Storming Heaven

Prologue

“What you are about to see,” the talk-show host began, “is a videotape of what is a historic but tragic occurrence — the last time since World War Two that territory of the United States of America has been attacked by a foreign power. Our guest today says this can and will happen again, and he should know. You will see a videotape log of the control room of an American drug-interdiction station, located just off the east coast of Florida. Roll the tape.”

The studio audience was deathly silent as the monitors came to life.

“Attention, all platform personnel, this is the command center. We have received notification that the aerostat radar unit on Grand Bahama Island has just come under attack and has been destroyed by hostile aircraft. I am placing this platform on yellow alert. Clear the flight deck and prepare for aircraft launch and recovery. Off-duty crew report to emergency stations. ”

There were about ten people in a large room of computer consoles and radar screens, a room resembling a smaller version of Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Men and women were on their feet, expressions of confusion and fear visible on their faces. “Take your seats and watch your sectors, ” an officer was shouting, his voice visibly shaking. He was obviously the senior officer, returning to a console slightly raised above the others. “Get your life jackets on but continue monitoring your sectors. Do it!”

Technicians quickly moved back to their consoles, working with quiet efficiency, but the tension in the command center was obvious.

“Sundstrand-351, acknowledge, ” came the voice of one of the female controllers. “You are exiting the entry corridor and approaching restricted airspace. Turn left to heading three-five-zero immediately. ”

“Twenty-one, your target is at eleven o'clock, nine miles. You are cleared to engage. Suggest left turns to evade. Seagull One is at your four o’clock, five miles, on auto intercept. ”

“Mike, Homestead is launching alert fighters in support. We’ve got one F-16 designation Trap-01, thirty miles out and closing at Mach one-point-two. ”

“Damn it, ” the senior officer could be heard saying, “keep making warning calls. Tell him he’s about to be blown out of the sky. ”

“Michael…?” The senior officer’s head jerked toward the speaker.

“Tell twenty-one to intercept and identify that bastard, ” the officer named Michael responded quickly, as if startled into answering. “Tell the F-16 to break off the attack and stand by. ” A few seconds later, they heard a loud, sharp boom. Heads visibly rippled across the command center at the sound. “I want a standard intercept, light signals, and warning flares. Get on his ass, get a light in his cockpit, but don 7 attack until he sees your FOLLOW ME lights. Is that clear? Get beside him, twenty-one. Close to gun range. Try a warning shot…"

“Warning shots are for losers,” the guest interjected.

“I don’t understand that, Admiral,” the host said. “You’ve got to be absolutely, positively sure. Can you do that from a radarscope?”

“If you break the law, if you violate restricted airspace, you should suffer the consequences,” the guest responded.

“Shoot first, ask questions later, eh, Admiral?” the host asked.

“It would have saved lives in this case.”

“In another, it may have wasted innocent lives.”

“I don’t buy the argument that we should be prepared to let a hundred guilty persons go so that we make sure one innocent life is saved,” the guest said. “The fact is, the innocent rarely are involved — we just end up letting the guilty go. It’s time we stop this insanity.” No one replied, but heads in the audience were nodding in agreement.

The host saw himself losing control of his audience to his guest’s arguments — this audience wasn’t quite as liberal as he wanted. He made a mental note to speak with the producer about this. “Let’s continue with the scene, shall we?” he said quickly, and the attention turned back to the replay.

“He’s heading right for the platform — he’s too close… I’ve got a missile lock, ” another excited voice being transmitted over a radio shouted. “Am I clear to engage?”

“Hold your fire. Get beside him. Make him turn away. ”

“He’s going to hit. Am I clear to engage? Am I clear to fire?”

Suddenly, a different voice boomed over the radio, a frantic, completely terror-filled voice: “Don ’t shoot, don’t shoot, can you hear me, don’t kill me! ”

“Get him turned away from the platform, Angel, ” the senior officer shouted.

“Target turning right, heading zero-four-zero, climbing… well clear of the platform, ” The audience could see shoulders slumping in relief all across the control center— in fact, the audience's shoulders relaxed as well. But just a few moments later, they heard the same female radar controller call out, “I've got two targets bearing zero- seven-zero, ten miles, altitude five hundred feet, speed four Jumdred knots, closing on us fast. One more up high, near the F-16."

Then, a high-pitched male voice: “Mayday, mayday, mayday, Trap-01, five miles southwest of the Hammerhead One platform, I am under attack. I am hit. I am hit."

“Three planes… no, I count four, four planes just appeared out of nowhere… coming at us at high speed… no ID… attack profile."

The videotape stopped abruptly.

The audience was stunned into silence.

“Of course, we all remember what happened then,” retired U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Ian Hardcastle said to the studio audience as Phil Donahue stepped to his marie to make his guest introduction. “The U.S. Border Security Force air operations staging platform called Hammerhead One was hit by two cluster bombs and two Argentinean- made antiship cruise missiles. Forty-one men and women lost their lives.”

“The videotape you just saw was taken inside the command center of a U.S. Border Security Force platform in the ocean between the Bahamas and Florida, when it was attacked and destroyed by exiled Cuban military comman- der-tumed-drug-smuggler Agusto Salazar a few years ago,” Phil Donahue said to the camera by way of introduction. “My guest is no stranger to danger, or to controversy. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Admiral Ian Hardcastle, former Coast Guard admiral, former commander of the Seventh Coast Guard District in Miami, and former commander of the U.S. Border Security Force.” The andience applauded politely, perhaps cautiously. Ian Hardcastle’s reputation had definitely preceded him, and few persons could really say they had a firm fix on his views or motivations.

“He’s retired from twenty-seven years of government service, but now he’s waging a one-man crusade to, as he said in the Op-Ed page of the Times, ‘stop the hemorrhaging of America’s self-defense capability,’ ” Donahue continued. “You’ve seen him on the cover of everything from Newsweek to People, shouting it from the rooftops: America is in danger because we’ve led ourselves to believe we’re safe. The enemy is the shadowy, faceless world of terrorists, something of which America has not had any real experience. Are we really in danger or is this the sour- grapes tirade of a frustrated drug-interdiction guru who found his frontier-justice programs slip out of control? Your calls and comments for our special guest, the champion of America’s pro-military hawks, Ian Hardcastle. Stay with us — we’ll be right back.”

The audience followed the prompts from the stage director and the overhead lights and dutifully applauded.

Donahue raced away to get his makeup touched up, and Hardcastle was left alone on stage, so he stood up to stretch.

Hardcastle was tall and lean, with gray hair, a bit longer than he wore it in his Coast Guard days, swept gracefully back from his forehead. “Character lines” were deeply etched around his narrow blue eyes, giving him a hawklike visage to match his politics. He wore lightly tinted glasses now, a concession to the hard years of a former Marine Corps and Coast Guard officer finally catching up with him. He wore a dark suit that looked a size or two large for his thin, wiry frame, which only served to accentuate his rather fanatical Captain Ahab-like presence. He looked fearsome, but was a riveting personality.

Hardcastle, age sixty, was a retired Coast Guard rear admiral. He was a Marine Corps officer during Vietnam in a bomb-disposal unit, and ultimately the stresses of the job and war turned him to drug dependency. Upon finishing detox, his commission was transferred to the Coast Guard, where he began a long and distinguished career, rising to become district commander of the busiest Coast Guard district in the U.S.

In 1990, because of his efforts, Hardcastle was placed in operational co-command of a joint Coast Guard-Customs Service border security/drug-interdiction unit called the U.S. Border Security Force, colloquially known as the Hammerheads (after a 1920s-era Coast Guard alcoholsmuggling interdiction unit). The then-Vice President of the United States, Kevin Martindale, was one of its biggest supporters. Although it was responsible for many successful operations, the unit was under constant criticism for not adequately doing anything to stop the flow or the market for illegal drugs, and for its military-style weapons, aircraft, and tactics used against civilians. The Hammerheads were under intense pressure during the Presidential campaign to curtail their offense-oriented tactics, and were disbanded in 1993 under the new administration.

Hardcastle retired in 1993, but became very active on the lecture and political-pundit circuit as a conservative political activist. He associated himself with a large conservative political action committee called the Project 2000 Task Force, which sought control of both the White House and Congress by the year 2000. Although his expertise was widely sought by many in Washington and nationwide, and although he was considered an effective, believable, and popular get-tough speaker, Hardcastle’s views were often considered too reactionary and extreme for political office or for a major government appointment.

His personal life was also considered too politically distasteful. He successfully overcame a severe period of posttraumatic shock and depression from his tours in Vietnam, but that episode in his life, although far in the past, was always dredged up by critics, especially when Hardcastle was on one of his broadcast tirades about an issue that he felt strongly about. Others worried about his on-again off-again affair with alcohol. He was divorced and had repeatedly lost regular visitation rights to his minor children. More interestingly, he had a few rather liberal ideas, including legalization of some drugs and stricter gun control, that made him unpopular with far-right conservatives.

A few moments later, Donahue came trotting out, gave Hardcastle a thumbs-up, took his microphone, and stepped briskly into the audience, which had just been commanded to start applauding as they rolled the intro. “We’re back with Admiral Ian Hardcastle, former commander of the drug-interdiction unit called the Hammerheads,” Donahue said when he got his cue.

Some videotape started rolling on the monitors as Donahue did a voice-over — it showed a large orange tilt-rotor aircraft with the words U.S. BORDER SECURITY FORCE and FOLLOW ME in large letters on the side, firing missiles from fuselage pods and dropping off heavily armed assault officers onto a beach.

“You all remember the Hammerheads, with their high- tech aircraft and robot helicopters fluttering over the beaches chasing smugglers — and I’m sure you remember the 1992 incident that sparked the controversy over the need for a unit like the Hammerheads.” Donahue all but smiled.

Videotape was rolling on the monitors.

A shot from a low-flying helicopter circling overhead, showing a woman lying on the beach, surrounded by two small children and by armed men in orange flight suits. One of the large V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft was landed nearby, stirring up great clouds of sand as the huge double rotors on the plane’s wingtips turned at idle speed.

“This pregnant Mexican woman was killed during her arrest, in full view of horrified spectators and TV viewers. In their short history, the Hammerheads are gone, disbanded, certainly discredited. Admiral Hardcastle says the danger is still with us — but not just from smugglers, but from terrorists. What do you think?"

Donahue's staff had already picked out a prescreened audience member who was liberal, highly opinionated, well- spoken, not afraid to speak her mind, rather pretty — she would be perfect to use coming out of commercial. “You’ll stand, please," he said as he plucked her out of her seat and handed over the microphone to her.

“Mr. Hardcastle, it looked to me like you were out there fighting a war,” the woman from the audience said. “You got fighters all over the sky, guys with radar and guns and all—”

“What’s your question, ma’am?” Donahue briskly interrupted.

“My question is, I don't see much security here — just a lot of killin', like a bunch of neo-Nazis in ugly orange suits ready to bomb innocent people if they don’t play by your rules.”

“Ma’am, the Cuban drug smugglers under Colonel Agusto Salazar used civilian planes faking distress to distract us, then bombed us with Cuban military aircraft,” Hardcastle responded. “We didn’t start this fight—they did.”

“But you were supposed to be on guard for this type of attack, weren’t you, Admiral?” Donahue needled. “With all due respect to your troops, it seems like the attackers got you pretty easily.”

“We’re sworn to play by the rules, Phil.” Hardcastle shrugged. “Our rules of engagement at the time said we could fire only if fired upon. We knew there was a threat of attack — retaliation for being so effective — but Congress and the courts left us virtually defenseless.

“But let me point out something here,” Hardcastle said. “At the height of the Hammerheads’ manning deployment levels, we were able to conduct radar surveillance of the entire southeast United States and seal off all of Florida with rapid-response aircraft. Drug use dropped significantly because availability of drugs like cocaine and marijuana plummeted—”

“But gang violence and violent crime increased because the pushers and users were fighting for whatever product was on the street,” Donahue added.

“Phil, my mission was to get drugs off the street by cutting off the supply lines into America,” Hardcastle insisted. “We did that. We were successful. No one can doubt that.” “I think we’re here because we all doubt, Admiral,” Donahue said, rolling his eyes.

“What we have now are borders that are wide open to invasion of all kinds,” Hardcastle warned. “No Border Security Force. A downsized Border Patrol, Custom Service, and Coast Guard. Back then, I could call on four Air National Guard fighter units for help — now there is just one. A hurricane took care of one unit — Congress killed the other two. Ladies and gentlemen, we have only twenty air defense units in all of North America — yes, twenty. That’s about forty planes ready right now to stop an intruder.” “What intruders are you talking about, Admiral?” Donahue asked. “The Russians? The Chinese? The North Koreans? Who wants to take on the United States these days? Aren’t you being just a bit… paranoid?”

“Phil, we proved in Operation Desert Storm and the fall of the Soviet Union that no nation can beat the United States in a conventional military conflict,” Hardcastle said. “But we have no defense whatsoever against w/iconven- tional conflicts. Terrorists are better armed, more mobile, and more sophisticated than ever. How do we respond to the threat? We cut funding for defense, security, and counterterrorist programs.”

“Admiral, I’ve got some real threats to America’s security to tell you about,” Donahue blasted back. “We’ve got forty million Americans with no health insurance and over a million homeless Americans — men, women, and children. We’ve got an average of three hundred Americans gunning each other down per day, and we’ve got fifty thousand Americans rotting in overcrowded prisons, getting no help for their drug addictions and violent, dysfunctional upbringing. In an era when we can’t take care of the people living on the street outside this building, here you are, collecting a generous pension from the Coast Guard as well as a very generous stipend from the conservative Project 2000 Task Force, asking for funding for programs to stop these shadowy bogeymen that no one has heard of and that don’t directly affect anyone’s lives.”

“Tell that to the fifteen thousand people working in the World Trade Center back in 1993, or to the one hundred thousand people affected by the 1994 terrorist mortar attacks on Heathrow Airport,” Hardcastle snapped. “Ladies and gentlemen, America is becoming a target for terrorism because we’re allowing ourselves to become a target. And I’m no longer just referring to a hijacker or kidnapper or letter-bomber or gang warfare — I’m talking about a campaign of terror against America, on the scale that nations in Europe and the Middle East have experienced for decades. We need a military — and more importantly, an administration in the White House — ready to deal with the dangers before they impact the lives of millions of Americans.”

“You’re talking about isolated incidents of fanatics, or of terrorist attacks overseas between factions that have been fighting for years,” Donahue said dismissively. “I don’t see the connection.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, what if I told you that there are over three thousand known terrorist groups operating in the United States right now?” Hardcastle interjected. “What if I told you that over three hundred pounds of enriched plutonium, enough for thirty nuclear weapons, is reported as missing every year? The United States had three long-range radar systems patrolling the skies four years ago. Now we have one, and that one operates only forty hours a week. We sent a hundred Patriot air defense units to Saudi Arabia last year — any guesses as to how many Patriots we have operating in the United States? That’s right, zero. The sky is filled with unidentified aircraft.”

“Your point is…?”

“What I’m saying is that we as Americans shouldn’t allow our defenses to slide like this,” Hardcastle said. “Everyone thinks, ‘There’s no threat, why spend the money to prevent something that may never happen?’ I’m telling you, based on all my years in the field of border security and national defense, that the threat exists. I’m not talking about Saddam Hussein invading Washington — I’m talking about drug smugglers owning American banks, arms merchants shipping black-market weapons on our highways and through our airspace, and government buildings open to direct assault from relatively low-tech, easily conceal- able terrorists. We don’t have to put up with it.”

“Yeah,” a young college-age caller said. “I heard you got fired because of alcoholism and because of getting stressed- out from your time in Vietnam and family problems and all. Frankly, old man, I don’t think you got what it takes to go around tellin’ the President how to run the military.”

There was a smattering of applause from the audience.

“Making assumptions without all the facts is like trying to shoot a gun without bullets, son,” Hardcastle said. “First of all, it’s true: I suffered from a stress disorder brought on by my years in Vietnam and by alcohol. I’ve never shied away from admitting my faults. But I’ve also got almost thirty years of military service, most of it dealing with the difficulties this country faces when we fail to enforce our sovereignty and protect our borders. More importantly, I’m an American, and I’ve got something to say about how our country’s being defended. I’ve got the facts and I’ve got the experience, so I know what I’m talking about. Question is, who’s willing to listen?”

There was another round of applause, this time a little louder than before.

“Not me, man,” the caller said. “I think you’re crazy,” and he hung up.

“And we’ll be right back,” Donahue said. The music rose, and they cut away for another commercial.