About The Author: Tolliver is an intelligence operative who actively participated during the Cold War. His experiences range from service in Mexico, Cuba, Africa, England, Berlin, and Moscow. He began government service serving as personal assistant to the chairman of the US Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security. His access and experience in the arena of international espionage and intrigue provide unique insights and vibrancy to his writings. After retirement he taught investigative techniques in the Criminal Justice Department of a Florida college. He is presently an instructor for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's training program.

Lie and Deny

By Kenneth R. Tolliver

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Kenneth R. Tolliver
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4634-0476-5

Chapter One

The crew of the fishing boat heard the buzzing of a small aircraft engine passing low through the moonless night, but although they strained their eyes looking anxiously around the horizon, they couldn't discern any navigation lights. The sound grew louder for a few moments and then began to trail off as the Doppler Effect altered the motor's pitch frequency. The crew speculated on the mysterious passage for the next half hour. What was a small, lone plane doing flying over the Gulf of Mexico? Most decided it must be one of those drug smugglers that persistent rumors reported.

"There's not enough money in the world to tempt me to fly out over this black sea," one of the voices closed the subject. A match flared in the dark as it lighted a cigar. "Risky to fly without lights," a heavily accented voice floated softly across the deck. It was muzzled by the throb of the boat's diesel below deck.

Had their boat's course taken them over the restless waves a scant mile further south of their present position they might then have observed an unusual pair of yellow lights emitting from the belly of the aircraft's fuselage. One of these two beams was focused straight downward, casting a sharply defined circle of illumination fifty feet below on the oily waves. A second shaft of light, aimed forty five degrees forward, painted an oval of light on the sea's surface. The geometry probably escaped the crew but this configuration provided critical assistance to the pilot in holding a precise fifty foot altitude above the waves. If he kept the beams converged, he was also safely below radar. The simplicity of this system was enhanced by the addition of a pair of automobile style side view mirrors secured to the left wing strut with silver masking tape. By glancing in these mirrors, the pilot could keep the reflected light circles in view. It was nerve wracking, but not more so than flying blind on instruments.

As the plane's engine noise faded, the man with the accent aboard the fishing boat detached himself and went below. He switched on the red bulb of a night lamp, opened a locker and removed a small box. He carefully placed it next to a short wave radio. Checking his watch, he noted it read a few minutes shy of two o'clock in the morning. He wrote a brief notation of this fact and proceeded to write a short message, "1400 SW 10". He opened the wooden box and slowly typed out these letters and numbers on a code machine's miniature keyboard. As he typed, tiny lamps responded with illuminated labels. As if by magic, the machine converted his message so its LED's displayed three nonsense words, "bxdfe, weehy, opexx."

After double checking his work he switched on the radio transmitter and keyed his message into a Morse code stream of dots and dashes.

In the same muggy darkness 50 miles away another radio operator adjusted his headphones. The message he copied made no sense to him, but the signal was enough. The encrypted message was repeated three times and then there was only silence. Nearly 2000 miles away an elaborate array of wires also picked up the dots and dashes. These electronic pulses were routed to a bank of computers. Operators made adjustments and frowned. No matter how they toggled switches, or twisted dials, the signal refused to yield INTELligence and stubbornly remained just dots and dashes.

"Route it to the wizards at Fort Mead and see what they can make of it," the chief operator directed his staff. "It may not be anything, but you never know," and with a grin, he added, "It will at least keep the lazy bastards awake."

Meanwhile the light plane held a course which would bring landfall low over western Cuba. On the island, a group of two dozen men made hasty preparations for its reception. Three antique pickup trucks, each with a tub of sand resting in its cargo bed, drove in a slow convoy up and down a stretch of empty road paralleling the beaches. Four other men on foot carrying buckets stopped only long enough to fill them with more sand. Another small contingent advanced along the dark roadway counting their steps until they had trotted an estimated 1000 meters. Here they paused and deployed a strange contraption consisting of three cardboard tubes, each six inches in diameter and three feet long.

The swarthy man in charge of these activities stood by the side of the road and surveyed the results of his orders. Satisfied, he looked up just as a jeep, its headlamps masked, approached him. "Its time now!" came an anxious whisper from someone sitting next to the driver. "Our picket boat reported the plane was heard passing close about 20 minutes ago. Time for us to do our part now."

The officer standing by the side of the road, his arms folded, nodded. "Light up," he agreed. In further response, he pointed to a number of rum bottles and motioned his men to pick them up. "You can have your cigars now," he smiled. Well rehearsed, his team quickly poured several bottles, smelling strongly of gasoline, into the sand tubs aboard the pickup trucks. Next they added the contents of the remaining bottles into three smaller buckets. With the air reeking of gasoline vapors, the leader went from truck to truck igniting the fuel. He directed the jeep's driver to transport the three men with the smaller sand buckets back up the road.

The convoy, now carrying flaming beacons, proceeded slowly down the road. The men carrying the three small flare pots placed these across the road. These pots marked the threshold of a 3000 foot strip of the roadway to be used as a runway.

He directed the placement of the strange array of cardboard tubes in the very center of the pavement at the far end of the landing zone. Using an oversize protractor made of wood, he carefully placed one tube pointing skyward at a 45 degree angle, aimed the second tube at a smaller angle and the final barrel at only a 15 degree incline. Next he called for a man to bring him a 12 volt automobile battery. He attached a wiring harness with clips to the brass lugs on the back of each small automotive spotlight. Next, he fitted these lights behind the color filters fitted over the ends of the tubes. As soon as current was applied, the bulbs lighted brightly. It was then that his observers began to guess their purpose.

It was now clear to the crew that their labors had produced a simple but effective little airport. The trucks with their flame beacons moving down the road would serve to guide a pilot to the location of the facility, the burning pots placed across the road marked the beginning of the "runway," and the tubes at the far end served to provide an effective glide slope. If the pilot came down at too steep an angle, he would see an amber light, if his descent was correct he saw green and if dangerously low, red.

The sweating workers now stood by with shovels, prepared to smother the fire markers. If correctly done the makeshift airstrip would disappear back into blackness a few seconds after the aircraft landed.

A muted cheer swept through the ground crew when they heard the aircraft's engine. Their captain started to hush this outbreak, but changed his mind. They had preformed so well they deserved this small indulgence as a reward. Their timing had been almost perfect. Even as the plane circled to land, the fire tubs in the pickups were extinguished. The pilot, wet with perspiration, leveled out and reduced his throttle. He saw the flames of the three "threshold marker" buckets lined up...