Kevin Miller - Declared Hostile

Matson frowned, and gave it a shot. “Look from one-five-zero to two-three-zero, eighty to one hundred fifty miles.

The Watch Captain narrowed the search by “grabbing” that patch of waterspace and hit ENTER. The display expanded the tracks in the selected “pie” and Matson inspected them.

“Do you know what they all are?”

“Most of them, sir. These two guys are containerships. This is a fishing boat. This one is a DDG, USS Norman Kleiss. And this track — what is this guy?”

The officer moved the tracking ball, “hooking” it to read the heading and speed plus the identification assigned to the contact. Wilson watched with interest. Seeing his CAG take action was not only heartening but exhilarating, and he sensed, by the end of the day, Coral Sea could have a chance to enact some payback.

“Not sure of this one, sir. It’s moving southwest at 20 knots. Track 1724.”

“When will 1724 be in Colombian waters?” Matson asked.

Using his fingers, the Watch Captain measured the distance between the contact and the 12- mile territorial limit of Colombia. Outside 12 the vessel was in international waters.

“Four hours, sir. Maybe three, if he kicks it up.”

“I want you to find out what 1724 is,” Matson ordered. Turning to one of his staff officers, he added, “Rich, when you find out what 1724 is, come tell me, I’ll be in CVIC.”

“Yes, sir.”

Matson spun for Flag plot with Wilson in tow. When clear of CDC, he turned to Wilson. “Find Weed ASAP, and let’s meet in CVIC in five minutes.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Wilson answered. He was certain that Coral Sea would resume flight quarters very soon.

Once in CVIC, Wilson called Ready Room 5 and the duty officer, Killer, answered the phone.

“Ready Five, Lieutenant Williams, sir or ma’am.”

“Killer, Skipper. Find Commander Hopper ASAP and have him meet me in CVIC. Do you have Trench’s tapes from 302?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, have a pilot bring them to me in CVIC on the double .”

“Yes, sir!”

“Get the Ops Officer to find four pilots to brief with me in an hour, three primaries and a spare. And get maintenance to prep five birds, four and a spare. We launch in two-point-five hours.”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Out here — but find Hopper . Get the ready room to help, and get him up here now.”

“Yes, sir!” Killer answered.

Wilson hung up. He knew he could not schedule a launch for his squadron, but, after watching CAG Matson and sensing his thoughts, the Firebirds would be ready.

Matson entered CVIC with the Chief Staff Officer Captain Ed Browne and motioned for Wilson to follow him into a debriefing room. Billy Martin and Commander Hofmeister joined them and, moments later, a breathless Irish handed Wilson two 8mm tapes, the tapes Trench was flying with.

“Pop them in, Flip,” Matson ordered. “Let’s see what he was looking at.”

Wilson did so and rewound the tapes to the time Trench estimated he had rigged the yacht. The men watched in silence as the yacht came into view. Matson led the commentary.

“That’s it, our track 1724. Look at the time… almost two hours ago. And there’s his Nav readout. He was on Mother ’s one-seven-zero at eighty miles. Okay, Norb, check with the bridge. Find out where we were at 1102, and work backwards to plot where Ridgeline 302 was. The contact next to it is our contact of interest, and it may be track 1724. Ed, we need you guys to find where this guy is now, and I’m requesting a SEAL mission to take it down. We need to capture these guys and see what they are carrying — and who is ordering them.”

Just then Weed entered the room.

“Weed,” Matson asked. “What assets do you have south of here?”

Unsure of what was going on, Weed took a moment before he answered to do a mental roll call that all present were read-in to Century Ratchet.

“ Norman Kleiss has a Fire Scout detachment and one Sierra with two crews. Not sure where they are now, but they’ve been working south.”

“They are still down there,” Captain Browne nodded.

Matson nodded. “Great. Okay, Weed, contact them and get the Fire Scout airborne. Need to find these fuckers now .”

Captain Sanders joined them, and the officers plotted their next moves. With time short — the yacht moved one mile closer to the safety of Colombian territorial waters every three minutes — they had to act. There was no time to “ask” Washington for orders, no time to ask SOUTHCOM in Miami for guidance. A clear act of war had been committed, and the brain trust of Coral Sea was in no mood to let the perpetrators squirm free without any effort to stop them. Forgiveness could be sought later. Sanders called the bridge and spoke with the Navigator. Within minutes, they felt the ship heel to port and accelerate.

The chase was on.

But one other person aboard Coral Sea needed to be part of the decision-making process.

Meyerkopf was incredulous. In his thirty years in uniform he had never heard of such a thing. He was the Strike Group Commander , the Senior Officer Present Afloat , and he was in the dark about what his strike group was involved in! Subordinates on his own flagship were fighting a quasi-war under his nose! Why hadn’t he been briefed on Century Ratchet?

He glared at Sanders and Matson — and at his own Chief of Staff, Ed Browne, aviators all. Betrayal. Confusion. They seemed to be running the show. And who is this commander they called Weed? NSA? CIA? What the hell is going on? A fter Weed finished reading him in, Matson spoke first.

“Admiral, I’m sorry you weren’t on the cleared list for Century Ratchet, but our orders were clear.”

“You’ve been sinking and shooting down drug runners for the past three weeks?”

“In a manner of speaking, sir. Commander Hopper’s personnel are using your ships and aircraft.”

“ Behind my back? ” Meyerkopf shot back. Matson didn’t have an answer.

“Sir,” Captain Sanders jumped in, “we didn’t ask for this arrangement. This came from Fleet Forces with elaborate cover stories and a small need-to-know contingent for this strike group. All of us are in the middle here, but after what happened this morning, and the fact that time is of the essence, we needed to act first and bring you in second. Right now, admiral, my people are building up weapons to load on Tim’s aircraft. We are moving south at best speed, and Tim’s pilots need to launch in about an hour to find this contact, this yacht. We need to disable it so we can capture it and the crew.”

“From a standing start you can capture a civilian vessel and potentially start a war?”

“Sir, one of your pilots is in sick bay— blind . Something happened to him out there, and this contact is suspect number one. We are tracking it and working backwards to see if it’s the same contact Lieutenant James flew past. If yes, we’re going to stop it and capture what crew we can and interrogate them.”

“ Why not just blow it out of the water like everything else? ” Meyerkopf asked, perturbed.

“So we can exploit it, sir,” Weed volunteered, ignoring the brusque jab. “We need to see what we’re up against and forward that to Washington for them to make a decision.”

“Who are you?” Meyerkopf asked Weed with disdain.

“Commander Mike Hopper, sir, a naval officer like you, subject to orders, including yours, sir.”

“Who do you work for?”