Some Fear What Awaits Them in the Dark… Others are the Ones Out There Waiting

Some people are afraid of what is waiting for them in the dark… others are the ones out there waiting.

Very respectfully

OS3 K. Aud
USCGC Active, WMEC 618

2016 09 14 Tuesday

With the exception of my radar and navigation screens everything in the room was a shade of blue; from the deep black of the shadowed corners to the near white but still dim paint on the walls. It lent a hard edge to the disproportionately cool air. I say disproportionate because we were in the tropics. The personnel on the bridge were sweating in the humid night where even the slight breeze felt as though it was bellowing up from a sauna. The lurid red map lights only made it seem that much hotter. Where as I was slightly chilly in the 60-degree air and constantly blowing ventilation, they were sweating profusely in the 90-degree darkness.

Blue dots chased green across my radar display as I tried to determine which one was a target. A few of the blips persisted but most faded away after a few seconds. Then the intercom sang out “COMBAT, CON, we have a potential target of interest at …” The tiny speaker rattled off a range and bearing as I entered them into the navigation software. The lookout couldn’t be sure but it looked like a panga. Before I could pick up the phone to start calling officers the lock on the door behind me rattled as someone entered the code and opened the door. OPS came in to stand behind me and peer at the screens. More people filed in after him and soon the room was soon crowded.

He looked down at me and said “Are you ready?” I nodded. “Well go get dressed then.”

Five minutes later I was standing in the OPCEN again, though dressed rather differently. My law enforcement belt was tight and heavy across my hips. Even in the cool of the room I was already warm from the body heat trapped under my ballistic vest. The holster was a familiar tension around my thigh. I fiddled with pouches and adjusted straps as I settled everything in place while listening to the briefing. My counterparts squeezed into the room to set up for the case. Some of them were breaking out the proper forms and taking notes. Another was online with our controllers half a world away passing mission information. One more started plotting all the data points coming in from the bridge lookouts onto our digital charts.

The captain spoke up over the growing chatter, “Alright guys, head down and arm up.” It was past midnight, and our excited tension was tempered by our interrupted sleep and the seriousness of the situation.

As we made our way down through the ship to the bow we could feel the whispered activity as personnel were woken up and stations were manned. Standing out there in the night I could see the twinkling orange lights of a small coastal town on the horizon. We were close into the beach hunting for potential targets as they launched or made a landing. The air was still, hot, and close, like a swamp at noon in the summer.

The moon was down and the black of the night sky was nearly blotted out by all the stars. There were so many the constellations were difficult to see in that field of darkest blue. I could barely make out the few I knew from childhood. Orion, the hunter, was directly overhead, an appropriate sign for the evening. The Cutter bobbed gently in low swells and we swayed in place. I only had a moment to contemplate what was ahead of us, and at the same time potentially hours or more depending on how long the pursuit lasted.

We were joined by our Captain again for a final brief and the Cutter’s Gunner’s Mate to issue our weapons. I strapped extra magazines to my other thigh, holster my sidearm, and rest my rifle against my chest. Spare pistol mags went into the pouches opposite my gun. Part of me took comfort in the solid steel of my weapons, in their muscle memory familiarity. However, the gravity of the situation settled on my heart with their weight as well. I hoped that I would never have to use them. I knew that if I had to I would.

Armed and ready we loaded into the small boat one at a time. It took a minute but eventually we had rifles stowed, headsets on, and seatbelts in place. It was much like getting into a car in the morning to head for work, only in our we were carpooling with a half dozen armed and sleep deprived international cops. The boat lowering detail shouted commands and answered itself back and forth as we swung out over the black water to be lowered. A minute later we were thumping along in the darkness, our faces dimly lit by the glow of our console screens and radios. Save for the stars and town on the horizon, the darkness was near absolute below the stars. The Cutter was rigged dark and disappeared. A neat trick for a huge white boat. Despite the radio chatter directing us to our target I couldn’t help but feel very much alone out there.

For what felt like an eternity we scanned the nothingness that surrounded us. The sea was a matt darkness. The horizon didn’t exist, the stars just came down to a line then stopped. Sweat rolled down my face and the backs of my hands. My Coast Guard issue t-shirt was damp against the inside of my vest, soaked through with sweat. The diesel engine muttered and grumbled as we came up in speed for a while then decelerated to search again. Disembodied voices of my shipmates aboard the Cutter spoke through the headsets in an almost whisper of static and electronic noise.

“Come left to heading…” or “…just off your starboard bow at a thousand yards”. We turned and kept looking.

Finally, we saw a sliver of something in the water. A shape is just barely visible gently bobbing up and down, a lighter shade of darkness than the water. “Target in sight” someone said over my headset. The metallic snap-clack of my M16-A2 chambering a round was a sharp sound against the gurgle of the sea under our hull. I train the weapon out over the water, alert for anything. A memory of my father teaching me to shoot at night comes to mind. It is an old trick of hunters and scouts dating back to the ancient days of near prehistoric wars. If you’re trying to see something in the night never look directly at it, look to the side. It was so dark out there I couldn’t even see the front sight post of the rifle.

The harsh blue glare of a police strobe shattered the darkness and the edges of the low waves glistened back like neon sapphires with every flash. Our translator called out with authority in Spanish as our spotlight washed over a well worn fishing boat. The sole occupant, and old fisherman as weathered as his boat sat up and groggily waved in our direction. He behaves like every hard-working person who is suddenly jolted from a sound sleep, bleary eyed and irritated.

We pulled alongside and looked his craft over as he traded words with our translator. I kept my attention and my rifle pointed into the dark away from the old man as I watched for threats. There were enough eyes on him I felt comfortable facing out. A faint breeze rose as it carried the smell of bait fish and fuel. Soon, our inspection was complete and we bid the man farewell with apologies for waking him. He waved back and was probably asleep before we got out of earshot.

As we turned back to the Cutter she energized her navigation lights. In the night there is no perspective for distance. The red and white points were so far away they could have been our ship at only a mile, or a bulk freighter at twenty. Like walking down a long country driveway with only a front porch light to guide us we throttled up and headed back.

I’d been up since 0700 the day before and I was tired. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of frustration at not finding any contraband. Being so far from home and working long hours cultivated a drive to validate what we did. However, part of me was glad we didn’t find anything but a sleepy fisherman as it meant I would soon be showered and in bed.

The harsh purple blue lights of the starboard davit painted everything in eerie surrealist shades as we nosed up to the starboard side of the Cutter. The high-pitched whine of the davit’s hydraulics droned out over the slow chug chug chug of the ship’s engines as we were hoisted into the air. Swaying we thumped against the hull and came to a stop. We were home again. Alpha team was on deck for the next boarding. It was our turn to rest and wait. We didn’t catch anything that time but it’s a big ocean and there was always the next day.

My bunk sang a constant siren song and I could hear it calling my name.

_______________________________

This first appeared in The Havok Journal on December 4, 2023.

K.C. Aud has made a career of being lucky and has managed to find something positive in nearly every poor decision he’s ever made, even if it was only a new perspective on how not to do something.

Enlisting in the U.S. Coast Guard in 2010 he became an Operations Specialist (radio and navigation) and did his first tour in Georgia guarding submarines from drunk fishermen. In 2014, tired of the heat and the bugs he transferred to a 210-foot medium endurance cutter in Washington state. The cutter then regularly deployed to the hot and buggy west coast of Central America to hunt down drug runners. Aboard USCGC Active he traveled 94,194 miles and personally handled enough cocaine to keep a small country high for a decade. Somewhere in there, he learned to write, if not spell.  

Three years later, daunted by the prospect of spending the rest of his career in a windowless command center, he separated from active duty. After 13 different jobs ranging from beer brewer to dairy farmhand, to machinist, to Navy civilian contractor, he reenlisted in 2020 as a Coast Guard reservist, changing rates to Maritime Law Enforcement Specialist. When not helping the Navy assets in the Puget Sound troubleshoot radios, he’s on drill in Seattle doing water cop stuff and or flailing away at his keyboard. Though married and now a father, he misses the mission. 

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.