their pockets they charged wirelessly from the batteries inside the case. After the replacement weapon was securely in the case and ready for use we always wiped down the kitchen counter and checked it with a Geiger counter. The warhead itself was very active but it dissipated to nearly nothing a few feet away. Holding the Geiger counter outside the bedroom in the hallway showed no signs of radiation other than regular background radiation.
After twenty minutes in the shower we turned off all the lights and put a bed sheet and pillows on the living room floor and made love for about one hour then we snuggled for another hour so I could run my hands across his body, then we went to bed. David was still quiet but his passion was easy to feel. During our sex he felt like what he really needed was for me to hold and comfort him more than anything else.
When it was my turn on top I sat on his thighs and massaged his body with baby oil, I rubbed my hands all over him from his shoulders to his thighs. He got hard again and after rubbing his body slowly for about fifteen minutes I stroked him to a second orgasm that ended up mostly on his stomach, it filled his belly button and dribbled down his side.
Another trip to the shower and we went to bed. We decided to go to work late tomorrow since we didn't hit the pillows until almost 1:30am and alarm time was usually 0530hrs. We spooned all night and never set the alarm clock.
Sometimes we discussed our missions on our own, that was one of them because we felt bad using a horrible weapon on civilians. Luckily it was fast, they might have seen the flash but would have been unaware of anything after that, it would be instant death, less than half a second. Their boat, their bodies, even the large engine would have been reduced to a cloud of carbon dust within half a second. Even the sea water they floated on would have vanished too, which caused the small tidal wave. The sudden burst of hydrogen gas (from all that water being broken into oxygen and hydrogen gasses) only increased the heat around the plasma ball.
With the warhead turned all the way down it would have created a plasma ball almost 500 feet across with temperatures over one million degrees for about two seconds. Our office in the Pentagon had a system for notifying the countries that monitored for nuclear detonations that we fired a weapon involved in a police action at sea. But the size and location of the blast was usually enough information for most foreign governments to figure out what happened. A small atomic explosion in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico was clearly not an attack on any country, but caused during a police action. There were only two countries on the planet that had and used tiny nuclear weapons: USA and Britain.
We were in bed with the lights out but not falling asleep, "You awake?" I whispered. "Yeah, why?" David replied.
"Can I tell you something stupid?"
He chuckled and said `of course.'
"Well radiation got me thinking about my legacy, you know we're both thirty now, almost thirty one and we've probably lived half our lives and I was thinking about what would be left behind after I'm gone."
"Yeah so."
"So I was thinking, there really isn't much of anything I can do on Earth that would be evidence that I ever existed, except maybe my headstone but those will all be worn blank eventually. Even the tallest buildings on the planet will all need to be torn down some day. What can I do that would outlast everything and prove I existed?"
David was silent for a bit then just mumbled, "I dunno."
"Okay, this sounds farfetched but hear me out."
"Go for it." He mumbled.
"I've thought about this a lot, first I need a small sheet of lead, like the size of a note card, maybe three inches square, just a flat sheet of common soft lead. I use a knife and cut three holes in it like a smiley face. You take that lead sheet to the hospital ER and ask the guy from the x-ray department to roll his portable x-ray machine outside. You turn the head to aim it at the sky and set that sheet of lead on the window aiming straight up. Then have him crank up the juice as high as it will go and fire that sucker and transmit a pattern of x-ray particles into space in the shape of a smiley face. Some particles will be trapped in the atmosphere, some will be trapped by the Van Allen belt but a bunch of `em will continue on into space for eternity."
David chuckled.
"Anything I make on earth will eventually crumble and vanish, but that smiley face pattern of particles will continue in that direction for eternity, long after our sun winks out and the earth dies that smiley face will continue across outer space at the speed of light forever. That is the one thing I can do on Earth that will truly last forever."
There was about five seconds of silence, I thought maybe he fell asleep. With his face pressed into the pillow David mumbled to shut up and go to sleep.
I snickered at his response and closed my eyes again.
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