Prologue
USCGC Dauphin Island (WPB-1352)
Lat: N 20° 37’ 2.4996”
Long: W 73° 31’ 43.4912”
7 km south of Great Inagua Island
The night was overcast and the sea swells were three to five foot chops. The radar aboard the USCGC Dauphin Island, a 110’ Island class cutter out homeported out of Stapleton, Staten Island, showed the duty navigator, OS2 Van Weyland, a lanky operations specialist from Billings, Montana, that a rain squall was moving astern of the patrol boat, nine kilometers, east to south-west. The radar also showed a blip moving fast, heading north up the Windward Passage, that body of water, separating Cuba and Haiti. Off the starboard side, one could see the distant lights of Matthew Town, the main town on Great Inagua Island and one or two fishing boats of the coast. “We have a contact.” OS2 Van Weyland said casually to Lieutenant Hall, the OOD or Officer of the Deck, who was leaning against the chart table, munching on a bag of chips. “She’s moving at about eight knots.” He added matter-of-factly.
Lieutenant Hall, acknowledged the information with a grunt and continued eating. He was slightly overweight and had no military bearing whatsoever. He looked at his navigator and the other two watchstanders on the bridge and grabbed a pair of night vision goggles before heading up to the flying bridge, located up above the pilot house. The lookout, who was already posted up there, wasn’t too happy to see Lt. Hall and braced himself for the bad jokes and constant sound of potato chips being ground into saliva soaked mulch within the confine of the man’s mouth. “Sir, contact appears to be a small fishing boat.” Reported the lookout.
“Looks like, a boarding,” remarked the Lieutenant. He shouted down to the helmsman in the pilot house and ordered him to bring up the engines and come left to fifteen degrees. The deep throb of the cutter’s twin Paxman Valenta diesel engines, broke the stillness of the night as Seaman Weekes, brought about the cutter to port, putting it on an intercept course with the fishing boat. Van Weyland had already started plotting various intercept courses and informed Hall that they would be alongside the contact in a half hour. Hall digested the information and switched on the ship’s 1MC (PA system). “NOW SET THE LAW ENFORCEMENT BILL. SET THE LAW ENFORCEMENT BILL.” He shouted over the handset, “Boarding team Alpha on deck.”
The Dauphin Island, like all 110’ Island class cutters carried a crew of 16, 2 officers and 14 other ranks. He didn’t have to make the announcement since the crew, most of them who were already up and watching a movie a movie on the cutter’s tiny mess deck, figured out that when the engines were brought up, they were no longer loitering off Great Inagua but seeking out its prey, somewhere in the Windward Passage at 0100 hours in the morning. The passage is 80 km (50 miles) wide and connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea. Because it lies in the direct shipping path between the Panama Canal and the Eastern seaboard of the United States, it is also a favoured route of drug smugglers, using Great Inagua Island as a transshipment point for drugs from Latin America and Haitian refugees trying to get into the United States.
Lt. jg Castro, the cutter’s XO or executive officer, yawned loudly as he entered the bridge. He was already kitted up in his body armour and adjusting his pistol belt. His dark blue Operational Dress Uniform or ODU still reeked of oil from an earlier boarding and it smelt awful. “What do we have?” he asked, the lookout. The lookout told him that it was a 30-meter (98’) fishing boat with an unusual number of antennae on her pilot-house but no nets. Castro picked up the handset on the cutter’s marine VHF radio and opened frequencies between both vessels on channel 16. “Coast Guard cutter to fishing vessel off our port quarter, heave to and standby to be boarded.”
As if on cue, the fishing vessel’s master, immediately replied that he was flagged vessel out of Puerto Plata, in the Dominican Republic and on his way to Matthew Town to pick up supplies and conduct trawling operations off the coast. The lookouts had already gotten the name of the vessel, as the cutter began circling it and commenced running an EPIC (El Paso Information Center) check. Since the Dauphin Island was under the operational control (OPCON) of USCG District Seven in Miami, Hall also notified their operations center who prepared to have the U.S. State Department get an SNO (Statement of No Objection) from the Dominican to board the FV Centauro. A four-hour waiting game commenced, which had the cutter shadowing the FV Centauro, a mile and a half astern of her. The lookouts on the flying bridge could see three crew members pacing nervously about the vessel’s fantail and possibly arguing among themselves. Every now and then, they would repair back into the pilot house and reappear again, acting more and more suspicious.
At around 0530 hours, about four kilometers west of Matthew Town, Hall ordered the cutter’s 21’ RHIB to be launched. Castro, Boatswain’s Mate Chief Farah, ET2 Collins; SN Weekes, and a boat engineer would comprise the boarding team. District Seven had given them the green light to board the fishing vessel which was now illuminated by the cutter’s forward mounted searchlight. While the RHIB (rigid hull inflatable boat) was being hoisted from its cradle located amidships behind the cutter’s pilot house, Lieutenant (jg) Castro loaded and locked their SIG Sauer P229R 9mm pistols and checked each other’s kit. Chief Farah, lovingly looked at 12 Remington M870P 12-gauge shotgun and chambered a shotgun shell. The sound carried across the water and told the crew members of the FV Centauro, that the people coming aboard their ship meant business.
The ship’s master, s squat, light skinned man in his late thirties, wasn’t very happy that his government allowed the Coast Guard to board his ship. He had paid good bribe money a few days earlier to a local bigwig to prevent that so he could smuggle twenty, 60 kilo bales of cocaine into Matthew Town. There was a plane waiting there on an airstrip to fly into Florida for distribution. He watched as the cutter’s gun crew, trained their 25-mm chain gun on the fishing vessel while another stood by a .50 caliber machine gun on the starboard weather deck. His boat rocked gently in the swells as he brought the engines to all stop. The cutter’s boarding team, clad in dark blue ACHs (Advanced Combat Helmet), ballistic vests, ODUs, steel toed boots, web gear and well-armed, boarded the RHIB and minutes later were scrambling over the port gunnel and deploying on the fishing vessel’s fantail. Chief Farah, who spoke Spanish, trained his shotgun on the three crewmen and ordered them to kneel while Seaman Weekes began searching them. Castro and ET2 Collins, a Petty officer second class, who was the cutter’s electronics’ technician made their way towards the pilot-house just as it started to drizzle.
¡Esto no está bien!” shouted the ship’s master as he stepped out of the pilot-house, “¿Por qué nos hostigas, no somos narcotraficantes, mi gobierno estará aquí con esto?“. His complaint fell on deaf ears as Castro ordered him to take him down to the engine room. The man refused and became actively aggressive as he made a grab for Castro’s weapon. The boarding officer began tussling with him while Collins grabbed him from behind. A second person suddenly stepped out from a small space that served as the vessel’s head (bathroom) and opened fire, hitting Castro in the neck and seriously wounding him. Collins, shoved the master out of the way and drew his weapon, returning fire at the gunman who shot the petty officer in the leg. The gunman crumpled on the deck of the pilot-house bleeding profusely from three gunshot wounds to the chest.
“Boarding Officer is down!” screamed Collins into his radio headset, “Assailant down also.” Hall freaked out and lost it. Weyland calmly alerted a nearby cutter of their situation and an MH-60T Jayhawk helicopter was launched with a health services technician (HST), the USCG equivalent of a Navy corpsman on board. Collins applied a tourniquet to his wound and began applying much needed first aid to the badly wounded Castro. The vessel’s master, slightly stunned after being shoved to the rain soaked deck, recovered, and drew a concealed pistol. Chief Farah saw him and took the man out with a shotgun blast that propelled him backwards over the railing and into the water. He sent Weekes forward to assist Collins, while he continued to cover the three other crewmen who were now terrified and mumbling in Spanish amongst themselves about not dying.
Meanwhile, Hall ordered the helmsman to bring the cutter closer to the fishing vessel by about 100 meters. He paced nervously about the bridge, wondering aloud on how this would affect his career. Weyland gave him a dirty look and handed him the radio mike. It was the commander of the other cutter, en route to their position, informing them that, their ETA would be an hour. The MH-60T helicopter was already on scene and circling low over both vessels. The corpsman, checked his pistol once more and holstered it before putting on a black assault pack that served as his medic bag. After a final brief with helo’s crew chief and covered by a door gunner manning a 240H machine-gun, the HST fast-roped from the helo down onto the fishing vessel’s heaving fantail and made his way to pilot-house. He had seen and treated wounds like that, when he volunteered to serve with the Marines as a corpsman back in Fallajuh in 2004. Collins had patched up the wound to the best of his ability and was doing rescue breathing to keep Castro alive.
With his shotgun at the ready, Chief Farah ventured down into the engine room and was immediately overwhelmed by the stench of putrid water, oil and rotten food. He threw up and fought the urge to retreat topside for fresh air. The engine space was dimly lit and cramped. Farah thought it reminded him of his room back in his parent’s home in Jazeera, a small coastal city south of Mogadishu and he smiled to himself. He refocused on his mission and rested his eyes on a stack of bales, partly concealed under a rubber tarp. Slinging the shotgun across his chest, Farah unsheathed a utility knife and made a slight cut on one of the bales, revealing large Ziploc bags containing as suspicious looking white substance. He broke out a drug detection and identification kit from his assault pack and began testing the product. Farah shook his head and notified Hall of his find down in the engine room while calculating the street value in his head. “We have two million worth of cocaine down here, Sir.” BMC Farah said casually, “The logo is the same.” He added, referring to the black double headed eagle clutching an AK-47 rifle that was embossed on all the plastic Ziploc bags.
Hall didn’t respond, for he was watching the helo lower a Stokes litter down onto the fantail of the fishing vessel. Inside the litter was a folded black, polypropylene and vinyl bag and when Chief Farah, who was now back on topside, saw it, he glanced over at the blanket covered body lying on the fantail next to a medic bag. “His wife’s due to give birth in a month.” he mentioned to the corpsman while fighting back tears, “I was best man at his wedding.” The corpsman gestured to him to help him load Castro’s body into the unfolded body bag and onto the stretcher. As the body was being hoisted back aboard the helicopter for the short ride to the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Farah leaned over the side of the port railing of the Centauro and gasped at what he saw in the water. A Hammerhead shark which had been circling the body of the vessel’s master, went for it and took it down below the surface to feed on it. “That’s a lot of paperwork.” He pointed out to an equally shocked, SN Weekes, before returning below decks to secure the illegal cargo as evidence.
