He let out a big sigh. “Fuck.”
“Yeah. Sorry, man,” she said.
He looked back up at his boss. “You weren’t a RAG instructor, right?”
“That’s correct. I was an HT instructor.” The HTs were the squadrons in flight school where student naval aviators learned to fly helicopters for the first time and earned their wings of gold. HT was the Navy designator for Helicopter Training Squadron.
Plug sipped some of the black coffee in his mug and tried to make a joke. “And you’ve already been a CO.”
Victoria smiled. “Technically. Although I was relieved after a week, so…” They were referring to her brief stint as CO of the destroyer after the former captain and XO were both killed in a missile strike. She grew more serious. “Listen, I checked, and this slate of instructor pilots was already selected for the HTs.”
His face fell in a second defeat in as many minutes. “Okay, Boss. What’s next?”
“We’ll keep looking. I’ve got a draft email typed up that I’ll send to the skipper. We have a few other options lined up. But if you really want to get one of those instructor pilot slots, you may want to consider extending in the squadron, or taking a different set of orders for a short period of time.”
Plug shook his head. “Dammit. Okay. Thanks for letting me know. Just tell me what I need to do.”
“Just keep worrying about your mission out here for now. And keep having a good attitude. We’ll figure something out for your orders.”
A few minutes later, Victoria stood on the bridge wing next to the captain and the officer of the deck. The captain and OOD were looking at the fishing boat through binoculars.
“Ti-bu-ron Panama.” The OOD turned to the captain. “What’s tiburon mean? Is that Greek mythology or something?”
The petty officer next to him said, “Uh, sir, it’s Spanish for shark.”
“Ah. Thanks.”
The captain said, “The helicopter crew said that they saw someone laying out on the deck last night. I don’t see anyone. At all.”
Victoria said, “It’s been about eight hours since they overflew it. Maybe they’re down below?”
The captain handed her his binoculars. Plug’s instincts had been correct. Something was off about this boat. About one hundred miles from shore. No personnel on deck. Dead in the water. Looked to be about sixty feet long.
The voice of the TAO came over the radio buckled to the captain’s uniform. “She’s registered in Panama City, sir. We just looked it up.”
He unclipped his handset. “Understood, thanks. Tell the VBSS team to conduct a safety inspection.”
“Roger, sir.”
The captain looked at Victoria. “Your helicopter already taken apart?”
“They’ve probably started that process, yes, sir. Sorry about that. If I’d known that we might be doing this today, I would have tried to hold off the maintenance for another day.”
“Don’t worry about it, Airboss.” He began walking into the bridge. “Come on. Let’s go to combat and start prodding Third Fleet to let us do our jobs.”
Ensign Adam Kidd, like everyone on board a Navy ship, had several duties. His primary job was to be the USS Farragut’s communications officer. So just about everyone on board called him COMMO. But one of his collateral assignments was as a Visit Board Search and Seizure team leader. The VBSS team was essentially the US Navy’s shipboard version of a SWAT team. This role was his favorite part of being in the Navy.
Ensign Kidd looked over his team. They were decked out in black tactical gear, snuggly fitted over their uniforms. Black Kevlar chest protectors and helmets. Thin waterproof communications headsets and protective eyewear. They carried a mix of M-4 carbines and M-9 handguns.
One by one, all seven of them climbed down the rope ladder extending from the USS Farragut’s boat deck down to the rigid-hull inflatable boat below. The RHIB was tied to the destroyer, its engine rumbling, the two personnel who were part of the boat team already on board.
“Careful. Watch out,” the driver of the RHIB called out as his small vessel heaved in the ocean, the rope ladder swaying. Within two minutes, all members of the VBSS team were being driven towards the fishing trawler, pitching and rolling over the deep blue ocean. White splashes of salt water whipped in their faces. A small American flag waved on the aft end of the RHIB.
“We already got permission to board?”
“Yes, sir. Combat just confirmed.” The OS1—Operations Specialist First Class — was the most experienced member of his team.
“Any reply from the fishing vessel yet?”
“No, sir. Nobody over there is answering.”
All eyes were ahead as they clutched their weapons and held on to the RHIB. They sat on the inflatable outer rim of the watercraft, and their black helmets bounced up and down as it traversed the waves.
The six men and one woman on Ensign Kidd’s VBSS team were well trained. They had done two of these on their deployment already — although the other times had been to inspect suspected narcotics traffickers. While this boat might very well be a smuggler mothership, the fact that no one was aboard or responding was very odd. Still, he was confident that his team could handle it. Many of his men had been on multiple deployments and conducted boardings around the world for piracy and security inspections. Their training and capabilities weren’t anything close to Navy SEALs or other special operations units, but the VBSS teams were typically made up of some of the best sailors on board Navy ships. And they took their job seriously.
As soon as the RHIB made contact with the Tiburon Panama, the team rushed onto the deck, weapons pointed outward. The vessel wasn’t very large.
It didn’t take them long to find the bloodstains… or the body.
“Sir, come check this out!”
Kidd headed forward into the small bridge.
“Guy doesn’t have a pulse. He’s cold. But the bloodstains look like he’s crawled all over the ship. Must have been looking for something.”
COMMO nodded and reached for his radio. “Captain, this is Ensign Kidd, sir.”
The radio blared, “Go ahead, Kidd. What’s your status?”
“Sir… there’s one dead body on board. But there are bloodstains on the main deck and in the berthing area. It’s pretty bad.”
The Coast Guard cutter James arrived later that day. She had been on patrol only been fifty miles to the north when the USS Farragut’s VBSS team was conducting their boarding. While the James’s main mission was counternarcotics focused, she was one of the newer Legend-class national security cutters that the US Coast Guard had in service. They were larger and more capable than their predecessors and allowed the Coast Guard to effectively perform a wider variety of national defense — related missions.
A Coast Guard investigative team had joined the Navy’s VBSS team on board the smuggler boat. The Coast Guard lieutenant had spent decades on these types of missions. He was speaking to both his captain and the captain of the USS Farragut over his radio.
“Looks like a mothership alright. Empty fuel drums, guns belowdecks. We just did some tests and there are traces of multiple chemicals here that indicate narcotics trafficking. But something definitely went down here. Pretty strange, really. We don’t normally see this type of thing way out in the ocean. If it was a rival smuggling operation, I would expect them to fight it out on shore. Either way, we think there were five or six people killed here. We’ve collected seventy-four rounds of ammunition so far and we’re just getting started. We’ll send that back to the lab once we get into shore.”