By the Gulf War of 1990/1991, the TR-1 was America's principal spy plane, higher and faster, with cameras that could transmit real-time images with no need to labor home with rolls of film. Dexter had asked to borrow one to operate out of USAF base Pensacola, and it had just arrived. It began work in the first week of May.
Dexter, with help from the tireless Bishop, had located a marine designer and architect whose talent was to identify almost any ship from almost any angle. He worked with Bishop on the top floor of the warehouse in Anacostia while the Third World relief blankets piled up below them.
The TR-1 ranged the Caribbean Basin, refueling at Malambo in Colombia or the U.S. bases in Puerto Rico whenever needed. The spy plane sent back high-definition pictures of harbors and ports cluttered with merchant vessels or ships at sea.
The shipping ace, with a powerful magnifying glass, pored over the pictures as Bishop downloaded them, comparing them with the details discovered earlier by Bishop from the names given by the welder.
"That one," he would say eventually, pointing out one of three dozen in a Caribbean port, "that must be the Selene," or, "There she is, unmistakable, handy size, almost gearless."
"She's what?" asked the perplexed Bishop.
"Medium tonnage, only one derrick, mounted forward. She's the Virgen de Valme. Sitting in Maracaibo."
Each was an expert and, as in the manner of experts, each found the specialty of the other impossible to understand. But between them they were identifying half the cartel's oceangoing fleet. NO ONE goes to the Chagos Islands. It is forbidden. They are just a small group of coral atolls in the lost center of the Indian Ocean a thousand miles south of the southern tip of India.
Were they allowed, they might, like the Maldives, have resort hotels to take advantage of the limpid lagoons, all-year sun and untouched coral reefs. Instead they have bombers. Specifically, the American B-52.
The largest atoll of the group is Diego Garcia. Like the rest, it is British owned but long leased to the USA and a major air base and naval fueling station. It is so covert even the original islanders, pretty harmless fishermen, have been removed to other islands and forbidden to return.
What happened during that winter and spring of 2011 on Eagle Island was a British operation although part paid for by contributions out of Cobra's budget. Four Royal Fleet auxiliaries in succession, anchored offshore with tons of tools and equipment and Navy engineers, built a small colony.
It was never going to be a resort hotel, but it was habitable. There were rows of assemble-in-a-day flat-pack housing units. Outdoor latrines were dug. A food hall was assembled and equipped with kitchens, refrigerators and a fresh-water-producing desalination plant, all powered by a generator.
By the time it was finished and ready for occupation, it could accommodate over two hundred men, provided they had among them enough engineers, chefs and handymen to maintain all the facilities in running order. Kind to a fault, the Navy even left behind a sports shed with masks, snorkels and flippers. Whoever was going to be sequestered there could even snorkel the reefs. And there was a library of paperback books in English and Spanish.
For the sailors and engineers, it was not an arduous mission. On the horizon was Diego Garcia, a mini-America in the tropics equipped with every facility the U.S. serviceman far from home expects-which is the lot. And the British tars were welcome to visit, which they did. The only disturbance in this tropical paradise was the constant thunder of the bombers coming and going on their training missions.
Eagle Island had one other characteristic. It was almost a thousand miles from the nearest mainland, over a sea teeming with sharks, and virtually escape-proof. That was the point. THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS are another zone blessed with year-round sunshine. In mid-May, the new flying school on Fogo Island was officially opened. Once again, there was a ceremony. The Defence Minister flew in from Santiago Island to preside. Happily for them all, Portuguese was the only language spoken.
The government had, after rigorous testing, selected twenty-four young Verdeans to become air cadets. Not all might achieve their wings, but there had to be a margin for those who did not make it. The dozen Tucano twin-seat trainers had arrived from Brazil and were lined up in a neat row. Also at attention were the dozen instructors on loan from the Brazilian Air Force. The only person missing was the commanding officer, identified as a certain Major Joao Mendoza. He was detained on flying duties elsewhere and would join his command within a month.
It mattered little. The first thirty days would be spent on classroom work and aircraft familiarization. Informed of all this, the minister nodded his grave assent and approval. There was no need to tell him that Major Mendoza would be arriving in his personal airplane, which he could afford to fly for recreation.
Had the minister known about the aircraft, which he did not, he might have understood why the storage tank of JP-8 fuel for the trainers was separate from the much more volatile JP-5 fuel needed by high-performance Navy jets. And he never penetrated the extra hangar dug into the rock face with steel doors. Told it was a storage facility, he lost interest.
The eager cadets settled into their dormitories, the official party left for the capital and classes started the next day. IN FACT, the missing CO was at 20,000 feet over the gray North Sea east of the English coasts on a routine navigational exercise with his instructor. Cdr. Keck was in the rear cockpit. There had never been controls in the rear cockpit, so the instructor was in a "total trust" situation. But she could still monitor the accuracy of intercepts of imaginary targets. And she was content with what she saw.
The following day was free time because the vital night flying would commence the night after. And then finally RATO and gunnery practice, for which the targets would be brightly painted barrels floating in the sea, dropped at agreed locations by one of their group who had a fishing boat. She had no doubt her pupil would pass with flying colors. She had quickly noted that he was a natural flier and had taken to the old Bucc as a grebe to water.
"Have you ever flown with rocket-assisted takeoff?" she asked him a week later in the crew hut.
"No, Brazil is very large," he joked. "We always had enough land to build long runways."
"Your S2 Bucc never had RATO because our aircraft carriers were long enough," she told him. "But sometimes in the tropics the air is too hot. One loses power. And this plane was in South Africa. It needs help. So we have no choice but to fit RATO. It will take your breath away."
And it did. Pretending the huge Scampton runway was really too short for unassisted takeoff, the riggers had fitted the small rockets behind the tail skid. Colleen Keck briefed him carefully on the takeoff sequence.
Park right at the end of the tarmac. Hand brakes on hard. Run up the Spey engines against the brakes. At the moment they can hold no more, release brakes, power to maximum, flick the rocket switch. Joao Mendoza thought a train had hit him in the back. The Buccaneer almost reared and threw herself down the tarmac line. There was a blur of runway, and she was airborne.