“Hmmm, must be nice.” Simmons nodded, returning to his work. “Can you give me a hand here? We’ll start with laying sensors…”
For four and a half hours, Ben and Simmons worked over the boat, laying and moving tiny electrical sensors, cutting samples from the hull and metalwork and measuring, measuring, measuring. Helping with the interior measurements was the worst experience of Ben’s life. Crawling through the dark, flooded, and crowded cabin on a vessel on the verge of sinking evoked almost debilitating claustrophobia. This fear, combined with the revolting thought the confined space once enclosed a rotting corpse, resulted in a struggle even to think, much less complete scientific tasks. Ben’s relief on returning to the open air of the High Dawn’s main deck was extreme.
At last, Simmons related that he had finished and they could start gathering up the equipment. Ben inquired, “So, what’s the verdict? Is this what you’re looking for?”
Simmons nodded while continuing his packing. “Definitely. You are looking at the effects of a powerful shock wave that began underwater close to the surface. The hydraulic shock crushed the starboard side of the hull. This lurched the boat to the left, snapping the mast shrouds and throwing at least one guy into the scupper here, killing him instantly—there’s blood and skin fragments around there.” He pointed at a narrow draining channel in the deck. “The air shock wave impacted right after that. It tore away the mast and cleared anything loose off the deck.” He pointed at a metal fitting on the deck. “Look at the mast step here. The pin’s bent and the fork sheared to the left.”
Ben eyed the twisted deck fitting, pondering the force that could do that. “It wasn’t a bomb?”
Simmons paused and looked up at him. “No. Any chemical explosive close enough to do this would leave trace residue, if not actual burn scoring. A nuclear device would leave a radiation signature and heat damage. Besides, we’d detect any nuclear detonation.” He looked down to finish packing his gear. “And to anticipate your next question, I do know what this is, but I can’t tell you about it. I can say we must find the event’s location as soon as possible.” He glanced at Ben, noting his raised eyebrow. “Hey, I know this sucks being kept in the dark, but I have my orders too. I’ll be reporting in right away, and I’ll see if I can get them to loosen up, at least for you and your CO.”
“That would be an excellent idea if you don’t want this operation to turn into a major goat rope.”
“I’ll pass that along. When can we start back to Key West? I need to get resources organized.”
Ben checked his watch. “Poplar should arrive in 18 hours, figure a couple hours for the handoff, and then four hours to motor down to Key West.”
Simmons shook his head. “OK, sorry I came across as such a douche last night, but I’m not exaggerating. We can’t wait another day to start on this. Can’t you just leave it with a marker on it?”
This time Ben shook his head. “No way. There are probably a couple tons of product here. On the street, that’s more than a hundred million bucks. We can’t leave it unattended for a second. We can try to get a patrol boat out of Key West to relieve us. That’d cut our wait time in half.”
Simmons nodded. “We need to do that right away. I’ll call in the request from my end as well. And I’m done here; you can call Billy Budd to come pick us up.”
Ben turned away to call over the RHIB and report to Kauai. Billy Budd? WTF?
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Kauai, Gulf of Mexico, 57 nautical miles northeast of Key West, Florida
1427 EST, 14 January
Ben, Simmons, and Sam sat in Sam’s cabin with the door closed. Not a situation the latter liked when underway. Sam had called Sector Key West and convinced an irritated senior duty officer to launch his ready patrol boat, the 87-foot cutter Skua. She was still more than an hour from the rendezvous, but Hopkins was on the Bridge, passing information to her CO to hasten the transfer.
On their return to Kauai, Simmons shunted off to the foredeck to make a private call by satellite telephone while Ben briefed his CO. Simmons still wasn’t able to share any information with the officers. It was clear the limits frustrated even him.
“Captain, believe me, I’m getting sick of this situation too. If you’re in it, you should be in all the way, but they told me flat-out no deal.”
Sam nodded. “I understand, and we’ll continue to do the best we can. But, you need to know that if we run into a critical situation, you may face a choice between following those orders or completing the mission. So, what can we do in the meantime?”
“It’s been three and a half days since the event, and I imagine that wreck could drift a fair distance.”
“There’s a strong current in the Florida Straits, the foundation of the Gulf Stream. There’s a clockwise current called the Loop in the center of the Gulf. Between the Keys and Tampa, it gets confused.”
“Well, we’re sure whatever happened occurred somewhere within a 30 by 60-mile ellipse centered about 20 miles east of Key West.”
“Really? OK, you can forget Key West and Boca Chica as someone would have seen it. You can also discard anything south of the Keys. The Gulf Stream would’ve swept up this hulk, and it’d be off Jacksonville by now. That leaves the northern shores of the Keys. Don’t you guys have any Keyhole satellites or spy planes you can search with?”
Simmons grimaced. “Believe me, everything, and I mean EVERYTHING available has been sweeping this area for the last few days and has come up with bupkis. It seems like it’ll come down to a close examination at the ground to find disturbance of the shore. Even if we had squadrons of aircraft, we don’t want to draw the attention.”
“From the Press?” Ben asked.
“Yes, and others. We have special unmanned aircraft we can stage locally, but they’re not fast, and we need to cut down the search area. You guys are good at this search and rescue stuff; surely, you have planning tools that can help.”
Sam shook his head. “We have a computer model called SAROPS. It’s good, but it forecasts the position of a target based on the time and place of the event, using known winds and currents. We can’t use it to figure out where a target was three days ago.”
“Um, Captain?” Ben interrupted.
“Yes, XO?”
“There is a way to use SAROPS for this. A few of us looked at an application of SAROPS for hindcasting a vessel’s position at the Academy. We thought it might be useful for forensic work…”
Sam leaned forward. “I’ll be damned. Did it work?”
“We got an ‘A,’ but it didn’t go anywhere as far as I know.”
Simmons was now interested. “How does it work?”
Ben shifted in his seat. “The captain’s right, SAROPS can only project forward, but you can pick a set of feasible launch points in the past and let SAROPS run them out to the present using historical wind and currents data. Then you can build a probability field and do a Bayesian search. We can knock down the possibilities to a workable list.”
“I like it.” Simmons beamed. “Let’s start. Where is this SAROPS?”
“Um, hold on there, Doctor,” Sam said. “We are a patrol boat. We don’t have SAROPS here. They’ll have it at the Sector Office in Key West. We can run it there.”
“Besides,” Ben piped up on seeing Simmons’s face fall, “There’s a lot of front-end work to do, identifying potential start points and setting up the post-processing models. It’ll take a good five or six hours at this end, anyway. We’ll gather the information on our way down and hand it over when we moor. After a few hours of batch runs, we can drop the results into Excel, and we’re done.”
Sam smiled. “You believe you can do this, Ben?”
“If I can get Hoppy’s help with the electronic charts, no worries, sir.”
Sam clapped him on the shoulder. “Make it so then. Well Done, Number One!” Ben stood and made his way past Simmons out of the compact room and closed the door. After Ben left, Sam turned to Simmons. “OK, now for the hard pa
rt, Doctor. Once we decide where to search, what are we searching for? If half of Space Command is bore-sighted on this area and can’t find anything, what do you expect from an obsolescent Coast Guard patrol boat? You mentioned something about unmanned aircraft?”
“Yes, Captain.” Simmons sat back. “I have a team equipped with two upgraded RQ-20 Puma UAVs—they have a payload package specialized for this and an associated analysis team.”
“Analysis team?”
“Yes, they have advanced portable tools for image processing and analysis. They were all standing by at Homestead in case we found something. When I called in before, I directed the UAV drivers to meet us at Key West. They should be waiting when we arrive. They can set up the aircraft to fly in an hour.”
“Doctor, you’re crazy, look at this boat! We don’t have the space for takeoffs and landings.”
“Captain, the Pumas are hand-launched and stressed and sealed for saltwater landings—no launch and recovery equipment are needed. The control antenna is shoebox-sized, and you can mount it in any clear spot. The GCS, excuse me, Ground Control Station, is a large laptop with a Bluetooth link to the antenna.”
“Hand-launched? And it can carry a payload that’s more effective than reconnaissance satellites? How big’s a Puma?”
“It’s not that small. It has a wingspan of nine feet, but a reasonably fit crew member can launch it by hand. As far as the sensors go, they wouldn’t be worth a damn in low earth orbit, but from 500 feet, they can image individual grains of sand.”
Sam relaxed. “OK. We can shake out another couple of bunks. I guess I’ll have to deal with two more of your guys hanging around the crew.”
Simmons grinned. “Not my guys, your guys. This team is two aviation petty officers from the Coast Guard Air Station at Cape Cod.”
“The hell you say! The Coast Guard’s running an Intel UAV program?”
“No, Captain, the Coast Guard was researching low-cost, low-footprint, maritime surveillance technology. The Puma was an Army and Special Ops land-based program, but the Coast Guard recognized its handiness and did research and testing up in New England. You can see its usefulness for keeping persistent surveillance on restricted areas. So, your guys provide an aircraft that is portable, with good speed and endurance, and nearly silent in flight. My guys invest big black ops bucks to provide payload miniaturization and hardening. Voila! You have a nifty maritime tactical recon stealth bird.”
“It will be a pain in the ass, but I’ll admit I’m curious to see flight ops on a PB. Anything else I need to know?”
“What’s your weapons status?”
Sam tensed again. “Up and running with a full ammo load. What’s your interest in that? If you expect a fight, you need to tell me, regardless of security restrictions.”
“Captain, I’m not gunning for a fight, and I don’t expect one. But, we have a wrecked sailboat with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of drugs on board. Don’t you think the owners might search for that boat and maybe waiting near the spot we are seeking?
“We won’t be going in anywhere without knowing the ground—that’s one reason we have the UAVs. I also have my guys back on land keeping an eye out, so I don’t expect any surprises. Nevertheless, I believe, given the circumstances, that we can’t have too much firepower.”
“Doctor, you’re right on the edge of my envelope without providing me the full story on this. If I get a whiff of bullshit from you, this operation ends at once. Is that clear?”
“Quite clear, Captain.”
“Very well. If you’ll excuse me, I need to be on the Bridge for the transfer of custody.” They both stood up, and Sam continued, “You can follow me if you like, just stay out of the way, please.”
“Captain, you’ll never know I’m here.” Simmons stepped out of the cabin.
“Yeah, I wish,” Sam muttered under his breath as he climbed up to the Bridge.
5
Research
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Kauai, Moored, Trumbo Point Annex, Naval Air Station Key West, Florida
2036 EST, 14 January
The handoff of the High Dawn went without a hitch. Sam simply had to brief the Skua’s CO on the events to date, since the crew had removed no contraband or documents from the vessel. Within an hour of the smaller cutter’s arrival, Kauai was charging toward Key West at her maximum continuous speed of 28 knots.
It was Bondurant’s turn for the mooring, and he had no difficulty bringing the cutter to rest alongside the dock. However, Kauai remained under quarantine until completing a drug sweep. The boarding team and Ben and Simmons’s coveralls had been bagged and sealed on their return from the High Dawn. The inspection team took and signed for these items. Next, a drug-sniffing dog came aboard for a tour of all the spaces. Except for an embarrassing moment involving Simmons’s equipment bag, this too went without incident. An hour and a half after mooring, the inspectors officially “de-quarantined” Kauai and departed.
The UAV team, waiting on the dock since Kauai’s arrival, reported to the patrol boat after the inspection team left. The senior member, Aviation Electronics Technician First Class Erich Deffler, introduced himself and his teammate, Aviation Electronics Technician Second Class Michael Morgan, to Ben and Drake. Then they discussed their gear and planned activities. Drake took charge of settling the newcomers, while Ben returned to the Bridge to collect the electronic files needed for the SAROPS runs. As he passed the cabin en route to his stateroom, Ben could hear Sam on the phone with his wife, Joana. He poked his head in, waved, and mouthed, “Hi Jo!”
Sam held up a finger to wait. “Pardon me, my dearest, but the executive officer has interrupted to respectfully offer his greetings to the captain’s spouse. Yes. Very well.” Sam held the phone down. “The captain’s spouse sends her compliments and suggests the executive officer should find a nice girl and settle down.”
Ben grinned. “My respects to the captain’s spouse, and if she can find someone as classy as her to introduce to the executive officer, he would commence ring-shopping forthwith.”
Sam relayed the message and received a response. He held the phone down again, and said, “The captain’s spouse’s response is: ‘Awwww!’”
Ben flipped a casual salute and continued to his stateroom. The exchange was only half-joking—Ben thought Jo Powell was one of the finest women he knew. A freelance computer graphics artist working from home, she was smart, gracious, funny, and drop-dead gorgeous. She was the perfect match for Sam and, despite his reserved demeanor, he was obviously crazy about her. Social events with a CO were usually an ordeal. Dinners and cookouts with the Powells were relaxing and pleasurable. They and their two kids, who Ben also adored, were like his family.
Jo shared their story with Ben in the first of those gatherings. The couple’s fateful meeting took place while Sam attended Officer Candidate School in New London, Connecticut. He had befriended a young University of Connecticut graduate named Eduardo Mendez and mentored him through the rough spots of officer candidate training. In gratitude, “Eddie” invited him to dinner with his parents and sister Joana in Gales Ferry on their first liberty. His sister, a few years his senior, lived at home while attending Eastern Connecticut State after completing an enlistment as a Navy Mass Communications Specialist. Jo said Eddie related later that Sam had smelled a setup and tried to beg off, but Eddie managed to guilt him into attending.
Sam was hooked about halfway into that first dinner—at least, that’s what he told Jo. Jo claimed it took two dates before she was all in. Jo said she was ready to swap vows upon Sam’s completion of OCS. However, they agreed to put it off for a year so she could finish her degree, and Sam could find his feet as a commissioned officer. He was lucky enough to hook a billet on a large cutter based in Boston for his first post-graduation assignment and be nearby for those rare occasions the ship was in homeport. A year later, they married in her family’s church, with Eddie standing up as Sam’s Best Man.
Reaching his s
tateroom broke him from his reverie, and he stepped in to grab Simmons. “I’m heading over to the sector office now. Care to tag along?”
“You know I do. How’d it go with your girlfriend?”
Ben’s jaw clenched, “If you are referring to Petty Officer Hopkins, please say ‘Petty Officer Hopkins’ or ‘Hopkins’ or ‘Hoppy’ or even ‘Emilia.’ Never refer to her as ‘girlfriend’ or ‘girl’ anything again to anyone here, especially me, clear?”
“Shit, I’m sorry,” Simmons was genuinely embarrassed. “I swear I didn’t mean any disrespect. Far from it. She’s one of the most professional people I’ve ever met.”
“OK, OK. Come on, let’s roll.”
Once off the ship and walking toward the sector building, Ben said, “About your ill-phrased question, we did well. We have 23 potential spots where a boat like that could anchor and be within reasonable reach of an offload point.”
“Is 23 good?”
“It’s a good start.”
“What’s well begun is half done.”
“More Milton?” Ben asked.
“No, Horace. I thought I’d spare you the Latin version.”
“Thanks for that. If you’ll pardon me, I’m a little surprised hearing all this poetry talk from an astrophysicist. I thought you guys were all about Bosons and comic books.”
Simmons smiled in the darkness. “I’d like to take offense, but I was at Princeton with several guys who were exactly like that. It’s actually a question of Biology.”
“Biology?”
“Yes. You see, if you’d like to have a second date with a pretty English Lit grad student, you better bring more to the conversation than Stress-Energy Tensors and Stan Lee.”
Ben laughed. “That’s all right. Did it work? Did you get a second date?”
“Yup.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Nope. You have a clearance, but no ‘Need to Know,’ sorry.”
Engage at Dawn: First Contact Page 4
