SILENT GUNS

by Bob Neir

  “A meaningless charade,” Trent replied, “Seems I tried to do too much too fast.”

  “I don’t know what else you could have done. No evidence. No proof. What was in Farr’s letter?” Simons inquired.

  “Farr was grief stricken: but, he could do nothing but sit by and watch my career destroyed. It ate at him like a cancer,” Trent said.” He was an honorable man. But, he offered no proof of duplicity, only a sense or wrong, injustice.”

  “You can still thank him. He unknowingly fitted the pieces of the puzzle together. Are you going with your men?”

  “I have too. Surrender is pointless.”

  “You realize there is no escape. You are branded terrorists.”

  “I understand that.”

  “Pursued until caught.”

  “I know.”

  “You can’t hide on the Missouri.”

  “We leave tomorrow.”

  “How? What time?”

  “By helicopter. Time 1400, precisely.”

  “I had assumed a helicopter.”

  “Send a Coast Guard crew, a pilot and co-pilot. A Sikorsky Pelican fueled and ready to go. No tricks or the pilots will pay the price. Remember, as you said, we are terrorist with nothing to lose. Have the three bags on board. I will personally check each one for contents before we depart. The money must be old, unmarked bills, with mixed serial numbers. We will take our weapons aboard the ‘copter.”

  “Escape will be difficult.”

  “That depends on whether you catch us or not.”

  “I look forward to being in on the chase.”

  “I thought you might be.”

  “You’ll never make it.”

  “That’s your guess.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  ~ * * * ~

  CHAPTER 30

  Harper wearied of scanning the skies for the expectant helicopter. He didn’t trust his eyes when finally something tweaked the corner of his vision. He made out a growing dark speck suspended under a flashing blade. “‘Copter is in sight.” Madden set his binoculars to his eyes and watched the speck loom larger. “It’s a Sikorsky Pelican, all right. Just what we ordered.”

  “Is he alone?” Graves mumbled. “It could be a trap.”

  Madden swept the skies. “Nothing else in sight.”

  “If he tries anything funny…” Graves said curling his finger snug against the trigger of the M60 clutched across his chest.

  “Ease off, Graves, we need these guys,” Madden laid his hand on the gun barrel. Graves brushed his hand aside and rushed out into the open. He spread his feet apart, and then shouldered the weapon aimed at the oncoming machine. The Whump! Whump! Whump! Of the whipping blades beat louder and louder. The pilot circled over the bow and peered down, his eyes held Graves with contempt. Graves jabbed back with the muzzle. The pilot nodded. The helicopter lurched forward over the deck. The downwash whipped Grave’s hair and filled his windbreaker as he slanted his body against the force of the blast. The helicopter hovered not fifty-feet away. Madden called Graves off, but his voice was lost in the rush of wind. No muzzles flash came from the helicopter, no bang; no nothing. Graves eased back on his weapon. A thousand lashes swept over the bow as the helicopter touched down, bounced then settled on its haunches. The pilot cut the power, the rotors slowed, the blades slowly, drooped and stopped.

  “Jesus. That smarts,” Graves cried, holding a hand to his ear. Madden held his .45 in both hands, pointed it at the cockpit and ordered, “Come out of there, both of you.” Four sets of eyes locked onto one another.

  The door swung open and the pilot stepped out. The co-pilot followed close behind. Madden studied them both carefully, like a scientist might a newly encountered visitor from outer space. He’d react instantly to any false move a sailor might make; but, to him pilots were strange animals. Trent emerged from the hatch shielding his eyes. The pilot’s head tracked him right off, as if searching for him from the start.

  “Are you Trent?” The pilot’s face was full, easy-going yet contempt showed around his mouth. He was of good height, of an athletic build, with light-colored hair parted off to one side. A pencil-thin mustache graced his upper lip, undetectable except face-on. Trent noted an unemotional flatness to his voice, but detected a sharp intelligence and a latent quickness. His eyes gave him away. They were like sponges, absorbing details, while his mind processed and stored impressions.

  “Where’s the money?” Graves interrupted.

  The pilot almost smiled.

  “The suitcases are in the aft cabin.”

  “Get them,” Graves said.

  “Back off, Graves,” Trent warned.

  “Where do you want them, Commander?” Madden said, looking at Trent and ignoring Graves.

  “Below decks. Down that hatch,” Trent pointed. “Harper, check the ‘copter over.” They waited.

  “It’s clean. No weapons.”

  “You two, come with me,” Madden ordered, leading. Graves followed, weapon at the ready. Trent watched the pilots unload the suitcases. The handles and the expandable side folds, cinched tight by wide leather straps, sagged under their heavy contents. Flimsy, dull brass latches left a hollow sense of security.

  “Frisk them, Madden,” Trent said. Madden waved the .45. They placed their hands on the side of the ‘copter and spread their feet. Harper moved over and ran his hands over their bodies, found nothing. He signified so by shaking his head.

  “Move out.”

  The pilots shuffled the bags below decks.

  “You first,” Madden said, prodding the pilot with the .45. “Move aft. Down the corridor to the first door on the right.”

  The pilot hesitated. His mouth curled on itself as he said, “I thought you wanted to be ferried off this ship.”

  “We do, but not yet,” Trent replied. “I will let you know when I’m ready; meanwhile, you are our guests.”

  Madden walked them down a dark passageway and locked them up in a room. Graves heaved the first suitcase up on the table and had it opened by the time Madden returned. The two side folds separated and fell neatly open. “Wow! Will you look at this,” Graves said, his eyes bulged, a sea of stacked, green bundles greeted him. He gleefully wrung his hands.

  “I’ve never seen so much dough,” Madden cried.

  “It’s all marked and recorded; but, where we’re going, it won’t make any difference.” Trent laughed.

  “When do we divvy it up?” Graves asked reticently.

  “Not until we get there,” Trent said.

  Graves kept staring at the money.

  * * *

  Charlie Wingate stood on the crest of the bluff shifting his glasses left and right. He refocused them until he could count the rivets holding the helicopter together. That his head achingly throbbed reminded him he had stood here before. Angling his body, he threw an occasional glance over his shoulder. The icy wind that coursed over the bluff created a tumultuous roar. Wingate dropped his glasses and cinched up his windbreaker. But for the cold, the bluff was a perfect setting for a picnic. With the proper lady-friend, of course, he smiled. That diversion drew a dim regret. Preoccupied with his job, as he was, his social life was nil. A small vessel, its single funnel pouring out a steady trail of dark, greasy smoke, distracted him as it wandered across the inlet. He prayed the ‘copter would lift off before dark. How boring, he thought, and then he spotted the pilots emerge from below decks. Snapping the glasses to his eyes, he pressed the radio-telephone.

  Conover answered, “I’ll switch you over to BASE, Charlie. Simons is here, too.”

  Wingate did a double take; Conover had never used his first name before. He hesitated, then reported, “I count six men. The pilots are seated in the cockpit checking out the instrument panels. Looks like pre-flight check. Two guys are standing in the aft cabin doorway; one’s the big guy, must be Graves; the other checks out with Trent’s photo. The suitcases: they’re loading them. The engines just kicked over; the blades
are rotating. Two more just climbed aboard.”

  Simons looked at his watch, “Two hours and forty-minutes. Why so long? Did they load anything else?”

  Wingate replied, “Like I said: three suitcases; unless you count two machine guns and plenty of rounds of ammo - the big guy has bandoliers laced over both shoulders. He’s hugging an M60, like he’s itching for somebody to piss him off. He’s playing like he’s out of a John Wayne movie. And, a brief case and that’s it.”

  Conover interrupted, “With a load like that they can’t get very far, they’ll need to set down somewhere soon.”

  Simons queried, “Charlie. Did they put aboard any water-gear; you know, life jackets, rubber rafts, paddles; that sort of stuff.” Conover interrupted, “No need. That’s standard stuff aboard a Pelican for water rescue missions…”

  “They’ve lifted off,” Wingate broke in, a high-register edge to his voice. As the main rotor wound up to a high pitch, the blades twisted upward easing the heavily laden ‘copter up off the deck. He could almost feel the ‘copter strain under the extra weight. The bird rose about five feet and hovered. As the pitch of the rotor blades changed, the rotor blades carved out bigger and bigger chunks of sky. The pilot slowly pulled up on the collective. Wingate watched the pilot tip his bird slowly forward then accelerate upwards.

  “They banked and are headed south; belay that, he’s circling and heading due west. He’s up about 100 feet and just turned on his anti-collision lights. He’s over the hill and gone. Wingate stared out at the darkening Inlet. He’s all yours, guys - as they say, over and out.”

  * * *

  Deep in the bowels of a cavernous building, in a small town twenty-miles to the southeast, two FAA air-traffic controllers sat before radar screens in the Seattle Air Traffic Control Center, commonly referred to as Seattle Center. Radar dishes rotated on the roof twenty-four hours a day, without let-up, scanning the skies. Controllers posted watch on red, twenty-four inch circular radar screens, each screen covering a pre-assigned sector of airspace. Controllers identified, interrogated and directed air traffic. Coded identification and flight information identified each small blip when pilots selected the right transponder switches. All types, sizes and shapes of aircraft from the largest commercial jets to single-seat private airplanes to helicopters, were tracked. If it flew, Seattle Center tracked it - even when prying eyes were unwelcome. Drug running and other illegal activities, were encouraged by the closeness to the Canadian border.

  Jim Duff stretched his arms and yawned, and then he pushed his cursor onto a red square on the radar screen and remarked, “This guy ain’t ‘squawking’, he started to transmit his identification code, then cut it off.”

  Pete Keller asked, “Which one?”

  “This one, right here,” Duff pointed. “He just popped up out of nowhere. He must be a helicopter, unless somebody just put in a runway at the Navy Yard. Yep. Here he comes on again. He’s turned his transponder back on, again. He’s green. Oops! He’s back to red, again. He killed his IFF again. Money says he’s the one we tracked in three hours ago. Check the computer.”

  “Is he the one the Coast Guard asked us to watch for?” Keller asked. “He’s our target for tonight,” Duff rustled through posted slips, then checked a computer terminal and said, “Nope; no flight plan filed. He has to be our ‘copter. What’s his heading?”

  “Due west. We lost him; he’s dropped below a-hundred feet. He knows we can’t pick him up down there. Watch it, he just popped up again, he had to, he was flying into a mountain. Now he’s swinging north. Better let Coast Guard Base Command Center (Center) know; I expect they’ve already picked him up.”

  One minute later Duff reported, “He’s theirs all right. It’s a Pelican. They’re on him. The ‘copter picked up that Trent gang off the Missouri. Center says they’re on the run: where the hell are they gonna run to in a chopper?”

  “Oh! Geez, look at this, will ya, Jim. Coast Guard ‘copters are popping up all over, three of them. Here’s two more, small ones, probably Navy. The cops don’t have any. Got ‘em. They’re Navy, all right. Looks like they’re being positioned as spotters. The Coast Guard must figure Trent’s going to head north to Canada and into the bushes. If he can set down and get a head start, they’ll never catch him in those woods.”

  Duff said, “Center asks for area-wide surveillance. They’re locking on for intercept. Looks like we got a good old-fashioned chase coming up.”

  “Yeah! Like the Keystone cops, only those clowns were on the ground. Nobody’s going to see this one but us.”

  Duff said, “I think I’ll stay over.”

  “What about that hot date you’ve lined up?”

  “This promises to be more exciting. Those clunkers can’t do much over one hundred forty knots. It’ll be like watching a movie in slow motion.”

  Keller offered, “Ten bucks.”

  “I’ll take the Coast Guard.”

  “Gimme odds, then.”

  * * *

  Coast Guard Base Operations (Center) buzzed with activity. The Center was crammed with charts and plot tables, and a barrage of tracking equipment. A large table occupied the center of the room. A large map, extending north into the far reaches of southwestern British Columbia, east to Idaho, south into Oregon and westward into the vast reaches of the Pacific Ocean, lay spread flat across its full surface. Concentric blue circles, of twenty-five miles radius, spread out like waves made by a stone dropped into a quiet pond. This was the tracking table. Crowded with extra bodies, the air hung heavy with leftover sweat and condensation. A marker spotted the renegade HH-60J. It had been tagged Rabbit. Three other Coast Guard helicopters and two Navy units were also tagged. Fifty-miles off the Washington Coast, two Coast Guard cutters patrolled their stations on active alert. The Yacona on her way back home to Kodiak, after a two-month refurbishing stint in Seattle, was recalled and assigned a station.

  At Center Operations, Specialist Bjarne Ona sat off to one side. His eyes, fixed on a green-eyed monster, followed a pencil-lead thin line of light that rotated repeatedly identifying aircraft passing through airspace. Ona was affectionately known as Den Mother. He didn’t mind, but felt diminished when anyone sitting in his chair assumed his mantle. Den Mother was in constant communication with Seattle Center.

  “Den Mother, this is Seattle Center,” the overhead speaker in Center blared. Center was a room crammed full of equipment and people at Coast Guard, Seattle District located along the edge of the Lake Washington Ship Canal. Lt. Miller Elston, acting, was in charge. Chief Simons entered, flicked his cigar and watched the ash drift to the floor and land in a clog. Lt. Elston glanced up at the No Smoking sign posted over the doorway. Detectives Jim Frances and Annette Gleese hovered over Den Mother, awed at his concentration.

  “Too bad Charlie Wingate is going to miss all this,” Conover said. Wingate was still miles plus a ferryboat ride away.

  Lt. Elston leaned on his hands across the tracking table, his face made older by the weight of responsibility placed on so young an officer. His superior, Lt. Cmdr. Rath, normally in charge, was away on leave. Simons stood by the table in silence, the tension could be sliced with a knife. Lt. Elston glanced sideways and said, “Sit down, Chief, and have some coffee.” His eyes flickered back to the table.

  “Den Mother, this is Seattle Center, we have unidentified aircraft heading 270 out of the Navy Yard.”

  “Seattle Center, this is Den Mother. He’s our man. Can you stay with him?...Den Mother, we will maintain, but on 270 he’ll be in the mountains in ten minutes… he’s not squawking. His mode C is turned off. He won’t tell us who he is…Seattle Center, who else is up there? Den Mother, no one we don’t know. This guy is slow. He’s hugging the water. Seattle Center, thanks, we’ll track. Keep tabs on big picture. Target is Rabbit, be careful what you say - he’s one of us and tuned in.”

  “Den Mother, Fox 3. I have a possible visual on Rabbit on 290 heading.” Operations Specialist Ona reported, a sober look s
et on his face, “Fox 3 is on his tail five miles behind. Fox 2 is out of position north of the Straits. Fox 1 is lying in ambush, here,” he pointed to a bright dot on the screen that remained unmoving. “Rabbit is off Port Angeles. Which way will he turn, north or west? Anybody’s guess?”

  “Rabbit heading 270; thirty miles distance,” a Coast Guardsman wearing earphones sang out then repositioned the marker. “Fox 2 is four minutes north of last reported position… Rabbit heading change to 356 for Victoria.”

  “Shifty bastard,” Conover said. “He heads west, then swings north.” Sam Simons edged on a high stool and watched the track unfold. “Not much of a hint, yet,” Conover muttered. North and West, the territory is vast; although, he can get just so far with the extra weight, he thought. Trent must commit, soon. To where? Head for an unpopulated island north of the Straits of Georgia? Or, possibly for an isolated inland location on Vancouver Island? Or, how an about face into the dense, untamed wilds of the Olympic Mountains? They’ll be tough to find in those inaccessible valleys. To the West, the broad reaches of the Pacific Ocean run clear to Japan. No fit place to land. Perplexed, a shiver went up Conover’s spine

  “What’s their heading now?” Lt. Elston queried.

  “Still north 356, sir.”

  “Knowing Trent, he pre-planned the escape; if so, they must have stashed food, clothing and shelter away somewhere,” Conover mused. “Possibly, gas, too.”

  Simons turned, “Jim. Got anything on that?”

  “Not much, sir. Trent kept the men together. Madden could have sequestered supplies. He spent two days in Seattle, then disappeared for two days before showing up at the Navy Yard.” Simons chomped down hard on his cigar. He bit clean through then stared at the severed halves: it was fresh, unlit, and quite unusable. He threw the pieces to the deck.

  “How’s that, again?” Simons face visibly paled.