Ops raised an eyebrow at Sara and said into the mike, “Go ahead, five two.”
The Here’s aviator’s voice was terse. “Truth, we’ve got another incursion about five miles south of your location.”
The captain swung around in his chair and stared at Ops. “Here five two, how far inside the line?”
“Sojourner Truth, five two, this one’s a little over two miles inside.”
“Son of a bitch,” the captain said, frightening everyone within earshot. Captain David Josephus Lowe, officer, family man, and deacon of the Kodiak First Baptist Church, never, ever swore.
Sara, however, sympathized, and was thinking a lot worse than the captain was saying out loud. The Coast Guard had run into this before in the Bering, one or more Russian vessels making an incursion over the line at the same time, so that the one vessel being boarded occupied the attention of the lone cutter on patrol, while the other vessel pulled in their gear more or less at their leisure and moved back to their side of the Line. Bait and switch.
Ops said into the mike, “Here five two, this is the Sojourner Truth, have you identified the vessel, I say again, what is the vessel?”
“Sojourner Truth, Here five two, their IRCS number is about six inches high and on the front of the flying bridge.”
Which meant that the foreign ship’s four-letter international identification number had been deliberately painted too small for the Here’s crew to read from two hundred feet up going one hundred seventy knots, which meant the cutter couldn’t input it into their onboard database.
“Five bucks says it’s the Agafia,” Seaman Razo said.
Chief Edelen snorted. “No bet.”
The Pheodora and the Agafia were both leased by the same Russian fish processor. In the litter of three-hundred-foot vessels maintaining a year-round presence in the Bering Sea next to the Maritime Boundary Line each year, the two could always be found near each other, and all too often a little too close to the line for comfort. This put them both in the HIV or High Interest Vessel category.
The captain said nothing. Sara wanted to scream with impatience. Instead she said to Ops, “Ask the Here about fuel.”
“Coast Guard Hercules aircraft one seven five two, Sojourner Truth, how much fuel do you have?”
There was a brief pause. “Sojourner Truth, Here five two, we’ve got maybe four hours before the point of no return.”
“Raise Kodiak and tell them to dispatch another Here,” the captain said. “Then get the helo back here to refuel. Tell the Here on the scene to maintain contact until they can hand off hot pursuit to our helo.”
Kodiak came on the air and confirmed the dispatch of the second Here with so little questioning that Sara knew they’d been monitoring the channel from the beginning of the incident and had been standing by for just this request.
Maintaining hot pursuit was critical in making a legal case in a federal court against a substantial piece of property owned by a foreign corporation. The Russians’ lawyers were usually American and the best that money could buy, and the first thing any decent attorney said in this kind of case was that the pursued vessel hadn’t heard the order to give way.
As if she had spoken out loud, Ops keyed the mike and said, “Russian fishing vessel Pheodora, Russian fishing vessel Pheodora, this is the United States Coast Guard cutter Sojourner Truth. You are trespassing in American territorial waters, I say again, you are trespassing in American territorial waters. Reduce speed and stand by to be boarded.”
“Any answer?” the captain said, formally and unnecessarily.
“No answer, Captain,” Ops replied, equally formally.
There was a long moment of silence. “Break out the.50 caliber.”
“Sir?” Sara said.
The captain chose to overlook her involuntary exclamation. “Muster the gun crew and mount it forward to starboard.”
Sara pulled herself together. “Aye aye, Captain.”
“I want two boarding teams ready to go when we catch up to her.” He paused, and added deliberately, maybe even raising his voice a little, “Each boarding team is to be issued shotguns.”
Yeah, Sara thought, not without respect, the old man was really pissed. It gladdened her heart, even though she didn’t believe anyone should ever be shot over fish. “Aye aye, Captain,” she repeated.
“XO?” the captain said.
“Sir?”
“I want you to go with one of the boarding teams.”
There was a brief, startled silence. “I want you to report to me personally every step of the way,” the captain said. “Go codes one, two, three. Understood?”
“Understood, Captain,” Sara said. She reached for the IMC and her voice boomed out over speakers all over the ship. Through the aft windows she could see men and women boiling out of various hatches and swarming around the two rigid-hulled inflatables lashed to cradles on either side of the ship.
Like any capable executive officer Sara knew her crew, from EO Nathaniel McDonald, who so far as she knew never left the engine room except to eat, sleep, or depart the ship, to FS3 Sandra Chernikoff, a mess cook not a year out of boot camp and an Alaskan like herself and Eugene Razo. She knew which of three categories each member of the crew fit in, the keepers, the time-markers, and the no-hopers. She knew who was on watch and who wasn’t. From memory she reeled off a list of twenty names, beginning with Ensign Ryan, their legal enforcement officer and boarding officer, and ending with PO James Marion, a fireman, damage controlman, and boat crew member. Everyone on board had at least two jobs and probably three. She had about twelve the last time she looked, but then she was a keeper herself.
By the time she got to the armory the rest of the team had donned their orange and black Mustang dry suits, Kevlar vests, helmets, life jackets, helmets, and sidearms. She jerked her chin at the rack of shotguns and said to Chief Petty Officer Marvin Katelnikof, “Break out the shotguns.”
He complied without comment. Katelnikof, a balding veteran with twenty-nine years in, had earned his cutterman’s pin before Sara had graduated from high school. Not a lot surprised him. She accepted a shotgun and headed below to the fantail where the rest of the BTMs were mustering, followed by Katelnikof, who was their designated Russian translator on board. The two Zodiacs had already been lowered into the water with their three-man crews and were now circling back to pick up the boarding teams.
Ryan saw her coming. “You’re stylin‘, XO. Something about Kevlar that really does it for you.” He nodded at the shotguns. “The old man must really be pissed off this time.”
“The Agafias over the line just south of here.”
Ryan whistled low and long. “Man, they’ve just got to push it, don’t they? You’d think they would have learned after the last time.”
Sara scanned the horizon. “Yeah, where’s the Russian Federal Border Service when you really need them?”
Ryan followed her eyes and stiffened. “Hey-”
“I see them,” Sara said, and keyed the mike clipped to her shoulder. “Captain Lowe, XO. I’m seeing a couple of other vessels approaching our location at speed.”
“We have them in sight, XO. There are three vessels, identified as the Nikolai Bulganin, the Nadeshda, and the Professor Zaitsev.”
“So, okay, this is new,” Ryan said. He cocked an eye at Sara. “Do we go?”
“Captain, do we go?”
There was a momentary pause. The wind bit into her in spite of the dry suit, and her face was already damp with salt spray. “Go, XO,” the captain said.
“Yep,” Ryan said, “seriously pissed.” He grinned and climbed over the side to scamper down the rope ladder and drop solidly into the small boat. The rest of the first boarding team followed. “Rrrrrraaaaamming speeeeeeeeeeeed!” Ryan yelled at the coxswain in a passable Animal House imitation. The Zodiac roared away and the second pulled up neatly behind it and Sara led the second team down.